by Kim Foster
Ethan peered out, monitoring for guards. He looked back at me. “I don’t know.”
“How about the loading bays?”
Ethan thought a beat, then nodded. “That might work. I think it’s our only chance.”
We needed to get down through the elevator shaft. But the only way to do that, and not get crushed by a descending elevator car, would be to lock it.
I hit the fire alarm on the wall next to the elevator. The screech of the alarm merely added to the din already coming from the intruder siren. Ethan prized the outer elevator doors open, then released the inner door restrictors and forced them apart.
Ethan clambered through first, going over the edge and hugging the wall of the elevator shaft to climb down it, and then I followed. I climbed out, fingers gripping the edge as I lowered myself down. I tried to slow my breathing. I attempted to focus on my contracting muscles and ignore the screaming that was happening in my head as I began my descent.
The elevator shaft was dark, with just a few glimmering linear lights marking each of the floors. Black cables hung around us like jungle vines, and my nose filled with the smell of grease. The elevator car was just above, locked up because of the alarm. The shaft dropped down into the darkness.
We climbed down the shaft, descending three levels to the bottom floor. When we reached the bottom floor, Ethan forced the doors open just a crack.
I peeked through. No guards were immediately visible. But, in contrast to the elevator shaft, there were plenty of CCTV cameras down here. Before climbing out, Ethan jammed those feeds with his Rolex.
As Ethan opened the elevator doors fully, I could see the muscles in his forearms working. We crawled out into the corridor of loading bays.
Dim emergency lights lined the corridor, illuminating painted cinder-block walls and a polished concrete floor. The air was warm, compared to the elevator shaft, and smelled of industrial cleaner and floor polish. I tasted blood in my mouth and realized I must have bitten my tongue during the descent. The adrenaline flooding my veins had dulled the pain.
There had to be guards down here somewhere. Most of their manpower would have been dispatched to guard the exit points on the main floor. But as I crept forward, I peered around a dark corner. Business was still operating as usual. Workers were loading crates from the loading bays into the trucks and unloading others from the trucks. Typical. The Swiss would never want their clients to know anything was amiss.
My eyes slid to the left. Two guards were stationed by the loading bays.
My stomach tightened. How were we going to take out the guards? We had no weapons. And Swiss guards were extremely well trained. They protected the Pope, for Christ’s sake.
We needed something to draw out one of the guards. Both, ideally, but we could work with one. If we could get it down to one man and one weapon, we’d have a chance. Two people could maybe take on one man with an SG 550. And hopefully, nobody would get shot.
We huddled in an alcove and patched together a whispered plan. It was an old maneuver, but a classic, because it worked.
I waited until the workers were back in their trucks, out of view, and then I slipped back around a corner and placed my watch on the floor. With the watch’s alarm set to go off in thirty seconds, there was enough time for me to get back into position.
I got back to Ethan just before the beeping started. The guards stiffened and went into full alert mode, which is a distinct disadvantage with this maneuver. Then they wordlessly decided how to respond. Disappointingly, only one of them left his post.
Once he’d disappeared, we had a matter of seconds to deal with the remaining guard.
“Remember the partner shinobi ambush maneuver we learned at that in-service over the winter?” Ethan whispered.
“Open triangle with a phoenix twist?” I asked, chewing my lip.
He nodded. “That’s the one.” He hesitated and fixed me with a steady gaze. “You got this, Montgomery?”
I nodded. I looked at the semiautomatic assault rifle the guard held, and swallowed. But there was no other way. This man was standing between me and freedom. He represented being locked up in a Swiss prison. Not to mention being shot. I did not want to die here, in this cold concrete building beside Geneva International Airport.
I had to get through him.
At Ethan’s signal, we executed the ambush like a pair of ninjas. Before the guard had a chance to fire even once, we had taken him down.
But there was no time to celebrate. I heard the bootfalls of the first guard thundering back down the corridor.
Ethan quickly moved to a new position, and the instant the guard turned the corner, Ethan took him down with a maneuver so fast and physical, I hardly even saw it.
He stood over the unconscious guard, breathing heavily, stance broad, fists tight.
In spite of myself, my heart gave a schoolgirl quiver at the sight of him like that. “You know, Ethan, you still haven’t told me how you became so well trained in combat techniques,” I said.
“I’d be happy to, Montgomery, but I’m thinking now isn’t exactly the best time.”
“Probably right.”
At the far end of the exit bay, two trucks were being loaded. The drivers showed no sign of noticing the scuffle that had happened on our end, and the fire alarm was being thoroughly ignored. No surprise there. Everybody always ignored fire alarms.
Now the rolling aluminum door was the only thing standing in the way of freedom. We were almost out.
“We’ll have to sneak into a truck. Let them drive us out of here, unseen,” Ethan said. “We wait until the one at the end has loaded everything. Then we’ll sneak in and hide under the canvas packing.”
We slipped along on the exact route we had mapped out, tucked out of view of both the camera feeds and the truck drivers. When the drivers lit up a cigarette each and stood chatting by the cabs of their vehicles, that was our moment. We snuck onto the back of one of the trucks and hid ourselves under canvas.
After another minute, the back door of the truck slammed shut, plunging us into even more darkness.
The greasy canvas was heavy and rough and smelled like old boots. The floor of the truck vibrated as the engine suddenly started up. My left side heated up with the warmth of Ethan’s proximity.
I felt the truck drive up the ramp, exit the gate, and then drive forward to the security checkpoint. We paused at the exit. I heard muffled chatter and held my breath. Would they stop to look in the back?
I prayed they hadn’t yet figured out that we had gone down to the loading bays. Could they still be chasing our shadows on the upper floors?
I squeezed my fists tightly. A crack of light allowed me to glimpse Ethan, crouched beside me under the canvas. I could see the tension in his every muscle from the position he held. He turned, and we locked eyes. We were utterly trapped. All we could do was wait.
Chapter 33
Ethan felt like the wait would never end. If they came back here—if someone checked the back of the truck—what would he do? He glanced at Montgomery, felt her tension as she huddled there beside him. She was nervous, obviously, but he could also tell she was ready to go. Ready to deal with whatever came through the back of the truck next.
She’d been battling fear since he’d found her in Paris, but Ethan could see she still had all the tools, all the tenacity she needed. The way she’d handled herself during their escape had shown him. If only she could grasp that.
Still, Ethan felt an overpowering urge to protect her. And right now he did not like his chances of being able to do that. He was blind, had no idea how many guards were outside, if they were armed, and if they had sniffed out the two fugitives making their escape in the truck.
The wait dragged on.
And then, after what felt like an eternity, the brakes released with a hiss. The truck started moving again with a shudder and a bump. Ethan breathed as the truck continued rolling forward.
The vehicle trundled along the road
for a few minutes, and then the driver stopped for gas. Ethan could hear other vehicles at the station, smell the gasoline.
When the gas tank door on the truck snapped shut and the driver went in to pay, that was when Ethan and Cat snuck out the back.
It was over. They were out.
They hailed a cab back to the train station. It was time to return to Paris.
Less than an hour later, Ethan helped Cat climb onto the train at Gare de Cornavin in Geneva. Not that she needed it; the girl was more than capable. Somehow, she just stirred his chivalrous side.
They made their way through the lounge car with its rows of red fabric-covered seats. Ethan pulled hard on the heavy suctioned door, and they entered a first-class car. They squeezed through a narrow corridor, looking for an unoccupied compartment.
Ethan checked the time on the cheap flip phone he’d bought in the train station, the replacement for the phone he’d been forced to leave behind in Monsieur Gurtmann’s office. They’d be back in Paris by early evening.
After what they’d just been through, Ethan was looking forward to this train ride back to Paris. A little quality time with his favorite crook was just what his soul needed. The chemistry between them was undeniable. Montgomery had to know it, too.
They found an empty berth and flopped down on the smooth bench seats, opposite each other. He looked at her, thinking about the details of their escape.
“You were amazing, by the way,” Ethan said to Cat. “Back there.”
She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Hardly.” Ethan enjoyed the way she blushed a little as she said that.
“I’m serious,” he said. “The way you picked that lock in the Freeport corridor . . . You’re like lightning. You know that, right?”
At that point, the food cart arrived with sandwiches and coffee. They ate and drank and chatted companionably.
They were a good team. He knew it. She had to feel it, too, right?
If only there wasn’t that damn FBI agent in the picture. Ethan knew Cat was still emotionally attached to Jack and on paper they were still a couple. But it didn’t make sense. A thief and a cop? It couldn’t work. She’d see that soon enough.
But why was he even thinking along these lines? The last thing Ethan wanted was a serious relationship that was going to give him a hassle and tie him down. Wasn’t it?
Ethan stared out the window at the passing countryside, the rolling vineyards of the Burgundy region, leafy and pastoral under a late afternoon sun.
Cat pulled out a tablet from the backpack they’d stashed at the train station upon first arriving in Geneva. She’d downloaded photos from her micro-camera and was reviewing the images. Her small notepad, with the notes she’d gathered in the freeport, rested on the table beside her.
“Breaking into that vault is going to be tricky,” Ethan said. “Do you see a way?”
Cat was frowning as she pored over their data. “They’ve got pretty much every security measure imaginable. I need a loophole somewhere. . . .” She flipped through more photos. “Here,” she said. “These are the photographs of the vault itself. Take a look.”
She moved across the seats and slid in beside him so they could both look at the tablet screen. Her hair smelled great. How was that even possible after all they’d been through?
Ethan tried hard to focus on the photographs. And then he saw something interesting. “There. Can you zoom in on that?” he said.
“What? Here?” Cat zoomed in on a part of the vault door.
As she pulled her fingers across the screen and the photo zoomed in some more, they both froze. The magnification had revealed an inscribed name on the vault door. The name of the manufacturer: Stratford & Black.
“Oh, shit. That’s not good,” Ethan said.
“No, it’s definitely not,” Cat said.
The problem with Stratford & Black was that their combination locks were among the most challenging to manipulate. They had an incredibly annoying tendency to use serrated wheels with false tumbler notches.
Cracking that safe would be an absolute bitch.
Cat flopped back in her seat. “I think I need a new approach. I don’t know if I can get to it that way,” she said. “And then there’s that flooding thing Lafayette mentioned. . . .”
Ethan looked at her sharply. “Do you believe that?”
Cat shrugged. “I don’t know. But if it is true?” She frowned.
“Right. You know what we need?” Ethan said, standing up. “A distraction. And a real drink. Something a little stiffer than coffee.”
They made their way to the lounge car, and for a few minutes, Cat seemed to be enjoying herself. She laughed as Ethan relayed some of his adventures in Rome. They had a heated discussion about the various ways to overcome infrared security systems.
“But the thing is, Montgomery, all that high-tech security stuff . . . that’s not really what being a thief is about,” Ethan said, taking a sip of his frosty Heineken. “I mean, you have to take care of that stuff. Like eating your veggies. But it’s just about making a level playing field. Then, once you’ve canceled out the high-tech stuff, the rest is down to finesse. The rest is up to you and your skills. That’s what being a thief is really about. It’s an art. Way more than a science.”
She was looking at him with a strange expression. “I couldn’t put it better myself. That’s exactly what I think, too.”
He smiled. “Like I’ve said before, babe, we’re the same.”
The train sped through a town, and Cat turned her face to the window. Tile-roofed stone houses, embroidered with vines, clustered together beside the tracks. Cat frowned, lost in thought again.
Ethan put his hand on hers. “You okay? Are you thinking about the job again? Never mind, Montgomery. We’ll figure it out.” He flagged down the waiter. “Here, have another drink with me.”
Ethan could see the struggle on her face. “I—I think I just need to get some rest,” she said. “I’m going to go back to the compartment and lie down. You don’t mind, do you?”
Ethan looked at her carefully. Was this a proposition? Did she want company?
Ethan had spent a lot of time in his life analyzing the actions and language of women. This could go one of two ways. On paper, this could easily be a proposition. He was meant to follow. Or it could be the opposite.
But everything about her body language, her tone of voice suggested that there was nothing to read between the lines here. She wasn’t interested in having company in that private car. She genuinely just wanted a nap.
“Of course I don’t mind,” Ethan said, covering his disappointment. “You need rest. Go ahead. I’ll wake you before we get there, okay?”
She looked at him with unmistakable gratitude for not making things difficult. She’d experienced her fair share of come-ons, Ethan was willing to bet.
After Cat left, Ethan sat back in his chair and drank another Heineken. He stared out the window. The scenery was spectacular, but Ethan hardly noticed it. He was too much in his head. Maybe he should just give up. Cat was clearly committed to Jack. Why was he even bothering?
After five minutes of brooding, Ethan sensed someone by his table. He looked up to see a stranger standing there. A beautiful female stranger, a blonde with crystal-blue eyes and arched brows.
“Do you have a mobile phone I can use?” she asked with a faint German accent. “My battery just died, and I need to make a call.”
Ethan reached into his pocket. “Sure. Here you go. Please, have a seat,” he said graciously, indicating the empty seat across from him.
She sat down, explaining with an apology that she needed to ring the friend who was picking her up in Paris. She made her call, speaking in quick, passionate German, while Ethan watched her with great interest.
She hung up, eyes flashing with annoyance, and handed his phone back to him.
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You look like you could use a drink,” he said, then called the waiter over. “This woman needs a mart
ini. Three olives. And the good gin, please. None of that Gordon’s stuff. Hendrick’s, if you have it.”
The woman smiled, charmed.
It was just so damn easy.
As they chatted, Ethan sipped his beer and she, her martini. She laughed with abandon as he told a story about encountering a band of gypsies outside Bucharest, Romania. She started looking at him under coy eyelashes, and her face grew a little more flushed.
After the gypsy story, she mentioned in passing that she could read palms. He held out his upturned hand to her, accepting the challenge. She took it in her cool hands and started tracing the lines with her fingertip.
Ethan knew exactly where this could go if he wanted it to.
But did he want it to? It would be fun. And diverting. But could he get Cat out of his head long enough to enjoy himself?
Damn that little thief for working her way under his skin.
He had vaguely heard the woman make some reference to her private car and was about to politely give her a story about being in a serious relationship when, just at that moment, Cat arrived at the table. She looked vaguely rumpled, like she’d been tossing and turning. It was an unbelievably cute look for her.
Ethan pulled his hand away from the woman’s and quickly erased the look of guilt on his face. Because it was ridiculous. He didn’t owe Cat anything.
Cat stared at Ethan, at the table with their empty rounds of drinks, at the woman with her bare feet curled up under her. . . .
“Oh,” Cat said. “Um, my apologies for interrupting. I just thought of something I was going to say, Ethan, but it can wait—”
“No, it’s fine,” Ethan said quickly. “We were just talking. Montgomery, this is—” And at that moment, something happened that had never happened to Ethan before. He forgot the woman’s name. He stumbled and stuttered for a minute. Cat rolled her eyes. Worse was the look growing on the woman’s face.
“It’s Galiena,” she said, angrily packing up her things. “Thank you for the drinks, Ethan,” she said through her teeth. So now he was the asshole. Why did it always revert to that?