Royal Protocol

by Dana Marton

  He bit back a grin, not taking her entirely at her word. He couldn’t picture Rayne running screaming from anything. There was that hidden vulnerability in her silver eyes that he would have liked to know more about, but beyond that she was all strength. “I don’t think we need to worry much about secret burials, unless we crossed some time portal down here,” he whispered.

  When they saw light ahead at last, he turned off his own flashlight. They moved forward more slowly, careful where they stepped.

  “Lost contact,” a familiar voice, but one he couldn’t place, said.

  “Dead?” another asked.

  “Lost contact with our man on the inside, too. What in hell are they doing in there?”

  “Maybe they all killed each other.”

  “Best case scenario,” the first man said.

  “And our men on the outside?”

  “Completely surrounded and outnumbered.”

  “And nothing to bargain with to give them free passage. I hate to sacrifice them.”

  “If the operation takes out even that one damned prince, it’ll be worth any price we have to pay for it,” the familiar voice said.

  He wanted to rush forward and discover the identity of the men. But he couldn’t risk Rayne’s life. Three men talked somewhere ahead of them. And there could be more who simply listened. They could be heavily armed, while he had nothing beyond a handgun and his flashlight.

  He signaled to Rayne. Let’s go back. They would regroup with the others, then he would decide what to do next. The royal guards were armed as well. Someone would stay behind to protect Rayne, while he would confront the men with the help of the others.

  The way back was even slower than the way forward. Now that they knew it was the enemy up ahead, they were twice as careful. He tucked the flashlight into his cummerbund so they had to feel their way around in the dark. He didn’t want any light to give them away. He kept his right hand on the tunnel wall so he would know when they were back at the junction. With his left, he held Rayne’s hand.

  She had long fingers that fit snugly as if her hand belonged in his. Piano fingers. She played several instruments rather excellently, although singing was her true talent. But she was not the high-maintenance diva the gossip columns had often accused her of being. She’d held up under these circumstances as well as any of the men. Still, he wouldn’t have minded pulling her into his arms to comfort her, given half a chance. Not that she would let him.

  Which was going to make things difficult. Because he realized now that he wasn’t going to be able to let her just walk out of his life. If he couldn’t have her forever, he would take what he could get. He would marry for duty, but he would allow himself this one last folly. Nobody expected him to be celibate until marriage, and he hadn’t been.

  Those walls she’d built around herself held, but he wasn’t the type to back away from a challenge. He would have liked to ask her what it was that made her so wary of men, but making noise was not the smartest thing at the moment. He didn’t speak at all until they reached the junction, and then he turned on the flashlight.

  “You should sit and rest,” he told her. “We’ll wait here for the others.”

  Ten minutes passed in silence.

  “Can you hear anything?” Her hearing had proved to be sharper than his own.

  She shook her head.

  They waited another ten minutes. The half hour they’d agreed upon had passed.

  “Do you think they were caught?” Her eyes grew large with worry for the men.

  He’d thought about that. “I wouldn’t think so. Ours was the tunnel that led to the rebels.” He tried to place that familiar voice and was annoyed that he couldn’t.

  They waited ten more minutes, then ten more after that.

  When a full hour passed since they’d last seen the four guards, Benedek stood and extended his hand to Rayne, hating that he had no other choice but to take her into danger. “We have to get going.”

  “Where?”

  “Back to the rebels.”

  She stiffened. “Couldn’t we wait a little longer?”

  “We’d be risking the rebels leaving. We have to find them and follow them. They’re the only ones who know the way out.”

  HOURS PASSED AS THEY waited. Men came and went from the underground room the rebels occupied. There had to be another exit as not one stepped into the narrow tunnel where Benedek and Rayne crouched behind a blind turn, listening. Most likely, they were as unaware of the winding passage to the opera house as Benedek had been before that section of the tunnel was blown open.

  Rayne shifted, allowing circulation to return to her right leg.

  The chatter in the other room was lessening. Within another half hour, it stopped altogether. Benedek’s cell phone showed after midnight when he pulled it from his pocket.

  “You think they’re asleep?” she asked him, keeping her voice to a low whisper.

  “There’s a good chance.” He’d been alert the whole time, inspecting their surroundings thoroughly.

  “Why are they down here?”

  “Could be where they have some secret bunkers.”

  “You don’t think they’re here to look for us?”

  “If that were the case, they wouldn’t be sleeping. I’d say the rebels haven’t breached the opera yet. If they don’t know whether or not we’ve left the building, they wouldn’t have alerted their comrades that we might be in the catacombs.”

  He’d barely moved, unlike her. She had a hard time not fidgeting. Her body ached from their long walk and from sitting on the hard rock or crouching for the last couple of hours. At times her stomach growled so loudly that she thought the men might hear and discover them. She usually didn’t eat before her performances and she was way overdue for her supper.

  “I’ll check it out. You stay here.” Benedek stood silently then moved away from her after handing her the flashlight they had turned off to preserve battery power.

  Her hand shot out on its own to grab on to his sleeve. They hadn’t heard any noise from the back for as long as they’d been here, but the killer could still be somewhere behind them, biding his time. She didn’t want to stay alone in the dark.

  “Okay?” he whispered the question.

  “Yes.” But she had a hard time letting his sleeve go. She was glad he couldn’t see the cowardly look that must be plain on her face.

  “Hey.” The next moment she was pulled up and enfolded in strong arms. He held her, her face pressed into the warmth of his neck, his chin on top of her head.

  The sense of relief that coursed through her was overpowering. He was warm, solid and strong. He didn’t pull away. He was obviously waiting to see if she would.

  “I’m scared. A little,” she admitted against her will.

  “Come up behind me and keep your distance. If anything happens, run back to the junction and hide in one of the other tunnels.” He pressed his cell phone into her hand.

  “It doesn’t work,” she reminded him.

  “It has a locator. Standard procedure for all members of the royal family. I don’t know if it can send a signal from all the way down here, but if it can, they’ll find you eventually, no matter how far down they have to dig.”

  From the fact that he hadn’t mentioned it before, she had a feeling that it probably did not transmit from this far down. But he wanted to give her some hope.

  And since she needed that hope, she latched on to it.

  “Nothing will happen to you and they will find us,” she said.

  He brushed his lips against hers. She didn’t see it coming in the darkness. And frankly, even if she had, she wasn’t sure if she would have protested. But she wasn’t ready to admit yet that he was wearing her down, so after a second she pulled back.

  Then he moved away, walking close to the wall. The dim light that filtered into their tunnel from where the rebels slept illuminated his silhouette. She kept her eyes on him and her ears open, listening for any noise that m
ight betray that someone was coming up behind her. She followed him at a distance.

  She held the flashlight so tight that her fingertips were going numb after just a few minutes.

  Once, when she thought she might have heard something—hard to hear now from the panicked rush of blood in her ears—she turned back, poising the flashlight to strike. Nothing happened. Not that she could relax even after long seconds ticked by.

  Benedek was a few steps in front of her, coming to a stop. He could see into the rebels’ room from where he was now. She held her breath.

  “Sleeping,” he whispered when he came back and together they moved to a safe distance. “They have more than one room. The way out could open from any of them. I think our tunnel loops around. There might be another exit up ahead.”

  She digested the information. “You mean we should sneak by the rebels?” Her heart lurched. This seemed like a really bad idea. She was an opera singer. She didn’t have any cat burglar skills to speak of.

  But Benedek seemed adamant. “As quietly as possible.”

  The rebels had a way out and it had to be somewhere nearby, was the only thought that could make her move forward, toward them. She wished Benedek would take her hand again, but understood that he would need both hands if they were noticed and attacked. He held his gun in his right hand and the turned-off flashlight in the left. She snuck forward quietly behind him, placing each step carefully.

  Fear made her lungs work overtime. But when she found herself gasping for air, she used her usual breathing exercises to calm herself. Couldn’t afford wheezing with the rebels just a few feet from them. The whole scenario was so improbable she almost felt like she was on stage, acting out a story. Real life, her real life, wasn’t like this. What on earth was she doing here?

  Trying to survive, she reminded herself, as she very softly took another step forward.

  Soon they were close enough to see the men, four of them. One chair, two desks, a couple of stained mattresses on the ground. Other rooms opened off this one, as Benedek had said.

  The men slept, none of them armed, but two rifles leaned against the far wall, mean-looking weapons she had trouble taking her eyes off of.

  But when Benedek moved forward, she followed. They had only six or seven feet to cross while they were out in the open. She prayed like she’d never prayed before.

  Then she spotted a plastic bag full of Valtria’s famous rose-hip jelly doughnuts. Saliva gathered in her mouth immediately. Her stomach growled.

  She froze. Benedek’s dark eyes went almost comically wide as he looked back at her.

  One of the men moved in his sleep. She held her breath. Her stomach wasn’t that loud. Was it? The guy settled down, and she almost breathed easier again when she saw that his feet now leaned on the rifles, which began a slow slide against the wall, toward the ground.

  When those crashed…

  But Benedek’s fingers closed around her wrist and he pulled her forward before she had a chance to panic.

  By the time the rifles did crash to the ground, the prince and she were already hidden behind a wall, and not out in the open. One of the men swore. Then silence reigned again.

  Her heart drummed inside her rib cage. Close call. She flashed a weak, grateful smile to Benedek. To think that the most she usually had to worry about on opening night was losing her voice or missing a note…After tonight, she was never going to have as much as a tinge of stage fright again.

  If they only survived until morning.

  They moved forward and reached another room that opened into yet another room at the far end. They listened carefully. She didn’t hear anyone breathing in there. Benedek turned on the flashlight.

  Storage.

  The writing on the crates was in French. She shot a questioning look toward Benedek.

  “Ammunition. From the French Foreign Legion.” The question in his eyes was clear. How in hell did this get here?

  Another door opened in the back of the room. A faint light filtered out from there. Benedek turned off the flashlight again. He probably wanted to go closer and see where the opening led.

  They approached it in silence, Benedek first, she on his heels. Another, smaller room to the right was filled with file boxes, the room to the left with the sleeping men. Another tunnel opened directly across from them. Maybe it led to the street.

  They didn’t have a chance to check it out. They heard voices coming from that direction. Men who would soon wake the others. Benedek looked at her with a chagrined expression as, moving at the same time, they dove among the file boxes.

  BENEDEK CROUCHED IN THE CORNER between two stacks of boxes, Rayne sitting behind him with her knees pulled up. He kept an eye on the men through a crack between the boxes. They had some pretty nasty weapons, including AK-47s.

  Six men sat or lay around in the other room.

  “So are they gonna blow the damn thing or not?” one of them asked.

  They’d been idly discussing the destruction of his magnificent opera. The man whose voice he’d thought familiar was no longer among them. Must have left when the new batch arrived.

  “Probably.” Another guy, so fat that his belly hung off the mattress, shrugged. “We didn’t get any of the princes. The least we should do is take out the building. Gotta show that we mean business.”

  “He said that?” someone else asked.

  They’d mentioned some sort of boss from time to time, but never used his name.

  “Sure. Then he told me step-by-step what he was gonna do tomorrow and the day after.” The first guy guffawed.

  “He’ll blow it.” The fat guy scratched his chest. “Always goin’ on about symbolic this and that. He’ll blow it and say it’s the symbol of the wrath of the people, or whatever.”

  Benedek’s muscles clenched as he waited for the men to fall asleep again. He wished Rayne, too, could sleep. She needed rest. But he knew even without turning that she was wide awake. Tension radiated off her.

  He surveyed the place again, as much as he could without turning around. Definitely not the rebels’ headquarters, as he’d originally thought. No computers, no phones, not even electricity down here. The main room was lit by a couple of kerosene lamps. No real stockpile of weapons, save the few for the men’s personal use and those boxes of ammunition in the other room.

  From the way the men had been talking, it was clear that their leaders were not among them.

  Information storage. He looked at the towering file boxes. Maybe if the men fell asleep, he could open one of them. They could contain a list of supporters, records of donations, maps, plans, God only knew what.

  His gaze drifted back to the men who’d stopped talking and were nodding off again, if not already sleeping. Then he looked to the stone floor at his feet and the odd carvings that had been so filled with dust that he would have never noticed them had he not been crouching right beside them, with the light of the kerosene lamps coming through a crack just at the right angle.

  He waited another twenty minutes before he risked the small noise sitting down would make. Then he ran a finger over the letters that were similar to the ones he’d found in the burial room earlier. The secret writing of the Brotherhood of the Crown.

  Not so secret since an obsessed scholar had cracked the code. The man had been Valtria’s most famous code cracker during World War II, and he had become bored after all the action was over. Benedek had read his groundbreaking book a couple of times in his teenage years, as had all his brothers. They’d been obsessed with the Brotherhood back then. They’d all learned the secret code and on occasion had used it to communicate to the great annoyance of palace staff who did not enjoy having to remove their fresh messages from the palace hallways.

  Rayne stretched her legs. They ended up on either side of his.

  “Rest,” he breathed the single word.

  He had a rough idea now about the way out, having seen new men come in, but the path was completely blocked by sleeping rebels and
there was no way to get around them.

  One of the men in the other room began to snore.

  Rayne shifted behind Benedek, and he turned to look back, finding that she’d shifted forward. Her face was inches from his as she’d been trying to peer over his shoulder.

  She had the most amazing lips of any woman he’d ever seen. Her silver eyes looked liquid black in the darkness, fringed by thick, black lashes. As she leaned even more forward, her breasts pressed into his back.

  “What’s that?” she whispered into his ear, her soft breath tickling him.

  And like that, he was as hard as the stone that had garnered her attention. He turned away from her, realizing that his index finger still rested on the carved letters in the floor.

  “A two-hundred-year-old message.”

  “From whom?”

  “The Brotherhood of the Crown. A secret society of princes who saved this country a time or two.”

  Another guy joined the snorefest in the room next to theirs.

  Someone rattled the desk. “Shut up, you two,” he said, then turned the lights out.

  There were a few minutes of silence. Then the snoring started anew. The guy swore again, then turned on some elevator-music.

  “They have electricity?” Rayne moved closer, leaning against his back, resting her head on him. The wall was too cold to sleep against.

  “Probably a battery-operated CD player.” He didn’t mind her nearness. They generated a fair amount of heat between them. He remained silent, giving her a chance to rest, but she kept moving every couple of seconds.

  “It’d be good if you could sleep.” He figured they could talk in whispers now without waking the men.

  A moment of silence passed. “I usually sleep with the light on.”

  Another moment passed before he registered the meaning of her words. He’d never been afraid of the dark, not even as a child, none of his brothers had been. “Darkness was always my friend. My brothers and I had some serious adventures in the palace after the nannies retired for the evening.” He reached back for her hands, wrapped her arms around his chest and held them there. “I’m here.”

  She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t embrace him either. Then he felt her relax.