Cut and Run

by Fern Michaels

  How smart of Sophia to head there. The woman was a genius. He had a vague idea where Enrico lived. On a tree-lined boulevard. A high-rent district. He couldn’t remember where or how he knew even that much.

  Andres walked to his back door and looked out to check the weather. It was still raining but not as hard. He checked the time. If he left now to return to town, he would probably make good time. People would be returning to work after the lunch hour, which meant less traffic on the roads.

  Andres walked to the hall closet and rummaged till he found a heavy, hooded jacket. He slipped it on and headed out the door for a return trip to town.

  The traffic was light, just as he thought. He arrived in town in thirty minutes, but this time he had to park at the end of the street, which was a healthy walk to the Internet café. That was all right since he needed the exercise. He grinned as he found himself checking out the few pedestrians milling about with umbrellas. He didn’t see anyone who looked like they didn’t belong.

  The bell over the door tinkled when Andres opened the door. Stephanie looked up and smiled. “You’re back, Doctor!”

  “Yes, I forgot something. Is there a computer available?”

  “Not at the moment. But number seven will be free in fifteen minutes if you don’t mind waiting.”

  “I don’t mind at all. I thought your father was coming in after his dental appointment.”

  Stephanie laughed. “I thought so, too, but he was in such pain he went home. Mama said it was all right. I’ve been studying between dealing with the customers, and today, with the weather, business is pretty light.”

  “Tell me something, Stephanie, are you good with computers?”

  “That depends on what you mean by good. I think so. What do you need help with?”

  “I’m trying to locate someone. I know he lives in a high-rent area off a tree-lined boulevard. I’m not even sure how I know that. Do you know how I can locate him?”

  Stephanie nodded as she started to tap away at the computer on the counter. “I need a name, Doctor.”

  Andres spelled out Enrico’s first and last name. He waited, hardly daring to breathe. Could this young girl get him what he needed? Could it be that easy? He tapped his foot impatiently as Stephanie’s fingers flew over the keys. He sighed as he eyed the clocks on the wall. Then his gaze swept over to the number seven station to see if the customer was finishing up. He sighed again when he saw how intent the young man was at what he was doing. With his luck, the man would sign on for more time.

  Stephanie’s fist shot in the air. I think I have it, Dr. Miguel! There is an Enrico Araceli on Avenue Belita. The number is 1102. His apartment number is 809. I think they are all condominiums on the boulevard. Very expensive to live there. My sister has a friend who lives there, so I guess that’s where I heard that.”

  “Wonderful! Wonderful! Could you please write the address down for me? And one other thing, can I use your phone to make an international call?” Andres had his credit card in hand in a second.

  And in that second, Dr. Andres Miguel almost had heart failure. He’d forgotten to bring the folder with him when he left the house. “The number, Doctor?”

  The stricken look on Andres’s face caused Stephanie to laugh out loud. “You forgot it, right?” Andres’s head bobbed up and down. How could he have been so stupid? How?

  “It’s not a problem, Doctor. I can pull up the call log. No one has made any international calls since you made yours earlier today. You are like my father; he is not digitally inclined. Ah, here it is! Shall I call it for you?”

  Andres grew so light-headed he had to grasp the end of the counter. The feeling passed as he reached for the phone. He walked over to the little desk in the corner. He sat down, the phone glued to his ear. His heart fluttered in his chest when the phone rang seven times without a connection. He was about to end the call when he heard the same voice he’d heard earlier. Andres jumped right in.

  “This is Dr. Andres Miguel. The situation here has changed.” He quickly rattled off his visit with Enrico, what had transpired, and informed the person on the other end of the line that he was back at the Internet café. “I think I know where Annie and Sophia went. I can’t be certain, but it is the only thing that makes sense. I think Annie and Sophia are on their way to Enrico’s condo. I have the address. It’s 1102 Avenue Belita. His apartment number is 809. Tell me how long it will take you to get there?”

  “This is Charles Martin, Doctor. I can’t thank you enough for all your help. Right now we are about two hours, my people tell me, from your home.”

  “No, no. You must turn around and come this way. That to me means you are about three hours from where I am right now. From the café where I am, it is a forty-minute walk, possibly more, to Enrico’s condominium. By now I’m thinking both women are there. I have no idea how they will have gained access, but your Annie is a very ingenious woman.”

  “Yes, she is. This might surprise you, but Annie is an expert at picking locks. She is also a crack shot with a gun. In other words, a woman of many talents. Is she okay?”

  “For the most part, yes, Mr. Martin, Annie is okay. She is worried about her friend Myra. Is Myra all right?”

  “Myra is with us. We’re on our way, Doctor.”

  “I am going to try to find my way to Enrico’s home. I don’t know what good I will be, but I have to try. Don’t tell me to stay put. I cannot do that. The number here at this Internet café should come up on your call record. If you need to reach me for whatever reason, call this number. The young lady can then get in touch with me on our local phone. Do you understand what I just said?”

  “Yes, Doctor, I understand. Be careful. We’re on our way. Be sure to tell Annie, if you get to her first, that all of us are here.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Andres said as he broke the connection. He walked back to Stephanie and handed her the phone. He explained what he needed her to do.

  She wrote down his cell phone number carefully in an open ledger on the counter next to the computer. “Is there anything else I can help you with today? Number seven signed on for another hour; I’m sorry.” She slid the charge slip across the counter for him to sign.

  “Well, unless you have a gun there under the counter, I’m good.” The startled look on the young girl’s face stunned him. “Do you have one?” he hissed.

  “I . . . I don’t . . . but Papa has one. It’s loaded, too,” she whispered in return. “What is going on, Doctor? The police this morning and now . . . this!”

  “Call your father and ask him if you can give me the gun. I’ll be sure to return it to you. Please do this for me, Stephanie. It’s important, but I can’t . . . I can’t tell you any more. Do it quickly, please.”

  Stephanie nodded and walked away, her fingers tapping the keys. Andres sucked in his breath and waited. He let it out and let loose with a sigh of relief when he saw her nod. She whirled around, placed the phone in its docking station, bent over, rummaged beneath the counter, and when she stood upright, she had a manila envelope in her hands. A bulky manila envelope in her hand. She slid it across the counter.

  “One more thing, Stephanie, then I am out of your hair. Tell me the best route to Avenue Belita. I’ll be walking. And be sure to thank your father for me.”

  “I’ll write out the best route for you to take.”

  Andres accepted the slip of paper, then walked behind the counter to hug the young girl, who was trembling so bad he hugged her tighter.

  “Everything is fine. Nothing more is going to happen here. Thank you for all your help.”

  “You be careful, Doctor.”

  Andres nodded.

  Outside the café, Andres realized that the temperature had dropped alarmingly. He pulled up the zipper on his jacket and tied the hood securely under his chin. It was still drizzling, but the worst of the rain was over. He walked steadily, his head down. He only raised his head when he reached a corner to look at a street sign before deciding if he w
as to go left or right. He plodded on.

  It was dark now, the shops closing for the day, merchants lowering the steel grilles that covered the fronts of their shops. The sodium vapor lamps came on casting a bluish light over the boulevard. He looked up once he had passed the shops to a row of condominiums as he searched out 1102. He wanted to shout at the top of his lungs when he spotted the twelve-inch-high illuminated numbers.

  Now, how was he to gain access to the lobby? He spotted a bell and pressed it. He could see into the well-lit, extravagantly appointed lobby. A young man looked up to see who was ringing the bell. Suddenly, Andres heard a voice coming from a tiny grille next to the bell. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Yes, my name is Dr. Andres Miguel. I’m here to see my patient, Enrico Araceli. Please let me in so I can see to him. He resides in apartment 809.”

  The young man flipped open a book on his desk, his finger moving down a list of names. He nodded and pressed a button that opened the door. Andres breathed a sigh of relief. He had his medical identification in his hand that the young man scrutinized carefully before he handed it back. He then asked Andres to sign a log-in sheet, which he did with misgivings.

  “I didn’t know Mr. Araceli was in residence. I haven’t seen him in over two weeks.”

  “Yes, he’s back, and he’s sick. He’s been trying to doctor himself, and it didn’t work, so here I am.”

  “Where’s your medical bag?” the young man asked suspiciously, his eyes narrowing slightly.

  Where, indeed. Andres panicked. “In my car. I’m not staying. I’m taking Enrico to the clinic. I parked outside the garage area. We’ll take the service elevator. If I need your help, can I count on you? Mr. Araceli is a big man. I’m an old man. So, young man, can I count on you?”

  The young man seriously pondered the question before he replied. “Yes, of course, Doctor. Just call me. He scratched a phone number on a sticky note and handed it over. The elevator is to your right.”

  Andres scurried as fast as he could to the elevator, his heart pounding in his chest. He clutched the manila envelope with the gun close to his chest. He wondered how in the world a gun could feel comforting. He had never in his life, not a single time, handled a gun.

  Andres leaned against the elevator wall as he tried to get his breathing to level off. He bounded forward the moment the doors slid open. He looked up at the lighted arrows and numbers. He turned right; then he was standing in front of Enrico Araceli’s door. He raised the door knocker and gave it three sharp knocks. He wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. He put his mouth up against the door and shouted his name. He looked around to see if his outburst had roused anyone. Silence.

  He waited a few minutes. Nothing.

  Andres raised the knocker again and shouted his name at the same time. He literally fell inward when the door opened. Annie caught him as he was about to hit the floor.

  “What took you so long?” Annie quipped.

  “I have a gun!” Andres laughed, as he straightened up and handed over the manila envelope like it was the Holy Grail.

  “Oh, you dear, sweet man, this is just what we need. I can’t wait to shoot someone.”

  Andres believed her. “All your friends are here in Spain and on the way here to this very condo. I’m thinking three hours till they arrive. Your friend Myra is with them, and she’s fine. I spoke to someone named Charles Martin.”

  “Ah. That’s the best news I’ve heard in months.”

  “Now what do we do?” Sophia asked.

  “Now we wait for the cavalry,” Annie said.

  Chapter 11

  The meeting room, as it was called in the hotel, was small, with occupancy for only eight. With the gang all in attendance except for Avery Snowden’s people, the group was as Dennis put it, squashed like sardines. “And,” he went on to elaborate, “it’s not called a hotel, it’s called a pensione. It’s a European term.”

  Alexis shot him a withering look and shook her head. She mouthed the words, Tell that to someone who cares. Dennis clamped his lips tight.

  Charles blew his whistle, which he was never without, one sharp, earsplitting blast of sound. “We now have a new development,” he said, pointing to the sat phone he was holding high in the air. “That call was from the good doctor named Andres Miguel. Annie and the woman named Sophia left the doctor’s house. That means Annie and Sophia are on the run again. The long and short of the story is that Enrico Araceli, who is obsessed with watching the news, spotted the doctor at the Internet café when the police were called to deal with a situation where a woman was accosted by some thugs. The doctor assumes that Enrico had stationed his thugs there to watch to see if Annie and Sophia would show up. He said the woman did resemble Annie. The young girl in charge dialed the emergency number, and the thugs were arrested. The doctor put two and two together and figured it all out when he returned home to find both women gone. Sophia, however, left a clue, and he’s following up on it as I tell you this.”

  Everyone in the room started to jabber at once. “Where? Where does he think they went?” Myra’s voice was the loudest, the shrillest.

  “To Enrico Araceli’s condominium. The doctor, who is not, by any means, a computer expert, had the young girl, who he said he delivered at birth, search the records, and she came up with Enrico’s address. We now have the address. If any of you have questions about what I learned from the good doctor, I can’t answer them. I just told you everything I know about what he told me. What we need to do now is make a plan and execute it.”

  “It’s dark out now, and we’re in a strange country. We don’t know our way around here,” Isabelle said.

  “We’ve operated under worse conditions,” Nikki shot back. “I am totally against waiting for morning in case that is your idea of a plan.”

  Cyrus, who was under the table because there was no room for him topside, barked a short blast of sound. His whole body was quivering from head to toe. He wanted out of here, and he wanted out now!

  “I hear you, buddy,” Jack said as he opened the door of the meeting room and stepped outside, Cyrus on his heels. The others followed down a short hallway, which led to an outdoor exit, where they all gathered under a portico of sorts. It gave them a little elbow room, but not by much.

  “My people are on the way to the Village of Tears,” Charles said. “Our MO is we’re a hiking club. It’s the same story we gave the desk clerk here at the hotel. If the village is under siege, my people will know it in an instant. They are in a rental van, and just to make sure our story holds, I had them rent enough mountain-climbing gear for all of us. That was the plan before this last call, when we all thought Annie would possibly head there. I have no other information other than Enrico’s profile, which we got from his place of business, a few friends, and one old neighbor whose memory was faulty at best. Just for the record, the only way to climb the mountain is from the base. It’s a one-road-in and one-road-out location.”

  “Tell us again what you found out,” Maggie said.

  “Enrico Araceli, which means ‘altar of heaven,’ is pretty much a loner. Sees himself as head of his family, which consists of two brothers who were born ten months apart and consider themselves twins, and Sophia, who is his mother’s sister. He did exceptionally well in school, his brothers, not so much. He was obsessed with money from an early age, and it was only natural for him to make his living in the financial world. Thanks, our sources said, to his uncle Armand. I alerted Abner back home, and he was able to hack into Enrico’s personal banking records. His net worth is around two million dollars U.S., in different bank accounts.

  “His portfolio is quite impressive. He has another two or three million in stocks and bonds. He owns the condo, which is high-end and worth close to a million dollars. He drives a Ferrari. Buys only designer clothing. There are no known serious female relationships in his life. Dinner dates, mostly business. As one of his colleagues put it, Enrico is not the sharing type, and if he had a wife, a mistres
s, he’d have to share. A female colleague told one of my operatives she made a move on him only to find out he had severe hang-ups on the mother issue, and she bolted. She didn’t want any part of that.

  “Enrico attended the university and is supposedly quite smart. The brothers did not attend the university. Both of them are what passes for normal. They’re mechanics. They have good jobs and make a decent wage. They bank most of their money except for living expenses. They share a garden apartment. They know how to cook and take care of themselves. One of them is in a relationship that will lead to marriage down the road. They’re as close as twins can be even though they aren’t twins. Supposedly there is no love or admiration for their brother Enrico. They do, however, recognize that he is the head of the family, and as is the custom here, they obey the head of the family, whether they like it or not.

  “I wasn’t able to get much on Count de Silva, Annie’s husband. No one mentioned that he was impoverished; they were all in awe of the title. Until his death, all three boys thought of him as Uncle Armand. He came and went like a visiting uncle. No one thought anything of it. And there was not one single person who would comment on the mother’s three pregnancies. Maybe they thought they were miracle births, I simply do not know since there was no husband anywhere in the picture. At least not one that anyone could remember.

  “We spoke to a few of Flavio’s and Mateo’s friends, who were very reticent to speak about the young men, even with cash being offered for information. We came away with the idea they are just two normal guys with no agendas other than getting from one day to the next.

  “If they’re in on this . . . whatever this is in regard to Annie, they were coerced. Oh, one other thing, both Flavio and Mateo are active in their church and, unlike Enrico, who only attends midnight mass on Christmas Eve, are good Catholics.

  “His secretary told that to my operative. With a hundred euros in her hand, she also said he was a devil to work for and was obsessed with making money. She did say that he paid her well. She has two young girls she is supporting, and that’s the only reason she puts up with his abuse.”