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Which meant it was probably Indy’s crooked CIA contact who wanted her dead ASAP.
Probably, but not definitely.
There was one other possibility.
CIA Director Martin Kaiser himself.
Yeah, Kaiser might want Indy dead too.
Made sense, in a way. Kaiser had been CIA Director for over a decade, and surely there were others gunning for his position, other CIA bigshots who were hungry for the top spot, looking for any reason to take Kaiser down.
And a traitor in the ranks of Kaiser’s CIA would look pretty damn bad for the Director.
So yeah, Kaiser also had a motive to want Indy taken out quiet and quick.
After all, didn’t Moses use the words “clean this up” earlier, like he’d already guessed this was a simple hit and nothing more?
“You are Moses, yes?” asked the sweatier of the two men, a bull-necked monster with three-day-old grizzle thick like burrs on his broad face.
Ice grunted and gestured with his head for them to enter. He waited till they walked past the threshold, then Ice glanced out the open door towards the front of the building.
There was a well-maintained motorbike parked alongside Ice’s Jeep. A Royal Enfield, 1000cc, four-stroke engine. It would sound like thunder, roar like a lion, eat the road like a hog. Ice hadn’t heard it pull in over the incessant drone of cars and trucks along the main road, the constant cacophony of horns and hoots, curses from drivers mixing with calls from street vendors.
“Where is the woman?” said the second guy, jowly and frog-faced with killer’s eyes that darted around the room, settled momentarily on the closed bathroom door, then flicked back to Ice.
Ice shrugged as he closed the front door and locked it from the inside, just in case there was another guy outside that he’d missed. This was already getting a bit crowded, and it had been a couple of years since Ice had been in combat.
Of course, he was in the best shape of his damn life after two years hitting the West Point gym, not to mention competing against Jack in their garage gym back at the house. Constant combat training with the other instructors at West Point followed by long hard runs through the woods of upstate New York had made Ice lean like a machine, cut like a sculpture, readier than maybe he’d ever been for battle.
But there was also something else that made Ice’s battle instincts flare in a dangerous, deadly way.
Something raw and primal that made his fists clench, made his eyes glint.
Heated him up with a kind of fire that was unfamiliar, like something new was burning in Ice’s heart, something fresh bubbling through his blood.
A fire that had something to do with Indy O’Donnell.
Like that woman was his responsibility.
Like she was his mission.
His to break, of course.
But not yet.
Not right now.
Because right now, she was his to protect.
“She isn’t here yet,” Ice grunted. “Sit down. Have a smoke. She’ll be here soon.”
The bull-necked guy patted his shirt pocket where Ice had seen the bulge of a cigarette pack. Bull-neck dragged one of the metal chairs away from the table and sat his weight down on it. He drew out a cigarette from his pack, lit it with a match, inhaled deep, puffed out hard.
Bull-neck was chilling now, but Frog-face was still on his feet, those killer’s eyes still darting around the room, shooting sharp glances at the bathroom door, then back at Ice.
Ice had put Indy’s Glock back into his cargo flap before opening the door for these goons. He’d left the cargo flap open, and now his arm dangled lazily down along his side, fingers grazing the open flap. He could draw and fire in less than a second, hit his mark dead center. But two guys made it tricky, especially when one of them was already suspicious.
“Voh andar ho sakatee hai,” murmured Frog-face to his buddy, speaking what Ice figured was Hindi. “Dekh lo.”