“That won’t be necessary.”
Slayn waved Inga away a second time. The big blonde hesitated for a moment, eyeing Fairchild with a mixture of jealousy and suspicion. Then she pulled Fairchild’s dress back down, turned on her heel, and marched out of the room, exiting the same wayFairchild had come in. After the door clicked shut behind her, Slayn rose from his seat and gestured toward another door at the far side of the room.
“I thought we could dine on the terrace,” he said, “under the stars.”
“How romantic.”
They were alone now. She could kill him if she wished. A swift blow to his throat would easily crush his windpipe and leave him choking on his own blood. Still, there was the matter of escaping to be considered. Fairchild would prefer not to make this into a suicide mission. If she’d been operating alone, perhaps she would have felt differently, but she had teammates to think about, and she very much wanted to see them again.
She moved in the direction Slayn had indicated, switching her hips as she walked, giving him something to look at while he followed her. She didn’t like having her enemy behind her, but there was nothing Slayn could do to her.
Unless he had a gun.
Ifhe did, andifhe tried to draw it, she would hear him and react. Her reflexes were a hundred times quicker than his own.
The next room wasn’t quite as dark as the first. Big floor-to-ceiling windows along one side let in a spill of starshine and ambient light pollution, limning the edges of luxurious furniture and the curves of erotic sculptures positioned along the walls. A glass door led outside. Fairchild moved toward it.
She was halfway there when she felt a cool weight in the pit of her stomach. It was the same sensation she’d experienced sixmonths before at the thermal plant with Dane and the others. Too easy. This was too easy.
She flipped her hair and glanced back at Slayn. He was a few paces behind, showing no signs of aggression or fear. He winked. She returned a flirty smile.
And kept walking. There was nothing else she could do.
The door slid open at her approach, and she was greeted with a breath of warm air scented with exotic flowers. She stepped outside.
The terrace was big and wide open, a seemingly egregious security hazard for a man as paranoid as Slayn. But the penthouse was the highest structure in the entire resort, making it virtually immune to snipers. A drone attack was always a possibility, but someone would have to get it through security first, and Slayn’s team was undoubtedly monitoring the surrounding airspace, ready to activate energy shields at the first sign of danger. Fairchild could see the generators positioned discreetly around the edges of the terrace.
A table had been set up at one end. A table for two, set with a white cloth, sparkling dinnerware, and a pair of burning candles.
Fairchild went instead toward the railing and peered over the edge. As she’d hoped, they were on the western side of the building. Far below, a massive swimming pool glimmered like a sapphire. An ordinary human would never survive a fall like that, even into water, but Fairchild’s augmented body could withstand the impact. It would hurt—a lot—but she would live.
“Wow!” she gasped, affecting a tone of breathless amazement. “What a view!”
“So I’m told,” said Slayn. “I’ve never seen it myself. I prefer to stay away from the edge.”
“Really?” Fairchild said, pouting. “I was hoping you would take me over the edge tonight.”
Slayn smiled. He was standing by the table.
“Fear not, my pet. We will cross all kinds of boundaries before the night is through. But first, dinner. You’ll need plenty of energy for what I have in mind.”
He pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit.
Fairchild walked obediently toward him, doing her very best runway strut, watching his eyes as they drifted down her body. She didn’t know what was running through Slayn’s mind, but she knew what was running through her own. She was thinking about the thermal plant. About the three good Mercs who were dead because of this vile man. A snowy wind caressed her skin, followed by a flash of heat.
She stopped at the edge of the table and looked at the utensils there, polished and gleaming atop the snow-white cloth. There were four different kinds of forks, two spoons, one for soup and another, presumably, for dessert.
And a knife.
It wasn’t quite as sharp as Fairchild would have liked, but it would do.
Before Slayn had a chance to react, she snatched the blade off the table and struck, turning her hips as she did so, putting the full weight of her body behind the blow. The knife entered Slayn’s throat right at the apple.
There was no resistance.
None.
Instead of blood, his neck erupted in a spray of colored sand. The particles swirled for an instant, then reconstituted themselves into a perfect facsimile of flawless, unmarred flesh. Fairchild only had a fraction of a second to stare in disbelief before the electrodes hit her in the back of the neck. A pair of them, like the fangs of some metallic viper.
