Page 3 of Steinbeck (The Minnesota Kingstons #5)

Mooring lines snapped, and the growl of machinery overhead could mask a small scuffle, probably, but Boris’s hand viced her arm, the handgun still burrowed into her spine, and now Igor flanked her other side.

She was a thief, not a fighter.

So she walked and hoped, and jerked when a container landed on the wharf with a thunderous boom, and even then?—

No hero.

Another ship sat docked beside them, its shadow cool as she walked into it, the darkness momentarily blinding her?—

Now, Stein! And she even tensed in Boris’s grip, just in case.

He yanked her, hard, against himself and laughed. “They said you were a fireball.”

Firebird, hello. The name she’d left burned a trail through her throat and into her chest. Oh, she’d been too full of hope. Too?—

Gunshots.

She flinched, looked?—

A barrel rolled across the pier, a sailor chasing after it—dark hair, skinny.

Not gunshots—just her head, her heart, hoping.

A Ford Kuga sat at the end of the pier, motor running, and instead of throwing her in the back, Boris opened up the rear passenger seat. “Get in.”

No handcuffs? This she could work with.

She slid in.

Stilled.

A man sat in the opposite seat. Lean, not overbearing, he looked at her with green eyes that seemed more amused than lethal. Sharp Slavic nose, trimmed brown hair, he wore a pair of khakis and a short-sleeved seersucker shirt, a pair of white boat shoes.

Hardly the mafioso she’d expected of the man named Tomas, head of the Petrov Bratva, at least here in Europe.

“You know me,” he said quietly, and smiled.

“Of course.” Pictures, surveillance, and a file sent from Mystique, her boss at the start of her op nearly a year ago. Up close, he smelled of aftershave, as if this were a date.

“I suppose you would.” He drew in a breath. “Where is it?”

She shrugged. “I left it on Declan’s ship.” Surely he knew what ship she meant.

“Too bad said ship blew up.”

She stilled. What?

Oh —she hadn’t considered...

What if Steinbeck never got the message because he’d—and her chest squeezed—been lost at sea?

“But we’re not stupid. We know you made a copy, parked it somewhere for safety.”

Yeah, that would have been smart but, “When would I have done that? I was trapped on an island without Internet, and then on a boat that was boarded by pirates. I barely escaped. So?” She held up her hands.

He stared at her so hard she put her hands down and braced herself.

He didn’t need to know that she’d worn the drive strapped to her body in a waterproof case for most of her crazy trip.

Until she’d taken a header off a Cuban fishing boat.

Right now, the world’s most dangerous hard drive lay in the silt of the Havana harbor. So, that was nice.

“We’ll see,” he said then and motioned to the driver.

We’ll see what ? But Tomas got out and Boris slid in next to her, Igor in the front, and the locks clicked.

And still, Steinbeck didn’t show up.

They drove through the city, up the Avenida da Liberdade, past cafés and shops, through the dappled sunlight as it cast through the tall Canary Island date palms and fan palms, waiting for streetcars, and maybe she didn’t care about the gun anymore.

She tried the handle. Child locks. “Where are we going?”

Silence from her captors.

They left the city, passed small villages and patches of forest, heading toward...

Sintra. The palace city of Portugal, perched on a mountain, shot round with twisty roads and lush pine and cork oak trees.

A mist hung below the protruding towers of the tallest castle, almost a mystical protection for the kings who once resided there, like in an old-time fairy tale.

The old town nestled into the side of the mountain, locals who hawked porcelain tile, lace, and pottery and baked the delicious pastel de nata.

Her mouth nearly watered with the memory of the sweet pastry.

As they drove closer, she spotted the jutting ocher cupola and battlements of Pena Palace.

Rising out of the greenery to perch atop the mountain, a wall with proper crenelations surrounded the former monastery, and a burnt-red cathedral with a central tower rose from the compound against the fading sunlight.

Glorious, breathtaking, and... impenetrable.

They drove through the cobblestone town, the side streets too small for even a European car, and past the National Palace, a white Moorish building with two gnome-hat parapets that sat in the center square.

They pulled up behind a small building, one of the village houses embedded in the hill, and the doors unlocked.

Run. This time the urge swept her up and turned to fire in her veins, but Igor got out and opened her door and grabbed her arm, and even a well-placed kick would have netted her nothing in the narrow space.

She gave a fight nonetheless as he wrestled her out and shoved her against a plastered building. He leaned low, his cigarette breath on her neck, his words in Russian. “Stop. Or I will make you stop.”

She didn’t scare easily, but...

Then he led her up the narrow street to a door in the stone wall of the battlement. The white stone rose three stories, maybe more, and the door opened to a tunnel, the cool, musty breath eking past her, darkness beyond.

Her skin raised gooseflesh.

Boris stepped inside and flicked on a light. A wire ran across the ceiling, like some old-time mine or catacombs, and she became the dead, walking to some underground tomb. Igor pushed her from behind, not gently.

“Where—” But the stone ate her words, the chill seeping into her skin. Tiny alcoves were etched into the walls, many of them with bars, and the cold now ran all the way to her bones.

A real dungeon.

They reached a wider room, this one circular, and facing the center was a collection of cells, all scraped out from the outer ring. They each held nothing but darkness, a bucket, and a drain in the pitted stone floor.

Except for one.

A man sat in the shadow of one of the cells. He wore a dark beard, shaggy hair, didn’t even glance at her. She looked away as Boris stopped before the neighboring cell.

No.

Boris opened the door and Igor pushed her in. She stumbled and turned just as the door closed with a clang, a knell that nearly collapsed her. Dampness rose off the floor. An odor she couldn’t place permeated the walls. Despair, perhaps. “Wait?—”

Boris smiled. Igor stood at the entry. “Do svidaniya.”

Goodbye?

She rushed the cell door. “Wait—I?—”

Boris stopped. “You will wait. Until you are ready.”

“Ready for what? I don’t have the program!”

Boris walked down the tunnel and she closed her eyes.

He didn’t come.

Steinbeck hadn’t stepped out of the shadows to yank her away from her captors. Hadn’t forced his way into the car, hadn’t...

Maybe he hadn’t even gotten her message.

Because he was dead.

And if not, probably he simply didn’t care.

She stepped back, found the wall, and slid down against it, the dampness and chill of the stone seeping into her flimsy clothing.

Then the lights went out and left her in darkness.

Don’t cry.

Black Swans didn’t cry. Didn’t?—

“Took you long enough, Phoenix,” said a male voice, soft, almost gentle, a bit of laughter on the end, as if...

And her heart jolted, jump-started, exploded inside her.

“Steinbeck?”

“Who else do you think? Wanna get out of here?”