Behind Enemy Lines (9 page)

R
IQ AWOKE
in darkness with the back of his head feeling like someone was hitting it with a mallet. He raised his hands to calm the headache, then realized they were tied in front of him. His legs were tied, too, and he must have been this way for some time because his lower leg had fallen asleep and was tingling with pain.

Riq tried to shake it out, but the jostling only made his arm brush along something beneath him that was sharp and left small cuts in his skin. Where was he anyway?

Wiggling his body around, Riq felt a low metal roof over his head, an uneven floor, and metal sides. Then he groaned. This was the trunk of a car. An early model SQuautomobile, no doubt.

The last thing he remembered was being on the phone with Sera, trying to warn her about Tilda. Then someone clunked him on the head and now he was in here. The car was stopped, which might mean they had already arrived wherever they were going. Probably Spain, where Sera and the Infinity Ring were.

Riq rolled again, hoping to find a way out of the trunk. He couldn’t kick his way free; even feeling the thick metal with his hands he could tell it was far more solid than the cars of his era. Maybe it was true what his grandmother had always told him. Maybe things
were
made better back in the day.

So he moved to his back again, but this time he landed directly on that sharp edge of metal. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it was hard to avoid and would have him in slices by the time someone came for him. He tried shifting, but the ropes around his wrists got caught on the metal piece.

Riq rolled his eyes — it was one of his biggest “duh” moments ever. Immediately, he started scraping the rope against the metal, letting the sharp edge dig deeper and deeper into the fibers. It took him longer than he wanted, but finally there was a snap and the rope loosened. He shook it off, then crouched forward and began untying the rope around his feet.

Once he was free, he felt around the trunk for any way to release the latch, but nothing he pressed on did any good, and there didn’t seem to be anything with him in this trunk that could be used to escape. His only choice was to wait until someone opened the trunk from the outside. Maybe if he jumped up at just the right time . . .

Maybe not. Tilda’s two SQ thugs were big guys, and unless they were half asleep they’d catch him before he even got to a sitting position.

And it might already be too late. The car had been parked for some time. Tilda might have the Ring now. She was desperate to get it; she had talked about nothing else while she had him captured, waiting each night for Sera to call. She kept asking Riq about it until he convinced her that only Sera knew how to operate it or how it worked.

But then he heard the car doors open and shut, and voices outside the trunk — the two SQ men. They were arguing about something, though he couldn’t catch any of the words. Then one man yelled to the other to stop talking so loudly or Tilda would be furious with them, and Riq couldn’t help but smile. No matter how big and brutal those guys were, they were still afraid of Tilda.

When the trunk lid opened, Riq was lying on his side in the same position as when he’d first awoken. The ropes were over his wrists and ankles as if he was still tied up, and his eyes were closed.

“How hard did you hit him anyway?” one of the men asked.

“I dunno. Is he still alive?”

The first guy reached down and felt for the pulse at his neck. “Of course he is. And what do we care if he’s hurt anyway? Once we have the Infinity Ring, it doesn’t matter if he lives.”

Riq resented that. It mattered a great deal to him whether he lived.

“All I care about is the money she promised us. Nothing else.”

“What does money matter?” The man speaking now lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “If we stay close to Tilda until she has the Ring,
we
could take it for ourselves and sell it for all the money in the world.”

They both laughed greedily. Then one of them asked, “Do you think that girl is at the lake yet?”

“How would I know? But Tilda left a long time ago. We need to make room in this trunk. When she gets the Ring, she’ll bring the girl back here. Then we’ll take them both for a long ride. Maybe Tilda, too.”

“A long, one-way ride,” the other man said, chuckling. He reached forward to scoot Riq’s body deeper into the trunk. When he did, Riq shot out his legs and kicked the man backward. Soccer practice had been useful for something other than making goals. It also built excellent leg muscles.

The man stumbled back, knocking the other to the ground with him, and Riq leapt from the trunk like a cannon had shot him out of there. Both men got to their feet and began chasing him down the street.

The car had been parked in a sort of alley but across from a large park – probably the park where Sera was supposed to meet Tilda. The thugs said they weren’t sure if that meeting had happened yet, only that it would happen near a lake.

But it couldn’t be just anywhere at the lake. There would have to be some sort of landmark. Someplace easy for both of them to find. He had to look for something like that.

He ran across the street with the two SQ men not far behind him. But again, soccer was paying off. Riq could run fast, and he was sure they would get tired before he did. The park was busy today, and Riq did his best to not get tangled in the crowds. He passed a small fountain and paused to look back, but saw the SQ men just on the opposite side. One lunged for him and ended up splashing into the fountain.

Up ahead was a group of children, probably on a school trip. Riq weaved among them effortlessly and then darted off the trail at an intersection, onto a small path between tall rows of thick green shrubs. He squeezed between two shrubs and used a tiny hole in the greenery to peek through.

The men caught up to the schoolchildren, which slowed them down considerably. They came to the intersection and looked in all directions, then continued down the main park trail. Riq exhaled in relief. At least for now, he was safe.

But he couldn’t stay hidden. He had to find Sera, and fast.

Riq emerged from his hiding place and saw a man and his wife not far from him. He tapped the man’s shoulder, then in Spanish asked him if there were any landmarks near the lake. The man rolled his eyes as if Riq had just asked the most obvious question in the world, right up there with which direction he should look to find the sky. But he told him to look for the great monument, jerked a finger in that direction, and Riq went running, tossing a
gracias
behind him.

Riq soon found the lake, but it was a long way around to the other side, where a tall bronze statue portrayed a man on a horse surrounded by smaller white columns. Steps led from the statue down to the water and, in the center of them all, was Tilda, perfectly straight and still, waiting for Sera.

Riq looked around him again. The thugs were here somewhere, knowing this was where he’d go. But where were they?

Then he saw another figure emerge onto the steps. Sera. In her hands was some sort of suitcase. She must’ve put the Infinity Ring in there for safety. She clutched it to her chest, unwilling to give it up, and then she spoke to Tilda for a moment.

Riq began running. As fast as he could and with no care for whether the men would jump out at him. Sera could not give up that Ring, and she definitely could not go anywhere with Tilda.

He called out Sera’s name but a breeze was blowing in his face, carrying his words away from the stone steps. He waved his arms, hoping to make Sera see him, desperate to stop her.

Instead, he caught Tilda’s attention. Her oily lips pressed tightly together, and she ripped the suitcase away from Sera’s hands. Sera took a step back but Tilda clutched her arm, too, and started dragging her away.

As Riq continued running, the SQ men came through the columns, aiming directly for him. With them on one side and the lake in the other, Riq had a choice to make: run away and save himself, or run toward Tilda and risk being captured again.

They were trapped. But he knew what he had to do.

“Sera, no!”

Recognizing Riq’s voice, Sera looked over her shoulder and saw her friend racing toward her. Tilda actually hissed as she released Sera’s arm and turned to run, still clutching the suitcase tightly. Riq obviously wanted to chase after her, but two burly men were running toward them, reeking of the SQ. So while Tilda bolted with the suitcase, Sera pulled Riq with her in the other direction.

“You escaped?” Sera asked Riq as they ran. She was beyond relieved about that.

“From those two guys chasing us,” Riq said.

Sera glanced behind them, but the men weren’t there. They had disappeared with Tilda. “I think they’re gone.”

Riq slowed, then stopped and looked carefully around them. When he was satisfied they were safe, he looked back at her with lips turned down and eyes that were clearly angry. Sera had expected gratitude from him. Not anger.

“You never should’ve come,” he said.

“To save your life?” Sera said. “Yeah, so sorry about that.”

“You saved my life, but at what price?” Riq drew in a breath. “You’ve given Tilda the power to destroy the world.”

“She would’ve killed you if I didn’t meet her.”

“I’m a Hystorian, Sera. Protecting history from the SQ is more important than any of our lives. My life especially.”

Sera blinked hard, but her eyes were clear when she stared back at him. “Dak and I can’t do this alone. If we lose you, we won’t be able to protect history from a stiff breeze.”

She saw Riq soften at that, and his eyes darted away a moment before he said, “Thanks for the rescue, really. But just think about all the damage Tilda can do now. With the Ring, she could undo everything we’ve done. Or worse, go to other times and create entirely new Breaks.”

At that, Sera smiled. “I’ve learned a few tricks since becoming a spy, you know. The Infinity Ring is safely hidden in locker forty-three at the train station.”

Riq broke into a grin as well. “What was in that suitcase, then?”

“Rocks.” Sera giggled. “Tilda’s about to discover she made a deal for a couple of dumb, heavy rocks.”

The leaves on the other side of the hedge where they were talking rustled in the wind, a reminder they were still out in the open. Tilda and her thugs were somewhere nearby. It was time to go.

Besides, they had a war to win.

D
AK HAD
spent most of the past few days keeping his head down and, whenever possible, keeping out of sight. He did whatever kitchen work was asked of him and slept in a pantry hidden behind large buckets of sugar and flour. It wasn’t pleasant, but neither was getting caught by the SQ. Of the two, he knew which was worse.

That all changed one afternoon when word came that an officer upstairs wanted a cup of tea. Everyone was busy preparing for supper, and finally the woman who had hired him pointed at Dak and said, “You, boy, take it up to him.”

Dak wanted to tell her no, for the very good reason that somewhere outside the kitchens were two people under orders from Tilda to shorten his life span significantly. But he also knew he wasn’t there to hide. It was his job to make sure that the German military’s leaders accepted Major Martin’s papers as real. This was an opportunity to get closer to them.

So he gathered everything for the tea onto a tray and asked, “Who is this for?”

Don’t say it’s for Hitler
, he thought. If it was, Dak would be sorely tempted to throw the hot tea on him, Mincemeat Man or not.

But it wasn’t. “Colonel Von Roenne,” came the answer. “He’s in his office upstairs.”

Dak rolled his eyes and walked into the hallway. Von Roenne hadn’t exposed him to Cleo and Anton before, which was a good sign. But Dak was still struggling to remember the significance of Von Roenne’s name. He wished he’d thought to pick up a history book or two while in the twenty-first century.

Once upstairs, he passed several closed doors and wondered who was inside. He passed some open doors, too. In one of them, several Nazi officers were engaged in a loud argument.

“Martin is nothing but a Trojan horse!” one of the men shouted. “The British are playing tricks just as the Romans once did.”

“Greeks!” Dak said before he thought better of it. The men stopped and stared at him, then Dak clamped his mouth shut and passed the open door.

Okay, yes, maybe he shouldn’t have said anything, but if they were going to discuss the Trojan horse, they ought to get their facts straight. Over three thousand years ago BC, the Greeks wanted to invade the city of Troy, but after ten years of fighting still couldn’t get inside their walls. So they built a huge wooden horse and left it outside the city walls, then went away. The Trojans pulled the horse inside their gates as a prize of war. What the city didn’t know was that the Greeks had hidden soldiers inside the wooden horse, who waited until everyone was asleep at night, then snuck out and opened the gates. The rest of their army entered, and Troy fell soon after.

Whether the story actually happened was debatable, but personally, Dak believed it. And he thought the comparison to Mincemeat Man was pretty fair, too. The British had given Germany something they’d think was a prize of war — a dead body with secret information attached. But that information could be as destructive to the Germans as the Greek soldiers were to Troy. Mincemeat Man really was a modern-day Trojan horse.

“If the British wanted to trick us, there are easier ways,” another man argued.

“Major Kuhlenthal tells us he will have Martin’s papers any day now,” a third man said. “Let’s see what they say and then we’ll decide.”

“Kuhlenthal is too desperate to please the Führer,” the first man said. “He will want to believe the papers are true because he needs them to be true. We need a more reasonable evaluation.”

“Colonel Von Roenne will look over the information,” the third man said. “There are few people Hitler trusts more.”

Hearing the colonel’s name reminded Dak that he had better deliver the tea before the water got cold. He left the men arguing and walked the rest of the way to Von Roenne’s office.

He knocked on the door and heard a quick “Come in.” Dak carefully balanced the heavy tray on one hand while he turned the doorknob and entered. But for all that, he nearly dropped it anyway once he looked up. Staring back at him, on either side of Von Roenne’s desk, were Anton and Cleo.

Dak froze, unsure of what to do. It was too late to pretend he didn’t know who they were. Should he drop the tray and run? Expose their SQ connections to Von Roenne? Maybe the colonel already knew. Maybe that’s why he had called Dak here.

Anton and Cleo grinned wickedly when they recognized him, but Von Roenne didn’t seem to notice. He motioned for Dak to bring the tray over to him, and then apologized for not having any to offer the others in the room.

“Shall I send this boy to bring more tea?” he asked politely.

“No,” Anton said, staring down at Dak. “We can get whatever we want from him later on. And we will.” His grin widened, but not in a pleasant way.

Von Roenne shifted the tray on his desk and several papers fell onto the floor near Dak. “Pick them up, will you, boy?” he asked.

Dak dropped to his knees to straighten the papers that had fallen. One, right on top, was printed with purple ink on a half sheet of thin, cream-colored paper. It was a telegram — sort of like text messaging for the 1940s. It read:

Col Von Roenne: Will have papers soon. Will offer evaluation but hope you agree. Maj Kuhlenthal

Dak figured this was probably the note that had started the argument back in that other room. He’d heard Kuhlenthal’s name before, how powerful he eventually became in the war. This telegraph certainly had to be referring to Major Martin’s papers.

Dak finished straightening the rest of the pile, then got to his feet and put it on the desk. Von Roenne noticed the telegram on top and looked up as if to ask whether Dak had read the telegram. But he didn’t actually ask, and Dak wasn’t about to volunteer the information. He only backed up and said, “May I go now?”

“You may,” Von Roenne said.

“We’d better be leaving, too,” Cleo said, keeping one eye on Dak.

“Not yet,” Von Roenne said. “I have a few more questions first.”

“Very well.” She seemed irritated, but clearly had to do as Von Roenne ordered. Before Dak left, she turned to him and said, “I will want some tea when I’m finished here. I’ll know where to find you when I’m ready.”

Dak left the office, but he wasn’t going back to the kitchens now. Maybe not ever. Every part of him wanted to leave the bunker at once and run for his life. But he was a spy now, and he had to finish his mission.

If this Major Kuhlenthal would have the papers soon, and if it was Von Roenne’s job to decide whether they were real, then Dak had to get closer to Von Roenne. He found a small closet not far from Von Roenne’s office and ducked inside, then closed the door after him. When Kuhlenthal sent the papers, the men in the office would begin arguing about them again. And that would be his sign that it was time to come out and convince one of Hitler’s most trusted men to let his country lose a world war.