Sealed with a Lie (12 page)

“Okay, we’re turning onto the Burkleinstrasse.”

“Good. Let’s get closer to the Haus der Kunst, the art museum. We’ll get rid of the car near there, hop on the subway, connect with the train station, and get out of Munich.”

“Sounds like a plan.” My pulse is back to normal, but I glance compulsively at my watch every minute or so.
When
are the kidnappers going to call again? And when they do, will they let me talk to Charlie?

My mouth dries as I think about what they could be doing to him. My heart begins to pound again. My palms are suddenly sweaty on the steering wheel.

I’ve pulled up to the next traffic light when my cell phone vibrates in my back pocket. I snatch it and press the on button. “Hello?”

The mechanically altered voice asks, “Do you have Duvernay?”

“Yes,” I say breathlessly. “We have him. Let me speak to Charlie. Please.”

“I need proof that you have the thief. Take a picture of him and text it to me.” The voice gives a number to me.

“Wait—I don’t have anything to write it down—”

“Then you’d better remember it, Karina.” And the line goes dead.

Frantically, I hit the camera icon on my phone and turn around to take a picture of Gustav. That’s when I see the German cop, gun drawn, approaching us from the rear.

Gustav doesn’t want his picture taken and starts to argue. Then he freezes as he registers my panicked expression.

Evan, too, sees my distress. “Kari, what is it?”

“The German cop. He’s right behind us. Coming up to the BMW.”

“On foot?”

“Yes.”

“Pull over to the side of the street. Then get out of the car—with your hands visible—and start talking. Distract him. I’ll come around behind him and take him down.”

“But Evan—there are people everywhere! How—”

“Out of the car, Kari. Just do it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

I’m shaking from head to toe. Not just because of the cop—but because I need to send that picture of Gustav to the kidnappers already. And this is going to cause a delay. What if the delay costs Charlie a hand or a foot?

But I get out of the car.

“Halt, Fraulein!”
the cop shouts.
“Polizei! Hände hoch!”

“Oh, God, officer—did I do something wrong?” I babble at him. “Did I not signal back at the intersection? Is a taillight out? What’s the problem?” I hold my hands in the air and look as dumb as I can possibly manage to.

He’s short, with gingery hair, freckles, and blue eyes. He looks more like a choirboy than a cop. He also looks extremely pissed off. He demands my driver’s license.

“No problem,” I say—even though I have no intention of giving it to him. “Let me get my purse?”

The words are no sooner out of my mouth than Evan materializes next to the guy, holding a jacket over the gun we took off the transport truck guard. “Apologies for this, mate,” he says with a wry, sincere smile. “But this is a Heckler and Koch nine-millimeter, it’s fully loaded, and I’m prepared to use it if you don’t let the lady get back into the BMW.”

The young cop’s eyes bulge.

“Let’s not make a public scene,” Evan continues. “We’re both going to walk over and get into your vehicle and go for a drive. I won’t harm you as long as you do as you’re told. I’ll eventually leave you parked behind the Haus der Kunst, where you will take a little nap. When
you awaken, it’s entirely up to you whether you tell your superior officer how a bunch of kids got the drop on you. All right?”

Evan turns to me. “Back into the car. Take and send the photo.”

I don’t need to be told twice. I jump back into the BMW and turn to face Gustav.

I aim my phone at him, and he starts to protest again—after all, a thief doesn’t want too many pictures of himself out there—but then he registers the expression on my face. It tells him that if I have to kill him, then toe-tag his body before I photograph him, I will. So Gustav obligingly mugs for the camera as the cop moves with Evan back to his car. The officer is clearly not a happy camper, but he doesn’t resist.

My hands are shaking so badly that I have to take two pictures of Gustav because I know the first one is a blur. The number that the kidnappers gave me is burned into my brain, but I can barely get the digits punched into the keypad. At last I manage to hit send, right as the phone rings in my hand.

“Hello!” I almost screech the word.

“Do you know what a band saw is, Karina?” I hear a horrible industrial motor sound.

“I just sent the photo! I sent it! Don’t hurt Charlie—”

“Kaaa-riiiii!” It’s a scream of sheer terror, it’s definitely Charlie’s voice, and his fear clearly trumps mine. I collapse over the seat back. My words run together, into a soup of anguish. “No-no-no-don’t-hurt-him-please-please-just-let-him-go-he’s-seven-years-old—”

The awful industrial motor noise starts again; then comes another shriek from my brother.

Matthis opens the back door of the Beemer and pukes onto the pavement.

“Mon Dieu!”
Gustav leans forward, grabs the phone from my hand, and punches the speaker button, shouting volubly in French. It’s so rapid that I can’t make out the words. But I do hear him say his name, then something else that sounds scathing, along with,
un petit garcon
, which I know to mean “small boy.”

There’s a blessed silence on the line—no more screams, no more industrial motor. And then the mechanical voice says, “I’d adjust your attitude, if I were you, Monsieur Duvernay. Or you won’t like the consequences to another guest of ours.”

A shadow of fear crosses Gustav’s face.

“Karina,” the voice says, “Charlie will remain safe as long as you execute the next task. You have seventy-two hours to do so.” The line goes dead.

Gustav hands me back the phone. He shakes his head, makes a concerned, clucking noise that is peculiarly European, and then reaches out to wipe the tears from under my eyes with his thumb. “We will do zis theeng, okay? For your brother. And for—” He breaks off, looking grim.

“For what? What did he mean by another guest?”

Gustav dismisses my question with a Gallic wave of his hand. “Do not weep, eh?”

I nod and try to pull myself together. If not for me, then for Charlie.

I put the car into gear and pull it away from the curb, merging into traffic. I drive around the block and circle back to a street that I’m pretty sure will take us to the Haus der Kunst, where Evan will be waiting for us with the snoozing cop. Maybe I’m not so judgmental about him carrying needles and sedatives any longer—it goes without saying that the cop won’t go to sleep on his own.

Abducting and drugging a cop at gunpoint is probably a very big no-no in Germany, or anywhere else. I don’t want to think about the charges Evan may be facing on my behalf. Somehow he’s truly become my white knight.

“You are too pretty to cry,” Gustav says, interrupting my train of thought.

I don’t know how to respond to this, so I make a sound that’s half donkey bray and half snort. I glance into the rearview mirror and see Matthis roll his eyes.

“What
is
this thing we have to do?” I ask around a sniffle.

Gustav gives me a Gallic shrug. “I am a thief, eh? So. They want me to steal something.”

“But what?”

He smiles. “They call it
jungbrunnen
. Ze fountain of youth.”

“Excuse me?”

“
Oui,
of course.” He doesn’t understand that I’m asking for clarification.

“No, I mean—I
mean
, what do
you
mean by ‘fountain of youth’?”

“It is an ingredient—highly sought after, you understand—recently discovered by a famous French cosmetics company: Jolie, Inc. You are familiar with zis company?”

“Of course.” How can I not be? Even though makeup is not exactly my thing, the Jolie brand is in every department store in America.

“Ze ingredient—it is for rejuvenating ze skin, yes? But better and faster than anything on ze market. A miracle, zey call it.”

“But why steal it? Why not just figure out the formula and duplicate it?” Matthis asks.

“This is exactly their goal. But zey need ze ingredient first,
tu comprends
? In order to analyze ze chemical compounds.
Voilà
, they say. ‘Gustav, steal it,
s’il vous plait
—’ ”

“So let me get this straight,” I interrupt. “All this fuss is about a freaking
wrinkle cream
? That’s . . . idiotic.”

Gustav gives me his shrug.

“And it doesn’t make sense.”

He shrugs again.

“So we have to break into the Zurich headquarters of Jolie, Inc.?”

Gustav smiles engagingly.
“Mais oui.”

I almost run over a curb as I pull into the parking area of the art museum. “There’s no way.” Jolie, Inc. will be more difficult to get into than the Agency. At least the Agency was used to the occasional tour group.

I park the car, then turn around to face Gustav.

He tilts his head and lifts one dark, rakish eyebrow. His green eyes are amused. “You doubt my abilities, Kari?”

“Frankly? Yes. As well as my own.”

But Charlie’s life is on the line. So we
have
to find a way to get this antiwrinkle stuff.

Gustav peers at me intently. “For reasons I will not mention at ze moment, I take zis as a personal . . . how you say? . . . challenge.”

“You can take it as whatever you want, but this isn’t a game. Those people have my brother, and they’re going to hurt him if we don’t get them what they want.”

Just in case our descriptions are circulated by either the transit guards or the German cop, we change into different disguises. I put on a green wool beret, a French braid that hides the torn section of my hair, a white sweater, and jeans. We put the baseball cap on Gustav, jimmy open his handcuffs, and force him into American-style sweats that he complains are hideous. Matthis gets a ski hat and a puffy jacket with baggy pants that disguise how skinny he is.

After we catch up with Evan (who has “dorked up” in a sweater with rows of dancing holiday reindeer and some pulled-up-practically-to-the-neck corduroy trousers), he arranges for our luggage to be picked up from the little
gasthaus
in Murnau and deposited in two different train station lockers, even though we’ve decided to abandon it. It’s all too possible that someone—whether
it’s Charlie’s kidnappers, the mystery people who tried to snatch me, or even GI—could have surveillance on the lockers.

The bottom line is that we all have our backpacks with the essentials: phones, laptops, and assorted tricks of the trade. Clothing is easily replaceable, and I have a spare set of travel underwear with me.

In a matter of hours, we’ve hopped onto different trains for the four-hour journey to Zurich and reassembled in a new hotel room, this one at a Marriott.

Zurich is a stunning, rich, international center of banking and industry that lies on the north shore of a lake, the Zürichsee. The river Limmat flows through it, and Old Town is to the west.

We’re starving when we arrive, but we don’t want to take the chance of being seen together as a group, so Evan and I go out alone in search of pastries.

Upon our return I open the hotel room door to find Gustav examining one of my bra-and-panty sets, which I left zipped inside a compartment of my backpack, thank you very much.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Evan demands before I can even close my gaping mouth.

Gustav’s dirty smile flickers over the cleft in his chin. His green eyes dance at the annoyance in Evan’s tone. “Reconnaissance?”

I march over and snatch the panties out of his hand. They’re purple and lacy and probably wickedly expensive—I don’t know for sure. Why? Because Evan bought them for me at Victoria’s Secret months ago in
Washington, in the course of a different mission. It’s a long story—and it doesn’t mean a thing. There’s nothing between us.

I scoop the bra off the bed. Then I stuff both items into my backpack, where they belong. “What gives you the right to go through my things, pervert?” I cast a glance of reproach at Matthis, too, for allowing this to happen.

Matthis gives me a helpless, how-was-I-supposed-to-stop-him? expression.

“I am no pervert!” Gustav exclaims. “I merely like to know wis whom I am working, eh?”

“That’s usually accomplished through conversation, not panty raids,” Evan says.

“I must protest my innocence!” Gustav lays a hand over his heart. “This was no raid. I look only for a pen. . . .”

“Really?” I ask. I open the shallow drawer of the sleek, modern desk in the room, extract a ball-point pen emblazoned with the hotel’s name and website, and toss it at him.

He catches it left-handed and has the grace to look a little shamefaced, but not for long. “Ah, Kari—forgive me. You must understand, you are a beautiful girl, eh? I wished to know more about you. Is thees such a crime?” His green eyes are now soulful.

Evan makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat.

Okay, okay . . . so it’s definitely a little disturbing to find a hot French guy burgling your panties. But . . . oh, how to explain the effect Gustav has on me, and probably on
most girls? He’s enigmatic and charismatic. He’s a bona fide thief—sue me, but that’s sexy. He’s got that whole five-o’clock shadow thing going. He’s outrageous but charming. And that French accent of his is growing on me.