Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Ken was gazing at her now, across the open room, and Savannah tucked the feet in question beneath her. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really. It’s not that bad.”

  “I’m not so psyched about that,” Jones admitted to Ken. “I’d need to be sure she stayed hidden, and if you were there, she’d be your responsibility, not mine.” He glanced at Savannah. “No offense, but you don’t strike me as the type to hide in a dark place all alone for days at a time without flipping out.”

  “No,” Ken said, with another look in her direction. “She’s tough. She could do it. I don’t doubt that for one second.”

  Her first response to his words was intense pleasure. Ken thought she was tough. But then apprehension slammed into her.

  “Ken, please, I want to stay with you.” Savannah spoke as calmly as she could manage, considering that her heart was about to pound out of her chest at the thought of him leaving her here alone.

  He looked at her again, his face and dark eyes unreadable. But he nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s probably best. That we stay together.”

  “Suit yourself,” Jones said.

  Molly wasn’t as easily convinced. “Savannah—”

  “It looks worse than it is,” she told the older woman. Thank God, thank God. Kenny wasn’t going to leave her.

  Molly shook her head, clearly not believing her. “I’m going to go help. Yell if you need anything. And keep those feet up.”

  “I’m fine.” And she would be, as long as Ken was with her.

  Molly disappeared among the mountain of boxes, and Savannah settled herself more comfortably on the bed.

  A real bed. She’d almost forgotten how lovely and comfortable a real bed could be, just to lie upon. Imagine how wonderful it would be to actually sleep in one. With Ken’s arms around her.

  Like that was ever going to happen again.

  Her gaze was caught by the familiar cover of a book, tossed onto an upside-down crate next to Jones’s bed, and she leaned closer. It was indeed Double Agent. Savannah couldn’t keep from laughing. Didn’t it figure? A tough-assed smuggler on a remote Indonesian island was reading her grandmother’s book.

  She reached for it, to see how far he’d gotten.

  He’d turned down the corner of a page not too far from where she was, herself, in the story.

  Ken was completely absorbed by the map and she knew he wouldn’t leave without her, so she settled back and started to read.

  I watched Hank as he shifted gears, well aware that if things went according to my plan, I would have to drive this car back into the city.

  “Left here,” I commanded.

  He glanced over at me in the predawn darkness as he took the turn onto what was little more than a dirt road. “This definitely isn’t the way to Maryland.”

  “I told you,” I said. “It’s a surprise.”

  “A surprise. All the way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “It’s a New Jersey surprise.”

  To my relief, he was still in a good humor, willing for me to lead him probably just about anywhere. It was my first real lesson in the absolute power of sex. He laughed softly. “You’ve got me completely intrigued.”

  “That’s because I’m completely intriguing.”

  “Darling, you are.” He pulled me close and kissed me, one eye on the road.

  I kissed him back, well aware that we had almost arrived, certain this would be our last kiss. Perhaps forever.

  “After this, we’ll go to Maryland?” he asked for what was not the first time since we’d gotten into the car in Manhattan.

  And for what was not the first time, I avoided answering. “Oh, it’s right up here. Slow down! On the left. Pull into the drive.”

  It was a house. An unassuming little two-story farmhouse, surrounded by woods and fields. The nearest neighbor was two and a half miles down the road.

  Hank bent over slightly to look out of the windshield and up at the house. “Whoever lives here isn’t expecting visitors at four in the morning.”

  “I live here,” I told him.

  He laughed, but then he realized I was serious as I added, “I recently bought this place. I’m fixing it up. Come and look.”

  Hank followed me out of the car. “You bought this house? On your salary?”

  “Of course not on my salary, silly.” I laughed gaily as I unlocked the kitchen door, as if my very life weren’t ending. “Come inside.”

  I flipped on the kitchen light.

  Hank silently took in the disarray of my renovations as I went to the sink and filled the kettle with water for tea. My hands were shaking, but I set it on the stove, lit the gas, and gave him a bright smile.

  “Shall I give you the tour? This is the kitchen, of course. At least it will be when I’m done. I started the renovations in the basement—I’m working my way up, floor by floor. And this, the sitting room.”

  He followed me, his hat in his hands, his face so serious. “Rose. Where did you get the money to buy and fix this place? Who exactly are you working for?”

  He’d opened up the subject for me, quite nicely.

  “You know who I’m working for,” I countered, praying this would work. Praying that here and now, in the middle of New Jersey, with no chance of anyone listening in, he would open up and tell me more about the Nazis’ network of American spies that he had helped to build. “I work for the same noble cause you do, Obersturmfuehrer von Hopf.”

  His reaction was not quite what I’d expected. He stood there, staring at me, the strangest expression crossing his face.

  “Mein Gott,” he whispered.

  “Ja,” I said. “Für Gott, und Vaterland.” (For God and country.)

  “Rose,” he said, but then he stopped. He shook his head, clearly upset. “I have to think. I need to think.” He took the car keys from his pocket, and I realized he was going to leave. He was going to drive away.

  I didn’t understand what was so distressing to him. All I had done was speak aloud that which we already both knew. Unless—oh, dear—he feared that this was some kind of trap.

  He was moving toward the kitchen door, but I couldn’t let him go.

  Heart pounding, I took the gun from my handbag and pointed it at him. “Freeze. Drop the car keys on the floor, then keep your hands where I can see them.”

  It was his gun I was holding—the one that I’d taken from his safe. I could see that he recognized it—his face had gone quite gray.

  “This is a setup, then,” he asked. “I suppose—of course—it’s been a setup from the start.”

  “Hands on your head and move slowly,” I ordered, both of my hands wrapped around that gun. There was no way I would ever shoot him, but I prayed he would realize that. “Into the kitchen.”

  “You’re remarkably good,” he told me, his voice harsh. “Last night, it was . . .” He laughed. “I’m such a fool. I actually believed you.” The look he gave me was one of pure hatred.

  I steeled myself to it. I could handle his hatred. I just couldn’t handle his death.

  “Open the door,” I told him in a voice that wobbled only slightly. “That one, to the left. Do it slowly—with your right hand only.”

  “The cellar,” he said. “What a surprise. I’ll tell you right now, I won’t dig my own grave. You’ll have to do it yourself, darling. Get your hands dirty.”

  “It’s not a cellar,” I informed him. “It’s a basement, with a concrete floor. I bought this place because of it. There’s a light switch to the right of the stairs. Please turn it on.”

  He did.

  “Down the stairs,” I ordered. “Don’t move too quickly, please.”

  There was a separate room down there, made with the same thick stone foundation, and he laughed as he saw what I’d done.

  I’d installed a heavy iron gate so I could lock him in.

  I’d put iron bars on all the windows, too. I’d boarded them up from the outside, too, but he wouldn’t find that out until the sun came up. />
  “Isn’t this cozy,” he said, taking in the bed and small table, the bookshelf filled with books, the cabinet stocked with about a week’s worth of tinned food. There was a sink and toilet, too, in another small attached room. It had been some kind of servant’s quarters. With the stone walls whitewashed, it was actually quite nice.

  It was the reason I’d bought this house.

  “Go inside,” I told him, and he went, looking with narrowed eyes at my construction. “All the way, back against the wall.”

  His gaze took in the solid anchors that held my iron gate. My father had taught me well. As I closed it and locked him in with the vast array of chains and locks I’d bought, he realized he was not playing with some amateur.

  The stone foundation of the house was impenetrable. The floor was concrete, the ceiling fortified with two by fours—that had been some job to do. He wasn’t getting out that way.

  Once I was gone, he wasn’t getting out at all.

  He rushed me then, but it was too late. I’d locked him up tight. He hit the gate, and it didn’t even rattle.

  “Why don’t you just shoot me now?” he spat.

  I dropped his gun back into my purse. My hands were truly shaking now that I’d managed to get him down here and safely behind my bars. “I’m not going to shoot you, Heinrich.”

  I was exhausted, too, but there was much yet to do. I had to take the car back to Manhattan—wipe it clean of our fingerprints and leave it somewhere far from the hotel. I had to clear Hank’s things from his hotel room and check out of my room as well.

  I had to go through the list of names from Hank’s notebook, try to make some sense of it, figure out who on that list was part of his information gathering network.

  My plan was to contact some of those people on his list and tell them that Heinrich had been killed in an altercation with an enemy agent. Since I was his lover, I would tell them, he trusted me enough to take over for him. I would somehow get them to reveal to me their method for sending information to Germany. I didn’t know how, but I would do it. And then I’d stop the Nazis dead in their tracks by taking what I’d learned and telling the entire story to the FBI.

  The part about Heinrich dying would be a lie, of course. All this time, he’d be locked in the basement of my house in New Jersey, safe from harm.

  “Why wait, Rose?” Hank raged. He reached for me from behind the bars, his fingers spread. I honestly think if he could have gotten his hands on me, he would have eagerly throttled me.

  I had known this would happen. But I hadn’t quite prepared myself for the depth of his hatred for me.

  “Turning me in will kill me just as surely as pulling that trigger,” he pronounced. “So do it. Do it.” He pounded on the bars. “I want you to do it. I want you to shoot me in the heart!”

  “There’s food in the cabinet,” I told him as calmly as I possibly could. “Enough for a week. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back—”

  “Shoot me, goddamn you! Shoot me, shoot me shoot me—”

  I lost it then. I screamed over him, “No. No! I’m not going to shoot you! I’m not!”

  He just stood there then, watching me, breathing as hard as if he’d just run a footrace. “Darling, you’ve already killed me,” he said quietly. “You might as well finish me off.”

  “No,” I said through my tears. “You’re wrong. All this is to keep you alive.”

  I could see from his face that he didn’t understand.

  “After the war is over,” I told him, “when Germany has been defeated and you can no longer do the Allies any harm, then I’ll let you go. Until then, you’ll be right here.”

  He shook his head. “The Allies . . . ?”

  “I’m an American, Hank.” I wiped my eyes. “I love you, but I love my country, too. I couldn’t let you continue to spy for the Nazis. But how could I turn you in? If I did, you’d be executed. I couldn’t allow that to happen, either. This was the only way I could think of to protect both my country and you.”

  “You’re locking me up—here—until the end of the war,” he repeated, as if he were still struggling to understand.

  “Yes. I realize it could go on for quite some time, and I’m sorry for that. I’ll get you books to read, paper and pens if you want to write—whatever you like to help pass the time.”

  He started to cry then, sinking down to sit on the floor, face buried in his hands.

  I took a step toward him. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked up at me and I realized he wasn’t crying—he was laughing.

  “Rose, for God’s sake, I’m working for the Allies, too. I have been from the start—even back in Berlin, when we first met. But of course, you thought—Rose, Rose, I may have been wearing their uniform, but I assure you, I’m no Nazi. I’ve been working against them since 1936.”

  I stared at him as he pulled himself to his feet.

  “That bit upstairs,” he said. “You were pretending to be a Nazi sympathizer to get me to talk, is that it?”

  I started for the stairs. “I have to go.” Whatever his plan was, I wasn’t going to fall for it.

  “Wait!”

  “Nice try, Hank, but it’s not working. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “My notebook,” he said. “Do you have it?”

  I turned to look back at him.

  “If you don’t, it’s still in the safe in the hotel,” he told me, talking fast. “The key’s right here.” He tossed the ring with his hotel room key onto the basement floor, next to my feet. “Go into the safe, and get that notebook and bring it to the FBI, to a man named Joshua Tallingworth. There’s important information in that notebook, Rose. If it falls into the wrong hands—German hands—lots of good people fighting to end this war will die. But take it, and ask to see Tallingworth. Use the codeword starling and you’ll be inside his office before you blink. Go on, darling. Take the keys.”

  “I already have the notebook,” I told him.

  “Good,” Hank said. “Take it, and go. Tallingworth will tell you the truth about who I am—that I’m not any kind of a Nazi.”

  I stared at him. Could he be telling the truth?

  “Go on,” he urged. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you get back.”

  I started up the stairs, suddenly numb. What had I done?

  “And after you do get back,” he called after me, “we’re going to Maryland. Don’t think I’m going to forget your promise.”

  That stopped me cold. “You still want to marry me?” I couldn’t believe it. “After what I’ve done? If what you’re telling me is true . . .”

  “It is true. And Rose . . . ?” I heard him laugh, very softly. “God, I love you, too.”

  “I have to get back to the village.”

  “I’ll walk you,” Jones said, just as Molly suspected he would. It confirmed her belief that there were some truly nasty people floating around this mountain today.

  He looked at Ken, who was repacking the knapsack Jones had sold him with the food and other supplies. “Don’t fuck with my stuff. If you need anything else, take it, but leave cash on the table. If you leave before I get back, lock the door behind you.” He wrote a series of numbers on a piece of paper. “This is the current combination. You need to punch in these numbers to secure the system. Don’t get too excited about my giving you this, because I change these numbers daily.”

  “Thank you,” Ken held out his hand, and the two men shook. Then he reached for Molly’s hand. “You really saved our butts back there.”

  “It seemed a shame to let two such fine butts go to waste,” she countered. “Good luck, Ken.” She glanced toward Jones’s bed, where Savannah had curled up with a copy of Double Agent. She’d fallen fast asleep, book tucked to her chest, and looked to be about twelve years old. “Try to take it slowly, if you can. Her feet must really hurt.”

  He nodded, his eyes soft as he looked over at Savannah. “She’s really incredibly tough. I could take her on a
five-mile run right now, and she wouldn’t say a word.”

  “Just because she doesn’t say ouch doesn’t mean that she’s not hurt,” Molly reminded him. “Take care.”

  “You, too.”

  Jones held the door open for her, closed it tightly behind him. And then he grabbed her arm, reeled her in close and kissed the very breath out of her.