Deadly Memories Page 2

  Fifty is all you’ll have. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he memorized the man’s features.

  Even teeth showing in a crocodile smile, bright and bogus, Vadim extended a hand for the woman.

  Jack had seen photographs of her, too, snapshots taken with telephoto lenses. Hot as the Italian sun but with a freshness that surprised him. Sophie Rinaldi, aged twenty-seven, from Pelham, New York. An American tourist who after two weeks of touring Italy moved in with Vadim. She—

  What he saw next short-circuited his thought processes. A slim foot in a red sandal extending from the Mercedes. Then a long, shapely, tanned leg. And the other.

  “The guy is pond scum, but mamma mia, he sure can pick ’em.” Beside Jack, Leoni had awakened.

  The Rinaldi woman accepted Vadim’s proffered hand as she slid from the leather interior. After smoothing her skirt—a gauzy red thing that floated to her knees—she tossed back her hair and smiled.

  That soft curve of lips sent a shock wave of heat into Jack’s veins. Need slammed into his groin. Never had the mere sight of a woman affected him with such power.

  Why now? Why her?

  Classic oval face, full lips, a mass of softly curling dark hair, toned feminine curves—the sensual Italian look. Hot but nothing special.

  Except she wasn’t what he’d expected, even from the telephoto shots. Softer, like her name, Sophie. With a breathless, otherworldly quality that kept his gaze riveted to her instead of to his target.

  A fluke—effects of the sun and anticipation. He exhaled slowly, then again until the sensual vise began to loosen. He dragged his gaze from the woman to Vadim.

  As the driver pulled the car around to the garage, Vadim and Sophie strolled toward the house. The diamond dealer leaned back his head and laughed at something she said. He brought her delicate hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.

  The older man didn’t have his hands all over her, but why would he when she was in his bed every night? An assumption on ATSA’s part, but a logical one.

  “Lucky bastard,” Leoni muttered. “He’s old enough to be her father.”

  That wasn’t how Jack would’ve put it. But close enough. At the sight of his enemy’s meticulously manicured hand on her slim one, hatred seared white-hot pain in Jack’s chest and in his temples.

  He should shoot right now. But he wanted the son of a bitch to know who executed him and why.

  The two continued their casual conversation as the woman tucked a soft wave of thick, dark hair behind one ear.

  “Why the devil can’t we hear them?” Jack whispered. “No bugs or wiretaps, but what about mikes or EARS41?” The Electronic Acquiring Reconnaissance System was a high-tech listening system.

  “We tried. He’s got blockers we haven’t cracked. So we hang out in the vineyard and tail them. Old-fashioned police work.” Leoni yawned as if ready for another nap.

  When the couple reached the doorway—wide double doors with a massive knocker—Vadim gestured to indicate that he was staying outside. He pointed toward the swimming pool, where his other thug waited for him. Petar, with an unpronounceable last name, came from Cleatia, like his employer.

  Sophie smiled. Rising on tiptoes, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She brushed a quick kiss on his mouth.

  Vadim barely reacted. Jack’s face heated as though she’d kissed him. More heat dived south of his belt. He swore under his breath.

  With a little wave, she pivoted, her flirty skirt allowing a glimpse of creamy thigh before she vanished inside the villa.

  “Woman likes to tease. Like all of ’em,” Leoni said as he angled his binoculars to follow Vadim. “A velvet trap.”

  Tease? Maybe. More like torture.

  But Jack couldn’t let himself be distracted by a woman. For damn sure not a murderer’s woman like Sophie.

  Sophie. Shaken, he sat back on his heels. He nearly dropped the binoculars. How did she go from being the Rinaldi woman to Sophie?

  The day after Jack’s arrival, he and De Carlo tailed Sophie and Vadim through Venice’s canals and winding streets.

  Tailing them afforded Jack a quick tour of Venice, but not one he could appreciate. He felt only frustration grinding like rocks on a storm-tossed shore at being so close to his quarry yet helpless to do anything.

  When the couple lunched in the fashionable Harry’s Bar, Jack and De Carlo washed down risotto di mare with a house wine in the cheaper trattoria down the street, where they could observe when the couple left. Jack didn’t need the other man’s reminder to limit the alcohol. He could afford no blurred senses or dulled reflexes. No amount of wine could smooth the edges of his hatred.

  After lunch they strolled from shop to shop on the Merceria, a narrow street running between the Piazza San Marco and the Rialto. While Sophie bargained with shopkeepers, Vadim held her packages.

  Jack and De Carlo followed, ducking behind displays and peering at merchandise. Jack’s ire grew as he observed Sophie laugh at her lover’s jokes. She hung on his every damned word. Excitement at a bargain and pleasure in the beauty of the day brushed her cheeks with color.

  Every movement—the sway of hips, the flash of dark eyes, the tilt of chin—appeared natural, unaffected. Even if Vadim bought the artless act, Jack didn’t. He knew firsthand about feminine manipulation.

  Still, he couldn’t help checking out her high breasts when she reached up to sweep her mass of hair from her shoulders and fasten it at her nape. And he wasn’t alone.

  Seeing Vadim touching and leering at this woman fanned Jack’s hatred and stoked the flames to volcanic heat. His chest felt so tight with rage that he thought he’d explode.

  Jack had made a solemn vow to mete out justice. He’d waited long enough. He wanted this operation done so he could take care of the slime.

  If something didn’t break soon, he would act.

  “And that should wrap up our plans, Ahmed,” Vadim said into the telephone. “Do you foresee any loose ends?”

  “What about the woman?”

  “She is upstairs packing at this very moment. The goods are well hidden. Having her transport them to London will arouse no suspicions.”

  “And she does not suspect?”

  Ahmed Saqr was a fanatic but a careful buyer. His continual worry irritated Vadim. He wanted the deal over, the danger out of his house. “She trusts me implicitly. She believes what I want her to believe.”

  There was a rapid intake of breath—a gasp—on the line.

  “What was that?”

  Click.

  Vadim froze, his heart racing. Where was Sophie? But he feared that he knew. “Old friend, do you have someone listening on an extension?”

  “Not I. What is going on?”

  “I must go find out. I will call you back.”

  Five days after Jack had joined the task force, surveillance continued to yield no developments, only frustration.

  Camped beneath the vines, Jack sat cross-legged and inhaled the warm fragrance of the ripening grapes. He let the sun slanting through the broad grape leaves soothe his aching shoulders, rigid with tension.

  “Something’s going on at last,” Leoni whispered to him as he closed his cellular phone. “Roszca’s former buyers are sending out feelers about the uranium. On the quiet, like.”

  Jack considered. “So that means they don’t know where the package went. Vadim has it. He’s got to.”

  “So what’s he waiting for?” Leoni shook his head.

  “Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s arranging a sale. They’ve been busy today. The Mercedes has gone out twice.”

  “Yeah. Returned both times with nothing more suspicious than melons. No rich-terrorist-buyer types.” The officer snorted a laugh and unwrapped a stick of gum. “Lighten up, Thorne. You’d think this was personal.”

  Personal as you could get, but Jack didn’t enlighten the man. Nobody knew. He’d kept his search secret.

  “Usually the housekeeper does the marketing,” he said. “Something’s up.” He tried
to put the puzzle together but got no picture. They didn’t have all the pieces, damn it.

  The solid slam of the heavy front doors jarred him to alertness. He raised his binoculars as Petar exited carrying a small duffel bag. He jogged out of sight around the house. A few minutes later he drove away in the Mercedes.

  “Hot damn,” said another of the surveillance team. “Get De Carlo on the horn to follow that sucker.”

  “Roger that.” Heartbeat racing, Jack hit the speed dial. Now maybe they were getting somewhere.

  Moments later gravel crunched as the second bodyguard, Guido, pulled around to the front in a black Maserati. The sports car was compact and low, built to take winding Italian roads like runways. He cut to an idle and relaxed in the driver’s seat. Static and then a heavy beat filled the air as the man found a station playing American rock music.

  One of the double front doors swung open with a bang. Sophie appeared.

  She wore a sleeveless knit top, tan slacks and low-heeled sandals. Travel clothes? Her eyes were wild, her soft mouth open. Her breasts rose and fell with rapid breaths. She trotted down the steps and jogged past the idling Maserati.

  “What the hell?” Jack tensed, ready to move. He adjusted the focus on his binoculars.

  After a quick glance at the bodyguard in the Maserati, she sprinted down the gravel drive as if the devil himself snapped at her heels.

  Guido stared at her in amazement but stayed in the car. Jack heard Vadim shout to his man. The diamond dealer pounded after the fleeing woman, and the car began to roll.

  The hard look on Vadim’s face cued Jack that this was serious. “Let’s move!” He dropped the binoculars and flipped open the snap on his shoulder holster.

  “No, wait!” Leoni scrambled to his feet. “It’s a lovers’ quarrel. Not our business.”

  “He’s going to kill her.” Jack broke cover and raced between the trees and across the open expanse toward Vadim.

  “Damn it to hell! We’re made anyway. Hit it, guys. Andiamo!” The other officers followed Jack.

  Pelting down the drive, Jack heard Leoni yell to Vadim in Italian. Abruptly the man halted and looked around at the five strangers with pistols. The Maserati braked to a stop beside him.

  Jack saw him assess the situation in a split second. Barking orders, Vadim jumped into the Maserati at the moment Jack reached the rear bumper.

  As the powerful sports car accelerated, gravel spit like bullets from beneath the rear tires.

  Ignoring the flying stones, Jack stopped, panting. Maybe he should add sprints to his running regimen. He flipped open his cell. He was about to dial De Carlo when he noticed where the car was heading.

  Straight for Sophie.

  She appeared in good shape, but her stride faltered with every step. She was flagging.

  The Maserati would overtake her in seconds.

  Jack’s pulse hurtled in his veins. He took off again down the drive. “No!”

  Sophie must’ve heard Jack’s yell or the car’s engine, because she swerved to the right. But not far enough.

  The front right bumper struck her side. The momentum threw her into the air. It tossed her onto the grass verge. She landed in a heap. She lay there, still as death.

  The car stopped and backed up.

  Jack saw the black muzzle of an automatic pistol protrude from the open passenger window. A tree blocked the shooter’s view, and the car started to turn.

  “Stop, you bastard! Throw down your gun!” Jack pulled out his 9mm and fired at the car as he ran. His first shots missed, but two bullets slammed into the trunk.

  The pistol withdrew. The Maserati roared off, leaving him coughing in its dusty wake. The car swung a hard left onto the paved road. It disappeared from sight.

  Awareness chewed into Sophie’s brain with burning bites. Her eyelids fluttered open to a swarm of black spots like bees before her eyes. When she tried to sit up, every bone and muscle in her body protested, and she collapsed again, panting. Spears radiated into her left hip and shoulder. Her stomach lurched and her heart thumped wildly.

  After taking a few minutes to recover, she forced her eyes open again. The black spots smeared into a blur, and she could make out light green walls. White sheets. White blanket. Acrid smells of antiseptic and medicine.

  An IV. With a tube into her right forearm. Straps immobilized her left arm and shoulder.

  She was in a hospital bed.

  What happened?

  Fear and panic clamped her chest, and tears burned her eyes. Stop it right now, Sophia Constanza Elena Rinaldi. You are alive. You are safe.

  The confusion gave her something to focus on other than pain. It radiated from her shoulder and bounced around in her head like a spiked ball. Had there been an accident? The plane? Something in the airport? A mugging?

  Trying to remember what happened made her head throb more. She closed her eyes against the driving pain. Frightened anew, she fought the tears gathering in her throat.

  A nurse bustled in with a pitcher of water. “Ah, signora, come sta?” she began, but then switched to halting English. “How are you? Is good you…wake.”

  “What happened to me?” Sophie said in Italian. She managed only a croaking whisper from her parched throat. “How was I hurt?”

  Uttering soothing sounds, the nurse gave her some water. “You rest. I will tell the medico.”

  A few minutes later a blond woman in a white lab coat entered her room. She carried a clipboard crammed with papers beneath her arm.

  The doctor. At last she’d get some answers.

  “Dottoressa, please tell me what happened. How badly am I hurt? Where am I?”

  She pushed half glasses lower on her nose and smiled gently. “Ah, signora, all will be answered. But first allow me to examine you. I shall try not to hurt you.”

  Sighing, she subsided into the soft pillows. The haze before her eyes was thinning, and the nausea, as well.

  When the doctor finished checking her vital signs, she asked, “Tell me, signora, what is your name?”

  She stared at her in surprise. Then she realized that they must check anyone who’s been unconscious. “My name is Sophie Rinaldi. I’m an American. I live in New York. I came to Italy on vacation.”

  The doctor didn’t need to know she was searching for family. That aspect of her trip would be delayed now anyway.

  “Bene.” Very good. The doctor complimented her on her fluent Italian as she made a note on her clipboard.

  “How badly am I hurt?”

  “You are very lucky, Signora Rinaldi. A concussion. Bruises and abrasions and a partially dislocated shoulder, but nothing is broken. Dieci giorni. You will be well.”

  Ten days. Probably longer. Two weeks or more. Italian time was fluid. Sophie managed a weak smile.

  “And what is the last thing you remember before waking up in our beautiful hospital?” She smiled expectantly. A sunbeam through the tall window reflected on the lenses of her reading glasses and made Sophie blink.

  When her brows drew together in thought, she felt each muscle movement as a separate stab of pain. Marshaling her faltering reserves, she forced her aching brain to focus. “The last thing I recall is the pilot’s voice announcing the descent to Rome, to Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Did we crash?”

  Chapter 2

  Jack paced in the corridor outside Sophie’s hospital room. He knew her injuries and that she was awake but nothing else. Since his Italian extended only to basic courtesies like grazie and per favore, he could only wait until a doctor who spoke English informed him of her condition.

  In yesterday’s excitement, Vadim’s Maserati had vanished into the Veneto countryside. Task-force vehicles didn’t scramble fast enough to know even which direction he’d gone. He could be hunkered down in a cabin in the Dolomites or he could be halfway to Morocco.

  The attack on Sophie Rinaldi had convinced the local authorities to give the task force free rein. Jack and ten other officers spent the rest of the day and mo
st of the night combing through Vadim’s villa. A more thorough search would take days.

  Traces of radiation in several rooms, but no uranium. No courier named Dobrich. No Vadim.

  Niente. Nada. Zip.

  The debriefing was every bit as harsh as Jack had expected. Every one of the five officers on surveillance was interrogated and ripped from stem to stern by the task-force leader. Not surprising, as the one to blow their cover and lose the suspect, Jack received the harshest reprimand.

  The only reason De Carlo didn’t send Jack back to the States was the surveillance video.

  The footage made Vadim’s murderous intent all too clear. It showed that Jack had saved Sophie Rinaldi’s life. For the moment he was still on the task force, but De Carlo and the others viewed him as a loose cannon. This snafu ratcheted up a notch the normal tension between cooperating agencies.

  As long as he got to stay, he didn’t give a damn.

  De Carlo had given Jack an assignment guaranteed to keep him out of the loop—protecting Sophie. The commissario didn’t consider her important, but Jack’s gut said the opposite. He speculated that she’d fled in fear of her life because she’d learned dangerous information.

  About the uranium or Vadim’s illicit diamond trade.

  More important to Jack was finding Vadim.

  Sticking close to Sophie was fine with him. She might know her lover’s habits and maybe his hangouts and hiding places. She was beautiful, no denying it, but he could resist temptation. A woman like that, the lover of the man he hated with all his being? No problem.

  “Permesso, excuse me, signore.” The tall blond woman held out her hand. “I am Cara Manetti, the staff neurologist. I am one of the doctors treating Signora Rinaldi.” She used the formal title applied to all adult women, married or single.

  Neurologist? The possibility of brain damage to Sophie tightened Jack’s jaw. “Piacere, Doctor,” he replied. Glad to meet you. He shook her hand. “What can you tell me about Ms., um, Signora Rinaldi’s condition?”