Operation: Midnight Cowboy

Standing at the bank of windows, looking out at the dreary day beyond, Bo thought he could still smell her. A warm, female scent that reminded him of mountain columbine and rain. Wild and fragile and recklessly beautiful. Just like her.

“Bo.”

Cutter’s voice drilled into his thoughts. Bo spun to find the agency head and Rachael standing a few feet away. “Did you file the flight plan?” Cutter asked.

Bo nodded. “We take off in forty-five minutes.”

“Good.” Cutter turned to Rachael, assessed her the way a coach might assess an injured high school athlete. One that was good, but had to quit the season due to an injury. “I’m the only person who knows where you’re going. No one at the agency has a clue. Keep it that way.”

“Yes, sir.” But she didn’t look happy about any of what was happening. Bo wasn’t happy about it, either. But for the first time since he’d walked away from the agency, he was duty-bound to do the right thing.

“I don’t expect anything to go wrong,” Cutter said. “If it does, initiate a code ninety-nine.”

“Roger that,” Bo said, falling easily into the old jargon.

“I’d like you to keep me posted on Karas,” Rachael said.

Cutter shook his head. “You will have no communication with the agency, unless, of course, you’re in danger or need help. He’s pretty much declared war on the agency. You know how sophisticated Karas’s organization is. Last we heard he had access to a satellite.”

She uttered an unladylike curse that left no room for doubt with regard to how she felt about all of this. Had the circumstances been different, Bo might have smiled. Rachael Armitage was a woman to be reckoned with. But she was also Michael’s widow. A woman whose life he himself had played a role in devastating. A woman who would have every right to hate him if she knew the truth.

It was up to him to make sure she never did.

“WHY IS RACHAEL Armitage still alive?”

Viktor Karas’s cultured voice reverberated through the elegant confines of his study. In his prime at the age of fifty, he was distinguished-looking with tastefully coifed salt-and-pepper hair and eyes the color of a Siberian lake.

Those cold gray eyes landed on one of the two men sitting in tapestry wingback chairs adjacent his desk. Vladimir Novak was young and cocky. But his eyes were ancient. They were the eyes of a killer. And it was precisely the reason Karas had hired him.

Vladimir squirmed. “She escaped.”

“Escaped?”

“We tracked her to Chicago. Caught up with her on a back road. We forced her off the road.”

“And she got away,” Karas finished.

“H-her car rolled down an embankment. By the time we reached it, she’d fled on foot. We pursued her, but it was dark. The terrain was difficult.”

Despite his hatred for the woman—the federal agent who’d murdered his beloved Nikolai—Karas felt a fleeting moment of respect for her. Only the most talented and brutal men worked for him. It would take daring, resourcefulness and a good bit of luck to elude them. Rachael Armitage appeared to possess generous amounts of all three traits.

“Twice you have attempted to kill her,” Karas said. “Twice you have failed.”

“I am sorry,” Vladimir said. “But she appears to be well-trained.”

Crossing to the wet bar adjacent to a row of windows that offered a stunning view of Moscow’s Teatralnaya Square, Karas snagged three crystal tumblers and poured two fingers of vodka into each. He handed tumblers to the two men.

“My son has been dead for a month now and you are no closer to completing your mission than when you started.”

“We have listening devices in place.” The second man spoke for the first time. “We’re working on finding a weak point at the MIDNIGHT Agency.”

Karas turned his attention to Ivan Petrov and smiled inwardly. He was also young—not yet twenty-five—and sported a goatee and ponytail that reached halfway down his back. He might look like some pampered New York model, but in the two years he’d been with the organization, Ivan had exterminated more men than the sum of his years.

Karas refocused his attention on the first man. After all, it was Vladimir who had been in charge of both missions. It was Vladimir who had failed. Failure was the one thing Viktor Karas would not tolerate.

“How do you plan to rectify the situation?” Karas asked.

Made nervous by his superior’s scrutiny, Vladimir lifted the tumbler and drank, his eyes looking anywhere but into the cold depths of his employer’s gaze. “I am flying to the United States first thing in the morning. I’m meeting my contact in New York. I’m hoping he will have information for me with regard to the woman’s location.”

“You’re certain this contact has information for you?”

“This contact—a former agent with the American CIA—has always come through for me in the past. I have information that would destroy him if it were to get back to his superiors.”

“I see.” Viktor ran his finger around the rim of the glass. “And then?”

“I will find her and kill her.” Looking pleased with himself, Vladimir cleared his throat.

Karas contemplated him coldly. “This is your great plan?”

Vladimir put his hand to his mouth and coughed. He sipped the vodka as if to clear his throat, but the coughing worsened. His face reddened. Noticeably uncomfortable, he shifted in the chair. The coughing turned into choking. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Placing both hands to his throat, he made a strangled sound and twisted in the chair.

Please, help.

Karas sipped his vodka, unmoving.

Vladimir’s coughing turned violent. White foam spewed from his lips. Eyes bulging, he reached for Karas, but the older man stepped back, out of reach. “You,” he croaked.

Karas smiled at him dispassionately. “Yes,” he said. “Me. Have a nice trip to hell.”

Vladimir clawed at his throat. Throwing his head back, he twisted and fell from the chair. He writhed on the Persian carpet, clutching his throat and gurgling unintelligibly in Russian. After a few minutes, his eyes rolled back white. A final gasp and he lay still.

For several seconds the only sound came from the traffic along the boulevard two stories down. Then Karas walked to the bar and refilled his tumbler. “A new poison my chemist developed,” he said. “Most expeditious, don’t you agree?”

Ivan Petrov’s Adam’s apple bobbed twice in quick succession. “Yes,” he said, looking down at his own glass of vodka.

Karas threw his head back and laughed. “Go ahead. Enjoy your vodka. You needn’t worry that I’ve poisoned you.”

But the younger man’s hand trembled when he raised the glass to his lips. “Wh-why did you poison Vladimir?”

“Because he failed. It is the one thing I will not tolerate.” Crossing to the young man in the chair, Karas put his hand on the other man’s shoulder and squeezed. “Do you understand?”

“Perfectly, Mr. Karas.”

“You will find the American agent. You will leave Moscow today. My private jet is waiting. When you find her, you will contact me immediately. I will take it from there. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” the young man replied and downed his remaining vodka in a single gulp.

Chapter Two