A few seconds later she could hear more noise coming from the rear of the house. For Sarah this was the sign to open the balcony door. It was a glass door and Sarah was ready to smash the glass when she realized that the door was unlocked. They’re waiting for me, she thought, but hopefully Steven’s noise has diverted their attention. This was the plan she and Steven had agreed on. Approach them from two sides. Let them know that we are here. They are expecting us. There’s no need to be quiet; maybe just quiet enough that the neighbours won’t fall out of their beds. Once inside the house, we’ll do whatever needs to be done.
Sarah quickly entered the room behind the balcony door. Inside the room she stepped to the side and scanned her surroundings. She saw no people but an open door on the other side of the room. With five quick steps she found herself on the other side of the door on a landing with four doors into other rooms and a staircase to the ground floor of the building.
Mike and his mother could be in a room up her or on the ground floor, she thought. She switched on her torch and walked from door to door, they were all unlocked, and had a quick look inside. She couldn’t see anybody and moved soundlessly down the staircase to the ground floor. She could hear more noise from the rear of the house. Steven is doing a good job, she thought. On the ground floor now, she did exactly what she had done on the first floor. She moved quietly from door to door, opened the door with a quick movement and pointed her pistol inside the room. She realized that a person inside the room with a pistol pointed towards the door would probably get her. On the other hand, she knew that she was fast and she wore a bullet proof vest. She didn’t think about the risk she was taking, she just did what she knew had to be done.
The third door she opened produced the desired result. There were people sitting on the floor and one person was pointing a gun at one person on the floor. It was dark, but the shapes of the people were clearly recognizable. Sarah shot at the person with the gun. She shot twice; the first bullet hit the gunman at the shoulder and made him bounce away from her. He was still holding on to his gun. Sarah’s second shot hit the man in the head. He was most likely dead before he hit the ground.
Sarah immediately left the room and closed the door. She didn’t want to be surprised inside the room. She could wait a few more minutes to free her friends. She looked and listened towards the end of the house where she knew Steve would be. Despite the silencer on her pistol, she expected that her shots had been heard. Steven would know that she had shot. Anybody looking for Steven would only know that something had happened. That person’s natural reaction would be to rush back to the room with the prisoners and check whether or not everything was okay.
I don’t really have to do anything, Sarah thought, I’ll just hide and wait. Sarah was right, but not as she had expected. She was standing on the first step of the staircase peeping around the corner of the wall towards the end of the house, when the light came on. Fifteen yards away she saw Steven with his hands above his head walking towards her. Apart from Steven there were two men, both behind Steven and each with a pistol pointing at Steven’s head.
Sarah went into auto pilot. Without making any sound, certainly nothing the men around the corner in the corridor could hear, Sarah went up the staircase, taking several steps at once, crossed the landing and ran through the room towards the balcony. On the balcony she took a deep breath, swung herself over the balustrade and climbed down the same way she had come up only a few minutes earlier. Less than twenty seconds later she sat in the car and drove away. She drove quietly and without haste. The neighbourhood was calm and looked dark. What had happened inside the house was bad enough, the only objective now was to get away without catching anybody’s attention.
43
Sarah was alone back in her room in the hotel. The people she regarded as her friends and mentors were imprisoned by an enemy she didn’t know and whose objectives she didn’t understand. She was wondering whether it had been a good idea to return to the hotel. She knocked at Mike and Christina’s hotel room door. She expected Christina to be asleep but within a few seconds a voice asked, “Who is it?” Sarah identified herself and was let into the room. She told Christina what had happened. The time was four in the morning.
After ten minutes Christina made a decision. She phoned Mike’s cell phone. It didn’t take long and a voice said, “How can I help you?”
Christina replied, “When and where can we meet?”
After a few seconds of silence the voice asked, “Why would I like to meet you?”
“Because I have something you want and you have something I want.”
“What could you have that I want?” The voice sounded polite, with just a tinge of an accent, but Christina couldn’t figure out what accent it could be. I don’t think I am talking to a bodyguard or a hired killer, she thought.
“You have four parts of the recipe, I have the remaining one.”
This time there was a long pause before the voice asked, “Are you talking about a recipe for cake? I do like cake.”
“Yes,” Christina heard herself say, “I am talking about a recipe for cake, for a very long lasting delicious cake.”
“How long lasting?”
“For all eternity.”
This time there was no reply. Christina could feel that the other person was still on the phone. The first one who speaks loses the game, she thought; but maybe not this time. After a few minutes of silence she said, “You have my number. Call me back. Make sure the goods I am interested in can be returned to me undamaged.” She pushed the red button on her cell phone and for a fraction of a moment, much to her own surprise, she could sense the loneliness of the man on the other end of the disconnected conversation.
Ten Minutes later Christina’s cell phone rang. She could see that the incoming call came from Mike’s phone. The same man she had spoken with earlier was on the phone. He said, “Tell me more about your part of the recipe.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we need to meet. You and I. There is no other option.”
“Okay then, let’s meet.”
“How do you want to go about this meeting?” Christina asked. “You come with your people and I come with my people and we face each other, everybody ready to pull their guns?”
“You have only one person left.”
“I have as many people as I need, believe it or leave it.”
“We could meet, just you and me. What do you think about that?”
“Do you suggest you and I meet and somewhere hidden in the background you have your people and when you give them a sign they shoot me?”
“How do I know that you have not hidden your people in the background and when you give them a sign they shoot me?”
“You don’t know. This is our problem. You can’t trust me and I can’t trust you,” Christina replied.
“The world is a terrible place,” the voice said. “There is no trust anymore.”
“There is plenty of trust in the world,” Christina countered immediately. “At this point in time there is no trust between you and me. That’s the problem; the world has nothing to do with it.”
“Very true. I allowed myself to be philosophical for a moment, that’s all.”
“This is not the time to be philosophical. Once this mess has been sorted out and you and I are still alive, that will be the time to be philosophical.”
“Do you think you and I will still be alive once this mess, as you put it, has been sorted out?” the voice asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I intend to stay alive.”
“In that case I think I will also intend to stay alive.”
“Why in that case? Wouldn’t you have intended to stay alive in any case? Don’t you want to eat that long lasting cake?”
“I don’t know … the same cake … every day?”
“Didn’t you think of this earlier?” Christina asked.
“Part of me did and part of
me didn’t.”
“I hope you stay alive and can explain that to me one day.”
“That would mean you would have to stay alive as well, which I can’t see.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Christina replied, “Worry about yourself.”
“Okay.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“At the moment, yes,” the voice answered.
“Okay, think about how we can meet without killing each other. When you have worked it out, give me another call.”
Again Christina pushed the red button on her cell phone and for a fraction of a moment, much to her own surprise once more, she could sense the loneliness of the man on the other end of the disconnected conversation.
This time it took only two minutes and the man returned the call. His voice sounded tired but also slightly annoyed when he said, “Please don’t do that again.”
“Don’t do what again?”
“Disconnect and pass all the hard work on to me.”
“You started a war for eternal life,” Christina answered. “Think about it. That’s a big thing. People got killed. Why shouldn’t you have to work for it? I, on the other hand, was dragged into this mess. I am negotiating for the release of four people. Just let them go and I’ll give you the remaining part of the recipe; things could be as simple as that.”
“Five people. You are negotiating for the release of five people.”
“Okay, five people, if you include the ninety three year old lady. I was hoping you would have released her by now.”
“She would walk straight to the police.”
“I don’t know her. Is she mentally and physically okay?”
“She has booked a one week skiing holiday. Her flight to Switzerland departs the day after tomorrow and she promised me hell if this hostage business isn’t over by tomorrow lunch time. These are her words.”
Christina couldn’t help laughing. Sarah, who was standing beside her, looked at her with an open mouth and big eyes. The entire conversation she had been listening to so far didn’t make any sense to her. Christina concluded her laughing by saying, “The old lady is your problem. Serves you right.”
“You know, I could kill her.”
“I don’t think so. You don’t sound like a man who would kill an old lady who is looking forward to her skiing holiday. But look, this is not the point here; you have to work out how we can meet without risking being shot. You got us into this and you have to get us out.”
“Why do we have to meet? Can’t we sort things out over the phone?”
“We have to meet. You work out how and then you call me back. Is this okay? Can I disconnect our conversation now? – Okay?”
“No, this is not okay.”
“All right, what else?”
“I don’t like your aggressive style.”
“Sorry, I just can’t help it because I am really angry at you.”
“How can you be angry at me? You don’t even know me.”
“True,” Christina agreed. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Maybe this is another good reason to meet. We have two reasons now. Firstly, I have something you want and you have something I want; and secondly, we want to have a look at each other, preferably without either one of us getting killed. So far, are we in agreement?”
“Agreed.”
“So, what next?”
“I’ll think of something and call you back.”
“Thanks,” Christina replied and pushed the red button on her cell phone.
Sarah, who had only listened to Christina’s side of the conversation, shook her head. “Who on earth is this man? What kind of negotiation was that? It sounded like you were talking to someone you … you … have known for years.”
“It’s weird,” Christina agreed, “everything I know about hostage negotiations somehow does not apply to this man. I am just following my gut feeling. I think I am trying to keep him interested in me. Subconsciously, I mean.”
“Maybe you are interested in him?”
“I am, definitely. I have to figure him out. I have to find his weak point. Assuming that he is the boss, he is both an ice cold killer and a man with a strange kind of charisma. I could feel it all the time …”
“Feel what?”
“I think he is unpredictable. Although he sounded cool, underneath he seemed fragile, like someone who can change from one person into another with the blink of an eye. I could be totally wrong of course. This is just my gut feeling.”
Changing the topic, Sarah asked, “You talked about your people on the phone to him. Who are your people?”
“You.”
“Who else?”
“Nobody else at this stage. We should talk to Nancy and Tony about this. I had dinner with Nancy last night; that’s the reason why I wasn’t here and why I was a bit surprised when nobody else was here when I returned shortly before midnight.”
44
Tony and Nancy listened once more to what Christina and Sarah had to tell. Sarah once more went through her experience in the ninety three year old lady’s house and her subsequent escape. Christina did her best to recreate her unusual conversation with the man who had answered Mike’s cell phone, word for word.
“You had your last conversation with him yesterday morning,” Tony said
“I don’t expect him to call back for a day or two,” Christina replied.
“You’re not worried that he may call your bluff about the fifth part of the recipe for eternal life and not call back at all? After all, he probably has the four sheets of paper that supposedly contain the full recipe. If the recipe makes any sense at all, he should realize that there is nothing missing.”
“I should be worried, I know – but I think he will call back. He is interested, either in the remaining part of the recipe or in me. But whatever, at this stage I have to wait and see.”
“Whoever he is, he must have a hell of a good group of people.”
“Yes and no; they had their failures. They killed the publisher and the three painters, but they failed when it came to Mike and the fourth painter, Jean.”
“Well, I hope you’re right as far as Mike is concerned.”
“Mike, his mother, Vanessa and Steven are alive.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I know it, but I can’t give you a rational explanation.” After a brief pause Christina continued, “I know it because … I could glimpse it when I spoke to that man.”
“What other impressions did you get?”
“I think he is a lonely man.”
“In which case living forever may not be the best thing for him,” Nancy remarked.
“I may tell him that when I meet him, which I hope I will.”
Christina’s cell phone rang. She looked at the displayed number. It was Mike’s number and when Christina took the call the voice of the man she had spoken to before said, “There is no way that we can meet with a one hundred percent guarantee that neither one of us might come to harm or get killed. Even if we met naked in a desert, there would be the risk that one of us could kill the other.”
“You are right,” Christina agreed. “There are many ways a naked person can kill another naked person in the desert. Besides, I think such a meeting would give me an unfair advantage.”
“Why?” There was genuine surprise in the voice of the man.
“Never mind. Let’s forget the naked desert stuff. What do you suggest?”
“I suggest that we say we trust each other.”
“Okay. So far so good.”
“We agree that we meet somewhere, only you and I, that we are unarmed and talk things over.”
“Interesting suggestion,” Christina replied. “Since we only say we trust each other, we of course don’t really have to trust each other, which means we can do whatever we like. We can indeed be trusting and arrive unarmed, we can bring a pistol along or we even can have our people positioned all over the place.”
“
Exactly! That is what I suggest.”
“This is definitely the craziest suggestion I have heard since the day I was born.”
“So, what do you think?” the voice asked, totally unimpressed by Christina’s negative comment.
“I’ll go along with it.”
“Really?” The voice sounded surprised once more.
“What reply did you expect?”
“I thought it may take a while to convince you of the merits of my proposal.”
“No, I can see that your suggestion is an honest and fair suggestion. Whatever happens, neither of us can complain about it afterwards.”
“Okay. That’s how I see it, too. Would you like to suggest a neutral and mutually convenient location where we meet?”
“I suggest we meet in the Louvre underneath the pyramid or outside the pyramid, whatever you prefer.”
The man on the other end of the wireless connection between Christina’s cell phone and Mike’s cell phone did not reply. He pushed the red button and disconnected the link.
Sarah, who had listened to the conversation, said, “I think you just made his blood pressure go up by fifty points.”
“He did not expect that we would know his location.”
“Sarah, utilizing Mike’s mother’s connection to a high ranking officer within France’s Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, was able to have the man’s location pinpointed within a few metres. The location of an unsecured mobile phone can be traced easily these days. The call from Mike’s cell phone had come from either within the Louvre or, more likely, from just outside the Louvre’s glass pyramid. While Christina spoke to the man, Sarah was on the phone talking to an officer at the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence. The officer expected Sarah’s call and was prepared within seconds to identify the location of Mike’s cell phone. Sarah wrote the location on a piece of paper – Louvre Pyramid – and showed it to Christina who immediately used it in her conversation with the unknown man.
An Almighty Conspiracy – A novel, a thriller, four people doing the unexpected Page 17