“You going to tell me what you wished for this time, too?”
“Only after it comes true,” she laughed.
Joe still had the specter of a supposedly dead terrorist hanging over him. Still had a hinky feeling in his gut that things were about to break. Yet that laugh made him feel a thousand pounds lighter.
The feeling lasted for all of five minutes. Just until he and Callie were weaving through the jumble of tourist stalls beginning to open for business on the Via Delle Mutate. They were still several blocks from the center when Joe’s phone buzzed. One glance at caller ID had him whipping up the phone.
“Russo.”
“He’s there.” Frank Harden’s voice stabbed through the instrument. “In Rome.”
Chapter Thirteen
With Harden’s warning ringing in his head, Joe hit speed dial and called for another war council at the center ASAP. By the time he and Callie got there, Emilio and Dominic were on their way. Carlo hadn’t left the center yet. They found him pacing the hall, nursing a cup of coffee and a fierce scowl.
“Where’s Simona?” Callie asked. “I need to know if I still have a job.”
“Upstairs. One of the residents is ill.”
“Oh, no! Is Nikki with her?”
“Not yet. Dominic just texted. She’s coming in with him.”
“I’d better go up and see if I can help.”
She shed her coat and scarf, tossed them in her office, and hurried up the stairs.
That left Joe to relay Harden’s terse message. When he had, Carlo cursed and tossed his half-empty cup in a trash can.
“It’s not yet eight o’clock and the morning has already become a nightmare. First il Drago wakes me from a very pleasant and most interesting dream. Then she drags me down here, only to fling accusations at me about bribing half the judges in Rome. And then, when I try to deny the absurd charge, she snorts and says I probably wouldn’t remember who I’ve bribed, anyway.”
Having worked the prince’s security for several months, Joe would bet his last dollar that Carlo was more riled over the forgetfulness charge than the bribery. Sure enough, the prince tugged at one end of his mustache and sputtered indignantly.
“She all but called me senile. Me!”
Callie’s earlier remark teased at Joe’s brain. He wanted to ignore it. And he didn’t want to hear any further details in what could turn out to be a very awkward situation. But Carlo’s outrage demanded a response.
“So you, uh, offered to prove that you’re still young and virile?”
“What? But no! I merely kissed her.”
Joe tried, he really tried, to block the image of Carlo laying one on Simona Alberti.
“So,” he said when the image wouldn’t go away, “she whacked you a good one.”
“A very good one.” His outrage subsiding, Carlo slipped into a rueful grin and rubbed his cheek. “I should recruit her for the Stormo Incursori, no? My commandos could use someone who packs as much firepower in one arm as that one does.”
“Better we brief her on Frank Harden’s call,” Joe suggested, pulling the prince back to the present. “She needs to know whoever hacked into the case files is here, in Rome.”
Carlo nodded, but any plans to make the director aware of the threat took a sharp U-turn when Callie flew halfway down the stairs. Her eyes wide under her cap of curls, she leaned so far over the wrought-iron rail that Joe almost shouted a warning.
“Amal’s in labor,” she announced excitedly, “and Simona says the baby’s crowning! I’ve already called nine-one-one. We need scissors or a sharp knife and some string.”
She whirled and flew back up the stairs, leaving the two men to exchange looks of sheer male panic.
“Do you know anything about delivering a baby?” Carlo asked with a touch of desperation.
“Only what’s in the special ops medical handbook. You?”
“The same.”
Swallowing a groan, Joe took off at a lope. “I’ll hit the kitchen. They’ll have a knife. Maybe some string. You check the offices.”
Like Carlo, Joe had spent years in clandestine ops. More years prior to that as a military cop. During those years, he’d put his emergency medical training to the test more times than he wanted to count. Most recently, he remembered like a bayonet to the heart, in Curaçao. Cursing, he shoved that bloody scene out of his head. This was here. This was now.
As he raced for the kitchen, he dredged up a mental image of the special ops medical handbook. There was a chapter on obstetrics, he remembered. Not anywhere as detailed as the chapters dealing with treating battlefield injuries, of course. But pretty damned thorough. The subheadings faded in, faded out, jumped into focus.
Stage One: Onset of cervical changes and uterine contractions.
Stage Two: Full dilation and birth.
Stage Three: Delivery of the placenta.
Okay. Okay. Callie said the baby was crowing. That meant Amal had already progressed to stage two.
Images from the memorized manual flashed into Joe’s head. Diagrams of the female reproductive organs. Other diagrams showing a fully formed baby in the birth canal. Instructions on assisting a breech birth. How to do a...
What the hell was that incision? Damned if he could remember the medical term for a cut might be necessary to keep the baby from tearing the vaginal wall and ripping into the rectum, causing a bacterial infection that could kill both mother and child.
Christ Almighty!
He slammed into the kitchen and scared the crap out of the two cooks preparing what smelled like spicy breakfast frittatas. Good thing they recognized Joe from his survey of ingress and egress routes or he might have been smacked in the face with a giant frying pan. Still, they tensed and looked ready to let fly when he grabbed a long knife from the preparation counter.
“The director... Signora Alberti...she needs this.” Whirling, he plunged the blade into a pot of boiling water. “And string. Corda. Do you have corda?”
One of the cooks pointed his spatula at a drawer in the counter. Joe pawed through the jumble and found a roll of plastic twine. He was out of the kitchen and halfway to the stairs when he remembered Emilio. Juggling the knife and twine, he got his phone out of his pocket and stabbed a speed-dial number.
“Where the hell are you?”
“I’m just parking.”
“You have your med kit with you?”
“In the dash. Why?”
“It’s got sterile gloves, right? Gauze? And scissors. We need scissors.”
“Mio Dio! What’s happened?”
“A baby. That’s what’s happening.”
“Amal? Is it Amal?”
“Yeah! Now get your ass in here!”
* * *
Callie’s only experience with live birth had occurred when she was nine or ten years old. One otherwise uneventful Thursday evening, the gray-and-white cat who’d adopted her some years previously had mewled and pawed a nest in Callie’s fluffy pink bedspread. With no further ado, Boots proceeded to deliver seven adorable kittens.
This birth looked to be considerably more nerve-racking for everyone involved. A panting, white-faced Amal half sat, half reclined in her favorite chair in the arts and crafts room. Hidden behind the artificial palm draped with handmade stars and silver tinsel, she’d obviously been sketching when her pains first stabbed into her. Her pencil and a head and shoulders crafted with her signature bold strokes lay at the side of the chair, kicked out of the way by Simona and Leela.
The director now knelt between Amal’s knees. The center’s emergency medical kit and a stack of folded white towels were close at hand. Leela crouched beside the straining woman, gripping her hand and murmuring encouragement in her precise English. Another woman, one whose name Callie couldn’
t remember, stood on Amal’s other side and dabbed her sweat-streaked face with a cool cloth.
Other residents crowded the hall and corners of the large room. As Callie hurried past them, she thought for a heart-wrenching moment that she could tell those who’d had—and lost—children by the mix of hope and desolation on their faces. Aching for them, she issued a breathless report.
“Scissors and some string are on the way, Simona.”
“Good, because this little one’s about to make his or her debut.” The director was calm, cool, rock steady. “Push now, Amal. Push. Once more. Ah, there he is. I’m holding his head. One more... Wait. Wait!”
She flashed a look over her shoulder and caught Callie in a relentless stare. “Grab one of those towels. Now kneel beside me and support the baby’s head. No, don’t elevate it. Just hold it steady.”
Still calm, still steady, the director explained what she was doing to the panting mother. “The umbilical cord is wrapped around your baby’s neck. That’s not uncommon. My second baby came the same way.”
Callie barely registered the words. Her entire being was concentrated on the folded towel that cradled the tiny head crowned with wet, matted black hair.
“There,” Simona said. “I’m loosening the cord, making the loop bigger. Now the shoulders can slip through. All right. Push.”
When the baby slid into Simona’s hands, none of the women in the room uttered a single sound. The incredible drama gripped Callie, too. She could hardly breathe as Simona gently turned the baby over and cleared its mouth with a gloved finger. Then the baby’s lusty wail broke the spell. Relief and excitement pulsed through the room in palpable waves.
“It’s a girl.” The director’s voice wavered for the briefest instant as she wrapped the baby in a clean towel and placed the bundle in Amal’s outstretched arms. “A beautiful little girl.”
Joe heard the pronouncement as he angled his way through the crowd at the door. Carlo was right behind him, and he could hear Emilio thundering up the stairs. He wanted to believe their services weren’t needed but knew they weren’t in the clear yet. Someone still had to cut the cord...and take care of the afterbirth. He was hoping to hell he could pass the knife and twine to someone more qualified to perform those tasks when he caught the wail of a siren. It was followed almost instantly by Carlo’s fervent prayer of thanks.
“Grazie a Dio!”
* * *
Nikki arrived on the scene the same time as the EMTs. Only too happy to yield her place to professionals, Callie pushed to her feet. As she edged around the potted palm, she spotted Amal’s discarded sketch. She swooped it up to keep it from being trampled by the medical team but was too absorbed in the continuing drama to give the portrait more than a passing glance.
She was still holding it when the EMTs transferred Amal and her baby to a gurney and wheeled them out. Nikki went with them, leaving Simona to share warm hugs with Leela and the woman who’d mopped Amal’s sweaty face. She hugged Callie, too, in a rare moment of pure sentiment.
As the crowd of residents slowly dispersed, Simona went into a bathroom to wash off the blood and fluids. When she came downstairs some time later, she was wearing a borrowed skirt so long it dragged the floor and a T-shirt obviously donated by the younger of the two teens. A female rock star Callie didn’t recognize flashed a dazzlingly white smile across Simona’s breasts.
“Good, you’re still here.”
She crossed to Callie, standing in the hall with Joe, Carlo, Emilio and Nikki’s husband, Dominic.
“I’m sorry I railed at you earlier about the password. After you ran out, Joe told us someone hacked the case files via a remote device.”
“No,” Callie protested. “You were right to be angry. It was stupid of me to write the password down.”
“Well, that’s water under the bridge.”
“It is?” Carlo asked, feigning amazement. “Am I hearing right? Is il Drago tempering her fire?”
“Not when it matters,” Simona warned.
“Ah. Then I must assume you won’t apologize to me.”
“You assume right,” Simona huffed. “You deserved to have your face slapped.”
“I was not speaking of that.” The mocking gleam in his eyes softened. “But since you mention it, cara, I must tell you it was worth the pain.”
To the surprise and acute discomfort of their audience, a tide of red crawled up Simona’s creased cheeks. She countered it with a reply that dripped unadulterated acid.
“Then what were you speaking of?”
“Hmm. Let me think.” Carlo pretended confusion this time. “I’m trying to remember.”
He glanced from Joe to Emilio to Dominic, his expression comical.
“Santa Maria! I must be growing senile.” He turned a helpless look on Simona. “Did you...? Did you...? Help me, cara! Did you accuse me of having judges in my pocket?”
Her reply was a glacial stare.
Callie caught her breath as the light of battle leaped into the prince’s face. Thank God Joe intervened before blood was spilled.
“Why don’t we take this to your office, Simona? I need to tell you about the call I got earlier this morning while Callie and I were on our way back to the center. I briefed her and Carlo, but you and Emilio and Dominic need to know the latest.”
The director glared at him, obviously reluctant to surrender the field. But concern for her charges won out over her private war with the prince. Hitching up her ridiculously long skirt, she headed for her office.
Carlo didn’t try to disguise his disappointment at her capitulation. Joe, Dominic and Emilio, however, shared a glance of profound relief. Callie ignored all four as the director’s calm, steady assurances to Amal echoed in her mind.
That’s not uncommon.
My second baby came the same way.
She let the others go on ahead. Simona’s words kept ringing in her head.
Callie was a trained psychologist. She’d studied at two of the most reputable universities in the United States. If her ego had needed stroking, she could’ve hung her framed diplomas in her office. Yet every day, every client reinforced how rarely life conformed to textbook case studies.
Simona’s past was obviously as complex and tortured as Joe’s, yet they’d both defied the odds. Somehow, some way, they’d drawn on inner reserves to emerge stronger and more resilient than anyone would’ve predicted.
And Amal, or whatever her real name was. She’d given birth surrounded by strangers. No screams. No tears. Only muffled grunts as she delivered the child she must pray would grow up in a safe, stable world.
Humbled again by Amal’s courage, Callie glanced at the portrait she’d scooped off the floor. She’d almost forgotten she held it and swore softly when she saw her nervous fist had crunched the paper. Carefully, she smoothed the folds.
As before, Amal’s talent astounded her. The bold, confident strokes. The clean lines. The pride and...
Wait! She knew that face! But how? Where?
She made the connection just seconds later. Amal had sketched the same face a few days ago. So arrogant. So beautiful. Then she’d slashed the sketch, over and over and over, until she’d obliterated it.
Callie had thought then—she still thought—the drawing represented some unidentified, unspecified male figure from Amal’s past. A masculine amalgam that summarized her deep-seated hate and fear.
Yet the longer Callie stared at this portrait, the more convinced she became it wasn’t an abstract rendering. This man had lived and breathed. His face was so real and alive and...
Oh, God! She’d seen him! Just the other morning! She’d spilled white chocolate espresso on his sleeve, then earned a fierce glare when she’d asked if the foam had seeped into his computer. His laptop computer.
Barely able to breat
he, Callie gripped the sketch in suddenly icy hands. Could this man be the target? The one who’d escaped the drone strike? Had he made those online queries about the center? And hacked into the case files? The possibilities were too real and too frightening to ignore.
Her heart thumping, she hurried down the hall. A few yards from the director’s office, she abruptly stopped. She could hear the conversation inside. Joe. Simona. Joe again. Their low voices competed with the warnings now firing through her mind.
Amal had sketched this portrait here, at the center. A place that promised her sanctuary and every expectation of privacy. Was this drawing covered by client-counselor privilege? Would Callie violate that privilege if she showed it to outsiders?
As soon as the thought occurred, she killed it. If the man in this sketch was who Joe thought he might be, he represented a potential danger to Amal. Possibly everyone at the center. Callie would take full responsibility for showing the portrait to appropriate authorities.
She pushed through the door and thrust the crumpled sketch at Joe. “Amal drew this. I don’t know who the man is, but I’ve seen him. Just a few days ago. At the café around the corner. He was having espresso...and he had a laptop with him.”
The others crowded around to study the portrait.
“Anyone recognize him?” Joe asked.
When no one did, he whipped out his phone and snapped several quick shots.
“I’m forwarding these to Harden and my own people,” he said, his thumbs working. “To you, too, Carlo, so you can send them to your contacts in the polizia. Emilio, I want you to zap a copy to every man on your crew. Have them canvass the neighborhood. Start with the café where Callie spotted this guy. And get someone to the hospital. I want a watch on Amal’s room 24/7.”
“Do you think she’s in danger?” Simona asked sharply. “Her and the baby?”
“I don’t know. Let’s hope to hell she can answer that. You’d better come with me. You and Callie.”
Callie's Christmas Wish Page 17