“Hullo, my dear. I’ve been waiting for you.”
For the first time ever, her skin crawled at the sound of her handler’s voice.
*
Ben shot up out of the bed. He wasn’t sure what had awakened him, but the empty space beside him had his heart racing. She wouldn’t leave him again.
Not willingly. She’d promised as much the night before. His heart beat faster. The sound of hushed voices from the deck had him yanking on his jeans. He didn’t bother with shoes, but grabbed his Glock instead. As silently as he could, he crept toward the stairs. His gut did a somersault when he recognized Quinn’s voice above. But it was the other voices that had him clicking the safety off his weapon.
With as much stealth as he could muster, he opened the cabin door.
“Stay back,” Quinn and the secretary shouted at the same time.
As if he was going to listen to either one of them. Not when there was a man with a gun pointed at his boss’s chest sitting on his aft deck. Even worse, he had an umbrella trained in Quinn’s direction. He rounded out his ensemble with a trench coat and a bowler hat. All that was missing was a monocle and he could have been the guy from Monopoly.
“I told you the guy was real.”
Ben casually strolled onto the deck, hoping to ease some of the tension with a little levity. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of one of the secretary’s detail face down in a pool of blood on the dock. Caracas was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. But he didn’t have time to puzzle that out right now. One agent was down and he was not going to lose the secretary or Quinn. Time to figure out what game this cat was playing.
“Ah, welcome, Agent Segar. Or should I say the Mariner? I’m glad we are finally all here,” Mr. Monopoly said, his words dripping with a very British accent. “Place your weapon on the floor and kick it over to me or they both die.”
He reluctantly did as he was told before risking a peek at Quinn. Her lips were drawn tight with disgust.
“You know this guy?” he asked her.
“Unfortunately.” Her tone was brittle and she looked poised for battle. “This is all my fault. I never should have sought him out earlier. All this time I thought he could be trusted.”
So this was who she’d met at the botanic gardens. A rendezvous Secretary Lyle had sanctioned. There were pieces to this puzzle he wasn’t privy to and right now he was pissed off at his boss for letting Quinn get swept up in this mess. Ben edged closer to her.
Mr. Monopoly jabbed his umbrella in her direction. “Stay where you are!”
Cautious of what might be inside the tip of that thing, he did as the guy asked and froze.
“But we’re not all here, Sir Rodney,” the secretary drawled, cool as a cucumber despite having a gun pointed at her heart from four feet away. “We’re missing one important person. Where is she?”
Ben’s ears perked up at her question. There was a “she” and damn if the secretary didn’t know it all along. Mr. Monopoly remained quiet, his only tell that he was annoyed, a slight snarl of his upper lip.
“Ah, so you don’t know where she is, do you?” the secretary taunted. “Is that what this is all about? You expected her to show up here tonight, as well.”
Mr. Monopoly cocked the gun. Quinn tensed for flight. Ben rocked forward on his toes preparing to stop her. It was his job to take a bullet for the secretary, not hers.
“But I keep asking myself, why kill Ronoff?” the secretary continued as if she was trying to outwit the man at a game of backgammon, not life or death. “How does he fit into all of this?”
Sir Rodney remained stoic. There wasn’t a tremor in either hand. Clearly, he was professionally trained.
“I’d rather know how this she fits into the all of this,” Ben tossed out.
“It’s a long and sordid story,” Secretary Lyle replied. “But I might as well explain while we’re waiting. The she we speak of is Lady Eugenie, Sir Rodney’s very wicked daughter.”
The revelation exposed a slight chink in the guy’s armor. His hands weren’t so steady at the mention of his daughter. Ben hoped the secretary knew what she was doing.
“The British Service and the CIA have an exchange program and Lady Eugenie was assigned to headquarters at Langley. Specifically, to work for the Phoenix.”
The secretary’s tone grew sharper. Ben had an idea where all this was headed. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. For her part, Quinn was taking it all in as if it were a production at the Kennedy Center.
“Except she wanted more than to just work for the Phoenix, she wanted to seduce him.”
Quinn gasped softly. Sir Rodney’s sigh was more resigned.
“Eugenie has always been impetuous,” he said. “I’ve apologized every way I know how, Sabrina. You have to know Ethan only had eyes for you.”
“Which made your daughter not only impetuous, but dangerous,” the secretary snapped.
“You still can’t blame her for his death,” Sir Rodney exclaimed.
Holy shit.
“The proof is out there and I’ll find it. But let’s get back to the issue at hand, why kill Alexi Ronoff?”
Sir Rodney’s British reserve was slipping. “Because he was the only one who would benefit from the information Eugenie had to sell. With him out of the picture, she’d have to cease this ridiculous nonsense.”
“And by nonsense, you mean the constant threats to my career and reputation?” the secretary clarified.
“Yes!” Sir Rodney glared at Ben. “That was until this dolt decided to reveal his true self. What a stupid risk you took. Now she has something else to hold over Sabrina’s head. Don’t think she won’t sell you out in a heartbeat. If she hasn’t already.”
Ben refused to be cowed by a caricature of a spy wielding a poison umbrella. “And you thought my plan was idiotic,” he blurted out. “This guy is trying to flush out his own daughter with a damn poison umbrella tip!”
“He’s right, Daddy. You do look a tad ridiculous.”
Four heads turned toward the dock where a woman stood holding a Lugar equipped with a silencer. It was aimed directly for the secretary’s jugular.
Double shit!
Several beads of sweat began to form on the back of Ben’s neck. His brain was working overtime to figure a way out of this mess. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Caracas hunkered down behind a Chris-Craft cruising boat. His gun was trained on Sir Rodney. The addition of another weapon made the other agent’s job nearly impossible. The only thing Ben could hope for was that Caracas had called for backup and Adam was somewhere in the dark waiting for a clear shot.
“Eugenie! Don’t do anything rash,” her father ordered. “You’ve caused enough trouble.”
“I’ve caused trouble?” Eugenie’s laughed humorlessly. “The troublemaker is this woman. She ruined my life. Destroyed my career. All because her husband preferred a younger, more vibrant woman over a cold-hearted bitch.”
Quinn flinched. Secretary Lyle didn’t so much as bat an eyelash.
“And you.” It was Ben’s turn to flinch when Eugenie aimed her gun at Quinn. “You became the darling of MI6. You were nothing until I made you. Your mother refused to involve you until she was ordered by the Phoenix to do so.”