Page 84 of Dangerous Passion

Ten million dollars, slipping through his fingers. Rutskoi could feel it, like sand. His only hope was to rattle Drake, somehow scare him into making a mistake.

He leaned forward into the screen, staring into the tiny camera on the cover. “You got away this time, Drake,” he growled, “but I’ll get you eventually. You and that bitch with you. You can count on it.” He slapped his Glock for emphasis.

Drake didn’t reply, pulling out a cellphone. He punched in a number.

Who the fuck was he calling?

Something started beeping. A big metal box on a counter. With—Christ!—a small LED display, counting down. 10, 9, 8, 7…

Rutskoi leaped, slapped the laptop off the table.

6, 5, 4, 3…

“Drake,” he screamed. “Son of a bitch! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do!”

“I think not, Rutskoi,” Drake replied softly.

Rutskoi’s world exploded in a fiery ball of white heat.

The sounds of the explosion carried to the city center of Rome.

Epilogue

Sivuatu, Oceania

One year later

His charge slipped into the back seat of the black Mercedes 500 S class and smiled at him. Jim Stanley smiled back into the rear view mirror and ignited the powerful engine.

“Take me home, Jim,” Victoria Rabat said, “as quickly as possible.” Then she looked out the smoked side window and smiled secretly.

Jim knew what the smile was for. He’d have to be blind not to notice the discreet bronze plaque by the side of the plate-glass door of the doctor’s office she’d just visited.Dr. Rajav Singh, Gynocologist-Obstetrician.

Jim put the car in motion. It rolled smoothly, testimony to superb German engineering, because it was steel-plated and weighed over ten tons. He didn’t hurry, though his employer had urged him to. If anything, now that Jim suspected she was pregnant, he drove as if carrying a loadof eggs, because hisrealboss, Manuel Rabat, would have his hide if she arrived with even a scratch on her.

Jim had been ostensibly hired as a driver, but it had been made veryveryclear to him that he was being paid five times the going rate to be the missus’ bodyguard, not just her driver. It had been also been made very very clear that if anything happened to Mrs. Rabat, his ass was grass.

At first, the salary and the fact that his employer—who was no one’s fool—had never once mentioned his dishonorable discharge from the US Army, something that had been the big job-killer up to now, seemed too good to be true.

Jim had been a Ranger and a damned good one, too, until he’d broken the jaw of a candy-ass Colonel who’d ordered his team on a suicide mission. Jim had lost two of his best friends, his temper and then his future.

But Manual Rabat hadn’t mentioned it once. He’d given Jim three tests. First, he’d taken him down into the second sub-level underneath the enormous home built on a cliff, inaccessible from three sides, accessible on the land side only by one gate that was manned 24/7 by three guards.

The entire sub-basement was a state-of-the-art gym, the best-equipped Jim had ever seen. And Rabat used it often, too, as was visible when he stripped to put on his gi. There was a gi for Jim, too and it was clear that he was expected to show his prowess as a fighter.

Fuck, yeah. Jim had been trained in hand to hand combat by the best. His only problem was going to be not breaking his prospective employer’s arms.

Fifteen sweaty, exhausting minutes later, Jim was on the mat, immobilized. Rabat released him and sprang up, sweating but otherwise unruffled. Jim realized he’d gone three rounds with a world-class fighter and that hewas lucky they weren’t enemies, because he’d have been dead.

Drake knew all the martial arts moves Jim knew, and some he didn’t. Clearly, Rabat had been trained in the Russian art of Sambo, and he was an adept of Savate. When he stripped to shower, Jim could see the thickened shin bones that came from thousands and thousands of hours of kicking either sand-filled bags or ass. He suspected the latter.

When they were dressed, Rabat had congratulated him. It was the first time anyone had lasted fifteen minutes with him.

He’d passed the first test.

The second came five minutes later, on a mile-long shooting range, where Jim was tested on handguns, machine guns and rifles, at varying distances. Well, at least he got that right. With each weapon, at each distance, he was able to put ten rounds in a nickel. Something told him, however, that Rabat could place them in a dime.

The third test was on a race track, where he was put through a grueling series of tests. A bootlegger’s turn at 80 mph, evasive driving and combat driving.

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