Femme Fatale Read Online Free PDF Page A

warmers that only accented her length of leg.
    And maybe even the theater in her background to make that look of want in her eyes believable enough to put him off guard. A split second of off guard…
    Remember what happened next, bloke. Don’t let it happen again.
    Besides, he’d had enough of the fiery creative types in his life. The impulsive types and their impulsive decisions, living so far outside the rules that they forgot rules were made for a reason. They took their own paths…and they’d rip a bloke’s heart out along the way.
    Jason’s eyes snapped open, his priorities in line, his goals reassessed. Find this woman and get whatever information had come from Lyeta Denisov. Then Egorov would go down, and Jason would put this encounter behind.
     
    “You look knackered, Stellar.” Bear, Jason’s home contact and technical wizard, made the observation with annoying good cheer.
    Jason gave his laptop—currently in video-phone mode—a wry look. “A gentleman wouldn’t mention it,” he said in his starchiest tone, and only got a grin for his troubles. He’d made several unplanned stops on the way back to his hotel in Cape Town proper, a fact that had not improved his mood a whit even though he’d taken the chance to wash up and brew himself a quick cuppa before sitting down at the hotel room desk. “Just let me know if you have an ID on her.”
    “She’s a big zed,” Bear offered, in the least technical of terms. He poked the pointed end of a pencil into his bushy head of grizzled hair—the reason, beyond his given name of Theodore, that his call-name was Bear. Within the view screen behind him, the wall was absolutely blank, although personal observation told Jason that the other three walls were entirely covered with notes and printouts. Bear stuck the pencil behind his ear. “Care to explain exactly what happened down there? Aside from the fact that you went arse over elbow?”
    From Bear’s point of view, down there was a literal term. He’d snagged satellite access of Cape Town, and although it had its limits, at times it could be a godsend.
    “Figure it out for yourself,” Jason said shortly. He’d already reported the crucial bits, merely confirming and elucidating upon what Bear had witnessed for himself. He leaned against the straight wooden back of the hotel desk chair, angling the laptop to suit. “What have you heard on your end?”
    “Our Mystery Lady left a goody behind, up in a little nest.”
    The crane. He’d seen the woman glance up at the crane as she bent over Denisov’s dying form. He’d even meant to check it out once he had the situation contained.
    So much for intentions.
    “A nice M24 SWS,” Bear said. He groped to his right without looking and his hand returned laden with a cup of tea. “A tad close in for that weapon, but I guess if you want to be sure you get the job done…”
    “It had to be close,” Jason mused. “It wasn’t just a takedown, it was a retrieval.” Or else the woman would simply have disappeared without risking exposure next to the body. Jason never would have seen her at all. “The locals have that?”
    Bear glanced at another computer screen and shook his head. “Doubt it even occurred to them to look,” he said. “All of their witnesses saw you and our Mystery Lady tussling and little else. Looks like you’re the victim of reverse discrimination, mate. They’re assuming it was you, and that the women were together. Soon enough they’ll realize that bullet in Denisov didn’t come from a handgun, but that’s only if we don’t manage to make her body disappear in time.”
    Jason waved a vague hand of dismissal. They’d take care of the body, just as they’d managed to get a cleanup team in behind him to find the sniper rifle—normally a job he’d have handled, if he hadn’t already been compromised.
    Though he couldn’t help but wonder why she’d left the weapon in the first place.
    He scrubbed his hands over his face and