“Professor Blake,” the chief said, “from his most recent lecture tour.”
Scott shook his head. “That’s not Blake.”
Everyone stiffened.
Edie managed a weak nod. “Scott, are you sure about this?”
“I don’t understand,” the chief said. “This is Professor David Owen Blake of the University of Chicago.”
Scott started to reach for the folders he’d created but realized there wasn’t a picture of Blake in the files. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I’ve met him twice, but that’s not the Professor Blake I met. There must be another Blake at the University of Chicago, an affiliate or satellite campus maybe.”
Before the chief could respond, Edie’s secure phone rang. “Parker,” she said, answering. “Our ride,” she mouthed to Scott, as she listened to something being relayed to her. She shuddered. “That’s two and a half hours away, are you sure?” She switched the phone to her other ear. “From the director, I see, that then is something you should trust as if God and devil got together and wrote it in the sky.”
To Scott, she said, “Itinerary.” He pulled out the Heads of State itinerary and held it out for her to read. “There are three events at that time. Make sure to double the security detail at each. Full screening, protection, K-9.”
Chapter 17
The clerk’s smartphone was in the back pocket of her short shorts and Peyton Jones snatched it up, noting the petechial hemorrhages in the whites of the girl’s eyes that told the tale of what she’d done. The girl’s scent was in her nostrils and on her skin, and she closed her eyes to dissect its rosewood, bergamot and vanilla components before walking into the showroom.
“You’re a dead man, Scott Evers,” she said to herself as she dialed, clicking out the digits of the long international number with quick precision.
After three rings, the call was answered, but no voice greeted her, only empty air. “It’s me,” she said into the silence.
She was greeted by more silence until a cold, male voice finally said, “Where are you? We need to meet. It’s important, critical.”
Peyton recognized the voice instantly. It belonged to one man and no other. The director.
“Consider it done,” she said quickly, her voice steady even though her heart was racing. The director didn’t want to meet her; he wanted to kill her. But she wasn’t going to let him do that.
She hung up, ran a hand absently along the long line of string bikinis. A bright orange one caught her eye but it wasn’t something she could wear with her injuries. Instead, she started looking at waterproof swimsuits, the kind athletes wore for training and swimming.
The watertight seal of the suit was important to prevent further injury. It’s why earlier she’d looked at scuba suits, before settling on waterproof swimwear.
“Oh the choices,” she said aloud, laughing, almost giddy from the kill.
Bare-handed kills almost always got her motor revving, but this was something more. The pretty clerk, fawn eyed and freckle faced, had known which way she danced in an instant. Like always knew like, and the girl had known at once things most others never knew. Peyton saw it in her eyes, saw too that the girl was excited by the danger even when she knew her death was coming.
Ignoring the sound of someone pounding on the locked outer door of the specialty swim and scuba shop, she stepped quickly into the changing area and over the body of the clerk. A moment later, she was slipping off her clothes and slipping into a swimsuit, admiring her own voluptuous figure in the full-length mirror.
The suit, bright blue with yellow stripes and long sleeves, was made of a thin material and meant to be form fitting, but on her it was more than form fitting — it was very revealing, putting just about everything out on display for all to see.
“Naughty, naughty Europeans,” she said to herself as she smiled and turned to the mirror, devilishly pleased with the way the dimples on her areolas showed.
A good chameleon was invisible even when she was the center of attention, and in that swimsuit other women wouldn’t even be looking at her face. They’d be looking at her assets, and maybe even her ass.
As she stepped over the clerk on her way out, she knelt down to pick up the heavy backpack she’d dropped earlier. While she hovered there, the girl’s lips called to her and she couldn’t resist their pull. She pushed her lips to the girl’s, thrusting inward with her tongue and taking in the other’s taste one last time.
Before slipping the pack around her shoulders and clipping it into place, she checked its explosive contents, running her fingers over the blue and green leads from the C-4 bricks to the detonator and its remote receiver. An app running on the waterproof smartwatch on her wrist acted as the arming device. She poked at the touch interface, brought up the app and armed the bomb with a simple double tap. A series of lights on the remote receiver confirmed everything was working and ready.
A few more simple touches to the device on her wrist and she was dialing. His voice answering made her go weak in the knees. “In motion,” she said in response to Owen’s, “Are you ready for the dance?”
“Dinner’s at six,” he said.
“I’m running late, but the mouse is about to get the cheese,” she said as she walked through the back hall of the shop. After heading into the stockroom and out through the open loading bay, she jumped onto the motorcycle she’d stolen earlier. “Time to play,” she said, as she put on her helmet.
“The cats are ready,” Owen replied before hanging up.
A quick start, a twist of the throttle, was all it took before she was racing off and wind was whipping at her. The euphoric rush she felt had nothing to do with the vibrating hum of the powerful Ducati Superquadro engine between her legs and everything to do with the soft taste of cinnamon and cloves on her tongue.
Chapter 18
Blue Grotto was five minutes away by air. As one of the most popular tourist attractions in Malta, the presence of a helicopter in the area wasn’t a surprise to anyone. The grotto itself was a series of sea inlets, sea caves and tiny spits of land with stone walls rising up all around. The narrow, pocket valley on the eastern side of the grotto was called Wied Babu. The narrow, pocket valley on the other side of the grotto was called Wied iz-Zurrieq. Tourists tended to stay in the boating and swimming areas between the two valleys, but their destination was further afield.
Scott tried to focus on what was ahead and not the questions he’d left behind. Wind buffeting the chopper bounced him around in his seat. Sitting across from him, gripping an M249 Para light machine gun given to her by one of the four Spec Ops along for the ride, Edie looked completely the part of the warrior woman he knew she was. She had on army camouflage and a protective vest, and strapped to her waist was a Glock 19. It was everything he needed to get his motor revving. Well that, and a few more nutritional supplements courtesy of a field medic.
Scott himself was wearing a vest and packing a pair of Storm Special Duty pistols, a present from the chief just before takeoff. “A little bird told me you like .45 Px4 as much as I do and there’s two — well, there’s two because good things always come in pairs,” the chief said with a wink. It didn’t matter that Scott couldn’t use both guns at the same time, given his current condition. It only mattered that they were finally about to dish out some payback.