Sandstorm

1:01 P.M.

CASSANDRA WAITEDuntil the museum curator had left and the door had been closed. She kicked a palm-frond-woven wastepaper basket across the room, scattering its contents across the plank floor. A Pepsi can rattled and rolled to a stop by the sofa. Fucking bitch…

She had to restrain herself from further outbursts, bottling back her anger. The woman had seemed broken. Cassandra had never imagined her to be so cunning there at the end. She had seen the shift in the other’s eyes, a glacial slide of power from her over to her prisoner. She had been unable to stop it. How had that happened?

She clenched her hands into fists, then forced her fingers to relax and shook her arms. “Bitch…” she mumbled to the room. But at least the prisoner was going to cooperate. It was a victory with which she would have to be satisfied. The Minister would be pleased.

Still, bile churned in her stomach, keeping her mood sour. The curator had more strength in her than Cassandra had imagined. She began to understand Painter’s interest in the woman.

Painter…

Cassandra heaved out a perturbed sigh. His body had never been found. It left her feeling unmoored. If only-

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. John Kane pushed inside before she could even turn. Irritation flashed at his blatant invasion of her privacy, his lack of respect.

“Lunch was brought up to the prisoner,” he said. “She’ll be ready at fourteen hundred.”

Cassandra crossed to the table of electronic gear. “How did the subdermal function?”

“Registering perfectly. A good, strong tracking signal.”

Last night, after the prisoner had been drugged, they had implanted a subdermal microtransceiver between her shoulder blades. The same device Cassandra was supposed to have implanted on Zhang back in the States. Cassandra found it especially gratifying to use Painter’s own design in this matter. The microtransceiver would act as an electronic leash on the prisoner when they were on the streets. They would be able to track the curator for a ten-mile radius. Any attempt at escape would be quashed.

“Very good,” she said. “See that your men are all ready.”

“They are.” Kane bristled at her command, but his neck was also on the line if this mission failed.

“Any word from local authorities about the ship’s explosion last night?”

“CNN is blaming it on unknown terrorists.” He snorted at this last.

“What about survivors? Bodies?”

“Definitely no survivors. Salvage is just beginning to determine cause and body count.”

She nodded. “Okay, get your men ready. You’re dismissed.”

Rolling his eyes a bit, he swung away and left the room, pushing the door behind him, but he didn’t close it completely. She had to cross over and shove it the rest of the way. The latch clicked.

Just keep needling, Kane…payback’s a bitch.

Sighing her frustration, she moved back to the sofa. She sat down, on the edge. No survivors. She pictured Painter, remembering the first time he had succumbed to her subtle advances, her carefully orchestrated seduction. Their first kiss. He had tasted sweet, of the wine they’d had at dinner. His arms around her. His lips…his hands slowly sliding up the curve of her hip.

She touched herself where his palm had come to a rest and leaned back into the sofa, less resolved than a moment ago. She felt more anger than satisfaction after the night’s mission. More edgy. And she knew why. Until she saw Painter’s drowned corpse, his name on the list of the dead dragged from the sea, she would never know with certainty.

Her hand moved down along her hip, remembering. Could things have turned out differently between them? She closed her eyes, fingers clenching on her belly, hating herself for even pondering the possibility.

Damn you, Painter…

No matter what she might fantasize, it would’ve ended badly. That’s what the past had taught her. First her father…sneaking into her bed at night, starting when she was eleven, high on crack, promising, threatening. Cassandra had retreated to books, erecting a wall between her and the world. In books, she learned how potassium stops the heart. Undetectable. On her seventeenth birthday, her father was found dead in his La-Z-Boy. No one paid attention to one needle puncture among the others. Her mother suspected and feared her.

With no reason to stay at home, she joined the army at eighteen, finding pleasure in hardening herself, testing herself. Then the offer, to enter a Special Forces marksman program. It was an honor, but not everyone thought of it that way. At Fort Bragg, an enlisted man pushed her into an alley, intending to correct her. He held her down, ripped open her shirt. “Who’s your daddy now, bitch?” A mistake. Both the man’s legs were broken. They were never able to repair his genitalia. She was allowed to leave the service as long as she kept her mouth shut.

She was good at secrets.

Afterward, Sigma came calling, and the Guild. It became all about power. Another way to harden herself. She had accepted.

Then Painter…his smile, his calm…

Pain flowed into her. Dead or alive?

She had to know. While she knew better than to make any assumptions, she could make contingency arrangements. She shoved off the sofa and stalked to the equipment table. The laptop was open. She checked the feed from the microtransceiver planted on the prisoner and clicked the GPS mapping feature. A three-dimensional grid appeared. The tracking device, depicted by a rotating blue ring, showed her in her cell.

If Painter was out there, he’d come for her.

She stared at the screen. Her prisoner might think she had gained an upper hand earlier, but Cassandra took the longer view.

She had modified Painter’s subdermal transceiver, paired it with one designed by the Guild. It required amplifying the power cell, but once this was done, the modifications allowed Cassandra at any time to ignite an embedded pellet of C4, to take out the woman’s spine, killing her with a keystroke.

So if Painter was still out there, let him come.

She was ready to end all uncertainty.