by Judith Leon
“You are a driving genius,” she said.
He looked at her in his rearview mirror and grinned with satisfaction, his silver tooth shining brightly. “Now where does the lady wish to go?”
She gave him the address of the tobacco shop in OldTown. When she walked inside, she was stunned to see Marko. She quickly recovered, however. He must have tailed her there yesterday from the airport when she’d not been on guard. He looked up from a pipe stand he’d been checking out and glowered at her. She smiled, quite pleased, and drew him to the back of the shop where they would not be overheard.
“If you don’t tell me what the hell is going on,” he said, all bristly, “I’m going to inform your father that his worst fears are right.”
“You followed me from the hotel.”
“Damn right. And so did someone else.”
“I lost you both.” She grinned, rubbing it in.
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s okay, Marko.” She gave his arm a friendly squeeze. “I’m actually glad you’re here.”
His jaw dropped.
She continued. “The taxi chase gave me time to think, and I’ll concede that you are right. You can help me. At the moment this op is essentially just me and some paperwork types. I need someone like you now.”
He gave her a slow grin, as though she were talking about something other than work, and the anger in his eyes softened. “Bene. I salute your ability to admit when you are wrong.”
She let the small criticism slide. “Come with me.”
He followed her into the back room and into the elevator. He said nothing but gave her a strange look as they dropped downward.
At first Bendrich protested that she’d brought an outsider into the safe house without first getting an okay. He protested louder still when she said Marko was going to be her backup for the demonstration. But his protests were weak. Since Bendrich could not help her himself, it was perfectly reasonable for her to want cover, and he had instructions to give Lindsey Novak any reasonable assistance.
When she explained that Marko worked for her father’s security company, he’d been fully vetted by NSI, and she could personally vouch for Marko’s competence, Bendrich conceded and introduced him to the other two agents. The woman, Lindsey noted, paid Marko rapt attention with dancing eyes.
Bendrich ushered them into a second room and to a well-equipped desk. “I set this up for you, Lindsey. I’ll fetch another chair.” He looked to Marko. “Sorry, but our space here is rather tight.”
“No problem,” Marko assured him.
Lindsey pulled out her laptop and opened it. “I need to check a couple of things before I start filling you in. Can I trouble you for a couple of coffees first? Black for me.”
He nodded and left her.
She used a secure line to call Sam, who came on almost immediately. She was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. With some embarrassment, Lindsey explained Marko’s presence, but Sam accepted Lindsey’s decision to recruit Marko.
“I’m glad you’ll have some backup, Lindsey, because, well, I have some good news and some bad news.”
“Give me the good news first.”
“Before I left, my friends here located a psychic. She’s a Czech woman born and raised in Prague but living for the last five years in Vienna. She’ll be at the safe house soon.”
“And the bad news?”
“Stefan has been flooded with images and feelings from Teal. The girl is being kept in a dark, cold place. Maybe something underground. Like a small cellar. Stefan said he saw a spider crawling on her face. She’s panicked. Terribly frightened for the first time. They apparently haven’t fed her for three days. Only water. Stefan is nearly overwhelmed with feelings of terror from her.”
The hair in every follicle on Lindsey’s skin rose. Lindsey thought of Jeremy and how she’d like to force him to trade places with Teal.
“Of course, they have no intention of killing her,” Sam said.
“Does she know that? Can Stefan assure her that we’re coming? To hang on?”
“So far, their communication hasn’t worked two ways. Stefan is a powerful receiver and obviously Teal is a powerful sender. But try as he might, he can’t seem to reach her with anything other than the vague sense that someone out here seems to be listening to her. We’re figuring that she can’t read their specific intentions about her.”
“Well, we know she has guts, or she wouldn’t have stayed with them in the first place.” Lindsey struggled to keep her own frustration and fear for Teal from paralyzing her. She must stay sharp and positive. She envisioned Teal’s face turning toward light, no matter how faint, just seeing light and knowing someone was coming for her.
“I have more bad news,” Sam added. “I won’t be able to reach you until very early tomorrow morning, your time.”
“All the more reason for me to keep Marko. I also have some other help coming, Sam. Very experienced help. The best.”
“Excellent. Get to Teal tonight, Lindsey. Let her know she’s not alone.”
They signed off. Marko sat leaning back in a chair on the other side of the desk, waiting patiently, staring at her with his arms crossed. A steaming cup of coffee sat before her.
“This is a CIA safe house,” she said as she began to explain. “I’m not with the company, but I have colleagues who are. I’m here to rescue a young girl who has been kidnapped, and who, I’ve just learned, hasn’t been fed for three days.”
Chapter 22
L indsey waited for Marko’s response. He finally said, “Looks like K-bar’s intuition is dead-on. Working undercover for the CIA is exactly what your father feared.”
“This is actually me working on behalf of my alma mater, AthenaAcademy. An extraction team, some acquaintances of a close friend of mine, will arrive sometime tonight to help me free the girl. If we can find her.”
He shook his head, tipped the chair back to the floor, took up his own coffee cup, and waited for more.
She explained about the kidnapping, that one girl was rescued while the other had voluntarily stayed with her captor for reasons not altogether clear.
He frowned. “How can you know this Teal stayed voluntarily?”
She sipped coffee while she debated how much she could reveal. If she even hinted at the extraordinary history behind a girl like Teal or anything about Teal’s exceptional speed or psychic abilities, Marko would pester her to reveal all. The existence of and the nature of the egg babies was a very tight secret. “On that you’ll just have to trust me.”
“I do trust you,” he said.
His tone was loaded with double meaning, and he held her gaze as though he were holding her by her arms and drawing her close. He smiled softly, and she felt the strangest sensation ripple like a warm, soothing liquid through her chest. She wanted to be in his arms, to be held by him. Hearing sweet things from him, caresses, joking together—she could imagine it all. But she’d been over this terrain before and no prior relationships had worked. There was no reason to think Marko would be different. She would just end up embroiled in an emotional mess again.
When she didn’t say anything, he said, “So it seems that the AthenaAcademy is much more than just a finishing high school for gifted girls.”
“No. That’s exactly what it is. But many Athena grads, like me, end up in government service. Samantha St. John is coming. She’s one of the Academy’s original graduates and CIA. Of the other four who will arrive, I know only Tito. He works with me. You filled in for him in Naples.”
“So why me?”
She explained about the demonstration of whatever Jeremy Loschetter was selling.
Marko asked the obvious. “What is he selling?”
She struggled again with the problem of how much to divulge. “For now I’d prefer not to speculate. We’ll know after the demonstration.”
He finished his coffee and stood as Bendrich entered their small room with a chubby woman, about fifty years old, at his si
de. “This is Zuza,” he said, introducing everyone all around.
“I am psychic for you,” Zuza said, smiling sweetly as she took off her outer coat and woolen cap and hung them on a coat peg. Zuza was stout but not from fat. She wore a soft pink shaggy sweater over a long black skirt and both her forearms and calves suggested she was solid. Her features were heavy but her expression was kind and her demeanor calm. Graying blond hair, soft and short, framed her face.
Bendrich left and Marko returned with coffee. Zuza beamed a huge smile at him, a motherly one.
Bendrich returned with another chair and coffee for their new arrival and disappeared.
“I’m glad to have you join us, Zuza. You’re from Prague?”
“Originally. I live now in Vienna.”
“Do you know why we need you?”
“Yes. I am psychic. I was told is good I am black belt, too. I understand this is government business. I am to keep all secret.”
“Yes. Everything you do and see can be told to no one.”
Zuza’s light blue eyes twinkled. “I keep secrets as well as tell them.”
Lindsey stole a glance at Marko, who was frowning, studying Zuza. He must be near boiling over with speculation. To his credit, he didn’t ask even one question. But then, he had been trained by the FFL and K-bar to know that if someone running an operation wanted him to know things, they would tell him.
“Zuza is an interesting name,” Lindsey said.
“It means graceful lily.” Zuza giggled. The name didn’t exactly fit this stout matron now, although perhaps it would have when she was young. She wagged her finger between Lindsey and Marko. “You are lovers?” Lindsey felt her neck burning under the turtleneck sweater.
“No,” she said, at the same moment that Marko, grinning, said, “You really are psychic.”
Zuza frowned, puzzled, then smiled again. “Some t’inks I see I keep to myself. Partners, then. Good workink together.”
Lindsey laughed, thinking how very different she and Marko were; she cautious, he impetuous. “We have worked together and everything went okay in the end.”
Clearly satisfied that she had correctly pegged Lindsey and Marko, Zuza crossed her legs. She now was waiting for information and directions.
Marko asked, “How do you intend to get to this demonstration?”
Lindsey took a few minutes to explain to Zuza that Teal was being held captive, that she and Zuza were to be picked up that evening, and that they would be blindfolded. Lindsey wondered for a moment at Zuza’s motivation: money, past work with the CIA, past work for Athena, hooked on thrills, proud to show off her psychic skill? Whatever it was, she seemed quite at peace to be involved.
Marko said, “I can try to follow the pickup car, but what if I lose you?”
“We do have to do something about that.” From the doorway, she signaled Bendrich in the next room to join them.
“A 310 Rolly Finder Recorder would be perfect,” Marko said.
Lindsey described it to Bendrich. “A combination GPS and recording device about the size of a kidney bean. It can be sewn into the lining of a purse or into clothing or stuck behind a lapel.”
Bendrich shook his head sadly. “I don’t have one. We are not well equipped.”
“Please, Bendrich. See what you can do.” She checked her watch. 11:30. “We have six hours to have a Rolly here in time.”
He left, and she said, “I’m going to need clothing that looks the part and that will accommodate a Rolly. I spotted something at a department store earlier. You two wait for me here, please.”
They both frowned, but let her go. The department store was only a few blocks from the tobacco shop. She loved cashmere, and when she worked an Athena job, whatever she bought in the way of clothing as part of the op she was allowed to keep. She found a stylish black-and-gray cashmere suit—thin, more like a skin-hugging skirt and top. Even under the thin wool, the Rolly would have excellent reception.
She purchased a modernistic black and silver necklace and earrings, a black half slip and camisole, and a pair of sophisticated yet also businesslike heels, and then returned to the safe house, where Bendrich announced, beaming happily, that he had found a Rolly in Vienna and that it should arrive in time.
At 5:00 the device had still not been delivered.
With growing alarm, Lindsey slipped into her new outfit. When she came out of the small bathroom, both Zuza and Marko said she looked terrific.
“I’ll be on you all the time, Linds,” Marko assured her.
“You can’t be so worried for me that you come too close and they spot you. That would be even more dangerous for Zuza and me. Are you committed to making this op work, Marko?” She needed his full cooperation for this mission. It wouldn’t be easy to steal Teal away from her captors.
“Yes, of course, Linds. I won’t endanger you or your op. I promise.”
Bendrich came into the room running. He stuck a small package into her hand. “It came, Lindsey.”
She opened the package and the small brown box. She picked up the GPS unit. As she expected, one side was meant to adhere with an adhesive strip. She handed it to Zuza, saying, “Pull off the tape and secure the device into my belly button.” She lifted the hem of the cashmere top and her camisole.
“Have you ever attached one of these?” Marko asked Zuza.
Zuza shrugged. “No. Is not easy?”
“Only if you know what you’re doing.” Marko took the Rolly from Zuza and turned to Lindsey. “Let me do it.”
She felt his warm hands on her belly like an electric shock and sucked in a surprised breath. Taking care, Marko aligned and inserted the small device into her navel and, putting the other hand into the small of her back, pressed it firmly into place. His focus had been professional, but with his hand still spread over her skin, he caught her gaze.
Zuza giggled.
Lindsey brushed his hand away and smoothed the cashmere top down again without taking her gaze from his. “Complicated process,” she scoffed.
“I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that to lay hands on the boss.”
Zuza patted Lindsey’s arm. “We must go.”
Lindsey warmed with a sense of inappropriate pleasure and irritation with Marko for such boldness. “Damn right, Zuza.” She and Zuza had only twenty minutes to be in place, and it was peak traffic time. Bendrich had a taxi waiting outside the shop. She and Zuza arrived five minutes early at the front of the church where the reformist Jan Hus preached the gospel that got him burned at the stake in 1415.
Promptly at 6:00, a black Opel sedan pulled into the quiet of the cobbled street and two male passengers stepped out. The older man, heavily coated in black and with bushy black eyebrows said, “You cannot take any electronic devices. Let me see what you carry.”
Both she and Zuza had cell phones in their purses and she also had a BlackBerry. He lifted both and gave them to the other man, a boy really, eighteen or so. “The kid keeps them. You get back later. You,” he said to Lindsey, “sit in back with me. You,” he said to Zuza, “up front.”
Zuza looked at Lindsey, an expression Lindsey interpreted as, and so, into the void.
They drove only a few blocks before the driver stopped and Mr. Bushy Brows thrust blindfolds at Lindsey and Zuza. They looked like sleeping eyeshades. She put hers on, and the world went black. Not a hint of light. Peeking out from under these would not be possible. She shivered. The darkness evoked her fear of close, confined, dark places. Thank heavens Marko would never be too far behind.
The driver again pulled them into the traffic.
Chapter 23
F or a short time Lindsey estimated the direction the car was traveling, how many turns and the kinds of sounds, all the while trying to calm her heartbeat. The blindfold tricked her into imagining that swerves were major curves and made her feel like a prisoner. Trying to sense direction quickly became hopelessly confusing. She didn’t have sufficient training in the kinds of memory techniques nee
ded to make the effort useful. Keeping track of where they were would be Marko’s job.
Listening for sounds, she was certain they’d crossed the wide VltavaRiver, and she recognized the distinctive chime of church bells. After maybe fifteen minutes, they passed something that had the nasty reek of a cattle rendering plant. Since they hadn’t recrossed the river, she guessed they might be driving west.
She made no effort to make casual chat with anyone. When the car stopped and hands she assumed belonged to Bushy Brows pulled her out of the backseat, she made the mental note that after the first ten minutes or so, the drive had fewer twists and turns and had taken roughly half an hour.
Not nearly enough to nail the location. “Are you okay, Zuza?”
“Oh, yes. I am fine.”
Brows, or whoever was gripping Lindsey’s upper arm, held it so tight that it hurt and squeezed still harder as he steered her forward. “Let go! This is no way to treat a client, you idiot.”
The grip lessened, but he didn’t release her. You can’t take the brute out of a barbarian. Maybe Jeremy was short on civilized staff.
Her steps shifted from the gravel of what was probably a driveway to solid footing, perhaps flat stone? Sound of a door opening immediately in front of her. So, no entry steps.
“This is very mysterious,” Zuza said, her voice cheerful as if all this treatment were somehow normal. Zuza was a black belt, but also, apparently, an aspiring actress. Or maybe she drew some confidence, as Lindsey did, knowing that Marko wasn’t far behind. “I have a strong image of a tree or trees,” she said softly to Lindsey. “A tree will be important.”
“We can use all the help we can get,” Lindsey said. Even from kindly trees.
Immediately inside, a hollow sound, like a big room with high ceilings. The faint sounds of a piano in the background playing something soothing, perhaps Schubert. Lindsey reached for the blindfold.
“Not yet, please,” Brows said. “Please give me your coat, hat and boots.”
