Troubleshooters 03 Over The Edge

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “That Hershel asked me to give it to her. That he said it was important,” Helga reported.

  Marte nodded. “Important is good. Not as good as trembling, but— Shh! Someone’s coming.”

  It was Hershel. His face was shadowy in the twilight, but it was definitely Helga’s brother. He paced for a moment, then sat down on the marble bench across from the roses and lit a cigarette.

  The evening air was warm and still, and the scent of the tobacco soon mixed oddly with the sweet smell of the roses. Still, it wasn’t unpleasant, sitting there with the night closing in. The whirring and clicking and buzzing of insects made it seem as if they were in the jungle instead of Helga’s family garden, not far from the village street.

  “You sent for me, Herr Rosen?”

  Hershel leapt to his feet. He hadn’t heard Annebet approach either.

  “Was there something you needed, sir?” she said again, in that same impersonal, emotionless voice.

  He reached for her. “Annebet—”

  She stepped back, her movements jerky, and Helga knew that, like Hershel, she could hide her anger well but she couldn’t hide it forever. “Those services aren’t included this evening, sir. But perhaps Herr Rosen would like another glass of wine to accompany his disgusting smoking habit.”

  Hershel dropped his cigarette and ground it out under his shoe. “Anna, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I swear to you, this wasn’t my idea. My mother arranged for me to escort Ebba tonight—I didn’t even know until this evening. Don’t you think I would’ve at least warned you if I’d known?”

  “Do you know how awful it made me feel to see you sitting there with her?” Annebet’s voice shook. Annebet—who was descended from Vikings, who didn’t fear even the Gestapo.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She would give you everything you want. I don’t know why you’re sending notes to me when it’s obvious that you could have her with just a—”

  “Ebba Gersfelt can’t give me what I want,” Hershel cut her off, his voice quiet but absolute. “Because all I want is you.”

  Annebet turned and looked at him. Helga would never forget the look on her beautiful face, the way her eyes were luminous with unshed tears, the way she breathed his name.

  They both moved at once. Toward each other. Fast. And then Annebet was in Hershel’s arms, and he was kissing her. Not the way Poppi kissed Mother. Oh, no. Hershel kissed Annebet the way men kissed women in those wonderful movies from Hollywood, with their bodies pressed as close as possible, with their hands and arms reaching to pull each other even more tightly together, with their mouths wide open.

  Marte had told her all about kissing and mouths and tongues, and Helga hadn’t quite believed it—until now.

  Annebet had told Marte all about men, and Marte had told Helga. About the way men always wanted to kiss women, and how a woman must decide which of the men she would kiss back. You only kiss the men you think you could fall in love with, Annebet had said, and you only make love with the one you know that you love—the one with whom you know you could happily spend the rest of your life.

  Marte’s eyes were wide as she watched her sister and Helga’s brother kiss for what seemed like an eternity. For once, she had nothing to say. They were stuck here behind the roses until Hershel and Annebet stopped kissing. But it seemed obvious to Helga that they were simply never going to stop.

  But then Annebet pulled back. Her cap had fallen off, and her dress was askew. She was breathing as if she’d just run all the way from Copenhagen, as if she was about to cry. “This can’t work!”

  Hershel was breathing hard, too. “Why not?”

  Annebet laughed in disbelief. “Look at me!”

  “I am,” he told her. “You’re so beautiful, I can’t keep my eyes off you.”

  “This dress is ugly,” she told him. “It’s a servant’s dress. Compared to Ebba’s gown—”

  “There’s no comparison. Do you really think I care what you wear?”

  “I think your parents care,” she countered. “And yes, I think you would care. Maybe not right away. But for the life you want to lead, you need someone like Ebba beside you, not some serving girl who will embarrass you—”

  “When I look at you,” Hershel said, his voice low but filled with emotion, “I see the future chief surgeon of the Copenhagen Children’s Clinic. I would be proud to stand beside you in whatever you choose to wear.”

  “And yet you didn’t invite me to this party tonight,” Annebet said quietly.

  “The guest list was my mother’s.”

  She just looked at him.

  Hershel took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes. “I should have invited you,” he admitted. “I didn’t think—I made a mistake. Forgive me. This is all new to me. I’m bound to make some mistakes along the way.”

  “The way to where, Hershel?” Annebet asked, still in that quiet voice. “Where are we going with this?”

  “Hershel!” Ebba’s voice floated down from the patio. “Are you out here?”

  Annebet turned and walked away. Toward the back of the garden. Toward the gate that led to the street.

  Hershel followed her. “Where are you going?”

  Marte scrambled after them, pulling Helga with her. They both tried not to yelp as the thorns caught their arms and legs.

  “Home,” Annebet said. She raised her voice slightly. “Marte, tell Momma I’m sorry, but I went home early.”

  “Pig crap,” Marte said. “She knows we’re here.”

  “I’ll see you safely home,” Hershel said, following her out the gate and onto the cobblestone street.

  “Please don’t.”

  “Anna—”

  She yanked her arm away from him and her voice rose. “Just leave me alone!”

  “America, Anna,” Hershel called after her. “That’s where we could go with this.”

  She stopped running away. Slowly turned around.

  Marte and Helga didn’t bother to hide. They hung on the fence, hung on every word.

  “This is better than the radio,” Marte whispered.

  “Now I know you’re crazy,” Annebet said to Hershel. But there was something in her eyes. Something bright, something hopeful.

  “I am,” he said. “Crazy in love with you. Marry me.”

  Helga looked at Marte. Victory! They were going to be sisters! But it was short-lived.

  The light in Annebet’s eyes went out. “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Wise answer, Fräulein.”

  Oh, merde! It was Wilhelm Gruber, the German soldier. He’d been in the shadows across the street, sitting on the stone wall that surrounded the Fraenkels’house and smoking a cigarette. Helga could smell the smoke now as he stood up and walked toward them.

  His voice was tight. “In the Fatherland, to marry a Jew you would risk being tarred and feathered. You’d have your head shaved at the very least.”

  “What are you doing here?” Annebet was horrified. Gruber was in uniform, with his gun over his shoulder.

  “I heard you were working tonight. And since it’s a dangerous neighborhood, I came to make sure you made it home safely.”

  A dangerous neighborhood? A Jewish neighborhood, he meant.

  Annebet had stepped in front of Hershel, her eye on Gruber’s gun. The German was furious, his jealousy glittering in his eyes and all but fogging up his glasses. Helga had never seen him this upset before.

  “Of course, a shaved head is nothing compared to the penalties a Jew would receive for defiling such a beautiful Aryan girl in Germany.” His lip curled as he looked at Hershel. “We’d slice off your balls, Juden, and hang you by the neck from a lamppost in the center of town, so everyone could watch you rot.”

  “And you’re proud to be a German?” Annebet spat at the ground, barely missing Gruber’s boots. “Pig!”

  Hershel yanked her back toward the gate, pushing her into the garden. “Go back inside,” he ordered. “Marte and Helga, you too. Now.”
>
  Helga’s feet were leaden as Marte suddenly turned and dashed toward the house. She couldn’t follow her friend. She couldn’t move. She just kept picturing Hershel, swinging from that lamppost, birds circling. . . .

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.” Annebet held tightly to Hershel’s arm.

  “Did you really think she would go with you to America?” Gruber mocked, his hands on his gun, threatening their very lives. He would be in trouble for shooting them—Denmark didn’t put up with German soldiers killing civilians in the street, but that wouldn’t matter much to Annebet, Hershel, and Helga. In the blink of an eye, they’d be dead. “It won’t be long before we invade and it becomes the United States of Germany.”

  “This isn’t the way to win her affection,” Hershel said quietly. “With such ugliness and threats . . .”

  “Herr Gruber!” Marte came running back from the house. She was carrying a plate covered with a huge slice of chocolate cake, held in place with her thumbs. “I saved you a piece of birthday cake. I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but as long as you’re here . . .”

  “Marte!” Annebet was furious. “I told you—”

  Hershel looked at her and she closed her mouth.

  “Herr Gruber always shares his chocolate with me,” Marte said, her voice trembling. “I thought it was only fair to bring him a treat for a change.”

  Marte and Gruber were friends of sorts. Friends through a mutual love of chocolate, combined with Gruber’s deep admiration for her beautiful sister.

  Their friendship had nothing to do with politics or terrible prejudices or with the fact that they were enemies—invader and conquered. It was more simple than that. He had been kind to her, and she was kind to him in return.

  Her hands were shaking as she held out the plate. “That wasn’t very nice—what you said about Hershel,” Marte told the German soldier reproachfully. “He’s a friend of mine.”

  Gruber looked down at the cake, looked at Marte’s blue-green eyes, at her worn dress that was a size too small, and backed away, lowering his gun, thank God.

  “I thank you, but . . . you’ll have to eat it for me, little one,” he said. “My appetite is gone.”

  And with that he turned and walked away. He broke into a jog before he’d reached the Jakobsons’house and quickly vanished in the twilight’s shadows.

  Annebet drew in a shaky breath. “Dear God. He’s a monster.”

  Hershel looked at her. “He’s in love with you.” He laughed, but there was no humor in his eyes. “We’re more alike, he and I, than I think he’d ever want to admit.”

  “What do you think?” Max Bhagat stopped pacing to turn and face Lt. Tom Paoletti.

  As Stan watched, the SEAL lieutenant met the FBI chief negotiator’s eyes. “I think you need to be careful.”

  “So you agree with Helga Shuler. You think I’m getting emotionally involved.”

  Paoletti laughed softly. “Max, I know you. You always get emotionally involved. But when the time comes to detach, I don’t know how, but you do it.”

  “How about you, Senior Chief?” Bhagat had spotted him standing there, just outside the open door to the small conference room near the negotiators’HQ, ready to knock before he came in. “Do you think it’s bad form to become emotionally attached?”

  To a female helo pilot ten years his junior? Definitely.

  “To the tangos you’re negotiating with?” Stan came inside the room. “Absolutely—considering they’re going to be dead in a matter of days.”

  “I’m not negotiating directly with the terrorists this time,” Bhagat told him. “I’ve been talking to them through this American girl who’s on board. Gina Vitagliano. She’s a twenty-one-year-old SUNY student, a percussion player—a drummer—with her college jazz band. The hijackers think she’s Senator Crawford’s daughter Karen. I think we’d have a planeful of dead passengers right now if she hadn’t stepped forward when she did. She’s bright and courageous and . . . I’ll be the first to admit that I’m awed by her tenacity. If awe and respect counts as emotional attachment, then okay, fine. I’m definitely emotionally attached.”

  “Mrs. Shuler took the morning shift on the radio, talking to this girl,” Paoletti told Stan. “Max didn’t leave the room the entire time and she dared to wonder aloud if maybe he was just a tad emotionally involved.”

  “Are you going to be able to do your job, sir, if the tangos start beating her over an open radio frequency?” Stan asked Max Bhagat. “Once MacInnough and his team get those microphones and video cameras up and working, we’ll be able to hear and see everything they say and do.” Would he be able to do his job if Teri were suddenly in danger? Please, God, don’t let him find out the hard way. . . .

  Bhagat didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to go in search of this girl after we take down the plane and take advantage of the fact that you’ve been her lifeline throughout this ordeal?” Stan asked. The kid was already probably more than half in love with Bhagat. Stan had seen it happen before in hostage rescues and negotiations.

  It was a lot like hero worship.

  “Hell, no. What kind of scumbag do you think I am?”

  The human kind. The kind who might give in to temptation if he didn’t actively work to take temptation out of the picture.

  Stan made a mental note to talk to Muldoon. To push him to ask Teri to have dinner with him again tonight. To take temptation out of Stan’s picture.

  “You’re the kind of scumbag who hasn’t delivered a World Airlines 747 for my team to practice on,” Stan told Bhagat, deftly changing the subject to the reason for his visit.

  “It’s on its way, Senior,” Lieutenant Paoletti told him. “It’s scheduled to land on the practice airstrip in just under ninety minutes. I’ve already notified Sam Starrett—told him to get the team back to the hotel for lunch and a rest. This afternoon you’ll drill on the real thing.”

  Thank you, Jesus and Tom Paoletti.

  A redheaded woman appeared in the open doorway. “Excuse me, Max, Gina’s back on the radio.”

  Bhagat flew out of the room. “Karen,” he said, his voice echoing in the hallway. “We have to call her Karen, all the time. No way are we going to foul this up by slipping and calling her Gina while the tangos are listening in.”

  “Slept lately?” Tom Paoletti asked as they went more slowly out into the hall.

  Stan just laughed. Dream on. “Need a lift back to the hotel?”

  “Hi, Karen.” Bhagat was on the radio, his voice carrying into the hall. “It’s me, Max. Over.”

  “Yeah, I think I do,” Tom said. “I’m going to take a short nap, then check out the 747 before the team gets back out there.”

  “Max, I’ve been talking to Bob and Al over here.” The girl’s voice was husky and young and brimming with an undercurrent of intensity. Stan found himself stopping to listen. “They’ve agreed to let Gerhund and Ray and a girl named Casey off the plane. Both Gerhund and Ray have head injuries; Ray’s having trouble breathing. Casey’s diabetic and she’s gone into insulin shock. All three of these people are going to need immediate medical attention, do you hear me? I tried to talk ’em into letting the mothers with babies off, too. There are three babies on board—two have been crying nonstop—but they won’t let the babies leave. One of ’em hasn’t made a sound, Max, and I’m a little bit worried about that baby, but they won’t let any of them go.”

  Stan followed Tom into the negotiators’room, where Max’s staff was scrambling around. Someone pushed past them, sent to give Helga Shuler the news that some of the passengers would be deplaning.

  Bhagat was pacing, his team psychologist beside him, murmuring comments. “There’s quite a bit of stress in her voice.”

  “I hear it, Doc.”

  The girl continued. “Bob and Al have agreed to accept a shipment of water and food—”

  The room erupted with a cheer. This was great news. Permission to deliver supplies meant that th
ey wouldn’t have to wait until oh-dark-hundred to bring additional microphones and minicams out to Ensign MacInnough and his team, who’d overcome a jammed luggage compartment hatch only to experience equipment failure.

  But now they could send an additional team in, beneath the chassis of the supply truck, without the tangos seeing them. They wouldn’t have to wait until dark to give the negotiating and take-down teams twenty-twenty vision and perfect hearing.

  “Quiet!” Bhagat shouted.

  “—including infant formula and food for the babies. They’re opening the doors right now—”