I didn’t take his arm. “Should I stop talking then, Hank?” I asked. “Because I’m a servant.”
It was a stupid thing to say—to antagonize him that way when in a matter of a very short time we’d be standing on the steps to my apartment. This time, there would be no cab waiting for him to climb into and drive away. If I played it right, Heinrich would come inside with me. And once there, I wouldn’t let him leave.
It would not be quite as effective or potentially rewarding as seducing him at the hotel—among whatever papers he might have there. But it would be a step toward getting into his room. And I knew he had his notebook with him.
He stopped walking and turned me to face him, his face so serious. “Is that really how I make you feel?”
“No, of course not,” I admitted. “Not usually. But honestly, it is what I am. I mean, if you think that cab driver is a servant . . . What’s the difference between him and me? We both work for a living, providing a service to other people. He drives a cab. I’m a secretary.”
“Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted . . .” He smiled ruefully. “Some privacy. Although I know right now there’s no such thing. There’s so much we mustn’t talk about.”
Like his network of Nazi spies living here in New York City? I had to try to get as much out of him as I possibly could.
“Surely no one can overhear us here on the sidewalk,” I said. “You can tell me anything. You know that.” I moved toward him—any closer and we would be embracing. Even with our winter coats on, it was shockingly intimate.
“We both know why I’m here,” he said quietly. “I really can’t discuss it—not even with you, darling. We just don’t know the extent of the enemy’s ability to listen in on our conversations.”
“But—”
He kissed me, the way he always did when he wanted to end a difficult discussion. Oh, how that man could kiss. By the time he was done, I was ready to beg him to come inside with me. I opened my mouth to say just that, but he spoke first.
“How do you feel about children?”
His question didn’t make sense, and I stood there, blinking at him like a ninny, I’m sure.
“Do you want to have a family some day?” he asked again.
“Some day,” I said. “Of course. Where did that come from?”
“I was curious,” Heinrich said. “You’d mentioned your friend’s baby, and it occurred to me that we’d never talked about it. Them. Children.”
“Doesn’t everyone want children? I mean, as long as they can afford them?” Back then, even though I thought otherwise, I was young and naive.
He tucked my hand into his arm and we started walking again. “Actually, no.”
“Oh.”
We walked in silence for a while, and then suddenly there we were. In front of my apartment building. And I had to ask.
“Are you one of those people who doesn’t want children?”
Heinrich looked at me, and I couldn’t read the expression on his face. “Actually, I was just thinking that there was nothing I would rather do than have a baby with you.”
It was a shockingly forward thing for him to say—especially since, for all this time, he’d been so painfully polite.
I laughed, half embarrassed, half terrified. This was it. If he wanted to have a baby with me, then, “Before you have a baby, you have to make one.”
Heinrich nodded, his eyes never leaving my face. “Yes, then there’s that. I would definitely love doing that with you, too.”
“Come inside,” I breathed. The words were almost inaudible, but I knew he heard them.
His heart must’ve been pounding as much as mine, because he was suddenly breathing as if he’d run a mile. “Rose, I’m leaving in just a few more days.”
“I don’t care,” I told him recklessly, and suddenly it wasn’t about getting access to his papers. It was real. I wanted him to come inside.
“I won’t be back.” He gripped my shoulders and all but shook me. “Do you understand? Maybe not ever—certainly not until the war is over.”
“Then you really better come inside.” I kissed him, and I knew from the way he kissed me in return that I had won. I would not be going inside alone. Not tonight. “If this is all the time we’ve got—oh, Hank, I love you—let’s make it perfect.”
His beautiful eyes filled with tears. “Yes, let’s.” But instead of coming up to my apartment with me, he pulled away. “Tomorrow,” he said, backing down the stairs. “Meet me for dinner at my hotel?”
I was standing there staring at him, I’m sure, with my mouth wide open. He was . . . leaving? After that kiss? After all that I’d said? After . . . ?
“I have something I must do all day, but I should be back by around half five. Is that all right?” he asked.
Dumbly, I nodded my head.
“It will be perfect,” he said. “I promise. I love you desperately, Rose.”
He turned and ran to flag down a taxi.
And just like that, he was gone.
Alyssa closed Rose’s book, knowing that she should take advantage of the long airline flight to get some sleep.
But every time she shut her eyes, she saw Sam’s face. I’m trying. He was trying to be Mary Lou’s husband, but it wasn’t easy because he was still dreaming about Alyssa.
She was human. She couldn’t deny that knowing Sam dreamed about her at night made her feel electrified. He loved her. He may have married Mary Lou, but he loved her.
But unless Sam was willing to divorce his wife, that wasted love wasn’t doing any of them one bit of good.
George came and sat next her. “You okay?”
Alyssa nodded. Compared to him, she felt wrinkled and grimy.
“You look exhausted,” he commented. “What did they do to you in San Diego? Make you run the BUD/S obstacle course?”
She smiled politely at his joke. The tough obstacle course used for SEAL training would have been easier than seeing Sam again. Seeing him with Mary Lou . . .
From the window seat to her left, Jules roused. “Aren’t you supposed to be with Mrs. von Hopf? If you don’t want to sit up in first class, I will.”
“The stewardesses just found out who she is,” George told them, “and she’s signing autographs. Holding court. I figured now was a good time to brief you on some information that came in this morning.”
Alyssa watched George Faulkner as he spoke. He had a lean face that was classically handsome. It was a Yacht Club face—slightly weather-beaten from golf and sailing, a face that would just keep on getting better looking into his fifties, sixties and even seventies.
“Are you married?” she asked him.
“Divorced.” A true FBI agent, he didn’t assume she was asking simply because she was curious. He was looking at her a little more closely now, wondering why she wanted to know, wondering if maybe she was interested.
“Don’t worry, George,” she told him. “You’re not my type. I really was just curious.”
He didn’t believe her. Men were so stupid. “I spoke to Max this morning,” he said, watching for her reaction to their boss’s name.
Alyssa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Obviously, George thought there was something going on between her and Max—just like the rest of the world. If an attractive single woman worked with a group of men, one of them had to be sleeping with her, right?
“And?” she asked.
“We’ve got an ID on the man who made the phone call to Savannah von Hopf. His name is Misha Zdanowicz. Born in Smolensk in 1953. He and his brother, Otto, run a black market operation specializing in guns and drugs.
“Apparently, the main security cameras were taken out by his people before he came into the hotel, but his security chief was recognized in the lobby about forty minutes before the call went through. And there was one hidden camera in Alex’s room that he missed. We’ve got him on tape. It was definitely Misha Zdanowicz. Apparently, he’s a very tall man with some
girth.”
Jules leaned forward. “There was a hidden camera in the hotel room?”
“Yeah, probably for blackmail purposes.” George laughed. “Apparently, it’s not uncommon. So don’t do anything in your hotel room in Jakarta that you don’t want to see on the Internet.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Jules said, shooting a meaningful look at Alyssa.
And just what was that supposed to mean? Alyssa sent Jules a serious dose of disbelief and disgust. Did he really think she was going to invite Sam Starrett back to her hotel room now that he was married?
“There’s more,” George told them. “Bob Heath—Alex von Hopf’s personal assistant—told Max that up until about two months ago, Alex and Misha were pretty tight. It was both a business and personal relationship—a friendship. Misha’s got a wife. As far as we know, he’s not, you know . . .”
“Gay.” Jules had no trouble saying the word.
“Right. But then, Heath said, about two months ago, Alex found out that Misha’s import-export business was just a front for smuggling weapons and drugs. Apparently Misha wanted Alex to use his own business in a similar way. Alex refused, and cut all ties with the Zdanowicz brothers. Heath was ordered to refuse Misha’s calls. Alex wanted nothing to do with him. Bob Heath was adamant about that. And apparently, Misha was pissed.”
“Has Zdanowicz been located and brought in?” Alyssa asked.
“That’s where it gets a little murky,” George told them. “According to the word on the street in Jakarta, Otto Zdanowicz is on some kind of revenge rampage, searching for something or someone. Money. There’s a rumor about a whole lot of money somewhere in the jungle, which fits since we know Savannah had taken a quarter of a million dollars from her bank account.
“There’s also a rumor that Misha’s dead. His helicopter allegedly went down in the middle of nowhere, killing everyone on board. We’ve confirmed neither the fact that the chopper went down, nor the location of the alleged crash. But from what we’ve been able to gather—of course these are rumors we’re working with—if it really happened, it happened just hours after Savannah’s flight landed in Jakarta.”
Oh, God. Alyssa looked at Jules, who put into words what she was thinking. “So Max thinks Savannah and WildCard Karmody were on board when the chopper went down?”
“It’s certainly a possibility.” George looked abashed. “I, uh, haven’t managed to tell Rose that part yet.”
“Except,” Alyssa pointed out. “Who’s Otto looking for? Someone’s still alive if he’s spending his time searching for them. If you don’t tell Rose, I will. But I’ll tell her, yes, there’s a possibility her granddaughter is dead, but in my opinion, there’s a bigger possibility that she’s not. And if she’s not, WildCard Karmody is with her. He will keep her alive. I have no doubt about that.”
“Thank you, dear.” And there was Rose. Standing in the aisle, listening in. The ambient noise of the jet in flight had kept them all from hearing her approach. She gave George a scolding look. “Shame on you for withholding information.”
George refused to apologize. “I was going to tell you, but not until we were about to land in Hong Kong. I figured there was a chance we’d have more information then. I didn’t want you to sit here worrying. What good would it do?”
Rose addressed Alyssa. “Why don’t you come and sit with me,” she said. “I’d like to hear more about this WildCard Karmody.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Alyssa slipped out of her seat as George moved his legs to the side to let her pass.
“See what being nice gets you?” George muttered to Jules. “Banished to coach.”
When dusk fell, Savannah finally gave up and let herself get good and worried about Ken.
She was more than halfway through Rose’s book after having gone back and started at the beginning, but this jungle was shadowy and dim even at the brightest hour of the day, and soon it would be too dark to read.
And no matter how fascinating her grandmother’s story was, Savannah couldn’t stop thinking about Kenny.
He’d been gone for hours and hours. What if he’d been captured? Or shot? What if he were lying out there in the jungle, right now, bleeding to death? What if he were already dead, his eyes wide open, staring vacantly up at the canopy of leaves that filled the jungle sky?
Oh, God.
Or what if he were still alive, and being tortured to reveal her location?
He’d never tell them where she was. He’d die first. She knew that with a certainty that was unsettling.
Ken Karmody would die for her.
I’m not going to leave you. Whatever happens to you happens to me, too. So are we going to live or are we going to die?
The fact that he was gone, that he’d followed those soldiers was mostly her fault. If she’d been honest with him, if she’d looked him in the eye and said, “Please don’t leave me. Not even for a minute. I’m scared to death and I’m afraid I’m going to lose it, big time, if you’re not here to hold onto,” he probably wouldn’t have gone.
He definitely wouldn’t have gone.
Beneath his lack of tact and his high intensity, in-your-face attitude, was an extremely sensitive and caring man.
Whom Savannah had badly hurt by failing to be completely honest when she’d had her flat tire.
Yes, if she’d been honest about who she was and why she was there, she probably wouldn’t have spent the night in his bed. At least not right away. But she would’ve gotten there eventually. And once she did, she probably never would’ve left.
If she’d been honest with Kenny from the start, she probably could’ve made him fall in love with her.
God, what it would be like to have him love her! A man like that would love her forever, unswervingly, completely. The way Heinrich had loved Rose.
Please God, don’t let Kenny be dead. Let him be lost. Let him be detained. Let him have followed those men so far that he wouldn’t make it back until morning.
She would be okay here alone until then. Even though night was falling—that blanket of darkness that completely terrified her—she would be okay.
She would get through it. She could do this. She’d go to sleep. And when she awoke in the morning, Ken would have returned.
Savannah lay back, aware that there was a rather large hole in the blind right above her. Kenny had told her not to leave for any reason, but surely he hadn’t considered the fact that she’d have to go to the bathroom.
Not that she’d found a bathroom in the jungle.
Still, she’d gone several dozen yards away, and then come right back. But she’d been unable to repair the blind—at least not the way Ken had managed to do it.
She closed her eyes, sending him a telepathic message. “Wherever you are, stay safe. I’m okay. Don’t get into any trouble trying to get back here to me.”
Crackle, crunch.
Savannah sat bolt upright. Ken.
But outside the blind, nothing moved.
The light was fading fast. Wasn’t this the time of day when animals emerged from their hiding places to get food and water? She’d watched endless episodes of National Geographic as a kid, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, remember the types of animals that lived in the Indonesian jungle.
But . . . wasn’t this where Bengal tigers came from? Relatively speaking, Indonesia was pretty close to Bengal, wasn’t it?
It was certainly closer than New York.
Crunch, crack.
There was definitely something in the brush right outside of the blind. One large plant in particular moved slightly.
Savannah pulled the Uzi closer with one hand, while reaching for one of the sacks of dynamite with the other, her eyes never leaving the tiger’s hiding place.
She drew a plastic-wrapped stick of dynamite from the bag, and threw it at the brush in question through the hole she’d made. But it caught on the top of the blind, and tumbled silently and impotently to the ground.
Shoot.
&n
bsp; But a tiger didn’t come leaping out at her, eager to make her his dinner. So she reached for another stick of dynamite and, this time reaching her hand out so that she was clear of the hole, she threw it—hard—and hit her target plant dead on.
A big, colorful bird flew up, squawking its displeasure.
A bird, not a tiger.
Weak with relief, Savannah sat back, alternating her prayers to keep Ken safe with a plea to keep all tigers—Bengal or other—far from this corner of the jungle.
And again, just like yesterday, night fell. Bang. Pitch darkness.
Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control Page 32
