by Mark Levin
Chapter Ten
“Sofia!” Rebecca said. “Just like in the diary!”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Roger said.
Benji grabbed the phone. “I’m calling right now.”
“Wait,” Maddy said. “It’s eleven-thirty at night.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the element of surprise?” Benji said. “The old EOS.”
He held up the paper and quickly dialed. The family huddled close.
“Well?” Rebecca said.
“Shh!” Benji said. “It’s ringing!”
“What are you going to say?” Maddy asked.
“Duh? I’ll ask for Sofia.”
“What if she doesn’t speak English?”
“I’ll fake it.”
“Oh, big man. This I gotta see.”
“Quiet, Maddy,” Rebecca said. “Let your brother concentrate.”
Benji was already putting down the receiver.
“What’s wrong?” Roger asked.
“No answer.”
“You sure?” Maddy said.
“Of course I’m sure. No one picked up.”
“But did you let it ring long enough?”
“Sure I did.”
“I don’t think so.”
Rebecca waved her arms. “Shhh, the two of you. There was no answer, OK?”
Benji folded the paprika-covered note and slipped it into his back pocket. “We might need this later.”
“Good thinking,” Roger said.
“So what next?” Rebecca asked.
The phone rang.
The Hitchcocks froze. Ever since meeting up with the Algerian at the opera, they had known that they had stumbled into something—possibly even something big. At the same time, their adventures had seemed vaguely unreal, almost as though they were happening to some other family. But now the ringing phone woke them to the seriousness of their situation. Clearly, Benji’s phone call had reached someone. And now that person was calling back. Would he be angry? Did he know the tall man Benji had pushed down the stairs? Or the Elevator Man? Did he, too, want Veronique’s diary?
“I’m scared,” Maddy said.
“I’ll second that,” Benji said.
“Don’t answer,” Rebecca said.
The phone rang again.
Roger knew the risks. If he was smart, he would gather his family, take a cab straight to the airport, and jump on the next plane home. But this was one of those moments when curiosity trumped common sense. Yes, Roger knew he should run—and run fast. But he was in too deep to turn away.
He picked up on the third ring.
“Vadim résidence,” he said in his best French accent.
“Roger Hitchcock?”
Roger almost shook with relief.
“It’s Xavier Vadim!” he whispered to his family, then turned back to the phone and continued in his normal voice. “Xavier! Hello! How’s Chicago?”
Xavier clearly wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
“My daughter’s friend is under the impression that your daughter has something that belongs to Veronique.”
Roger swallowed hard, suddenly even more nervous than he had been a moment earlier. Why was this day going so wrong? Was Xavier Vadim really calling long distance to yell about a girl’s diary?
“Well, yes,” he stammered. “There was a girl, but it was actually pretty darned funny. We didn’t understand her. A language barrier thing.”
Xavier Vadim was unimpressed. “It is very important that Veronique gets her diary. You understand this, Roger, oui? You are a father. A daughter’s secrets must be hers alone.”
“I understand,” Roger managed, though now he was even more convinced that the diary held some sort of clue. Though honest by nature, instinct told him to hide the truth. “If we find it, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
Even as he said the words, Roger saw Maddy clutching it.
Vadim’s response was pure ice. “I have a better idea. You will leave the diary in an envelope with Camille’s name just outside the front door. By sunrise.”
Xavier clicked off. Roger’s skin froze, but he forced a laugh. He couldn’t alarm his family.
“I hear you, mon ami,” he said to the dead line. “Make sure you get yourselves up the Sears Tower, OK? ’Bye now. Au revoir.”
He hung up. “It’s all good, Hitchcocks.”
“Get real, Dad,” Maddy said. “He had already hung up, right?”
“Well . . . sort of.”
“OK,” Benji said. “This is officially disturbing.”
“What does he want?” Rebecca asked.
Roger tried to keep it light. “Well, we have to leave the diary in an envelope with Camille’s name on it by sunrise. No biggie.”
Rebecca was stunned. “So you told him we have it?”
“You heard me,” Roger said. “I denied it completely—but he just knew, OK?”
“Make that officially highly disturbing,” Benji said.
“It is,” Maddy said. In the half-light she suddenly looked more like a little girl than the young woman she was in such a hurry to become. “What are we going to do?”
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do” Rebecca said. “Call Harry Huberman!”
Roger couldn’t have imagined a worse suggestion. Just what he needed—a suave embassy guy to use a simple case of mistaken identity to horn in on his wife.
“You can’t call him,” he said. “It’s midnight.”
Rebecca was already rummaging through her purse, looking for the number.
“Honey!” Roger went on. “That really isn’t . . . ”
He didn’t finish the thought. How could he have been so stupid? It was there in front of him all the time.
“What is it, Daddy?” Maddy asked.
Roger pointed to the small wooden cabinet hanging in the front hallway. It was secured by a padlock.
“There it is,” he whispered. “Vadim’s cachette.”
“Oh my God!” Maddy said. “It has to be.”
“Nice, Dad,” Benji said.
“See?” he said, turning to his wife. “We don’t need help. We’ll just look in Vadim’s hiding place and figure this thing out all by ourselves.”
Rebecca shook her head. “We are not breaking into a locked cabinet, OK? What if they broke into ours?”
But Roger had already caught a glimpse of the knife rack out of the corner of his eye.
“That’s the beauty of it, sweets,” Roger said, reaching for the smallest knife he could find. “They’re not even going to know we peeked.”
Roger lifted the cabinet off the wall and began to loosen the screws on its back. From her alarmed look, he could tell that the old nervous Rebecca was back in full force. For a moment he considered stopping. After all, he didn’t want to jeopardize the gains he had made with his wife that afternoon and evening. But when the first screw came loose in his fingers, he dropped it on the kitchen counter and moved right on to the next. Yes, an otherwise fine day had taken a sharp turn into the world of scary and strange. But now that he was taking action, he couldn’t stop.
“I can’t believe it,” Rebecca said. “Do you realize the lessons you’re teaching these children?”
Maddy smiled. “They’re not lessons if we already know them, Mom.”
Rebecca let that one pass.
“What do you expect to find in there?”
Roger was lost in his own world—a world where he was no longer a mild-mannered commodities trader who had fallen on hard times as the result of a year of lice-infested corn. Instead, he was a dashing spy admired worldwide for his daring and style. The type of guy who relaxed by winning downhills using only a single ski and pole just to make it easy on the competition.
“La fiole!” he cried. “Second screw out!”
Benji clapped. “Two down, two to go! You go, Daddy-o!”
“We should not be taking apart the furniture,” Rebecca scolded. She had begun to pace, red-faced. “We should be
calling Harry Huberman. Maybe even the police. This is serious! Do you realize that a man approached you in the theater and asked you to get on a plane to Algiers? And that Benji pushed him down the stairs and we ran like criminals out of the opera? Now Xavier Vadim calls us making threats—and all about a girl’s diary! No, no, no! Put that knife down, Roger. Now! We need help!”
“Got it!” Roger said.
All four screws were on the counter. Roger carefully removed the backside of the cabinet. As her kids pushed close, Rebecca sighed. She didn’t approve of her husband’s reckless behavior but still found herself strangely unable to suppress a small smile. Here was a side of Roger that she had never seen before. A braver side, a man who was willing to take risks.
“What’s there?” she said.
Roger smiled at Rebecca. “It looks like you weren’t the only one who hid the family pictures.”
He reached into the back of the cabinet, pulled out a sheaf of photographs of the Vadims, and began to sort through them. But at first glance at the family with whom they had traded lives, Roger stopped short, breath held, too confused to speak.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” Benji asked. “You look sick.”
“Yeah,” Maddy said. “Is it your turn to puke?”
Roger swallowed hard.
“Daddy?” Maddy said, more concerned now. “What is it?”
“These pictures,” Roger stammered.
“What?” Rebecca said.
Roger held up a family portrait of a husband and wife and their daughter and son, then watched his own family’s faces turn from wonder to surprise to fear.
“I don’t get it,” Rebecca said, voice shaking.
“Me neither,” Maddy said.
“Those aren’t the people staying in our house in Chicago,” Benji said.
Indeed they weren’t. The father was blond, the mother and daughter both redheads. The boy was three. Quickly, Roger rifled through the rest of the pictures. Every single one was of the same four people.
“Who are these people?” Maddy asked, grabbing the first family portrait. “The real Vadims?”
Roger suddenly wished with an overpowering desire that he had never gotten the idea to come to Paris.
“Hitchcocks,” he said. “We’re in trouble.”
Chapter Eleven
“We. Are. Calling. Harry!”
Roger had rarely seen his wife look so determined. Rebecca fumbled for the phone and dialed. To her relief, Huberman answered on the second ring. He didn’t sound like he had been asleep either.
“Mr. Huberman?” Rebecca began. “It’s Rebecca Hitchcock. Yes, from the Eiffel Tower.” She paused. “You’ve been thinking of me? How sweet.”
Roger grabbed away the phone as Maddy rolled her eyes at Benji.
“Mr. Huberman?” Roger said, pacing the Vadim kitchen. “Here’s the situation. We did a house swap with a very nice family. At least we thought they were, but then we made the mistake of using their tickets to the opera, where I was approached by a strange Algerian man who wanted some MGF.”
For the first time, Huberman spoke. “MGF?”
“Yes, yes!” Roger said. “Do you know what that means?”
“It means you need to meet me at the embassy.”
Roger shuddered. “Really?”
“What’s he saying?” Rebecca asked.
Roger cupped the mouthpiece and whispered to his family. “He says we need to meet him at the embassy.”
“Thank God!” Rebecca said.
“It’s across the Seine,” Huberman went on.
Just then there was a small but distinct click on the line.
“What was that?’ Huberman asked.
“I don’t know,” Roger said. “I heard it, too.”
“What phone are you calling from?”
“The house line.”
Huberman’s voice remained calm. “Someone has been listening, Roger. Your lives could be in danger. Get out of there. Now! I will be waiting.”
With that, the line went dead. Roger turned to his family, trying to keep the panic from showing on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Maddy said.
“Hitchcocks! To the embassy—on the double.”
“Yes,” Rebecca said. “Harry’ll know what to do.”
Maddy smiled. “Now you’re on a first-name basis, Mom?”
Rebecca shot her daughter a hard glance. “I’m just saying that Harry knows Paris. He’ll keep us safe.”
“If we get to him in one piece, you mean.” It was Benji calling from the window. “Look!”
Roger, Rebecca, and Maddy exchanged a terrified glance, then squeezed next to Benji. Down below, the tall man in the yellow suit—the Algerian—was entering the building.
“Oh my God,” Rebecca whispered.
“This isn’t good,” Maddy said.
Benji was too terrified to say anything further.
“Hitchcocks,” Roger said. “It’s time to move!”
In the next moments the family gathered their things with a manic energy that might have seemed comic if they hadn’t been so frightened. Rebecca grabbed Beatrix Vadim’s stack of mad money. Maddy stuffed Veronique’s diary in her back pants pocket while Roger tried to corral them all toward the door.
“Hurry!” Roger called. “He’s coming!”
“I can’t find our passports!” Benji cried.
“Forget them!” Roger said, and yanked his son toward the door.
“But Dad, what if . . . !”
“Later!” Roger said.
Benji allowed himself to be pushed into the hallway after his mother and sister.
“We’ll go upstairs!” Roger called, following them out. “To the roof!”
But the Algerian was already only a floor away, seeming to all but glide toward them, moving effortlessly up the stairs, three at a time.
“Daddy!” Maddy cried.
“Oh my God!” Rebecca said.
“Change of plans!”
“This way, Dad!” Benji said. He pointed down a dark hall.
Which is when something extraordinary happened.
The Elevator Man leaped out of the shadows!
“Ah,” he whispered. “La famille Hitchcock.”
As he spoke, Benji saw, lit by a lone lightbulb, two more scars to go with his pierced eyebrow.
By this point, any residue of calm on the part of the family had vanished. The Hitchcocks screamed as one.
“Daddy!” Benji cried. “Do something!”
His father lurched toward the door to the apartment, dragging the family along with him. But they weren’t fast enough. With the Elevator Man hot on their heels, Rebecca and Maddy pressed their backs to the wall. As Benji dove on the ground, he saw his father turn to meet their assailant face-to-face.
“Leave us alone!” Roger cried.
For a split second, Benji felt a surge of hope. If his father could be that recklessly brave, anything seemed possible.
“You go, Dad!” Benji shouted.
“It’s not you I want, Roger Hitchcock!” the Elevator Man shouted.
Benji gasped. With a quick stutter step, the Elevator Man cut around his father, leaped in the air . . . and tackled the Algerian.
“What?” Benji cried.
Working fast, Roger unlocked the door. “Inside!” he yelled.
Benji thought he was home free. His father, sister, and mother were already safe inside. The door was three short steps away. But then the Algerian flipped the Elevator Man down a flight of stairs and cut Benji off.
“Did you really think you could get away with pushing me down the opéra stairs?”
Benji had a sudden vision: Wouldn’t it be great to take the Algerian out with his Lego Death Star? But with no weapons real or imagined on hand, Benji was forced to rely on his wits. Seeing an opening, he dove under the Algerian’s legs, then rolled sideways into the apartment foyer.
“Ah!” the Algerian said. “Stop!”
Roger slammed the door har
d and flipped the bolt. The Algerian pounded with both fists.
“Nice move, Benj!” Maddy said, helping him to his feet.
“That ought to hold him,” Roger said.
“What now?” Rebecca asked.
“I saw a terrace,” Maddy said. “We can jump off of it to the adjacent roof.”
“Works for me,” Benji said.
“Jump off a terrace?” Rebecca said. “The hell we are!”
“The other roof isn’t far,” Maddy said. “Three feet tops.”
Thwap! Thwap! Thwap!
“Doesn’t look like we have a choice,” Roger said. “Come on!”
He led his family down the back hallway to the master bedroom. As Maddy had noticed, a small door led to a narrow terrace.
“Our escape route,” Roger said.
Thwap! Thwap!
“What’s that Algerian using now?” Maddy asked. “A sledgehammer?”
“Maybe an ax!” Benji said.
Another boom shook the walls.
“How about a battering ram?” Maddy said.
“Everyone outside,” Roger said.
Soon the family was scrunched together on the small terrace. The streets of Paris stretched out below them, lovely and inviting. Though it was late, there were people on the street, still enjoying everything the city had to offer. But now wasn’t the time to take in the sights. It was the time to run for their lives. As Maddy had noticed, an adjacent roof stood about three feet away.
“Well,” Roger said to Rebecca with a half smile. “I said Paris would be an adventure, right?”
Without another word, he leaped from the terrace onto the roof of the adjacent building. Though the jump was a bit longer than he had anticipated, he was sure not to let his family notice.
“Come on,” he said. “Benji next. Straight into my arms. I’ll catch you!”
Now Benji swallowed hard. Sports were never his forte. Standing on the tiny terrace, he thought back to gym class. When tested for general athletic ability, only two other people in his grade had scored lower. Worse, he had come in last in the long jump. What were the odds he could make it across a three-foot chasm to an opposite building with an insane Algerian out for blood?
“I’m a thinker, not a doer!” Benji cried.
“Not true,” Maddy said. “A minute ago you scrambled under the Algerian’s legs.”
