34
Grace Kelly Suite, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Geneva
The servant whispered into José Rodrigo 1’s ear and the former king paled.
“François, Señorita de Mey, I’m afraid we have to postpone our conversation to a later date. Unfortunately, I have to leave.”
The king was already on his feet and leaving the salon. Cloutard and Hellen shared a look of incomprehension, shook their heads, and followed him.
In the living room, everything was in an uproar. Two young women—the king’s servants, apparently—were gathering and packing whatever they could get their hands on. José Rodrigo himself had quickly gotten changed and was now barely recognizable: he had donned a long-haired wig and a tattered t-shirt. An old, crumpled hat sat on his head. He put on a pair of sunglasses and left the suite.
“Can someone tell me what is going on?” Cloutard shouted, but no one took any notice of him. The servant who had come in before was emptying the safe, stuffing documents indiscriminately into a briefcase. He looked up fearfully at Cloutard and Hellen. “Interpol,” he said, and returned his attention to the safe.
“But we don’t yet know who our contact is for the Alcázar!” Hellen cried.
“Merde! We have to go after the king,” said Cloutard.
Together they ran out of the suite, where they saw the king, flanked by two security staff also dressed in thrift store clothes, getting into the elevator at the end of the hallway.
Do they really think they’ll be less conspicuous dressed like that? Hellen wondered, running ahead of Cloutard. In Geneva? The elevator doors were already closing, but she managed to get her foot between them just in time. The doors slid open again and the king stood and glared at them.
“You forgot one little detail, Your Highness,” Cloutard said as he and Hellen joined them in the elevator.
One of the security men pressed the button for the garage several times. The king obviously had no intention of leaving through the lobby. The elevator descended, all eyes watching the display.
Then Cloutard pressed the stop button. “We need our contact, Your Highness.” Cloutard’s voice was uncompromising. José Rodrigo looked at him angrily. He was clearly not used to being spoken to like that.
“All right. Go to Café Citroën in Seville. Between 8 and 9 a.m. is best. Ask for—” The king stopped and pointed at the elevator buttons. “Can we move on, François? As you can see, we’re in hurry.”
Cloutard released the stop button and pressed the button for the garage.
“Thank you. Ask for Eloisa Arebalo. She always takes her breakfast there,” the king continued. “She will be told to expect you. She has remained loyal to me, and she will find a way to get you into the palace.”
Hellen nodded warily—getting inside was only half the battle.
“How you get into the royal couple’s apartments is up to you,” said the king, as if reading Hellen’s thoughts.
Just then, the elevator doors opened and the two security men looked out cautiously.
“No one in sight, Your Highness. We can escape up the ramp. On the corner is an old VW microbus. We will get you to safety in that.” The king nodded. “Pedro goes first and scouts the situation. You follow, and I bring up the rear,” the man continued. The king nodded again, but his face was ashen. He seemed tense and shaky. This level of stress couldn’t be healthy at his age.
“What about us?” Hellen asked.
“You are planning to break into a royal palace. I don’t think you need our help to get away from here.”
Cloutard pushed Hellen back into the elevator. “We will go up again,” he said. “Being seen with the king now would not be advantageous.”
Hellen nodded. They watched for a moment as the monarch and his two security men made their way through the garage. Then the doors closed and Cloutard pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator started to rise. Holding their breath, Cloutard and Hellen stared at the display, but the elevator stopped unexpectedly at the ground floor. Hellen and Cloutard shared a look.
“Easy, Hellen. We are just regular hotel guests,” Cloutard said.
The elevator doors opened and they found themselves staring down the barrels of four pistols, two held by plainclothes men, two by men in Swiss police uniforms.
“Interpol. You’re under arrest for aiding and abetting the escape of an internationally wanted criminal.”
Seconds later, handcuffs snapped shut around their wrists. They were grabbed by their arms and pushed into the back seat of a police car. Minutes later, they saw the king also being led away in handcuffs.
“I though Tom was a disaster magnet,” Hellen snapped at Cloutard. “But you’re really giving him a run for his money. Great plan, François. Now we’re accomplices of a money launderer.”
“But at least we have the right to a phone call, do we not?” Cloutard asked.
35
Belle Haven Park, Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, Virginia
Yasmine Matthews turned her silver GMC Yukon off the George Washington Parkway at Belle Haven Park and pulled into the sailing school parking lot. As she climbed out, she could already see two men in black suits and sunglasses, wearing the obligatory earpieces. One of them waved to her. She locked her car, the shrill chirp of the alarm slicing through the early morning silence. Even here, just a few miles from the United States Capitol, it was as if she had stepped into another world.
Yasmine had an uneasy feeling about this meeting. An empty parking lot. No one else around. A few hundred yards away was a housing development, the Belle View Condos, but no one there was likely to take any notice of them.
“Morning, ma’am. Vice President Pitcock is expecting you. It’s not very far.”
“All right,” Yasmine said, but in truth, nothing felt right to her at all. She did not believe that anything would happen to her, or that Pitcock could do anything to her with the Secret Service around, but she felt acutely uncomfortable. The two men escorted her onto the Dyke Marsh Trail, which soon turned along the shore of the Potomac River. The trail soon became one of the wooden boardwalks so common across the U.S., built to prevent the trail being washed away by high water.
She saw Pitcock ahead when she was still some distance away. He had stepped away from the boardwalk and was sitting on a tree trunk close to the shore that had been washed up in the last storm. He was leaning down and picking up stones and tossing them into the water, lost in thought. When he saw her coming, he straightened up and brushed the soil off his hands.
“Good morning, Yasmine. Thank you for coming. Shall we take a little stroll?” he said, stepping up onto the boardwalk again.
The two agents stayed at a respectable distance, too far away to hear what they said.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” Pitcock said, and he reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat. Casually, almost as a matter of course, he held the photograph out for Yasmine to see. The picture had been taken at Camp David. Yasmine turned pale. In it, she was naked, sitting astride the president. Both her face and the president’s were clearly recognizable.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Yasmine, please don’t insult my intelligence. You and I both know that I’m not going to reveal my source. Anyway, it’s beside the point. If this falls into the Republicans’ hands, Samson can kiss a second term goodbye.”
Yasmine swallowed, but she was not about to buckle so easily. “But why? The president is a widower and I’m as good as divorced.”
“Ma’am, George Samson isn’t the president of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the United States of America. People don’t take well to their president jumping from one bed to another.”
Yasmine’s breath caught in her chest. She wanted to know what he meant by “one bed to another,” but let it be.
“I have no intention of hindering the president’s re-election. On the contrary, I’m working to guarantee it.” Pitcock stopped in his tracks and looked at her intently. A small victor
y for Yasmine: she had piqued the vice president’s curiosity.
“And how do you expect to do that?” Pitcock asked calmly.
“I’ve got a plan.”
Pitcock laughed so loudly that it made Yasmine flinch. His ringing laughter sounded diabolical, especially in the morning silence.
“Oh, you’ve got a plan. I didn’t realize you’d switched careers. So you’ve hung up your CEO suit and joined the spin doctors? Don’t you think we have strategists in this country more qualified to plan the biggest and most important election campaign in the world?”
She couldn’t care less about Pitcock’s opinion, but his tone of voice was so disdainful that Yasmine was actually hurt. “This is not just some campaign plan. It is a strategy that will guarantee George’s re-election—and yours, too.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
“It’s not something I can talk about right now. But I can tell you this: I have the absolute backing of the president. He’s given me a free hand to put my plan into action. And he’s willing to do everything in his power to win re-election.”
“I am not particularly surprised to hear you have the president’s support, to be honest. Especially not when you’re doing a Monica Lewinsky on him at Camp David.”
“I would have expected a little more discretion from you, Mr. Vice President. A little more decency. But this has nothing to do with my relationship with the President.”
Pitcock had stopped walking again. He looked at Yasmine now with annoyance. “Ma’am, you have two options. Either you tell me right now what you’re up to and what this plan is that has the president’s support, or this picture will be on the front page of tomorrow’s Washington Post.”
Yasmine looked at Pitcock and realized she had no choice. “We’re engineering the election in our favor,” she said.
Pitcock raised his eyebrows and looked around. The two agents were still far enough away. The vice president said nothing, but he looked at Yasmine and slowly raised his eyebrows, a clear signal for her to continue. Yasmine nodded.
“The president cannot find out that you know about this,” she said, and she began to explain the plan to him in detail.
36
The Custom House Pub, ExCeL London conference center
“Here’s to an almost perfect first day, Captain.” A small group of Cobra officers had gathered around Captain Maierhofer, each with a pint in their hand, and they raised their glasses in a toast. “A masterpiece of coordination! Pulling off the biggest event in the history of the WHO practically without a hitch is a feat that won’t soon be matched.”
Captain Maierhofer knocked back a large swallow of Guinness, ignoring the sly allusion to the minor disturbance Wagner had caused that morning, and tipped his head back to release the tensions of the day. Wagner was the Americans’ problem now, and this event was truly among the high points of his career. Ever since he’d taken over command of the European Atlas antiterror unit, he’d been put to the test several times. But another was still to come—never before had all the European heads of state and the U.S. president been gathered at a WHO event. But he already had the troublesome Secret Service agents under control, and now the first day was over. There would be more to deal with tomorrow, of course, but most of the work was behind him. Everyone on his team knew what they had to do, and the machine was up and running. He smiled and was raising his glass to his lips once again when his cell phone rang.
“I’m off duty, damn it,” he joked. “Leave me alone.” It couldn’t really be anything very important. He looked at the display. It was a number he didn’t know.
“Maierhofer,” he said brusquely, taking the call.
“Captain, I apologize for calling you in the middle of a stressful event, but I have to talk to you. It’s Theresia de Mey speaking. I’m the president of Blue Shield.”
It took Maierhofer half a second to realize what this was about. Blue Shield was the organization that Wagner’s little girlfriend worked for. And wasn’t Wagner part of their new special ops team? Now he was curious.
“What can I do for you, Ms. de Mey?” he asked, sipping from his glass with satisfaction.
“You know Tom Wagner, don’t you? I believe he used to work for you, with Cobra?”
“Oh, I know him, all right. And I’m damned glad to be rid of him. Frankly, the ten Biblical plagues are a walk in the park compared to Tom Wagner. The man caused so much trouble that it wouldn’t fit into his personnel file.”
“That’s exactly why I’m calling. I let my daughter talk me into handing Wagner command of our Blue Shield special ops team.”
“Good God, really? Probably not a wise decision, ma’am. If Stallone and Schwarzenegger had a love child, it’d be subtler than Wagner. You might as well put Chuck Norris in charge of a royal wedding.” Talking about Tom Wagner always got the captain got worked up quickly. His face turned beet red, his pulse surged to a hundred and eighty, and he prowled through the pub like Reinhold Messner on his way up Everest.
“Let me guess,” one of the Cobra officers whispered to another. “Maierhofer’s talking about Wagner.” The other man nodded and they both grinned.
“I am also getting the impression that Wagner isn’t particularly reliable,” Theresia said.
“‘Isn’t particularly reliable’? That, Ms. de Mey, is an understatement. Kim Jong-un is a choirboy next to Wagner. There’s one incident I remember very clearly. Once, when he was on air marshal duty, Wagner put an entire aircraft and its passengers in danger. Then he drove at speed through the middle of a Vienna pedestrian zone and crashed into St. Stephen’s Cathedral. He concealed evidence. He shot the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg to smithereens. And as a grand finale, he commandeered a horse-drawn carriage! And if that’s not enough for you, we found a flight attendant dead in his houseboat the same day. All in less than twenty-four hours. The man’s a walking curse.”
Captain Maierhofer was in a rage. Theresia let him catch his breath before she spoke again. “Captain,” she said cautiously. “I have a large favor to ask of you.”
“Go ahead. I hope I can help.”
“I want a replacement for Wagner. I need someone I can rely on, someone who can lead the team with good judgement, without starting World War III in the process.”
Maierhofer nodded. He could understand the president of Blue Shield only too well, and he was glad that he himself no longer had to deal with Wagner.
“Ms. de Mey, I think I can help. I have a quite a number of reliable, experienced, highly decorated colleagues amongst my team.”
“It would be wonderful if you could put your feelers out and recommend someone you feel would be a suitable candidate.”
The captain smiled to himself. Destroying Wagner would almost be better than Christmas, running Atlas, and winning the lottery all rolled into one.
“I’ll be in touch soon,” he said. “I have a man in mind who’d be the perfect replacement.”
37
Community Hospital, St. Austell, England
Sienna didn’t scream. The shock was too great. In the first moment, she felt no pain at all, just a sensation of burning in her belly. She looked down in amazement at her blood-smeared hands. The bullet had passed through her stomach. She coughed a gout of blood onto the windshield. Another bullet zinged through the rear window, then smashed through the windshield and kept going. Tom turned around. The Kahle had appeared out of nowhere, racing after Tom’s car on foot. Tom stomped on the gas and the Kahle fell back and gave up the chase.
“You’ve been hit. Hold on,” Tom said. He was shaken, but he kept his cool. He grabbed his jacket from the back seat and handed it to Sienna. “Here. Press that onto the wound.”
Sienna’s adrenalin level slowly dropped and the pain set in, making her groan with pain. “Oh, God, I don’t want to die,” she cried.
Speed limits and road rules cast aside, Tom raced along the country road. His eyes switched from Sienna to the street ahead to the GPS navigation as he
tried feverishly to find the nearest hospital.
Finally. “Turn around at the earliest opportunity,” was the first thing the electronic female voice said. Tom wasted no time, swinging the wheel and sliding into a 180 degree turn in the middle of the street. He tried to push the gas pedal through the floor again. According to the navigation system, the nearest hospital was five miles away.
“You have to stay awake, Sienna. Look at me. Hold on.” He grasped her hand, and she raised her head and looked at him. A tear rolled down her cheek.
With an effort, she fished a small key out of the pocket of her trousers and opened the handcuff. “Magic,” she said, forcing a smile. She coughed up more blood and cried out in pain. She looked at Tom, knowing that she would not survive the day. She closed the handcuff around Tom’s wrist. “Take care of this,” she said. Then she lost consciousness. Her hand went limp in Tom’s.
“AAAAAHHH!” Tom screamed, and he beat his right fist furiously on the steering wheel. Tom gave the Vauxhall all it had as he shot along the A390 toward St. Austell, passing one car after another, leaning on the horn the whole way.
His driving, of course, did not go unnoticed, and a police patrol car was soon on his tail. Blue light flashing and siren wailing, it raced after the Vauxhall. But Tom ignored it. Tires squealing, he slid left into Porthpean Road and turned in to the hospital a quarter of a mile farther on.
“Sienna! Wake up! Don’t do this to me. Sienna!”
He screeched to a halt at the entrance, leaped out and ran around to the passenger side. Carefully, he lifted Sienna’s limp body out of the car and carried her into the hospital. The case with the biological essence dangled from his left wrist, the handcuff digging painfully into his skin, but right now that was the last thing on his mind.
The Golden Path (A Tom Wagner Adventure Book 4) Page 11