He seemed to be mulling over her last words. Whoops, maybe she shouldn’t have suggested ulterior motives. “Do you write your own music?”
She couldn’t stop the smile that quirked the side of her mouth. If he only knew. “I used to. Now Tommy chooses them—we have a stable of songwriters. Only recently, the songs have become a bit…”
“More seductive?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t necessarily like my new stuff. But it’s Vonya, you know, and…” She lifted a shoulder. “She opens doors.”
“You sound like you’re playing a character.”
Weren’t they all?
“I’m a product. One that sells.”
He leaned back in his seat. “I think you’re much more than that, Ronie.”
Ronie. Not Ronyika.
She put her buds in her ears, her hands shaking.
Oh, no. For the first time, she considered that she might not want to win after all.
FIVE
“You know, bro, you had us totally off the map about this woman. I expected some sort of misbehaving teenager. Vonya is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” Luke stood at the window, overlooking Friedrich Strasse. He had rolled his dress shirt up at the cuffs, his blond hair was a wreck—although he liked it messy—and he had a five-o’clock shadow that Chet would disapprove of.
In fact, he might disapprove of the entire operation. Brody could admit it felt hacked together, slipshod. Thankfully, no one really believed that Vonya was in any danger. Still, their techie, Artyom, in a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt—the look of a man who stayed behind the scenes—was already monitoring the chat sites, as well as reviewing video coverage from tonight’s event. They’d track faces and see who showed up more than once.
Outside, the rain had stopped, the street shiny and freshly scrubbed.
Brody liked Berlin—the grandeur of the Brandenburg Gate, the architecture of the Reichstag.
Even this hotel had its perks. So what if it was a re-creation of a hotel built in 1907—it felt old, with its marble lobby, stained-glass domed ceiling and Art Noveau fountain. And the piano player in the lobby added a touch of class.
Thankfully, they’d arrived incognito, without Vonya to mock the high-society feel that extended to the rooms, attired in gold and caramel and deep indigo blue. A cityscape picture hung over the double-long caramel sofa in the main living area. Sleek black-leather chairs surrounded a glass-and-metal coffee table, a flat-screen topped a dark walnut console, and in the adjoining room were two queen beds that he hadn’t used nearly enough.
Brody would have preferred the penthouse for the entire crew, with its adjoining rooms and suite, but Ronie nixed that right off. Instead he’d reserved them suites on one end of the hall—his team’s right across from Vonya and Leah.
“This is the nice Vonya. I’m not sure where the other one went,” Brody said to Luke’s assessment. He closed his cell phone. Hopefully the guy on the other end understood “pepperoni and mushroom.” His German was so rusty, especially compared to Ronie’s, that he might have just ordered schnitzel on his deep-dish pizza.
“I love her music.” Artyom raised his voice from the adjoining room suite.
“You wouldn’t know music if it hit you over the head, Russki. I’ve seen your version of entertainment in Moscow. If a disco ball isn’t involved, it doesn’t count.”
“Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff. Need I say more?”
“Right. Like you’ve ever even heard them. And Vonya’s a far cry from the classics.”
But, okay, sure, he’d tapped his foot a few times tonight at her show. Even found himself smiling. Especially since the gig had gone off without a hitch.
He’d counted no less than seventeen wardrobe changes. She had the speed of a supermodel, and frankly, the woman must work out, because the trapeze act, which turned out to be a hit, was nothing less than acrobatic. The pyrotechnics show had him hoping her purple wig was fireproof.
All in all, it was success. No doubt everyone left a Vonya concert feeling happy. He’d finally figured out her product…happiness. Escape.
It really wasn’t about music at all.
Although, he had to admit again, she could sing. What might her real voice, the one behind the mask, sound like?
Maybe sweet, like her laughter. Like yesterday, when Lyle had trounced her in chess. Although a big part of Brody suspected that perhaps she’d had to work hard to lose. Brody watched her—those eyes, which had layers of green and gold, lit right up, her laughter bright against the rainy pallor of the day.
“She might not be a classic but she has something special about her.” Luke turned away from the window and lay down on the bed still, perhaps favoring his leg after last fall’s gunshot wound. “I need some shut-eye. And, frankly, Wick, so do you. Vonya’s tucked into bed for the night, her door locked, bars on the windows. You need some shut-eye.”
“Actually, I thought I’d see if she’d like some pizza.” He heard the strange hope in his voice even as the words trundled out. Uh-oh.
Luke heard it, too. He looked over at him, eyebrow up. “You’re bringing her…pizza?”
“Listen, she’s been on her best behavior all week. Even cooperating.” She texted him a picture of herself in her daily disguise in the mornings—see, wasn’t that helpful? And she hung back and let him lead the way when they went out in public, in and out of transports, to the studio and back. The German paparazzi had tracked her down, but so far, all she’d done was wave. Not one move that might add a headline to their trip.
He had tried to reward her with silly gifts like making a latte run to Starbucks and meeting her in the lobby yesterday with a chocolate-filled kringle. So shoot him—they had looked delicious in the bakery case.
Nearly as delicious as her surprise when he’d handed her the bag at her door.
“Do I sense romance in the air? Because, you know, you’re still on the job.”
Brody held up his hand, like a shield against Luke’s sentence. “No. I’m not that stupid. She’s a client, and my job is to watch her back. I just…well, maybe I over-reacted. Maybe I did have her pegged wrong. Maybe she’s not going to be any trouble after all.”
“Uh, is that you letting your guard down, buddy? Because—”
“Listen, she’s got a lot of baggage. Her sister died a few years ago after Vonya donated her kidney to her. That has to be tough, right?”
Luke said nothing.
“And her father is a real piece of work. Has the emotions of a piece of ledgerock. I have a feeling no one in their family has ever dealt with their grief.”
Artyom came and stood in the door, leaning his shoulder against the frame.
“I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to her, and of course, I thought it meant she was up to something. Now I think she’s just trying to survive. And if she has to do it in costume…”
He went over to the window, staring down at Luke’s view.
“People do what they have to in order to survive.”
Luke sat up. “Sounds like she’s pretty hard on herself, if you ask me. Like she’s blaming herself for her sister’s death.”
“Why would she blame herself? She had no control over her sister’s body.”
“It was her kidney. She has to feel responsible. Maybe she just can’t forgive herself.”
Yes, he understood not being able to forgive yourself.
You don’t even like me. Why did her words keep coming back at him? Especially since, in fact, he had begun to like her—a little bit more every day.
Yes, the real Ronie had a startling sweetness. He saw it in the way she bantered with Lyle, and encouraged her band, and even kidded with Tommy D. In fact, Brody had started to suspect that perhaps there was something between them.
Not that it bothered him or anything, but what on this green planet would she see in Tommy D?
“You don’t like him?”
Oh, good grief, had he been mumbling again? He closed one e
ye in a wince at Luke’s question.
“He’s just…pushy. He picks all Vonya’s songs—especially the sexy ones. I saw her old stuff on You Tube—she used to have a sweetness about her. Now during some of her songs, I feel like I should troll the crowd for stalkers.”
“Feeling overprotective, Wick?”
“Here’s a word for you, pal—bodyguard. Not that it’s my favorite, but hey, it’s what I’m getting paid for.”
Luke smiled and picked up the remote. “Let’s see if we can find something in English.”
Brody leaned his forehead against the cool window. Overprotective. Maybe. Okay, so he was fond of Ronie, but only because he understood wanting to shake off the past but not knowing how to do it.
On the street, he saw a pizza delivery vehicle pull up.
“I’ll be back.” He grabbed the door key and headed down to the lobby.
The pizza man, not unlike the variety on the other side of the pond, haggled with the concierge. “That’s for me,” Brody said. He paid for the pizza at the desk, tipped the driver in euros and hit the button for the elevator.
Yes, he understood Ronie, finally. Something had broken open between them on the plane. He might even call it…trust.
The elevator opened. He let pass a woman in a metallic gray dress with black hair bobbed to her ears and bug sunglasses. Some sort of German starlet incognito, probably. Apparently, the hotel also housed other national highbrows—a billionaire from Greece, an Italian designer with his own slew of models, an African diplomat. He’d gotten the rundown from the security chief at the hotel.
He pushed the button for the fourth floor.
The pizza practically called to him to snag a piece of pepperoni. This was what international living did—made you crazy for home. Sure, he liked a good bratwurst or schnitzel now and then, but after the week he’d had, nothing but comfort food would make him sleep.
And now that Ronie was locked safely in her room, he just might do that.
But first, he’d see if she wanted a piece. Just because they were friends.
He stood outside her door for nearly a minute, letting his courage talk him into knocking. Friends. He was simply working the charm factor. Two Americans enjoying a large, deep-dish, pepperoni pizza.
He balanced the pizza box in one hand and knocked.
Leah cracked open the door. “Hey, Brody. What’s up?”
“I brought a late-night snack. I was thinking that—”
The look on her face stopped him cold. Some people could lie. Some couldn’t. And Leah clearly was in the second category. He could see her trying to conjure up a story, and fast.
“Where is she?” He put his hand on the door and pushed.
“Brody, no,” she said even as she stepped aside, probably more from fear than acquiescence. “Listen, I tried to talk her out of it but she said she had to go.”
Brody tossed the pizza onto the glass coffee table. He stalked in to one bedroom, then in to the other. Lyle looked up at Brody. “Did you say pizza?”
Brody rounded on Leah. “Go where?” His voice lowered to barely a whisper.
Leah wrapped her arms around her waist and drew in a breath. “She’ll be fine, Brody. She does this all the time. And I promise, no one will recognize her. She’s in costume.”
“Of course she is.” He wanted to put his fist through a wall as he remembered the dark-haired starlet exiting the lift. “Black wig, a gray dress?” Leah nodded.
“Where was she going?”
Leah made a face. “Do you promise not to be mad?”
“Leah, I am so beyond mad right now, but the truth is, this isn’t about mad. It’s about crazy. And me trying to keep her from getting hurt. Please.”
“She’s at a party. For General Mubar’s son.”
Ronie had recognized the genius of Vonya the very first night she’d donned the dress, the wig and the mask and crept onto the stage over five years ago.
She could go anywhere and do anything, and no one would be the wiser. Even Brody, who she’d passed without him even blinking at her as she snuck past him on the way to the penthouse elevator.
She might even explain her actions away, blaming them on Vonya. Tell herself that she, Ronie or Veronica S. Wagner had nothing to do with the flamboyant character who seemed so far from the person she thought she was.
Vonya had sometimes gotten out of control, turning into someone even Ronie couldn’t justify.
But tonight, for Kafara, Vonya would be her salvation.
She approached the door and handed the thug—a bald German the size of a linebacker—her invitation. He scanned the bar code. “You’re Vonya?”
“In the flesh, baby.” She puckered her bloodred lips at him and gave him an air kiss. He moved aside to let her enter the penthouse suite.
How convenient that Brody had picked this hotel for their accommodations, although why he’d had to find the most expensive hotel in Berlin was beyond her, unless… For a long, bone-chilling moment, she suspected he had figured her out.
But how could he know that she’d been using her Vonya persona as a cover ever since Zimbala, to ferry information as well as national secrets in and out of Europe as a CIA asset?
Yes, she kept that one close to her chest.
Not that she was on the payroll or anything. She just…well, she’d made friends with Clive Bishop, agent on the ground in Zimbala, and he’d needed a courier.
One time had turned into many.
Perhaps she did have a morsel of superspy in her because, yes, she loved the danger of knowing she carried highly sensitive, internal secrets across the ocean. Like footage of General Mubar’s recruiting techniques. And the mass grave Bishop had uncovered, proving the genocide of thousands of innocent women and children.
But this gig was personal. Or, at least, once she finished her mission, it would be.
She moved into the huge array of rooms, a smile on her face as she picked up a glass of champagne for show and sashayed through the crowd. A techno-European mix of punk rock thumped out of giant speakers. The balcony door hung open, probably to offset the heat of so many bodies breaking the fire code. The television blared a soccer match. She recognized faces from tabloids—an Italian actress who would probably know her in pink hair, and a punk rocker she’d met at a Berlin club during her tour a year ago. None of them recognized her.
Thankfully. Because circulating around the room like piranha were a few invited paparazzi. Yeah, that’d be perfect—get her picture taken so her father could totally lose his mind over her “behavior.”
And she didn’t tell Tommy D, either. Last time she’d hung out with Damu Mubar, tabloid pictures had put them together as a couple and Tommy had practically come unglued. She didn’t agree with her father that General Mubar knew her real identity. Damu had never suggested he knew her as anyone but Vonya. Still, she’d stay out of the press, just in case.
Not that Brody would be any better at holding it together if he found out. He’d be furious if he figured out she’d slipped out of her room—although she’d caught a whiff of that pizza and nearly turned around to chase after him.
But Damu Mubar’s birthday came only once a year. And she hadn’t cultivated a flirtatious friendship with the man just to derail it for a deep-dish pizza.
Oh, it probably had mushrooms…
And lots of sticky cheese…
She stopped a waiter, grabbing a sushi roll. Brody was probably holed up in his room, enjoying his pizza with the two other gorillas.
Okay, that wasn’t fair. She did like Luke. And Artyom.
And after today, she would be on her best behavior. It was only tonight that she’d be trouble. She’d snuggle up to Damu, grab his cell phone, swipe the V-chip, copy it in the cute little device Bishop had left in her welcome basket, and then return it.
Transmit to Bishop and he’d do the rest.
See, nothing to get ruffled about, Brody.
And she didn’t know why he had to get so uptigh
t about her attire. She saw less clothing on the women here than on some remote islands in Indonesia. One woman walked by in what looked like two napkins and a placemat. Another wore a leopard-print scarf wound round and round her skinny frame.
She raised her glass to a Vonya look-alike—white wig, policeman’s hat. Although she would never wear those strips of leather that doubled as a dress. Sorry, but she liked more material than that. Even her wings came with a blue, full-bodied leotard under it.
With everything inside her, she longed to be back in her suite, playing Mario with Lyle or reading the end of Pride and Prejudice. Or even watching Leah blog about their day on VonWatch.
Or enjoying a pizza with—
Stop. He wasn’t her friend. Even if he thought he was.
There. Standing on the balcony, chatting up a shapely blond. Damu Mubar had no problem making it as a tabloid favorite thanks to his creamy dark skin, the charisma of his smile, the gym-honed frame and the millions of dollars he wore in his silk suits, his Italian shoes, the diamonds on his fingers.
The only son of General Mubar, Damu had reached out to Vonya during her first tour to Zimbala three years ago, when he graciously offered to be her tour guide and then led her expertly away from his father’s child-soldier training camps and his more vocal dissenters. She’d picked up more quickly than the rest of the world that Mubar’s “rescue” of the oppressed just meant turning his guns on those who opposed him.
But for Bishop’s and Kafara’s sakes, she’d kept her mouth shut.
She slipped out onto the balcony. “Damu, you aren’t boring this poor girl with your car collection, are you?” She looked at the blonde, who couldn’t have been a day over eighteen, and winked.
Damu turned, a smile already shining as he held out his arms. Vonya slipped into his embrace. “My friend, Vonya. I’m so glad you came. And looking…yourself, as usual.” He kissed her cheek, his chuckle low.
The blonde gave her a pout and headed back inside.
“I’ve missed you, Damu.”
“I knew you couldn’t stay away from me.”
Mission: Out of Control Page 6