Flashpoint Read Online Free PDF Page B

recruit.
    She took forty-five seconds to type up a letter, another ten to print it out.
    Brian was already in his office, door closed, hiding from her. His administrative assistant, Carol, tried to intercept, but Tess wasn’t about to be stopped. Unlike Brian, she needed to deliver this message face-to-face.
    She knocked and opened the door without waiting for his go-ahead. He was on the phone, and he looked up at her, the surprise on his broad face morphing instantly into recognition and guilt.
    Yeah, he should feel guilty—making promises that he had no intention of keeping.
    “Hang on, Milt,” he said into the phone, then put his hand over the receiver. “Bailey. You’re upset. Of course. Why don’t you take the day off?” He glanced toward the door, where his assistant was hovering. “Carol, will you check my schedule for this week and see when I have a spare twenty minutes to sit down and talk to Tess?”
    Twenty minutes. This was her life, and he was going to give her twenty minutes of “Try again in six months” later in the week—when she knew for damn sure that right now he and Milton Heinrik were discussing nothing more important than a trade in their fantasy baseball league.
    “I quit,” she said. She handed it to him in writing, too, and walked out the door.
    K AZABEK , K AZBEKISTAN
    Kazbekistani warlord Padsha Bashir had a firm grasp of the English language. He’d honed his language skills while attending college in the States. It seemed almost ludicrous that one of the most feared warlords in this country was an alum of Boston University; a member of the class of ’82.
    Sophia stood impassively as the other women prepared her for this morning’s encounter, dressing her in a gown of sheerest gauze, brushing out the tangled knot of her just-washed hair. She didn’t bother to resist the dabs of perfume placed between her breasts and along her throat. She was saving her strength for the nightmare that was coming.
    The gown was cool against her skin. It was not an unpleasant sensation.
    Somehow that and the fact that the sun was up and streaming in through the palace windows made this seem even more surreal, and that much harder to bear.
    But terrible things could happen in the sunlight. It had been a sunny morning, too, on that day when—
    Sophia opened her eyes to escape the memory of Dimitri’s head rolling across the ornately tiled palace floor—or at least to try to escape the grisly image for a while.
    If she survived this coming day, she’d surely see the gruesome sight of Dimitri’s mouth open in a silent scream the moment she fell asleep. It was a nightmare image she would remember forever, even if she lived to be a hundred and ten.
    What had the floor, the room, looked like to Dimitri? Had he seen her in those last few seconds of his life as she gasped with horror?
    Death by beheading came fast, but did it come fast enough?
    Sophia couldn’t stop thinking about it.
    And little wonder, since every time she came face-to-face with Bashir, he had that very same deadly sharp sword close at hand.
    He placed it on the table near his bed, and, when she was led into the room, he would never fail to demonstrate to her just how sharp it still was.
    His message was clear. If she failed to please him—this bastard who’d killed her husband—her head would be next to roll across the floor.
    Two of the women moved the mirror closer so Sophia could see herself—as if she cared.
    They’d dressed her in white again. With her blond hair and fair skin, in that nearly transparent gown, she looked like some kind of MTV version of a virgin sacrifice.
    Virgin, hah. The truth was that Bashir liked women dressed in white because it contrasted with the red of their blood.
    Sophia didn’t know if she would still be alive an hour from now. All she knew for sure was that she was going to bleed.
    C ASA C ARMELITA , E NSENADA , M EXICO
    Tess Bailey was back in his bed.
    Although
back
wasn’t quite correct,