Eye of the Storm (14 page)

Drake turned to her. “Do you have any idea what Kasanov has done?”

“No. What?” She looked up at him in wide-eyed innocence.

“He kidnapped my mother and fiancée. He’s going to kill them, Alicia. And I have no idea why. But I’m guessing you do.”

She stood and stepped to him, one hand on his arm in an intimate gesture. “Remy, I wish I could help you, but I don’t know anything. I assure you, if I did—”

He shrugged her hand away. She was playing games with him. Was she working with Kasanov? Why? What could Drake have that an heiress and a gangster wanted?

Jimmy’s phone rang, shattering the silence. He stood and turned away, speaking only for a moment before returning to hand it to Drake. “It’s him.”

Drake left Alicia with Jimmy and stepped out into the hall. “Kasanov. What do you want?”

“I see you and Alicia are getting along. Almost as famously as Dr. Hart and myself.”

“You touch one hair on her head—”

“Please, Detective. Don’t waste what little time she and your mother have left with idle threats.”

“Let me speak to them.”

“No. I don’t think so. Not until you give me something in return.”

“What do you want?”

“Alicia Fairstone. You will deliver her to me by midnight. Dead or alive, I don’t really care—although, since you’ve done your homework and know about my wayward youth, the fun I have with women, I’m sure you’ll understand if I’d prefer her alive.”

“Why? Why should I give you an innocent woman to torture and kill? Why this elaborate set up? You could have grabbed Alicia yourself any time you wanted.”

“Why? Because there’s a price to be paid. Alicia must pay the price for her crimes. And you must pay the price for your arrogance and incompetence.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then I suggest you find out, Detective. Isn’t that your job? But know this. If I don’t have Alicia in my hands by midnight either Cassandra Hart or your mother will die.”

DURING HER SEVENTEEN
years of living, Rosa Costello had trusted no more than a handful of men—most of them now dead. She’d been fighting the Nazis for four long years, ever since she escaped the prison camp they’d sent her to after they killed her family.

She was thirteen when she killed her first German—the one who shot her little brother in the face. Chavo was only nine, unarmed, no threat to the mighty military machine of the Reich, but their orders had been to kill any gypsies too young or too old to work, or too capable of fighting back, and to send the rest to serve in a labor camp.

For all their polished boots and sharp salutes, Rosa knew the Nazis were, in their hearts, cowards. Unfortunately, she came to learn as the war became official and countries fell throughout Europe, so were most men.

Which is why this Irishman, this fisherman, this sailor who’d almost drowned until she’d plucked him from the sea’s greedy embrace, he intrigued her. Padraic Hart didn’t waste her time with stupid questions, yet he didn’t follow orders blindly. He was loyal to his men—despite the fact he was no officer—and willing to risk his life for a chance to save theirs.

She listened to him and Dex practice their roles. Dex would switch from friendly banter to mock threats and challenges but the Irishman didn’t falter. She smiled. Loyal, brave, and quick-witted. This was a man Rosa could use.

At the outskirts of Bayonne, she pulled the ambulance to the side of the road and joined the men in the rear. It was the dead of night, her favorite time.

She spread several maps over the stretcher and used her torch to illuminate them. “We’re here.” She pointed to the road. “The security checkpoints we need to get through are here and here. Villa Chagrin is here.” She indicated the prison. “We should arrive around three in the morning.”

“How do we get in?” Padraic asked. “Climb over the prison walls?”

Dex laughed. “You’d never make it. They have wire at the top of the outside wall and there’s a second inner wall that’s twelve feet high.”

“No. We hit them where they are most weak,” Rosa said. “Their people.”

“They only have three German guards,” Dex explained. “The rest are Frenchmen.”

In the dim light of her torch, Rosa saw illumination fill Padraic’s face. “So these,” he indicated his uniform, “aren’t solely to get us through the checkpoints.”

“We go in as if we belong there,” Dex said. “Order the removal of our prisoners from the prison hospital. The French won’t risk angering the Germans—”

“Or waking them,” Rosa put in.

“What if they ask me medical questions? Or to read a patient’s chart?”

“Your role isn’t to play a doctor. You’re an officer on a mission. You want those prisoners. Now.”

“
Schnell, schnell
,” Paddy snapped.

“Right,” Dex said with approval. “Any medical issues, you delegate to Rosa, Nurse Stein.”

“Keep the French busy,” Rosa added. “Order them to carry the patients out to the ambulance, to grab their paperwork, all their medications. Don’t give them time to think and we’ll be in and out again in less than an hour.”

“And past the security checks before sun-up.”

Padraic scanned the map and nodded. “Where do we meet if things go wrong?”

Dex answered. “We don’t. We split up. I’ll stay with the ambulance. You make your way to the train station, head south or east. Sooner or later you’ll end up in Marseilles.”

“And you, Rosa?” She liked the way Padraic looked at her—not challenging her ability, rather with concern.

Dex laughed. “Don’t worry about Rosa. They’ll never catch her.”

Rosa said nothing, merely folded the map and handed it back to Dex, who moved up front to slide into the driver’s seat. She grabbed her nurse’s satchel, made sure everything she needed was there: bandages, chloroform, scalpels, sutures, Luger pistol. She had two more knives concealed on her body within easy reach.

“You’ve done this before?” Padraic asked while they sped down the road to Bayonne, their knees jostling together as they perched on the stretchers.

“Yes.”

“And it works?”

She smiled. “One thing Germans are good at is following orders. Remember that and it will be fine.”

As they approached the first checkpoint, Padraic moved up to take the seat next to Dex, leaving Rosa alone in the back. The sleepy guard never knew it but she had him in the sights of her pistol the entire time. Lucky man waved them through with no more than a cursory glance at their papers.

The next sentry was a bit more punctilious. He actually shone his flashlight in at both Dex and Padraic, but when he saw Padraic’s rank, he meekly handed their papers back and asked if they needed him to call ahead to the prison.

“
Nein
,” Dex said as he put the ambulance in gear. “They’re expecting us.”

Bayonne was hardly the bustling town Marseilles was even in the full light of day, but this time of night, the city was as quiet as any back roads country village. Maybe more so since farmers often rose before the sun.

They approached the prison. Instead of tensing when they stopped at the outer gate, Rosa relaxed, acting exactly as a nurse harried from her bed to retrieve a valuable prisoner would. While the French guard searched the rear of the ambulance, she straightened her uniform jacket, checked her hairpins, then flashed him a disdainful glare when he brushed his hand against her calf.

“Pardon,” he muttered. Finding no contraband, he sent them through the gate and directly to the hospital ward.

This was where the Irishman could ruin everything. Until now, Padraic had played his role admirably, being neither too strident and overbearing nor too meek. Instead, he’d acted as if the sentries were simply beneath his notice.

But now the entire plan depended on him. As befitting a German officer, he waited for Dex to come around and open his door. Rosa was already out of the rear of the ambulance, leaving the stretchers behind. Padraic immediately waved two guards over and ordered them to bring the stretchers. They were inside the hospital doors before anyone even asked to see their papers.

“Where are the Englishmen?” Padraic demanded. “They are to be taken for interrogation immediately.”

An orderly appeared, his hair rumpled with sleep, uniform crooked. “Which Englishmen, Major?” he asked, smoothing his face with one palm. “We’ve the pilots shot down two days ago and several sailors brought in just tonight.”

Padraic halted, his posture snapping to attention, delivering a glare that made the orderly take a step back. Rosa moved forward. “Do the courtesy of saluting an officer,” she told him in a tone that suggested she was saving his career, if not his life. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t question his orders.”

The orderly straightened and saluted Padraic. He was a Frenchman, so it was an awkward motion, doused in arrogance. Rosa found that trait useful in the French who worked for the Nazis. The collaborators all had a haughty disregard for their countrymen who fought what they felt was a useless war, yet they also despised their German partners. Such ambivalence made it easy to find their weak spots—usually anything that would make their lives easier.

“We have orders for the pilots.” Rosa handed the papers to the orderly who relaxed slightly at the routine. “But the Gestapo will also want the others—should we take them all tonight or do you want Major Strauss to make the trip back again tomorrow?” She kept her tone soft as if the decision rested in his hands. Padraic, meanwhile, was prowling the cramped facilities, acting as if he were an inspector general, barking notes to Dex on “infractions.”

“Unacceptable,” Padraic growled as he came upon a pile of soiled linens left in the hallway. He kicked them aside. “You there. Name?”

The orderly blanched. “Henri Allard, sir, Major Strauss, sir.”

“Allard, I will be speaking to your commanding officer.” Padraic glanced at his watch. “We are now behind schedule.”

“I’m sorry, sir, we’ll get the prisoners straight away. Do you have room for them all?”

“We’ll make room,” Padraic assured him. “Let them have a miserable ride to Paris. It’s the last they’ll ever be taking.”

The orderly chuckled nervously and waved to the guards. Twenty minutes later, the ambulance was packed with two RAF pilots; Lieutenant Carstairs, who was second in command of Padraic’s ship; two more junior officers; and three sailors all with a variety of minor injuries. The lieutenant was the worst off. He had a nasty head wound and was unconscious, so he got a stretcher to himself while the rest crowded onto the floor and second stretcher. One of the sailors, a reedy Scotsman named Kerr, perched on the lap of one of the pilots, while Rosa braced against the rear doors where she could watch out the windows.

Dex steered them out of the prison, barely slowing to salute the guard, out of the city, past the first guard post, again with a quick stop, and past the second sentry who was asleep and didn’t even see them come or go.

Rosa glanced at her watch. Fifty-two minutes. Mission accomplished. From his place in the front, Padraic twisted around and sought her out across the bodies of the rescued men. He grinned at her, a boyish expression that, despite him being years older than she was, made her roll her eyes and laugh.

“And to think me dear ma said I had no gift beyond working the nets. What do you say, boys, should I see if there’s room on a West End stage for me?”

The men howled with laughter, hurling ribald responses about the kind of roles Padraic was best suited for. Rosa turned to watch their rear flank, hiding her smile.

CASSIE SAW HER
chance when one of Kasanov’s teenaged thugs rushed through the office door and handed him a phone. He waved Cassie to silence right in the middle of the most exciting part of Rosa and Paddy’s hospital escape, got up, and, accompanied by two more of his men, strode out the door. The kids in the office scrambled away, out of sight. Cassie watched through the window as Kasanov kept going past the reception desk and through another door, vanishing.

That left only one guard. He wasn’t much taller than Cassie, but had the bulky build of a weight lifter. Not very old, maybe late teens. She was still puzzled by that. Other than the middle-aged lady she’d met at the gallery, the fake psychic, Natasha, they were all very young. Why was that? A way to keep himself at the top of the power pyramid with no one to challenge him?

Vincent had squirreled himself into the shadows behind a large wheeled toolbox similar in size to the crash carts in the ER. He caught her gaze and nodded, holding his knife at the ready. No way was she about to risk a kid’s life, but she might not have to.

She squirmed and shifted her weight. “I need to use the bathroom.”

It was a tried and tired escape ploy, but had the advantage of being true. The guard frowned at her then looked away as if deciding she was beneath his notice.

“I don’t think Mr. Kasanov wants to sit here smelling urine all night,” she tried again.

He considered that and stepped forward. He hoisted her onto her feet and shoved her in the direction of the office. She fell sprawling back to her knees.

“Either cut my ankles free or carry me,” she told him. She had a glass shard secreted in her fist and could have cut herself free, but she hoped she’d seem more vulnerable, less of a threat, by letting him do it.

Of course, the larger question was then what? As she’d spun her tale for Kasanov, she’d been massaging her legs back to life; she thought she could run. But first she’d need to incapacitate the guard. She had a weapon. Small as it was, the shard was sharp enough to slice flesh down to a major vessel or take out an eye. With her Kempo training and medical knowledge of a body’s vulnerabilities, she could kill or maim.

But to take a life? Despite Kasanov’s threats, he’d made no move to harm her—in fact, it was obvious he needed her alive until he learned whatever secret from Rosa’s past he thought Cassie held.

If this were a movie, the gutsy heroine wouldn’t hesitate to slit the nasty guard’s throat and make her escape. But Cassie had killed before. With her own hands. Betraying everything she believed in, everything she worked for with every patient she treated.