Ice Blue

Just so much bullshit, Madame Lambert had told the good doctor. If smoking made it easier to accept the hard choices she had to make, then she’d go up to two or three packs a day. But it didn’t. Smoking just kept her hands from shaking.

O’Brien hadn’t done his job, and the bodies were piling up. Some civilian had gone over a cliff in the girl’s car, and Takashi had had to take out God knows how many of that sicko Shirosama’s mindless goons. She’d asked Taka what the fuck he thought he was doing, but he’d been avoiding her messages, and in the end, it was up to him. He had experience and cool determination, and if he was keeping the girl alive there must be a good reason.

Maybe it had been too soon to put him out in the field again, but she hadn’t had much choice. O’Brien was tailor-made for the job—he could speak and read Japanese, he had the connections, the culture. No one else even came close. His body had pretty much recovered from some of the most advanced torture the modern world could devise, and his sangfroid had never been an issue. So why didn’t he finish the job? He must still think there was a way to salvage the situation, but from half a world away Isobel couldn’t see many signs of hope. But strategy, she knew. And the only way to stop a deluded megalomaniac, if you couldn’t get close enough to kill him, was to take away his toys.

Summer Hawthorne had no idea that’s all she was. A toy, a pawn in the hands of some very dangerous people, and both sides were deadly, experienced and ready to kill her before the other could get their hands on her.

Takashi must be convinced there was something to be gained from keeping her alive, or the situation would be done with and Isobel could finish whatever open pack of cigarettes she was rationing, go back to her elegant apartment and break something.