He took a quick drink of water and lowered the bottle.
“Yeah, I did,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Were you hurt?”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second and shook her head, like she was trying not to see whatever image had popped up-and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what that had been. Ruiz had been a mess.
“So how did it go down in there? Ruiz brings you the Sphinx. Ponce crashes the party, kills Ruiz, steals the Sphinx, and you…what? Magically get away?”
“N-no,” she said. “I was in the other room, taking a phone call. When I came out, Ruiz was dead, and… and the Sphinx was gone.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” And he was. Terminal ballistics were kind of a specialty of his, of any soldier’s, and they were never anything less than gruesome in action.
He handed her the water bottle, and after a second, she took it and took a swallow.
“Cripes,” she said softly, letting her gaze drop to her lap. After a long moment, her hand came up to cover her face, and for the space of a breath or two, she sat very still-except for the trembling she didn’t quite have under control. “I thought you were going back to the gallery. What are you doing here?”
“I got worried.”
“That I’d run off with the Sphinx and aced you out?” She looked up at him from over the top of her fingers.
“No, just about you…in general.” Honesty wasn’t always his strong suit, but she’d just gotten it. Funny how that wasn’t making her look any happier. He understood, though. The truth wasn’t making him any damn happier either.
“Where’s your car?” she said. “I’ll drop you off.”
“No.” That wasn’t the way it was going to work. “We’re going to tail Ponce, see where he ends up, then I’m going to stash you back at the Posada and go get the Sphinx.”
She made a short, dismissive sound that clearly said he was living in a dreamworld.
He didn’t think so, not on his worst day.
“You are not in charge here, Killian.”
And they were back to “Killian.”
“Yes, I am,” he said. “Ruiz was blasted to hell in your hotel room. That makes me in charge of everything and most especially of you, Ms. Toussi.”
He was good at being in charge, and if she would just let him do what he was good at, she could save herself a lot of problems.
But count on a woman not to be all that interested in the “problem-solving” business.
“I don’t know what you think you need the Memphis Sphinx for-money, personal glory, or-”
“No,” he said, cutting her off. “None of those.”
“Then what?”
To save the free world, he could have told her, if he could have figured out a way to say it without sounding delusional. That was the job he’d contracted for with Colonel Hanson this time, the same kind of job he always did for the man, the same kind he’d done when they’d both been in Special Forces. When Dax had realized what Erich Warner was putting on the block in exchange for an occult artifact, he’d known exactly where to go for backup, exactly where the information would do the most good.
“I have my reasons” was all he was able to offer, and that didn’t get him very far.
“Reasons?” One of her eyebrows lifted, and she gave him a considering look. “Right, well, you’ll have to get in line with your reasons…preferably behind me and my reasons.” She sounded pretty sure of herself for someone who looked frazzled right down to her synapses.
Yeah, she was scared, all right. She was sweating with being scared, but she wasn’t scared enough to get out of the game-and she should be. She should be begging him for his help. At the very least, she should be running hell-bent for leather for the airport. An art dealer picking up an ancient artifact for a buyer, even a wealthy, influential buyer like Senator Leonard, would not be sticking it out, no way, not after somebody had massacred their connection. She was up to something else, which meant she’d flat-out lied to him about what she was doing in Paraguay. He was impressed. He never told people his business either.
He shifted his attention back to the passenger side mirror. “Okay. They’re pulling out behind us.” He twisted around and looked out the rear window. “And… they’re…heading out of the lot. When I get out, you scoot over.”
“No,” she said, giving her head another shake.
No?
She was, he decided, a real piece of work. He had to admire her grit, but he wasn’t going to let it get her killed.
“We’re going after Ponce together now,” he said clearly. “Up until the hard part, and I’ll do that alone.”
“Just because we know each other, and have some mutual friends, doesn’t mean-”
“Yes, it does.” And it did.
She let out another exasperated sigh and swore under her breath, way under, but he heard her. Then she dropped her head down onto the steering wheel, burying it in the crook of her arms, and after a moment, mumbled something.
“Excuse me?” He thought he’d heard what she said, but he didn’t want there to be any doubts, not about this.
“We don’t need to bother going after Ponce,” she spoke up a little louder.
“It’s no bother.” Really. Getting the Sphinx was pretty much his whole reason for being in Paraguay.
She gave her head a little shake.
“Ponce doesn’t have the Memphis Sphinx,” she said. “Ruiz was selling me a plaster and resin knockoff.”
Aha, and ah, hell, he thought, wincing. That was rough. The guy had been killed for a hunk of plaster-and he had to wonder, really, how long she would have kept that from him.
Damn.
“So where’s the real statue?”
From where she was draped over the steering wheel, she rolled her head to one side and caught his gaze.
Yeah, he understood. If he’d known, he’d be there, too, but he didn’t, and she didn’t, and that only left one place to go.
“Beranger’s,” he said.
She nodded and slipped her sunglasses out of her shirt pocket and back on her face.
“Beranger’s.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Oye, listillo.” The words, softly drawled by a sloe-eyed beauty in a red tank top and a miniskirt so small he could have used it for a glove, brought half a grin to Conroy Farrel’s face. Hey, slick.
Yeah, he was slick all right. Slick enough to get what he’d come for, slick enough to win this game-the way he always won.
Always.
He tossed a blue pill into his mouth and kept walking, carrying his breakdown rifle case and watching the traffic, watching the people, watching the corners of the buildings, watching the windows, watching the rooflines. He always watched. He couldn’t not be aware… so intensely aware of everything. He did it instinctively, viscerally.
He was always watching for someone, and guaranteed, someone was always watching for him.
In any city, anywhere in the world, there’d be some guy with his picture taped to their dash, someone with his photograph paper-clipped to the top of their “retirement” list, someone with a deep-six computer file for Conroy Farrel, and a whole helluva lot of those guys would be working for a clandestine group of operators buried deep in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America, a private army to the spymaster who ran it. They’d been Con’s homeboys.
Ex-homeboys now.
They wanted him dead so badly.
But the guys they’d sent after him had all gone down, leaving him up by four. Hell, you’d think they’d learn. They knew what he was, the assholes.
“Hey, gringo,” the next whore said hello. “Adónde vas?”
Where was he going? A good question, with one good answer-Home, sweetheart, he was always going home.
He’d been traveling these last few months, chasing his nightmares the way other people chased their dreams, and lo and behold, his nightmares had brought him here.