black hair and blue eyes. The real Tony Curtis was usually cast as a pretty boy hero, and that didn’t suit Anton Karpov, not at all. He only changed his mind when he saw the movie star play the role of Albert DeSalvo, widely believed to be the Boston Strangler.
“Are you sure I should go, sir?” He was one of the few who knew the leader’s real name, but he seldom spoke it. “I have a couple of angles for a clear shot.”
“I’m tempted, Tony. I’d like to kill those idiots who got caught.”
“Is there any chance they won’t spill their guts?”
“Oh, they’ll talk. The admiral’s men are skilled interrogators.”
“Is that a problem?”
“They don’t know enough to worry about. They’re unimportant.”
The leader didn’t seem concerned about losing five men. The less influential members of Anti-Conspiracy Committee for Democracy, also known as AC-CD, had access to a limited amount of information. They were assigned simple jobs. Tonight, the only thing they’d been required to do was disable the hotel security and fill in for them, leaving the way open for more experienced operatives. The trained, experienced staff, led by Anton/Tony, would have kidnapped the admiral.
Anton/Tony slung his rifle over his shoulder and rose to his feet. “It was the nanny who messed up the plan.”
“How could a little girl like that be such a big problem?”
The leader didn’t know her. For a couple of seconds, Tony felt superior to the man who usually gave the orders. For a change, it was Tony who had the ace up his sleeve, information the leader wasn’t privy to, and he was tempted to hold back.
But he didn’t care about showing how smart he was and gaining power in AC-CD. He was after a quick payday, and the best way to separate the leader from his cash was to show him something he might want to buy. Franny was a prize he could set before the leader.
“She says her name is Lexie, but I recognized her tonight. The nanny is a karate expert. It’s Franny DeMille, my old girlfriend.”
“You don’t say.” The leader’s voice dropped to a low, thoughtful level. “If you asked her to help you, would she?”
“We didn’t break up on good terms, but I could always get her to do what I wanted.” Not exactly true, but he wished it so. When he’d been with her, he was a better man. “She’ll do what I say.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Before leaving his sniper nest, Tony pulled up his balaclava to cover the lower part of his face. Silently and stealthily, he made his way through the forest. His experience as a hunting guide was why he’d been pegged for this assignment. He could be trusted to blend with nature and not be seen. And his skill at marksmanship was worthy of a world-class assassin.
In the rustic-style foyer outside the banquet hall, Mason conferred quietly with his partner Dylan, whose tall, wiry frame had been transformed from nerdy to sophisticated by a tailored black suit and a striped silk tie. Likewise, his messy brown hair had been tamed in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. They were waiting for the admiral’s wife to leave the hall and join them. Prescott had asked them to escort her to the conference room, where he and several branches of law enforcement and the military had gathered.
“NSA, CIA, Interpol, army and navy intelligence,” Dylan said. He pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up on his nose. “The gang’s all here.”
“How do you know their affiliations?”
“They were all at the banquet.” As part of security procedure, he had vetted the invited guests and used facial recognition software to make sure they matched their stated identity. “Some of these guys are high-ranking hotshots. On six of them, I got an ‘access denied’ message when I searched for further info.”
“Did you?” Mason asked. “Tell me the truth. Did you dig deeper?”
“Not yet.”
But he could if the need arose. Dylan was a skilled hacker, capable of breaching NSA or CIA security without leaving a trace. He’d already patched Admiral Prescott through to the offices of the Secretary of the Navy on a video server so that SecNav could join the meeting in the conference room.
The sound of laughter erupted from inside the banquet hall. For the past hour, the guests had been watching a PowerPoint presentation that outlined the medical and sanitation needs of children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mason glanced over at his partner. “We did good.”
“How do you figure?”
“All five bad guys have been taken into custody.”
“Have they?” Dylan arched an eyebrow in a skeptical expression that irritated Mason to no end. “The so-called baddies are still in the hotel.”
The local sheriff, Colorado law enforcement and NSA were all fighting over who would take possession of these low-level thugs. “Arresting them isn’t our problem.”
“What if there are others?”
“We’ll handle it. This assignment still counts as a success for TST Security.” And for him, personally. Not only had he shown Admiral Prescott, a man he admired, that he was competent, but he’d also met Lexie. Her grin lifted his spirits. Their kiss elevated the evening into noteworthy; he’d remember that short, sweet contact for a very long time.
Dylan slouched and jammed his fists into his pockets, distorting the crisp line of his suit. “I don’t like this, Mace. Too many questions. Not enough answers. We don’t know why those guys invaded the seventh floor or what they were after.”
“Whatever it was, they didn’t get it. We stopped them. We met our objectives.” Mason ticked off their achievements on his fingers. “The admiral and his family are safe. None of the good guys, not even the hotel guards, were seriously injured. And the people who came here for a banquet are still having their coffee and chocolate mousse dessert.”
“I’d approximate that eighty-five percent of the guests are oblivious of the attack.”
Though he had no idea where Dylan got his percentage, Mason assumed that his computer-geek partner was correct. Most of the guests had remained in their chairs while the servers cleared away their plates and refilled their wineglasses. Some of them might have looked around when they heard the sound of approaching police sirens, but the flashing red-and-blue lights weren’t visible from the banquet hall, and the hotel management people were doing everything in their power to make sure their guests weren’t aware of the mayhem on the seventh floor.
The door swept open and Helena Christie Prescott charged toward them. She was a classic beauty with long raven hair and a killer body, but all Mason saw were her flared nostrils and the flames shooting from her green eyes as she demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
“Your husband asked that I bring you—”
“Edgar is all right, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s good, because I’m going to hurt him, hurt him bad.” She had morphed from fiery dragon into sinister assassin, a role she’d played in a movie Mason saw. The assassin might even have used that line about hurting him bad. “And the children?”
“Everybody’s okay.” Mason gestured toward the hallway. “Come with us to the conference room, where your husband can brief you.”
“Lead on.” She strode along beside him, leaving Dylan in their wake. In her five-inch heels, she almost matched Mason’s six-foot-three-inch height, and she hiked up the side of her gown opposite the slit so she could move faster.
Dylan—the coward—had