But I wasn’t alarmed. A man like this one didn’t have to attack unsuspecting girls in the storefront of a bakery. All he had to do was snap his fingers, and a literal harem of women would come running. Myself included if he kept smiling at me like that.
“This doesn’t seem like such a terrible part of town,” I said, wishing I could take a moment and freshen up my lipstick.
“Most of these shops are Jewish owned,” he informed me. “Their window panes are prone to breaking—especially after dark.”
“That’s terrible,” I said without thinking, and then I realized that, like most German citizens, he was probably a Nazi. Nearly everyone I’d met on this trip was, and anti-Semitism seemed to be a major part of the Nazi party manifest. Still, I said it again, staring right into his perfect eyes, daring him to contradict me. “That’s terrible.”
“Yes, it is.” He smiled at me again, and neatly changed the subject. “Where are you staying?”
I told him the name of my hotel as I stood up and brushed off my skirt.
“That’s eight miles across town. You walked all that way in those shoes?”
“It didn’t seem that far.” At the time. Now my feet were burning. And the rest of me was freezing. I hugged myself, and he took off his jacket.
“Please,” he said, draping it over my shoulders.
It was warm from his body heat and it smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, frying sausages, and sauerkraut. He must’ve just come from dinner at one of the local Bierhalls . I’d passed several on my journey, but hadn’t dared enter alone. My stomach rumbled now. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Fraülein.” His hazel eyes were like warm liquid. Men should not be allowed to have such beautiful eyes. “Do you have any objections to getting a ride back across town?”
I didn’t have the kind of money I’d need for a cab ride all the way back to my hotel. “Only if I can catch a bus or street car.”
He made a face of dismay. “Only . . . ?”
I was determined to use the small amount of spending money I’d brought to buy a present for my parents. Even if it meant walking another eight miles in the crisp night air in shoes that weren’t made for hiking.
I pulled the young man’s jacket together in the front, trying to get as warm as I could while I still could. “Would you happen to know how late they run?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. But if you want, I could ask my driver. He might know.”
“You have a—” I shut my mouth. He didn’t look like the kind of man who would have not just a car but a driver. And yet . . .
“It makes it much easier to get around Berlin,” he said as if he could easily read my mind. “I’m not a native, I’m actually from Wien—Vienna.” He held out his hand. “Heinrich von Hopf. My American friends call me Hank.”
“I’m Ingerose Rainer,” I told him. “My American friends call me Rose.” As for what my German friends called me . . . well, I didn’t seem to have too many German friends. The Nazis who had paid my passage from New York to recruit me as a spy under the guise of a scholarship prize were not my friends.
“Rose,” he said, melting my knees with another of those smiles. He was still holding my hand, and I gathered my wits about me and gently tugged it free.
“You’re one of the American students visiting the university. I read something about it in the paper. How wonderful to have a cultural exchange with our American friends. Are you enjoying your stay?”
“Do you want to hear the polite answer or the honest one?”
He laughed and his eyes sparkled. “Oh, definitely both.”
I gave him Kat Mulvaney’s smile. “Oh, yes, sir. I’m having such a wonderful time.”
“Oh, my,” he said, “You are a good liar, aren’t you? And the honest one now . . . ?”
“Berlin is nothing like New York. I love the history—the buildings are so old, but I don’t like not knowing my way around. And the papers don’t have the baseball scores . . .”
“Horrors,” he murmured, pursing his lips to hide a smile.
“I’m homesick, speaking and listening to German constantly is much harder than reading it in a book, and the people I’ve met aren’t very nice.” I amended that. “Most of the people.”
My stomach growled again, and Hank laughed. He had a truly magical laugh. “And you’re hungry and chilled,” he said. “Shall we find you something to eat and perhaps a glass of May wine to restore you?”
I hesitated, thinking of the limited funds in my pocket. Back at the hotel, I could order room service and the charges would be covered by my hosts. My Nazi hosts. I would be putting myself further and further into their debt simply by eating.
God save me, I didn’t want to go back there. I just wanted to go home. To my horror, I realized that my eyes had filled with tears. I fiercely blinked them back, turning slightly away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see.
He was the kind of man who saw everything. But he chose to pretend not to notice.
“My car’s right there.” He turned and gestured, and sure enough, a car engine started, its headlights switching on. “It would be my honor and privilege to treat such an esteemed guest of the Reich both to dinner and a ride back to her hotel.”
Which was worse? Being indebted to a man I didn’t know, or being indebted to Nazis who wanted me to spy for them? I wouldn’t have gotten into his car if he were alone, but a man with a driver . . . Was the driver going to abduct me, too? It didn’t seem likely. Still, I hesitated.
Hank put his hands into his pockets. “Let me be your friend,” he said quietly. “I think you could use one right now, yes?”
God, yes.
The car approached and I saw that it wasn’t just a car, it was a Rolls Royce. The driver—an older man dressed in a livery uniform—hopped out, and opened the back door, bowing.
Hank stepped forward. “Danke schön, Dieter, aber—”
“Your highness,” the man intoned loudly, and Hank winced.
If my jaw hadn’t dropped at the sight of the Rolls, it hit the ground now. I managed to get my mouth closed, and turned to stare at this man whose American friends called him Hank. No doubt his German friends called him something else entirely. “Something tells me you left out a few minor details from your introduction, your highness?”
“Don’t be mad,” he said. “I just . . . well, I know how unimpressed you Americans are about things like titles and . . . and . . .” He was actually stammering. “And it’s foolish, really. Absolutely foolish. I’m Austrian, Fraülein, and I had the good fortune to be born a prince in the house of . . . oh, it’s too complicated. And it’s ridiculous. After the War, Austria became a republic, and use of such titles was no longer allowed. But after the Anschluss—the annexation of Austria by Hitler and his Reich—our titles were restored, except we no longer have Austria to rule. Hitler and his Nazis rule now. So what good is a prince without a kingdom?”
His smile was tight and it occurred to me that he might be in need of a friend, too. Someone who wouldn’t fawn over his wealth and—as he called it—his foolish title that, despite saying otherwise, he cared very much about.
My stomach rumbled again.
“Please come with me before you starve to death right here in the street. I know a lovely place not far from here. . . .”
But I didn’t want to go anywhere lovely with Prince Anyone and have to sit at a table covered with white linen while waiters and wine stewards danced nervously around, and looked down their noses at me for using the wrong fork. I was tired and cold and done with feeling under siege for the day.
“It’s not very fancy,” he told me as if he could read my mind. “Just a Bierhall. There’s an open grill. Tables and benches. Music. No one will know you’re American. Or that I’m too often called something other than Hank. I go there all the time. The food is wonderful.”
I held the sleeve of his jacket to my nose and breathed in the scent that was so like my mother’s cooking.
&nb
sp; “Please,” he said again.
“All right.” The smile he gave me was brilliant, and it got even broader as I smiled back at him and added, “Hank.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Four
Savannah von Hopf woke up all alone in Kenny Karmody’s bed.
The house was silent the way houses often were when there was no one else around.
In the daylight, his bedroom looked less dim and mysterious and more like a laundry package holding station.
When she sat up, she encountered her reflection in the mirror that was on the closet door. She pulled up the sheet to cover herself, unable to face the sight of her nakedness. The fact that her hair was completely out of control was bad enough.
She flopped back onto Kenny’s pillows. What had she done?
She’d slept with this man on the equivalent of a first date. Somehow that hadn’t seemed like such a bad thing last night, when Ken was here, distracting her by being so intensely attractive. So darkly good-looking. So ripped with all those delicious muscles. So hot, so utterly, devastatingly sexy, so tempting.
She hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d wanted him for so long. Yes, it had all happened so fast, but so what? It had happened fast for Romeo and Juliet, too.
Ah, but look where that got them.
Now that Ken was gone, doubt flooded her. What if the fact that she’d gone and jumped him last night really wasn’t romantic? What if it was cheap? What if he now thought of her as easy?
The real irony here was she was the least easy person she knew—in more ways than one.
He hadn’t left her a note. At least not as far as she could see, and she tried to convince herself that that didn’t matter. Before he’d left, he’d told her that he’d try to get time off. And he’d told her he’d go with her to Indonesia. He’d seemed remarkably blasé about it, in fact.
Of course, she hadn’t yet told him why she had to go. Or that she’d come to San Diego expressly to talk him into going with her.
Savannah got out of bed, pulling the sheet off and wrapping it around her. God, his house was quiet. She went to the bathroom, then headed into the kitchen, praying he had coffee.
There on the table, held down by her purse and far better than the best Columbian blend she’d ever tasted, was a note from Ken.
“Sorry I had to leave,” he’d written. He had scratchy, kind of spidery handwriting—as if he didn’t spend too much time with a pen in his hand. “I should be back by 1100. Feel free to stay, help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen that’s edible. Coffee’s in the fridge.” Thank God. He’d also left a cell phone number. “If you get up early, call me.” That was underlined twice. “With luck, I’ll be in range.”
He’d signed it, “Love, Ken.” And there was a P.S. “I hope this doesn’t sound too hokey, Savannah, but you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’m counting the minutes til I can see you again.”
She almost started to cry. Instead, she picked up the phone on his kitchen wall and dialed the number he’d left.
He answered before the second ring, his voice that of a stranger’s—brisk, businesslike. “Karmody.”
Suddenly shy, all she could manage was, “Hi, it’s, um, it’s me.”
“Van.” His voice got a whole lot warmer. Thank God he knew who she was, that he remembered her, calling her by the nickname he’d used so often last night. “I was just thinking about you. I spoke to the senior chief. There’s going to be no problem at all with me getting two weeks leave.”
Her heart leapt. “Two whole weeks? That’s great, Kenny. Starting . . . ?”
“As soon after 1100 as I can do the paperwork. Things are really light right now, it’s a good time to be away.”
Savannah closed her eyes. Thank God. They could catch a flight out tonight. “That’s wonderful.”
“You bet. Look, I gotta run. You gonna hang there at my place or . . . ?”
“No,” she told him. “I’m going back to the hotel. I’m just going to call a cab.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then I’ll meet you there.”
“Ken?”
“I’m still here.”
“It wasn’t too hokey,” she told him. “What you wrote. It was lovely.”
“Yeah, well, it was either that or tell you just how badly I’m dying to go down on you.” He was laughing, but it was that laughter she’d come to recognize. He was being funny, yes, but he was also dead serious.
Savannah had to sit down. “Well,” she said weakly. “That’s a . . . a lovely thought, too.”
He laughed again. “You bet. Hey, I really gotta go. See you in a few, babe. Love ya.”
With a click, the connection was cut, and Savannah was left staring at the phone. Had he just said . . . ?
No. Love ya was definitely not I love you. He’d signed his note love, as well. It was his default farewell to the woman he was sleeping with. It didn’t mean anything.
It certainly didn’t mean half as much as the fact that he’d gotten two whole weeks off, that he was willing and ready to travel halfway around the world with her.
That he wanted to . . . Savannah laughed aloud, feeling herself blush even though she was completely alone. Lovely thought, indeed.
But it was going to have to wait.
You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.
The next time she came face to face with Kenny, she was going to have to come clean with him. She would tell him everything, tell him she’d come here looking for him, shoot, she’d even tell him about getting his address from Adele.
They’d have a good laugh about how silly she’d been not to tell him the truth from the start, and then he’d take off her clothes and . . .
And later, they’d catch the evening flight to Jakarta, she’d deliver the money to Alex, and that would be that. She and Ken would have two whole weeks together. They could go to Hawaii. Or Australia. Or even back here to San Diego.
Love ya.
This was definitely going to work out.
Jones was at the bar in the Tiki Lounge, nursing a beer when Molly came in.
He didn’t try to hide, but he didn’t try to catch her attention either. He didn’t even look directly at her in the cloudy mirror behind the bottles of hard liquor.
Maybe she was here because she was thirsty. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d order a rum and something with lots of ice, and take it out onto the veranda where the other tourist types sat and watched the sun set over the harbor.
And maybe Ed McMahon was going to come in next and announce that Jones had just won ten million dollars in the American Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes.
Why not? This was turning into a night of unexpected visits. Jayakatong Tohjaya—Jaya for short—had left just moments ago. Jaya was an Indonesian entrepreneur who’d recently joined forces with the rebel leader Badaruddin, a self-important military wannabe asshole who had his biggest camp of followers on the island just north of Parwati, and waged an ongoing war with not just the government but also the Zdanowicz brothers, gun and drug runner assholes who operated out of Jakarta.
Jaya was no fool, he hadn’t joined Badaruddin’s private army because he wanted the beret-wearing, camouflage uniform-clad self-awarded general to become Indonesia’s dictator. No, he simply could make more money and have access to better modes of transportation while working as the general’s right-hand man.
Jaya had come right over and sat his skinny butt down next to Jones. He’d heard—island gossip was faster than the digital internet—that Jones’s plane was down, that a vital part of the engine had burned out during the afternoon’s frantic rush to the hospital.
Jaya had even known—somehow—exactly what part Jones needed to fix the Cessna.
And he had a way to get his hands on that very part.
For an exorbitant finder’s fee, Jaya would deliver that part to Jones sometime between tomorrow morning and earl
y next week.
They’d struck a deal, and Jaya had skittered off into the night, on a quest to find insulin shots for a guest of the general’s.
But now Molly appeared. She sat down, of course, on the stool Jaya had recently vacated, of course, and ordered a glass of tropical juice.
Jones took another slug of beer, still not looking at her. But he could see her too well. His peripheral vision had always been too damn good.
Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control Page 9
