“I have an offer on my mother’s apartment,” she told him. “I think I’m going to take it. And I want to bring a few pieces of furniture to Paris. Do you want to come with me for a few days and help me organize it?”
It sounded like fun to him, and a change of scenery. “I’d like that.”
“I only need a few days there, but it would help me if you take care of the shipping, while I sign the papers and wrap up the apartment. It’ll be a weight off my shoulders. My mother was so sad there so much of the time, especially since her…friend…died, and even before that—the place feels like bad karma to me. I want to get rid of it.” He nodded, it didn’t sound like a happy memory to him either.
“I haven’t been to New York in a long time. I took a brief holiday there about ten years ago. I don’t know the city very well,” he commented.
“I’ll put you up at a hotel near my apartment. I live in SoHo. There are lots of hotels there. It’s downtown. My mother lived uptown, on the Upper East Side.” He had a vague idea where all of it was and told his mother that night where he was going. He had told her all about the chateau too. She was intrigued by the woman he was working for. He seemed to be more of a property manager these days, or a secretary, than a butler. But he kept telling her it was only a stopgap until the agency found him a suitable job in England.
“She sounds like an interesting, enterprising woman,” Liese had commented. She was busy with her own job at the moment, hot on the trail of the heirs to the Monet. She’d had one false start, but thought she was on the right track now. She’d been working on it for a long time. She never gave up until she had explored every possible avenue. Olivia struck Joachim that way too. Liese was seeing less of her son these days. His new employer was keeping him busy, but she thought it was good for him. She had wondered at first if he was attracted to her, but then decided he wasn’t. It appeared to be strictly business for both of them. Although they seemed to have the same phobias, or similar ones, about close attachments. And as she had guessed at first, Olivia was a businesswoman above all. The job she was doing for the Russian billionaire sounded intriguing, and she could see that Joachim was having fun.
* * *
—
Olivia bought business class tickets for both of them. They sat together, and watched movies and slept on the plane, and didn’t exchange much conversation. She had brought her notebooks with her and made numerous notes about the chateau on the flight.
When they landed in New York, they had to go through separate lines at immigration, since she was a citizen and he wasn’t. He had gotten an ESTA visa for the trip online. The lines for foreigners were so long that an Air France ground crew member told Joachim to go through immigration with Olivia, since they were traveling together.
They were still standing in line, waiting, chatting with each other, when two huge Homeland Security officers approached them and asked to see Joachim’s passport. He handed it to them, and looked very respectable, traveling in a suit and tie. Olivia was nicely dressed too. The senior of the two officers studied his passport closely, and then nodded at his partner, and addressed Joachim and Olivia.
“Come with us,” they said curtly. It had never happened to Olivia before, and she had no idea why they were being removed from the line. It didn’t look like some kind of ground assistance to her, it seemed more like a detour and neither of the men had been friendly. She wondered if Joachim’s visa was in order.
They were led to a small office behind immigration. The officers waved them into two chairs and took Olivia’s passport too. Then they left them sitting there for half an hour, and returned with two more officers, one of whom had a file in his hands. Neither Joachim nor Olivia could guess what it was about. They both looked like ordinary business people, not terrorists or smugglers.
“Why are you coming to the United States?” the senior officer asked Joachim, and Olivia thought his tone was unnecessarily harsh, since Joachim hadn’t been aggressive with them, or even complained about the delay. He knew better. Customs in any country were not people to quarrel with, and he never did.
“I’m here to assist my employer,” he said simply.
“And who is your employer?” one of the other officers asked.
“Olivia White.” He pointed to her.
“What are you assisting her with?”
“I’m going to help her ship some furniture to Paris.”
“What kind of furniture?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.” Joachim remained calm and polite.
“Where is it located?”
Olivia spoke up then, and she had a slowly forming knot in her stomach. She had a feeling that this was about more than her mother’s furniture. And why had they singled Joachim out? “The furniture was my mother’s. She died recently. It’s at Franklin Storage on the Lower East Side. I’m sending it to Paris, and I asked Mr. von Hartmann to help me. Is there a problem?” The agent didn’t answer her question.
“What is his job as your employee?” he fired at her.
“He’s my butler,” she said, sure that it sounded odd to them, it did to her too.
“And what does he do?”
“It’s a temporary position. He helped me move into a new apartment in Paris.”
“And what do you do?” they asked her.
“I’m currently unemployed. I owned and ran a magazine that went out of business a few months ago. I’m between jobs at the moment. I’m doing some freelance decorating in Paris. Mr. von Hartmann is my assistant.” They stepped out of the room and conferred in whispers for a minute and then returned and focused on Joachim again.
“What do you do as a regular job?”
“I’m a trained butler. I’ve been employed by the Marquess and Marchioness of Cheshire for sixteen years. The marchioness recently died, and I accepted a temporary position with Ms. White in Paris, as she described.” There was a deadly calm about Joachim. He refused to let them rattle him, and if they had, it didn’t show, despite their decidedly aggressive tone as they fired questions at him. The impression they gave was that they didn’t believe him.
“You’re traveling on an Argentine passport,” they said accusingly. They had gotten their information from the manifest. The passenger list of all flights into the United States was carefully checked against the FBI’s No Fly List before they were given clearance to take off. Passengers on the list were removed from the plane before departure or sent back to the country of origin when they landed. And those on a questionable list were interrogated on arrival, as they were doing with Joachim.
“I was born in Argentina. I’m a dual national, with French citizenship as well, and I have legal residency in England, where I work.” They flipped through his passport and looked at the stamps in it without comment for several minutes.
“You were recently in Argentina. Why?”
“I hadn’t been back in twenty-five years, and I wanted to see it again. After my previous employer’s death, I had the time.” His answers were straightforward and honest, but Olivia noticed that he was perspiring, and so was she. The room was small and hot, the lights were bright, and there were six of them in it, she and Joachim and the four Homeland Security officers. She was nervous, and frightened, and hoped she didn’t faint, which wouldn’t look good to them.
“Did you see relatives in Argentina when you were there?”
“No, I didn’t. I was there for a week, and then I went back to Paris, where I’m currently staying with my mother.”
One of the officers who hadn’t spoken up yet addressed Joachim in a surly tone. “Is she your girlfriend?” he asked, pointing at Olivia, and Joachim looked shocked, and wondered if they were trying to trip him up.
“No, she’s not. She’s my employer.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“
Have you had sex with her?” the officer asked him right in front of Olivia, and she blushed and looked shocked.
“No, I have not. May I ask why you’re asking us these questions?”
“You can ask, but we don’t have to answer. We’ll get to that later.” Joachim guessed that there was a reason for it, but he couldn’t guess what it was. “Is the name on your passport an alias?”
“No, it’s not. It’s my legal name.” He was careful not to say he was born with it, now that he knew his mother had changed their name to his grandmother’s maiden name when his father left them, and his grandfather was arrested for war crimes. There was no way these people would ever understand that. And it was none of Olivia’s business. This was humiliating enough, without adding to it.
“Have you ever been arrested for drug trafficking, or smuggling?”
“No, I haven’t. I’ve never been arrested.”
“Have you been in prison?”
“No, I have not.” At the last few questions, he began to suspect what it might be about, but he was not going to ask them any questions or volunteer any information.
They left them alone again then. This time for an hour. They had been in the small, airless room for almost two hours by then, with no sign of relenting, and Olivia wondered if they were going to put them back on a plane to Paris, and not let them into the country. But she had no idea why. As the minutes ticked by, she began to wonder if there was something dangerous in Joachim’s past that he hadn’t told her. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. They avoided talking to each other while they waited, not knowing if the room was bugged and who was listening, or watching them.
The officers periodically drifted back into the room to repeat some of the same questions and got the same answers. And they kept an eye on them through a two-way glass window the entire time.
When they had been there for four hours, Olivia was feeling sick, and she was wondering what was going to happen to them, and if they would be arrested. She was wondering if Joachim had brought drugs with him. Maybe there was a whole side of him she didn’t know. Anything was possible, and there had to be a reason for the interrogation they were being subjected to.
A fifth officer joined them then in plainclothes. He was more polite than the others, and he ignored Olivia while he honed in on Joachim, and sat very close to him, to unnerve him.
“Why are you traveling under an alias?” was his first question.
“I’m not. Joachim von Hartmann is my true name.”
“No, it’s not,” he accused, never taking his eyes off Joachim’s for a second. “Isn’t your name Javier von Hartmann? Why the fake first name?” Joachim knew his guess had been right then. And this would only be the beginning.
“Javier von Hartmann is my brother. My identical twin brother. I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years.” The officer looked surprised by that but tried not to let it show. He glanced over his shoulder at one of the others and then back at Joachim. Olivia was staring at Joachim.
“If that’s true, do you know where your brother is now?”
“No, I don’t. I’ve heard rumors from time to time when I inquire, that he’s in Colombia now, and has been there for many years. The last time I spoke to him was twenty-three years ago. My mother and I moved to Paris when I was seventeen. My brother stayed in Buenos Aires to finish school, fell in with bad associations, and disappeared. No one I know has seen him in more than twenty years. I saw him the last time when I was seventeen and spoke to him for the last time at nineteen.” Joachim was fighting back tears as he said it, which he didn’t want Olivia and the officers to see. Losing Javier had been the heartbreak of his life, and now his brother was still causing trouble for him.
The man in plainclothes pulled a large photograph out of a file then and threw it on the table in front of Joachim. It looked like a photograph of Joachim in prison garb, with a heavy beard. But it was the same face. Olivia could see it too, and she was shocked.
“Is this you?”
“No, it’s not,” Joachim said in a hoarse voice.
“If what you say is true, are you aware that Javier is a member of one of the most powerful drug cartels in South America? He has escaped from prison twice. Our agents have died at his hands.”
“I’m not aware of it, and I’m sad to hear it, but I’m not surprised. I think he was pulled into whatever he’s doing by some very bad people, and he’s one of them now. Neither my mother nor I have heard from him in all these years.”
“How do you know—and how do I know that this photograph isn’t you? It’s a great story, about an identical twin. Maybe that’s you,” he said with his face an inch away from Joachim’s.
“I know it isn’t,” Joachim said quietly. “We are not exactly identical, we are what’s called mirror twins. We have the same marks on opposite sides.” He gently picked up the photograph and pointed to a black spot on the subject’s forehead. “My brother has a dark mole on the left side of his forehead, I have the same mark on my right side.” He pushed back the hair at his hairline then and showed them the mole. All the officers stared at the photograph and then at Joachim’s head. The evidence was there, plain to see. “He has another mark on his shoulder, a small birthmark. You can see it in the photograph, in the undershirt he’s wearing. I have the same one on the opposite shoulder.” Without being asked, he took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off his shoulder and showed them. There was dead silence in the room, and in spite of the four hours of terror they’d just been through, Olivia felt sorry for him. It was terrifying, humiliating, and heartbreaking all at once.
“The only good news in what you’ve told me,” Joachim said quietly, “is that if you are searching for him, and you thought I was Javier, then he must still be alive. I haven’t been certain of that in years. Although what he’s doing and the choices he has made are hardly something to celebrate, but at least his colleagues haven’t killed him yet. That’s something, I suppose. Although he has been dead to my mother and me for many years.”
The five men left the room and conferred again. They took the photograph with them. Joachim didn’t look at Olivia or say a word, and neither did she. She had no idea what to say. She couldn’t even be angry with him, and she remembered easily when he told her that he had a brother in Argentina that he hadn’t seen in twenty-five years. It was his mirror twin.
The man in plainclothes entered the room again ahead of the others and spoke harshly to Joachim, probably to cover his own embarrassment. He didn’t apologize, instead he was aggressive with him.
“We could send you back to Paris if we wanted to. We can put you on the next plane. Your twin brother is on our list of people who are not allowed to enter the United States. We’ve checked while you were here, under the name of Joachim von Hartmann. You have no criminal history.” And the photographs spoke for themselves, by how they matched the marks on Joachim’s body. “Keep it that way. If your brother contacts you while you’re in the United States, you have an obligation to report it to us, and his whereabouts, if you are aware of them. You’re free to go,” he said and stormed out, obviously frustrated. He thought he had caught a prize but wound up with an innocent man, and made a fool of himself.
One of the officers stayed to lead them back through immigration and customs and left them there. Their luggage was still sitting next to the carousel, and no one said anything more to them. Joachim and Olivia left the terminal. She thought her legs were going to buckle under her. They hadn’t even offered them a sip of water in four and a half hours. Once outside the terminal, Joachim hailed a cab for them, and helped her in. She gave the driver the name of the hotel where Joachim would be staying and told the driver there would be a second stop after that, and then she heard Joachim’s voice next to her.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am, Olivia. They put you through hell, because
of my brother.”
“I’m sorry for you too,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know you had a twin, you just mentioned a brother.” It was the first time Joachim had called her by her first name, but in the circumstances, it seemed appropriate. He had been sure for the first four hours that they would be arrested, although it had taken him a while to link it to Javier.
“He’s a terrible person, as you just heard. I used to love him more than anyone on earth, even more than my mother. There is poison in his veins. He’s been dead to us for all these years. He broke my mother’s heart, and mine.” She felt deeply sorry for him when she saw the look on his face, and tears in his eyes.
“You have each other,” she reminded him, and he nodded, and finally had the courage to look at her.
“I am so, so, so sorry for what I just put you through. I never expected something like this to happen or I wouldn’t have come with you.”
“You couldn’t know. We both need a good night’s sleep and we’ll feel better tomorrow.” She didn’t want to talk about it now, but she was suddenly afraid of him, and the baggage he carried with him. What if his brother found them and killed somebody, or kidnapped her, or killed Joachim? It was so enormous that she couldn’t absorb it yet. They were silent on the drive into the city. She lay her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Joachim looked at her and didn’t speak. When they got to the Standard hotel in SoHo, he got out, and said the same words again.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Get some rest.” Then she left him to check in to the hotel and the cab took her home. It had been the most frightening experience of her entire life. And his. But there was a flicker of hope in his heart from what he’d heard, which mattered more than anything. Javier was still alive.
Chapter 11
Olivia was still feeling shaky and slightly sick when she got to her apartment that night, after the scene at the airport. She had never been treated like a criminal before or come so close to being arrested. She hoped that Joachim had been able to check in to the hotel without a problem, but she didn’t want to call and find out. She needed a break from him, at least for the night, and from the heavy baggage he carried with him. An identical twin brother deeply embedded in the Colombian drug cartels was more than she wanted to deal with. She felt sorry for their mother too. But she had to think of herself now.
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