Masquerade: Her Billionaire - Venice Read online

It would have been easy to give out strong signals of exasperation, because Anya had been working hard to get the Chinese to cooperate, but Anya was an old diplomatic hand and had given June nothing. Then she’d signaled June to turn off her cell recorder and to go off the record. After which, she’d told June that the Chinese government sucked rocks.

  They’d both laughed and had had a boozy lunch and bonded over the terrible quality of the single men working on the Accord. They all sucked rocks, too.

  Anya’s statement had stayed off the record but she and June had been really good friends since then.

  So,” the man said, the rod still unwaveringly half a foot from her arm. She watched it with horror. “You last saw June in Istanbul? In November?”

  “Yes.” Anya nodded.

  “Wrong answer,” he said and jabbed her with the prod.

  Pain. Pain. Pain.

  Intense, unceasing agony, prolonged this time. Though it was hard to tell because the pain was something out of time. Time stopped as the world became agony, burning, suffering.

  When the rod pulled away from her skin, Anya was sweating, tears running down her face. She looked down at her skin, again sure she’d see blood and blisters, but all she saw was smooth skin. It had felt like being flayed alive, inch by inch.

  In a church in Venice she’d seen a famous painting by Tiepolo, The Flaying of St Bartholomew and had nearly been reduced to tears at the sight of the knife slicing into the martyr’s skin, the skin pulled up and away from the living flesh.

  It had felt just like that.

  The other shadowy figures were exactly where they’d been before, completely unmoved by her torment.

  “As the movie line goes, Dr Voronova, I can do this all day. And all night and all the next day. And if I grow tired, my colleagues here —” he moved slowly to the left and the right, “can continue while I go out for a nice restaurant meal and a rest. So you might as well give me what I need.”

  What she needed was all her wits about her. These people wanted something from her but she didn’t know what. Her mind was sluggish, like walking through mud.

  Her head hung low, as if the strings holding her head up had been cut. “I’d like to give you what you need, but —”

  He zapped her again.

  Agony.

  There was no getting used to it, no bracing herself, no way to psychologically prepare for the torment. It was as horrible as the first time, even more so. She blanked with the pain, nothing in her worked, she shook and hurt and endured.

  The pain stopped.

  Anya looked down at her trembling hands, surprised all over again that no blood was showing.

  A heavy sigh from the man. The rod was still half a foot from her. She hadn’t seen it come toward her and she hadn’t seen it retracted. It was just this monstrous, mysterious thing that came out of nowhere and hovered. Able to dispense crippling agony at any moment.

  “So, again, just for your information, that was the low setting, Doctor. I can ratchet it up, though it might rattle your thinking afterward. I need you to be lucid. I need you to remember.”

  Was there a timeline? Anya wondered. Was he in a hurry? Was that why he was shocking her so often? Was it just a question of waiting him out? And how on earth could she do that when every touch of that prod was searing agony? Surely her heart would give out?

  “June Chen, Dr. Voronova. You talked to her today.”

  Anya shook her head. Not in negation but in confusion. “What? I didn’t talk to June today. I told you, I haven’t seen her since —”

  Pain.

  It must have been longer or stronger, or something. Anya came to after a million years, exhausted and confused.

  And terrified.

  Was she going to die here, in this cold room smelling of mold and rot? Alone and scared? Watched by these monstrous men?

  “Around noon, Doctor,” the man continued as if they were having an unhurried conversation interrupted by a waiter bringing drinks. “You spoke with June Chen around noon.”

  Anya rolled that around in her head, the words a jumble that made no sense. June … at noon. It even rhymed.

  She closed her eyes and this time felt a sharp pain on her arm, not electric. He’d whapped her with the rod instead of zapping her.

  “Are we boring you, Dr Voronova?” he asked, voice dripping acid.

  She sat straighter in the uncomfortable chair, trying to sharpen her wits. But she was exhausted and afraid.

  “N-no.” She waited. He waited. “Not bored.”

  “Excellent. So let’s take it again from the top. You spoke with June Chen around noon today. I want to know what Ms. Chen said to you.”

  Anya’s mind raced. She was trying to be brave but the fear of the prod, of that excruciating pain, overrode everything. Was he right? Could she have spoken with June without remembering? Without knowing about it? How could that be? At noon she was — a wave of relief washed through her. Maybe this was a horrible mistake and she could just correct him and they’d let her go. She’d find Cal and they’d —

  “Dr. Voronova!” The man’s voice was loud and sharp. She jumped.

  “S-sorry. I couldn’t have spoken with June. I was in a meeting all day, the Cross Frontier Jobs Committee, until around 5 p.m. I barely made it back to my hotel in time to dress for the reception.”

  Zap!

  Anya was trembling all over now, hands and legs. This time there was a lingering pain, as if her nerves had soaked up the electricity and were releasing it even after the prod was removed.

  “The conversation between the two of you was overheard. You’re lying.”

  Her throat was so dry she couldn’t speak. Lips dry, tongue so dry it stuck to the roof of her mouth. “Water,” she croaked. “Please.”

  A huge sigh of exasperation. The outline of the man gestured with his head. The light was angled to shine directly into her eyes and it was turned up. A hand held out a bottle of water but she couldn’t make out any features. Not the face, not the shape of the body.

  She grabbed the bottle with shaking hands. It took her three attempts to crack the bottle cap and she spilled half the contents raising the small bottle to her mouth. The water felt wonderful going down her throat but she stopped after a few gulps.

  Those shocks were going to continue because she couldn’t give him what he wanted. Didn’t have it to give. If her stomach was full of water she could vomit it back up, choke on it while being zapped.

  But at least she could talk now. “I haven’t seen June since Istanbul. I swear. You can zap me forever and that won’t change. I haven’t seen her today, didn’t see her yesterday. The last time I saw her was over lunch three months ago. And I was in a meeting all day today. There are records of my presence during the meeting. You can check the minutes. I was there, in the meeting room, from ten to five. We didn’t even break for lunch, they brought in sandwiches. You can check. Please check.”

  Silence.

  Her voice had been shaky but it rang with sincerity. She hadn’t seen June today, she hadn’t seen anyone during the day except for the committee members. She hoped these men believed her because she had nothing else to offer but the truth.

  Behind the blinding light she could see shadowy heads conferring. They were whispering and she couldn’t grasp anything of what they were saying.

  The man spoke again. “She called you, Dr. Voronova. Called you and left a message.”

  Anya opened her mouth and then closed it. For the first time, she realized she could be putting June in danger. It was possible that June had called her on her personal cell while she was in a meeting. She’d checked her work cell and there had been no messages.

  If June had left her a message, would these men go after her then? It was so hard to think straight but her head wasn’t necessary. Her heart told her all she needed to know. June was a dear friend and a smart, fearless journalist on top of that. Anya was not going to do anything that could put June in peril.

  A lo
ng arm reached out for her purse and her spirits sank. Her personal cell was in there. If June had left a text or a message, they would read it or listen to it.

  Her interrogator unsnapped her purse and pulled out her cell, holding it so she could see Roj. Anya’s chest tightened with fear for June. He swiped the screen, then held it out to her, screen facing her. “Password,” he ordered.

  Her thinking was so slow. Thoughts jumbled and muddled. Her first thought was — I don’t have a password. Her work cell had a password, of course. Peace and Jobs was transparent and didn’t have many secrets, but sometimes the people they negotiated with didn’t want their willingness to work for peace known. So their phones were password protected and their computers encrypted. Nothing military-grade, but also not that easy to crack.

  But her work phone was back in the hotel room. Peace and Jobs had basically fulfilled its mandate. As a matter of fact, Anya was preparing to look for a new job. They’d done the impossible and it was time to move on. The Accords were to be signed tomorrow and the reception tonight was a purely social affair. She hadn’t wanted her work phone. The secretariat of the Accords had her personal cell number for the family photo because Anya had given it to them.

  The man held out the cell, screen lit up, and there was her screensaver. A snapshot she’d taken with her phone of the Treasury at Petra. She and Cal both had been fascinated by Petra and when she finally made it there, she’d almost cried because she wasn’t with Cal.

  But wait — it wasn’t her screensaver. It was a photo of Petra, true, but instead of at high noon, the buildings intense molten gold, it was a shot taken at dawn, the colors a tenuous light blue and pale gold. And the angle was wrong.

  This — this wasn’t her cell, it was Cal’s. And not only did they have the exact same case, they both had almost the exact same screensaver.

  Proof once again of the intense bond they shared, even after ten years.

  But there was a keypad superimposed on the photo of Petra, and it required a password.

  Since this was Cal’s phone, there was no way in the world she could know the password. There was just no way she could access this phone.

  Even if she could convince this man that it wasn’t her phone, that her phone — with presumably a message from June — was in Cal’s hands, that meant they’d go after Cal.

  Anya’s spine stacked as she sat straighter, though all her muscles were trembling.

  No.

  She would not give Cal up. She would not give June up.

  She’d rather die.

  Cal was trembling. From the aftereffects of the chloroform he’d been dosed with, from the blow to the head and from absolute fucking terror. Fear like he’d never known before made him shake and sweat.

  Anya was in the hands of terrorists. They had to be terrorists. Who else could they be? There had always been violent factions in the Middle East opposed to peace, as against the overwhelming majority of people who just wanted to lead normal lives, raise families, look to the future with hope.

  A lot of people said that terrorism was dead but Cal knew better. The terrorists weren’t dead, they’d just been driven underground like rats.

  And now Anya … Christ, he couldn’t even go there.

  He’d seen videos that no human should ever have to see.

  He feverishly followed a teardrop shape on his screen that represented the love of his life. The only woman he’d ever loved. The only woman he ever would love. He knew that now.

  In the hallway outside the room where they’d reunited, there were three black beads. His love — his smart, smart love — had done what she could to leave breadcrumbs for him to follow. He rushed down the wide hallway where another broad hallway intersected. Left or right? He wasn’t familiar with Palazzo Maltese. He knew where Anya was at the moment but he needed to take the fastest route there.

  Scanning the hallways to the left and to the right he saw two small jet beads on the right hand side and immediately turned right. At the end of that long hallway was a set of elaborately carved French windows that gave out on a stone terrace. In the four corners of the terrace four torches flickered. Cal scoured the terrace and saw a small jet bead right where a set of stone steps led down into a tiny garden.

  The screen showed the teardrop slowing down.

  He studied the screen which was a map of the historic center of the city of Venice. It was a city map designed to reduce an engineer to tears. Not one straight line. A series of curving narrow streets, some looping back on themselves, most with bridges crossing a canal every twenty meters or so.

  But Cal could follow. He liked order as much as the next engineer but he’d worked in Middle Eastern cities for the past five years and he was used to the tight whorls of the labyrinths that were ancient cities. The orientation lobe in his head — which was very strong — straightened out the path he had to take.

  He was still woozy and in pain but that made no difference at all to him. He’d get to Anya if he had to walk through hell itself, barefoot over broken glass. A little pain was nothing.

  The teardrop stopped. Wherever they were taking Anya, they were there.

  His eyes tracked back and forth across the narrow streets. He wasn’t looking for beads. It didn’t make any difference now what path she’d taken. He knew where she was now. What he needed was a weapon. Wherever Anya had been taken, she was now a prisoner.

  In the field, Cal was always armed, even if he had a phalanx of his security team with him at all times. He was good with arms, too. He had excellent reflexes and eye-hand coordination and he made sure he kept his marksmanship alive and active.

  But Cal didn’t trust guns. He trusted himself, his body. He was decent with arms but he was really good in unarmed close-quarter combat. Still, right now he’d have given his right arm for a gun. He was going to need it, or need … something.

  Whoever had come for Anya — and he’d lay odds they were somehow tied to that fucker Ash — had been able to overpower him. He’d been taken by surprise, it was true. That wouldn’t happen again. But the truth was, no matter how good he was at martial arts, if there were four or five men wherever Anya had been taken, he was fucked. Particularly if they were armed.

  So he needed a weapon.

  He called Farris, the sound of a car engine loud in the background. Farris liked sports cars and he’d be speeding. “Yo, man. Coming.”

  “Yeah, I know. Are you armed?”

  Short silence. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Former Navy SEAL.”

  “Then you’ve got your answer. Now let me drive.” Farris disconnected.

  So Farris would bring a weapon. Several, if he knew his guy, and he did. But Farris was on his way and not here yet. No matter what, Cal wasn’t waiting for him. He was getting there now.

  The teardrop had stopped at a building. Cal enlarged the screen. Phoenix was an engineering company, one of the finest in the world. The map was excellent. The more he zoomed in, the finer the detail until he was looking at a 3D map of an area off the beaten path on the other side of the island.

  It had taken them almost half an hour to get there, dragging an unwilling hostage. Even under threat, Anya would have slowed them down as much as she dared. Cal could get there in ten minutes.

  Several of the streets he walked along were thronged with Carnevale revelers. He heard ten languages in so many minutes.

  He heard a trill of female laughter and three beautiful women made up as 17th-century courtesans were walking along one of the alleys, arm in arm. They completely closed off the narrow street.

  Guarda che bello! One of them exclaimed. Cal knew enough Italian to recognize the compliment. What a handsome guy!

  They were going to slow him down if he didn’t play this right. It was against his nature to push women out of his way but they looked a little drunk and ready to rumble and he couldn’t afford the time.

  Moving fast, he gently lifted the arms of two of the beautiful women, stooped and sli
pped between them murmuring, signore scusate, and continued. He was at the end of the street, climbing a steeply arched bridge before they realized what happened. A couple of seconds later, he turned to the right, paralleling the canal, and their exclamations were swallowed up.

  This part of the city was almost deserted. It was a strange thing about Venice. Some streets were so crowded you couldn’t breathe, but turn a corner or two and you were completely alone.

  He was running now, the sounds of his footfalls echoing off the stone walls. He cursed everything about his situation, including the goddamned brand-new dress shoes that slipped on the cobblestones. He longed for his desert boots. The tux bow tie felt like it was about to strangle him. He hooked a finger underneath it, pulled it off and threw it away.

  The teardrop was three short streets and a bridge away. He desperately needed something … ah! He was running by a restoration site. Part of a wall had crumbled and it was being restored manually. The workers had tucked tools away in a box inside the wall. Cal bent and picked up a chisel. Strong wooden handle, sharp edges. Good for tearing someone’s throat out. He picked up a big heavy mallet, too, and slipped both into his cummerbund. Finally a cummerbund that was useful for something.

  But he needed something else, something with more reach.

  Though his head was drumming hurry hurry hurry, he took his time. Bringing a knife to a gun fight was never a good idea, so it better be a good knife. He found what he needed in a pile of rubble. A construction rod. He picked it up, hefted it. Strong and straight and about a yard in length. He would relish pounding in the head of anyone who’d hurt Anya.

  Ok. The teardrop was still. The GPS system said where Anya was horizontally, but didn’t tell him where Anya was vertically. He knew the building she was in but not exactly where in that building she was. And that was assuming she was near his phone. If it had been dropped or thrown away, he was in a shitload of trouble because the beads had stopped a couple of streets back.

  The faintest vibration from Anya’s cell. A text message from Farris.

  20 mikes out