Some fifteen miles from Flims, going toward Davos, you will find a town by the name of Chur, and that’s where I instructed Tom to stop. We drove around a bit, until I saw a nice, little hotel located in a quiet area and told him to park there. He switched the engine off and waited patiently for instructions.
“Stay here,” I said, and walked to the front door. A severe-looking woman was working with papers spread on the reception desk. When I walked in, a bell chimed and she gazed straight at me. They seem to have bells everywhere in Switzerland, on doors and on cows alike, and I wonder when they’ll start putting them on people too.
“Guten morgen,” she said in German.
“Good morning,” I answered politely. “I wonder if you would have an accessible room …”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, my cousin is not well and can’t walk. She’s in a wheelchair. We had reservations for a bed-and-breakfast that made us believe her room would be accessible, and we just found out that they misled us and it isn’t at all accessible, so of course she can’t stay there.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said, looking positively abashed. These Swiss people are weird at times.
“Not your fault,” I pointed out.
“Yes, of course, we have a room right beside the elevator, with convenient access. When is your cousin arriving?”
“She’s right outside in the car with her husband. Please show me the room.”
She took a key and led me to it, all the while apologizing for keeping my cousin waiting, for the small size of the elevator cabin, and perhaps for global warming—I don’t know because I stopped listening to her. I complimented her on the room, told her that we would take it for two days for starters, and paid in cash. I said that I had other accommodations for myself, which visibly saddened her. We went back down, and she took a Xerox of Mary’s diplomatic passport, which bothered me a little, but I had no choice, and then I went to fetch Tom and my body, which he wheeled in the chair up to the room.
As soon as the door closed behind us, I picked my body up and laid it on the bed. It was a little cold so I turned the heat on and covered it with a blanket, and then I turned to Tom and handed him my document wallet, which contained my passport, driver’s license, and a few assorted bills and coins.
“These are important documents, and you need to guard them at all costs. Don’t open the wallet under any circumstances. Understood?”
“Of course, Ma’am,” he said and looked like he meant it.
“I have errands to run, and you are to remain here and watch Tessa. Don’t let anybody but me in. Are you armed?”
“Sure.”
“Good. You may have to use it,” I said. I didn’t think he would have to but wanted to keep him on his toes. “And one more thing: don’t you dare take any liberties with Tessa while I’m away. If you so much as touch one of her hairs, I’ll know it when I come back, and you’ll be in big trouble. Clear?”
Tom blushed more than before, which I thought couldn’t be done. “I’d never … Ma’am, I assure you …”
“Never mind, just keep your hands in your pockets. I’ll be back when I can.”
I left and waited outside until I heard him turn the key in the door lock, and then I took the stairs down. The tiny elevator did feel a bit like a coffin, and I don’t like confined places. I stopped on the stairs to think for a minute. My body was safe, for the time being, but I wasn’t giving any sign of waking up, and I couldn’t guess when—not “if,” I hoped—I would return to it. I was starting to feel much too comfortable in Mary’s body, and that was truly scary because it felt like I was trapped in it for good. But for now I had to be Mary and go back to Davos. It was almost 8 a.m. already, and Mary could not be missed, or who knew what kind of hell would break lose. She had work to do—except that I had no idea what that work was.
I was about to enter Mary’s room when out of a dark corner Jason, her secretary, leaped out at me. As it turned out, clearly he wasn’t a mere secretary, but I’m not sure what he actually was.
“Jesus, Mary! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he complained, and before I managed to answer he pushed me inside the room. “What happened?” he asked, speaking huskily.
I had no idea what he was referring to, obviously.
“Nothing, really,” I said, hoping that it was a good answer.
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’? Did he commit or not?”
So he was talking about Vladimir. That helped a little, but not much. I had to keep being non-committal.
“Well … yes and no. He sort of did, but not very clearly,” I said.
“Exactly like Michael expected. So now we have to follow Michael’s plan, much as we both agree that we would rather go as originally discussed. Take this,” he said, pulling an object from his pocket and handing it to me. “You know how to use it.” He gazed at me conspiratorially.
“Indeed,” I said. I had no idea, but what else could I say?
“I’ll go down first; wait fifteen minutes,” said Jason, and left.
I looked at the object. It was a small, green cylinder and had a cap screwed on. I didn’t feel like unscrewing it to find out what was inside, since its contents could have poisoned me, or blown my head off, or something. I put it in my purse—or rather, in Mary’s purse. I’d think what to do with it later. Right then, I wanted to get out.
My original intention had been to show up at the meeting, to avoid any questions about Mary and her whereabouts until she regained enough of her brain to allow me to break contact, but now that Jason apparently expected me to do things I had no clue about, using a green thingy that did something I didn’t know, it seemed to me that going AWOL might by far be a better choice. I left the room and closed the door silently behind me, but when I turned to walk toward the stairs, to avoid the elevator and people who may be riding in it, two men came from behind and each grabbed one of my arms.
“This way and quiet, Miss Payne,” one of them said, speaking with a heavy accent. They pushed me not so gently toward the end of the corridor and another stairway, from which we descended into the hotel’s underground garage. I toyed for a moment with the idea of screaming but decided against it. There was nobody around to help me, and these two men looked pretty dangerous to me. A black SUV was waiting in the garage, and they stuffed me unceremoniously in the back, then one of them came to sit with me. The other man got into the driver’s seat, and a minute later we were driving away from Davos.