Winter Blockbuster 2012 (56 page)

That reminded her of the way her place had been manhandled and Max’s ransacked. She looked at the men more carefully. Was there anything about them that could be said to seem Mercurian? Not really. They looked like normal workmen. But still …

A siren sounded, making her jump. Sirens were not unusual. There seemed to be a fire drill every week, mostly because of the legacy of the castle burning during the Granvilli rebellion. But this was no drill, not in the middle of a state picnic luncheon. She frowned and looked down at the workmen. The siren seemed to have panicked them. They were running now, pushing at each other and shouting. The pushcart hit a rock and nearly overturned. The canvas cover came off and their cargo was revealed. There was a man lying inside, scrunched into a curled-up position. The man was either dead or unconscious, and he looked very much like Max.

She gasped. The cover was quickly restored, but she knew what she’d seen. Could this be the Mercurians? They looked so guilty. Had they grabbed Max? She wasn’t at all sure that was who she’d seen, but still, just the possibility threw her for a loop.

Her heart was pounding like a drum in her own ears. Her
hands were shaking so hard, she could barely use her mobile to call security. It rang and rang.

“Come on!” she muttered, nearly crazy.

And finally someone answered.

“Quick,” she cried. “This is Kayla Mandrake. I’ve just seen two men kidnapping someone. I think it might be Prince Max.”

“No, can’t be,” he said. “The princes are all at the picnic. I just saw them there.”

“Did you see Max?”

He hesitated. “He’s the new one, right? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him, so …”

“Please, please, come quickly. They’re going to get away!”

“Lady, listen, do you hear that siren? We’re shorthanded right now. We’ve got that darn picnic and now everyone else is out responding to the fire in the library area. There’s no one here but me and I can’t leave the phone. Listen, call back in about ten minutes. I’ll see what I can do then.”

“What?”

She couldn’t believe it, but she didn’t have time to argue. She tried Pellea’s number, and then Caroline. Something was wrong; she couldn’t get anyone. There was no one to help her. She looked down. They still hadn’t reached the van. Maybe she could catch them herself.

Oh, sure. Catch them and do what? Yell at them a lot? Besides, she would never catch them before they got to the van. And then, who knew where they would go?

But wait. She did know where they would go. What had Max said? She remembered his words—”Mercuria is an hour away,” or something like that. An hour away from where? The docks.

The docks! And that wasn’t very far. In fact, she knew a shortcut. Caroline and her husband had twin motor scooters
that they had used on weekend getaways before their boy was born. She still had a key to Caroline’s scooter on her key ring. She could take that scooter and make it across the dunes to the docks before the van got past the traffic signals. There would be officials at the docks. Someone would be there to help her.

She raced down the hall to the stairway. She didn’t have time for the elevators. The whole time she ran, she kept looking for someone who might help her, but the halls were empty. She would have to do this herself.

She made her way to the parking garage and found Caroline’s scooter. Miraculously, the engine popped on with no trouble, and she was off, dashing for the dunes.

There was a small part of her brain that kept poking her, saying,
What if it is just a body? What if … what if …

And she pushed it back, saying,
No! They may have said dead or alive, but everything they’ve done proves they want him alive. So don’t even think that!

She veered off the main road onto a dirt track that cut out about a mile of driving to the docks. The little scooter was racing along and she was feeling very scared, but strangely exhilarated at the same time. She saw the craggy outcropping of the rocky point ahead. That meant the docks were only a few minutes away.

As she came around a curve, the main road was spread out below and she saw the white van. It was turning around. She jammed on her brakes and pulled to a stop.

A man was running from it and another lay on the side of the road. A shot rang out, and then another. Her heart in her throat, she started down the incline, racing to get to the place where the trees stood near the road and she could get a view of the van as it passed without being seen herself.

If her guess were right, that should be Max driving. It
looked to her as though he’d overpowered his kidnappers and taken off with their van, but she couldn’t be sure. Ditching the scooter behind a small hill, she ran for the edge of the road and made it close enough to see, gasping for breath, just as the van came around the corner.

It was! She could see Max driving. It looked like he had a bloody head wound, but he was driving and as far as she could see, he was alone.

He’d done it! What a guy! Jumping for joy, she yelled and waved her arms, but she was still too far into the trees and he didn’t see her.

She had a small, empty feeling when he drove on past and left her there, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before she caught up with him again. She turned to run back to her scooter, and that was when she felt the dart go into her neck. She reached to pull it out, but her hands never made it there. In seconds, she was out like a light.

Max had been back at the castle for over an hour and had told everyone his story of being kidnapped by Mercurians. Even King Monte had come by to hear it personally. The whole thing seemed crazy, but everyone wanted to hear it.

Max had spent most of the morning out on his flat rock by the little river, thinking his life over and trying to make some important decisions. He knew Pellea wanted him at the prime minister’s meeting, and he had come back to the castle for that, but just as he was coming in through the big double doors, someone had shot a tranquilizer dart into his neck and he had collapsed. He’d woken an hour or so later to find himself locked in a storeroom. This time they put him out with a rag soaked in chloroform, and he woke up in the back of the white van on his way to the docks. His hands were tied, but not very well, and he had no trouble working
them free. Then he’d bided his time, not letting the two men know he was awake and that his hands were free. Finally he got his chance and he overpowered one of them. The driver pulled over to help his friend and Max threw the first man out and dealt with the second. Then it was a simple matter of grabbing the keys and taking the same transportation back again, minus the kidnappers this time.

“Though one of them did shoot at the van as I drove off,” he told his attentive audience. “Luckily, he wasn’t much of a shot.”

Security at the docks had been alerted but they hadn’t found the men.

“I’m calling out the army on this,” Monte said with a scowl. “I want someone charged and put behind bars. We have to nip this sort of thing off right away. We can’t have criminals running around kidnapping people.”

By now, Max had asked where Kayla was a number of times and no one seemed to know. And then a call came in from the dockyard police saying they had found Caroline’s abandoned scooter near the road to the docks, and Pellea and Max began to piece together different bits of evidence and get a vague idea of where she might be. Their conclusions were grim.

Once Pellea questioned the security guard who had been on duty that afternoon and found out someone had called in saying Max had been kidnapped, the picture became clearer.

“Kayla obviously saw the kidnappers taking you off and when she couldn’t get security to help, she grabbed Caroline’s scooter and went after you herself.”

Max stared at Pellea, stunned.

“They have her,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “The bastards have her.” He turned to look for his keys. “I’ve got to go.”

CHAPTER TEN

“H
OLD IT
.”

Monte held a hand up and stopped Max cold.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Max’s face darkened rebelliously. Right now he wasn’t in the mood to take orders from royals, no matter who they were. But before he had a chance to say anything, Monte continued and explained his position.

“I’m not trying to pull rank on you, Max. But we have to stop and think things through before we act. We need to be sure we are doing the smart thing to get the results that we want and not just more bloodshed. You swimming the channel in a burst of adrenaline, showing up on shore with a knife between your teeth, is just going to get you killed. We can’t succeed without a plan.”

“What sort of plan?”

“I say we go in at midnight.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“All of us royals. The warriors of the DeAngelis regime. We’ve got a very fast, very slinky boat that can enter areas without making a sound. I’m thinking four of us will take it.”

“Four?” Mykal asked the question.

Monte nodded. “Sorry, old man, but I don’t think we ought to risk you on this mission. You’re not healed yet. We’ll use you as a coordinator back home.”

Mykal nodded reluctantly.

“Okay, so we’ve got Joe with his special forces training. And you, Max—you’ve been in combat. David is the best strategic thinker I know of. And I’m a pretty good leader.” He shrugged. “What else do we need?”

“A plan,” Max answered, still restless and not sure this was going to work. He liked to work alone. That was what he was used to. And every minute they delayed was a minute more Kayla had to endure whatever they were putting her through.

“A plan would be good,” Monte admitted. “That’s why we’re going to take a few hours to think about it. We’ll meet at eleven and go over our thoughts and put something together.

Max stared at him, trying not to let his resentment show. He knew what Monte was saying was smart, but he wanted to go now. He clenched his jaw and kept his opinion to himself. Monte knew what he was doing and he was exhibiting good leadership. He had to let this play out. Still, he ached to go right into their castle and save Kayla. If someone was hurting her, they were going to pay.

“I’m preparing a message for King Juomo and his ministers,” Pellea said. “I’m telling the king that this nonsense has to end and that he’ll personally pay for anything that happens to Kayla.” She took a deep breath and looked around at them all. “You know it is possible that this is just a fringy, rogue element who has masterminded this,” she said.

“You think so?” Max challenged her. “You don’t think the king sending a poster saying I was wanted dead or alive was a little rogue, a little fringy?”

“Of course it was.”

“Yes. The whole Mercurian royal family has been cuckoo for years.”

“Which means you can’t base your estimates of what they might do on normal reactions. Be ready for anything.”

Max couldn’t face going back to his room alone and thinking any more. He wanted to take action. It killed him to wait. He had to do something to take his mind off it. So he stopped by Caroline’s apartment and asked to see Teddy.

Caroline was worried. He could see it in her face, and when he decided to take Teddy to Kayla’s and fix him some dinner himself, she readily agreed, but caught him before he left.

“Are you going to save my sister?” she asked earnestly. “Can you guarantee me that she’s going to be okay?”

He took her hand in his and gazed deep into her eyes. “I guarantee she’ll be okay,” he said gruffly. “Or I’ll die trying to make that happen.”

She stared back for a moment, then nodded, satisfied. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Come on, Teddy,” he said, looking at his little boy. “You want to go with me?”

Teddy gave him a steady gaze but didn’t look enthused.

“Go with Prince Max, honey,” Carolyn said. “I’ll bet he could fix you a nice scrambled egg for your dinner.” She said as an aside, “He really likes scrambled eggs,” and Max nodded, smiling as the little boy got up and came to him.

“I’ll bring him back in an hour or so.”

He bent down and picked him up and they said goodbye, but Teddy was stiff in his arms until he saw that they were going to his own apartment. Max realized he probably thought he was going to see his mother, so he began talking
to him as they entered the room, keeping him occupied as long as possible, and it seemed to work out all right.

They sat on the floor and Max began putting together a set of fat train tracks meant for toddlers, while Teddy pushed the train engine and tried to make train noises. The tracks were going everywhere, and since the door was open to the coat closet, soon they were going there, too.

Max looked at the little boy he was playing with and he couldn’t help but smile. This child was his son. And then Teddy looked at him and gave him that beautiful smile again, and he felt it—the connection. Finally. This really was his son. He could feel it now.

He got up to go fix Teddy some scrambled eggs. He couldn’t eat anything himself, he was too tied up in knots, but he fed his boy. And then he paced the floor and thought of Kayla.

Suddenly he noticed a flash of light and he turned, puzzled. A sort of reflection was on the wall. He turned again, trying to figure out where it was coming from, and realized Teddy had pushed his toys into the closet and was pretending it was a cave. But something he was playing with had made that fantastic reflection, all dancing, shimmering lights.

He went into the closet and the first thing he noticed was his own denim jacket, lying on the floor. Realizing it must have fallen, he picked it up and put it on a hanger, then looked down at Teddy. The boy had a thick gold chain around his neck and he was playing with the pendant hanging from it. Max frowned and took a closer look, and then his blood began to pound in his veins and his heart did a flip in his chest.

“What the …?”

It was the artifact. He was staring down at a million-dollar diamond and his son was playing with it.

He turned away, struggling for breath. The historical artifact that threatened to ruin his life, the jewel-encrusted icon worth millions, was in the hands of a toddler. He turned back.