Ultimate Weapon Read Free

another thing that he could not afford.
    “So what?” Val countered.
    “It’s two weeks since you located her. The fat cats are breathing down my neck. Stop sitting on this thing like a fucking hen. Have you got the kid yet?”
    Val’s jaw tensed. “That is not the correct approach.”
    “It’s quick,” Hegel said. “We need results.”
    Val was silent for a moment. “I cannot be sure that she even cares enough about the child for her to be an effective lever,” he said. “I’d prefer to try a subtler approach first.”
    “Subtle. Hah.” Hegel made a doglike growling sound. “Come on, Janos. One of Daddy Novak’s ex-thugs should be more professional. What is your brilliant alternative plan? Knock her on the head and put her in a box? That works for me, as long as you do it soon.”
    Val clenched his jaw. Three steps back. Hegel loved waving Val’s old connection to Novak’s organization in his face, but it could only irritate him if he allowed it to. “I’m working on it,” he said finally.
    “Hmmph. Work harder, Janos. I hope you’re not having an attack of scruples about the kid. That was what fucked up your performance last time. Patience is growing thin up here. Damn, I should have called Henry for this job. He would have been done and gone by now.”
    Val was stonily silent. Hegel liked to sow discord, believing that a situation that he had destabilized himself was more easily controlled. But Hegel could not control him. He could have him killed, yes, perhaps. But he could not control him.
    Nor could he interfere with Val’s bond with his closest friend and fellow operative, Henry Berne. In fact, Henry might well be his only friend. The person known as Val Janos had “friends,” but none of them knew about his double life. Only PSS staff knew, and of them, only Henry could be counted as a friend.
    One friend, in all the world, unless he counted Imre. But Imre was in a category all his own.
    “This job is your ticket to retirement,” Hegel ground out. “Do not fuck it up, Janos. I am tired of your superior attitude. I would love to see the ass end of you head off into the sunset, because the alternative would be stressful and bloody. And my personal responsibility since I was the dick who recruited you. Think about that.” Hegel hung up.
    Val pulled off the earpiece. It flew across the room and hit the wall before he could even try to grasp for his elusive, detached calm again.
    God. Twelve years of sweating blood and taking bullets for those ungrateful bastards, and still they waved their fucking threats at him.
    Scruples. Another thing he could not afford. His scruples had been a problem for most of his life. Ironic, considering the career destiny had in store for him. Imre’s influence, no doubt. He could hear in his mind’s ear exactly what Imre would have had to say about that, but he blocked the lecture before it could start to play in his head. He had no time or energy to spare for guilt.
    He had told Hegel that he didn’t know if Steele cared enough about the child to use her as a lever, but he had lied. No woman of her type sacrificed an hour of her life to suffer through the tedium of Mommy & Me, or spent hours rolling a ball back and forth across the grass in the park except out of love. She cared, intensely.
    From the point of view of expediency, it was difficult to justify not doing what Hegel had urged. Take the child, and start negotiations.
    But he disliked hurting children. Kidnapping that child would hurt her. It would hurt any child. Particularly a small, wounded one.
    That child was wounded. He knew her story, he’d seen her files, read her charts. He would not be the one to inflict the next blow in an endless series of blows. To say nothing of the practical logistics of caring for a small child with medical problems. He would need a team. It would be chaotic, complicated, messy. A state of affairs he took pains to avoid.
    In the course of his career, he’d managed