Look-Alike

by Meredith Fletcher

  “No. I’ve got to go get a big flashlight.” Elle unzipped her suit and stepped out of it wearing the turquoise bikini. “Is it okay if I leave this here?”

  “Sure.”

  Elle put the suit and the oxygen-equipped face mask beside one of the trees, marking the spot in her mind so that she could find them again in the dark. Then she headed for the party.

  TECHNO MUSIC EXPLODED over the party area, guaranteeing that all conversations were turned into shouting matches. A number of people were on the dance floor, but an equal number stumbled through beach volleyball games. Several others were held in thrall at the wet bars and the huge projection screen monitors that had been set up to show sports events.

  Elle moved through them easily. However, her passage did draw the attention of more than a few of the male species and even got one guy slapped for his lack of discretion while in the company of a young woman.

  Confident that the protective coating she’d applied to her fingertips would keep her prints from being identified if it came to that later, Elle picked up a drink in a tall glass from the bar. Dodging through the throng—darkly aware that she was not only looking for Vasilios Quinn/Klaus Stryker, but also for Joachim Reiter—she scored an hors d’oeuvre with pineapple and ham and kept moving.

  She told herself she was watching out for Joachim only because he knew what she looked like. However, she’d never been very good at lying to herself.

  Portable bathrooms had been set up outside to handle the overflow, so to speak, but guests were allowed into the main house as well. The security systems were top-flight, though, and supplemented by guards.

  After a brief tour of the lower floor of the big house that showed off room after room of extravagant wealth in Italian marble tile, Old World furniture, and the latest in technological marvels, Elle knew she wasn’t going to get to the upper floor by a door inside the house.

  Outside again, she circled the house and decided to try her luck on the east side, the only one away from the party. That side of the house faced the island’s interior, which rose steeply. The balcony of what appeared to be a master bedroom jutted out over the garden below.

  The balcony was out of reach of even the tallest tree in the garden. Elle was certain that was by design. However, egress from the cliff itself was possible.

  If you’re desperate, she told herself.

  Thinking about Lenin’s Lullaby and the murder of her parents, the fact that she had hurt Sam and possibly damaged her relationship with her sister, Elle admitted that she was desperate. The only problem was the security camera that swept the area.

  At the back of the garden, the landscaping crashed onto the broken rock of the cliff side and stopped. The cliff blocked the moon at the moment and the darkness was complete.

  Breathing easily, Elle made herself wait until her eyes had more fully adjusted to the darkness. Then she sought out nearly nonexistent handholds and toeholds, leaned into the climb and went up the cliff. Even skilled as she was, she was challenged by the ascent.

  Four feet above the level of the balcony, nearly forty feet above ground level and the tops of the trees fifteen feet below, Elle paused. The palm trees hid her from the security camera as it cycled slowly from side to side. Her fingers and toes ached from the effort of climbing.

  Taking a final deep breath, timing the security camera, she swung her right arm out and held on with her left. Her fingers slipped immediately, more quickly than she’d thought they would. Shifting her weight as she had, pulling away from the cliff, had disrupted the fragile relationship she had with the friction of the stone and the pull of gravity.

  Locked into her gamble, Elle lunged forward and pushed off with her hand and legs, throwing herself into the air. At least seventeen feet separated the cliff from the balcony. If she’d had a running start, she’d have spanned the distance easily.

  She missed.

  Chapter 20

  Elle’s outstretched hand fell short of the balcony. She felt the cool metal slide beneath her fingers. Panic detonated like an explosive through her body, adding unnecessary and unwanted fuel to the adrenaline already charging her system. She fought to remain calm.

  Just when she thought she was about to start the forty-foot drop, the fingertips of her right hand brushed the bottom of the balcony. She curled her fingers and found purchase, then willed herself to hold on.

  The shock of hitting the end of her arm almost tore free her grip and sent burning pain through her shoulder. Don’t look at the ground, she told herself. Look where you want to go. That was a trick she’d learned in her evasive driving courses. Concentrate on the destination, not the accident.

  Her grip on the balcony lip held. Swinging and pulling, she reached up with her other hand and caught hold of the balcony railing. Handling her weight easily, she took a moment to draw a quick breath, timed the security camera’s sweep, then pulled herself up. She rolled under the periphery of the security camera and stood against the door frame, once more out of sight.

  The sliding glass door featured state-of-the art security, and it was locked. Peering through the glass into the darkened room, she made out a large bedroom suite centered around a canopy bed, an entertainment center that covered a wall and a door that led to what she assumed was a bathroom.

  Taking the walkie-talkie from her bicep, Elle opened the back compartment, removed the batteries, then slipped out the glass cutter hidden behind them.

  Setting herself in a low squat, Elle quickly inscribed an oval in the center of the glass that stopped well short of the alarm tape. Cutting through the section had taken four different attempts with time out for the camera, but she finished. On her fifth approach, she tapped the glass with the heel of her palm and watched the oval fall inside.

  She went through the hole just ahead of the security camera’s sweep.

  Nothing moved inside the room.

  Working quickly, Elle opened the closet door and found feminine clothes. It definitely wasn’t Quinn’s room.

  Returning to the balcony door, she paused at the glass oval, timed the security camera and ran out onto the balcony. Still in motion, she leaped up onto the balcony railing, stood and caught the edge of the roof and cautiously pulled herself up.

  Once on the roof, lying flat and aware that the security measures could include pressure plates and a rooftop camera, Elle scanned her surroundings. No camera and no alarm. She figured that overall things were looking pretty good.

  Working her way around the house, she invaded another room in the same way and found it filled with clothing that had been taken from luggage stored in the closet.

  Vasilios Quinn’s bedroom was the third she invaded. The room was huge, the size of a small house, and nearly occupied the whole front of the building, which faced the Aegean. Mediterranean-style furniture, a huge bathroom with an Olympic-size hot tub, and a home entertainment center that looked like a NASA ground control station filled the room.

  A private office on the other side of the bathroom finished off the front of the home. The computer array held a dozen monitors that showed images of the party outside, the docks and the downstairs rooms.

  Ship models, all of them ancient looking, filled shelves along the back wall, interspersed with shells, coins, tankards and other artifacts someone—maybe Quinn—had claimed from dives. Brass plates identified the findings and gave the date they were found.

  Elle turned her attention to the computer. The soft blue-white glow of the monitor filled the room when she turned the system on.

  Enter Password

  The cursor blinked at her.

  Abandoning the computer, Elle focused on the desk. She pulled the drawers open from bottom to top, just the way the ex-thief who had taught her to toss a room had trained her to do. Working from bottom to top meant she only had to open the drawers, not waste time pushing them back in.

  She returned to the bedroom long enough to strip a pillowcase from the bed and the plastic trash bag from the bathroo
m trash receptacle. She stuffed the plastic trash bag inside the pillowcase. The trash bag made the makeshift container waterproof while the pillowcase was more durable.

  Sorting through the contents of the desk, she tossed in all electronic handheld devices and anything that looked like an appointment book or planner. There wasn’t much. She added two credit-card-size digital cameras to her haul and was turning to search the file cabinets, intending to pick them with a paperclip she’d taken from the desk, when the security monitors suddenly flickered on.

  Captured on every screen, Elle stood in front of the file cabinets. Knowing the image had been relayed throughout the security system, she cursed and got moving.

  She tied the trash bag, then tied the pillowcase again, front end to back to make a loop. Fisting the glass cutter, she inscribed a quick, uneven X on the floor-to-ceiling window at the front of the office. The office didn’t have balconies, but the room below did. Footsteps were already sounding outside the office door. Connections chirped as someone initiated the electronic keypad.

  Sliding the looped pillowcase over her head and one shoulder, Elle grabbed a bronze paperweight of a sailboat that must have weighed fifteen pounds. She spun and used her body as a fulcrum to hurl the paperweight at the window. The impact shattered the glass into gleaming shards.

  The office door swung open as Elle ran for the broken window. She vaulted out, knowing if she missed the balcony below she would fall. Landing off-balance on the balcony, she tucked and rolled, scattering a small patio table and two chairs. She also picked up an assortment of bruises that made themselves felt almost immediately.

  “Down there!” someone above her called.

  Elle pushed herself to her feet and ran for the railing. Silenced shots struck the wooden deck and tore splinters free. Grabbing the railing, she vaulted over, throwing her hands up over her head so they wouldn’t entangle. If her feet cleared, her upper body would, too.

  She hit the ground and buckled into a parachutist’s roll, coming up immediately. The party was to her right. People were running back away from the broken glass.

  A shadow moved to her left and she brought her fists up under her chin in a martial arts ready stance.

  The man stayed back, though, and pointed his pistol in a two-handed grip. “No,” he said quietly, and grinned.

  Elle got her balance, standing for a moment, knowing she had to move quickly. Even then she might not be fast enough.

  STANDING AT THE OPEN BAR at the side of the big house, Joachim saw a fistful of diamonds suddenly flare to light in the air. By the time he realized the diamonds were actually broken glass, a figure bolted free of the window and dropped to the balcony on the floor below.

  A shadow jumped from the window and plummeted a heartbeat ahead of a man with a pistol. The man pointed the pistol down and fired rapidly. Even though the weapon was silenced, there was no mistaking the muzzle-flashes that lashed out into the night. The screams from the surprises guests started right after that.

  Joachim had a brief impression of a well-filled turquoise bikini and platinum blond hair that was at once hauntingly familiar just before the woman stood and flipped off the balcony to the ground. Before he knew it, he was in motion, going toward the action while the bulk of the partygoers were going away.

  Staying with the tree line along the garden, well within the shadows even after the house’s security lights flared to life and struggled for dominance against the fireworks exploding against the black sky, Joachim circled the area where the woman had dropped to the ground.

  Mind flying, thinking that somehow Elle Petrenko had followed Beck, Joachim moved in. Despite the fact that his family was at risk from Günter, Joachim couldn’t stand idly by and watch Elle get shot down.

  She was already up, ready to pounce, when Joachim roped an arm around the security guard’s neck. The guard tried to call for help, but Joachim choked off his air. The man struggled to bring his pistol to bear, but Joachim plucked it from his grasp. Then Joachim increased pressure on the man’s throat, carefully not damaging the larynx but shutting down the carotid arteries.

  The guard passed out unconscious.

  Releasing his hold on the man, Joachim let him slump to the ground. He frisked him quickly, turning up two magazines for the pistol.

  “You,” Elle said.

  “Me,” Joachim agreed. He noticed that they both spoke German. “What are you doing here?” He glanced at the pillowcase slung over her head and shoulder.

  “I don’t really have time for twenty questions.” Elle looked at the pistol in his hand.

  “No,” Joachim said. “You don’t.” He lowered the pistol. “Can you get off the island?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Elle took the lead and he followed. Together, they vaulted the low wall into the garden area, crashing through trees and brush.

  Joachim cursed as branches slapped his face. One of them bit his left eye and blurred his vision for a moment.

  “They’re in the garden!” someone yelled.

  A multitude of screams came from the partygoers.

  Dodging behind a thick-boled Japanese maple tree, Joachim brought his borrowed pistol up in a two-handed grip. Closing his watering eye, he aimed at the center of the nearest guard climbing over the garden wall. He squeezed the trigger twice, riding out the recoil.

  The guard went down immediately without a sound.

  “What are you doing?” Elle demanded, whirling on him.

  “Buying time.” Joachim shoved her forward. “Go.”

  “You can’t just kill them. They could be innocent.”

  Joachim didn’t believe that for a moment. Vasilios Quinn wouldn’t have anyone innocent around him. “I didn’t. The guy I knocked out was wearing a bulletproof vest. Looked like standard equipment.”

  Elle ran on, fleet as a deer in the darkness. Joachim struggled to keep up, holding one arm up to protect his face.

  They arrived at a patch of beach. A couple lying on a blanket glanced up at them. They guy smiled blearily.

  “You’re back,” he said.

  “I am.” Elle scooped up swim fins and a scuba mask from beside a tree. She fisted the dive suit as well but didn’t try to pull it on.

  “Going to try to find your keys again?”

  “I feel lucky,” Elle assured him.

  Joachim had no idea what they were talking about. He couldn’t believe how calmly Elle stepped into her swim fins.

  She looked up at him with those ice-blue eyes. “I’ve got a boat waiting.” The offer was implicit.

  Joachim thought about it, but realized there was no telling how the story of his disappearance from Quinn’s island home would be relayed. He was certain Günter had a spy or two in the mix.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Her eyes turned flat and hard. “I guess the new job agrees with you.”

  New job? Joachim didn’t know what she was talking about.

  Then the sounds of pursuit crashed through the garden behind them. Flashlights whirled dizzyingly through the darkness, coming closer.

  “The other guys brought flashlights, huh?” The guy showed them a thumbs-up and nodded. “Good thinking.”

  “Go,” Joachim said roughly. But even as he said it, he gave in to impulse and leaned over to kiss her. At first, Elle didn’t respond. Then, as if electrified, she pressed suddenly into him, meeting him more than halfway. Their mouths devoured each others, their hands caressing, touching every possible surface.

  Joachim broke away. “No time,” he gasped.

  She turned and went without a word. Long strides carried her into the foaming waves of the sea crashing against the beach. She pulled on the mask and dove.

  “Dude,” the guy said. “You just gonna let her go?”

  Joachim was asking himself the same question. She never came up again. Even with the mask, though, he didn’t know if Elle was going to get away.

  Turning, he stripped the silen
cer from his captured pistol and fired three shots into the trees over the heads of the pursuers. The flashlights extinguished as they dropped to the ground.

  “Hey,” the guy said. “I think they know where you are. You don’t have to signal them.”

  A split second later, bullets tore through the air and slapped the beach only a few feet from Joachim. They know where I am.

  Recognizing the shots for what they were, the guy covered up his girl and huddled close to the tree trunk for shelter. He shouted, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

  Joachim ran, sprinting for all he was worth, heading out along the treeline away from the main house. Minutes later, he stood in hiding while the house security guards rousted the couple on the beach and started asking questions.

  He wiped the pistol and the magazines down, then threw them out into the ocean. Carefully, he made his way back to the main house without encountering security guards.

  Everything was still in confusion when he arrived. Several of the partygoers had headed to the marina, believing the party was being raided or attacked by armed robbers. Quinn’s security staff was kept busy trying to keep the guests from stampeding like cattle. The confusion was even more complete.

  Sapphira stood at the bar with a martini glass in her hand and a sour look on her face. She brightened up considerably when she spotted Joachim.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” she said.

  “No. Almost got ran over when everyone panicked.”

  She studied him. An alcoholic haze reddened her eyes. “You don’t look panicked.”

  “I’m not.” Joachim smiled disarmingly. “It’s an open bar.” He asked for a shot and a beer, finishing the first off in a gulp and sipping the beer. He nodded toward the knot of security guards coming up from the beach. “So what happened?”

  Sapphira frowned. “I don’t know. Probably something to do with my father’s business. He’s been antsy ever since he started working on that deal in Berzhaan.”

  “I’ve never been to the Middle East.”

  “I have.” Sapphira shrugged. “Bo-ring. It’s got a lot of hot guys with attitude, but I don’t like the way they treat women there.”