Ice Storm Read Online Free PDF

his illuminated face, and the relief was so powerful she almost felt dizzy. How could she have made such a mistake? He was nothing at all like Killian. Killian was dead, and had been for eighteen years. The only thing this man had in common with him was his height. And the fact that he was a terrorist. His eyes were dark, almost black, and Killian’s eyes had been green. His thinning black hair was liberally streaked with gray. Half his face was covered with a salt-and-pepper beard, framing a mouthful of blackened teeth. He had a paunch, a generous ring of flesh around his belly that suggested years of good living.
    “Do I look harmless enough?” he asked when she’d completed her long, shocked perusal.
“I’m not a fool, Mr. Serafin,” she said. She couldn’t afford to let her relief lower her guard. “Looks can be deceiving.”
      “Indeed,” he said. “Are you going to show yourself?”
    She stepped into the light, the 9 mm semiautomatic held tightly, trained at his chest. If she had to shoot she’d go lower or higher—the throat was efficient, the groin almost as painful. Both caused much more suffering than a bullet to the heart or the head, and if anyone deserved to suffer it was this man. There was no expression in his flat black eyes as he looked at her and the gun. “Are you going to kill me?”
    If this man had really been Killian, she would have been tempted. But she’d been wrong...plus tired and emotional and deluded. “Not until you give me reason to.”
“You mean I haven’t already? Given my activities during the last twenty years?” He was goading her, amused by her.
    She hated killing, hated it with a sick, deep passion. But when they learned everything they needed to from this miserable excuse for a human being, she was going to enjoy putting a bullet in his head.
    “Right now, you’ve got a free pass,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Are you ready to go? My Jeep is waiting, and we’d do better to travel in the dark. We’re heading down the coast highway to
Mauritania
and catching transport there.”
    “I don’t think so. They’ll he looking for me in
Western Sahara
, and I don’t trust women drivers on these roads. We’ll head east and go through
Algeria
.”
    “The border’s closed.”
    “And that creates a problem?”
    She controlled her temper. “You asked us to get you out of here and safely back to
England
. If you already made plans, then why did you bother with us?”
“I need cover. I need someone at my back, dubious as you now appear to be. And I need the resources of the Committee to get resettled in a new life. You’ve agreed to do that, much as it galls you, because of the Intel I can bring to the table. We go through the mountains into
Algeria
. I drive. And I take Mahmoud with
me.
”
    “The arrangement was for you alone, not your plaything. You’re not molesting children on my watch.”
    “What a cynic you are, Madame Lambert. I don’t like young boys. I hate to deny you one more example of my infamy, but I’m not interested in raping children.”
“What do you rape? Or is it only the soldiers you control who get to torture and murder?”
There was a long silence. “You knew who I was when you made the deal. It’s a little late to change your mind.”
    “The most dangerous man in the world,” she said, her tone mocking.
“But not, perhaps, the most evil man in the world. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t really care. I don’t have to like you. I just have to get you back to
England
. Alone.”
She felt it—the sight of a weapon trained on the back of her head. She trusted her instincts implicitly. Someone was pointing a gun at her, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot, served woman in her fifties, and there was absolutely no way he could prove otherwise.
“So, we’re agreed? We’ll take the mountain route into
Algeria
, heading toward Bechar. I drive, Mahmoud conies along, and we’re a happy little family.”
    “You