At Midnight

by Blair Babylon

  “Likely for one operation,” Raphael told him. “My wife and child will need whatever support you can give them, whether it’s resettlement with new identities or just transport out of the region. I don’t know what my wife is going to want to do. I’ll use the same link that I used to contact you to send you the details of my will and trust that state who will be Alina’s guardians.”

  Basch sobered. “Not your wife?”

  “She’s not Alina’s mother, and the marriage was sudden and recent. I’m not sure what she would want, and we don’t have time to change the documents, anyway. In any case, the guardians are my wife’s brother and his wife, so they can make arrangements if they want to change them.”

  “We’ll get you out, too. It’s the least we can do. We’ll get you and your family out and resettle you again. Jesus, Dieter. I still can’t believe that you’re the Archangel source.”

  “Don’t keep saying that.” Raphael hung up.

  Basch Favre always had been rather excitable before a mission.

  During operations, though, he was rock-solid. Basch would get the job done.

  Rogue Revolution

  Raphael Mirabaud

  Secret chats.

  After Raphael returned home that night, he strode off to the bathroom for privacy, powered up Bastien’s burner phone, and logged onto the Tor browser and dark website Blaise had directed him to.

  He was using this phone too much. He couldn’t get caught with this backdoor communication with the Rogues.

  A private chat room opened. Raphael readied himself to type with his thumbs on the tiny screen.

  Magnus was waiting for him. What the hell is going on, Schwarz?

  The name Schwarz threw Raphael again. Basch’s constant references to Dieter Schwarz during the video-conference, the Rogues’ calls to him during the hijacking of the container at the Port of Rotterdam, and now Magnus’s typing unsettled him.

  Raphael typed back, We have an operation tomorrow.

  What is it this time? Drugs?

  Worse, Raphael replied.

  Magnus wrote, I know you’re compromised, Dieter, but the guys didn’t sign up for missions like this. You promised them adventure, private contractor money, and not being dicked around by whichever political party was ruling their country. You promised them moral leadership, and they believed you because you were Dieter Schwarz, as pure as the alpine snow.

  Hatred surged in him, feeling like the old Raphael, the one who would turn on a person and beat them to the ground for looking at him wrong. Piotr Ilyin and Valerian were threatening Flicka and Alina, his soul and his heart. The Bratva and the bank with their dirty money and black-market crimes were contaminating Rogue Security, which was supposed to be a shining light in the world.

  He breathed deeply. No use punching the bathroom walls. The jarheads in the living room might notice.

  This operation will have adventure and moral leadership, Raphael wrote. We’re going to rescue a bunch of little girls from human traffickers and save them from being raped and eventually murdered. And then we’re going to take down an entire organized crime syndicate, from the rank and file to the head honcho.

  No response typed in the chat room for long minutes.

  Finally, words appeared.

  Go on.

  Tell Me

  Flicka von Hannover

  I needed him to talk to me,

  and then I wished he hadn’t.

  Some secrets are better left unsaid.

  Flicka paced in the living room until Raphael came home late that night.

  She hated it when he was out late. He hadn’t been telling her what was going on. When he came home, he swept her up in his arms and made love to her—she wasn’t complaining about that part—but half the reason they’d been so active was because it was the only time they could even whisper to each other.

  And she was trying to get knocked up.

  But there needed to be more whispering.

  When Raphael came in the door, looking haggard with his suit jacket slung over his shoulder, she turned on him. “You have to tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Nothing,” he said, walking toward her quickly.

  “But everyone’s on edge. The big guys are barely letting me pee in peace.”

  The Russian guards standing by the door didn’t flinch or look at each other. They both stared straight ahead as if they were inspecting the art on the walls. They might have been napping behind those damn sunglasses.

  Raphael whisked her up in his arms as if she didn’t weigh a thing, which was certainly far from the truth because Sophie and Kyllikki had been delivering cookies every hour, on the hour, and the Mirabauds served far too many carbs at supper.

  Alina had turned into a scampering cookie thief, making bullet-quick darts to the coffee table and then crawling under her bed, no matter how Flicka pleaded with her to not eat the cookie and come out. Suze Meier would have been distraught at her vegetable-free eating habits.

  And yet, Flicka was having a hard time denying Alina anything.

  Every time the Russian guards stilled as if they were listening to something through their earpieces and then twitched toward the weapons hidden under their coats, she wondered if she should have let Alina eat all the cookies.

  But Flicka had gained a few pounds from the cookies and the rich food at the intolerable formal suppers every night. Her only exercise was sedate strolls around the park when Alina played. Previously, she had exercised as hard as she could for an hour or two or more every day to keep the haute couture designers happy with her figure.

  But Raphael carried her to the bedroom as though she were a waif, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. The cinnamon of his cologne and the headiness of warm male scent puffed out of his collar.

  His blond beard, which he kept short and trimmed around his jaw, was soft on her cheek.

  Flicka said, “You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  He slammed the door behind them, laid her on the bed, and stripped their clothes off without saying anything.

  “Raphael, please!” She was holding him around his neck as he held himself above her, his mouth and his hands all over her, stroking her skin until she couldn’t breathe nor think.

  He settled between her legs, and their bodies moved together, finding their rhythm as he pressed into her. Sweat rolled down her skin as the room grew warm and musky, the scent of the sea filling their air.

  Flicka clung to him, trying not to sob because she was more scared every day. For those moments, she dove into his masculine scent and the warmth of his satiny skin against hers.

  He pressed her hands over her head and held her left one with his so that their wedding rings clicked together as his hips rolled into hers.

  She arched, seeking more of him, and he surged into her.

  His breath warmed her shoulder and neck, panting, and his other arm swelled with effort. Flicka held him, feeling the rough silk of his dark blond hair in her fingers and his skin against her palm and forearms. The scars were still there, crisscrossing his skin. She gasped, air filling her lungs, as his body ground against hers and thunder filled her veins, pounding in her body and her head, shaking her apart.

  When she opened her eyes, his hand beside her head was clenched into a fist.

  He said, “Tomorrow, if a police officer or one of the Rogues comes up to you, go with them. Take Alina if you can. If not, go with them anyway. We’ll get Alina out later. Just go.”

  “Not without Alina,” she whispered.

  “Then keep her with you every minute.”

  “Not without you.”

  “I’ll have to fight my way out. If you’re safe, I can do it. Please, I’m begging you, go. I’ll find you.”

  She knew he was lying. “I don’t want to leave without you.”

  “I know, but if you’re safe, I’ll be okay. Even if I’m not with you, I need to know that you’re safe. I need to know that whe
rever you are, that you’re all right.”

  She asked him, “What’s happening tomorrow?”

  He curled around her, his muscles contracting as he gasped.

  Flicka held him more tightly.

  “A terrible thing,” he said. “I don’t want you to know because it cuts me, it breaks me, but I’m going to stop it. Last time, I stopped it from happening. I’ll stop it this time, too, but I need you to be gone and to be safe.”

  When They Came For Us

  Flicka von Hannover

  I could see it in their eyes.

  The next evening, the ninth of December, the Russian guards came for them.

  Flicka was sitting with Alina for her supper before the toddler had her bath and put on her pajamas. Outside, darkness had fallen over the lawn. Lake Geneva turned black and quiet.

  One of the guards at the door tilted his head and pulled a phone out of his pocket, reading the screen. With a wary look at the other guy, he stepped toward Flicka. “Would you and the child get your coats and come with us, please?”

  Flicka watched the unnatural stillness of his face and the hard set of his jaw. She kept her voice light. “You don’t have to do this. We could leave Alina at one of Raphael’s sisters’ houses or a fire station.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. They know where my family is, too. Let’s do this quietly so we don’t frighten her, yes?”

  In retrospect, it was good that Alina was still wearing her thick tights, wool dress, and heavy sweater under her coat. At least she wouldn’t be cold.

  As Flicka carried Alina down the grand staircase to the open space in the center of the house, she called, “Sophie?”

  The guards made sure she continued walking.

  “Sophie!”

  The house was silent but for their footsteps on the patterned wooden floors.

  Though Alina was belted into her booster seat in the car, Flicka scooted across the rear seat to be next to her and held her hands the whole time. Alina babbled and talked, happy to be going somewhere at night because night was fun and delayed bedtime.

  Flicka breathed slowly and deliberately, inhaling and exhaling complete yoga breaths, not allowing herself to become overwrought. Several of her ancestors and relatives had gone to the guillotine or into desperate pitched battles with their heads held high. She wasn’t going to embarrass herself unless a ruse would create a chance to get Alina and herself to safety.

  And Raphael, wherever he was.

  He might not even be there. He might be elsewhere. He might be safe.

  During the brief drive through the city of Geneva, Flicka pointed out sparkling Christmas lights to Alina, and they identified colors, laughing. Red lights wrapped poles. White lights twinkled like stars in the evergreen boughs draped from the flower baskets that hung from the street lamps.

  The two guards in the front seat seemed to shrink in their seats every time Alina laughed, so Flicka made sure she laughed often and loudly. First, they deserved every damn moment and each iota of guilt that they would take a two-year-old to slaughter, and second, it diverted their attention from the slight glow of Flicka’s cell phone screen they might have otherwise noticed in the rearview mirror.

  Flicka had kept the cell phone in her ankle-high boots that were now her favorite fashion accessory. Bulging pockets might have been searched. The buff half-boots with a cuff around the top and laces up the front hid a small phone much more effectively.

  Indeed, they hid one cell phone in her right boot and another in her left.

  Brilliant reflections from Christmas lights slid backward across the windows as they drove.

  Alina and Flicka high-fived with every correct color, which was often. Alina giggled and danced in the car seat as she fought sleep. Her usual bedtime was approaching quickly, and they’d had a full day of playing in the park and ha-boo around the couch.

  The noise and movement further distracted the guilt-ridden Russian guards as Flicka frantically texted, both her thumbs flying over the screen as she typed.

  I accept your offer.

  Track this phone. Come now. Right now.

  And more.

  She turned the screen down so it wouldn’t light up if a message came back in. Light shining from her boot might alert even these dunderheads that something was up.

  That task completed, Flicka slid that phone back down her boot and retrieved the other one. While she and Alina pointed out colors and shapes in the cold, Swiss night outside the car, Flicka dialed a series of phone numbers into this cell phone, listening to the tones and patterns of the digits in her head, as she thumbed many numbers. To this group, she sent a mass text, telling them what was happening.

  I have been held hostage by the Mirabaud family of Geneva Trust Bank for several weeks. They are associated with the Ilyin Bratva crime family, and they are going to kill me. I am not suicidal. I am not planning to harm myself. I have been abducted, and they are going to murder me. Valerian Mirabaud has given me to them to murder me.

  One last text to her older brother Wulfram, the man who had raised her like a father since he had been fifteen and she was six: I love you. I’m sorry for everything, and I love you so much. Dieter did his best, but it was too much for even him in the end. Please go on. Please love Rae and the baby and go on. I love you. I love you. I love you.

  And to Dieter’s old phone number, just in case he survived that night: I love you. I have always loved you. Wherever you are, wherever I am, I will always love you. I have one last idea to save Alina. Thank you, thank you for these last few months. At least I had these few months with you and Alina. These months were everything to me. It was an entire lifetime of love. I love you. I love you both.

  Last, she pulled up the phone’s mobile internet browser and logged into one of her social media accounts where she told her fifteen million followers, Help! I’ve been kidnapped. I am being kidnapped again right now. If they kill me, it was murder. I am not suicidal and will not commit suicide. I have everything to live for. If you are in Geneva, CH, call the police and tell them that I’ve been kidnapped in their city. Last address: and she typed the Mirabaud family estate’s address.

  She turned the screen down all the way on that one, too, because she knew that texts and reply-backs were going to ping quickly and often. She didn’t turn it off in case someone could track the signal, but she didn’t want that screen to glow in her boot, either.

  The car stopped at the rear of a warehouse on the outskirts of town. Dark, hulking buildings blotted out the city lights far away and down the mountain, though the lake was still a black expanse dotted only by the illuminated fountain shooting its jet of water high into the air.

  She held Alina’s hand while the toddler softly sang a song, and she tried to live in this moment as much as she could.

  Her eyes burned.

  Flicka’s hand stole inside her coat, and she clutched the alpine mountaineering pin she wore on her blouse that day and every day. The gold wires felt like strength. The center ribbon felt as pure as the alpine snow.

  It was one last, beautiful moment that they were together.

  Flicka held Alina’s hand and listened to the child sing.

  Shipment

  Raphael Mirabaud

  Betrayal.

  Raphael stood in the cold warehouse and watched the tall van coast through the wide bay doors, its tires crunching frozen dirt and rocks on the cement floor. Ice melted off the windows and hood and built up behind the tires in filthy clumps. Its headlights cut beams through the dim warehouse space.

  A stiff December wind rushed through the open bay doors, tugging Raphael’s coat and pant legs. He shoved his hands farther into his coat pockets against the chill and rocked on his toes and heels to warm himself. The freezing air stung the inside of his nose like the smell of frozen steel and wormed inside his coat collar.

  The van rolled to a stop, and the driver shifted inside the shadowy cab, killing the engine. The headlights blinked off.
/>   A door on the side flipped open.

  The men waiting with Raphael fidgeted and blew on their hands. The automatic weapons slung on straps around their necks wove in the wintry wind. If they had been in Raphael’s annual crop of conscripts in the Swiss army, he would have handed out demerits for taking their hands off their weapons, leaving them unsecured.

  One little girl stepped out of the van and looked around the warehouse, bewildered. She looked about ten, and her dark hair spilled from under her hat over her blue coat. She hugged the jacket more tightly around her thin frame.

  Any time now, Raphael thought.

  Two more children joined her, then another three. They crowded off the small bus until fifteen of them stood there. Several of the smaller girls were holding hands with older girls. All were diminutive in stature, even the ones who looked older. All were thin to the point of frailty, and all looked around the warehouse with frightened eyes.

  The bay doors behind the van creaked as they began to close.

  The men near Raphael walked forward, glancing up at the rafters as they went.

  Catwalks clung to the walls of the warehouse near the vaulted ceiling. Men stood there, holding long rifles much like the ones the men near Raphael were holding. Kalashnikovs, all of them, for the Ilyin Bratva was patriotic in their weapons purchases. Also, Russian oligarchs support each other, buying stock from each other, because they will suffer repercussions if they don’t. One does not snub Russian government officials.