Just A Little Mental Trick
Flicka von Hannover
Wulfram taught me to lie about it.
I don’t think anyone else even suspected.
The new safe house, if you could call the flat a ‘house’ in any normal conversation, was smaller than the one-bedroom apartment in the Latin Quarter.
Aaron walked up the two flights of stairs and into the room with them to pack a backpack with the few things he’d left there. He called over his shoulder as he shut the door, “Call me when you need a ride to the airport.”
The studio apartment in the Montparnasse district was in a large, pre-war building that had been divided and sub-divided many times, leaving one small room and a bathroom, and that was all. A small kitchen area along one wall had a half-size fridge, a microwave, a small sink, and a square of countertop. A queen-size bed took up most of the room, with a loveseat and small television on a nightstand in the other corner.
The window opened to a view of Paris’s one true skyscraper, the fifty-nine-story Tour Montparnasse, a surging monolith that interrupted the graceful skyline of Paris. Flicka didn’t like it much. No one did.
Flicka ran her finger over the countertop and felt nothing but slick tile. “Aaron must not cook much.”
Dieter shrugged. “The cafes in this area are abundant and cheap. And—” He ducked to check the fridge and came up with a few items in his hands. “—Hummus doesn’t take much space.”
She laughed. “He lives on that stuff, doesn’t he?”
“If he could, he would.” He startled a little and checked his buzzing phone.“Dammit.”
“What?”
Dieter glanced up at her, wariness hovering in his gray eyes, and then he shrugged. “Here.”
The text was written in the Monegasque dialect of Italian, which Flicka read easily, and said,Sorry no warning. No time. We were watching the lawyer, and we followed the van you were driving. Grimaldi has been updated that the princess is with you in Paris and has called the French Prime Minister. Sault has ordered the Parisian police to trace your phone. Get rid of it. Triangulating now. There is a watch to all Paris police officers with your pictures. Go to ground. Get out of Paris if you can.
Dieter asked, “You finished?”
Flicka clenched her shaking hands into fists. “Yes. Jesus, Dieter. PierreisMonaco. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but the royalty thereisthe country in a way that the old royalty isn’t anywhere else. Politicians are temporary. Pierre is more like the Constitution or the national symbol, like a bald eagle and the Statue of Liberty rolled into one for an American, or the royal family and the House of Commons and the crown jewels for a Brit. What would it be for the Swiss?”
“The Alps,” Dieter said, “the clean snow, the deep earth, the fresh air of the mountains and our alpine culture, and our neutrality in the world that sets us apart from it.”
“Yes.Pierre, and his uncle, and his brother and cousins are the font of Monaco. He can call anyone in any government, but especially here in France with the special relationship that France and Monaco have, and he can ask their government to do things. Pierre can control everything around us: the police, the military, intelligence services, the customs officials at airports.Everything.”
Dieter dug around in the nightstand drawer and came up with a small pad of scratch paper and a pen. He started scrolling through his phone and writing down numbers. “I’ve already put it on airplane mode, so it shouldn’t be pinging any towers. I’ll destroy it as soon as I can get these down.”
Flicka hesitated.
Even with Dieter, herLieblingwächter,the man who had declared that he would stop a bullet for her, she hesitated.
Because Wulf had always hidden it.
Because when she was little, Wulf had told her to hide it. Other people wouldn’t understand. Just gloss over it. Pretend it wasn’t there. Pretend it was just a trick.
But they needed to destroy that phone as soon as possible. Minutes might count.
Flicka said, “Give me the phone.”
Dieter looked up. “Why?”
“Just give it to me.”
He handed it over, watching her.
Flicka sucked in a breath and looked at the list of contacts, the names and numbers, on the screen. She made sure to notice each one, the spelling, and the rhythm of the phone number and email addresses.
