The Crypt (27 page)

“But why?”

“Because I’m one of the rare ones. I actually can talk to the Other Side. He needs me. But he will never get me.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re going to help me and in doing so you will stay alive too.”

“What’s the plan?”

Sarah explained what she had in mind. Rosalie listened and only gasped twice.

“Do you really think you can do that?”

Sarah nodded. “Absolutely.”

Rosalie turned to Parkman. “Are you on board with this?”

“Of course,” he said and smiled at Sarah, as he knew exactly what she was up to.

Rosalie was her wild card. Sarah had thought that Rosalie would definitely help when given the chance, but between how powerful Rod was and Rosalie’s respect for Rod’s authority, she wasn’t sure anymore. She needed Rosalie’s commitment. She needed to know where Rosalie stood. And she needed to know that tonight and not in the heat of the moment.

Sarah leaned back in her pillow, sleepiness weighing her down. The exhaustion of the day had caught up to her.

“Parkman?”

“Yeah?”

“You can relax. No one is going to hit us tonight.”

“True. Not with Rod’s boys out front. They won’t move an inch now that they can’t hear in here.”

Rosalie laid back down on her bed. “Sarah, are you really going to be able to pull this off?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice softened by sleep.

“Do you know how fucked up this is?”

“Yup.”

“That my life would depend on your death is ridiculous.”

“I know,” Sarah said. “A lot of people will die tomorrow. Don’t think of it as being special. Think of it as being smart.”

“It’s smart to die? You’re not making sense. Are you asleep?”

“Almost…it’s smart because we will live,
because
we’re dead,” Sarah said and passed out.

Chapter 25

Dull light slipped through the hotel curtains. Sarah opened her eyes halfway and squinted at the window. She looked to her right and saw the alarm clock said it was 10:48am.

Turning in her bed she saw Rosalie still sleeping and Parkman sprawled out in the corner chair.

She crawled out of bed and took a peek out the hotel window. Overcast skies threatened rain. The van was still across the street and most of the hotel parking lot had emptied.

She closed the curtains and turned around. Parkman’s eyes were open.

“That was quite something last night,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen you do anything like it. A fake blackout?”

“I made a good guess with the listening device and I got Rosalie on our side without question.”

Sarah walked over to Rosalie. She was still out cold.

“Can you trust her not to waver?” Parkman asked.

Sarah nodded. “Not really, but I’ll have to try.” She walked past Parkman headed for the bathroom.

“You’re not the trusting kind so I get that. But why now? Why her?”

“We don’t have a lot of options. With her, our odds of success increase. If things go sour, she could die as
Vivian
predicted.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “Either way, I turn out looking authentic don’t you agree?”

Parkman nodded and pulled out a toothpick. She closed the bathroom door and jumped in the shower.

By 11:30am all three of them were showered and discussing plans.

“There’s not much we can do until late this afternoon,” Rosalie was saying. “My team doesn’t show until then.”

“We could use disguises. Take a crypt tour and disappear behind one of the roped off areas,” Parkman suggested.

“No. They monitor everything. Alarms would sound.”

Sarah walked over to the window again. The clouds were letting go. Rain covered the empty cement of the parking lot, coming down hard.

“Then what’s the plan?” Sarah asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Rosalie said, her chin resting in her hands. “We have to assume Armond will be here today or tonight. I wanted to wait to meet my team and
then
deal with whether we go in quietly or as an assault. The only problem with an assault is that more people usually die versus doing a covert operation, and this is a national monument. Many treasures are going to be wrecked. The Hungarian Government won’t look too kindly on us shooting up their largest church.”

“With that many tourists and a mass being held, I think we all dress up in nice civilian clothes and go in armed to the teeth. We walk around and locate Armond or some of his men. Then we phone in a bomb scare and have the place emptied, with real police on hand to deal with the public. We stay in the building watching for Armond. If he doesn’t leave, your men lock the exits up and we do a search until we find him.”

Sarah turned from the window as she finished speaking. Rosalie was staring at her. “Sarah, that’s brilliant. I’ll propose that.”

“Propose that? Aren’t you in charge?”

“I am. But this team has their own chain of command. If they feel there’s a crack in my idea, sorry, your idea, they will work with an altered plan or they may come with one of their own.”

Sarah walked over and sat on the bed, facing Rosalie. “Be clear on one thing. I don’t have a boss. I work for no one. That’s what has kept me alive for so long. I do exactly what my sister tells me and I stay alive.
You
have to be accountable; I don’t. So do whatever you want with your team, but be assured, Armond doesn’t get away this time. He either gets taken into custody or he is killed. Understood?”

Rosalie nodded.

Someone banged on the hotel door so loud all three of them jumped. Sarah dove across her bed and retrieved her gun. Parkman was standing, his hands in front of his face, and Rosalie was still fumbling for her weapon.

“Who is it?” Sarah yelled.

“Hotel management. Check-out time has passed. You have to leave.”

“Five minutes.”

“Okay.”

She heard his footsteps retreating. “Damn. Our nerves are rattled.” She rolled over onto her back. “I thought a good night’s sleep would have calmed me.”

Parkman was sitting back down. Rosalie was putting her weapon away.

“We need to be more on the ball. One of us should have heard someone approaching the door.”

Parkman nodded at her.

“Okay. Let’s get out of here and get some food. I’m starving and we have a lot to do tonight.”

“I have a feeling everything will work out,” Rosalie said. “It’s going to be a great day.”

“Yes. It’s a good day to die.”

After a late lunch of Hungarian goulash, the trio crossed the bridge into Slovakia. They drove in two rented cars that Rosalie had picked up, Parkman driving one and Rosalie the other.

They met with Rosalie’s team and were debriefed on how extraction would work once the target was confirmed. With or without Armond they would all fall back, cross the bridge and make it to the helicopter. The plan was to fly to a military airport in Romania since Romania wasn’t part of the Schengen Agreement. After that they would fly Parkman and Sarah back to the States or wherever they wanted to go on a military jet. They didn’t work for Rod’s group, nor did they recognize his direct authority.

Sarah was warned that Rod could have orders sent to them through their chain of command, but he couldn’t order them directly. Any orders coming their way they could avoid for a short while. Rosalie stressed that it was vital to get Sarah and Parkman out of Hungary as soon as this was over, and that Rod wouldn’t be looking too hard for her as he would think she was deceased.

To Sarah’s relief the team of professional soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes. It had been decided before they arrived to attempt a surgical extraction. There would be no military assault for one man. This was supposed to be a group of law enforcement officers arriving to arrest an international criminal. The only difference was that these people were an elite group; one that could handle situations that would rattle a Green Beret.

Armond, you have no idea what’s coming,
Sarah thought to herself as they pulled up to the front of the Esztergom Basilica.

They filed out as a group near the back of the parking lot. The rain was still coming down as they all separated and went their different ways. Radio communication had been established between the six-man team and Rosalie. Parkman and Sarah were considered civilians and only here for positive identification. They were supposed to stay close, but were ordered to fall back if a firefight took place.

Fat chance
, Sarah said to herself.

She was still upset that her bomb threat idea was thrown out. They said that no one would attempt to bomb such a large and heavy building made of stone unless they had a seriously large device. Otherwise the damage would be minimal.

Sarah argued that there’d be no bomb, therefore no working theories on damage. The point of the bomb scare was the fear of it.

The team leader said that Armond would be able to see past that and know it was suspect. She could still hear him saying, “We will go in and attend mass and look around. He’ll turn up.”

Bullshit.

Parkman stayed close to her as they entered the basilica. Rosalie had fallen behind and was coming in a few minutes later.

As Sarah entered the main church she could see that everything appeared the same. People stood throughout the interior. Others were sitting on the pews waiting for mass to begin.

Parkman started off to the back and Sarah followed. She couldn’t believe how upset her stomach was. Usually when walking into a dangerous situation she had her wits about her, adrenaline ran high and she felt ready. But tonight was different. Maybe it was the rain bringing her mood down? Or maybe it was that she finally gets to see the end of Armond?

To escape Rod she planned on faking her death. The ramifications of that went deep. It meant her parents would think she was gone too. A part of her knew that was going to happen when she came up with the plan but she hadn’t thought about how it would all work out after the fact. Her focus was on Rod and how she couldn’t live with him poking and prodding her like a lab monkey. Maybe after six months or a year she could attempt to contact her parents to let them know she was okay. Her dad would be pissed but he’d get over it. She knew her mom would cry and just be happy she’d returned. Maybe Rod would’ve moved on by then?

Yeah right,
she thought.
I’m going to have to be dodging him for a long time.

She watched as Rosalie entered the church and started for the front. After a moment Sarah saw more of the team enter. They’d all introduced themselves by name when they met at the helicopter. Sarah couldn’t remember any of their names but one.

Bennett
.

Bennett had been the name of the first girl she’d saved from a kidnapping five years ago. Mary Bennett. Mary had even helped her out once all those years before.

And now a man named Bennett was on the strike team to bring down Armond Stuart. Funny how things worked.

She looked for Bennett but couldn’t see him anywhere.

“What are you looking for?” Parkman asked.

“Bennett.”

“Why?” He looked at her sideways.

“Because of his name. Mary Bennett was the first girl I saved from a kidnapping. Earlier, when we met the team, Bennett stared at me longer than the others. It didn’t creep me out though. It was like he knew something about me. Maybe he read something in the papers and was now seeing Sarah Roberts in the flesh. That kind of feeling.”

“I’ll watch for him and tell you when I see him. But I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe you felt he was watching you more because you recognized his name—”

Parkman was cut off by an alarm. A high-pitched siren was resounding throughout the building. Sarah had her hand on her weapon, waiting to draw it but seeing no immediate threat.

“What the hell is that?” she yelled to Parkman.

He shrugged his shoulders.

The siren stopped as fast as it had started. A voice over a loud speaker said, “Could everyone please leave the building. Please find the nearest exit and leave the basilica. This is not a drill.” The message was repeated in Hungarian.

“What do we do now?” Sarah asked. “This is fucked. I thought we decided against a fire drill or a bomb threat.”

“Maybe they went ahead anyway. They don’t think of us as equals. They could’ve done it without consulting us.”

Sarah watched as the people who had come for mass were converging on the exits and leaving the building. Rosalie was standing by a column, watching her and Parkman. She gestured with a shrug of her shoulders too.

Someone stepped up close behind Sarah. She spun around and drew her weapon as she looked into the eyes of the team leader.

 “Put that away. Do you have anything to do with this alarm?” he asked.

“No. I thought you did.”

“Okay. We’d better get you outside in case Armond or any of his men also evacuate. We’re going to want you two out there to ID them. We’ll stay inside and start a room-to-room search in the crypt.”