Chapter XXI
Padre oh padre
Re degli elfi
Mi sta toccando
Male mi fa
Father oh father
It's the King of the elves
He is touching me
He is hurting me
Amsterdam, Netherlands
"Run Max, run! Run!"
Max wasn't sure whose voice he heard in his head but he obeyed it blindly.
He ran as fast as his legs allowed him, without once turning back to see if the two men were catching up to him.
Further back, Cesar Faison yelled into the street, in French, "Stop that boy! My son doesn't know what he's doing!"
So disturbed was he by what had transpired that he had forgotten that he had jumped out of his sedan and was standing in the middle of a busy street. A delivery truck jerked itself to a stop and Jan pushed him away from its oncoming path. Horns blared and drivers waved angry arms yelling at the two men to get off the street. It was rush hour and traffic was moving slowly enough without having to avoid hitting pedestrians in the middle of the road.
"Where did he go?" Faison asked Jan, spinning around, trying to spot a small, fast moving figure on the wide, crowded sidewalk.
"I don't know, it all happened so fast. He'd been fiddling with the handcuffs all day. All of a sudden I saw him push the car door open, and he was gone! But he couldn't have gone far."
"This is absurd," Faison growled, there were hundreds of people walking on the sidewalks along the street. "I can't see him anywhere. Go! You run down this street, I'll head towards the train station."
Jan took off before he finished his sentence, and Faison headed towards the huge red-brown brick building with the words 'Gare Centrale' written in bold letters on its front.
Meanwhile, Max had already made his way inside the building, gasping for air as his lungs tried to keep up with his demands. He held on tightly to his sides because they were starting to cramp. Still he kept walking, as fast as he could. Most people inside the busy building walked briskly too, either away from or towards one of the dozens of trains that lined up in the station platform. Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going and no one paid Max the slightest bit of attention. All he had to do was look like he knew where he was going as well. Even though he had no idea.
Suddenly, his heart skipped a beat as he heard a voice make an announcement over the loudspeakers, startling him. Again it was in a strange language that he couldn't understand. He was afraid that the men he was with had gone to the police and now everyone was alerted that he was runaway. He listened nervously for his name in the announcement and relaxed ever so slightly when it ended without mention of it.
'Could they have gone to the police so quickly?' he asked himself. His sides still hurt, as did the open cuts on his wrist. Max noticed dozens of people getting on various trains without having to show any sort of ticket and, in a moment of mad impulse, he decided to do the same.
He had to use the door handle of the train to pull himself up and into the passenger car. Once inside, he saw only a few empty seats as dozens of people were already seated inside. Some passengers were reading newspapers and others sat with their eyes closed. Again no one paid him any attention. Entire families settled into the four-passenger compartments, as though they were planning on being there for a long time. He watched as some people walked from one car to another, and Max decided to do the same. As he entered his third train car, he noticed a door leading to a washroom. He considered going inside and locking the door.
'No, I can't,' he thought, 'if I go in there and lock myself in, someone will notice. What if someone has to use the bathroom? They'll break the door open.' Max then saw two open racks filled with suitcases, right next to the bathroom. Some of the cases were so large they could have hidden an adult.
Max turned around to make sure no one was looking and then quickly crawled behind a large suitcase that stood in the lower corner of the luggage rack.
He moved a duffel bag on top of it, making it impossible for anyone to spot him. Then he pulled his knees towards his chest, leaned against the wall, and waited for the train to start moving.
Near Cardiff, Wales
The guard brought a tray of food into Bianca's room and placed it on top of her desk. As always, Bianca thanked him and sat down next to it.
She waited until the guard left the room and then picked up the fork to start eating. It was yet another meat pie of sorts, but Bianca didn't care. The restless pacing she had done earlier had left her famished. 'Why do I feel so torn, all of a sudden?' she asked herself. At first, the prospect of staying here with this woman, who was unlike any other she had ever met, had excited and fascinated her, and now, after speaking with her mother, she felt strangely homesick.
She wished Charlotte would come and visit her again, knowing that her presence would at least relieve the heavy loneliness that weighed her down now. As she bit into another piece of meat pie, a sudden realization hit her.
"Max!" she groaned. "I didn't ask Mom about Max and how he's doing. Whether he's back at Wildwind. Oh no…" Bianca cursed herself for the omission. 'How could I have forgotten? I'll have to ask Charlotte for another phone call now.' Bianca had little doubts that her request would be granted, after all the first one had been, why would she object to another one?
'She's not as horrible as Alex made her out to be. She hasn't given me any indication that she is,' Bianca thought. She was certain now that there was more to Alex's prolonged disappearance from Pine Valley than she had told them. After all, there were always two sides to every story, weren't there?
Bianca finished every last bite of the food, including a small dish of tapioca pudding, which she normally would have left untouched. Then she got up to place the tray next to the door. She picked up her book to read for a while until the untouched tray on the floor sparked her interest.
"Hey, room service!" she called out, giggling for no reason; "You may remove the tray now!"
As she walked across the room, she noticed for the first time, a piece of peeling paint along the wall and inexplicably, that too, made her laugh. There was a slight buzz in her head and it made Bianca feel like spinning around. She felt like she did that one New Year's Eve when she'd tasted a little much of her mother's champagne. It was a good feeling.
She turned herself around and around, holding her arms far apart for the sake of balance.
"Wheee…" she cried out, laughing. "Bianca Montgomery, prima ballerina! And you thought all those lessons were a waste of time, Mom. Look at this…" She held her hands above her head and stood on her tiptoes. She couldn't remember having felt this happy in a long, long time. She spun herself around again, and again, before collapsing on the bed in a fit of laughter.
"Oh god, I hope this feeling never ends, never, never ever…"
Several doors down from Bianca's room Charlotte and Dr.Lewellyn observed her on the TV monitor. Charlotte frowned as she watched Bianca getting high. "Is this normal, this reaction?" she asked Lewellyn.
"To be honest, I didn't think she'd consume everything you gave her. Or that if would take effect so quickly. I laced every thing on the tray with a hallucinogenic drug, and she's now got a bit more in her bloodstream than I had hoped."
"But she's not going to be harmed, is she?" Charlotte asked.
"Oh no," Lewellyn guaranteed her. "She might feel extremely blue when she comes out of it in 24 hours or so, but that's a good thing, because when you see her next, you'll display some tender concern for her well being. We want her to associate your presence with her improved spirits."
"Good. And you're sure these drugs won't affect her brain's capacity for coherent thought in the long run?" Charlotte pressed him.
"No, no…of course not. The only way she might risk long term harm is if we were to give them to her for an extended period of time, which we don't intend to. Just enough to make her realize, that being here makes her…well, that it makes her incredibly happy."
Charlotte grimaced as she watched Bianca topple off the bed. 'As long as this happiness doesn't lead to temporary insanity,' she thought.
Her eyes were glued to the TV monitor again, as she watched Bianca lying on the floor, laughing hysterically.
Outside the compound
The next day
"Ok, this is it! I've got a positive ID on Charlotte Devane in the Jaguar," O'Malley jumped up and broke the silence in the surveillance van. "She's left the compound. Next time she goes back in we'll be inside the car with her. All we do now is wait until she comes back."
O'Malley left the van to head towards the Mercedes that he would use to drive in front of the Jaguar, and which David would later use as one of the two getaway vehicles. His two local colleagues, Brett and Stephen, adjusted their bulletproof vests and double-checked their weapons, ready to storm the Jag as soon as O'Malley had brought it to a halt. "The only problem is we have no idea how long she'll be. It could be half an hour or less, or it could be half a day or more until she returns. The wait is going to be a bit of a nail biter," Brett told them.
"That's an understatement," Dimitri said, exhaling and trying in vain to keep his pounding heart still. Alex adjusted his bullet proof for the umpteenth time, "Are you sure you know how to use this?" she asked him, making sure the automatic handgun O'Malley had given him had a full round of ammunition inside.
"Darling, I've spend more time Hungarian military than I've cared to… you know this already. Just promise me you'll keep your own gun loaded and your own bullet proof vest on, before I have second thoughts about you driving that car from the compound."
She leaned up to kiss him, "It's too late for second thoughts now, Dimitri."
"I know. I'm so nervous. We can't mess this up," he whispered the last words so the others in the van wouldn't hear.
"You won't," she assured him quietly, "Nervous is a good thing, it means you'll be careful and alert."
She made him sit down, and cupped his hands into both of hers, in order to stop them from shaking.
An hour passed, and they barely moved from their spots, until Brett, his eyes glued to the tiny video monitor, shouted the command they were waiting for, "She's back! This is it! We're ready to roll!"
Stephen and Brett both jumped out of the van, running towards the spot where O'Malley would pull his car in front of the Jag.
Dimitri moved to the window, taking a deep breath, waiting for the events to unfold. As soon as O'Malley and his men had control of the car and its occupants, Dimitri was to join them inside it.
From inside the van, Dimitri, Alex, and David watched as O'Malley's Mercedes thundered out of a side road, as if from nowhere, directly onto the path of Charlotte's moving Jaguar.
The Jaguar screeched to a halt, sending a cloud of dust into the air. Ironically, the wall of dust provided a perfect cover for Brett and Stephen as they ran out from behind the trees, towards the Jaguar. Only Charlotte and her personal driver were inside as O'Malley yanked open the front door and held his gun next to the driver's temple. "If you come out slowly with your hands above your head, absolutely nothing will happen to you."
Meanwhile, flanking both sides of the car, Brett and Stephen pointed their guns towards Charlotte, who was sitting in the back. "And you stay right where you are," Brett instructed her as he moved inside the vehicle to sit next to her and handcuff her.
O'Malley injected a syringe into the arm of the driver and pushed him down onto the banks of the road where he would be hidden from view. It would be several hours before he would regain consciousness. O'Malley raised his arm motioning for Dimitri to join them.
Alex squeezed his hand, "Come back safe, okay?"
He nodded, "I will. With Max." Then he ran towards the Jaguar and jumped inside, joining O'Malley in the front, next to the drivers seat.
Once inside the car, he turned around to see Charlotte sitting handcuffed in the back seat.
In exchange for his cold stare, she offered him a smile.
"Well, well, Mr. Marick. It's good to see you again. I should have known that you would be the one behind this unpleasant surprise. It's quite clever, really. The only question I have is, what took you so long?"