by Karen Dodd
“Roberto!” Nico yelled.
Pezzente looked back over his shoulder. “He’s with me, let him through. Nobody else gets in or out unless they’re police.”
The inside of the club was all but empty except for wait staff dressed in black and white, putting the finishing touches to the tables. The room looked large enough to hold several hundred people. On a raised stage at the far end, the band was doing a sound check. The entire back wall was made of accordioned glass and was open to the outside. Beyond, on the beach, there were the huge blue-light cubes Anna had described. They were spread out all along the sand between a long line of outdoor tables and the edge of the water. On the horizon, three police boats raced toward them.
“You stay here to direct them,” Pezzente said. “I’m going to find out the lay of the land.”
The second the flat-bottomed police boats came right up onshore, officers wearing Kevlar helmets, ballistic vests and night-vision goggles around their necks, bailed out and rushed the beach. Nico was wondering if any of them had been part of the team that rescued him and Francesca at the warehouse, when he spotted Inspector Farrugia in the lead. He hoped this time, they’d have better luck finding their target.
One of the last off the boats was Inspector Mifsud, easily distinguishable by his limp. An officer had hung back and was trying to offer assistance. Except the inspector was having none of it and broke away, caning his way up from the water.
Nico looked around and hoped that with all this fire power, Anna hadn’t given them the wrong location. He didn’t doubt she’d been here, but could she have been mistaken about there being a warehouse? He looked up toward the club to see Pezzente speaking with Farrugia, who was nodding his head. As he turned and huddled with his team, Pezzente broke off and walked back to where Nico stood.
“If he’s here, they’ll find him,” he said. “One of the security guards said there are still some old boathouses and storage lockers in back of here—part of the original structure before they converted it into a nightclub.”
“Do they have any reason to believe Baldisar is in there?” Nico asked.
“Not him specifically, but the guard reported seeing lights in there recently. He just assumed it was one of the owners working on their boat in dry dock.”
By then, a slightly out of breath Mifsud had joined them.
“Inspector, there are, what”—Pezzente looked at Nico for confirmation—“at least six coaches of conventioneers out front. We need to get them out of here as soon as possible.”
Mifsud’s face brightened. “That is something I can do. Take me to them.”
He and Nico stood out the front of the nightclub, watching as disappointed guests grumbled and complained as they were escorted back onto the buses. “This is seriously cutting into my cocktail hour,” Nico heard one man say, to which his fellow revelers roared with laughter. Ignorance is bliss, Nico thought. Just a couple more people to board and they could get everyone out of here safely without them ever knowing there was a police incident unfolding.
“What the hell?” Nico muttered under his breath. He turned to Mifsud. “Did you see that?”
Without waiting for an answer, he bolted to where Farrugia stood.
The coaches had started their engines in preparation for leaving. It was a slow process, as each bus had to execute at least a three-point maneuver to leave the narrow parking area. The second bus was just making its final turn, while the one ahead of it was slowly climbing the steep driveway.
“He’s on one of the buses!” Nico urgently said to Farrugia.
“How do you know?”
“I just saw a guest without a name tag, looking completely disheveled. His wife was upset—fussing over him and trying to fix his glasses.”
Farrugia looked at him skeptically. “Do you know which bus they got on?”
“No.” Nico pointed ahead. “They just walked between those two buses.”
To Farrugia’s credit, he turned his head and spoke into his headset. “Stop that bus!”
Officers with rifles swarmed the driveway. Two ran around to the front of the first bus, blocking its exit.
“Our target is on one of these buses,” Farrugia spoke again into his headset. “Find him.”
Nico’s eyes swept the four coaches that remained at the curb. People were staring out the windows, their expressions confused and anxious. An older man in a tuxedo was trying to comfort his wife as she frantically pointed outside.
The maximum capacity on the side of the luxury coach closest to Nico said fifty-six passengers. He did the math. If every one was full, that amounted to three hundred-plus living, breathing souls. On any given coach, fifty-six people plus the driver could be taken hostage in a heartbeat. Either by trained officers who knew how to minimize loss of life. Or by Alesandru Baldisar, a man who wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice as many lives as necessary in order to save his own. Either way, Nico thought, this would not end well. God, what if he was wrong?
Then he spotted him. The only passenger standing up was wearing a T-shirt with a name tag on a lanyard around his neck. For a split second, their eyes met. Alesandru Baldisar. You son of a bitch.
“There he is! He’s on bus three.” Nico hissed to Farrugia.
“Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Stay here,” Farrugia said. Nico could see him speaking into his mic as he made his way down the curb and stopped outside bus three. In a slow, strategic manner, armed officers were making their way over.
“Open the door,” Farrugia commanded the bus driver. Eyes bulging with fear, he shook his head.
“Open the door. Now!”
Nico heard the hiss of air as the hydraulic doors opened. People sitting near the emergency exits tried to open them. Several scrambled over each other. He wasn’t sure if they were helping or wanted to be the first to escape.
Farrugia waved the driver toward him. “Stay low,” he said quietly, “and come to me.”
The driver slid from his seat and bolted down the stairs before collapsing into the arms of an officer who led him inside the nightclub.
Outside, movement at the rear of the bus caught Nico’s eye. A sniper holding an AK-47 out in front of him, had his back glued to the coach and was sliding along underneath the high back window. Crouched low, another officer slid a portable black metal staircase under the bus. Nico looked away quickly so as not to draw anyone else’s attention to them.
A member of the tactical team had entered the bus and stood at the front, near where the driver would sit. Nico could hear him speaking to the people inside, but not what he was saying. Suddenly, a woman screamed. “He has a gun!”
The sharpshooter had climbed onto the metal step ladder, a question in his eyes. His teammate shook his head, and he ducked back down. Nico’s chest tightened, afraid he was about to witness a massacre.
The sound of a single gunshot pierced the air. Women were screaming, men were putting their arms over their wives’ heads. Pandemonium had officially broken out on the bus. Oh, dear God, please don’t let this be a bloodbath, Nico prayed. When he looked back, Baldisar had disappeared from view.
Sharpshooters rushed the bus until Farrugia put up his hand. “Stand down!” he commanded. “Stand down!” They held back.
A woman put both palms and her forehead on the window, her mouth open in a silent scream as everyone held their breath, waiting for the next shot. But there was nothing more than an eerie silence. Whether it was mere seconds or minutes, Nico didn’t know, but the officer who’d entered the bus came into view.
“We need an ambulance. Stat!”
* * *
Rather than taking one of the police boats back to Valletta, Inspector Mifsud elected to ride with Nico and Pezzente in the same unmarked car that had brought them to the scene. Though several bus passengers had to be treated for shock—the bus driver among them—only one ambulance was required to transport the solitary shooting victim to hospital. All three
men watched as paramedics loaded Alesandru Baldisar in and took off, sirens blaring.
Thankfully for the three hundred-plus party-goers, the man had proven to be a coward. Others might have seen it differently; that he chose not to take anyone with him when he had ample opportunity. It was one thing for someone to commit suicide while under extraordinary stress or mental illness. Nico’s heart went out to those individuals. But in Baldisar’s case, he was a coward. Plain and simple. Rather than be captured and face the consequences, he had put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. And he’d even screwed that up. While clinging to life by the thinnest of threads, he was fortunate not to be in a coroner’s wagon. But then again, it was still early.
Nico and Pezzente rode in the back seat, while Mifsud sat up front. “How did the police know he was trying to escape on one of the buses?” Roberto asked.
Inspector Mifsud turned to answer. His cheeks were pink and his eyes sparkled. “Nico noticed a man without his lanyard,” he said.
“Out of some three hundred or more people?”
Nico thought of the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of tourists he’d witnessed getting off tour buses at the Vatican. Someone always forgot their name tag and would try to bargain their way through the admissions area. Women often didn’t wear them because they clashed with their jewelry.
“I’d seen this one man just minutes before, and he had his on.” Nico said. “The next time I saw him, he wasn’t wearing it.”
“For God’s sake, he could have just lost it.” Pezzente chuckled and shook his head. “How did you know?”
“His hair and the collar of his suit jacket were sticking up as if he’d just pulled a sweater over his head. They were the last ones back to the buses and his wife was straightening out his glasses, which were twisted, and the lenses broken. I figured Baldisar had grabbed it off him and then headed to the buses.”
Mifsud smiled and turned back in his seat.
“But,” Nico continued. “It wasn’t until I saw a man dressed in a dirty T-shirt and a lanyard around his neck, that I knew which bus he was on.”
Pezzente elbowed Nico’s side—fortunately his uninjured one. “Pretty good detective work, Moretti. If the prosecutor thing ever doesn’t work out, we could use you in special investigations.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The police car had no sooner dropped Nico off at Valletta’s main square on the way to his old hotel, than his phone rang. It was Mifsud.
“Long time no see,” he answered. “Shouldn’t you be going home?”
“Nico, they’ve found Elle Sinclair.”
He stopped dead in the middle of the deserted street. Nico’s breath left his body. “Is she alive?” He could barely get the words out.
“Very much so.”
Oh, thank God. Regardless of how it looked, there had to be an explanation. She must have known something Nico didn’t. That’s why she hadn’t told him it was she who Ariana had entrusted with Max. After all, he’d thought the worst of Pezzente and in a way, he’d turned out to be a hero. He’d saved Anna Braithwaite’s life and had at least brought some closure to Ariana’s death.
“Security at Malta International Airport apprehended her trying to board a flight with fake ID, using the name of Eleanor Wilcox,” Mifsud said.
Nico was stunned. She’d been in Malta all this time?
“We’ve got her, Nico. Now we just have to find out where she took your boy.”
My boy. “Max isn’t with her? Can I talk to her?”
“They’re bringing her in now. I have a couple of phone calls to make. Get something to eat and I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”
* * *
Too keyed up to eat, Nico walked straight to Valletta Police Station. He was given a visitor’s pass and taken to Mifsud. Given the events of the past forty-eight hours, he couldn’t imagine how the inspector was still standing.
“Have I missed anything?” Nico asked.
“That was quick! Take it you skipped on that snack? Anyway, no, but from what I can see, she’s not going to give up much. She’s repeating word for word what she told airport security. Come with me.”
Nico followed him down a long hall, through a bullpen area with desks and through another door. As the door closed behind them, the cacophony of phone conversations faded, and they entered a quiet area. Mifsud tapped twice on what Nico knew was one-way glass and pushed the button for sound.
His initial impression as he watched Elle sitting rigidly on a metal chair was how old she suddenly appeared. In the harsh fluorescent lights, her face had taken on a sickly hue, aging her in its flickering glow. He heard the brittleness in her voice when she asked for a glass of water.
While it wasn’t the clichéd good-cop-bad-cop routine, it was clear the male agent was the one responsible for taking the softer approach in an attempt to put her at ease.
“Interpol?” Nico asked. Mifsud nodded.
“We know you didn’t mean to do anything wrong, Miss Sinclair,” the agent said. “You had parental consent to take the boy out of the country. But now we need to know where he is.”
Elle stared at the agent, her bland expression giving nothing away.
The female agent jumped in. “Harboring a child who is now the subject of an Amber Alert, is serious. You need to tell us, Elle, or things will get very bad for you very fast.”
That was obviously the wrong button to have pushed. Elle drew herself up in the chair and looked the woman up and down like she was something the cat had coughed up.
Good Cop jumped back in. “What my colleague meant to say, Miss Sinclair, is that we know you want the best for the little boy, right?”
Still, Elle said nothing. With a steady hand, she reached for the glass of water and took a long drink.
“Why were you attempting to travel to the UK under an alias?” Bad Cop asked.
Slowly and deliberately, Elle put down her glass. “My maiden name is Wilcox. I simply reverted to using an old ID. Is that a crime?”
Mifsud turned to Nico. “Has she ever been married, do you know?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Mifsud tapped on the window.
“My colleague and I need to step out for a moment, Miss Sinclair,” one of the agents said. “Can we get you anything?”
Elle gave an indignant sigh and looked at her watch. “I’ll have a cup of tea— strong, no sugar.”
“That’s one tough cookie,” the male agent said after exiting the interview room and Mifsud had flipped off the microphone. “No offense,” he said to his partner, “but I think I’ll get further with her on my own.”
“None taken. Whatever will get us what we need on the boy. Time is not on our side.”
* * *
After getting themselves a coffee, Nico, Mifsud and the female Interpol agent resumed their position behind the glass. Before the other agent returned to the interview room, Mifsud handed him a collection of mug shots. Nico recognized one of them as the man police had shot at the vineyard.
The agent tossed his empty cup into the trash and went back in. He took a seat opposite Elle and turned on the recording device. “How’s the tea, Miss Sinclair? Can I get you anything else?”
She didn’t respond, but Nico couldn’t help but notice she’d wrapped her hands around the steaming cup as if clinging to a tree trunk in a windstorm. “How much longer are you planning on holding me before you provide me with a lawyer?”
“You can call a lawyer anytime you like. But I can’t help you once you do.”
Elle raised an eyebrow.
The agent turned the mug shots to face Elle and pushed them across the table. “Do you recognize any of these men?”
As Elle looked down, Nico’s eyes were riveted on her, looking for any sign, however subtle, that she might know one of them.
“There is a little boy’s life at stake here, Miss Sinclair. He’s already lost his mother and he must be terrified. If you know and don’t tell us whe
re he is, you will be charged with child endangerment. Possibly kidnapping. And if we don’t find him alive—”
The veneer finally cracked. “That’s absurd! I loved Max.”
Loved? Why past tense? Nico felt like he was going to be sick.
Elle took a deep breath, appearing to steel herself for what she was about to say. “I haven’t seen Max since Ariana asked me to take him to his father in Kent. If he’s done something with him, that has nothing whatsoever to do with me.” Nico’s blood ran cold as he listened to her bald-faced lie.
“She told me she didn’t know who Max’s father was,” Nico hissed. “That he wasn’t a part of his and Ariana’s life.”
Mifsud rapped on the window and waited for the agent to come out. “We’re done here. I’ll have one of my officers put her in a holding cell where she can cool her heels until her lawyer arrives.”
He looked as weary and frustrated as Nico felt.
“What do we do now?” Nico asked.
Mifsud shrugged. “Nothing we can do. Legally, we can only hold her for forty-eight hours without charging her. Let’s hope her lawyer talks some sense into her.” He looked at Nico with tired eyes. “Go home and get some sleep. And pray that she’ll give up the location of the boy.”
* * *
The next morning
The icy confidence in Elle Sinclair’s eyes was gone. Nico sat across from her in the small holding space—no longer an “interview room.” Her face was still devoid of color, her radiance faded like the last ray of sun on an icy lake as nightfall descends.
