Page 21 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Eight Years Ago

An Airstrip the CIA Doesn’t Admit Exists

King

Technically, the little airstrip on the outskirts of Lisbon didn’t exist, but then again, neither did the woman who was standing

on the tarmac, waiting for King when he arrived.

White hair blew wildly around her face, and her lips were painted the same shade of red she’d worn since he was a child. For

all he knew, that was their natural color. She looked like a woman out of time, with her long trench coat belted tightly at

her waist and billowing around her legs in the wind. She looked like she might have a derringer in a thigh holster. Like there

was a German scientist she had to get over the wall, right then. She was even wearing a hat.

So King wanted to smile when he saw her. He wanted to tease her, but then he’d have to become someone who knew how to tease

and that sounded like a lot of unnecessary effort, so he just said, “Hello, Margaret.”

“Michael!” she exclaimed like she hadn’t been expecting him—like what a small world and fancy meeting you here . As if she hadn’t sent for him, specifically, and told him to meet her at this very time and place. “Come give an old woman

a hug.”

He hated when she said things like that. She wasn’t old—except she was. It was a quantifiable, objective thing. She was in

good health, yes. Youthful, even, for her age. Which was... old. And King hated the reminder. When he bent and wrapped

his arms around her, she seemed smaller than she had last year, and he hated that most of all.

“Why do I get the feeling this is a trap?” He looked around the airstrip that was little more than a bumpy stretch of asphalt. “And why am I standing here instead of being up to my eyelids in code back in London?”

“Computers.” She scoffed and waved a hand as if to say, That’s kids’ stuff . “Oh, Michael, you wound me. I wouldn’t need to trap you. Now, do you have everything you need?”

“Everything I need for what ?”

“Oh, never mind.” She waved the worry away. “I thought of everything, and your suitcase is already on board.” She motioned

to the small private jet that was idling on the far end of the tarmac.

“On board going where?” King wasn’t just skeptical. He was downright leery.

“Paradise.”

He didn’t believe her. “Why me?”

“You remember our emeralds?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. King remembered everything, and Merritt knew that better

than most. “They’ve been popping up all over the map, but most have ended up in the hands of this man.” She pulled a blurry

photograph from an interior coat pocket.

“A hard copy?” He gave her a chastising look. “You know, we have digital things now.”

“No one ever hacked my pocket,” she said, then pointed down at the picture. It was grainy in a way that suggested someone

had blown the image up from a much wider shot, so either the photographer was very bad—or the target was very good. King highly

suspected it was the latter. “Do you recognize him?”

The photo was so blurry, it was hard to tell much besides the fact that he was a generic-looking white guy between twenty-five

and forty-five. But King could be certain of one thing. “He doesn’t look familiar. Should he?”

“Unlikely.” She slipped the picture back in her pocket, then looped her arm through his and started leading him toward the

waiting jet. “He just popped up about a year ago, making deals.”

“What kind of deals?”

“Arms. Technology. Muscle-for-hire. A veritable one-stop shop for covert goods and services. We don’t know much about him—just that he is very private. Very careful. He’s not just brawn, Michael. This one has brains. We want to know what he’s selling and to whom.”

“And what, exactly, am I going to do when I get to...” He almost choked on the word. “Paradise?”

“Very little.” It was an instruction and a warning. “You’re going to get in. Drop a bug or two. And get out. That’s it. We

don’t want to spook him. This is an old-school SigInt operation. Period. Which means—”

“Signal Intelligence, yes. I’m fairly certain those were some of my first words. Right after Momma and ball and—”

“No.” Merritt’s smile was almost wistful. “Your first word was no .”

Of course it was. It would probably be his last word too. He should say it now, in fact—

“If all you need is a bug, you could send anyone. So I will ask again, Merritt my dear, why am I here?”

If he hadn’t known her so well, he might have missed the sheepish look in her eye. Like she’d been hoping he wouldn’t stop

and ask about the fine print, but he wasn’t getting on that plane until she read every word aloud.

“It doesn’t matter—”

“Anything that has you biting your lip like that matters a lot, so—”

“There’s been chatter.” The wind was cold and the clouds were dark and threatening rain, but that wasn’t why she shivered.

“Our man has been doing business with someone.”

“Sounds like he’s been doing business with a lot of someones, so why—”

“Someone named Nikolai.” Blue eyes looked into his. Piercing and icy calm. In moments like this, no one could ever mistake

Margaret Merritt for an old woman. She was more deity than flesh and blood.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Have you told—”

“No.” She shook her head. “Your father doesn’t know. And he won’t hear it from me. But he still has friends at the Agency.

Allies—and enemies. And even if he didn’t...”

King knew what she was going to say, but he didn’t want to hear it. “Nikolai doesn’t exist, Merritt, you know that.”

“I don’t know that. And neither do you.”

“Grandfather always said—”

“Your grandfather is dead, Michael. And he wasn’t all-knowing.”

“If Nikolai were real—which he isn’t—he’d be...” King trailed off and tried not to blush scarlet, but Merritt only cocked

an eyebrow.

“As old as me?” She laughed. “Oh, dear boy. The thing you need to know about old spies...” She inched closer and dropped

her voice, but it was the look in her eyes that stopped him. “We have absolutely nothing to lose.”

She was right, of course, but King didn’t want to admit it, so he just shook his head. “Someone has a sick sense of humor.”

King waited for his heart to stop pounding, but Merritt merely answered with a sigh.

“Or a good sense of history?” She tucked her hands in her pockets. “In any case, we need ears in that house, and I thought

you might like to be the one to put them there.”

This job was never like the movies. It wasn’t car chases or black-tie galas. Just well-placed bugs and scandalous secrets

that weaved across the decades like a fuse. King had spent his whole life waiting for the boom , but something in his eyes must have given him away because Merritt pulled back.

“Of course, I know this might be hard for you, and if you’d rather—”

“I’ll do it.” He had to do it.

“I tried to spare you, you know,” she admitted. “But the man owns a private compound. On an island .”

“The Agency has divers. Submarines. Probably a mermaid or two.”

“It’s a fortress, Michael.” Now she sounded like a very tired mother who just wished the little boy would run along and play and stop asking so many questions.

“We have satellite surveillance. We’ve sent up a few drones.

But, for the most part, we would be sending a team in blind, so we need to get boots on that island.

There’s only one weakness that we’ve found—one potential access point.

He only owns half the island. The other half was undeveloped until recently, but a new business just opened its doors on the far side. ”

Suddenly, King got it. Or at least part of it.

“That’s my way in?”

She nodded, a little too slowly.

“Merritt...” The word was a warning. “Why do I get the feeling you’re still hiding something?”

She gave the smirk of a woman who is always hiding something. “It’s a high-end retreat. For wealthy couples whose marriages are in trouble.”

King couldn’t help himself—he snorted. “Are you saying I’m going to be your boy-toy?” He looked down at the woman who was

like a grandmother to him—waited for her to laugh or tease.

But all she did was turn when the jet door slowly opened and a familiar blonde head peeked out from the top of the stairs

and shouted, “Hi, honey. I’m home.”