Shock Warning

Shock Warning by Michael Walsh

Book: Shock Warning by Michael Walsh Read Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Walsh
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Skorzeny from his window perch.
    “He’s gone to ground, sir,” she responded, quietly.
    That got his attention. The old anger flashed. At what age did the fires finally tamp down and die? Did the seven deadly sins, particularly lust and greed, finally fade to memory? Perhaps only when they faded to black.
    “What do you mean, Miss Harrington, ‘gone to ground’?” he barked. “There is not my equal on this planet, as you well know, and this bastard surely cannot elude my holy wrath, no matter how fiendish his cleverness.”
    Skorzeny turned his attention back out the window, looking south, watching the ships on their stately progress toward Bandar Anzali in Iran, or one of the Islamic Republic’s other port cities. That was where she would be headed soon, drugged, bound, gagged, a piece of baggage being delivered in the custody of Miss Harrington to her new, er, interlocutors, her last words already written and posted to Washington. From Bandar Anzali, he knew, it was but a short ride into Tehran, through Rasht and Qazvin and then along Highway One to the capital, and Doom.
    Before she could open her mouth, she became aware that he had switched something on—a dirge she recognized at once. Thank God, it wasn’t the Metamorphosen by Strauss, which he had forced her to listen to as he’d poisoned her with the fugu fish toxin back in France. No, not Strauss. Instead, it was the funeral march from Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony.
    Skorzeny could feel the vipress’s eyes on him, her thoughts boring into him. But hatred and love were two sides of the same coin, one the obverse of the other; as long as strong emotion was involved, all was right with the world. If Amanda hated him now, it was of no consequence. That hate could easily turn back to the love she had once bestowed upon him. All it would take was continued proximity.
    Besides, it was a challenge, and there was nothing Emanuel Skorzeny loved more in this life than a challenge. Especially one involving a woman.
    “Gone to ground? Impossible.”
    How he had wanted to kill Maryam himself, and how it had pained him to have to let her go—not only for monetary reasons, for the price on her head was quite high, but for geopolitical reasons as well. The Iranians were still not quite sure whether to trust him, not after what had happened to their operative Kohanloo on the East River in New York. On the other hand, they were all in this together now, and they needed him far more than he needed them. So off-loading the devil’s mistress had been a business decision.
    “Gone to ground, Mr. Skorzeny,” repeated Amanda. “Vanished. We have put out every feeler we can, even upped our payments to certain political columnists well-fed on the Georgetown party circuit, men and women who can hold their liquor when all around them are losing theirs. Nothing.” She waited a beat. “Perhaps he’s dead, sir.”
    Her observation had the desired effect. Skorzeny suddenly exploded in rage and anger.
    “Dead!” he shouted. “Impossible. Impossible! I cannot, I will not let some Fort Meade bureaucrat cheat me out of what is rightfully mine!” He was nearly apoplectic.
    “M. Skorzeny— si’l vous plaît ,” said Mlle. Derrida, barely looking up from some French fashion magazine she was reading. Mlle. Derrida was very fond of French fashion magazines, mostly because she was very fond of French fashion models. In fact, with her slender body, long legs and cascading hair, she rather looked like one. “Your health.”
    Skorzeny took a breath and started to calm. “What I mean to say is, it is not possible that he has been terminated. I would know it—perhaps not in my head but in my heart.”
    Miss Harrington let out an involuntary laugh, which she quickly covered with a cough. If this creature had a heart it would have to be donated to science upon his death as a perfectly preserved example of a nonfunctioning organ that had somehow managed to keep its host alive for

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