“He pointed out to me that it means ‘altar of heaven.’ He said his mother was a saint. The pictures of her in the album confirmed that she was a very beautiful woman. She looked . . . ethereal. I paled in comparison.” Annie swiped at her eyes. Myra hugged her tighter.
“What is it exactly that they want from you, Annie?”
Annie stared off into space for so long that Myra had to prod her gently for her to respond. “Oh, they don’t want much. Just for me to legitimize them and turn over to them their father’s fortune.” She made an ugly sound in her throat. “Like that’s going to happen.”
“Let me make sure I understand this. You are their prisoner here at the monastery and will remain a prisoner until you give them what they want. Is that right?”
“Yes, and now you’re their prisoner also.”
“Did you explain the situation, how Armand was penniless. Did you tell them all the intricate details of your fortune and how it is protected?”
Annie made the ugly sound in her throat again. “Until I was blue in the face and hoarse from talking. They didn’t want to hear any of that. Enrico went to Barcelona, where they live, and from there he got in touch with my key people. Though he never showed me the paperwork, he said that Connor had faxed him all the agreements and contracts we had with Armand. Enrico said they were obviously bogus, that he does not believe any of it. He called me a lying, cheating gringo. Do you believe that? And a slut and a whore, all the while calling his mother a saint. He believes I snared his father away from them with my money. That was a little hard for me to swallow, I have to admit.”
“So, we’re stuck here unless someone comes to rescue us. In the meantime, we are at their mercy.”
“That sums it up, Myra.”
“And yet they let you roam around.”
“Where can I go, Myra? The mountain is too treacherous. I should have had the damn cable car redone, but I had no plans ever to return here, so I didn’t see the point to spending all that money. Do you think I haven’t thought about trying to go down? Don’t get any ideas. With bones as brittle as they are at our age, we wouldn’t have a prayer of making it down safely.”
“Father Tomás said two of the boys climb up here several times a year. He said they’re like mountain goats.”
“Yes, Berto and Franko. Wonderful young boys. I’ve been hoping that the padre would break his promise and send them up, but no such luck. All we have going for us is the encrypted phone you have tied to your waist and Charles and the girls. That’s it, Myra. I’m glad you’re here, but you shouldn’t have come.”
“What do you think their plan B is? If they are half as smart as you seem to think they are, they have to know the paperwork your people sent really is legitimate. Do you think the smart one will threaten to kill us if your people don’t come through?”
“Absolutely. My people will not buckle. You don’t get to be where I am without putting all manner of safeguards in place. There is a whole ten-inch-thick special book drawn up by a team of a dozen lawyers about kidnapping and what will and will not be done. Even if they kill me, my estate goes to you and the girls and various charities. They still wouldn’t get a dime. Enrico refuses to believe that.”
Myra digested Annie’s words. “Are they killers, Annie?”
A veil dropped over Annie’s eyes. She went completely still. Myra waited, dreading her dearest friend’s response.
“I think they are, Myra. Yes, I think they are.”
Chapter 4
It wasn’t the first time that Fergus and Charles pulled an all-nighter when they were in mission mode. Far from it. But this was the first time they’d spent an all-nighter staring at each other across the kitchen table without saying anything meaningful to each other.
Lady and her pups alternated between growling and whining, not understanding the silence. Lady led the parade to the kitchen door and waited. Fergus dutifully opened the door, and the dogs walked out. Fergus blinked. They always ran, hoping to find a stray squirrel they were allowed to chase but not to catch. Pure and simple, the dogs were picking up on his and Charles’s stress, to go along with Myra’s noticeable absence.
Things would change momentarily when the crew arrived in response to the text that Charles sent out a little after midnight, which read: Urgent. Meeting at 7. Don’t be late.
Fergus looked down at his watch, then at the clock on the Wolf range—6:55.
He felt his insides start to curdle. He tried and couldn’t come up with a time when he dreaded a meeting more than this one. He risked a quick glance at Charles, who was looking haggard and weary. Just the way he looked when Annie had left him in the lurch months ago.
Charles pointed to the monitor over the kitchen door and said, “They’re here! I don’t know about you, Ferg, but right now I’d rather step on a rattler than go through what is coming our way.” Fergus decided there was nothing to say to that particular statement, so he kept his mouth shut. He did check the big Bunn coffeemaker to be sure the pot had finished dripping. No matter what, coffee, for some reason, had to come first. He himself would pass. He was so coffee-outed he knew he couldn’t swallow another mouthful. Nor did he want to. As it was, his nerves were twanging all over the place and the meeting had yet to get under way.
Within ten minutes, the parking area in the courtyard was full of cars as Lady and her pups yipped and yapped and howled as if to say, at last some action. Lady led the parade into the house. It was Harry who handed out the treats, then bedlam ensued.
Charles and Fergus suffered through five long minutes of snapping and snarling, cursing and hand waving before he called a halt with two sharp blasts of a whistle he kept in his pocket. “This is getting us nowhere. Follow me and try not to kill each other on the way to the war room. I mean it. I’m in no mood for this type of behavior,” Charles barked over his shoulder.
The gang went silent, never having heard this particular tone coming from Charles before, a true indication that this meeting was beyond serious. Even Lady and her pups stopped chewing long enough to look up at their master to see what was going to come next.
“Guard, Lady,” Charles said gently to the magnificent golden retriever. Lady knew what to do; she dropped to her haunches, then stretched out across the kitchen threshold, her pups alongside her.
The group was halfway down the moss-covered stone steps that would take them to the war room when Fergus realized that no one had asked for coffee. There could be no better indication how serious this meeting was.
The moment everyone was settled with the customary salute to Lady Justice, all hell broke loose. If he’d been a turtle, Charles would have retreated into his shell, never to be seen or heard from again. But he wasn’t a turtle, he was a mere human, so he suffered through the onslaught of shrill, ugly, hateful questions and recriminations. The stiff upper British lip he was known for failed him. All he could do was wait it out, which he did in complete silence.
When there were no more ugly words, when all the questions were asked, he waited a full minute that to him seemed like an hour before he responded.
“Before you decide to burn me at the stake, there are a few things you need to know. I want you to listen to me very carefully. I did exactly what Myra asked me to do. I sent you all a text telling you I had just dropped Myra off at the airport. I ask each one of you to ask yourself the same question. What would you have done if Myra swore you to secrecy? I know all of you. You would have done exactly what she asked of you. Why should I be any different? I am her husband, after all. Myra told me, she didn’t ask me, she told me to wait to notify you until I got back to Pinewood. Therein lies the difference. She did that for one simple reason. She did not want any of you trying to stop her from going to Spain to find Annie and bring her back home. I did what she asked. You cannot fault me for that, girls and boys.
“Now, having said that, I want you all to know I tried to persuade her, using every tool in my box, to stop her from making the trip. Her mind was ma
de up. There is no doubt in my mind that she would have sicced Lady on me and knocked me silly with a fry pan in the bargain. That’s how determined she was to leave.
“Myra and Annie, as you all know, have what you young people would call a very tight relationship. There is a bond there that can never be broken. While they may not be related by blood, they are still closer than two blood sisters. I think you all know that.
“I think Myra thinks she knows something, but she did not choose to share that knowledge with me. Don’t think I didn’t try to get her to tell me, because I did. I also know when to back off and let Myra take the lead, which is precisely what she did. She said she would call when she landed. I believed her for the simple reason that Myra has never ever lied to me. That call never came. There could be any number of reasons why she never called. One, she forgot to charge the phone the night before. Two, there was no cell phone reception at the airport when she landed. Three, she had to find a place to charge her phone and was unable to do so. Four is unknown.
“Five is what is known, which is that it is almost twenty-four hours later, and there has still been no word from Myra. By now, she should have charged her phone if that was the problem, and if that didn’t work, buy a new one and charge it enough to make at least one call. She did not do that for reasons we do not yet know. If you want my opinion, I think Myra is in trouble, as is Annie. The only consolation to me at this point in time is hoping they are together. Why else do you all think I called this meeting?”
“What you’re saying is we need to get our ducks in a row and head for Spain as in immediately. Is that what you’re saying, Charles?” Nikki asked.
“That’s what I’m saying, yes.”
“Myra has a twenty-four-hour head start on us. More like forty-eight hours until we can get this show on the road,” Isabelle said.
“A lot can happen in forty-eight hours,” Yoko said. “Add another twenty-four hours to that till we come up with a plan that is workable, and we’re looking at seventy-two hours, possibly longer. This is not good. Not good at all.”
“So we’re going to Spain,” Kathryn said, more of a statement than a question. “We’re actually going to go back to that damn mountain where we lived for over a year before we got caught and had to take it on the lam. Damn. How are we going to get there?”
All eyes turned to Dennis.
“Is your plane available to us?” Jack asked.
“Absolutely, but the pilot is not,” Dennis answered. “He just had hip surgery and is in rehab for another three weeks. He sends me updates in case I need the use of the plane. I’m sure he can recommend another pilot. The hostess is good; it will just take one call to put her on notice.”
“Do it,” Charles said, authority ringing in his voice. He heard the collective sigh from the group, which meant they were back on track.
“Where, exactly, are we going?” Maggie asked because she hadn’t taken it on the lam with the others.
“Barcelona,” Fergus shot back.
“And from there to the village? Do we have to climb the mountain? I remember very clearly the day Annie got a call from someone, probably the padre, but I’m not certain, and it really doesn’t matter who made the call. We were having lunch outside on the terrace right here at Pinewood. Annie told us that the killer storm that hit Spain and was in the news, like, forever and had lasted for days had destroyed the cable car and part of the mountain. She said it would cost millions to build a new one, and since we were never going back there, she didn’t see any point to having it rebuilt. I also remember how we were all deathly afraid to even step foot in it. Depending on one’s stamina, it takes two, three, or four days to hike up to the mountaintop if I recall correctly. Or is there a better way to get there all these years later? Once I left there, I cast all those memories aside, never to be revisited.”
“How certain are you that is where Myra went?” Kathryn said. “I can’t even remember the name of the village. Do any of you remember it?” No one had a memory of it.
Fergus and Charles looked like two deer caught in the headlights.
“As certain as we can be at this point in time. To my knowledge, Myra does not know anyone in Spain. No one at all,” Charles repeated emphatically.
“Annie just called the village ‘the village.’ She never to my recollection called it by a name. She spoke of the padre. His name was Santos Mendoza. He’s quite elderly. She didn’t talk about it all that much to me. Bad memories and all that,” Fergus said.
“Neither Myra nor Annie ever mentioned the name to me, either. For all I know, it doesn’t have a name. I never saw any maps. Fergus is right about the priest’s name, though. I do know that at some point a helicopter pad on the mountain was created. Something about erosion on the mountain itself. I think I remember Annie’s saying it was too treacherous to climb. But my memory is telling me I heard that years ago,” Charles said, “after all of us left. Kathryn is right about the cable car. Annie called it a death trap. I think we all agreed with her.”
“What’s the name of the monastery?” Maggie asked. “I can Google it, and maybe we can find out the name of the village that way.”
“I don’t know if it has a name. Annie just referred to it as the monastery. Since it was in the de Silva family, see if you can go by that,” Fergus said.
“I never heard either Myra or Annie refer to it by a name,” Charles said.
“In other words, we’re going to Spain blind, with no clue as to our destination,” Ted said, tongue in cheek. “I realize all the girls know the place because they lived there, but to the rest of us, this is all Greek. We need to do better than that.”
“Myra called the priest. I do know that because she said so. So she had a phone number to call,” Charles said. “And, no, I don’t know where she got the number, so it won’t do you any good to ask me.”
“Did she call on her cell or a landline?” Espinosa asked.
“When she told me, she waved her cell phone under my nose, so I think it’s safe to assume she used her cell, and, of course, she has that with her, so there is no way to find the number unless Annie left her address book behind. Did she, Fergus?” Charles said.
“No, that was the first thing I looked for after she left. Either she took it or she hid it, but that makes no sense. Yet in a way it does make sense if she didn’t want us to know what she was up to. I think she took it with her if my opinion counts. She always kept it on a shelf above the little workstation she has for paying bills and such in the kitchen, where her laptop was. It was gone when I looked.”
“People, does Montserrat, Spain, ring a bell?” Maggie said, looking up from her laptop.
The gang shook their heads.
“Why?” Nikki asked.
“Because there is a huge monastery there, high in the mountains. It’s a Benedictine retreat for monks. It says it offers spectacular views of Catalonia. There is a holy grotto there where it is said the Virgin Mary visited. According to what I am reading, it is one hour north-west of Barcelona by train. Probably shorter if you flew by helicopter. It’s all I’m finding right now. Does any of that ring a bell?” Charles and Fergus shook their heads. Maggie shrugged and went back to tapping on her laptop.
“Isn’t Montserrat a tourist attraction?” Alexis asked. “I think I read something in the Sunday travel section once awhile back. Our time on the mountain is a bit of a blur these days. It seems like it was all a hundred years ago.”
“Yes, it is,” Maggie mumbled.
“Maybe there is more than one monastery. Aren’t there many more mountains? Annie’s monastery was family owned by Annie’s husband. Off the beaten track is what I recall. Very private, that’s why we hid out there. We kept the cable car on the platform so no one from down below could take it willy-nilly. The people in the village and the padre were our warning system.” Alexis clarified, “They used bells that could be heard all the way up the mountain. One peal was for one thing, two for something else. Three was Red
Alert. I remember that.” The others nodded in agreement.
“I’m checking,” Maggie mumbled.
“Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe we should concentrate on the priest, or padre as they call priests in Spain. Padre Mendoza has to belong to some order. Benedictine? Franciscan? What? We should try to find out who his bishop is. Maybe that will help us,” Dennis said.
“Good thinking, kid. Have at it,” Ted said. Dennis blushed as he started tapping at his keyboard.
Jack looked at Charles and voiced a question. “Should we alert Avery Snowden? He has sources that are unavailable to the rest of us. I think we should if my vote counts.”
Charles didn’t bother asking for a vote. He simply nodded and sent off a text to the old spy.
Dennis held up his hand, an indication he needed to be heard. Dennis was always polite. Sometimes to a fault. Charles nodded, and the others stopped talking and waited. “My pilot called a colleague, and he agreed to make the trip. He’s good for as long as we need him. He is right now on his way to the airport to get the plane ready. He will advise when we’re good to go. Ditto for the hostess. I think her name is Beverly Adams. We’ve used her before. No more than three hours tops.”
“Great! All set to go with no destination in mind,” Harry grumbled. “This sounds like one of Jack’s harebrained plans.”
“Not true, Harry, not true. We know we’re going to Barcelona. What we don’t know is where we’re going once we get there. To which village, to be precise. This pilot can get us to Barcelona. Chew on that, Mr. Smartass,” Dennis said through clenched teeth.
Eyes popped, jaws dropped. Did politically correct Dennis West, intrepid reporter, just call Harry Wong a smartass? Eyes grew wider as they all stared at Harry, then Dennis.
Cut and Run Page 5