by Melinda Minx
He puts on his own pair of glasses. “With both of us together, it should keep them painted.”
The hostages become quieter, and the man stops talking.
I wait quietly and paint a few more of the terrorists red, while outlining dozens of hostages in green. Soon I have everyone covered.
I notice that when two of the terrorists cross paths, the red outlines both turn yellow. I see the gorgeous man look toward them and tap his glasses. When he taps, the terrorists turn red again.
“The software errs on the side of caution,” he says.
“Is this for some kind of SWAT team that is going to come in?” I ask.
5
Rikard
“No,” I whisper. “Not a SWAT team.”
My heart is pounding. Not because I’m about to drop six terrorists in the space of one heartbeat, but because of the way the American woman is looking at me.
Her full lips are pressed together, and her big brown eyes are locked on me. She should by all rights be terrified the same as the other hostages. I brought the second pair of glasses hoping to identify someone strong and capable to work with me. I thought it would be a man, maybe ex-military. The last thing I expected was this fragile-looking girl with fucking brass balls and steel nerves.
“All right,” I say. “I want you to tell all the hostages to get down.”
“When?” she asks.
I look around, making sure every last terrorist is still painted red. I see two of them fishing for cigarettes and not even holding their guns―their submachine guns are just hanging limply by the shoulder straps―and Yuri is bringing the phone to his ear. He’s also not touching his gun.
Only three of them are actually holding their guns in any capacity, but one is yawning. Only two actually look vigilant and are staring us down.
I look at those two and start to whisper. “One. Two.”
I look at Yuri. “Three.”
Each time I count, a number is added to their red outline. This is setting the kill priority.
“Four. Five―”
I look at the woman. “What’s your name, by the way? I’m Dick.”
“Jane,” she says.
“Jane,” I say. “If we don’t die in a few seconds here, would you like to have dinner with me?”
She smiles wide, and my adrenaline surges.
“Yes,” she says. “I’d love to, but is now really the time?”
I lean in closer to her. “If I have a date with you,” I say, “then I wouldn't dare die.”
She giggles, and terrorist number one and two look over at us.
“This funny to you?” the terrorist I’ve identified as number two asks.
“No,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
Number two looks over to number one, which means he’s not looking at us.
I reach into my jacket and press the button on the gun.
I hear it whirring, and the word “READY” appears on the lenses of the glasses.
All of the targeting we’ve been doing has been feeding into the gun stashed in my coat. Now that the moment is here, I pull the gun and speak the command into it, activated the software.
I say it in a low whisper. “Fire.”
The gun whips toward number one, fires a shot, and before I can even process that it’s fired, it aims automatically at number two, firing another round.
I see both number one and two drop to the ground, and I feel the gun moving itself over toward a new target, pulling my arm along with it. I hear Jane shouting for everyone to get down. I see her shoving a mother and child to the ground.
Yuri looks up from his phone just in time to take a bullet to the head.
The cigarette guys, numbers four and five, have dropped their cigarettes and are reaching for their guns when two more bullets blast out of the chamber and hit them each squarely in the chest.
The gun whips toward number six, but he dives behind a pillar, and the glasses lose track of him.
I throw the glasses away and aim manually at the pillar.
“You’re done!” I shout. “Throw your gun across the floor and come out with your hands up!”
I take big steps away from the other hostages. If he takes a shot at me, I don’t want him hitting any hostage, but especially not Jane.
“You know I’m dead,” he shouts. “I might as well―”
Then I see him appear from behind the pillar. His gun is pointed at the hostages. Not at me.
I open fire just as he does.
I see a big hole open up in his arm, and the gun drops from his hand. I fire again, at his chest this time, and he goes down.
I rush toward the hostages. “Anyone hit?”
Everyone is screaming and shouting and crying.
“Is anyone hit?” I repeat.
“No,” Jane says, looking up at me. “He missed. No one is hit. Everyone is fine.”
I rush toward the phone that Yuri dropped and call the Nordian forces outside the castle, letting them know I’ve defused the situation.
6
Jane
Dick grabs Yuri’s phone, and I walk toward him, away from the other hostages.
I hear him shouting into it. “All hostiles are down. I repeat, all hostiles are down. I’m going to lower the drawbridge. Do not fire.”
“Who the hell is this?” a voice hollers as the phone cackles back on. “How can I trust you?”
“General Breivik,” the commando says. “Is this a private channel?”
“Yes,” he barks.
“Ask Magnus,” I say. “This is Prince Rikard Northgaard.”
I’m right behind him now. And my jaw has dropped. He looks up at me suddenly, a big grin decorating his face.
Did he just say he is Prince Northgaard? Like, son of the king prince? Did I seriously just fall for a prince in a castle?
He puts the phone down and looks over at me. “Don’t tell anyone,” he says, glancing over toward the other hostages.
“Okay,” I say, still in total disbelief.
I realize I’m still wearing the glasses, and Prince Rikard is outlined in green.
I lick my lips, which are suddenly very dry. “I thought you said your name is Dick. I have to say I like ‘Rikard’ better.”
He laughs. “Call me Dick, for now. I need to lower the gate so we can release these hostages.”
He gives me another wide grin, and I finally realize just how incredibly tall he is. And how hard his body is. Then he bends down to lower the gate, and I see he’s got an amazing ass to boot.
He looks back at me. “Once the hostages are out and I’ve done my debriefing, we’ll get dinner.”
I give him an astonished smile. I’d somehow almost forgotten, or maybe I thought he was just joking. As soon as I learned this man was the Prince of Nordia, I assumed that fact somehow cancelled out our dinner plans. As if a prince would ever have dinner with me.
But we’re still on, apparently. I pinch my wrist until it really hurts, but I don’t wake up. I’m not dreaming. This must be real.
7
Rikard
“How is he?” Magnus asks.
We’re standing outside the door to my father’s room. It’s not quite a hospital room because it’s within the palace, but there is a full team of doctors and all the monitoring equipment you’d find in a normal hospital room.
I shake my head. “It’s too early to say. It was definitely a stroke, but they don’t know yet if there was significant brain damage.”
Magnus pats me on the back. “He’s a tough motherfucker. He’ll pull through.”
I nod solemnly. I want to have a positive outlook like Magnus, but my father taught me to be realistic above all else. I might end up being one of the youngest kings Nordia has ever seen, and it would mean a new king taking the throne during a separatist crisis. That’s the reality of the situation.
The one silver lining is having dinner tonight with Jane. I have to be realistic about her, too, though. Am I convincing myself
there’s more to her than there really is just because I know that I need to marry a commoner to ascend to the throne? Is there any chance I’m tricking myself into falling for her just so that I can serve my country as king?
No. I remember her face, her smile, her resolve. She’s the real deal, and I want to do nothing more right now than to get to know her better.
“Some seriously bad-ass shit in there,” Magnus says. “I know you had the auto-gun, but you dropped six guys and all together they only got off one shot, for real?”
“One of the hostages saw me sneaking in,” I say. “Helped me sneak in undetected by creating a diversion, then helped me paint and hold some targets for the auto-gun.”
“Damn,” Magnus says. “Was he like an ex-SEAL or something?”
I grin. “She.”
His eyes widen. “Was she an ex-SEAL?”
“No, I say, my smile growing even wider. “She’s a commoner. An American. And I have a date with her tonight.”
I arrange for a driver to bring me to Jane’s hotel, and he parks at the curbside. I get out of the car and see her straight away.
She’s wearing a short red dress with a white coat and red high-heels. The dress is too short and low-cut for this weather, but I sure as hell won’t complain. I can tell even from this distance that she’s shivering beneath the coat.
I wave and smile to her, and she wastes no time rushing toward me.
“It’s so cold,” she says.
I put an arm around her and hold her against me, and then I guide us toward the car. I open the door for her and help her into the back seat. She slides into the limousine, sighing in relief as she rubs her hands together in an effort to get warm.
“God, that feels good.”
“My country is cold,” I say. “Nordia means ‘Northern Realm’ in the old language. The nights are especially cold.”
She nods, still shivering a bit. “Nothing like a warm car or restaurant on a cold night.”
“And some hot, spiced wine,” I say. “I’ll order us some when we arrive.”
“Sounds good,” she says, glancing nervously down at her feet.
The car starts to move, and I reach into the wine cooler and remove the bottle.
“Your limo has its own wine cooler?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I think most limos do,” I say.
She laughs. “Guess I’m not very familiar with limos then.”
She has a wide face; it’s definitely not the textbook definition of beauty, but the uniqueness of her features manages to strike me as even more beautiful than what many men consider the ideal form of beauty. The ideal form promoted in magazines and movies is predictable and boring, while Jane is anything but.
“Do you speak the old language?” she asks me.
“Of course,” I say. “I used to speak it with family, but it’s almost been entirely replaced by English now.”
“That seems sad,” she says.
I nod. “It is sad. My grandfather had a choice to make: preserve that element of our culture and history, or push for English as the language used in schools. We are a small country, and making all of our citizens proficient in English provides them with huge advantages throughout the rest of Europe and the world. I think he made the right choice, though it is sad to see children today that can barely understand basic Nordian.”
“So,” she says, “sorry to bombard you with questions, but why the hell did the Prince of Nordia sneak into the castle alone. That seems way too reckless to me.”
I grin. “I wasn’t supposed to do it. My cousin, Magnus, helped me sneak in. General Breivik had some choice words for me after we got the hostages released, though.”
“He yelled at a prince?” she asks in surprise.
“Breivik trained me,” I say. “I didn’t want to be the kind of prince who just sits on his ass and polishes his crown. Breivik personally trained me to shoot, fight, do all the kinds of stuff I needed to know how to do when I saved the castle today. He was shouting at me and swearing a lot, but I saw some pride behind that drill sergeant act.”
She laughs. “So the Nordian prince remains anonymous so he can train to become a commando that’s an expert with crazy gadgets and weapons?”
I shake my head. “We’re given anonymity so we can pursue anything we want. I could have been a pianist, or an artist, or a racecar driver. Whatever I wanted. The idea is for me to become proficient in something so that by the time I’m crowned king, so that there is more to me than my royal blood.”
“You could have done anything in the world,” she says, “and you chose to become a soldier?”
“It wasn’t a well-received decision,” I say. “Usually if you’re third or fourth in line to the throne, like my cousin Magnus or Siegfried, it’s a commendable choice. But first in line? A lot of my family tried to stop me from doing it, saying it was too dangerous. I pointed out that my little sister, or even either one of my cousins, would be perfectly acceptable leaders even if I was killed in action.”
“And so they let you fight in wars?” Jane asks, her eyes wide.
“No,” I say, laughing. “They let me watch the front lines in Iraq and Syria through binoculars, with a squad guarding me at all times. They let me go on humanitarian missions where I mostly handed out food to starving people.”
“Well,” she says, “that’s definitely a good thing, isn’t it?”
I nod. “It is, but I had trained so hard, and today was the first day I have really been able to put all that training to the test.”
I don’t tell her that my father has suffered a stroke. That news is being kept secret under lock and key. If the separatists found out, they likely would escalate their attacks. I can’t even risk telling Jane.
The car pulls up to the restaurant, and as soon as he puts the vehicle in park, my driver exits and comes around to open the door for us.
I get out first, and then I take Jane’s hand to help her out. Her delicate hand is so soft and warm, and when she looks up at me with those big brown eyes, my heart beats faster than it did when my grappling hook connected over the castle walls.
When we reach the entrance, I hold the door open for Jane, and we go into the restaurant together.
“Two for Dick North,” I say.
The hostess looks down at the list of reservations. “Yes, right this way.”
We follow the hostess through the main part of the restaurant until we come to a candlelit table positioned in front of a window. We take our seats, and I grin as Jane takes in the view. All the buildings on the hill are lit up now, and each and every one is visible through the large picture window. The Danish Steps are lit up, too. There’s a light on each and every step, and we can even see the outline of people climbing the steps.
Jane points. “I can still see the police lights over by the castle.”
I nod. “They’ll be there for a while. You’re lucky you got in the castle when you did because it’s going to be closed for weeks now.”
She laughs. “Lucky? I was taken hostage.”
I lock eyes with her. Maybe it was insensitive for me to say she was lucky, but we’d never have met each other if she hadn’t been taken hostage. The little smile she gives me lets me know she’s thinking the same thing.
“Do you still feel cold?” I ask. “I’ll order us some of that hot wine I talked about.”
I call the server over to order wine and some appetizers, and it’s delivered to us in short order.
“Dick North,” she says, sipping at her wine.
“It’s close enough to my real name,” I say.
“I like your real name better,” she says. She looks down at her wine. “This is really good.”
“One of this country’s oldest recipes,” I say. “We drank it to celebrate when we conquered Latvia, and we drank even more when the Danes took the Hill. We drink it both to celebrate and to mourn.”
“Today is to celebrate?” she asks.
“Of course,” I
say. “You and I defeated six terrorists and saved the castle.”
I realize that I’m partly drinking to grieve over my father, even though I shouldn’t be mourning him when he could still recover.
Her face turns red. I don’t know if it’s from the wine or from what I said.
“I think you’re giving me a bit too much credit,” she says.
I shake my head. “No, I’m not. If you hadn’t helped me get down, I may have had to take shots from up above. I couldn’t keep more than three of them painted red from up there, and there’s every possibility some hostages would have been killed before I took out all of the separatists.”
I speak in a low whisper, not wanting to risk anyone overhearing me.
“I should have been more scared,” she says. “I don’t know why I wasn’t. You should see how terrified I get when I see a cockroach in my apartment. I think I was probably so terrified that I did a complete three hundred and sixty, and forgot to be scared.”
“It’s survival instinct,” I say. “Some have it, others don’t. You have it. You knew deep down that you had to do something. You couldn’t just stand there and be a hostage or a victim. Your switch to fight back was flipped on.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she says, taking another sip of the wine. “I think that was the first time ever that my life was really in danger. It was definitely the first time I ever had a gun pointed at me.”
“What do you do?” I ask, changing the subject.
She looks down at her glass, not answering.
“That’s a question Americans ask, isn’t it?” I ask, worried I overstepped the boundaries somehow.
“It is,” she says. “You don’t ask that question here?”
I shrug. “In our culture, it’s seen as a rude question. We believe you are more than your career or profession.”
She laughs. “If it’s considered rude, then why did you ask me?”
“I was trying to adapt to your culture. Also, I just wanted to know more about you.”
