Page 21 of In A Faraway Land

Change of Plans

Dieter Schwarz

I should have stayed.

Dieter held the crappy phone that Flicka had so brilliantly bartered for with the pawn shop owner and glared at the screen.

His text read,Are you all right?

Flicka had texted back,Sure.

He had tried to call her earlier, but she hadn’t picked up. Texting had been his last resort because he had wanted to hearher voice.

What did you eat for lunch?he asked.

Her words pinged his phone,I ordered one of everything off the room service menu and ate it all. Plus I drank three bottles of Dom champagne.

Too much, and she wasn’t complaining about being locked up and alone nearly enough.

She was hiding something.

Unfortunately, he knewexactlywhat it was.

He swiped his finger over the tiny screen.Dammit,Flicka. Go back to the hotel and lock yourself in.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m in the hotel room, watchingEllenon TV.

He checked the television schedule in Las Vegas.Ellendidn’t come on for another hour. He typed,You’ve gone on one of your walkabouts.

No I haven’t.

I told you not to leave the room!

You don’t know I left.

Please, for the love of God, go back to the hoteland lock the door.

The set-up with Wulf was due to start in minutes. He was in an office in Theo’s house, sitting at an expansive desk and ready to scrutinize theWelfenlegionon a bank of computer monitors.

Meanwhile,Her Serene Highness Friederike Augusta,Prinzessin von Hannover,was wandering around Las Vegas while Monaco’s Secret Service agents were probably manning security cameras andhunting through the crowds for her with facial recognition software.

He could see it in his head: Flicka’s bright blond hair and lithe form slipping through the crowds, the lights of the Strip flashing around her, the fountains squirting water in the background, and a squad of black-clad operators dragging her into a van to take her back to Monaco where that damned asshole Pierre Grimaldi wouldlay his hands on her again.

A window popped open on the computer screen.

Theo’s head said, “Noah is ready to go. If you talk, Noah and I will be able to hear you, but the guys in Wulfram’s house won’t. Go ahead and talk it out, and tell us anything you want to ask them. Got it?”

“Sure,” Dieter said, thinking about where Flicka must be.

“Here we go.”

Jesus, she was probably wandering aroundin one of the casinos, and heknewthe casinos had facial recognition software running. If Pierre had enlisted the help of Interpol, the casino’s private security might send a hit on a wanted person to the local police who would invariably pass it along. As a member of Monaco’s royal family, Pierre probably had the contacts and the right to do that.

The computer monitor lit up.

On the monitor,a room full of Dieter’s closest friends from the last few years with theWelfenlegionswam into view. The men were seated in mismatched chairs or leaning against the walls, all staring out of the screen at him. The webcam distorted their faces and the room slightly, widening everything like a fisheye lens.

Pierre’s Secret Service might have already found Flicka in Las Vegas. They might be followingher. They might have already taken her.