by Judith Leon
Bendrich translated for Dita. “She says this is easy. Silver bark. Oblate cordate leaves. They are all lipa trees. Called ‘linden’ trees in English? Ano. The national tree of the CzechRepublic!”
Dita added that the trees might even have names that reveal the family that originally planted them, like the famous five-hundred-year-old “Stuculipa” named after the Stuc family in Nebahovy. Dita and Bendrich chattered away some more and Bendrich translated, “The ancient goddess of love was supposed to visit the lipa trees, and then the Catholic Church later changed the story so that it was believed to be Mary in the trees. At one time people could be executed for chopping down a lipa tree. And there’s some kind of lipa celebration during the summer solstice.”
“I think the celebration with the goddess in the tree is what the mural illustrated,” Lindsey said. “And the shape of the trunk and branches was very similar to the trees along the road. This is amazing!”
Dita jabbered again and Bendrich turned to Lindsey, a look of thoughtful surprise on his face. “She said your name is derived from linden trees.”
Lindsey’s jaw dropped a little. She thought of Zuza’s prediction about a tree being important. Could she have actually meant Lindsey? Or the combination of living trees, the painted tree and Lindsey? Who knew? To Lindsey’s way of thinking, information from psychics was interesting, but not reliable. Things could be interpreted so many different ways. Zuza certainly hadn’t bargained on getting shot for her part in all this.
“You have an e-mail!” Marko called.
She silently wished Zuza and the cabbie well during their surgeries and then set Dita and Bendrich to work researching Mucha, linden trees, related place names and other possible links, like family names associated with linden trees. She then took the e-mail at a computer next to Marko’s. Allison had sent her the extraction team guidelines for tactical ops.
The days of getting a few hotshots together to storm an objective “with all ya got” are history. Highly equipped professionals compose today’s extraction teams, and they are well trained in using the wide array of weapons available, ranging from the less-lethal category to handguns to MGL-140s. Through hyper-conditioning in training, their personal reflexes and instincts are well integrated into equipment use, tactical maneuvers and teamwork. The objective isn’t merely extraction, but the highest level of safety and protection possible….
No problem! She had to cram a six-week course into a few hours and then come up with a brilliant plan for a team that might not make it in time to hit a location she had no knowledge of. And how she’d love to lie down. Lindsey memorized hand signals, read on, and skimmed until the words went blurry. She stopped and rubbed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, a steaming cup of coffee sat on her desk, and Marko started massaging her shoulders and back.
“Mmmmm.” It felt so good she could cry. Deeply, his thumbs pressed into her stiff and sore muscles. If only she dared let him work on her thighs and calves, now tight and jittery. This thought produced another image altogether, however, so it was time for him to stop. She grabbed his hands, but he held on.
“Thanks, Marko,” she said, keeping it light.
“I found thirteen possible sites from satellite recon,” he said.
“Good. Let me have a look. I need a break from tactics.” She swigged the coffee and stepped to Marko’s area to look at the printouts, eliminating four of them. “These nine are good possibilities.” She looked over at Bendrich and Dita. “How are you two doing?”
They looked up with frowns of frustration. “We have found a hundred and sixty street names with lipa as part of the name within the thirty-five kilometer radius of Prague,” Bendrich said.
“Any in these locales?” She passed them the printouts and they began to make comparisons.
Lindsey had fallen asleep at the desk. She decided that she might better stay awake and keep a clear head if she changed location for a while. She headed into the little entry area by the elevator and plunked down onto the spartan sofa. The space was lit only by the light from the next room, which felt good on her eyes since they were burning from staring at the computer screen.
Marko followed her. He said, “I think I’ve wrung out all I can from the satellite stuff.”
“And I’m feeling stumped. Until I know a specific location, I can’t go much further.”
She pulled a chair over, propped her head on her bundled coat, put her feet up on the chair and closed her eyes. Marko pulled another chair over for his feet, and his hand found hers. They rested that way in silence. She felt comfort flowing from him, and it felt good.
Her brain continued to spin tactical scenarios, maddening because they could only be for theoretical places and situations. Marko caressed her hand, helping her to relax. She’d been gripping him. She imagined snuggling up next to him with his arm around her and sighed at the loveliness of the idea. Maybe there could be such a time. Afterward.
“When I ran away at seventeen,” Marko said, “just Teal’s age, no one was upset. My mother helped me escape, in fact. Teal’s parents are probably devastated. I want to help Teal get home. It is strange how important having a home has become to me.”
Marko’s thoughts were tender. He probably thought what he was saying was something a woman would want to hear. But she knew where the conversation was heading and Marko had her wrong. Like her ex-fiancée, Marko was finally itching to settle down. He’d want kids, loving them and making a home for them in the way no one ever did for him. He’d had little attention, and he wanted to make up for it.
Lindsey had had plenty of attention. Maybe too much. She loved the life she’d created and didn’t want to abandon it for the responsibilities of being a caregiver and a child’s source of security. She and Marko were in different places; they wanted different things. He was a wonderful, handsome, great guy, but, if she let this go on and grow, one or both of them would be hurt.
She pulled her hand out of his. “Unlike you, I was always in the crosshairs of my dad’s watchful gaze,” Lindsey said. “So, freedom and independence have become my goal, my dream. I love my work. I’ve learned not just to take risks, but to thrive on risk.” She let the implications sink in: children shouldn’t have a mother who was always taking risks, and so Lindsey shouldn’t be a mother….
He’d remained silent a moment, then said, “But Lindsey, there is much more to you than—”
A phone rang in the workroom.
“—than this risk thing. Your freedom isn’t—”
“Lindsey!” Bendrich called. “Allison is on the line.”
She looked into Marko’s eyes and kissed him on the cheek. “I hope you find your home and your homemaker, Marko.” There was enough sadness in her voice to suggest that Lindsey didn’t envision herself in the role.
There are certain looks that are never to be forgotten. Marko’s frown in the darkened room as she turned and walked away from him was one that would haunt her. In those few seconds before she reached the phone, she knew he’d looked all the way through her and was telling her she was making a disastrous mistake.
Allison said, “Stefan just phoned.”
Lindsey did a quick mental gear shift. “Another psychic impression from Teal?”
“Yes, Teal has eaten, apparently. Stefan said he felt an uncomfortable fullness during the connection to Teal along with images of bread, cheese and sausage. And more importantly, Teal is in the light and feels hopeful. Her abilities are getting stronger. While he can only see the room she’s kept in, Teal is sending him metaphorical images, too. He sees her running toward a woman on a horse, if that makes any sense. But he said the spider is still there. He described it as watching her. Its web covers the ceiling of her room. He thought there was more to this spider image, but he couldn’t tell if Teal herself knew what it was or if he just couldn’t perceive it.”
“Wow. Except for the…” Lindsey took a deep breath “…that spider, this is wonderful news.” Lindsey told
Allison more about the psychic demonstration and the image of Penthesilea on horseback. “So, it sounds like she knows Athenas are on their way. Any news about Sam?”
“She took off a little before 1:30 London time, so 2:30 your time. Arrival sometime after 5:30.”
“That’s cutting it close. Too close. Civil twilight begins at 6:34 here,” Lindsey said, using the term she’d originally learned back in an Earth science class at Athena, and which referred to the sun’s position at six degrees below the horizon, rising or setting. It indicated a transition beyond which objects couldn’t be seen clearly, and she didn’t want to be seen clearly. Nautical twilight was more to her liking with the sun twelve degrees below the horizon. It began at 6:30, and that was the cover they needed. “I want to be on-site by 6:00 to set up a secure base. Sunrise is an hour later, but it will be way too bright by then, especially with all the snow.”
“Lindsey, has your extraction team arrived? You’re not thinking like a cowgirl, are you? Do not attempt this rescue without the team. That is an order.”
Lindsey thought about arguing, but since she didn’t even know the location yet, she couldn’t build up enough heat to protest. “It remains a moot point if we don’t know where we’re going. Did you find lists of Mucha’s private commissions?”
“Not yet, but even though it’s only an hour earlier in London than in Prague, I reached the Mucha Foundation in London—a minor miracle in itself. They are excited about the possibility of a new Mucha work and are looking for the records as we speak. What about you?”
Lindsey told Allison about the nine possible sites located from satellite imaging and about the linden trees, and then covered the phone to ask Bendrich if any of the street names appeared in the nine areas.
“Not one,” Bendrich said somberly.
“I think we’re narrowing it down,” Lindsey said, although this was a definite stretch. She hung up. Please, Tito. Come soon.
The spider was watching. Its web covered the ceiling.
What exactly did that mean? Lindsey had thought when she saw the spiderweb on Slick Hair’s neck that Teal’s spider images must refer to him. But a growing web, spread across a ceiling. That didn’t sound like one man.
Teal had seemed to imbue her messages at the demonstration with so much more than the simple images written on paper, with impressions that were highly accurate. This spider thing couldn’t be dismissed as a delusion caused by Teal’s ordeal. Whatever she was referring to, it wasn’t merely a small eight-legged creature.
Chapter 31
L indsey checked the time. It was 3:23 a.m. Still no Tito, no site location, and therefore no concrete plan of attack. She had devised a backup plan. She would bid for Teal at noon, make the bid so high that it would be the winner without looking suspicious, and then, when Jeremy arranged for a trade, the team could strike.
Of course that plan was worst case. For starters, how could she be sure her bid would be chosen? Maybe they would have to—
Marko put his hands on her shoulders. “Who was it?”
“Allison. Teal is still alive and feeling more confident.”
“Come out to the common room. Bendrich has laid out the gear you asked for that they have on hand.”
“Terrific. Let’s see what our options are.”
In addition to a handgun for each of them, he’d laid out knives, flashlights and communicators. She felt a nasty twist of disappointment in her gut. Handguns and knives were crude weapons, designed to kill. “I wish I was looking at a Taser. Or even a PepperBall launcher.”
“But for a Taser to work,” he replied with a grin, “you have to count on being less than twenty feet away and any closer than eleven feet and you might as well be using a handgun. If your objective is nonlethal, as you said you prefer, I like the pbl. An ops team doesn’t always have time to customize the weapon to each situation. The PepperBall launchers let you be very aggressive in an assault, and they work. Jeremy’s guards will be armed, so we can’t give them time to turn and fire.”
Marko sounded more knowledgeable than Lindsey had thought. “You’ve done special ops before?”
“Sure. Both in the FFL and for K-bar. I’m heading up the emergency tactical squads and their training for the company.”
This was wonderful. “Marko! Why didn’t you say so?”
“I didn’t think you or your contact wanted me to be that involved.”
“This is about getting the job done, not—”
The e-mail chime sounded and Lindsey broke off to return to her computer, Marko right behind her. The incoming message was to Lindsey from Allison at the NSA. The page showed Interpol’s posting of something that had happened only an hour after the attack on Lindsey and Zuza. Two Russian citizens, identified as fifty-eight-year-old Tanya Belikov and her ward, thirteen-year-old Yakob Rozlitz, were attacked in a hotel suite. The boy was apparently left for dead by mistake and he managed to call for help. The call, in Russian, was recorded, and the last thing he said was “They came to make a deal….”
Lindsey gasped at the close-up photos that revealed Galina’s—Tanya’s—black hair matted with blood that stained the white carpet around her. The boy lay dead by the phone table, the small hump of his back visible. She shuddered.
Bendrich stuck his head through the door and she gestured for him to come in, too. “The others also might want to see this.”
Dita also joined them.
“I thought that perhaps it was Jeremy who attacked Zuza and me, that perhaps I’d somehow blown my cover, but this pretty much settles that it wasn’t him. Jeremy would have no reason to attack Galina. She was a likely high bidder. I’d say the same bastards who shot Zuza also killed Galina. Just as you guessed, Marko. They’re trying to eliminate their main competition. Given that glimpse I had of a pendant I thought looked like Foo Hai’s, I’d say it’s his work.”
“Which means they thought you were a high bidder and that they still see you as a threat,” Marko said.
Lindsey nodded. “But why kill the boy? He was one of the best psychic receivers at the demonstration, and so young!”
Bendrich studied the photos. “I’d guess that Galina died instantly from a clear shot to the head. The youngster has several shots. He was probably trying to escape.” He shook his head.
All of them shared a look of disgust. To name the killers as evil monsters, though, was a waste of time—which grew ever more precious. Lindsey gave Marko the tactical file and began poring over all the information she could dig up on the artist, Mucha. Though Dita’s work of identifying the twigs was officially done, she continued to assist Lindsey by pulling up on Bendrich’s computer all of Mucha’s work she could find. Bendrich arranged for an SUV capable of carrying an assault team of seven and the various equipment and weapons. Lindsey felt a surge of hope when she saw that one of Mucha’s epic paintings, called Youth Oath Under the Slavic Linden, was quite similar to the mural.
Further research produced four names of people in office when certain of Mucha’s public works were commissioned. One was a public town hall mural for the mayor of Rokycana in 1933. She cross-referenced the other names to public records of real estate. None owned property in Marko’s nine designated geographical sites.
At quarter to four, an e-mail came from the London Mucha Foundation, listing over forty patrons who commissioned private works, but which included no murals matching the one sought.
Lindsey felt like screaming.
And then at 3:52 a.m., Dita did scream “Loto! Jako hra!”
“What did she say?”
“I believe the best translation is, ‘bingo!’” Bendrich said.
One of the names on London’s list of patrons matched a name of Dita’s very sketchy list of benefactors to the Czech Society Dedicated to the Preservation of Linden Trees. “Baron Barta Von Vlcek, Juniorsky.”
Lindsey checked the London list. “The name from London was just Baron Barta Von Vlcek.”
“The man’s son. One way to say,
junior in Czech is ‘juniorsky.’”
“Seriously?”
Bendrich nodded. He immediately went to work on the Internet, and after a few minutes said, “The baron, senior, was a field marshal during WWI.”
Lindsey’s fingers flew in cross-referencing the name with the extensive real estate records Bendrich’s search engines could access. She came up with three property listings for the Von Vlcek family during the years 1910-1939 and by 4:02, figured out that one of the three was in one of Marko’s nine possible geographic locations.
“All this doesn’t prove we’ve found Jeremy’s place, though, right?” Lindsey asked. She studied the satellite photo of the location.
Dita had found not only the parcel number of the place, but also its name. “Statek ze Vlcekulipa.” She was beaming.
Bendrich said, “It would translate ‘Chateau of Lindens planted by the Vlcek family.’ The road name is Silnice Vlcek, which literally means
Wolf Road
. The Von Vlceks probably wanted to honor the linden heritage by commissioning the Mucha mural.”
Lindsey was pacing now, virtually certain that they had their target. “Since it was walled off in the war and then forgotten, something must have happened to the owners. Alphonse Mucha was captured by Nazis in 1939. They let him go, though, and he died shortly afterward. Maybe the war prevented the mural from being recorded. Or maybe it wasn’t quite finished. Most of it was covered in gray dust, so I couldn’t really tell.” She stopped pacing. “It’s still hypothetical….”
Marko, Bendrich and Dita stared at her, waiting. There was no more time for research. She analyzed Marko’s satellite view of the site yet again as he stood beside her, his hand resting on the small of her back as she bent slightly over the table. Fewer trees lined the road than she would have thought, but that could be due to her ground level perspective. She’d thought the gravelly drive connecting the building to the road curved more sharply. And there was a separate octagonal building in front of the chateau that she’d had no hint of, but that could be attributed to the blindfold….
