“She’s in agony because she doesn’t want Rennell to be alone out there when he sees Sandrino. She’s actually feeling maternal toward him, which is fairly incredible considering their combustible relationship.” He made a face. “It must run in the family.” Then his phone rang, and he glanced at the ID. “Kaskov. I just talked to him fifteen minutes ago and gave him a progress report.” He answered and then was silent for the next few minutes. “Yes, I hear you. Yes, I owe you. Yes, I know we should get her out. I was already planning on doing it. I didn’t need you to tell me.” He cut the connection and turned back to Lara. “You heard it. Wasn’t I meek? I wanted to break his neck. But the bastard was right. Not only smoothing the way with the Albanians, but sending us extra men and explosives. We do owe him.”

“Yes, we do. What does he want?”

“You and Maria out of Las Vegas, away from any possible investigation. Those documents I gave you wouldn’t hold up under close inspection, and we don’t have time to bribe someone at Immigration or Justice to get sets that would. If they checked with Interpol, they’d bring up Volkov’s and your father’s records, which could cause you problems.”

“And Maria was saying it was almost over,” she said wryly.

“It is. There’s nothing that we can’t handle. All it takes is a little time and more than a little money. There are good people we can tap to help us. But we don’t have that time. So I’m sending you out of here right away to New York with Mallory, where I have the contacts to make it happen.”

“What about Maria?”

“I’ll pick her up myself tonight and take her to New York in the Gulfstream. There’s no way she was going to leave Rennell right now anyway.”

“I don’t want to leave her. Why can’t I wait?”

“Because I want you out of here. And because Kaskov wants you to make a stopover in Atlanta on the way to New York.”

“Why?”

“How do I know? He didn’t say. So you can thank him personally? He just said he wanted to talk to you.” He whirled her around and kissed her. “Stop worrying. Nothing’s going to happen to either of you. I promise. By the time you get into New York, I’ll have this little hiccup managed. Trust me.”

“I do. I just don’t like leaving you here, either.” She was looking around the wreckage on the mountain. “You might say I contributed to this chaos. I shouldn’t leave you to deal with it by yourself.”