Princess in Peril

by Rachelle Mccalla

  Another lunge sent him rocking back, this time coughing against the dust he’d raised. Giving each cuff an experimental tug in turn, he found them still solidly anchored to the wall. It would take forever to pull them loose.

  Closing his eyes, Levi pictured Isabelle’s dark-eyed beauty, saw the smile that so easily sprang to her full lips.

  And then he recalled his anger at the threats Valli and Spiteri had made against her.

  He lunged forward furiously and was rewarded by a steady rain of mortar crumbling down onto his back. He wouldn’t tear the shackles from the wall for his father. He would do it for Isabelle because he couldn’t bear the idea of what would happen to her if he didn’t get her out of Valli’s grasp.

  Isabelle wriggled the mouse, bringing the monitor to life again.

  The red words continued to declare her login invalid.

  Strumming her gloved fingers on the impeccably clean glass that covered the desk, Isabelle decided to check the inscription on the key again. Had she memorized the numbers incorrectly? It didn’t seem like her to fail in something so important, but she was under a great deal of stress.

  CV66O9C3

  Isabelle stared at the numbers in the middle. She’d entered the O as a zero. After all, it was surrounded on either side by numbers. But what if it was the letter O?

  How many tries would the computer let her have before kicking her off or sending some error message to Valli?

  She typed in the figures carefully, using a letter instead of a zero.

  Welcome, Stephanos.

  Her sigh of relief was audible.

  Shoving the key back deep into her pocket, she scanned the messages. The senders ranged from local officials to bureaucrats in the United States. Minutes from meetings, notes of addendums, corrections and official matters of state. Blah. The man led an even more boring life than she did.

  Then her eyes landed on the name she’d been looking for.

  Tyrone Spiteri.

  She clicked the message and blinked several times, trying to make sense of the words from the email on the screen. The letters belonged to the English alphabet, but the words weren’t any she recognized. Reading them aloud under her breath, she hoped to recognize the language, though it didn’t resemble any of the French or Italian she’d studied.

  Texetai paidion

  Isabelle stopped short as the words left her mouth.

  was Lydian for “give birth to a baby.” So the words made sense after all. The Lydian language, a close cousin of Greek, used the Greek alphabet. That was why she hadn’t recognized the words because the message was composed using the English alphabet.

  The email was in Lydian, the language abandoned a century ago when the progressive leaders of their small nation had adopted English as an official language—a strategic move that had bolstered trade and improved their economy. Hardly anyone in Lydia spoke Lydian anymore, certainly not anyone under the age of ninety, although as princess, Isabelle had been taught the language that was still considered a vital part of her people’s heritage.

  Valli and Tyrone had apparently decided to encode their messages in Lydian by transliterating the Lydian messages phonetically into English-alphabet-based words, substituting the English letters of similar phonetic sound.

  Sneaky. There were probably only a couple dozen people in the whole world who knew Lydian and a smaller number still who would know enough of it to work out the contents of the message. Their strategy reminded Isabelle of the Navajo code-speakers from World War II, who’d used an almost-dead language to move messages through enemy lines. Whatever Tyrone and Valli were up to, they had gone to great pains to conceal the details.

  By reading the message under her breath, Isabelle was able to hear the message and translate its meaning in her mind. Even so, she quickly realized she’d entered their conversation well into its progress. They were talking about someone having a baby but she couldn’t tell whose or why they cared. Neither man struck her as the nurturing type.

  Exiting the message, she noticed a search field for the email account and entered “Spiteri.” For her efforts, she was rewarded with a host of messages between Tyrone and Valli, dating back long before her engagement.

  Much as she wanted to scan through the messages and learn what they were up to, she didn’t have any time to waste. She’d already taken too long, and translating the coded messages would take far more time than she had to lose. Quickly she jabbed the flash drive into a port and began copying all the messages to a document before storing them on the drive she’d inserted.

  While she bagged the messages, she decided to do another search. Tyrone didn’t have any control over Lydian soldiers and neither did Valli. And she didn’t buy for one second the ambassador’s excuse for why Lydian soldiers were guarding the U.S. Embassy. They answered to one of the three generals. She did a quick search for David Bardici.

  Pay dirt.

  Not only were there several recent messages from the general, but the other two generals, Corban Lucca and Marc Petrela, were included in the missives. The messages had all been placed in the trash file after having been opened, but to Isabelle’s relief, their contents were still viewable. From what she could tell, Valli’s system must have been set up to delete trashed messages after one week. None were any older than that. A quick glance at the contents demonstrated that these emails, too, were encoded in transliterated Lydian.

  For a moment, Isabelle debated whether to read the emails. She might not have much time. Someone could walk in on her at any moment. But then again, she might have all night, and she’d be devastated if anything happened to the flash drive and she had no idea what the messages said.

  Clicking open an email dated six days before—prior to the ambush on the royal motorcade but after the message to Albert was intercepted—Isabelle read the coded words aloud quickly, just enough to give her an idea of what was being communicated.

  The men knew about the message that had been intercepted and about the death of Albert and someone named Besnik. She could only assume Besnik was the other man who’d been floating in the Mursia. Anyway, from the sound of it they were both dead, and none of the four men included in the email were happy about that.

  Their final question rang ominously through her mind. Does this change our plans?

  She’d intended to stop reading after one email, but she quickly opened the next and got her answer. They were going to go through with it. Apparently all four involved knew what “it” was because details weren’t given, only the promise of more to come.

  Isabelle knew she didn’t have time to translate any more. But she’d gathered enough from those messages to know she was on the right track. She’d have to sort out the details later. There simply wasn’t time now.

  Copying all the general’s emails together with sender and recipient information as rapidly as possible to a document, she banked them on her storage device. A quick check of the device confirmed the documents had been successfully stored. She deleted the contents of the documents she’d made and then the files themselves before logging Valli out of his email. An expert might be able to dig up what she’d done on the computer, but by then she hoped to be long gone.

  Isabelle slipped the flash drive into her pocket that held the key and padded silently across the carpet to the door. She slid it open a crack.

  No one was in sight.

  She darted through and ducked into the shadow of the potted palm.

  Levi was nowhere to be seen, but she noticed a small red streak on the white marble floor. She’d seen enough of that substance recently to guess with confidence what it was.

  Blood.

  ELEVEN

  The second shackle tore a six-inch rock from the wall when it finally pulled loose. Levi bent double, catching his breath. He didn’t have time to free the shackle from the rock. He’d just have to drag it behind him.

  Levi was relieved to find the doorway to the catacombs that he’d knocked through the dungeon wall two
days prior appeared to have gone unnoticed, shielded as it was in its shadowy corner by construction debris and piles of boxes. He had nothing to light his way—the men who’d captured him had taken his cell phone—but as he recalled from his earlier trip through the tunnel with the princess, the jaunt across the street to the cathedral was a brief one. He’d simply have to feel his way and be very careful not to miss the stairs up. Otherwise he might end up wandering the catacombs indefinitely.

  Trailing his hand along the wall and moving as quickly as he dared, he prayed the whole time that the soldier who’d knocked him cold hadn’t discovered Isabelle. She hadn’t ended up chained next to him. No, they’d surely chain her to Spiteri instead.

  He increased his pace and nearly fell forward as the wall gave way under his hand.

  Stairs.

  Ten minutes later he opened one of the front doors of the cathedral, stepped outside into the night and slid a thick brochure between the jamb and the door, stopping the locking mechanism from engaging—just in case he decided to break back in. The front door would be much faster than crawling around through the catacombs. Then he made his way down the steps of the cathedral, across the street and up the front steps of the Embassy. He stood in the shadow of a marble pillar and peeked inside, his thoughts running fast ahead of him.

  He didn’t know of a way to get into the building. The windows of their suite looked out onto the courtyard, which was surrounded by the building. He didn’t know how to get inside the courtyard, either, enclosed as it was by walls on all sides. At least the marble pillar shielded him from the view of the nearest security camera.

  How many guards did Valli have? The soldier who’d knocked him out had probably had help dragging him off and chaining him up. And he knew they’d posted a guard of at least two men at the dungeon door. How many guards were left? And what might they be doing now?

  Capturing Isabelle? Searching their suite? It would be the next place he’d go if he were the soldiers.

  The soldiers who’d captured him had taken his phone. Now how would he contact the backup team and let them know the princess was alone, unguarded, likely already captured or on the verge of being taken prisoner? If he didn’t contact his brother by midnight, Joe and his men would show up and probably walk right into a trap if something wasn’t done before then.

  A movement inside the Embassy foyer caught his attention. A dark figure descended the white marble stairs. A soldier? Had they spotted him? It was impossible to see much in the darkness, but then the figure passed through the beam of light from the round window above.

  Isabelle!

  Levi strummed on the glass inset in the door with his fingers, trying to get her attention.

  She glanced his way, fear stark on her face in the white light.

  Tapping frantically, wishing he had a way to let her know he was friend, not foe, Levi tapped out the old shave-and-a-haircut.

  Isabelle must have realized a dangerous enemy wouldn’t bother with something so silly, because she trotted over to the door and peeked through the window. Relief flooded her face as she recognized him.

  Unsure whether the door had an alarm that would activate, Levi wondered if he should discourage her from opening it. She didn’t give him long to consider the question—she pushed open the door by the slam bar and nearly fell into his arms.

  Levi didn’t hear an alarm, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one going off somewhere. Besides, surely the soldiers were somewhere in the building, looking for the princess even now. He took her hand and pulled her across the street, grateful he’d thought to obstruct the lock on the cathedral doors.

  Isabelle spilled through the door into the cathedral narthex after him, practically on top of him as he paused, trying to decide which way to run. He steadied her with his arms.

  “What is this?” She lifted one of the chains that dangled from the shackles still attached to his wrists. The other had a good-size chunk of stone that the lodged bolt had refused to let go of.

  “Shackles.”

  “From the dungeon?”

  “I’ve had a busy night. Do you still have your phone?”

  She pulled it from her pocket and handed it to him. “What happened to yours?”

  “Soldiers.” He dialed the number for his brother. “You don’t think they’d chain me up but leave me my phone, do you?” As he spoke, he led the princess down the hall toward the offices, away from the front doors where anyone might stumble upon them.

  While the call rang, Levi asked Isabelle, “Did you get anything?”

  Her bright eyes were answer enough. “Yes.” She pressed a flash drive into his palm.

  Levi slipped the drive securely into his pocket as his brother answered the call.

  “Glad you finally called. I was about to send in the cavalry.”

  “We need a lift.”

  “Ready to head home, then?”

  “Yes. Where can we meet?”

  Joe suggested a nearby park with a wide-open area large enough to permit landing a helicopter. “Do you know the place?” he asked Levi. “How soon do you think you can get there?”

  “Give us twenty minutes.” Levi hoped to reach the spot sooner than that, but he wasn’t sure how many soldiers they might yet encounter, and he didn’t want Joe arriving too soon. If the soldiers spotted the helicopter before Levi and Isabelle reached the park, they might never get on board.

  “See you then.”

  Levi handed the phone back to Isabelle. “If we become separated, call the last number dialed.” He pulled her down the hallway.

  “You don’t think—”

  “I’m just trying to cover our bases.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “We need to get to Idylia Park. My brother’s team will pick us up there.”

  Isabelle tugged on his hand, slowing him to a stop. “How are we going to get there?”

  “The catacombs have an exit through a manhole one block from the park.”

  The princess shivered visibly and shook her head. “They chained you in the dungeon, remember? Do you really think they were just going to leave you there? I bet Valli is headed down there right now, ready to interrogate you or knock you off himself.”

  Levi didn’t doubt her theory. The man already seemed to hate him. He’d only be that much more furious once he realized the princess had slipped out of his grasp. “You’re afraid they’ll find the entrance to the catacombs?”

  “Yes. And if we’re in there, it won’t be difficult for them to track us down. There’s nowhere to hide in the catacombs. Besides, we don’t even have a flashlight.”

  “But the city is crawling with soldiers.”

  Isabelle looked thoughtful. “We need to get the information on that drive to someone who can help us. I would have emailed it directly from Valli’s account myself, but that would have left an electronic trail on his account—and if he was logged in elsewhere he would have known immediately what I was doing and probably where I was, too.”

  “Right. Let’s find Dom.” Levi tugged her down the hall toward the offices.

  “Dom Procopio?”

  “He had a computer in his office.”

  Isabelle sighed her relief. “Good. We’ll email the documents, then catch up to your brother. Do you think you should call him and warn him that we might be late?”

  “Late? Who said anything about being late?”

  Levi spotted the door to Dom’s office and gave the wood a gentle rap. When they’d been in the office two days before, he’d noticed the sofa in the corner was the fold-out kind, and the pillows atop it looked as though they were made for sleeping, not decoration. If his guess was right, the old deacon spent as many nights in that office as Levi spent in his, which was most of them. And with soldiers on the lookout for royal sympathizers, Dom would likely keep his head down.

  A shuffling sound inside the room preceded the glow of a dim light, and then Dom’s weary face peered through the cracked-open door.
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br />   “Again?” He pulled the door wide, sounding pleased to see them. “I saw on the news you were back in town. Say, Your Majesty, good speech to the media, too. I was surprised they had the guts to show it.” As he spoke, he pulled them inside and closed the door behind them.

  “It was the only sound bite I gave them.” Isabelle cast a smile to where the computer in the corner sat, its screen alight with the latest Lydian news. “Could we use your computer? We have some files we need to forward.”

  “Anything I can do to help.”

  Levi took the seat and quickly input relevant Sanctuary email addresses before pulling the files from the flash drive and sending them off with a quick note explaining the contents.

  “You’ll have to warn them they’re encoded,” Isabelle told him as he typed.

  “Do you know how to break the code?”

  “It’s Old Lydian, transliterated with the English alphabet. Does Sanctuary have anyone who knows Lydian?”

  “My grandmother might still remember some. She’s ninety-one years old and lives with my folks in New York.”

  “See if she can decipher any of it. Otherwise it will have to wait for me. I don’t know of anyone else outside of my family who knows the language. The tutor who taught me died years ago.”

  As Levi sent off the files, he addressed Dom. “We need to get to Idylia Park in less than ten minutes.”

  “That’s a couple kilometers from here,” Dom warned him. “And don’t you two need to stay out of sight?”

  Isabelle placed her hand on Dom’s arm. “That’s why we were hoping you could help us.”

  Dom shook his head. “I’m surprised they’ve left me alone after those two thugs followed us in the delivery truck. I can only assume they never made it out of the river.” He looked thoughtful. “I’d offer the truck, but the roads between here and Idylia Park are so narrow that it would hardly be faster than walking, if we could get through at all.”

  “You haven’t got another motorcycle around, have you?” Levi asked.

  “Motor scooter,” Dom corrected him. “For puttering around town.”