Lazlo's Last Stand

Revelation came to Lucia via the very tiny twitch she felt in Corbett’s body, as if he’d experienced an unexpected stab of pain.

He feels guilty. He blames himself for what’s been happening…his agents’ deaths.

And he shouldn’t, she thought angrily. He’s a good and decent man who cares deeply about all his agents. He isn’t to blame for someone else’s evil. He isn’t.

“—and instead of giving him up to her old man, she warned him. Maximilian never did forgive her. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill her, even if she was his own daughter. But in the end, I suppose, what he did was worse.”

“What did he do?” she asked, holding her breath for the answer.

“Disowned her,” Corbett replied in a flat voice.

“Cut her out of his organization completely.” Adam picked it up from there. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not long after that, Max’s son, Apollo, came gunning for Corbett.” He paused, and in the light of the street-lamps they were passing, Lucia saw the shadows in Corbett’s face go long and deep. Adam went on in a thoughtful tone, “I never did figure out how you knew just where and when they’d be coming for you. You want to—”

“It’s neither the time nor the place. Needless to say, I’m fairly certain Cassandra is behind all my troubles, all of them for the past nineteen years,” Corbett snapped.

They were in the financial district now and approaching the ultramodern building that, in addition to the well-known banking institution on the ground floor and several securities and insurance firms higher up, housed the secret headquarters of the Lazlo Group. Corbett moved as if to shift forward and at the same time reached for his wallet. Then he drew a sharp breath and held it, and leaned back instead.

“Got it,” Adam said under his breath, and taking out his own wallet, counted out some euro notes to give to the cabdriver.

Meanwhile, Lucia struggled to hold on to her frustration. There were so many things she wanted to know. Felt she deserved to know. Particularly since these dramatic events in Corbett Lazlo’s past appeared to be about to dramatically affect her future.

“She—Cassandra—said you killed her brother,” Lucia said to Corbett in a tight but steady voice. “Did you?”

He replied with a quiet, “Yes.”

“The little punk didn’t give ’im much of a choice,” Adam said as he settled back in his seat. “And that’s the plain truth of it. If he hadn’t—”

“Not now.” Corbett’s tone was one that neither Lucia nor Adam cared to challenge. Adam gave her a smile and a shrug of apology as the cab rolled into the underground parking garage.

Following Adam’s directions, the driver, with protesting tires, pulled around to a remote corner of the lot and jolted to a stop. Adam opened his door and turned to help Lucia, both of them carefully avoiding watching Corbett’s determined but obviously painful struggle to extricate himself from the car.

“He’ll be okay,” Adam murmured for her ears alone, and she nodded and mouthed the words, “I know.”

But she marveled at the strange confusion of emotions stirring inside her, seeing the indestructible Corbett Lazlo in such a state.

As the taxi drove off with a screech of tires, its three former passengers turned to a door marked in French, in large black letters: Emergency Exit—Authorized Personnel Only. Adam opened the door using a remote and held it while Lucia and Corbett entered what appeared to be a large steel-walled vault, then followed them in, closing the door after him. Corbett placed his palm on a glass panel near the door, and a steel panel above it slid open to reveal a state-of-the-art optical scanner. One by one, each of them stepped up to the screen, eyes wide-open. Only when all three had passed the iris recognition scan did the larger panel slide back to reveal the elevator.

The purpose of this, Lucia knew, was to prevent anyone from gaining access to the Lazlo Group secret headquarters by taking one of its members hostage. Hidden sensors in the vault would determine the number of people inside. Entry could only be accomplished once every person had been cleared by iris scanning. She remembered thinking, when she’d first been introduced to the system, that it seemed a bit excessive—even paranoid. Now, remembering the light of madness in Cassandra’s eyes, the way she’d stabbed those forked fingers when she’d spit the words, “Tu es fichue…”

A shudder ran through Lucia. For the first time, as the steel-reinforced elevator whisked them silently upward, she was grateful for the extreme security measures and no longer thought them the least bit excessive.

It wasn’t until the elevator doors opened again and she found herself standing at the entrance to Corbett’s private apartment that it hit her. Wherever in the world she was being whisked away to, it was happening now. The helicopter was on its way. It would land on the rooftop of this building, and she would be bundled aboard like baggage, without even being allowed to go home to her apartment to pack her own.

It was, suddenly, simply too much.

As Corbett and Adam stepped out of the elevator, she took a step backward and said in a strangled voice, “I can’t— I’m not doing this.”

Both men turned to look at her, wearing identical expressions of noncomprehension, as if a piece of their luggage had acquired a voice.

Corbett’s expression changed quickly to a puzzled frown. “Can’t do…what?”

She was suddenly furious with him. For an intelligent man, could he be more obtuse? “I can’t just leave like this. I have to go home first.”

His frown deepened. “I don’t see why. Unless you have a cat. Do you? I’ll arrange for someone—”

“No, I don’t have a cat. I have to—” her voice rose as Corbett began to shake his head “—I have to get my stuff.”

“Out of the question. By this time Cassandra will no doubt have your place located and staked out. No, we’re getting you out of the country—now.” He reached for her arm, and she pulled away like a stubborn child.

“Dammit, Corbett, I don’t have any clothes.”

Adam said quietly, “She’s got a point, boss.”

Corbett glanced at him, then let out a breath and drove a hand through his already untidy hair. “Oh, all right then. I’ll send someone to pick up your things. Adam?” “On it.” Adam had already plucked a cell phone from the inside pocket of his jacket.

As he turned away, mumbling instructions into the phone, Lucia ventured, though still with some reluctance, from the elevator.

“What about my job?” she said to Corbett in a low voice as he was engaged in convincing his security system to grant them entry into his apartment. “I’m so close to tracking down the source of those e-mails. Who’s going to—” Seeing the wry smile beginning to form on his lips, she broke that off and said, “Oh.”

“Yes, I think we can mark that little mystery solved, at any rate,” he said dryly. He opened the door and waited for her to enter ahead of him. “I’m only surprised I didn’t think of it immediately—the messages did have Cassandra’s particularly nasty style. And the attacks on my agents and safe houses… Although to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t entirely certain she was still alive. Given the circles she moves in.” He paused to frown at Lucia. “What is it now?”

She had halted just inside the door and was looking around, feeling a little like Dorothy, awaking to find herself in Oz. In all the years she’d worked for Corbett Lazlo, all the hours she’d spent in his company, she’d just realized this was the first time she’d ever set foot in his apartment. Her heart gave an odd thump and seemed to drop into the bottomless well that was her stomach. She couldn’t put her finger on why. Not then.

“Nothing,” she breathed, willing herself to relax as she moved through the entry and into the graciously appointed but strangely sterile living room.

Adam came in, closing the door behind him. “Team’s ready to roll,” he said briskly as he tucked away his cell phone. He turned to Lucia. “You might want to write out a list, luv. I expect they’ll be in a bit of a hurry.”

Though his glance rested only briefly on her face, which she knew must be a disaster, his nut-brown eyes seemed kind. Adam was kind, she realized, in spite of his reputation as a bit of a player. He’d always treated her with a kind of cheeky affection—rather like an older brother, she thought, although she’d never had a big brother and could only guess what that might be like. He was terribly good-looking, too, and she wondered why his company never made her heart do unnatural things the way being close to Corbett did.