Marek heard the warning, but it wasn’t the one he was expecting. Five men? Only five to take down three primary targets and a secondary target? And no assault weapons? It didn’t make sense. If his theory was correct, the Zakharian Liberation Front needed the king, the queen and Colonel Marianescu dead, not merely wounded. Yes, a man shot in the head or through the heart with a pistol was just as dead as a man shot with an assault rifle or a submachine gun. But a pistol would require closer range, something the Zakharian Liberation Front had to know was less likely with the bodyguards surrounding the royal family.
No, it didn’t make sense...unless the five were a decoy of some kind.
He moved a little away from the receiving line—he wasn’t there to shake hands, he was only there to watch over Tahra—and tapped his earpiece. “Say again, Jay-three. How many men?”
“Five men. Repeat, five total.”
He barely waited for the response before saying, “Dee-two, can you confirm?”
“Confirm. Five men dressed as maintenance crew just entered the chapel. No, wait. One has peeled off, heading north. Repeat, four men entering the chapel.”
“Dee-one here,” said a low voice, almost in a whisper. “I am in the chapel and I have eyes on four targets. Repeat, I have eyes on four targets.”
The chapel, in the older part of the palace. Not the Great Hall, where the reception was taking place. Marek tapped his earpiece again. “This is Captain Zale. Stay alert. This could be a decoy, not the main thrust of the attack. Repeat. Stay alert. Who has eyes on the fifth man?”
“This is Bee-five. The lone maintenance man has entered the kitchen. Repeat, one target has entered the kitchen.”
“Marek.” His name was spoken in a hushed undertone behind him. He swung around and saw Angelina, who, since she was also wearing an earpiece, had obviously heard everything that had just been broadcast.
“It makes no sense,” he told her in a tight voice. “An all-out assassination attempt with only five men armed with just light weapons?”
“Agreed. But what if we are wrong? We dangled the bait, but what if they are not biting? What if they do not intend assassination tonight?”
Then it came to him. “The crown prince,” he whispered. He whirled for the door, then halted abruptly, turning and gazing at Tahra standing beside the king and queen in the receiving line, torn by his competing duties.
“Go! I will guard Tahra!” Angelina ordered.
“You are guarding the queen.”
“Not officially. Now go!”
He went. Not by way of the Grand Staircase, which would be obvious to everyone, but by the back stairs, the shortcut he usually took from his office to the second floor, where the crown prince’s suite was located, next to his mother’s. Marek was just about to announce the possible target to the security forces arrayed throughout the palace, when he heard Angelina’s calm voice in his ear.
“All security units. This is Captain Mateja-Jones. The crown prince may be the target. Repeat, the crown prince may be the target. Captain Zale is on his way to the crown prince’s suite. Units five and six move in to cover him. All other units remain in place. Repeat. All units except five and six remain in place. This could be a decoy or the leading edge of a two-pronged attack. All security units copy my orders.”
Warmth speared through Marek as he heard nothing but “Unit one, copy, unit two, copy” and right down the line. Five years ago, a female officer giving orders to men would have occasioned at least a slight hesitation. But not anymore.
“Dee-one,” Angelina continued. “Do you still have eyes on the targets in the chapel?”
“Yes, sir,” came the somewhat hushed voice. “They appear to be waiting for something.”
“Bee-five? Same question. Eyes on the target?”
“I do not have eyes on the target, sir, but he has not yet emerged from the kitchen.”
Marek was almost to the crown prince’s suite, and he could see units five and six converging on him, but he tapped his earpiece and said, “Bee-five, can you enter the kitchen unnoticed?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Jay-three? You are disguised as a waiter.”
“I’m on it, sir. ETA thirty seconds.” They were the longest thirty seconds of Marek’s life. Then he heard, “Jay-three in the kitchen. There is no maintenance man here. Repeat, no target here. But the service elevator appears to have gone to the fourth floor.”
Marek cursed under his breath, and he knew Angelina would be doing the same. He pounded on the door to the crown prince’s suite, knowing better than to just barge in—he had no intention of being shot by his own men. “It is Captain Zale,” he barked. “Today’s code word is eucalyptus. Open up.”
* * *
Tahra was exhausted by the time the receiving line was finished. Her feet hurt, her left hand—which she’d been forced to substitute for the right one she couldn’t use to shake hands with while her wrist was in a cast—was practically numb, and her smile felt glued to her face and just as fake.
“How do you do it?” she murmured to the queen at her side.
Juliana sighed softly. “I think about something else, if I can.”
Tahra glanced around. She’d noticed when Marek had left her side, but she’d expected him to return eventually. He hadn’t. And now she wondered where he was. Then Angelina was there, drawing Tahra a little to one side for a private word.
“Marek had to check on the crown prince,” she said softly. “I promised him I would watch over you in his absence.”
Tahra frowned. “Watch over me? Why does anyone need to watch over me?”
Angelina looked as if she’d like to say more...but couldn’t. “That you will have to ask him. Suffice it to say it is necessary.”
Tahra didn’t like it. More secrets, she thought. And after he promised me...
Then she remembered her vow earlier this evening. She wasn’t going to sweat the small stuff—and compared to what she and Marek shared, this was small stuff. If he was keeping a secret from her, he had a damned good reason; he’d given her his word and she was going to believe him.
“Well,” she told Angelina, “if you’re going to watch over me, I guess that means when I go to the ladies’ room, you go. Which means you’re going now because I have to go now.”
Angelina looked torn. “I cannot leave the queen.”
“You’re not on duty,” Tahra began, and then things started falling into place. “You are, aren’t you? And so is Marek.” Her voice was hushed. “That’s why he had to leave, because something is going down.” She put two and two together. “The Zakharian Liberation Front. And it has nothing to do with the refugees. Which means...assassination? Kidnapping? What?”
“I cannot tell you,” Angelina insisted. “I cannot.”
“I’ll ask the queen,” Tahra said, turning to look for her.
Angelina grabbed her arm. “She does not know, either.”
A chill shivered through her. Whatever it was, it was bad. So bad not even the queen had been told. But that didn’t remove her immediate problem, it only exacerbated it. “Angelina,” she began, but then she spotted Marek wending his way toward her through the crowd. “Oh, thank God.”
* * *
When Marek reached the two women, Angelina pulled him a little to one side and asked quietly, “The prince?”
He assured her just as quietly, “Safe. Units five and six arrived when I did. He has been moved to another location within the palace, and he has a dozen men surrounding him, with far more firepower than the five intruders we know are here.”
“The four in the chapel are under observation, but—”
“Yes,” he said. “One is unaccounted for. If we knew where he was...”
“Yes, if we knew where he was, we could nullify them all. But I am concerned about the missing man. And there is still—”
“Still the possibility this is a feint and the real attack will come when we least expect it,” he finished for her. He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice when he added, “I would give five years off my life to know.”
Angelina’s wry smile held nothing but understanding. “I feel the same. But that reminds me, I must return to the queen now that you are here to guard Tahra.” She turned to where Tahra had been...but she was gone. “Where did she go? She was right here.”
Marek swung around, then frantically scanned the crowded room, his heart clutching when he couldn’t spot her. “Tahra,” he mouthed as guilt swamped him. What kind of bodyguard was he, that he could let her out of his sight for even a moment?
“The ladies’ room,” Angelina said quickly. “She said she had to go, but I told her I could not leave the queen for that long, and then you showed up, and...”
“Stay with the queen,” Marek told her. “I will find Tahra.”
“Wait,” Angelina cried after him. “You cannot go into the—” But he had already disappeared into the crowd.
* * *
Tahra had slipped away as soon as Marek and Angelina had begun talking. There was no way she was going to interfere with them doing their jobs, but her need was urgent. So she’d made her way through the packed room as best she could, heading for the nearest exit and what she hoped would be an obvious ladies’ room. She was stopped several times by people who recognized her as the recipient of Zakhar’s highest civilian honor—which the king had presented to her prior to the receiving line—but she thanked them shyly and quickly excused herself.
When she finally exited the main entrance into the Great Hall, she saw a long line of women leading out of a discreetly recessed doorway and correctly interpreted that as her destination. But the line was too long. Then she muttered, “Duh!” under her breath and headed for the staircase and her suite, which wasn’t that far away.
Once her mission was finally accomplished, Tahra took a moment to check her hair and makeup and was just adding a little lip gloss when the palace was rocked by a loud explosion, emanating from somewhere overhead.
* * *
Panicked screams from the women in line by the ladies’ room and the crowd inside the Great Hall didn’t block out the sudden spate of reports coming in on Marek’s earpiece.
“This is Bee-five. Jay-three is with me. We took the stairs to the fourth floor in pursuit of the target. We apprehended him, but not until he’d already set off a bomb in a small conference room. The bomb appears to have been a diversion tactic, because despite the noise there appears to be minimal damage. But we were too late to—”
Another voice cut in. “This is Dee-one in the chapel. The four targets are on the move. Repeat, the four targets are on the move, heading out of the chapel. Destination unknown.”
Marek took a moment to push his way through the screaming women and thrust his head into the ladies’ room. “Tahra?” he bellowed. When no answer was forthcoming, he quickly apologized to the women and made for the stairs. If she wasn’t in the ladies’ room, there was only one other place she could be.
He tapped his earpiece. “This is Captain Zale, heading to the second floor. Status on the royals?”
“The king is safe,” said a voice he recognized as belonging to Major Kostya.
“So is the queen,” Angelina chimed in. “And Colonel Marianescu.”
Marek figured all three were together somewhere, under bodyguard protection, and he gave Angelina bonus points for not stating that over an encrypted military channel they hoped was secure...but couldn’t be absolutely sure about.
As he raced up the staircase, praying Tahra was safely inside her room and not wandering around unprotected somewhere, he heard the unmistakable chatter of machine gunfire outside the palace. I knew it! I knew the men inside the palace were just the leading edge of the attack.
He frantically unbuttoned his dress uniform jacket and drew his SIG SAUER P320 from its shoulder holster. But he couldn’t stop to investigate what was happening outside. He had to trust that the forces arrayed against the Zakharian Liberation Front they’d hoped would strike tonight were sufficient to handle whatever was thrown against them. His job was to protect Tahra. Not just because the king had ordered it, and Marek would never again—not while breath remained in his body—fail his king. But because Tahra was his world. If the members of the Zakharian Liberation Front who’d already infiltrated the palace saw her, they would have to silence her. And he couldn’t let that happen.
* * *
At first Tahra waited in her suite after the explosion. She’d already figured out by what Angelina had said and what she hadn’t said that something was going on. “They’ve set a trap for the Zakharian Liberation Front,” she reasoned beneath her breath. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
And if the terrorists were taking the bait, as seemed likely, the true motive behind all the attacks didn’t have anything to do with the refugees. What had Marek said in his office? “It is nothing I can name, just a feeling there is something we are overlooking.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered as the realization dawned. When you swept away all the extraneous clutter, all you were left with was the oldest motive in the world—a grab for power. And hadn’t she just been thinking about this very thing after dinner? About the threat of assassination that hung over the royal family?
Including their son.
“Oh, no. No.” Not an innocent little boy. They couldn’t. They couldn’t!
Then she heard Marek’s voice in her head. “Why are you surprised? If people would kill dozens of children in a schoolyard—which you prevented—why should one child be any different?”
She had to find Marek. She had to make him tell her the crown prince was safe, that he’d already planned for this contingency. Because if not...
Tahra pressed her ear against the door and didn’t hear anything, but the solid oak was something of a sound barrier. So she opened the door and peeked out. She didn’t see anything, so she stepped cautiously out the door and turned in the direction that would take her back down the way she’d come up.
A sound behind her made her whirl around. Four men in coveralls she recognized as those worn by the palace staff were heading in the opposite direction, and her first reaction was to heave a sigh of relief. But then she realized the men were moving away from the explosion, not toward it as most people would have done—especially someone who worked in the palace. And the shock made her gasp.
One man heard her. Turned. And when their eyes met across the short distance, Tahra was suddenly rooted to the spot as her memory returned in waves. Those eyes. She knew those eyes. That face. And just as she had in the schoolyard, she knew why he was here. She knew.
But this time he didn’t turn and walk away. This time his hand reached for something beneath the coverall he wore. He muttered to the three men with him, who all swung around, also reaching.
And Tahra knew it was too late to run.