The Monegasque Secret Service
Flicka von Hannover
When the rescuers
aren’t the good guys.
At that first shout from above,“Freeze! All of you!”in Italian-accented French, Flicka looked up, even though the man’s horrible hand still clamped over her mouth. His glove smelled like sour onions and made her want to retch. His thumb rested on her nose, but she could seebeyond the black splotch of it in the center of her vision.
Far above her head, different men with guns lined the catwalks than had been there when she had entered the warehouse not even three minutes before.
Finally, the Monegasque Secret Service had managed to pull off an intricate operation.Finally.Maybe Pierre had replaced Quentin Sault with someone competent.
She was almost limp withrelief, except that Alina was thirty feet in front of her and being carried toward Raphael and the other men, most of whom were toting guns. Instead, she braced herself to spring to her feet and sprint to Alina.
Boots pattered with quick steps in the corridor behind her.
Soldiers in special forces uniforms and Kevlar armor ran into the room, stalking double-time in that peculiar half-run, half-creepused for dangerous entries, with their guns held at ready and the stocks pressed against their shoulders.
The Ilyin Bratva’s men had been caught off-guard, watching the spectacle of what happened to traitors to their organization. None of them raised a weapon to fire at the Monegasque special forces operators flooding onto the warehouse’s main floor.
One of the operators yelled,“Hands up!Allof you, hands off your weapons! Hands on your heads!”
The bratva members raised their hands and interlaced them behind their necks.
More black-clad men stepped out of the shadows. All of them bore a harlequin-checked shield on the left side of their chests, the sigil of the Princely House of Grimaldi, and the red and white flag of Monaco on their right arms.
Another man led twenty or so moremen into the warehouse. These men wore the black fatigues of commandoes, but insignia glinted on their collars and chests. They carried automatic weapons across their chests like they were authorized to in a military parade, and they marched in a stomping, double-time rhythm.
She’d never been so happy to see someone from Monaco in her whole life.
The man at the front, Quentin Sault, surveyedthe situation. He motioned one sharp gesture at his men, and Monaco’s army marched toward Flicka.
Damn it.Why couldn’t Pierre have sent someone other than Quentin goddamn Sault?
Quentin told the man holding her, “Remove your hands from Her Highness’s person or I will cut them off.”
Somewhere outside in the dark night, an engine started.
The bratva man glanced at his Russian mafia boss, PiotrIlyin, and then at the many special forces soldiers pointing large guns directly at him.
He lifted his hands away from Flicka and stepped back.
Flicka spat a piece of his leather glove out of her mouth and rested her hands on the floor. “About damn time, Quentin.”
Quentin didn’t say a word, and that was probably for the best because Flicka might have slapped his face at the first sarcasm outof it.
She told him, “Okay, Sault, have your men go get Alina and Raphael.”
“Who?” Quentin asked.
“Dieter,” she told him, “Dieter Schwarz, sitting right over there, and his daughter, just right over there.”
In the center of the warehouse, Raphael was still kneeling with his hands behind his head. He stared at her, his gray eyes wide and his jaw bulging where he clenched it. Men surroundedhim, their arms raised, but their guns hanging on straps around their necks still pointed in his direction.
Quentin glanced up at the many Monegasque men still on the catwalks and in the warehouse. The Monegasque army maintained perilous control because they had their weapons at the ready, but they were outnumbered. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Our only orders were to secure you.”
“No!Quentin, I won’tleave without them.”
