is breeding and background came clearly through.
“I know your reputation, so I am not surprised you managed to discover who I am. However, I only know you as the Fox. Give me your real name. For fifty million dollars, I am owed at least that.”
The Devil smiled from the Fox’s beautiful face, and that cold, cold smile froze his blood.
“You are owed nothing but your prize, lion cub. Or should I call you the Lion now? Your father’s untimely death places you in control. Will you be as interesting as your father, lion cub? Will you show yourself cunning and ripe, ready for plunder?”
She fell silent for a moment, assessing him yet again, then dismissed him with a nod, and he knew to his gut she didn’t fear him, not at all. But if she failed in this, she would regret her mistake. He would kill her himself.
His voice rose. “If you’re going to work for me, you’ll do as I say. Now tell me your name.”
He would swear she looked into his very soul then and found him wanting. Quiet and calm, she said, “Be patient and you will be rewarded.”
He wouldn’t allow this, not from a criminal who believed herself above him, above the Lion. She would heed this demand. He caught her arm and drew her near.
Her voice was perfectly pleasant. “Let go of me this instant.”
He squeezed her arm, hard. He wasn’t going to let her believe he was of little or no account except for his huge riches. She needed to understand who he was, what he was, what he could do to her. He was the Lion now, and what he wanted he got.
“Your real name,” he said. “I insist.”
The patrons were beginning to notice their standoff. Saleem knew the last thing she’d want was to be remembered, so he was pleased when she smiled and leaned in close as if she were kissing him good-bye. She whispered in his ear as she stroked her palm across his neck, and he dropped her arm with a gasp.
With an ice-cold smile, she said, “Do not look for me, Saleem Singh Lanighan. I will find you.”
She walked away. He felt the other men’s eyes follow her every step through the lounge. Then she was gone, disappeared out to the street into the Paris night.
Saleem sat back down and pressed his napkin to the side of his neck against the sting. He didn’t know where she’d had the knife hidden, but she’d managed to bring it to his throat without anyone noticing. He felt the thin gash throb, and with it, he tasted fear, fear of the Devil.
She’d left him with three words, words that would settle in his belly and sigh in his brain for months to come. He realized he’d heard the name before, not from his father, but from other men, whispered in the darkest corners, but he’d never realized, never known, and now he was left to wonder how long he would feel her cold lips trailing down his throat, following the thin stream of blood as she whispered her name.
“I am Kitsune.”
1
London
Present
Thursday, before dawn
Nicholas Drummond lived for these moments. His shoulders were relaxed, his hands loose, warm, and ready inside thin leather gloves. He could feel his heart beat a slow, steady cadence, feel the adrenaline shooting so high he could fly. His breath puffed white in the frigid morning air, not unexpected on an early January morning in London. There was nothing like a hostage situation to get one’s blood pumping, and he was ready.
He took in the scene as he’d been trained to do, complemented by years of experience: shooters positioned on the roofs in a three-block triangular radius, sirens wailing behind shouts and screams, and a single semiautomatic weapon bursting out an occasional staccato drumbeat. The streets were shut down in all directions. A helicopter’s rotors whumped overhead. His team was lined up behind him, waiting for the go signal.
His suspect was thirty yards away, tucked out of sight, ten feet from the left of the entrance to the Victoria Street Underground, and not shy about letting them know his position. He’d been told the guy was a nutter—not a surprise, given he’d been wild-eyed in his demands for money from a second-rate kiosk at dawn. Instead of making a run for it, he’d grabbed a woman and was now holed up, shooting away. Where he had found a semiautomatic weapon, plus enough ammunition to take out Khartoum, Nicholas didn’t know. He didn’t care about the answer, only wanted this to end peaceably.
At least the hostage hadn’t been killed yet. She was a middle-aged woman, now lying on her side maybe six feet from the shooter, trussed up with duct tape. They could see her face, leached of color and terrified. He could imagine her screams of terror if her mouth weren’t taped.
No, she wasn’t dead. Yet. Which presented a problem—one wrong move and a bullet would go into her head.
Nicholas glanced over his shoulder at his second, Detective Inspector Gareth Scott, tucked against the curb, his expression edgy, a flash of excitement in his eyes. He clutched his Heckler & Koch MP5 against his chest. His Glock 17 was in its shoulder holster.
The suspect stopped firing his weapon, and there was sudden blessed silence. Nicholas didn’t think the guy had run out of bullets. Had the gun jammed? They should be so lucky. What was he thinking? Planning?
Nicholas dropped down beside Gareth. “We have ourselves a crazy. Brief me on the rest.”
“We have a photo, taken from the eastern rooftop. It’s blurred, but Facial Recognition did their magic. The guy’s name is Esposito, out of prison only a month. I guess he woke up real early and decided he needed some excitement in his life and went on this little rampage.”