Keep your mouth closed. Ken tried to send the thought to Savannah telepathically. He also said a quick prayer to God to strike her temporarily mute. Don’t piss this fucker off, Van. This is not a man you want to make angry.
Miraculously, she stayed silent.
And Skinny finally turned back to Savannah. He gave a command to several of his men, who hauled her to her feet.
She was covered in dirt, but there was definitely no blood on her clothes, thank God. One knee was scraped and bleeding, but that seemed to be the worst of her injuries.
Skinny, meanwhile, was looking her over in a way that made Ken’s skin crawl. And now he tried to send a telepathic message in his direction. Touch her, and you will be so fucking dead, so fucking fast . . .
The rebel leader finally spoke. “You don’t look much like a princess.”
“Excuse me?” Savannah said. Obviously she’d misheard that, too.
“We have been ordered by General Badaruddin to find Princess Savannah von Hopf. Unless there’s more than one American woman running around on Parwati Island, I’ve got to assume you are she. But perhaps I shouldn’t assume. Allow me to ask—are you the princess?”
Okay, the general was a bona fide nutball. Just what the world needed—another crazy lunatic with aspirations for world domination.
But Savannah’s answer stopped Ken short. “Yes.”
Yes?
“I am.”
She was?
Holy fuck. She’d said her grandfather was Austrian royalty. Was he some kind of prince? And if so, yeah, that would probably make her a princess. Or at least, like, a half princess.
“How do you know who I am?” she asked, with a shitload of royalty in her attitude.
Skinny smiled. He had a ghoulish smile that wasn’t very nice. “You’re very popular on Parwati. There are a lot of people looking for you on this island.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said. “And I’m grateful that you’re not Otto Zdanowicz’s men. They tried to kill me. They did kill my uncle, Prince Alex von Hopf.”
Prince Alex? Jeez, this was weird, but yeah, it made sense in a very Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous way.
Skinny laughed, and Savannah got haughty. “I don’t see the humor in my uncle’s death.”
Ken braced himself for a backlash, but interestingly, Skinny bowed to her slightly. “Prince Alex isn’t dead, your highness. He has been ill, but his health is improving.”
The information just didn’t stop coming. Savannah was a highness, and Badaruddin had Alex von Hopf. No, he had Prince Alex von Hopf. Ken’s head was spinning. Was it possible the general’s private army had snatched Alex from the start, and the Zdanowicz brothers had been simply trying to get money from nothing—calling Savannah to capitalize on the fact that Alex had gone missing?
As much as Ken hated the Zdanowiczs, he had to admire the motherfuckers for thinking way outside of the box on that one.
“Where is he?” Savannah demanded. Easy, babe. Highness or not, don’t push too hard.
Skinny stepped closer to her. Too close, and Ken achieved a whole new level of cold sweat.
“Please, I want to see him,” Savannah said. “If you take me to him, and then take us both to Jakarta, I’ll see that you get a reward. Two hundred thousand dollars. At least.”
“The general has asked for far more than that for Prince Alex. Surely he can get even more for the pair of you,” Skinny said.
So there already had been a demand for Alex’s ransom. This was good. Because as soon as Alex von Hopf had gone missing, U.S. professionals had surely been brought in. With Rose von Hopf’s clout in Washington, the folks at the Pentagon were probably in a screaming hurry to bring Alex safely home. They’d probably sent the FBI to Jakarta to assist either special operations or special forces—maybe even the SEALs. Yeah, it was even possible SEAL Team Sixteen’s Troubleshooters had been called in.
But whoever was out here beating the brush for Alex was no doubt aware that Savannah—no, Princess Savannah, God damn—and Ken had been crashing around in the jungle, too, for the past few days.
He was willing to bet that if there had been a ransom note, the FBI had traced it to its source. There were probably already teams of operatives hidden around the perimeter of Badaruddin’s camp, just waiting for the right moment to go in and snatch Alex to safety. What might come in handy was having an operative—like, say, Ken—on the inside.
An additional bonus was the money they’d hidden. As long as Ken and Savannah knew where it was and Badaruddin’s men didn’t, they could use it as a bargaining tool.
Or maybe they could strike a private deal with Skinny. If Skinny made sure Savannah remained safe until the ransom money was delivered and she was released, they could deliver him a nice little bonus that General Badaruddin didn’t need to know about.
There were guards patrolling the jungle, coming right toward Ken. With very little effort, he could prevent them from seeing him. With even less effort, he could make them think they’d apprehended an intruder.
He hid the Uzi—no use making them shoot him—and prepared to be found.
Molly shaded her eyes as the helicopter approached the village center and prepared to land.
“That’s it,” she said to Billy who’d come to stand beside her. “We’re planting trees here tomorrow. Big trees.”
“Shit,” he said. “It’s Otto Zdanowicz and his hired guns.”
Shit, indeed. Dust swirled around them.
“What do they want?” Billy asked, raising his voice over the din of the blades.
“I don’t know, but I think we can assume they’re not here to attend church services.” It wasn’t like her to be a pessimist, but Molly knew in her gut that whatever Zdanowicz wanted, it wasn’t going to be good.
“It seems we found your friend,” the skinny officer with the bad breath said, and Savannah’s blood ran cold.
She could hear shouting, and what sounded like a struggle, and then five men manhandled Ken into the clearing.
He was covered with blood, and he went down, hard. He lay face first and motionless in the dirt.
She ran toward him. “Kenny!”
She was jerked back before she could reach him, held down by the two soldiers who’d held her before, and she fought, kicking and hitting, struggling to get free. She connected purely by chance with someone’s sensitive part, a nose or maybe a lip, and got slapped for her efforts—a brain-shaking, ear-ringing blow that knocked her on her butt and made her cry out.
And Ken pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His nose was bleeding, she saw, as he looked directly at her. “Don’t fight them!” he said.
“Excellent advice,” the English-speaking officer said. “You might want to follow it yourself.”
“Tell them to let go of her,” Ken ordered.
“Tell me where the money is.”
The men holding Savannah pulled her roughly back to her feet.
She wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a man who was covered with blood and unable to stand to look dangerous, but Ken somehow managed. “First tell your fucking goons to get their fucking hands off of her!”
“Kenny, don’t!” Savannah said, but she was too late.
The officer gave a nod, and Ken got kicked in the ribs hard enough to send him into the air. He landed with a sickening thud and a groan.
“Stop!” Savannah sobbed. “Stop! The money’s buried fifteen paces from the southwest corner of the Quonset hut on an airstrip that belongs to a man named Jones! It’s near a village about a half day’s walk from here!”
Ken rolled onto his back and, with one hand, wiped the blood from his face. “Perfect,” he said. “Just fucking perfect.”
When the phone rang, George was sitting outside the hotel suite, on the veranda.
Rose picked it up as he stepped back into the room, through the gauzelike curtains. “Hello?”
“Mrs. von Hopf, it’s Alyssa Locke. Good news,” the young woman said, without having to be asked. “We’ve pinpointed Alex’s location. He’s being held in the guest quarters of General Badaruddin’s estate, on an island just north of Parwati.”
“He’s alive.”
“Yes, ma’am. Lieutenant Starrett reported visual contact.”
Thank you, God.
Rose reached behind her blindly for the sofa, and George was right there, helping her to sit. Fear often kept a person standing, while relief could make one’s knees fail utterly.
“They’ve seen Alex,” she told George and he squeezed her hand. “I was so afraid,” she admitted.
“I know,” Alyssa said, her voice warm over the telephone line. “You didn’t show it, but, he’s your son. I have a niece and, well, I know it’s not the same, but I can imagine what these past few days have been like for you.”
“I’m a little light-headed right now,” Rose admitted, with a laugh.
“Is George there?” Alyssa asked. “Are you sitting down?”
“Yes and yes,” Rose told her.
“There’s more if you can stand it,” Alyssa said. “We think we’ve located Savannah as well. We intercepted a radio message from one of Badaruddin’s lieutenants saying that he found her on Parwati, and he’s bringing in her and her companion—and their money. Now, we haven’t verified this, but this is very good news. This means we’re going to have a Navy SEAL right inside the camp. If he can connect with Alex, he’ll be able to prep him for the rescue. It’ll be covert, of course, and it’ll be helpful if he’s expecting that. The SEALs will go into that camp and pull Alex and Savannah out without a single shot being fired.”
“That’s if everything goes according to plan,” Rose interjected.
“I can’t make any promises,” Alyssa said, “but if my son were being held for ransom, I’d want Lieutenant Starrett and his team to be the ones to get him out. Have faith.”
Rose chuckled. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s don’t bury your chickens before you’re absolutely sure they’re dead. I shall spend the afternoon looking forward to tomorrow’s tedious airline flight home to New York with my son and granddaughter.”
“Jules and I are about to board a plane for Jakarta since we’re not needed here anymore,” Alyssa told her. “Why don’t you have George take you over to FBI HQ, so you’ll know what’s going on as soon as it happens. Jules and I will meet you there in about an hour, hopefully slightly less.”
“Thank you, dear.” Rose hung up the phone and burst into tears.
George, bless him, was smart enough not to say a word. He just put his arms around her and let her cry.
“I thought they were going to kill you,” Savannah whispered.
“I thought I was going to be able to use that money as a bargaining tool,” Ken countered softly as they waited for the general’s helo to arrive.
He’d already given Skinny and company his song and dance about the special lock on the attaché case, and how both Savannah and Ken would need to be kept alive to open it. He’d also spun wildly about who he was, and his relationship with Savannah. He was Prince Kenneth from Coronado, he’d told them—the princess’s fiancé. He’d told Skinny that Savannah was pregnant with his child, and that that would increase her ransom value, since his parents—the king and queen of Coronado—would no doubt pay an additional sum to ensure the royal fetus remained safe. But if Savannah were compromised in any way—in other words, curb your men and keep your freaking hands to yourself—both Austria and Coronado would declare war on General Badaruddin.
Out of all the things Ken said, that seemingly wild threat was the closest thing to the truth. If they hurt Savannah, if they killed her, he would come back and decimate them. One at a time, right up the chain of command.
Skinny was no fool, but royalty was clearly out of his realm. It seemed clear that his plan was to collect the money and deliver it, with them, to General Badaruddin. Let the big nutball sort things out.
“Why did you let yourself get captured?” Savannah asked as Skinny moved farther out of earshot. The helo was coming. He could hear it throbbing in the distance. “I was purposely leading them away from you so you wouldn’t . . . but then you went and . . .” She shook her head in total disgust.
“You’re mad at me,” he realized. “You gave up the location of the money—the one ace up our sleeve—and you’re mad at me.” He laughed in disbelief.
“What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and watch them kill you?”
“It’s going to take way more than a bloody nose and a kick in the ribs to kill me. Jesus, I wasn’t hardly even hurt. I was just making it look good.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, I guess we don’t really know each other all that well after all, huh? I mean, you’d think the fact that you’re a princess might’ve come up once or twice in the conversation.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m as much a princess as you are Prince Kenneth of Coronado. My grandfather was born an Austrian prince. Except Austria stopped recognizing titles and royalty in 1918. So he’s not a prince. Except some people get off on royalty, and make a big deal of it. Excuse me, it’s been almost a hundred years! Time to get a grip on what’s important. I’m an American with a few princess genes, which probably means I have a higher chance of having a son with hemophilia. What a bonus.”