Eian stuck his head through the door, peering inside, as Wulf pushed it open. “That’s Xan Valentine. He’s a musician in a rock band, not a Grimaldi. His wife is Rae’s friend.”
Raphael almost grabbed Eian by the collar, but he respected his operators more than that. “That’s his stage name. Alexandre Grimaldi is Pierre Grimaldi’s first goddamn cousin, and he’s killed at least one man, maybe three, maybe more. Get in there and make sure he doesn’t add to his list of bodies by taking out your primary protection target.”
“Jesus—” Whatever else Eian said trailed off as he marched into the recovery room to stand guard. He crowded a surprised Alexandre out of the way and hovered over the woman and baby.
Yeah, Eian Summerhays would protect Rae and the newborn from anything short of a pack of rabid saber-toothed tigers, and he’d put up a good fight even in that case. Raphael would leave Eian in place to keep watch over them while the rest of them rescued Flicka.
Through the closing door, Rae yelled at Raphael, “Is Flicka alive?”
He called back, “Probably. She was yesterday.”
The woman had just given birth. He didn’t want her to worry, but that was the best information he had. He couldn’t promise anything beyond that, and he didn’t want to say any more in front of Alexandre Grimaldi.
He’d already seen the pictures that, he assumed, Monaco’s palace PR department had posted to Flicka’s social media accounts. He’d searched for information on her when they’d landed in New Jersey and found the pics. He’d thought nothing of the caption below the picture—I’m so happy to be back home in Monaco with my husband Prince Pierre!—but he’d clutched the picture as proof she was alive.
The photo must have been taken the morning after she’d left the warehouse with Pierre’s commandos. Sunlight streamed in the window and brightened her alabaster skin. Flicka’s face had filled out just a little in Geneva despite her attempts to pass on the potatoes at supper every night, and he thought her cheeks had that little bit of fullness that she hadn’t had when she’d been stress-starving about Wulfram’s wedding.
Wulfram grabbed Raphael’s arm. “Where is Flicka?”
Raphael led him down the hallway, away from the other Welfenlegion. “In Monaco, it appears, Durchlaucht.”
The old nickname for Wulfram slipped from his lips, and he almost winced with missing Flicka.
“She texted me yesterday when I was at a wedding,” Wulf said, swallowing hard, “saying that she had been kidnapped and was being taken somewhere. I didn’t show Rae the text. I didn’t know what to do. I was out of my mind, but I couldn’t leave Rae. She was in distress. I wanted her to go directly to the hospital, but she wouldn’t because of the damned wedding.”
Raphael reached out to Wulfram’s shoulder, an old and unconscious gesture, to steady him. “It appears that she’s in Monaco now. I have no reason to believe this photo is faked, and her hair is longer than it was at your wedding, as you can see.”
Wulfram spread his hands, dismayed. “So, can we send the plane for her, or could she fly commercial and be here by tomorrow morning? Or does she want to be in Monaco? Were we wrong about what happened?”
Wulf meant the night of his wedding, Raphael knew, the night when Flicka had gone missing, as Wulf had seen it. “We weren’t wrong, and it was worse than I told you.”
Wulfram grabbed a doorframe beside him, and his knuckles reddened. The serene expression on his face became rigid. “How was it worse?”
“She ran to me that night in Montreux when she disappeared—”
His voice was lower. “You knew she wasn’t dead that night?”
“I helped her escape from the hotel to meet with her lawyer in Paris, and then I got her to Las Vegas to file the divorce papers as was specified in her prenup.”
Wulf blinked, and his eyelids were the only movement on his stony face. “You had her all along? When I saw you in Theo’s office, I thought you just knew where she was, not that you had been keeping me in the dark all that time.”
“I had reasons.”
Wulf’s large hands curled into fists, though his eyes remained immobile. His voice was calm, measured, like he was explaining this thing to Raphael. “Yes, this mythical spy in the Welfenlegion. Flicka is my child, Dieter. You didn’t tell me she was with you and safe, and then I received that text yesterday. It sounded like she expected to die. I’ve been out of my mind.”
Very quietly out of his mind, Raphael assumed. “You saw us on the news from Las Vegas, I assume.”
“And then you disappeared again. It was one short sighting, and then those men threw you into vans. You didn’t return my texts or calls. I almost sent the Welfenlegion to track you down.”
“Glad you didn’t,” Raphael muttered, though he kind of wished the Welfenlegion had shown up en masse on the doorstep of the Mirabaud mansion. But Piotr Ilyin’s men probably would have shot the three of them and left their bodies for the Welfenlegion to find. That was the whole point of hostages.
Wulf said, “I don’t believe Pierre Grimaldi has a spy in our camp who would harm us. Even if he has someone feeding him information, that’s different than someone who would harm us at his direction. It’s preposterous that we’re not acting to get Flicka due to the report of one possible spy that is based on one intelligence source.”
The intelligence source had been Flicka herself, after Pierre had threatened her with it. “Either way, I have a proposition for you, Durchlaucht. Pierre is holding Flicka and not allowing her to leave Monaco. I’m sure of it.”
Wulfram’s hands relaxed, opening to rest at his sides. With his even tone, he might have been discussing the weather. “You believe that picture on her social media this morning is genuine? That it’s not an old picture they repurposed?”
“It’s real. She’s in Monaco.”
“She looked happy. Maybe we can get word to her, somehow, to give us a sign or make contact, if she does want to leave.”
“I’m sure she wants to leave,” Raphael said.
“How would you know?”
He sighed, not wanting to tell Wulfram. Hell, he wished he didn’t know. “That night in Montreux, Pierre beat the shit out of her, and he raped her.”
Wulf went absolutely still. His strong jaw bulged. The only thing that moved was his pupils expanding in his dark blue eyes as he looked somewhere behind Raphael.
“You’re sure?”
“I believe her completely, and she had bruises on her neck where he’d tried to strangle her.”
Wulf still further, becoming immobile, not breathing. Raphael could see his mind spinning.
“Wulfram—” he warned.
Wulf snatched his phone out of his pocket, punched a phone number, and said, “Ready my plane to leave immediately.”
Raphael said, “No, Wulfram, we have to do this the right way.”
“I swear to every god in every universe that I will kill him.”
Yeah, Raphael understood. “I know you want to and I understand that it sounds like a fantastic idea right now, but the most important thing is to get Flicka out of Monaco. Then we’ll decide what we can do to a guy who is pretty much an actual monarch of a country.”
His voice was intense but not raised. Wulfram growled, “I will kill him with my bare hands.”
Raphael had never seen Wulfram this angry. “I want to end that guy, too. I swear, I understand.”
“How could you understand what it’s like to know a monster is holding your child?”
Raphael admitted, “Because Pierre has Alina, too.”
Wulfram punched the wall. The plaster cracked.
Holy shit.
“How?” Wulfram snarled.
“Long story,” Raphael said, watching Wulfram. He’d never had to deal with an emotional, demonstrative Wulfram von Hannover before. It must have been the stress of seeing his newborn child ripped out of the woman he loved. Raphael hoped this was temporary and not some weird hormonal thing related to becoming a fath
er. He hadn’t become a basket case when Alina was born.
Wulfram turned away from the dent in the wall, his expression composed once again. “Tell me.”
“It was just another operation.”
“Tell me right now.”
There was no way all those confessions would end well. “We don’t have time right now. Here’s what I want to do: trade my Rogue Security operators for the Welfenlegion protecting you here. That way, if there is an undercover spy in the Welfenlegion, he’ll be in Monaco with me, not here with you. We can go in hot without worrying about any repercussions here to you and Rae.”
“I will be in Monaco with you, liberating my sister and then beating Pierre to death with my fists.”
This was exactly why Raphael had come in person to discuss the matter with Wulfram. Wulf wouldn’t have listened to him over a damned phone.
First, because if they did make the swap, they needed to do it immediately or else Grimaldi’s spy might have time to react and somehow stay in the Southwest to threaten Wulf or Rae. With Grimaldi’s spy on the plane with Raphael, he would watch the hell out of the Welfenlegion for any suspicious behavior. He might even figure out who their problem child was before they crossed into international waters.
He hoped it would be as easy as taking chips from a poker player who thought he could beat the house by doubling-down every hand. When they’d been in Vegas, Raphael had loved those guys. He could see them strutting over to the table from all the way across the casino. Sometimes he’d texted Flicka, telling her to see if she could get off of work early because he would have a pocketful of cash in an hour.
Second, Raphael knew he had to be with Wulf in person because he would have to talk Wulfram von Hannover down. Wulfram used to be a commando with the Swiss army’s ARD-10 and an excellent sniper. Wulfram was going to insist on going on the mission to liberate Flicka, and Raphael couldn’t allow that.
Raphael asked, “Do you remember Carl von Clausewitz?”
Wulf didn’t unclench his teeth, but he ground out, “Why are you quizzing me on military philosophers at a time like this?”
That answered his question. “Do you remember what happened to Clausewitz during the Jena campaign during the Napoleonic Wars?”
Wulfram was grinding his teeth like rocks tumbling on each other. “He was captured.”
“Who was captured with him?”
“Twenty-five thousand Prussians.”
True, but not what Raphael had been angling for. “And who else?”
Wulfram’s shoulders slumped. “Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, the Duke of Brunswick.”
“His Durchlaucht, who was your ancestor. That was Clausewitz’s largest failure, that he had allowed his commanding prince to be captured. He wrote about it obliquely in Vom Kriege,” the three-volume treatise On War, “and it haunted him for the rest of his life.”
“I don’t see what—”
“You can’t lead the attack, Durchlaucht. You have a wife and newborn child. You didn’t go in first when we found Flicka with your father—”
“I was there.”
“You could play a role in this if you wanted to, but I’d prefer if you stayed here in the Southwest with your wife and new child. Boy or girl?”
“Girl,” Wulf said, leaning against the wall. He closed his eyes. “Victoria Augusta.”
A girl. Raphael smiled at the memory of the night Alina was born. “With any luck, I’ll have Flicka home in time to be Victoria’s godmother at her christening.”
He nodded. “What role could I play?”
“You’d have to get Rae’s permission first. I’m not getting in the middle of that,” Raphael assured him.
“Tell me. I’ll determine whether we should take it to Rae or,” Wulf sucked in a deep breath and his shoulders slumped, “or whether I will stay to the rear of the battle as modern commanding officers do, instead of riding at the front on a damned white horse with my sword raised, though I would dearly love to chop down Pierre Grimaldi with a sword.”
“We’ll hack him to pieces eventually, Durchlaucht, but we need to get Flicka and Alina out first.”
Wulfram sighed and lifted his phone. “I’ll cancel the plane.”
Raphael shrugged and retrieved a small piece of paper from his wallet. “Let’s talk to Rae before you do that, and I need to talk to Georgie Johnson and her husband in there, too.”
Strategy
Raphael Mirabaud
Spies, traitors,
and betrayal.
Raphael sat in the much larger plane, one recently purchased by Wulfram von Hannover, flying through the dark hours of the early morning back toward Europe. Kitting out Wulfram’s plane to travel had been faster than performing the maintenance and refueling necessary to turn around Geneva Trust’s jet.
Besides, Wulfram’s plane had those fantastic reclining seats that turned into flat, twin beds with sheets, blankets, and pillows. Raphael was already looking forward to that.
He’d even had time for a quick shower and change of clothes at his own house in the Southwest, though the silence that Alina used to fill deafened him even above the persistent whine in his ears.
The lights inside the plane were dim because it was still dark outside the wide windows, but the company of burly, military-fit men wearing black fatigues was visible in the gloom.
Raphael wasn’t sure how Wulfram had butted his way to the top of the waiting list for the newest Gulfstream model and had it customized so fast, but he’d learned from hanging around Wulf for over a decade that monstrous amounts of money could indeed work miracles. The swirling coat of arms of the House of Hannover was subtly embroidered on the seatbacks in matte gold thread barely darker than the cream-caramel leather. If you didn’t know to look for the crest, it was almost invisible, like most of von Hannover’s extensive wealth. The shining wood trim appeared to be oak.
Raphael sat with Wulfram, Luca Wyss, Friedhelm Vonlanthen, and Julien Bodilsen at a conference table that unfolded from the side of the airplane. The reclining seats had been bolted to the floor in a pattern such that they spun to provide seating around the table for meetings or meals. The table itself was unusually wide for a folding table on an airplane. Raphael’s knees weren’t bonking Wulfram’s, who sat across from him. It must be custom-made.
A cup of coffee sat at Raphael’s elbow, and he was taking notes on a yellow pad of paper, just like everyone else at the table. The other Welfenlegion soldiers in the plane had swiveled their chairs around to listen and were also taking notes. Fifteen or so men filled the plane, which might be just enough, and only because Raphael had been training these men for years when he was Wulf’s head of security.
He still couldn’t fathom that one of them was a traitor.
Wulfram grumbled, “I can’t believe we’re launching what can only be considered a full-scale, frontal attack on a fortress, and I’ll be gone for it.”
“They’ll be expecting us to sneak in with a covert operation to rescue her,” Raphael said. “I mean, after all, who would be so arrogant as to stage a blatant military assault on the soil of a sovereign country? That’s insane.”
Wulfram cracked the smallest of smiles, the first that Raphael had seen. “I’ve always thought you might be insane, Dieter.”
Dieter.
They were going to have to have a conversation about that, but everyone in the Welfenlegion and Rogue Security called Raphael the same thing, Dieter Schwarz.
He felt like an imposter.
Maybe Raphael, himself, was Pierre’s spy. Maybe Dieter Schwarz had been brainwashed to believe that he was Raphael Mirabaud, and then when Pierre gave a command or held up a Queen of Hearts playing card, maybe Raphael would turn into someone else, someone who had been brainwashed to assassinate Wulfram von Hannover, his wife, and his child.
Raphael had been paranoid about Wulfram’s security for too many years. He might be beginning to lose his mind.
He shook his head and pointed to the sketch on the paper.
“I received a text from my source inside the Prince’s Palace—” the ginger Scot Aiden Grier, “—with information about the defenses on the Mediterranean side of the fortress. We’ll attack from the harbor. My people have already secured a yacht and parked it in a slip at Port de Fontvieille at the foot of the cliff, directly below the Prince’s Palace.”
They hadn’t.
He continued, “We have to wait for the new moon for our assault, which is in a week. As it is now, with the full moon a week ago, people would see our troops scaling the cliff in the moonlight.”
Luca Wyss nodded. He had basic notes on his legal pad: dates, times, new moon. “But they’ll have countermeasures. That’s why no one sane would attack the Prince’s Palace in Monaco.”
“That’s covered.” Raphael was planning to call Blaise Lyon, Rogue Security’s IT genius, as soon as they landed. That much was true.
Luca frowned, and he squinted at Raphael. “Their palace guards will surely have night-vision equipment, both low-light and infrared. Even without a moon, the city lights of Monte Carlo and Monaco Ville will be more than bright enough for NVGs to function. The fortress may be medieval, but their defenses won’t be.”
Raphael shrugged. “We’ll use flares. We’ll blind anyone using NVGs, and then we’ll turn ours on when theirs don’t work anymore.”
Luca looked troubled. “This isn’t ARD-10, Dieter. We don’t have the Swiss government to back us up.”
“I always thought it likely the Swiss government would deny all knowledge to maintain our much-vaunted neutrality. Anyway, you want to stay behind?”
Luca chuckled, his dark eyes twinkling. On his paper, he had written, NVGs = flares. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, not when we’re about to have some real fun. We need to anticipate their defenses. What else are we going up against?”
“Snipers, machine gun nests, and various noxious chemicals,” Raphael told him. “Plus spotlights and helicopters with the same.”
Luca leaned forward. “No one’s getting out of there alive.”
Happily Ever After (Runaway Princess: Flicka, Book 5) Page 7