Masquerade: Her Billionaire - Venice

  “Four or five, I’d say. Remember it was dark. I fought two of them off.”

  “Mr. Burns has a black belt in judo and is a fourth dan,” Farris said helpfully.

  “A knowledge of martial arts isn’t much of a help when you’re being chloroformed,” Cal said.

  “Indeed not.” Mr. Ambrosini’s mouth tightened. “Then what happened?” He addressed Anya.

  “I wasn’t chloroformed but I was incapacitated. I could barely breath, because of the punch and because the mask was so tight. I thought for a moment I was going to suffocate, until I learned that if I breathed in a shallow manner, I would be okay. Then I realized they were taking me somewhere. If they wanted me somewhere else that meant they didn’t want me dead. Not right away, anyway.”

  “This wasn’t the first time you’d been kidnapped,” Ambrosini said.

  “No.” Anya shuddered. “It isn’t.”

  Cal turned his head and looked at her. It felt like his chest was going to explode, his eyeballs burst out of his head. His Anya had been kidnapped before?

  When? Who?

  The fuck?

  She didn’t pick up on the violent emotions running through him. A slender shoulder rose and fell on a shrug. “In the fall of 2019. I was kidnapped by a breakaway faction of Hamas who didn’t want any part of the peace negotiations. Luckily, I was ransomed immediately. I just hoped that this group — whoever it was — was as greedy as that other group.”

  Her voice turned hoarse. “I was so worried about Cal, though I could see he was breathing before they put the mask on me.”

  “What language were they speaking?”

  “Chinese. Mandarin. And they spoke like soldiers, using military terminology. But the man who held a gun to my side spoke English to me. And there had been another man, who entered the room briefly. In costume. He sounded American. But the others were Chinese.”

  “You speak Chinese.” It wasn’t a question.

  She dipped her head. “I do. Both Mandarin and Cantonese and I’ve spent enough time in China to be able to understand a number of dialects. But these men didn’t speak any dialect nor did they speak with a regional accent. Like I said, they talked like soldiers. Even if they weren’t active-duty soldiers, they’d had military training. They came prepared to kidnap me.” She shot Cal a Look. “Settle down.”

  He’d half risen from his seat, unable to control himself. He felt Farris’s heavy hand on his shoulder and subsided. Ashamed of himself.

  Sort of.

  Mr. Ambrosini looked from Anya to him and back. Whatever he was thinking, nothing showed on his face. “What did they want from you?”

  Anya sighed. “Well, that’s the thing. Nothing I could give them. They wanted to know when was the last time I spoke with June Chen.”

  “The journalist?” Mr. Ambrosini cocked his head. Cal was really impressed. He’d never heard of June Chen until an hour ago.

  “Yes. They questioned me over and over about the last time I spoke with her. The last time I spoke with June was in Istanbul at the Decision Makers Conference last November. And it was an informal meeting between friends.”

  “They didn’t believe you?”

  “They didn’t. The man questioning me was insistent that a conversation between the two of us had been overheard at noon today. Yesterday, actually. He kept saying that June had spoken to me. I think they realized then that she’d called me and maybe left a message. So they wanted me to access my messages on my cell.”

  “But it wasn’t her cell, it was mine,” Cal said.

  Anya nodded. “We had identical cells and I’d put his in my purse by mistake.”

  Cal was watching Anya carefully and again marveled at her ability to present a façade that gave nothing away. She was a born diplomat.

  “When I saw it wasn’t mine and that it was password protected, I knew I had to stall. I couldn’t give them what they wanted and I was afraid —” her voice caught on the word, the first sign of emotion she’d shown. Her long, pale throat bobbed as she swallowed. When she spoke she was again in complete control. “I was afraid that if they discovered I couldn’t give them any information, they’d kill me. And then go after Cal. So I — resisted, I guess you’d say.”

  “They fucking tortured her,” Cal said heatedly. Unlike her he couldn’t keep emotion out of his voice. They’d tortured Anya and if he could go back and kill them all slowly and painfully, he’d do it. “They can’t get away with it.”

  “They surely won’t, Dr. Burns,” Ambrosini said, tone cold. “We do not allow that here in Venice.”

  “The man who — who interrogated me used a stun gun. Something like a cattle prod, which delivered an electric shock when it touched skin. It — it felt very powerful. I think —” she cleared her throat. “I think if they’d continued long enough, my heart would have given out.”

  “Meaning kill you,” Ambrosini said.

  “Yes.” Anya looked at Cal then away again. He knew what his face looked like. He looked like death and he was. Coming for the fuckers who’d tortured her. “Yes. It was a waiting game. How long I could hold out. How much patience they had. Their timeline seemed to be tight. I knew I had to hold out until Cal could come.”

  She held out her hand and he took it, brought her hand to his mouth. Didn’t care who saw it.

  Ambrosini switched his attention to Cal. It was like coming under a spotlight. Not a particularly pleasant sensation.

  “So, Dr. Burns. You saved her. How did you find her?”

  Cal didn’t mention the beads. “It was my cell she took with her. A company cell. We have an app on all our phones so we can be tracked when we’re in the field. We are used to working in uncharted desert environments and dangerous urban environments. The app tracks in real time and to an accuracy of one meter. I followed the app to a warehouse. Where I found four men guarding an abandoned building that looked like a warehouse and one man interrogating Dr. Voronova …”

  He stopped, throat constricted, unable to continue.

  Anya squeezed his arm, and picked up the story. She’d always been able to read him. “Cal arrived just in time. I don’t know how much longer I’d have been able to hold out. He managed to incapacitate the men and get me out. We hid in a gondola at one of the stazioni until his men and some of your officers came to get us. In the meantime, I was able to check my phone to see what they were trying to get from me. I found a message from June Chen. They must have overheard her leaving it for me. I think she’s in Athens at the moment. June found out there was going to be an attempt on the life of the President of China here in Venice, before the signing of the —”

  Everyone’s phone went off, buzzing and pulsing and ringing. Every single one.

  Cal checked his screen. PRESIDENT OF CHINA SAFE. Sent by one of Farris’s men. He met Farris’s eyes.

  Mr. Ambrosini reached out and clicked on the keyboard of the giant monitor on his desk. He turned it around so they could see. It was a channel called RAI NEWS, RAI being the state channel of Italy.

  A red chyron was scrolling across the bottom of the screen. SVENTATO ATTENTATO ALLA VITA DEL PRESIDENTE DELLA CINA.

  Anya turned to him. “An attack on the life of the President of China has just been thwarted.”

  He smiled at her. “Italian, too?”

  She shrugged. She was a genius with languages, his princess.

  Ambrosini was shifting his attention between the screen and his phone. He was the chief law enforcement officer in the city, his phone was telling him more than the state broadcasting company was telling them.

  He read off his phone. “Three men were arrested outside the hotel suite where President Hu was staying. His bodyguards had been incapacitated and the video cameras switched off. But thanks to the extra security added at the last minute —” He looked up from his phone screen and gave a grateful nod to Cal, Anya and Farris, “President Hu is in a safe location and has stated that he will be at the signing ceremony.”

  Cal leaned
forward. “I have reason to believe that an American was involved, probably for money. His name is Ashley Morris. He was CIA, might not be at the moment. But he was neck-deep in it.”

  “How do you know, Dr. Burns?” Ambrosini asked. “Are you certain? Accusing the CIA of what would be treason is a serious business.”

  “I’m not accusing the CIA, I’m accusing one operative and whoever was working with him.”

  Cal pulled out the tiny tracker he’d found in his jacket pocket, placed it on the highly polished surface of Ambrosini’s desk. “Tracker. Found it in my pocket. Ash placed it there. He was at the reception looking for Dr. Voronova. All he had to identify her with was a copy of her Peace and Jobs badge photograph. He said that he had facial recognition software in his cell, but it was a masked ball. If Anya — Dr. Voronova — was wearing a mask it couldn’t work. So he saw me and asked if I could find Anya for him. He knew we were friends in college. And he must have put the tracker in my pocket then. So the kidnapers knew exactly where to find her.”

  Mr. Ambrosini turned the tracker over with the tip of a pencil. “Too small to take fingerprints.”

  “Yeah.” Cal leaned forward. “But I’d be willing to testify in any court in the world that he was the one who slipped it into my pocket.”

  Though Cal hadn’t seen it, he’d cheerfully perjure himself if it could be one brick in the wall that incarcerated Ash Morris.

  It still burned that he’d been an instrument of the bad guys finding Anya. If he hadn’t been blasted by the idea of seeing her after ten years, he’d have figured it out sooner. And then seeing Anya — every thought in his head had just disappeared, like fog in the wind.

  Ambrosini was taking notes in a notebook.

  Anya’s eyes closed and didn’t open again. She was slumping up against him. Well, she’d saved the Mediterranean Accords, changed the course of history. She deserved to rest. Cal rose.

  “Mr. Ambrosini, if there are no further questions, I’m taking Dr. Voronova to the closest medical facility and then making sure she rests.”

  Anya came to with a start. “Oh! No! Cal, I’m fine.”

  He deliberately looked her up and down, not in a lover-like gaze but assessing her. She looked exhausted, completely drained. “You’re not fine. You’ve been manhandled and punched and terrorized and tortured. A doctor should look at you.”

  She shook her head and to his alarm, That Look he recognized came over that beautiful face. It was the look of when she could not be swayed.

  “I don’t want a doctor, I don’t want a medical center, I want a shower and a bed and I want to be there for the ceremony tomorrow. Peace and Jobs has worked tirelessly for this and I will be there.”

  Fuck. When she decided something, that was it. He knew that. Cal gave up, but not with grace.

  “Where is your hotel, Doctor?” Ambrosini asked Anya.

  “Hotel del Sole. Along the Riva degli Schiavoni.”

  “We have a vaporetto waiting outside, behind the Questura. My men will escort you and provide security until all the members of the conspiracy are arrested.”

  She nodded and turned to Cal. She reached out and curled her hand around his forearm. He put his hand on hers. Her hand was trembling.

  “Help me, Cal.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She was at the end of her rope. She didn’t want medical attention, she wanted him.

  Well, she had him.

  “I need to be there at the ceremony. I must. My boss, Larry Silver, will be there for the gala, but he won’t be there in time for the signing ceremony. I must be there tomorrow. So many people have worked so very hard. I can’t let them down. If you’re with me, I can rest and feel safe.”

  Oh yeah. He’d be with her.

  He nodded.

  Ambrosini accompanied them to the door. He lifted Anya’s hand and bowed over it. “Dr. Voronova we owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. Without your quick intervention, we could be facing a tragedy and an international crisis. We owe you an undying debt of gratitude.”

  She studied his face. “Find my friend, please. Make sure she is safe.”

  Cal gently took her phone and held it up to Farris and Ambrosini. “Here’s her number, this is what she looks like. Farris, I’m sending you the recording. The woman saved the Accords, let’s find her and keep her safe.” Farris and Ambrosini were taking note of her number and the recording. He took Anya’s arm. “In the meantime, I am taking my woman to her hotel and making sure she sleeps soundly and makes it to the signing ceremony tomorrow.” He looked everyone in the eye. “Any objections?”

  “We’ll stake out the Hotel del Sole, boss. The two of you can sleep easy tonight.”

  “And my men will form a further security perimeter,” Ambrosini said.

  Cal nodded. He had no intention of sleeping, but he had every intention of making sure Anya slept.

  She was his now, once again, and he was going to take really good care of her. By some miracle, they’d been given a second chance and he was going to grab that with both hands.

  The next day was cold, but bright and sunny. Everything gleamed in the vivid light of the hour before sunset. The colors of Venice — red and gold and ochre caught between the blue lagoon and the blue sky — shone and shimmered.

  The Venetians knew how to do pageantry right, Anya thought as she looked out over the crowd in St. Mark’s Square. Everyone was waving the blue, gold and green flag of the Accords, and everyone was excited.

  Nobody knew how close they had come to not having the Accords at all. She couldn’t bear to think of the chaos and violence that would have ensued. Centuries of hatred and distrust breaking out again, worse for having had hopes dashed.

  But now it was a done deal. At the podium, erected right in front of St. Mark’s Cathedral, the very symbol of the marriage of East and West, covered in blue, gold and green bunting, the heads of state of the six signatory guarantor countries had just finished signing the Accords, printed on parchment and bound as a book as thick as the Gutenberg Bible.

  The United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, Saudi Arabia. Forty other countries would sign the Accords after that. The 120 NGOs, including Peace and Jobs, would be signing at the gala dinner and her boss would be here for that. He was in the air right now, his plane about to land.

  The final signing was here at last, after which there would officially be peace in a part of the world that had been at war for a millennium. Quite an accomplishment.

  As the signing ceremony ended, twenty trumpeters in bright medieval garb, and in the colors of Venice — red and gold — rose, put the long, shiny, medieval trumpets to their mouths and sounded a loud fanfare. A thousand doves were released and rose in the air with a loud flutter.

  “Hope they weren’t recently fed.” Cal bent over and whispered in her ear, with a quick wink.

  “Pigeon guano,” she whispered back. “A longstanding Venetian tradition.”

  The fanfare ended, the bright brassy notes lingering in the clear air, so pure you could almost see them shimmering. A conductor in tails stood up, baton in hand, brought his arms up and sharply down, beginning a thrilling rendition of Sheherezade from the orchestra seated on the right-hand side of the colorful podium.

  Anya and Cal were sitting on bleachers to the left, together with everyone who had worked directly on the Accords. At least two thousand people stood in the piazza to honor the Accords, standing stock still, in utter silence. Many had tears running down their faces.

  Anya was too happy to cry, even tears of joy.

  Today’s ceremony was the culmination of years and years of unremitting effort that was ultimately successful and would change millions of lives for the better.

  She was feeling just fine. Last night, Cal had taken her back to her hotel, posted his company’s guards on the floor of her hotel room, assuring that there was a second perimeter of Italian police, and guarded her sleep. He’d understood that she was too exhausted and traumatized for sex. He had
n’t even mentioned it, though she couldn’t help but notice that he’d sported an impressive erection. Not that he’d tried to act on it. Not at all.

  He’d gently washed her and put her to bed as tenderly as a mother with her child. And then he’d sat in a chair by her bed, holding her hand. When she woke up in the early afternoon, he was there, clear-eyed, wide awake.

  She’d slept deeply, for over twelve hours.

  Cal had ordered room service — truffle tagliatelle and a glass of Pinot Grigio, perfection itself — and waited while she dressed. Then they’d walked the short distance to St. Mark’s Square along the Riva degli Schiavoni for the late afternoon ceremony.

  He’d arranged for her bags to be packed and delivered to his suite at the Hotel Danieli. As if aware of the fact that he was being bossy, he lifted his eyebrows while arranging this with her hotel’s concierge and she nodded. It was all okay.

  Anya felt strange. Good, but strange. The long and deep sleep, watched over by Cal, had restored her. But she felt light, as if she could float away at any moment. The signing ceremony had freed her, in a way. Like taking ten years to climb Mount Everest, and then you stood on the peak and you were done. Free.

  She’d worked so very hard for the Accords, believing in them with every fiber of her being, putting everything else in her life aside. And now they were signed. There were going to be complex negotiations to iron out the details of the 1,300 page Accords. It was a done deal, but something this complex needed breathing space and dialogue.

  Her job was over.

  Anya hadn’t much looked beyond the completion of the Accords. Her boss had offered her a renewal of her contract but she’d neither accepted nor declined. But now she knew that her job there was done and a new door had opened and she was going to walk through it with Cal.

  Her phone pinged. She didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but she saw the name on her screen.

  “June!” The face on the screen was her friend, smiling and happy. Completely different from the tense, terrified face she’d seen there last night. “You’re ok!”