An Uncommon Honeymoon Read online

  The thing was, the stakes were incredibly high and she didn’t want to blow it. They wanted to bust Borovsky before he could reestablish his Saint Petersburg ring.

  Quinn pictured the faces of all the children who had been trapped in that terrible life. Her resolve steeled, she picked up the phone. She tapped the numbers on the screen and put the phone to her ear. As she listened to the ring tone, she locked eyes with James sitting on the edge of his armchair. His steady gaze and encouraging nod imbued her with confidence.

  The moment she heard a voice at the other end of the line, she became Victoria Chamberlain.

  “Hello. I’m trying to reach Mr. Ivan Ovechkin.” She lowered the register of her voice a touch, making it warmer. Richer. Smoother. “I was told I could reach him at this number.” Her words were refined and unhurried.

  “Who is this?” The man’s voice snapped with annoyance.

  “Oh, good. You speak English.” She released a relieved, throaty chuckle. “My Russian is abysmal.”

  “Who is this?” He was growing more aggravated with each passing second.

  “Forgive me. Where are my manners? My name is Victoria Chamberlain. I have an item for sale I believe Mr. Konstantin Borovsky is interested in purchasing. I was told Mr. Ovechkin could relay a message to him on my behalf.” She paused and waited for him to confirm his identity. When the silence dragged on, she said, “Am I speaking with Mr. Ovechkin?”

  “What is this item?”

  Whomever she spoke with was trying to keep the upper hand.

  Allowing real irritation seep through, Quinn said, “I’m not going to have the same conversation with every lackey on the food chain. Either I speak with Mr. Ovechkin right now, or you get to explain to Mr. Borovsky how you let the chance to purchase sole control of a newly developed drug slip through your fingers because you were too busy playing games.” She let her verbal barrage hang between them before adding a caustic, “Good luck with that.”

  “I am Ivan Ovechkin.” He still sounded grumpy, but the interest that had crept into his voice was unmistakable.

  Her tone turned silky again. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Channeling her inner Victoria, Quinn crossed one leg over the other and continued. “The drug was developed by Dr. Dieter Ziegler. I believe Mr. Borovsky was at one time one of the parties interested in purchasing it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Let’s not start that again,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not going to play this idiotic cat-and-mouse game with you. Good-bye, Mr.—”

  “Wait,” he said with a panicked edge in his tone. “A mind-control drug?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Borovsky is interested.”

  “Good. When can I meet with him?”

  “It is not so simple. I must have proof drug works.”

  “That’s fair. I can send you a video of Ziegler’s own tests.”

  “No. That will not prove what you say you have is real drug.”

  “Are you accusing me of trying to sell you a fake?”

  “No. But I will not waste Mr. Borovsky’s time if it does not work as promised.” Real fear colored his words when he added, “That would be bad for me.”

  They had prepared for this scenario. “I see your point. I already have appointments to meet with several other potential buyers over the course of the next week. After that, I know I’ll be exhausted from all that traveling, so I’ll be going on holiday in Monaco.”

  Maritime authorities had tracked Perun’s Chariot to the Mediterranean. Monaco was a magnet for super yachts like Borovsky’s. The belief was he would be willing to go there since he could hide in plain sight.

  “I adore sunbathing at their topless beaches,” she purred. “No tan lines.”

  Her eyes landed on James, who gaped at her. From the sharp intake of air she heard on the phone, she imagined Ovechkin to be similarly slack-jawed. She shot James a wink. It was just too easy.

  “Perhaps you can meet me there?” After a brief pause, as if consulting her calendar, Quinn said, “I can see you a week from Friday.”

  “That is acceptable.”

  “Wonderful,” she cooed. “I’ll be in touch regarding the exact when and where. Ciao.”

  She touched the screen and tossed the phone on the cushion. Relief and excitement rippled through her.

  “Nicely done,” James said.

  “Thank you.” She rose from the sofa, moved to his lap, and slipped an arm behind his shoulders. “How’s your French?”

  “Language? Passable. Kiss? You tell me.” He threaded his fingers into her hair and drew her into a deep, open-mouthed kiss that left her twitchy and throbbing.

  “I’m not sure.” Their breaths mingled as she gazed into his eyes and rubbed his nose with hers. “I’m gonna need a lot more data. You know. For science.”

  His lips curled up in a tiny smile. “If you insist,” he said and gave her a kiss that dissolved her bones. “You know. For science.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Quinn stood on the balcony of their opulent suite at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo and looked out at the bright, white yachts dotting the Mediterranean. Some cruised the water, leaving a wake of white foam behind them. Others were anchored and unmoving, like gleaming pearls scattered across a pillow of blue velvet.

  Various intelligence sources confirmed one of the yachts crowding the coast of Monaco was Perun’s Chariot. And although those same sources couldn’t definitively confirm Borovsky was on board, she knew he was. She could feel it.

  James stepped out onto the veranda and stood next to her. “Ovechkin will be here in a few minutes.”

  A ball of nerves and excitement knotted in her chest. She turned and looked at his profile, his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. His jaw and cheeks were covered with stubble. The several days of growth gave him a rougher edge, commensurate with his role as Cade Burton, Victoria Chamberlain’s bodyguard and right-hand man. “Darius and Sydney are in position?”

  “Mm-hmm. Sydney has the fake Zieglopam ready to go. And Darius is down the hall with his room service cart.”

  “Good.” She patted the French twist at the back of her head. “And I look okay?”

  His gaze lingered over her white formfitting blouse, black pencil skirt, and black high heels. “You look great. Just the right balance of professional, polished, and sexy.” His tone turned snooty. “Very Victoria Chamberlain.”

  “Victoria thanks you ever so much,” she said, mimicking him.

  James held his arms out to the side. “How about me?”

  She cast a critical eye over his shiny blue suit and open-collared shirt. “Mostly hit man with a little lounge singer thrown in for good measure.”

  “So perfect for Cade the bodyguard.”

  “Absolutely. But if that suit ever shows up in James Anderson’s closet, his wife will promptly remove it and kill it with fire.”

  His smile was lopsided. “Noted.”

  They turned and went inside. “Hey, Sydney,” Quinn said, leaving the door open to allow the warm sea air fill the room. “James says you’re all set.”

  Sydney futzed with the vials and hypodermic needles on the table, adjusting them until they lined up in a tidy row. She glanced over her shoulder and said, “Oh, hey, Quinn. Yeah. I’m ready.” With an embarrassed, unsure smile, she added, “I hope I don’t blow it. I don’t get out in the field very often.”

  Oddly enough, knowing someone was more nervous than she helped calm Quinn. She looked Sydney directly in the eye. “You’ll be great. You know more about Zieglopam than anyone. Just answer Ovechkin’s questions and he won’t have any other choice but to believe we’re in possession of Ziegler’s formula.”

  At the knock on the door, the tension in the room ratcheted up. Quinn watched James as he went to the door. Before her eyes, his features hardened and gaze sharpened as he morphed into Cade Burton. At the same time, she felt her back stiffen and her chin rise. She took her place at the center of the
room and clasped her hands.

  James clutched the doorknob and looked at Quinn. In his eyes, she only saw Victoria’s bodyguard silently waiting for her to signal when to open the door.

  Quinn’s nerves gave way as Victoria took over. She dipped her chin.

  James opened the door.

  Three men stood in the hallway. She assessed them instantly and came to the rapid conclusion the man in the center was Ivan Ovechkin. The two huge, beefy men of similar size and body style to Viktor and Anatoly were obviously the bodyguards.

  Quinn smiled and took two steps forward. “Mr. Ovechkin, thank you for coming. You’re welcome to have your friends join you, although I must insist they surrender their weapons to Cade until our business is concluded. I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about forcing me to give up the formula at gunpoint.”

  Ovechkin nodded at his men. He walked into the room and the bodyguards filed in behind him. They removed their pistols from the holsters at their hips and handed them to James.

  Quinn arched an eyebrow and said in a mildly scolding tone, “You too, Mr. Ovechkin.”

  He stared at her for a moment, as if testing her resolve. When she returned it without a single blink, he slid a pistol from a shoulder holster and handed it over. With a suppressor attached to the muzzle, it was the most impressive and disturbing of the lot.

  “Wonderful,” Quinn said and swept her hand toward the ornate light blue sofa. “Now, with that unpleasantness over, please have a seat.”

  While Ovechkin moved to the sofa and sat, James carried the handful of weapons to where Sydney was set up. He removed the magazines and ejected the chambered round from each pistol. Then he meticulously lined up weapons and ammunition on the table.

  “Cade, if you could call room service and tell them we’re ready for our refreshments, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  James went to the room’s telephone and picked up the receiver. As he murmured into it, Quinn perched on the edge of the sofa’s matching chair, angled her legs to one side, and crossed her ankles. Queen Elizabeth had nothing on her.

  Quinn studied Ivan Ovechkin. The man didn’t look like a Russia mafia lieutenant. His sandy blond hair was parted on one side, cut shorter on the sides and a little longer on the top. His features were boyish, but the telltale squint lines radiating from the corners of his gray eyes suggested he was a little older than it seemed at first glance. Dressed in khaki pants, a white dress shirt, and a blue blazer, he looked like a wealthy businessman on holiday.

  Ovechkin’s eyes strayed over to Sydney and her paraphernalia. “I am ready for demonstration to begin.”

  “Of course,” Quinn said. “I’ve already secured a subject. He’ll be here momentarily.”

  “Is it real mind-control drug?”

  “Yes. When the drug is activated, the person will do anything you ask of them regardless of how distasteful, evil, or immoral they find it. There is no free will.”

  After a knock, James held the door open while Darius, dressed in the hotel’s room service livery, pushed in a cart. Arranged atop it was a bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket, accompanying crystal flutes, and a tray laden with crackers, fruits, and cheeses.

  Quinn stood and gestured toward Darius. “This is Philippe. He has agreed to be our test subject, for which he will be compensated handsomely. Isn’t that right, Philippe?”

  Darius offered her a stiff bow from the waist and murmured a deferential, “Oui, madame.”

  “Nyet,” Ovechkin barked.

  Quinn’s eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

  “How do I know he does not pretend and we pay money for drug that does not work?”

  “Because I am not a liar.” Quinn gave the Russian an icy glare.

  Unmoved by her feigned pique, he crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at her.

  Their first choice was to get through the op without having to inject anyone with the real Zieglopam. Sydney still didn’t know what the long-term effects on the brain were. But Ovechkin was forcing their hand. Fortunately, they had prepared for this exact objection.

  She wasn’t about to abdicate control of the demonstration by negotiating with Ovechkin, so she went for a position of strength. “Fine. We’ll use one of your men here.” Neither flinched. “They would never pretend the drug worked if it did not, would they?”

  Ovechkin’s glower ebbed as he contemplated her proposal.

  She held his gaze and waited with a façade of cool indifference. This was in stark contrast to her internal strain, as evinced by the drop of nervous perspiration trickling between her shoulder blades.

  “Da,” he said finally. The tension that had built whooshed from the room. Ovechkin pointed at the taller of the two thugs. “Dmitri. You will take drug.”

  James slipped Darius a tip and sent him on his way with a surreptitious nod while Sydney sprang into action.

  “Okay, Dmitri. Can I call you Dmitri?” Perspiration sprouted on Sydney’s forehead when a stone-faced Dmitri mutely stared at her. “Never mind. And don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” Her next words were muttered under her breath. “I think.” In a louder voice, she said. “If you could take off your jacket, please.”

  Dmitri did as instructed, revealing a muscular upper body reminiscent of the comic book Perun.

  Sydney put her hands on Dmitri’s arm to guide him toward the designated treatment chair. She jerked them away like she’d touched a red-hot stove. “Wow. Okay. Muscles like granite.” She stabbed a finger toward the chair. “I just need you to sit down right there. Setzen Sie sich bitte.” Wide-eyed, she looked at Quinn and said, “I only know German.”

  She gave Sydney a smile and said in a calming tone, “It’s fine, Marie.” Sydney had asked to use the cover name in honor of the two-time Nobel Prize winner Madam Curie. “I’m pretty sure he’s getting the gist of it.”

  Sydney huffed out a breath. “Ah. Okay. Good.”

  Dmitri sat and shot Sydney a dark look that said, You hurt me, I’ll kill you.

  Quinn just hoped Sydney didn’t faint dead away on the spot.

  To her credit, Sydney did not. If anything, the threat of bodily harm seemed to help her focus. She held up a thin rubber strip. “I’m going to tie this tight around your arm to get a vein in your elbow to pop. Then I’m going to inject the drug into the biggest one. It won’t feel any different than if you were having a blood test done. Verstehen Sie?” Sydney slapped a hand to her forehead and muttered, “Ah, crap. I did it again.”

  Dmitri’s lips twitched, as if fighting off a smile. “Da.” He straightened his arm, rolled it, and braced it on the chair’s armrest.

  A tattoo of Perun’s thunder mark was prominent on Dmitri’s forearm.

  Sydney snapped on a pair of latex gloves and tied the tourniquet around Dmitri’s bicep. She hunched over the exposed inner elbow and poked at it with a finger. “Wow. Your veins are like ropes. I know people who would give their right arm, no pun intended, to have—”

  Quinn cleared her throat.

  “Sorry.” Sydney cleaned the target area with an alcohol wipe and picked up the syringe filled with the green solution. Holding it up in front of Dmitri, she asked, “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Sydney removed the cover from the needle and positioned the sharp tip just above Dmitri’s skin. “Okay. Here we go.”

  Dmitri’s impassive expression never changed when Sydney jabbed the needle into his vein. The guy was a badass.

  Quinn watched Sydney depress the plunger and snap off the tourniquet. As nanoshells filled with a mind-control drug invaded Dmitri’s circulatory system, she wondered if he believed he could beat its effects. Did his nonchalance stem from the idea that his sheer size would overcome it? Their play had turned into an actual test of Zieglopam’s efficacy. If Dmitri beat the drug, they’d have to get out of Dodge. Fast.

  When the syringe was empty, Sydney removed the needle, pressed a cotton ball to the injection site, and folded Dmitri’
s arm back to hold it in place. “The next part is the trickiest,” Sydney said. She pressed the tip of her finger to a small paper square and held it up. “You have to stick this little doodad onto the SIM card in the person’s cell phone. It’s kind of like an RFID tag that transmits and receives. Ziegler was a genius at nanotechnology. The stuff he was able to get onto this tiny—”

  “Marie, if you could show Mr. Ovechkin where to put it on the phone, that would be great,” Quinn prompted. She didn’t mind having to refocus Sydney when she occasionally derailed. Because Sydney’s nerves were both genuine and appropriate, they served to lend credence to her being nothing more than a scientist, not a smooth con artist or covert operative.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  Sydney took Dmitri’s iPhone and pointed at one side edge. “See this? That’s where the SIM card lives. All you have to do is pop it out and stick the tag to it.” She poked the end of a bent paper clip into the small hole and ejected the tray holding the SIM card. She attached the tag to the card and returned it to the slot. “No one will ever know it’s there.” She handed the phone back to Dmitri and picked up her own. After a few taps on her screen, she said, “The tag just sent me Dmitri’s phone number. Isn’t that cool?” Sydney held up her phone and grinned. “There’s an app for that.”

  “Very impressive,” Quinn said. “Are we ready to proceed?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I put the app on your phone, too, so you have Dmitri’s number stored as well.”

  “Excellent. Thank you, Marie.” Quinn handed her phone to James. He took it and left the suite. “I’ve asked Cade to leave the room so as not to influence the test in any way, and to show how it works remotely.”

  Thirty seconds later, Dmitri’s phone rang. He didn’t get a chance to answer since it chimed only once.

  “Would you like some champagne while we wait?” Quinn asked Ovechkin. “Some fruit, perhaps?” She wiggled her fingers in a wave at the second bodyguard. “Something for your friend?”