Hot Ice

translation he’d read had really keyed in on what she’d gone through. If he could read the original French… He shrugged and reminded himself she was long dead and not his concern. But she’d just been a kid, scared and confused.
    Why do they hate us? she’d written. Why do they look at us with such hate? Papa says we must leave Paris and I believe I will never see my home again.
    And she never had, Doug mused, because war and politics go for the big view and trample all over the little guy. France during the Revolution or a steamy pit of a jungle in Nam. It never changed. He knew just what it felt like to be helpless. He wasn’t going to feel that way ever again.
    He stretched and thought of Whitney.
    For better or worse, he’d made a deal with her. He never turned his back on a deal unless he was sure he could get away with it. Still, it grated to have to depend on her for every dollar.
    Dimitri had hired him to steal the papers because he was, Doug admitted honestly as he sucked in smoke, a very good thief. Unlike Dimitri’s standard crew, he’d never considered that a weapon made up for wit. He’d always preferred living by the latter. Doug knew it was his reputation for doing a smooth, quiet job that had earned him the call from Dimitri to lift a fat envelope from a safe in an exclusive co-op off Park Avenue.
    A job was a job, and if a man like Dimitri was willing to pay five thousand for a bunch of papers, a great many with faded and foreign writing, Doug wasn’t going to argue. Besides, he’d had some debts to pay.
    He’d had to get by two sophisticated alarm systems and four security guards before he could crack the little gem of a wall safe where the envelope was stored. He had a way with locks and alarms. It was—well, a gift, Doug decided. A man shouldn’t waste his God-given talents.
    The thing was, he’d played it straight. He’d taken nothing but the papers—though there’d been a very interesting-looking black case in the safe along with it. He never considered that taking them out to read them was any more than covering his bets. He hadn’t expected to be fascinated by the translations of letters or a journal or documents that stretched back two hundred years. Maybe it had been his love of a good story, or his respect for the written word that had touched off his imagination as he had skimmed over the papers. But fascinated or not, he would have turned them over. A deal was a deal.
    He’d stopped in a drugstore and bought adhesive. Strapping the envelope to his chest had just been a precaution. New York, like any city, was riddled with dishonest people. Of course, he’d arrived at the East-Side playground an hour early and had hidden. A man stayed alive longer if he watched his ass.
    While sitting behind the shrubbery in the rain, he’d thought over what he’d read—the correspondence, the documents, and the tidy list of gems and jewels. Whoever had collected the information, translated it so meticulously, had done so with the dedication of a professional librarian. It had passed through his mind briefly that if he’d had the time and opportunity, he’d have followed up on the rest of the job himself. But a deal was a deal.
    Doug had waited with every intention of turning over the papers and collecting his fee. That had been before he’d learned that he wasn’t going to get the five thousand Dimitri had agreed on. He was going to get a two-dollar bullet in the back and a burial in the East River.
    Remo had arrived in the black Lincoln with two other men dressed for business. They’d calmly debated the most efficient way to murder him. A bullet in the brain seemed to be the method agreed on, but they were still working out the “when” and “where” as Doug crouched behind bushes six feet away. It seemed Remo had been fussy about getting blood on the Lincoln’s upholstery.
    At first Doug had been angry. No matter how many times he’d been double-crossed—and he’d stopped counting—it always made him angry. Nobody was honest in this world, he’d thought as the adhesive pulled a bit at his skin. Even while he’d concentrated on getting out in one piece, he had begun to consider his options.
    Dimitri had a reputation for being eccentric. But he also had a reputation for picking winners, from the right senator to keep on the payroll to the best wine to stock in the cellar. If he wanted the papers badly enough to snip off a loose end named Doug Lord, they must be