Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
“Don’t worry,” she told me. “I can.”
Of course she could dance. “They teach you that in spy school too?”
“Yes,” she deadpanned, “between poisoning and BDSM.” As we reached the dance floor, she turned to face me and slipped my arm around her waist. “Hold me.”
I held her, cursing and looking around self-consciously.
“Like you mean it.”
I pulled her closer. Her hips pressed against mine and I inhaled the scent of her, that tang of orchids and sharp berries like a drug. My anger dissolved.
“Now step like me, and move that way,” she whispered, nodding towards the center of the dance floor. I stared at her feet and shuffled towards where she said. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing but it didn’t matter because if anyone was watching us, their eyes were on her. I fell into the rhythm of it and relaxed.
“There they are,” muttered Tanya. For the first time, I saw the faces of Steward and the guy he was talking to. They were deep in conversation and weren’t paying any attention to the couples dancing. I probably could have stood right in front of them and they wouldn’t have noticed.
“He doesn’t look like a Chinese ambassador,” muttered Tanya.
She was right. He was a white guy, dark haired, American or maybe European. And… I narrowed my eyes. “I know him,” I said.
“You know him?”
“Give me a minute.” I kept staring at him, catching a glimpse every few seconds as we slowly spun around the dance floor. I have a thing for faces. I need to: sometimes when I’m bounty hunting, all I have to go on is an out-of-date photo and I need to be able to scan a crowded bar and pick out the person in seconds, before they run. I knew I’d seen this guy before. Not in a tuxedo, but maybe in a suit. Not on his own but with other people. An image crystallized in my mind. A photo. A group shot. “Oh crap,” I whispered.
“What? Who is it?” Her voice grew scared. “Russia?”
I shook my head in wonder and looked at her. “It’s not a foreign state at all. It’s the family. The fucking family.”
“Who?”
I sighed. “They’re called the Bainbridges. European old money. They stay out of the limelight but they’ve got more money than God and they’ve got a hand in everything. I saw them all on the cover of Time magazine. One of them’s in pharmaceuticals, one’s in defense…we ran into Hugo, the one who was in oil, in Ecuador. And that guy, Lucas Bainbridge, guess which industry he’s in?”
“Finance,” said Tanya.
“They’re not going to crash the dollar to wreck the country,” I growled. “They’re going to crash the dollar to make money. I bet they’ve been planning this for months, betting against the dollar because they know it’s going to crash. The day after tomorrow, Maravić carries out a terrorist attack and the market panics. Then the stockbroker’s algorithm kicks in and makes the panic worse and worse, until the dollar’s worth nothing. Jesus, they’ll become trillionaires.”
Steward and Bainbridge finished talking and split up. Steward pulled a phone from his pocket. “Maravić said Steward was going to call him,” said Tanya. “See if you can overhear anything. I’ll follow Bainbridge.”
And suddenly she was gone and I was standing alone in the middle of the dance floor, gaping. I looked at Steward’s retreating back. I didn’t know anything about skulking around! I wish Bradan was here.
Cursing, I hurried after Steward. I could see him looking around for a quiet place to make his phone call. He found a stairwell leading down to the basement and was about to head down there when a security guy stopped him. “Sorry, sir. Basement’s off limits.”
“Do you have any idea who I am?” Steward snapped. He flashed his CIA identity card. “This is a national security matter, I need to make a private phone call!”
The security guy stepped back, chastened. “Sorry, sir.”
Steward hurried down the steps and out of sight. Shit! I had to get down there and listen in. What would Tanya do? I took a deep breath and marched brazenly up to the guy. “Hey, I’m with Mr. Steward. Got to be on this phone call with him. We got a national security situation in, uh…Sweden.” It was the first place that popped into my head.
“Sweden?” asked the security guy.
I pushed past him into the stairwell, thinking frantically. “Yeah, my boss is talking to their boss in Oslo.”
The security guy followed me, frowning. “Oslo’s in Norway.”
Shit. I looked down the stairs. Steward was making that phone call right now, I had to get down there.
The security guy put a hand on my shoulder. “How about you show me some ID?”
I looked around. We were out of sight of anyone in the hallway. Fuck it. I turned around and laid him out with a punch, catching him as he fell. “Sorry,” I muttered. I dragged him down to the next landing and pulled him into a cupboard where hopefully no one would find him for a while, then crept on down the stairs.