Buch lesen: «That Summer In Maine»

Chapter One

June 23, 7:05 p.m.

Lamplight Harbor, Maine

Duffy March was already formulating a plan as he listened to Elliott Lawton wind up the story of his daughter’s kidnapping. Under the professional assessment of danger, and the knowledge that he’d have to argue for a place among the gendarmes responding to the scene, was the awareness that this was the scenario he used to dream about when he was eight and Maggie was his sixteen-year-old baby-sitter. Her father worked for the State Department, while his taught history at Georgetown University.

Then nothing had separated them but eight years and a stockade fence between his parents’ property in Arlington and the Lawtons’, but that had changed considerably since she’d moved to Europe.

She was now the much-adored star of the London stage, and the widow of a prominent banker, while he was the single father of two, who owned and operated a security company. He had a staff of forty who’d helped him acquire a worldwide reputation among the noble and the famous who needed protection. The living was good, with a penthouse apartment in Manhattan and a very large waterfront home on the coast of Maine where he and the boys spent the summers.

“What I fear the most,” Elliott confided as he paced the broad deck that looked out on the ocean, “is that…she’ll be happy to let it all go bad.”

Charlie March, Duffy’s father, who’d flown the light plane that had brought them here from Arlington right after the State Department called Charlie with the news, caught his friend’s arm and pushed him into a chair. “Sit down, Elliott, before we have to resuscitate you.”

Charlie sat beside him and shook his head grimly at his son. “She’s had a sort of death wish since she lost Harry and the boys. He’s afraid she’ll do something reckless and…you know.”

“Tell me you can go to France,” Elliott pleaded, on his feet and ignoring his drink. “I know the gendarmes will do all they can, but with six hostages and men with guns everywhere, I’m so afraid she’ll literally get caught in the crossfire. I can get you clearance to accompany them. And you have your own connections there, don’t you? Didn’t you work for a member of the French parliament once?”

He nodded. Gaston Dulude, who’d waged war against a band of French drug dealers, had wanted protection for his wife and himself as the case went to trial.

“Of course I’ll go to France,” Duffy assured him, “but my housekeeper’s on vacation. You’ll have to stay with Mike and Adam, Dad.”

Charlie nodded. “Of course.”

“I’ll stay, too,” Elliott promised. “What can we do to help you get ready?”

“You can get me that clearance, Mr. Lawton,” Duffy said, pointing to the phone, “while I get myself a flight to Paris.”

“Just get packed,” Elliott said. “I’ll get you a plane, too.”

As Duffy headed for the stairs, the back door slammed and his boys came racing through the kitchen into the living room. They’d been at a birthday party for the Baker twins, boys Mike’s age who lived two doors over.

Mike, seven, led the way, stick-straight black hair flopping in his eyes, the red sweater and jeans that had been pristine just a few hours ago now smeared with food or finger paints, or both. Four-year-old Adam followed in his dust, the food and finger paints smeared across his face as well as his clothes. He had Lisa’s fair good looks and passionate personality.

The boys ignored Duffy completely and went straight for their grandfather. “I saw your car, Grandpa!” Mike exclaimed.

Wisely, Charlie sat down as Mike flew into his lap. Adam followed, wrapping his arm gleefully around his grandfather’s neck. Duffy saw Elliott turn away, holding the phone to his ear and blocking the other so that he could hear, using the call as an excuse to be able to focus his attention elsewhere.

It had to be hard for him, Duffy guessed, to see Charlie enveloped by his grandchildren when he’d never see his own again.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Mike asked.

As Duffy topped the stairs, he heard his father reply that he was staying a little longer than that.

Duffy had packed a small bag, made a call to his office in New York and was ready to go when the boys rushed into his room as though pursued. Mike always traveled at top speed, and Adam was determined that his older brother never escape him.

Duffy sat on the edge of his bed to explain his sudden departure.

“When are you coming back?” Mike climbed up next to him and leaned into his arm, looking worried. “Grandpa said he didn’t know.”

“I think three or four days,” Duffy replied, lifting Adam onto his knee. “If it’s going to be longer, I’ll call you.”

“Grandpa said you’re going to help a friend.”

“Yes.”

“He said bad guys took her and you have to get her back.”

“Yes. But I’m going to have a lot of help.”

Mike sighed. “You won’t get shot, right, ’cause you always know what you’re doing?”

Duffy liked to think Mike’s faith in him wasn’t misplaced. “That’s right. I’ll be fine. And so will she. I’ll be back home before you know it.”

“You’re friends with a girl?” Adam asked. He screwed up his pink-cheeked face into a ripple of nose, lips and chin, and crossed his bright blue eyes. “We don’t have any girls around here ’cause we don’t like ’em.”

Duffy laughed and squeezed him close. “I like them. I just don’t happen to have one. But I would if I could.”

That was apparently beyond Adam’s comprehension. “They’re silly and they’re afraid of snakes.”

“I thought you were afraid of snakes,” Mike needled.

Adam shrugged off the reminder. “That was when I was little.”

Mike rolled his eyes at Duffy. “He’s a real giant now,” he said under his breath.

Adam socked him on the shoulder.

Duffy caught his hand and reminded, “Hey! No hitting, remember? And no giving Grandpa any trouble while I’m gone. He’s getting older and he can’t chase you down or climb trees to get you when you’ve gone too high.”

“If we’re perfect,” Mike bargained, “can we go to Disney World before summer’s over?”

They’d talked about that a few times during the year, and though Duffy had made no promises, it was on his agenda.

“You think you can be perfect?” Duffy teased Mike.

Mike nodded, then qualified that with his head tilted in Adam’s direction. “But I’m not sure he can do it.”

“I can, too!” Adam raised a fist to punch him again, then at Duffy’s expression, thought better of it and withdrew it. “What is perfect?”

“It means really, really good,” Mike informed him. “No mistakes.”

Duffy lifted Adam onto his hip and let Mike drag his overnight bag toward the stairs. “Perfect’s a little hard to strive for. Just listen to Grandpa, stay in the yard like you’re supposed to, unless Grandpa says it’s okay to go next door, and eat your vegetables.”

Adam made another face as they started down the stairs. “What if Grandpa makes eggplant like Desiree does sometimes?”

“I’ll ask him not to.” Duffy turned to Mike, who struggled with the bag. “Want me to take that?”

Mike shook his head. “I got it, Dad.”

Duffy watched Mike with love and pride, and thought as he had many times over the past three years, that taking him had been one of the best moves he’d ever made.

At the bottom of the stairs, Charlie took the bag from Mike.

“I’m flying you to Kennedy,” he said, “to meet an old CIA pal of Elliott’s who’s taking you to Paris. Elliott’s staying with the boys.”

“Tell him about the eggplant!” Adam whispered loudly in Duffy’s ear.

THE FOLLOWING DAY Duffy lay on his stomach in the grass at the top of a slope in the Pyrenees. A dozen gendarmes were ranged around him, looking down on the Basque camp in the meadow below. The air was sweet with wildflowers, the whispered sounds around him spoken in an unfamiliar language, and somewhere in that meadow, the woman who’d saved his life when she was a teenager waited for rescue. It if weren’t for the glare in his eyes and the itch of grass and insects under his black sweater, he’d think this wasn’t real.

But it was. He peered through binoculars to the scene below and saw men in camouflage and berets—the separatists. Then he noticed two men, hands tied behind their backs, sitting under a tree, and two women, hands also tied, one lying on the ground, presumably asleep, the other walking agitatedly back and forth. She was slender and moved as though she was young. He tried to focus on their faces, but they were too far away.

Maggie was blond, though, and both women were dark-haired. He scanned the camp for some sign of her and the third man. He finally spotted them across the camp, sitting back to back. It looked as though they were talking.

He focused on the woman as closely as he could and saw long, disheveled hair the color of polished gold. The sun picked it out like a mirror and made a halo around it. He couldn’t see her face, just a pair of long legs bent at the knee in camel-colored pants.

He turned the glasses to the man she leaned against and saw that he was about her height, in a baseball cap and glasses also picked out by the sun. They were exhausted, judging by the way they leaned on each other.

It had been almost twenty hours since they’d been taken, and he could only imagine their weariness and fear. It was clearly visible in the woman pacing back and forth.

Instinct demanded that he run down the slope now, a full clip in his Glock. Reason, fortunately, dictated otherwise. Count men and weapons. Memorize positions. Rest and wait for darkness.

That was exactly the order passed on to him in broken English from the young captain lying prone beside him.

His eyes burned with the strain of keeping track of that spot of gold in the distance. Just as dusk turned to darkness, he watched one of the men in camouflage hook an arm into Maggie’s and help her to her feet. Then he did the same for the man. He led them to the fire and ladled them bowls of food.

Then it became too dark to see details. The campfire flickered in the blackness, and finally the moon appeared from behind a cloud to cast a frail light on the camp. He searched it for a glimpse of gold and spotted it near the tree where the two men had sat. He thought he saw the agitated young woman near her, but he couldn’t be sure.

The air crackled with tension as the order came to move down the slope. Duffy, focused on that glimpse of gold, stayed on the flank so that he could move out in an instant.

“I CAN NOT STAND IT another moment!” Celine whispered in heavily accented English. Her mouth trembled and her whole body shook. She’d been on the brink of hysteria since they’d been ambushed on the hiking trail in the park, and was now about to plunge over the edge.

“It’s going to be all right,” Maggie told her as she’d done a dozen times since this nightmare had begun.

But as the girl continued to whine, Maggie was distracted by something she couldn’t quite define, some subtle disturbance of air she felt rather than heard. She turned toward the rugged slope just beyond their camp, wondering if she was imagining things.

There was nothing to see in the pale moonlight, but she noticed that the leader, Eduard, had sensed something, too. His men seemed unaware of anything, but Baldy came up beside her. With the actor’s gift for feeling what couldn’t be seen, he asked under his breath, “What is it?”

Before she could answer, Eduard shouted something to his men as he shrugged the Uzi off his shoulder and aimed it toward the slope. Two of their captors came running toward the hostages and tried to round them up and lead them into the trees.

But Celine screamed, now clearly in a panic, and ran in the other direction.

One of the soldiers aimed his weapon at her and shouted something that was probably a command to stop.

Maggie, already in pursuit of her, doubted that she heard the order.

“Celine!” she shouted. “Get down!”

But Celine hadn’t heard her, either.

The order was issued again and punctuated with the sound of gunfire.

Maggie ran faster, so close to Celine that she could have touched her had her hands not been tied. Her only hope was to throw herself at the girl and knock her to the ground before a bullet did.

But before she could do that, something struck her from the side and knocked her off her feet. For a surprised instant she simply lay in the cool grass hearing the sounds of chaos in the camp. There were cries, gunfire, shouted commands. She heard Celine’s sobbing.

Then she became aware of the weight stifling her and struck backward with an elbow, certain the Basque gunman had caught them.

“Whoa! I…oof!” She flailed and kicked like a wild thing, the part of her mind not occupied with the struggle wondering why she was doing it when she didn’t care if she lived or died. Then she decided it was probably a matter of being able to decide for herself when and where she gave up.

Her foot had connected with flesh, and she took advantage of her opponent’s momentary surprise to scramble to her feet and run in the direction of Celine’s sobs.

But she didn’t get far. She was tackled around the ankles and went down with a thud. She turned with a scream of rage, flailing wildly in the dark, trying to sit up.

“Maggie!”

A flash exploded just as a hand shoved her back to the grass, and there was a grunt of pain as her attacker went down. Then another flash lit the night right beside her, and a man in camouflage fell across her body.

Even as the horror of the moment chilled her through, her brain was working on what was out of place here.

Then she realized what it was. The man she’d tried to fight off had called her Maggie in perfect, unaccented English. She also realized that the shot intended for her had caught him. God. Had she gotten one of their rescuers killed?

No. An instant later the body of the man who’d fallen across her was dragged off and she was turned onto her face as more gunfire rattled overhead. The man’s weight held her down, and she heard the deafening sound of his weapon and the thump of another body not too far away.

Then everything grew quiet.

“Monsieur March?” a voice with a rolling French accent whispered in the stillness. “You are well?”

“We’re fine,” he replied. “You?”

“Oui. But you were hit, no?”

“Yes. It’s just a scrape. Is the woman all right?”

“She has fainted.”

The man holding Maggie down said wryly, “If only I’d been that lucky.”

Maggie tried to turn, but the hand continued to hold her down. “Lie still,” the man commanded, “until we get the all-clear.”

“I’m sorry.” Maggie spoke into the grass. “But when a man tackles a woman to the ground she presumes she’s not going to like whatever he has planned.”

“My plans were to prevent you from getting shot,” he countered, then added on a note of amusement, “Unfortunately, you didn’t have the same plans for me.”

She sighed and dropped her forehead to the grass. “Again, I’m sorry. It was dark. You were running after me…”

“It’s all right. I’m fine.”

A shout came from the main part of the camp, and the man got to his feet, pulling her with him. “All clear, Maggie. Pretty soon you’ll be home.”

There was her name again, spoken in that familiar way. She stopped as he began to lead her to the main part of the camp, now well lit with flashlights and emergency flares. He had hold of her arm and stopped with her, a dark eyebrow raised in question.