“It’s… um… nice.” He leaned back into her hands and closed his eyes. “I don’t know that it’s helping me focus, though.”
She rose up on her knees and pressed herself against him. Her lips brushed his ear. “You might be right about that.”
The powerful incense and the sultry purr of Chaya’s whisper took Drake deeper into a relaxed state, deeper into his semiconscious mind. But the face he found there amid swirling oranges and reds was not Chaya’s. It was Amanda’s.
And she did not look happy.
His eyes popped open and he jerked upright, bumping the coffee table with his knee and nearly toppling the wineglasses. “Nope. Focus is back. Let’s have a look at that file.”
In the instant his knee hit the table, Drake could swear he saw a wisp of powder spiral up from the bottom of his glass, but the flicker of pink dissolved as quickly as it had arisen. He stared at the sloshing red liquid, trying to clear his mind. The thought occurred to him that he had really seen nothing at all, just a trick of the light playing in the wine.
“Shhh.” Chaya’s grip tightened on his neck and she pulled him back in to her. She rested her cheek against his and slid her hand down the front of his Lycra shirt. Her fingernails raked his chest. “You must learn to relax, Drake Merigold. Close your eyes.”
Her words caught in his clouded brain. Merigold? Shouldn’t she have said Martignetti? He fought her command, keeping his eyes open, fixed on the distorted, double reflection in the wineglasses. There he saw a twisted vision of the lawyer raising something above her head. It gleamed in the lamplight.
Drake shot to his feet, grabbing both Chaya’s wrists and throwing her to the couch as he spun away. She immediately lunged, slashing at him with a gold-handled dagger. The blade was black, made of the same alloy as the Hashashin knife dropped by the Istanbul sniper. As Drake stumbled backward the tip sliced through his shirt, missing his abdomen by the breadth of a hair.
He kept backing away, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Come back to the couch, Drake. Drink your wine. Fall asleep in my arms with my lips pressed to yours.” She rotated the knife to point downward, raised it high, and advanced a step. “Isn’t that a better death than this?”
The incense had become a choking, pungent haze. Drake’s eyes watered. He rubbed them, trying to bring her back into focus.
“A little fuzzy?” asked Chaya, circling him on the balls of her feet, her little toes spread into the thick fibers of the yellow rug. “I might have added a few extra ingredients to the Nag Champa. I am well used to them. You are not.”
Drake steadied himself by placing a hand on a stool next to her bar. He pressed a hand to his ear. “Nightmare One,” he gasped. “Nick, come in.”
“Oh, do not worry about your friend. Nick Baron is likely already dead. You will join him, but it doesn’t have to hurt. Please, Drake, sit down. Don’t you find me desirable?” She took another step toward him.
Drake lifted the stool and held it out in front of him like a drunken lion tamer. “Stay away from me, lady. You’re not my type.”
“Fine. Have it your way.” Chaya grabbed a leg of the stool and pulled with alarming strength, yanking Drake closer and swiping at his arm with the knife. He let go and jerked away in time to avoid the tip. Where was that gun?
He had no time to search. Chaya stepped in and swung the stool, breaking it across his shoulder and knocking him into the bar before lunging with the knife again.
Despite the opiates in his system, Drake was beginning to learn her rhythm. His left hand had fallen on a silver bowl and he pushed himself off the bar and swung it hard, connecting with her face. She reeled back with an angry scream, her hand over her nose. When she pulled the hand away, her face was bloody, her nose gashed and twisted sideways.
“Ugh,” said Drake, wobbling forward and dropping the bowl. “You weren’t my type before, but now you’re ugly too.”
“Ooh!” Chaya rushed at him, slashing the knife back and forth in an X pattern.
The bobby’s gear lay on a table within arm’s reach. Drake snatched up the utility belt and flung it at her head. It hardly slowed her at all, but the move was just a distraction. As the belt left his hand, Drake drew the baton from its holster.
He met her slash with an upward swing, whacking her hard across the forearm. There was a sickening crack of breaking bone.
Chaya cried out in pain, but she held on to her knife. As Drake wheeled her damaged arm farther upward with the baton, she pirouetted to his left and switched her weapon to her good hand, swinging the blade down and back at his kidney.
It was a gorgeous move, but he saw it coming. He caught her forearm with an iron grip and slashed down at her ankles with the baton. There was another horrible crack. Chaya cried out again and both of them fell to the floor, wrapped like lovers in a spoon. He held her tight while she struggled against him for another second. Then she was still.
After several moments, Drake cautiously let go with one hand and placed two fingers on Chaya’s neck. She had no pulse. He struggled to his feet, leaving her lying on her side, and stumbled over to a window to push it open wide. The toxic incense that filled the room began to clear.
The knife remained embedded in Chaya’s abdomen and seeping blood darkened her silk pajamas, but a wound that low on her torso should not have killed her. Then Drake recalled something he once read about the ancient Hashashin. They favored poison blades. He glanced down at the hole in his shirt. How many times during the fight had she almost nicked him?
After a few more breaths of fresh air, he knelt down to get a closer look at the body, searching for a Hashashin tattoo. Her forearms were clean, her palms as well. Then he noticed a black mark at the back of her neck. He gently brushed her hair aside. There it was, a small circle like Kattan’s and Ashaq’s. The symbol inside was a horizontal crescent moon.
Someone pounded on the door and Drake jerked his head up. His eyes darted around the room. Broken furniture, wine and blood staining the carpet, a dead woman lying on the floor as delicate and defenseless as a broken rose. This didn’t look like self-defense.
The intruder pounded again. “Miss Maharani? Open up! We received a tip that you may be in danger from the escaped terrorists.”
CHAPTER 45
“Baron!”
Walker’s booming intrusion on the comm link nearly cost Nick his grip on the drainpipe. He winced and tucked his body closer to the cold metal. “Yes, sir?”
“I’ve been tracking you since you left Scotland Yard. What are you doing?”
Nick glanced down at the cobblestones twenty feet below. “You know… just… hanging around.”
“Well, quit it. Gather your team and get out of Dodge. You’re done.”
“Say again?”
“This is no longer a covert fight. It’s gone public — very public.”
“You mean the incident in Paternoster Square?” asked Nick, sliding down the last section of pipe. He backed into a doorway to get out of the freezing sleet.
“Worse. I mean Senator Cartwright. One of his people bullied his way into CJ’s files. Before she cut him off, he found out that the DC bomber called himself the first sign. He called a press conference and broadcast that information on live TV, linking the two attacks. He told the public that more signs are on their way.”
“Can’t CJ lock him up for releasing classified information?” As he asked the question, Nick turned and peered through the glass pane of the door he had backed into. The place looked like a pastry shop. It was closed and dark, but he saw a coatrack behind the register with a sweatshirt and a wool cap.