Hot Ice by Gregg Loomis Read Free Book Online Page A

There was no need to look over his shoulder. He knew who his pursuer was. Or who had sent him.
    He felt the knife in his pocket. A jackknife against a gun? Absurd. But the only thing he had. If he could just reach that pile of stones, he might find a place to hide, perhaps even ambush …
    The ragged sound of his own breath and the ache in his lungs required him to devote full attention to simply inhaling and exhaling. A stitch slashed at his side as painfully as any blade.
    He was surprised when his hand touched rock. He climbed onto the massive formation.
    He slipped behind the first boulder and squeezed through a crevice he hoped was only wide enough to accommodate his small body. Looking around for a possible hiding place, he spied a crack in the rock level with his chin. About a foot long, but deep. He couldn’t secret himself there, but the fissure would hold his discoveries. In an instant he had slid the cell phone, the stick, and the piece of metal into the crack.
    Then he had an idea.
    If he could scramble down the other side of the formation, maybe, just maybe, he could creep away while the other man searched for him here. No chance. Other than a scattering of boulders, the landscape was as naked as a newborn baby.
    “Boris, why do you flee an old friend?” The words were in Russian.
    The little man spun about to see a man holding a GSh-18 9 mm automatic pistol. The distinctly mid-Asian flat face with the flat nose, broken multiple times, was all too familiar. “Old friends do not shoot at each other, Patrivitch.”
    Patrivitch glanced at the weapon in his hand. “It is my job just as it is yours to be here. Sad but true. You have been hired to find certain information; I have been paid to make sure you do not.” He extended the hand that did not hold the gun. “The cell phone. Place it at your feet.”
    The man had been watching him take pictures.
    Boris shrugged. “I dropped it during the chase.”
    “Empty your pockets.”
    Boris did so, the jackknife clattering to the stone along with a wad of Icelandic króna and the keys to the Land Rover.
    Patrivitch tsk-tsked. “I would have seen the phone had you dropped it.”
    “If you were looking for me to drop something, no wonder your first two shots missed.”
    “I can search for it after I kill you.”
    Boris shrugged. “What happens after that is of no concern to me.”
    There was no warmth in Patrivitch’s smile. “You always had a smart mouth.”
    He pulled the trigger.
    Boris spun from the impact, a kick as though a horse’s hoof had struck his chest. His face hit the solid rock upon which they were standing, sending a jolt of pain through his entire body. Broken nose, he thought sleepily. Odd, no pain in my chest, just my nose.
    Though Boris’s vision was quickly becoming dark, he recognized his assailant’s shoes level with his eyes. He sensed the man leaning over him.
    The coup de grâce.
    He was too drowsy to care.
    Patrivitch straightened up, turning his head as though scenting the air. He had heard something… .
    There it was, the bleating of a sheep.
    Cautiously, he peered around the edge of a boulder facing Boris’s car. A shepherd with a dozen or so sheep. Too close not to hear the shot that would finish his victim. He mentally wavered. He could fire the fatal shot and then flee. Or he could take out the shepherd, too.
    No, too risky. There might be others around. Better to report back that Boris was no longer a threat. Besides, if anyone found the phone, small chance they would look for any photographs or, if they did, have any idea as to the significance of the images they might find.
    Shoving the gun into his belt, he left by the opposite side of the rock formation, keeping it between him and the shepherd. When he reached the base, he broke into a jog.

6
Isola d’Ischia
Italy
Later the Same Day
    Jason didn’t hear Maria step onto the loggia, the adoring Pangloss padding at her heels. She watched Jason concentrating on the canvas