In Shining Armor

by Blair Babylon

  Flicka’s jaw dropped.

  When she looked around, no one around them was talking. A dozen cell phones aimed over the seatbacks in their direction.

  She had to stop this public display immediately.

  She ducked her head so that her face wouldn’t be visible on the videos. Her hair swung forward to hide her. She said, “Yes. I’ll marry you.”

  Cheers howled all around her.

  “Now get up,” she told Dieter. “Get up right now.”

  He waved over his shoulder at the applauding passengers and sat down beside her.

  She whispered to him, “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “I meant it,” he said, “Every word of it. Marry me.”

  She cuddled close to him so that anyone looking at their body language wouldn’t suspect that she was about to crumble into a ball and sob her heart out. “You can’t do that. You don’t get a do-over after walking out on me and marrying someone else.”

  “I just thought—”

  “Thought what? That if you evened up the marriage proposal score that this would go away? I know Drachenfutter when I see it,” a lovely German word that means a gift for the dragon, a present given to one’s lover to make amends for doing something particularly stupid, which meant that she was the damn dragon. “I’ve been dying about this for years—”

  She really had, she realized. As soon as she’d heard from Wulfram that Dieter had gotten married, she’d gone numb. She’d died.

  “—But I didn’t want to be hurt like that ever again. When Pierre proposed with his very specific plan for marriage, I jumped at it. He wanted me, even though he just wanted my title and to not lose his throne for marrying someone unsuitable. But I thought he wanted me.”

  “You knew that when you married him? Oh, Flicka. You said he loved you.”

  “I thought he did, as much as he could, anyway. But he didn’t. He loved Abigai Caillemotte, but she isn’t titled. He’s ashamed of her.”

  “Everyone’s marrying commoners these days,” Dieter said. “William did. Wulfram did. Pierre could have.”

  “Monaco has always had a Napoleon complex. They have to be more staunchly proper and uphold all the silly rules even when the real monarchies don’t because Monaco is a tiny, tiny principality and even not a real country.”

  “Don’t let Pierre hear you say that.”

  “I will tell him right to his damn face.”

  “Maybe we could invite him to our wedding, and you can tell him there. And then I’ll punch his face in, just for laughs.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Punching him in the face would certainly make me laugh.”

  “Listen to me. There won’t be a wedding. I won’t marry you.”

  “You said you would.”

  “I can’t even imagine it. I don’t want to. It hurts too much.”

  He captured her chin and lifted her face to his. “I will marry you.”

  “I’m not even divorced yet.”

  “Six weeks,” he said. “Six weeks in Las Vegas, and you’ll be divorced, that quickly.”

  Flicka doubted it would be that easy. “I told you I wouldn’t marry you.”

  He kissed her softly, his lips barely caressing hers.

  Flicka slipped her arms around his shoulders because she wanted to feel his strength and his warmth.

  Dieter lifted his mouth from hers. “I proposed, and you said yes. You have to marry me.”

  “You can’t make me,” she muttered.

  He lifted the armrest between them and tucked Flicka next to his side. “I’m holding you to it. Now, how do you work these seatback screens? I’m tired of watching the little plane fly over the ocean. Maybe the BBC Sports show is on.”

  Sighting

  Bastien Mirabaud

  Bastien Mirabaud walked into his brother Valerian’s office and hesitated before he said anything. In his hands, he held one piece of paper and his cell phone.

  Valerian had turned seventy this year, and his hair had finished turning as silver-white as the pristine snow on the Swiss Alps. Also, like the alpine snow, there was still plenty of it.

  Bastien still had quite a bit of the dark blond in his gray hair, but it was thinning on top.

  Valerian’s office was situated on the top floor of a small, white building that was centuries old. Geneva Trust, a private Swiss bank, was almost a hundred and fifty years old. As the board chairman of Geneva Trust, which the Mirabaud family owned and managed for generations, Valerian was accorded the largest office.

  Bastien’s office was one floor down and half the size, but it was more than sufficient for his needs. He held most of his meetings in one of the several generous conference rooms.

  Valerian looked over his half-glasses at him from where he was typing on his computer. “Yes?”

  “I am not sure whether you want to know this.”

  Valerian leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his lean stomach. “Then it’s probably something I definitely should hear.”

  “Someone used Raphael’s passport yesterday morning to leave the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. Because his problems all stem from before Switzerland signed the Schengen agreement, his passport didn’t return any records immediately. However, our friends with Interpol finally got a notice about him.”

  Valerian turned back to his computer and settled his hands on the keyboard. “Raphael has been dead for years. It’s a mistake or a forgery.”

  “His passport has been renewed twice in the interim since we last saw him.”

  Valerian shrugged. “It was probably easier to counterfeit a renewal application than to apply for a brand-new one.”

  Bastien slid the paper onto Valerian’s desk. “Here’s a copy of the passport with the picture on it. I think you should look at it.”

  Valerian glanced at the paper, and then he turned and inspected it more carefully.

  Bastien said, “He looks just like you did when you were around thirty.”

  Valerian glanced up, his gray eyes solemn. “He disappeared when he was seventeen. They could have used age-progression software and, again, counterfeited the passport. Did we miss any other record of him?”

  “There’s nothing. I just checked. He dropped off the face of the Earth, and nothing until yesterday morning.”

  Valerian set down the photocopy. “What else?”

  Bastien handed him the phone. “This was uploaded to a video website this morning. Interpol’s facial recognition software linked it to the passport picture.”

  In the cell phone video, blurry from the phone bobbling around during the filming, a blond man was bent on one knee in an aircraft aisle. The woman’s hair, also blond, was visible above the seatback, but nothing more.

  Valerian’s hand rose to his mouth as he watched.

  The man said, “Durchlauchtig, I was wrong to leave while we were in London. It was the most stupid mistake I have ever made in my life. Will you marry me?”

  Even though he spoke German, his Swiss inflection was unmistakable.

  “That’s my son.” Valerian’s voice sounded like he had been punched in the gut. “That’s his voice. That’s Raphael.”

  “I think so, too,” Bastien said.

  He touched the screen. “He filled out. He’s larger around the shoulders. He was such a skinny teenager from growing too fast, but he looks strong now.”

  “He does look good.”

  Valerian picked up the phone and ran the video again. “What flight was this on?”

  “To New York. After that, they were booked on a flight to Las Vegas.”

  “The woman?”

  “It’s odd. That was obviously a marriage proposal, but her name is Gretchen Mirabaud on her passport.”

  Valerian picked up his cell phone. “I have to call Sophie and tell her that someone might have seen Raphael. Do we know where they’re staying in Las Vegas?”

  “We don’t have any information on that.”

  “I�
��ll need a plane ticket,” Valerian said.

  “What would you do in Las Vegas?” Bastien asked. “Walk up and down the Strip and look for him in the crowds?”

  “My son might be there! He might be alive!” Valerian turned to his phone. “Sophie, we think that there might have been a sighting of Raphael. It might be an imposter. It might be a scam. We mustn’t get our hopes up. But he might be in Las Vegas, in the US.” He listened. “Of course, I’m going. Can you send a bag? Thank you. I’ll call when I know more, and I’m texting some things.” He hung up.

  “I think we should make discreet inquiries—”

  He held his phone above the passport photocopy and tapped the screen, taking a picture. “We need to contract with every private investigator we can find, perhaps a private security outfit. Mercenaries. Can you send me the link to that video?”

  “We can’t hire mercenaries, Valerian.” Swiss law forbade employing or utilizing mercenaries.

  “That law hasn’t been enforced for decades. If I need mercenaries to bring my son home, then I will hire mercenaries. Never mind. I found the link by searching. That’s him. That’s really him.”

  “I think that it’s ill-advised—”

  “Damn it, Bastien. I’m going. Hold down the fort here. I’ll need you to take my appointments this week. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but if Raphael is out there, I will find him.”

  “If you go blustering off, the Ilyins might notice. They might follow you. They might kill him just as you’ve found him again. If we take things slowly, discreetly—”

  “The Ilyins aren’t watching for signs of him,” Valerian snapped. “It’s been, what, fifteen years?” He paused. “It’s been almost as long since he disappeared as the time that we had with him. God help me, I’m going to find Raphael and bring him home.”

  Bastien’s phone rang on Valerian’s desk, chiming and vibrating.

  Valerian pushed it toward Bastien. “Take my appointments. I’ll call if I find him or if I have a date that I’ll be back.”

  “The bank needs us both here. You can’t go running off like this.”

  “If Anaïs had been missing for fifteen years, you would have ripped up the soil of the Earth to find her if you believed that she might still be alive.”

  “As you did when Raphael went missing, but this is an unsubstantiated sighting.”

  “He used his passport, and that’s him in the video. That’s his voice. That’s his face. I know it. I feel in my gut that he’s not dead, and I’m going to bring him home.”

  Valerian continued to make plans, and Bastien walked from the top floor office back to his own.

  As he’d suspected, Valerian might bankrupt himself going after Raphael.

  Someone needed to find Raphael, if the man in the photo and video was indeed Raphael Mirabaud.

  The Russian Ilyin crime syndicate had many millions on deposit with Geneva Trust. Hundreds of millions, if not more. They were one of Geneva Trust’s largest clients.

  If the Ilyin Bratva found out Raphael Mirabaud was still alive, they would spare no expense finding him. They would be fanatical about it until they had dealt with him.

  Bastien bit his lip, considering his options.

  Monaco

  Pierre Grimaldi

  Pierre Grimaldi sat at a rear table at the wedding reception and toyed with his wine glass.

  His wife was missing.

  She was out there somewhere after conferring with her lawyers in Paris, preparing to divorce him.

  And he was sitting at a damn impromptu wedding for his cousin while his life fell apart around his ears.

  Alexandre Grimaldi, Pierre’s cousin and third in line to Monaco’s throne, had married a commoner, but at least she was tolerably upper-class for an American and ostensibly Catholic.

  The fact that Georgiana Johnson was Catholic had pacified Pierre’s uncle, the reigning sovereign prince of Monaco, just in case Pierre did something asinine that would cause him to lose his spot in line for the throne.

  Something like getting divorced.

  If Pierre did allow himself to be thrown out of the line of succession, his younger brother Maxence would immediately abdicate. Maxence was somewhere in the Congo or Botswana or somewhere, doing “good” in the world instead of doing what he should be doing for Monaco.

  Maxence had proclaimed often and loudly that he would never assume the throne as the Prince of Monaco. Pierre didn’t doubt Maxence’s resolve in this at all, not in the slightest.

  Which meant that man out there, the one slowly dancing at his wedding reception, would inherit the throne.

  Alexandre Grimaldi was unfit, unsuitable, and impossible as a sovereign. He had fashioned himself to be a rock star after he had destroyed his promising classical violin career with an ill-advised murder.

  Pierre would shoot Alexandre himself before he allowed that man to be crowned the Prince of Monaco.

  Alexandre’s long, blond hair was tied back at the nape of his neck, and he danced with a loose casualness that offended Pierre where he sat. That idiot looked happy out there, dancing with his new wife.

  Seriously, Pierre had been miserable at both his weddings: The first one, because he had known that he was making a terrible mistake by marrying the woman he loved, and the second, because marrying the suitable and formidable Flicka von Hannover would lead to nothing but grief for them all.

  But he had done it.

  Because Pierre always did what Monaco needed.

  Now the beautiful and appropriate Flicka von Hannover had been missing for nearly a week, and her older brother Wulfram von Hannover was glaring death threats over the wedding reception crowd at Pierre. Wulfram’s new wife, Rae Stone-von Hannover, kept trying to draw his attention away, but those dark blue eyes stared at Pierre, unblinking in their fury.

  Pierre looked over the crowd again. He had hoped that Flicka might show up that night. After all, the bride was one of her best friends, and the groom was one of her old school chums. It wasn’t inconceivable.

  If Flicka had sneaked in to pay her respects, perhaps they could have found a detente. He had decided on an offer for her: that she produce an heir for the principality through medical intervention, and they would live separate lives.

  Surely, Flicka would accept never seeing him again. He’d done everything wrong after Wulf’s wedding. He’d had too much to drink. Abigai had been hounding him all night, and he’d lost his temper with Flicka.

  She had to forgive him.

  He would send her jewelry until she forgave him.

  And then he and Flicka could go their separate ways, and he could live out his private life with Abigai.

  If Flicka didn’t agree to his terms, he would have to bring her back here to Monaco. He didn’t want to do that, but Monaco demanded it.

  There must be a legitimate heir, and he had to provide one.

  Pierre hoped she would show up.

  So he sat, slowly getting drunk, and waited.

  Past the bodyguards that ringed his table, Wulfram von Hannover moved toward Pierre, his fists clenched. His wife pulled him back, talking fast.

  His Secret Service bodyguards tightened their circle. They’d been warned about Wulfram von Hannover, Pierre’s former closest friend.

  But Pierre did what was necessary for Monaco. He gave up whatever was demanded of him, whether it was a legal marriage born of love or a friendship that spanned decades.

  Monaco sucked it all away from him.

  Quentin Sault strode over to him. The bodyguards parted to let him through.

  Sault leaned down and whispered, “We’ve found her. We’ve sent a team. She should be in the palace by Tuesday morning, and then you can decide what to do with her.”

  Flicka has her

  knight in shining armor.

  But to escape Pierre,

  she needs to run away and live

  In A Faraway Land.

  See In A Faraway Land

  at Amazon.

&nbs
p; Sneak Peek at In A Faraway Land

  Dieter followed Theo through the prairie-dog warrens of cubicle farms back to his office.

  Admins and junior attorneys chatted on phones and rattled keyboards, a chaotic bluster of sound that would cover running footsteps or the clack of a rifle chambering a round until it was too late.

  Theo’s gait was off, Dieter noticed. He was limping, and he held his left arm close to his ribs.

  Dieter had seen some of his best friends take a bullet when he was a commando in the Swiss Army’s elite special forces unit, ARD-10. With Theo’s slight limp and the way he was favoring his left side, Dieter could diagnose that he was healing well but not ready for active duty yet. If Dieter had been his commanding officer, he would have benched Theo rather than allow his reduced state to jeopardize an operation.

  Flying a desk as a prosecuting lawyer was probably less physically demanding than breaking and entering, Dieter supposed. “How are you feeling?”

  Theo looked back at him with one eyebrow up, but then he chuckled. “Ah, yes, you jumped on Wulf von Hannover while someone shot me. Better, I’m doing better. The doctors say I can start boxing next month.”

  “Boxing can be tough during a recovery.”

  Theo shrugged and spread his arms at a glass-enclosed office. “Let’s discuss this in private.”

  Dieter walked into the office in front of Theo, even though the back of his neck prickled as Theo’s footsteps rustled on the carpet and the door clicked closed.

  He sat in one of the clients’ chairs in front of the desk while Theo opened and retracted the clattering vertical blinds that lined the transparent walls. Theo said, “I hate this office. Everyone can tell when I’m playing blackjack on the computer, but we’ll talk in here.”

  Dieter nodded. He dropped the light duffel bag on the floor beside his feet. The transparent walls behind his back made his spine crawl with spiders.