Chapt 5 age 49
"Everything is ready, ma'am."
"Thank you, Anne," Queen Clarisse replied, snapping the briefcase shut. "Please inform the king I am leaving."
Rupert would see her off; he always did. The trip was to attend the European Economic Summit, this year held in Brussels. The Palais de Nations was a beautiful forum for the event and she was pleased to be returning to the city. Although she doubted she would, Clarisse hoped to be free for an evening to enjoy the sights of the old town.
An aide brought her coat just as Rupert entered the room.
"Ah, my dear, so you are off!"
"Yes, there's a reception this afternoon and I thought I'd speak with King Gustav about the difficulties we are both facing with the Duke of Thornfield."
Rupert shook his head. "Ugly affair, that. Give Gustav my best." He took her briefcase and offered his arm.
"Of course. I'll invite him to come visit us during the Festival of Flowers next spring, too."
"An excellent idea. Perhaps he and I can get in a bit of hunting."
At the top of the steps, Rupert waved the aides and footman aside and waited until he and Clarisse had a degree of privacy then slipped his arm around her.
"I will miss you."
"I will call you every night from Brussels."
"Please, and I'll call from London." He kissed her forehead and his expression became serious. "I care very much about you, you know."
"Yes, I know."
He took her hand in his and led her down the steps, to the car. "Never doubt that, Rissa. You and Philippe are always first."
He meant it. She squeezed his hand and smiled. "I know. I always have."
Rupert placed her briefcase on the car seat, then faced her.
"You'll be late." Still, he kept her hand in histhen lifted it to his lips. "Goodbye, my dear."
She kissed his cheek then got in, the car pulling away a minute later.
The trip to the airport was a half hour's drive. Normally, she would use the time to go over correspondence or read reports. This morning, however, she allowed herself to gaze out the window, watching her Genovia go by. She loved everything about the country and its people.
There were so many measures she wanted to accomplish for them. Among her goals for the upcoming summit was one to join with Belgium in promoting European-made lace and fine linens. It would open numerous venues for Genovia's craftsmen if the agreement found favor. In addition, there were always topics for discussion with Genovia's neighbors France, Italy, Cerneland, and Switzerland about border concerns, trade, and currency exchanges.
Rupert would be attending a NATO meeting in London when she returned and although she could fly directly there from Brussels, she decided against it so that she might dedicate the new medical center. He would be home after a week, in time to accompany her at the wedding of King Gustav's nephew, Cerneland's heir to the throne.
Genovia's heir, their son Philippe, was presently single, yet she and Rupert were grandparents. The child, Amelia, would soon be eight years old and it broke her heart not to see her granddaughter. She and Rupert flew to San Fransisco after the baby's birth and visited when the girl was four. Since then, they had stayed away, per Philippe and Helen's agreement. She sent birthday and Christmas gifts each year, receiving a short thank you note a month later. They were tied with a ribbon, along with photos of Amelia, in the chest on her dresser.
She and Rupert did not agree with the decision to shelter Amelia from knowing of her birthright, but bowed to her parent's wishes. One day, when his daughter was of age, Philippe would speak with her about her heritage. With all her heart, she hoped Helen and Philippe's decision was for the best.
She wondered if Amelia even remembered her. She sighed aloud. Her aide turned to check on her and she smiled at him reassuringly.
Clarisse wondered what the future would bring and if Philippe would marry again. If so, she hoped it was for love.
Not that her own arranged marriage was unbearable; it was not. She accepted that Rupert saw, on very infrequent occasions, other women. Had she been in love with him, she would have experienced jealousy, but, as it was, there was none. He was discreet, seeing them only when outside the country and he never put her in an embarrassing position.
Rupert was a generous husband and a wonderful father to Philippe. He trusted her judgment, consulted her frequently on state matters, and supported her efforts without hesitation. She respected him immensely; Rupert was, she was convinced, one of the finest heads of state in the whole of Europe.
Her life was a busy, yet interesting and satisfying one. In all honesty, she would not trade it for any other.
What she needed more than anything, Queen Clarisse decided as she touched up her lipstick in the ladies' room gilded mirror, was a cup of tea. Listening to the obstinate Minister of Trade from Ravenstein, who was a relative of Baron von Troken and just as annoying, was giving her a headache.
Slipping away from the meeting during a particularly heated argument, shespent the past twenty minutes in the blissful silence of a ladies' lounge on the other side of the building. Her aide, her only companion on the trip, was out seeing to a few, quick errands so she had not been disturbed. Yes, a cup of tea would be ideal. Recalling that the refreshment table in the meeting room held only a generic assortment of teas, and looking for any reason not to return just yet, she headed to the ornate Reception Hall, downstairs, for a packet of a superior blend.
Despite the stubborn minister, the summit was going well. She and Gustav agreed to press the Duke of Thornfield about his lands in their respective countries and had the rough outline of a joint tourist venture in the mountainous area in the Alps where the two countries adjoined. France wanted to cooperate on improving the highway over the mountains the two countries shared, and the Italian minister asked for a meeting with her later to discuss increasing the amount of pears shipped to his country. Genovia was doing well economically and its citizens enjoyed a standard of living higher than much of the continent, but Clarisse knew better than to let things simply rest as is.
As she neared the Reception Hall, she heard voices and quickened her steps, not wishing to meet anyone. Pushing open one of the large, carved doors she entered, startling a group of white-jacketed men who turned and stared at her. The refreshment table was still set, except for the pastries and other perishables, and Clarisse lifted a hand, motioning to the group across the room, as she moved to the table at her right.
"Pardon me, I merely wish to get a teabag."
Searching in the basket, she found an acceptable blend. Then, disliking the idea of rejoining the meeting just yet, she took a cup and saucer and prepared the tea, adding cream and sugar, and laying a spoon on the saucer to remove the bag after steeping. If she were gone too long, the other delegates would notice her absence. She turned to find the men walking toward her. Clarisse nodded and stepped forward, holding the teacup for them to see.
"Thank you, but I found everything without difficulty and-"
It was at that moment she noticed the guns.
Suddenly, the lights went out followed by a blinding flash and a deafening BANG! Stunned, she dropped the cup andwas falling to her knees as a strong arm wrapped around her, pulling her up. Clarisse struggled, getting an arm free, and scraped her nails across her assailant's face. She slammed her shoe heel into his knee as hard as she could. Behind her, the man cursed, and another arm encircled her, nearly cutting off her breath.
Clarisse began to fight for her very life.
Stroking his goatee thoughtfully, Colonel Coraza listened to the spotty cell phone recording, softly translating the conversation for the other two men at his side and others gathered nearby. To his left, a younger man shook his head, dreadlocks going in all directions.
"I'm going to go back to accounting, I swear!" Toke, otherwise known as Percival Pastewite, grumbled as he yanked the wig off impatiently and flung it aside. He removed the tape and put it back in its marked case. "Something's missing."
"Something's up," Coraza corrected him.
"But what?" Jacque "Madman" DuMer asked, pulling off his clerical collar and black robes with a relieved sigh. The tattoos of cavorting young women covered his bare chest and arms; there was one for every port he visited during his stint in the navy- and he had visited a lot of ports.
"Aren't you supposed to wear something under that, Rasputin?" Toke asked.
"Nah, nobody ever looks." Madman leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head of shoulder length black hair. "I'm gonna give up the collar, anyway."
"For what?"
"Think I'll be an intellectual on holiday, next time. You know, out looking for the chicks," he explained. He gently scratched the area around his nose rings. "I think that disguise will work better.
"Oh, sure. The naked women on your arms shouldn't be a problem, at all."
"Homecoming queens," Madman replied with a grin.
Next to his agents, with his simple goatee and gold earring, Coraza looked completely normal. It was, however, enough to throw off the sort of people he usually dealt with in the upper levels of society. None suspected he was a British officer assigned to Interpol.
It took several years, but he pulled strings and called in old favors to gain reassignment to Interpol as an advisor. The fact that he did his advising while fully participating in each unit's field activities went uncommented on by his superiors. They were happy to have him.
When the last Special Operations commander left, Chesterson, no longer an inspector but a regional director and unable to abide staying put in his office, offered him the post 'just until another CO is found.' It had been a year since then and Coraza doubted that anyone was even looking for a replacement. That was fine with him.
"Let's see those new transcripts," he said, ignoring his agents' banter as he got up for another cup of coffee. Hand-selecting each member of his team, he knew they were all excellent agents, even if they tended to burn off stress by eccentric conduct at times.
Over the next twenty minutes, the pieces fell into place as they read. Delegates to the European Economic Summit at the Palais de Nations were in danger from a plan to take them hostage against demands that specific convicted terrorists across Europe be released from prison. The kidnappers would then kill the hostages. Tonight.
"Move!" he shouted, running for his bag. The others followed right on his heels.
Forty-two minutes later, a "flash-bang" grenade in hand, Coraza crouched outside the servicedoors to the Grand Reception Hall. Swiftly and quietly, during the past fifteen minutes, the delegates were ushered out of the building and into waiting vans and whisked to safety under protective guard.
Not wanting to risk tipping off the terrorists located in the Reception Hall, Coraza delayed the search of the hallways, rooms, and toilets on this floor of the building until the last minute. A team of Belgian police was, at the moment, quietly doing just that. There should be few, if any, persons in the area; all conferences met in the meeting rooms on the other floor, but should shots fired, he did not want to risk the safety of any civilians.
His knee beginning to ache, Coraza rubbed it with his free hand. The pain was getting worse, he noted absently. One day, he would have to have it fixed as the doctors kept suggesting.
He shifted his weight to his other leg. Dressed in black ops gear and sweating under his body armor, he was anxious to go. In his ear, the voice of Chesterson, who'd refused to stay away, informed him what was happening in the hallway that and his man at the power switch was ready. Coraza gave thumbs up, looking around the anteroom to make sure his men saw it then slipped his night vision goggles into place.
Pulling the grenade's pin, he held the long, black metal tube and began to count, just loud enough for them to hear. On 'six', he eased the door open…
…and saw a woman.
In a heartbeat, he registered that the woman, seen from behind at an angle, wore a designer suit with high-heeled shoes and held a teacup in her jeweled fingers. She was definitely not a terrorist.
A second later, the lights went out, and he flung the canister toward the center of the room, away from the woman, before turning to protect his eyes and ears from the blast.
Before the doors had stopped rattling, he was on his feet, leading the way.
Immediately looking to his left, he saw her sink to the floor, and he began to run, shouting orders to his men to follow the plan. From behind, Coraza grabbed the woman and hauled her to her feet. A shot sounded. He had to get her out.
The woman in his grasp had a different idea.
"Damn!" Coraza hissed, gritting his teeth as the woman blinded him by knocking off his night vision goggles and catching the corner of his eye with her nails as they raked across his face. He wrapped his other arm around her then slipped on the wet floor, barely staying on his feet.
Something clamped down on his hand- hard -before the woman nearly dropped him with a kick to his already painful knee.
"Stop! I won't hurt-" he yelled, pulling his hand from between her painfully strong jaws, feeling his skin tear.
"You'll hurt yourself!" he shouted. An elbow hit his nose.
"I do not want to hurt you!" he yelled again, feeling blood trickling down the back of his throat and out his nose. He turned his head so that the blood would not soil her.
"Let me go!" the woman cried.
She hesitated in her struggles and he loosened his grip a bit. Thank God, Coraza thought, she was going to calm down. He took a breath. "We're with the-"
Suddenly, the she-devil in his arms twisted and with a boot worthy of a pro soccer player, drove her knee into his groin.
"-police!" Coraza gasped, leaning against her, his head dropping to her shoulder as blinding agony made breathing nearly impossible. When he managed a breath against the pain, he repeated the word into her ear, in every language he knew. Surely, the hellcat would understand that!
She didn't. With renewed zeal, the wild woman ripped into him, clawing and kicking before he could stand upright. At that moment, he fervently wished he'd left her in a heap on the floor or, better yet, left her to the terrorists. Given five minutes, she'd probably have them begging for his men to come rescue them.
A fist caught him in the jaw.
It wasn't until the female demon tried to elbow him in the gut andinstead smacked her arm against the inch-thick protective ceramic plates of his armor, did she stop her assault.
He grabbed her, pulling her tight against his body, not caring if he broke her ribs. The woman stilled and without letting her go the least bit, he quickly glanced around to get his bearings. Faint, but visible, he saw light behind him and shapes moving- his backup unit was pouring into the room.
"Chesterson!"
Twenty feet away, a red light flashed. Coraza half carried, half dragged the woman to him, shoving her into the director's arms.
"Get her safe and watch out!" Coraza barked, before limping away as fast as he could to join his men.
The clock reading shortly before two in the morning, Coraza carefully eased his tired body into the tub of hot water, wincing at every movement, every inch. Although he ached from one end to the other, that was not the worst of it.
His men, following the plan exactly, had subdued the terrorists long before he subdued his female terror. Having quickly restrained the prisoners, they then enjoyed the spectacle of his being kicked, kneed, bit, and scratched. When the lights came on, after the woman was gone, everyone stared at him before looking away quickly, trying not to laugh, but unable to hide their grins.
The medics, ignoring the less injured terrorists, sprang on him and went to work, despite his adamantly waving them away. He watched the clean up operations from a chair, with an ice pack on his face. He would have rather put it between his legs, but masculine pride prevented it.
Casting a glance down at the area in question, he shook his head. He was going to be black and blue, sore and tender for a while. It definitely wouldn't help his love life, .
Not that it mattered. Working fourteen-hour days, six, sometimes seven, days a week left little time to meet a woman who shared hisinterests in history and current events. He'd grown tired of merely a pretty face many years ago. Micha said he would one day meet the one…at this point, he sincerely doubted it.
Although his men kidded him about a elegantly-dressed female working him over, they had all seen him take down men much larger than himself without breaking a sweat so knew he'd done his best not to hurt her. Chesterson made the point of mentioning in front of his men the fact that other than Coraza carelessly bleeding all over her, the woman was quite well and unhurt.
For her privacy, in the official reports she was referred to only as 'a bystander evacuated from the scene.' Shielding her from view of the police and others in the building, Interpol whisked her away, immediately. Coraza didn't even know her name.
Later, to answer her questions and ensure she was well, Chesterson spoke with her. Appalled at having mistakenly fought her rescuer, she had asked to meet the man who'd got her to safety, to ask for forgiveness. Chesterson, however, explained it was not necessary. Coraza nearly protested when Chesterson told him that, but the director's next words stopped him.
She was a queen.
A pity, really, Coraza thought with a sigh, gingerly touching the washcloth to his raw cheek. He would liked very much to have met her, perhaps taken her out for dinner…or, invited her back to his apartment.
She was one magnificent woman.
Well, they finally met...sort of! Be a dear and tell me what you think of it. Your comments make writing much more fun.
There should be only one more chapter in this story, but another will begin when Joseph begins his work at the palace.
A word about Rupert. I disliked having him cheat on Clarisse, but, alas, it seemed necessary for an end. Clarisse, however, said she was very fond of him, so he wasn't all bad, really, and I hope that shows.