Page 22 of One Last Stand
“Interesting. I would have thought . . . I suppose she would since you were there, weren’t you? On the mountain. In the avalanche. And maybe she hoped I was dead, so telling you that . . .” He shook his head. “Oh, Laney. Pitiful.”
Tomas set the egg bowl on the counter and Shep swallowed just a smidgen of regret. His stomach probably couldn’t handle it anyway, although suddenly his SERE instructor sneaked into his head.“Eat when you can.”
Oops.But while Sergeant Hogan was here, Shep started to listen.
“Survive. Evade. Resist. Escape.”
Apparently, he’d jumped right to the end of class.
But still—three of the A’s stuck in his head.Attitude. Adaptability. Awareness.
The best chance for escape happened in the first forty-eight hours. He’d already ticked off a good chunk of that, and clearly Tomas knew to immobilize him by knocking him unconscious. But now . . .“Betray an emotional breaking point, and throw your captor off guard.”
Which meant roleplay submission. He blew out a breath, looked away even as he surveyed the window, the door.
Tomas pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one, holding it between his lips as he spoke. “It’s okay. Oy—she even got the jump on me. I didn’t see it coming.”
Shep sighed, maybe a little too much, but . . .
Smoke spiraled out of Tomas’s mouth, the cigarette held between his finger and thumb, cupped in his hand, the bead of red hidden. “Laney is a Black Swan. Never forget that.”
Wind stirred the curtains at the window—the frame had a gap.
“Fact is, she played you too. Not sure why, but she always has a mission.”
Shep’s jaw tightened, but he looked over at Tomas and didn’t have to pretend the confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Like I said, she’s very good at her game.” Another drag, more smoke. “Truth is, I never really thought she loved me. Even though she said it. Deep inside, I knew it was exactly that—a very delicious game.”
He smiled, and Shep swallowed back bile.
Tomas laughed. “Yeah, that’s how I felt when I saw her with you the first time. Same old Laney, flirting, stirring that flame inside. She’s a real sparrow.”
This couldn’t be the same person. London was . . . well, she was a woman of honor, chaste, a woman of faith and morals.
Tomas blew out smoke. “All I want is the key. You can have what’s left of her.”
Shep knew better than to reply. But his gaze flashed to the lighter on the table beside the pack of Chesterfields.
Tomas had moved to the chair closer, sat on it now, his ankle propped on his knee. “She’ll try to rescue you before she hands over the key, so we’ll need to fix that.”
“What key?” he asked, just to buy himself time.
The window casing looked flimsy at best. Londonwasn’tcoming—he knew that much—and as soon as Tomas figured that out . . .
Well, chances were that Shep wasn’t walking away from this with a handshake and an apology.
“Oh, just a little bank key, so to speak. To an encrypted . . . box, let’s say.” Tomas drew in another drag. “It contains money she stole from me—well, not me, per se. The Russian mob. Which, of course, they think I stole, so that’s an inconvenience. But we’ll get it sorted.”
The Russian mob? The question must have shown on Shep’s face.
“Oh, so much you don’t know, my boy. The Black Swans are a group of operatives, all female, trained in the art of deception, infiltration, burglary, and all sorts of other techniques that make them highly desired and rather exclusive in their choice of clients, including the US government. Laney’s mission was to break into the . . . let’s say, bank account of the Petrov Bratva and steal their money.”
“Why?”Shoot.He shouldn’t have asked, but he’d noticed the gas burner contained a flicker, as if it hadn’t quite shut off.
“Because they were funding terrorism—some of their own, some to outfits like the Boko Haram, ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas . . . all the big players, and some smaller ones too.”
“How do you . . . Never mind. I don’t care.”