Girl Undercover 12: Showdown

by Julia Derek

  We spoke some more about what I would say and do while alone with Stenger, what to stress and what to avoid, when Jonah opened the bathroom door at last.

  Ian looked at me. “Let him get out, but keep the gun trained on him at all times. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Jonah appeared in the doorway with a big towel wrapped around his hips, his longish dark hair wet. I made sure the first thing he saw when he fully opened the door was the gun in my hands, pointed right at him.

  “Come out all the way,” Ian told Jonah. As the younger man did, Ian walked behind him and put an arm around his neck, then placed the switchblade against his ribs with his other.

  “Get going,” Ian said, pushing Jonah toward his bedroom. Jonah did as he was told and the three of us walked into the adjacent bedroom.

  “Get him a shirt and a pair of shorts,” Ian told me, nodding toward all the closets that took up one side of the bedroom.

  “Any particular kind?” I asked as I pulled the sliding doors open, revealing rows of suits and shirts, as well as shelves filled with folded clothes inside the closets.

  “No, just whatever looks like it’ll fit him.” He looked at Jonah. “Are you cold?”

  Jonah scowled in response. “Are you kidding me? It’s a hundred degrees out!”

  “Get him a T-shirt with the shorts,” Ian told me.

  I found a pair of gray athletic shorts and a plain T-shirt. When Jonah had put them on, we headed into the living room again.

  “You hungry?” Ian asked Jonah.

  When Jonah didn’t answer, Ian said to me, “Let’s take him to the kitchen and feed him something.”

  We walked over there and I opened the fridge to see what was in there. As I had expected, there were plenty of choices. Ian brought Jonah in front of the fridge and told him to pick whatever he wanted. Jonah grabbed a box of take-out Chinese food and a bottle of water. Opening the take-out box, he sniffed it suspiciously.

  “It’s from yesterday,” Ian said. “Don’t worry. I don’t keep perished food in my fridge. My maid cleans it out every three days. Go sit there and eat it.”

  Glowering at Ian, Jonah walked over to the marble island and plopped down on one of the stools there.

  After I had given him silverware to eat with, it took him less than two minutes to devour all of the chicken, rice and broccoli in the box. I made sure I kept the gun trained on him just in case he tried to do anything stupid, while Ian stood behind him with the knife to his back. When he was done, Ian handed him a napkin to wipe himself with, then quickly tied the gag around Jonah’s mouth. Jonah of course tried to protest, achieving nothing.

  Ian grabbed his arm and pushed him into the living room where he made Jonah sit on the couch.

  Five minutes later, Jonah was securely tied to the couch.

  Chapter 8

  The following morning, fourteen hours after my plane had landed on La Guardia Airport, Ian and I were walking in the woods that grew around Stenger’s New Jersey country colonial mansion. The huge, white house with its rust-colored shutters and charcoal roof boasted a large stone front porch on which several white-painted columns rose. Behind the two-story dwelling with the attached four-car garage, we saw a big swimming pool and a stunning landscaped garden. A tennis court stretched out kitty-corner to the garage. We both thought that it could be useful for me to get a good look of the premises and its surroundings in case something went wrong and I needed to escape, so we took our time checking out the property.

  As Ian had already mentioned, it didn’t seem like the house was heavily guarded during the day at least. He had been there yesterday, scoping out the area for hours from noon to early evening, and in the hour and a half we’d spent there today, having arrived shortly after sunrise, we had only been able to spot a couple of men at the circular driveway in front of the mansion’s main entrance. The other entrances were completely void of security guards from what we could tell. Because of the invisible fence we were convinced was in place, we kept our distance, however, relying solely on Ian’s binoculars as we assessed the premises.

  We took turns checking out the two men outside the main entrance with the binoculars. At the moment, I watched them parade back and forth alongside the wide stone porch that outlined the entire front of Stenger’s mansion.

  I removed the binoculars from my face and turned to Ian. “Okay, I think I’ve seen enough.”

  Taking them from me, he asked, “Are you sure? It’s not even nine yet. We have time. I want you to feel like you have the situation under control if something goes wrong. So you know where to go, have the best chance of getting out of there alive.”

  “I think I have as good an idea as I can possibly have now. I really don’t see what more I can learn from us walking around here any longer. It’s time to make a move.”

  Gazing into the distance, Ian sighed heavily, like he wasn’t entirely comfortable with my reply, even though I was right. Then he turned to face me again. “Fine. I’ll watch you go into the house and then I’ll head back home as soon as I get a text from you that you’ve reached Stenger. So we don’t need to go over what you’ll tell him then?”

  “No, I know what to do.” Shading my eyes against the sun that just peeked forth from behind the thick layer of clouds that had kept it hidden all morning, I checked the time. It was ten minutes to nine. “Let’s go.”

  I faced Ian, who was still looking deeply troubled by something. I wrote it off as him just being worried about everything going our way. At lot was at stake after all, not just my safety.

  All of a sudden, he grabbed my shoulders and, his eyes burning darkly, leaned in and kissed me hard while pulling me close to his chest. His move took me by complete surprise, but it didn’t take long until I had gotten over that. My arms went around his neck, welcoming the passionate kiss I had been dreaming about for so long. Electricity rushed up my legs, crashing into my erotic center and making my knees weak as his hot tongue explored my mouth. My stomach clenched, filling with warmth, and I wanted this moment to last forever. Of course, I knew that it wouldn’t—couldn’t. There was no time for us making up or whatever it was Ian was trying to accomplish.

  It did end, even sooner than I had expected. Ian pulled away as suddenly as he’d embraced me, glancing down at me for a second during which he blinked a couple of times, as if trying to make sense of something.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he replied, letting go of me. “Remember to press Send as soon as you’re face-to-face with Stenger. Now go.”

  I nodded and turned around, the imprint of Ian’s kiss still burning on my lips.

  I walked down to the road where Ian’s rented Mercedes was parked at the shoulder, hidden from the view of the mansion, but I didn’t enter the car. Instead, I would walk along the gravel road that led up to Stenger’s main entrance and ask to see him.

  It only took about ten minutes for me to cover it and reach that wide stone porch where the two men were parading back and forth. Both of them stopped walking and turned to face me as I neared them. I came to a complete stop when I was just a few yards before them.

  “Hello,” I said and gave them my most friendly smile. Ian and I had decided that I needed to do all I could to get to Stenger while making them think I was a friend of the family to rouse the least suspicion when we made Stenger change his plans later. “I’m here to see Otto Stenger. His son sent me.”

  One of the men, a handsome, square-faced man with short, black hair that I instantly assumed must be a hybrid, said with a raised eyebrow, “Jonah sent you?”

  “Yes. He has a very important message for his father. And he wanted me to tell him in person.” I grimaced. “He’s sick and can’t get out of bed. So I had to come in his place.”

  The man glanced at his buddy, another attractive, buff male, as if asking what to do.

  “Let me go in and talk to him,” the buddy said and disappeared into the house.

  Squareface and I remaine
d outside, neither one finding it necessary to say a word apparently, because the silence between us was so stark that I could easily hear the sound of crows cawing in the distance.

  Soon the other man appeared and waved for me to enter the mansion.

  “Thank you,” I said and walked through the front door he held open for me, feeling more than a little nervous. This was almost going too smoothly. I quickly shut down my nerves by reminding myself that Stenger had no reason to make my visit difficult. It wasn’t like he knew that I was coming here to see him because we wanted to stop the coups. This was why Ian and I had settled on this approach in the first place. It was the most likely to succeed.

  The insides of the mansion were bright and beautifully but sparsely furnished. Big paintings hung on the walls of the long, winding corridor that the man was leading me through. Finally, he stopped in front of a closed door, then turned to me.

  “Mr. Stenger is in his study, working,” he stated with a stony face. I nodded and smiled tightly in response, not daring to breathe as the man opened the door to let me in. I was finally about to see the legendary Otto Stenger, the mastermind of this evil movement that wanted to shackle the world, control all of it, change it according to his twisted worldview. What would he look like?

  All I saw as the door fully opened was a wide oak desk that sat in front of a huge window facing the big back garden. The desk was surrounded by walls filled with books that gave the study the feel of a library. It certainly was spacious enough to pass for a little library.

  Looking around, I wondered where Stenger could be.

  It was then that I spotted an old man in a corner. Sitting in a wheelchair.

  “You had a message from my son?” the man said, smiling pleasantly at me.

  I tried my best not to stare at the man in the wheelchair, a green blanket covering his legs. Somewhere in his early seventies maybe, he looked like your average university professor, fine-boned and pasty-skinned from spending too much time inside, away from sunlight. There was quite a lot of blondish hair on his head for such an old man. As I had already surmised, nothing about him looked Serbian, and neither did he look anything like his handsome son, Jonah. It made me even more convinced that Jonah either had a gorgeous mother or he was a hybrid. Maybe both.

  Despite my shock, I had the wherewithal to press Send on my cell that I held in my hand so that Ian would get the following message: I’m with Stenger now.

  Clearing my throat, I then said, “Yes, I have a few things that Jonah would like you to know.”

  Stenger’s eyes that sat in hollow sockets went to the man beside me. “Please leave us.”

  The man gave a nod and closed the door to the study behind me. As he did so, there was a weird smile on Stenger’s pale lips as he took me in. He kept staring at me with that odd expression, as though he was seeing an old friend, long after the guard’s footfalls had faded in the hallway behind the closed door.

  Just as I was about to open my mouth, he said, “It’s nice to finally get to meet you, Gabi. I’ve been expecting your arrival.”

  I felt my eyes widen with shock; it was absolutely nothing I could do to hide what was going on inside me upon hearing those words. How did he know my name? Why had he been expecting my arrival?

  Stenger chuckled softly, a charming chuckle that sounded oddly familiar, like I had heard it before. But I knew I had never before met the old man seated before me, so that was impossible.

  “You… You know who I am?” was all I could manage to say, feeling stupid.

  Stenger rolled his chair so that he ended up behind the wide desk. It finally made sense why I had not spotted a chair behind it now; I realized that I had subconsciously wondered about that when I had first seen the insides of the big study, laid eyes on that massive desk. If this was Stenger’s workplace and he was wheelchair bound, no chair was ever necessary behind that desk.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Stenger asked politely. “Whatever you like, I have it.”

  “No, I’m fine,” I mumbled.

  Stenger nodded. “Well, if you change your mind, just let me know.” He reached for a tumbler with ice that sat on the desk. It had something amber-colored in it—whiskey, most likely. He brought the drink to his lips for a sip while taking me in all the while.

  “Please have a seat at least,” he said and motioned toward one of the two stuffed leather armchairs that sat kitty corner to the large desk, facing it.

  Still stumped, I took a seat in the armchair closest to the door behind me.

  Stenger smiled at me over his tumbler, and it was clear that he was in complete control of the situation and himself.

  How did this happen? He had known that I was coming then? But how could he have known? The questions streamed through my mind, stumbling over each other they were appearing so fast.

  “You’re wondering what’s going on, aren’t you, Gabi?” he asked slowly as though he could read my mind. Could he actually read my mind? It was possible. After what they’d done to Captain Brady, somehow found a way to send messages directly into his brain in the form of a talking man, nothing was out of bounds.

  “I guess I am,” I replied in as cool a voice as I could muster, while at the same time I was desperately trying to figure out what the hell was going on. It would be good to know if he could read my mind. Maybe if I taunted him inside my head, he’d tell me. He might not look like the evil psychopath I had pictured, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. And like most psychopaths, he’d be too boastful to resist my taunts.

  I don’t believe for a second that you can read my mind, you pathetic, little loser, I thought while raising my chin at him as he just sat there, staring at me. You only like to make me think that you can so that I get nervous. If you actually could read my mind, you’d know that I have red panties on today. But you can’t, so I’m not sure why I bother trying to tell you that.

  His tongue shot out of his mouth and he quickly licked his lips. The image of a lizard filled my head.

  “Is Ian coming as well?” he finally asked, breaking the silence that had lingered for several seconds between us. It didn’t seem like he could read my mind, so I relaxed slightly, despite the fact that it was unnerving that he also knew of Ian. But I soon concluded that, if he knew of me, he probably would know of Ian. Then I answered his question.

  “Maybe. We could call him if you’d like.”

  “Yes, I would like that. But I would like it even more if he came here to visit me. What message did you have for me from Jonah?” He held up a hand before I could answer. “That was a lie, wasn’t it? You just made up that Jonah’s sick so that I would agree to see you, didn’t you?”

  I sat up straighter, determined not to let this little freak get the upper hand of me and Ian, of our plan. “Well, yes, you’re right about that last part. Jonah is not sick. The message I have is from me and Ian about Jonah. Ian will kill Jonah if you don’t do as we want. We have abducted him. Since you seem to know who both Ian and I am, I’m not going to bore you with telling you about us. Suffice to say that we know how much you value the fruits of your loins. Are we understanding each other here?”

  To his credit, he didn’t flinch once despite my threat to murder his only son that didn’t deserve all the unconditional love he apparently felt for him. “Yes, I understand perfectly. Where do you keep Jonah? Is he hurt?”

  “No, he’s fine. I’m not going to tell you where we keep him, sorry. But what I can do for you is contact Ian via Skype and he’ll let you speak to Jonah yourself. This way he can tell you himself that he’s okay.”

  “Fine. Let’s call him then.”

  I checked the time on my phone. Less than ten minutes had passed since I sent the text to Ian, notifying him that I was with Stenger. Ian would need at least half an hour before he’d get to his brownstone where Jonah was. “Unfortunately we need to wait a while before we can contact Ian. He won’t be with Jonah until at the very earliest ten o’clock.”

  �
�Oh. I see. Well, in that case, let’s wait.”

  “I’ll text him to call me as soon as he gets to Jonah.”

  “That’s a good idea. Tell him to hurry up. I don’t have all day.” The statement was followed by that uncomfortably familiar and much too charming soft chuckle, ostensibly to take the edge of the harsh words.

  I typed a message to Ian on my phone: I’m with Stenger and he seems to be well aware of who you and I are, which is freaking me out. Hurry up getting to Jonah, then call me.

  My phone soon buzzed with Ian’s response. Yes, I’m aware that he knows who I am, but I’m surprised he knows about you. Or maybe not now that I think about it. Are you okay?

  I fired off a quick response. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.

  Barely had I pressed Send before I got a response from Ian. I’ll always worry about you. You mean too much to me for me not to.

  I frowned at Ian’s text. This wasn’t the time to get all warm and fuzzy with me. What the hell was he thinking when he typed those words in a moment like this?

  “What’s up with that scowl, Gabi?” Stenger asked, intercepting my annoyed thoughts. “A pretty girl like you should not frown like that. It’s not becoming.”

  As I met the wheelchair-bound man’s eyes that were of an indeterminable color, I made sure the scowl deepened. “No? Why not?” I held up a hand, exactly like he had done only moments earlier. “Wait. Don’t answer that. I forgot that in the world you want to create, everyone needs to be perfect-looking. A scowling face must be a big no-no in such a world, correct?”

  “No, that’s not true. I’m not wishing for people in my world to walk around smiling all the time. But it’s of course preferable if they’re happy instead of upset. And I do like them attractive, I’ll have to admit. You looked upset. What did Ian tell you that upset you so much?”