Whispered Lies

TWO

HAD HER E-MAILS gone through in time?

To the right people?

Gabrielle Saxe stood and paced from the workstation in her rental house to the window. A dreary Sunday. Heavy mist from a slow rain hovered over Lake Peachtree, blurring the dock lights. Peachtree City, a planned community in Georgia south of Atlanta, had been the best place she’d found to hide since living on the edge for the past ten years. She missed her family home in France, but the occasional fog here in the South made her long for her flat in London even more.

She missed her freedom, too, but safety came with a cost.

And not just hers. She’d do anything to keep her family in France safe, too. That was one reason she’d gone into hiding ten years ago. Right after her divorce from a rising Italian screen star who had charmed her into getting married with only one intention-to use her. The honeymoon lasted two months, then things started to sour between them. She met the true Roberto Delacourte. First came the verbal abuse on how lacking she was in the bedroom even after she’d tried to meet his expectations. She’d had no experience and hid her revulsion at some of his ideas. When she’d awakened tied to the bed and suffered the equivalent of rape, she started hiding from him.

Six months into the turbulent relationship he backhanded her across the face and punched her stomach.

Gabrielle had braced herself for more violence when she demanded a divorce and threatened to put him in jail.

He’d calmly laid out the terms for divorce in intricate detail, having clearly planned many things in advance. As he’d spoken, she realized how in her naïveté she’d been played for money and social connections he used to further his career. He explained how he would inform the media that he was asking for a divorce and that she would pay him an exorbitant settlement from the trust fund her mother had left her. All details of the divorce would remain sealed unless he chose to share something, and she could never say a negative word against him.

She screamed that he was insane, which earned her another blow to her ribs. Then he warned her what he’d do to her and her family if she did not meet his terms. He reeled off a list that included releasing lurid stories about her supposed perverted sexual appetite to the paparazzi with doctored photos of her in compromising positions and alluded to having underworld contacts who liked small children, such as the two girls her father and his new wife had birthed. She wouldn’t allow anything to happen to those children. And with her father in a close campaign race for a high position in the French government, the scandal alone would cripple his career.

She’d been young and truly feared Roberto, afraid of how far he would go to get what he wanted.

Gabrielle would have fought Roberto if only her life and reputation had been at stake, but not her family’s. And Roberto had garnered a list of prominent people who would vouch for him in a public venue. Her fault. She’d introduced him to the cream of London and Paris, all of whom believed he was a wonderful husband since she’d been raised to keep her personal life private. He was a rising star who wanted enough money and platinum contacts to shove him onto the big screen.

And he’d known she’d sacrifice all for those she loved.

She hadn’t been planning her moves the way he had, hadn’t been careful to protect herself against a monster. Gabrielle had brought him into her family’s world, so she had to get him out. She swallowed her pride and agreed to his ultimatum, thinking money would get rid of him for good.

If she’d only known just how ruthless he could be, she’d have realized he would never be satisfied with a simple divorce settlement of $5 million.

Turning back from the window, she stared at her laptop, willing it to give her an answer. She fingered the oval locket dangling against her neck from a thin gold chain and checked the online site again.

Why wouldn’t someone-such as the CIA-post the message on the bulletin board as she’d asked? So much for appreciating the risks she’d taken to feed a message into the right channels, key words included for a suspicious eye. Anyone in the intelligence community knew better than to let a pipeline to information dry up. She’d secretly helped other agencies in the past, but she wouldn’t stick her neck out for the Americans again if they weren’t going to do their part.

Mon Dieu! What was their problem?

Cuckoo…

Gabrielle jumped at the broken silence. She had to turn off that clock when she went to bed. She never slept in the afternoon, but her body begged for the reprieve right now. Rest hadn’t been possible for the past fifty hours since receiving a postale card that almost stopped her heart in midbeat.

She rubbed her stomach where a mass of squirming nerves was doing a bang-up job of making her nauseous.

Maybe tea would settle her stomach.

Two days of sleep would do more good.

She scanned e-mails. Nothing, just mundane chatter that ranged from IT questions generated by articles she wrote anonymously for online publications to the rare personal e-mail.

Her gaze snagged on an e-mail from Fauteur de Trouble that read, “Call me soon-I’m being exiled and you’re the only one who will understand…” Gabrielle smiled. Babette had chosen an apt electronic name. She was definitely a troublemaker, but in a lovable way. Gabrielle doubted drama queen Babette, one of Gabrielle’s two half sisters from her father’s second marriage, was truly being exiled.

More likely, the rebellious fourteen-year-old faced being sent to a relative’s home for the holidays to give her father some peace. The headstrong teen was turning his hair gray, which Gabrielle found amusing.

Go Babette. Unfortunately for their father, he’d spawned another female who refused to be crammed into a mold and stamped out like a perfect child. That designation belonged to eleven-year-old Cora, Gabrielle’s youngest half sister.

She hated that term-half sister. What was the other half? Both her sisters meant the world to her, regardless of the percentage of blood they shared. If it was safe to do so, Gabrielle would enjoy seeing her sisters more often.

She’d pretended to be a recluse, which her father interpreted as her never having got over her mother’s death. She’d understood his confusion and grief, but was still hurt by how after the funeral he’d sent her to live in a school with strangers, rather than deal with a heartbroken child.

Gabrielle’s first thought upon waking each morning in school was that her mother’s killer walked free. Her second was a vow to assure that someday the Anguis paid for their crimes.

Gabrielle fingered the stiff postale card from Linette propped against her monitor base. She smiled at the memories that drifted through her mind of the young girl she’d met at the private school…Linette Tassone, her only family for several years. Who then vanished.

Where was her dearest friend now, and how had Linette known about this girl Mandy being kidnapped?

The photo of a palomino horse running free decorated the card front. Linette had loved horses, always dreamed of owning a ranch. But more than that reminder had been an absolute confirmation the card came from Linette-the tiny handwritten words at the closing, bee happee, with the double e that had taken Gabrielle’s breath.

She and Linette had agreed to only use bee happee in dire circumstances to assure the message came from one of them.

Gabrielle had laughed back then, calling the signature a secret handshake, but Linette loved the secrets they shared.

Good thing.

Anyone other than the two of them would likely dismiss the neatly written message as an odd language, not a code.

Gabrielle had started the whole code business, adding a cryptic word in each personal note to Linette, who quickly guessed the words, genius that she was. What else were two lost souls ignored by wealthy fathers supposed to do while huddled in their dorm room on holidays when most of the other students went home to their families?

The old fifteenth-century castle that housed their school in Carcassonne, France, had been torn from the pages of a fairy tale, with precious tapestries, exquisite Louis XV bedroom furniture in the dorms, and gourmet delicacies prepared by chefs. She and Linette had giggled their way through the first quarter, accepting the rigid security as necessary for their protection.

Life seemed pretty ideal until Linette disappeared along with all of her personal belongings just before her seventeenth birthday.

No one answered Gabrielle’s questions until her persistence landed her in the dean of women’s office, where she was warned of disciplinary action if she mentioned Linette Tassone to the staff again. From then on the fairy-tale castle’s stone walls had felt cold and suffocating as a prison. No wonder she’d been so easily duped by a charmer. She’d been alone so long she’d been easy prey.

For eleven years she’d searched, wondering what had really happened to Linette, unwilling to believe the story Senor Tassone had told about his daughter.

But how could she argue with no evidence to the contrary?

She’d finally buried the memories, accepting that she’d never again have anyone she could trust like Linette. Until this card arrived. Gabrielle might not be able to help Linette, yet, but she wouldn’t let her dear friend down in the meantime.

She flipped the card over, decoding the first line again.

Gabrielle-You can’t help me, but I need you to save others from ending up where I am.

She didn’t need to read the rest, knew the text by heart now, including an odd reference to the kidnapped girl being sent to the fratelli-an Italian term for “brotherhood.” The card had arrived at a postal delivery center in Peachtree City after being forwarded from her father’s ancestral home near Paris. Gabrielle quietly thanked him for forwarding the occasional mail he received for her, or Mandy might have had no chance at all.

South American kidnappers were after the young American woman, but Linette had said Mandy was in “grave danger” and “no one will know” about the kidnapping, which made no sense. Regardless, Gabrielle had faith in Linette, so she’d fed an electronic message into the right channels, those scanned by trained intelligence observers.

She’d made it beyond easy for the intelligence agencies.

So why hadn’t they posted online to confirm they were acting on the information or that Mandy had been found? If Gabrielle didn’t hear something soon, she’d…what?

Call the CIA? They would dismiss it as a crank call if she called anonymously. Sending a second e-mail would be too risky. Might as well just send the intelligence world her address since another electronic link might lead them right to her, if the first one hadn’t given her away.

Okay, so she was a bit anal about this, but she’d protected her anonymity too many years to get caught now.

She scoffed quietly at herself. Few people in the world could track her electronic trail; so far, none of which were employed by intelligence agencies had. Stop worrying.

No one had found her during a decade of hiding.

But she wouldn’t take an unnecessary risk. She’d already put herself and others on a bit of shaky ground, so the damn spooks needed to do their part.

She’d done all she could.

Few people, even those in the intelligence community, could have found out as quickly that the men in South America after the diplomat’s daughter belonged to Durand Anguis or that Mandy would be taken to a château in St. Gervais, France.

But then no one in the intelligence community would have spent the past decade committed solely to finding a way to bring down everyone connected to Durand Anguis.

Gabrielle rubbed her gritty eyes. Her skin rippled with an eerie sense of something not right. She ran her hand over chill bumps pebbling her arms and glanced around.

No sensor had been tripped or an alarm would have sounded.

She reached for her laptop, tapping two keys to bring up the digital video cameras monitoring the outside of the house. Crime was so low in Peachtree City she thought of it as Pleasantville. Her protection devices weren’t for the run-of-the-mill burglar.

A thief’s first priority wouldn’t be to slit her throat.

Images popped up from all six cameras. Nothing but the drizzly wet exterior surrounding the house. If someone had approached from the driveway or come up through the woods, the intruder would have tripped one of the many sensors she’d hidden. That would trigger outside floodlights. Then an inside alarm would sound with two quick dings like a phone ringing continuously until she cleared the alarm. The property was a virtual Charlotte’s web of underground wiring.

She hit the keys once more to bring up the bulletin board on her monitor and searched for a message from REBOUND that referenced Mandy as “the babe,” the name she’d told them to reply with. And there it was finally…

Her heart thumped hard. The message read, “Babe in danger of being lost. Needs your help. Now.”

Oh, mon Dieu!

ONCE THE TWO guards outside the château were neutralized, Carlos signaled Sandman to patrol the perimeter, then Carlos and the team inserted.

Inside the dimly lit garage, a Land Rover and four snowmobiles were parked, ready to drive straight out. Carlos slipped off his goggles and drew a breath of musty air. Snow shovels and other household tools hung from one wall above an empty washtub with too many rusty holes to be useful. Faded blue cabinets and a workbench filled another stretch of whitewashed wall.

Gotthard produced a valve-stem puller and squatted down to begin disabling tires. He’d remain behind to cover the exit point and have the snowmobiles ready on word from Carlos.

Korbin slipped up the wooden stairs and into the house with Carlos and Rae on his heels. The toasty smell of logs burning somewhere inside swept through the warm air. At around four thousand square feet, the building fell short of spectacular by wealthy standards, but the owner wasn’t slumming either.

When Carlos reached the first landing, he motioned with hand signals for Korbin and Rae to deal with the guards on the main floor, secure the building.

Taking down a guard should cheer up Rae.

As Korbin and Rae started to move, shouts in the house froze all three of them. One guard was yelling to the other in Spanish, “She’s bleeding…get me bandages-”

Carlos took the lead, waving to Korbin and Rae to follow him, until they reached a hallway where they were faced with the option of going up a wide staircase to the third floor or to the kitchen on the right.

Drawers were being opened and slammed shut in the kitchen, followed by cursing between two men.

Carlos sent Korbin and Rae to the right, then he raced softly up the stairs. At the next landing, he caught a deep voice muttering snarled curses down the hall to his left. Carlos followed the sound to a room where the sharp smell of fresh blood hit him as he quickly took in the scene.

A massive guard in a black turtleneck and matching cargo pants intent on his task was hunched next to a heavy mahogany bed. Chunks of broken glass from a shattered water goblet lay on the nightstand and the floor as if the drinking glass had been struck against the edge. A shock of blond hair spilled over the side of the bed alongside the man’s leg.

Carlos slipped his knife from its sheath and entered silently. He moved two whispered steps and reached for a fist of thick, black hair. As he whipped the man’s head back, exposing his throat to the razor-sharp blade, Carlos got a clear shot of a young woman lying still as death-Mandy-her wrists bleeding profusely. Merde.

The guard arched up, but Carlos finished the kill before the man’s next breath and shoved him out of his way, then checked for a pulse on Mandy. Weak, but she wasn’t dead. Yet. He yanked up the flannel bed linen covering her limp body and started hacking several long strips. The teenager’s camo T-shirt barely moved with each faint breath. Her gray bottoms looked like a child’s pj’s.

The white sheet had more color than her bloodless face.

Damn those bastards for whatever caused her to do this.

“All clear,” Korbin announced, entering the room with Rae.

Carlos nodded, too busy trying to keep Mandy alive to answer. At least radio silence was no longer an issue now with the resistance neutralized.

“Find a snowmobile suit,” Carlos ordered.

“I saw one downstairs.” Rae snapped out the statement on her way out the door.

Korbin lifted Mandy’s wrist, allowing Carlos to bandage her faster and finish by the time Rae raced back in with a snowsuit that would swallow the teen. Exactly what Carlos wanted. He crossed her arms over her chest to keep the injuries above her heart, then used more sheet sections to wrap her arms to her body so they wouldn’t flop around.

They used the suit like a cocoon, sliding Mandy inside and leaving nothing exposed. Carlos lifted her into his arms and followed Korbin out the door. Rae covered everyone’s back down the hallway to the stairs.

“All clear here, we’re heading out,” Carlos said into his commo transmitter for Gotthard’s benefit. “Package is damaged. Fire up the rides.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Carlos cursed. “Check for-”

“-marks on the bodies,” Rae finished. “The three I searched all had the tattoo on the left chest area.”

Carlos never slowed on his way to the garage, thrumming with the urge to see the bodies himself if not for one problem.

He couldn’t question another team member’s assessment.

And he sure as hell couldn’t explain why he had to see the tattoos for himself.

The informant had been dead-on. How? He’d kill for some time alone with Mirage, who’d been so accurate about the kidnappers, the teenager, and this location, about everything right down to the Anguis. Anyone who knew that much about the Anguis family probably had an ax to grind with them.

And anyone who knew that much about the Anguis was a threat to Carlos’s existence and the secret he shielded. Durand killed anyone in his path, especially a snitch, so how could the informant have known Anguis business well enough to rat him out and still live?

Carlos growled deep in his throat. If only the tips had come through early enough for his team to reach this child before she slit her wrists. He prayed she’d live.

In the garage, Gotthard had the overhead door open and the snowmobiles outside and running. “Sandman sent the signal for the helo to meet us at the extraction point in one hour,” he told Carlos, who nodded, hoping Mandy would survive that long.

The chopper would have a medic on board, but she might need more blood than they normally carried. He handed Mandy to Gotthard. “Strap her to my back.”

Carlos pulled his goggles back into place and settled on the lead snowmobile with his feet on the running boards.

Gotthard wrapped Mandy’s snowsuited body around him, fastening the long, empty sleeves in front of his chest with a wire tie. Carlos felt a belt looped around his chest, drawn just tight enough to snug her close to him.

Gotthard secured her legs and slapped Carlos’s arm. “Go.”

Carlos thumbed the accelerator sharply, grimacing over how lifeless her body lay against his back when the machine roared into action. He glanced behind him once more to see the other snowmobiles following, loaded with his team.

All alive and accounted for. Mission accomplished.

Except for the chance to inspect the bare chests of the guards. To see if they only had a snake-and-dagger tattoo over their heart marking them as Anguis soldiers or if a scar intersected the tattoo as well, indicating they were blood-related to Durand Anguis.

Just like the scar across the same tattoo on his chest.

INSIDE THE CHÂTEAU’S garage, the washtub moved up on one side then slid off the trapdoor to the basement. Pushing the trapdoor harder, the man lifted his head up and took in the silent room now empty except for the Land Rover. That had flat tires.

He sighed and withdrew a cell phone.

Report first. Find transportation next.

His boss was not going to be happy.