Edge of Tomorrow (81 page)

“I yield. But I am dead anyway,” whispered
the count, thinking of Tessitore, and how his failure would be
rewarded. “You have some formidable enemies!”

Hatch carefully withdrew his blade and eased
the count to the floor and motioned to the medics, who had been
standing by with a stretcher. They rushed forward.

Hatch handed his sword to Captain Rossini and
put his arm around Syd, who had come skidding to a halt as Hatch’s
blade had skewered the count.

“Thanks for the heads up, dear!” smiled
Hatch.

Royal Palace, Monterra

Sunday, August 26, 2001

11:32 P.M.

As the medics left the room with Count di
Cressi on the stretcher, Hatch wanted to scream. The entire affair
had been such nonsense! Why had di Cressi insisted on trying to
kill him? What did his last remark mean?

Hatch strode to the piano that the
orchestra had been using and sat down. He needed to vent his fury
in some nonlethal manner, so he began playing Chopin’s 1818
Polonaise
with fervor. It was the
most powerful piece he could think of at the time. The crowd
watched and listened in awe. He had never played it before with
such brilliance and emotion.

Karen stood next to Syd as she said, “Quite a
remarkable man you have, sis!”

“Yes,” Syd whispered. “Quite remarkable!”

The blood had been wiped off the dance floor,
but Hatch had some of the count’s blood on his white, frilly shirt.
Otherwise, he was physically all right. He was using his music to
come down from the emotional high that had been thrust upon
him.

When he finished, he noticed that the music
on the piano was a Strauss waltz, so he looked at the orchestra and
nodded. They began playing the waltz and Hatch nodded to the
regular piano player to take over for him. He walked over to Syd
and began dancing the waltz with her, and the stunned crowd started
talking again, and several couples joined them on the dance floor.
The stressful moments were gone.

• • •

Captain Rossini had wiped the blood off his
sword and put it away. When he returned to the ballroom, Hatch was
just finishing playing, then the waltz started. He went to Sara and
took her hand.

“May I have this waltz,
signorina
?” he asked her.

“Delighted,
signore
,” she replied as they whirled onto the
dance floor.

“Signore
Lincoln is a very unusual man, isn’t he?” mused
Rossini.

“More than you know, Charlie.”

“Before the little interruption by the
infamous count, I was really enjoying my evening with you, Sara,”
he remarked as he whirled her to the left. “I wish they could get
off this waltz thing so I could hold you closer.”

“My thought, too, Charlie. Pretty difficult
in this fucking dress, though! I’ve had enough of this long-line
bra and all the layers of underskirts. Why don’t we slip away to my
suite and you can help me out of this crap!” laughed Sara.
“Wouldn’t you like a little encore? We won’t be as eager and
nervous as we were last night. We can take it slower tonight.”

“You were not nervous—just me! I can’t really
leave the ball until the Prince retires, but I will be happy to
escort you to your suite then,” he leered. “I hope the Prince
retires soon! I can’t wait to see your gorgeous body again!”

Sara smiled at him and whispered, “Well, my
tits are nearly popping out of this dress! That will have to tide
you over till later!”

“That’s what has been driving me crazy all
night! They just make things worse!”

• • •

The Prince said his goodnights and thank-yous
at 12:30 P.M., and then he and Princess Anna left the ballroom. At
that point, Bruno told Hatch that he was going to the hotel to
sweep the suites again and Karen said she would go with him.

When Bruno went to his suite to get his
equipment, Karen said, “Tell me what you’re doing, I’d like to
learn.”

When Bruno was through, he called Hatch and
told him they were still clean, and everyone who wanted to could
come up to bed. He and Karen went to her suite.

“Help me out of this thing, please, Bruno. I
need to collapse now! I’ve never been so scared in my life!”
exclaimed Karen.

Bruno helped her strip down to her
panties—she even took off her long, constricting bra—and she
flopped down on the couch with the brandy he had fixed her.

“Was this just another day on the range for
you cowboys? I’m still trembling!” blurted Karen as she lit a
cigarette with shaky hands.

“No, Karen. This was a
very
unusual day. I’ve never seen
anything like that myself! Ever!”

And she didn’t even know about the events
earlier with Judy Beecher!

He had stripped off his costume as well, and
sat down next to her in his underwear. He put his arm around her
and stroked her bare breast as she leaned against him. She was
trembling.

“Just relax, baby. I’ll keep
you
safe. Here, let me hold
you.”

• • •

In Hatch’s suite, there was a similar
scene—Hatch in his underwear, Syd in hers—and they were both
smoking. Hatch told Syd all the details of the Lady Morley
incident, and then called Colonel Coffer to make sure she had
arrived safely at the castle. She was settled in, Coffer informed
him, and she was still alive. He had brought in one of their
doctors from Rome who kept things confidential, and he had put her
back on a drip bag. She was sleeping comfortably.

“As soon as she’s stronger, I want to move
her to some place safer—somewhere the CIA doesn’t know about. I’m
sure they’re watching the castle,” Hatch told Syd.

To himself he thought,
As soon as I get back to the U.S., I’m going to
deal with Gramble once and for all! His time has finally come,
Kat!

Syd said, “I’m glad you got Lady
Morley—Judy—out of there in time! I can’t believe they tried to
kill her! I don’t understand the CIA. Why are you doing this for
her anyway?”

“The attack on her has something to do with
me. It’s something I’ll take care of once and for all when we get
home. Now, I want your thoughts on the duel,” said Hatch.

“My thoughts are still the same. You should
not have done it! You scared me shitless!” exclaimed Syd.

“That’s not what I mean. The whole thing was
fishy. The count had always stopped on first blood before. Why did
he press on?”

“He’s an egotistical prick, that’s why.
Charles said he had never lost before!”

“I thought that at first, too. But he tried
to kill me when my back was turned. There’s no honor in that. Then,
when I pulled my blade out of him, he said something about being
dead anyway, and that I had formidable enemies.”

“But who?”

“Good question. Not the CIA. Judy would have
warned me. Besides, that’s not their style. That leaves …”

“Tessitore,” said Syd. “That
son-of-a-bitch!”

• • •

James Gramble called agent Doug Cannon
into his office at 10:00 A.M. Monday morning for a briefing on the
Monterra situation. He only nodded when Cannon told him about the
termination of several Mafia thugs in retaliation for the shooting
of Judy Beecher. He began fuming, however, when he heard that the
attempt on her life—a sanction he had ordered personally—went awry.
It had been reported originally that she was dead. Now he was told
that she had disappeared, and
their
agent was dead!

“Damn it, Cannon! How could that happen?
Wasn’t she shot full of holes?” snapped Gramble.

Cannon replied, “She had to have had
help.”

“I’ll bet Lincoln is involved in this
somehow! Do you know where his fucking jet was?”

Cannon looked in a file on his lap, then
said, “It flew to Rome on Sunday at 6:16 P.M. Monterra time. It
returned to Monterra at 5:02 A.M. this morning, Monterra time.”

“Shit! I’ll bet he flew her to that fucking
castle he has over there! Do we have anyone watching that?” snarled
Gramble, his right eye beginning to twitch.

“Not at the moment. We moved them to Monterra
for the operation there. I can move someone back,” grumbled Cannon,
not comfortable with this conversation.

“Too late! Watch his plane closely. He’ll
move her again, then we can pick up the trail,” said Gramble.

Cannon was glad Beecher had gotten away. He
had always liked her. He did not have a clue as to why Gramble had
sanctioned her. Cannon could also not figure out why Lincoln was
considered an enemy. He left the meeting sweating, glad that it was
over.

• • •

The longer Gramble thought about Lincoln, the
more enraged he became.

“The time has come!” he mumbled to himself.
“It’s time to risk it! I have to get rid of him!”

He turned to his computer, then entered his
data access code and password. He called up the file which tracked
international assassins. He scrolled through it for a moment, then
stopped on the one he was looking for. He picked up his secure
phone and dialed a number in St. Petersburg, Russia.

• • •

Joey Plato had been sent to Monterra by
Evio Tessitore to find out what happened to their people at
the
Casino Barone
, and to
report on how the death of Van Lincoln went. He had found only one
of their people—a blackjack dealer who had been able to slip into
the ocean and swim two miles to a deserted beach. The dealer told
Joey that he had overheard two of the team that had attacked them
speaking American. He was certain they were not from another crime
family—his guess was CIA. The woman snooping around whom they had
tried to kill must have been CIA. Joey also learned that Count di
Cressi was in the hospital, and Van Lincoln was still very much
alive.

At 10:00 A.M. on Monday, he called in his
report to Evio Tessitore and the Don. They were not pleased.

The Don said, over a secure speaker phone,
“Make sure the count dies of his wounds, Joey. We can’t have him
talking to anyone. Then, you and that dealer get out of there. We
need to stay out of Monterra for awhile.”

After they hung up on Joey Plato, the
Don said to his son, “Do you think, Evio, that Lincoln had anything
to do with the CIA attack on
Casino
Barone
?”

“No way to know. I’m more worried that he
will find out we were behind di Cressi. He could hire an endless
number of mercenaries to harass us. We don’t need the aggravation,
or the spotlight,” replied Evio. “I still think he should be
eliminated.”

• • •

Monday morning, Captain Rossini slipped
out of Sara’s suite at 5:00 A.M. and returned to his quarters in
the Royal Guard compound. He had not wanted to be seen leaving her
suite, and thus possibly compromise her. He would have rather
stayed and had another round of exciting sex with her, but he knew
how to show propriety. He had never met a woman who had such a
voracious appetite for sex—
incredible
sex
!

In his office at 10:00 A.M., he
received reports on the disappearance of several employees
from
Casino Barone
, the
disappearance of Lady Morley from the hospital, and the dead fake
nurse.

One of the reasons that Monterra had so
little crime could be attributed in part to the large network of
informants Rossini maintained. Any hint of a pending crime was
often snuffed out quickly. Rossini was not hampered by the same
rules that American policemen were forced to follow. The captain of
a fishing boat had reported hearing a helicopter in the middle of
the night. Another informant had actually seen two dark-clad men
force one of the employees of the casino into a car and speed
away.

Rossini had been investigating
Casino Barone
for some time, and had
actually deported two dealers caught cheating several weeks ago,
but had not yet built a strong enough case for a major money
laundering conspiracy. He also knew of the CIA presence in
Monterra. With all this new information, it did not take him long
to come to the conclusion that there was such a conspiracy, and for
some reason not clear to him at the moment, the CIA had snuffed it
out. The shooting and disappearance of Lady Morley still baffled
him—unless she was also CIA. That made some sense to him, but then
Syd’s story of how the shooting happened did not make a lot of
sense.

Rossini had gained great respect for Hatch
because of the way he had handled himself during the duel with
Count di Cressi, even though Hatch had never been in a duel before.
Also, since Karen Steppe was the attorney for the Prince, Rossini
decided he would share his information with Hatch and his group and
see what kind of reactions he got from them. Not that it much
mattered. He was happy that the CIA had solved a problem for him,
and was only slightly interested in what happened to Lady Morley.
He was more interested in impressing Sara with his investigating
powers.

He was surprised when he called Hatch’s
room and caught him there. He told Hatch he had some information
for him, so Hatch asked him to join his group for lunch at noon at
the
Marina Patio Tavern
.
Rossini looked forward to rubbing knees with Sara.

• • •

Rossini related his information while
they ate lunch. Hatch was glad to get the information about the
alleged CIA sweep of the money laundering guys, and he silently
agreed that the CIA
was
responsible. He did not share his own view with Rossini that
Tessitore had paid the count to kill him.