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Page 67.

Rick's heart began to beat faster, and his chest contracted in terror. He had a sudden, terrifying, ominous premonition that it was the last time he'd see her. But it wasn't—not quite.

Starting to panic, Rick pushed his way into the Place des Marchés. He found the post office around a corner—a smallish store front with the Luxembourg flag over the doorway. This little post office was set a meter or so above street level. Surrounded by telephone booths sporting a picture of a green receiver on a yellow background was a stairway up to a landing with a metal railing on the outside. The post office called attention to itself by a standard yellow metal sign with a post-horn on it, and the letters P & T which could be deciphered as meaning Post and Telephone. There were four windows and a glass door.

As Rick approached, pushing and ducking his way among pilgrims, the next events happened all at once. Romain was nowhere to be seen—probably looking for Professor Sander elsewhere, maybe in the adjacent triangular market square.

The smallish door was an electronic slider, meaning it had no handle. To its left was an ATM with night lighting above. It all seemed cramped and small, like everything else in this country. The man half lying, half sitting in the half-open doorway could only be Professor Sander. Blood streamed from a wound not quite on top of his head.

His bald head, surrounded by a wild gauze of white, wavy cotton-like hair, was unmistakable as was his tanned, long face with prominent nose and piercing dark eyes. His expression was shocked, dazed, and pleading.

Already, shocked bystanders began to shout and scream.

He sort of half sat, half lay toward his left side, propping himself on his left hand, and raising his right hand defensively.

Hovering over him was Hannah, taking the package—Rick recognized it from the post office in Luxembourg City.

Rick froze, unable to make sense of what he saw.

Hannah saw him. Her eyes were wide—like those of an animal caught in the headlights on a country road at night. She shook her head several times—side to side—a vision of her that Rick would carry in his mind forever. Denial. But of what? Of the fact that she was grabbing the package, and Sander lay bloody at her feet? Or of the apparent fact that she had attacked him? Nothing made sense.

Rick raised his arms as if to welcome her to him. They would run together.

But she shook her head, no, with terrified eyes, while in that half-crouched position above the pleading man. He still had his hand upraised and was saying something.

"Hannah!" Rick shouted.

She looked left, right, like a hunted animal at a crouch—then bolted.

She swung over the railing, down onto the cobblestone ground, and ducked through a row of telephone booths.

A man stepped in the way, on the street, to intercept her, but she palmed him in the face. He went down backward, sitting as Sander was on the landing. Hannah ran like a startled deer, with the package in hand, and vanished down the narrow cobblestone alley beside the post office. Rick ran after her, but stopped when he saw that the alley bent into another alley—it would be folly to try and run after her. Already a crowd congealed around him at the post office steps.

Two uniformed clerks came out to help Sander to his feet. A policewoman came running with a metal first aid box. They took the Professor into the post office. As Rick bolted up the stairs, someone locked the door in his face. A sign turned from Ouvert to Fermé.

Stunned, Rick held the railing as he stumbled down the stairs. His entire world had just turned upside down. What the hell was going on? He had the sickening gut-punch realization that nothing was going to be the same after this. He'd been living in a fool's paradise. Nothing was ever as it seemed.

His head began swimming, as if he were drunk. He needed his medicine, but that was in the backpack in the car—and he could not find it in this murky condition, much less walk there.

He staggered—not the only one who looked drunk on the periphery of the noisy, laughing, singing crowd amid that crazy music—from corner to corner, seeking a place to sit down. People made way for him, perhaps afraid he was a drunk who might puke on them or become violent.

When he gained some semblance of consciousness, it was Romain who slapped his face and shook him by the shoulders. "Rick! I have your medicine here. But where is Hannah? What happened?"

Rick swayed as he sat on the lower steps of a small monument in the Market Square. The monument was the Justice Cross, made of stone, on top of a column about four meters high.

A police SUV with flashing lights slowly made its way past, through the crowds, and around the corner to the post office. It was followed by a yellowish ambulance van with fire department markings, also with flashing emergency lights.

People paraded all around, waving banners and blowing horns. A kind woman passing by offered a plastic water bottle, for which Romain thanked her and held out two Euros, but the woman shook her head and melted into the crowd.

"Here," Romain said, "drink this and wash your pills down."

With shaky fingers, Rick fumbled through the pill bottles—nearly dropping them—but he got the required prescription into his mouth, and washed it down with water. "Is the Professor okay?"

"What do you mean?"

Rick described what happened. Romain's face grew ashen. "Stay here," he said and darted away to take a look by the post office, around the corner on the Rue de Luxembourg.

Rick sat with his head down, grieving. He thought of Hannah, and wondered what had just happened. Was she a victim somehow, or was she a perpetrator?

When his head began to clear, Rick rose and walked to the post office. He found the two emergency vehicles blocking the entrance, and the Closed sign still on the door. Romain stood at the foot of the steps with a grim look, telephoning—probably Mélu in Luxembourg City.

Just then, emergency medical technicians in yellow slickers descended from the post office, carrying a stretcher. Rick recognized the wave of white hair peering from under a sheet, along with a mass of white bandages smeared red.

"Il reste en vie," a woman doctor in a white jacket and businesslike skirt with sensible brown loafers said in a tone of authority, while twirling a stethoscope. "He is alive." She added in French, "It is a trauma to the head, requiring emergency care and observation."

On the landing above, the post office sign flipped again, from closed to open.

Within a minute or two, the ambulance pulled away, guided by the police cruiser. Their top lights twirled, and several times—because of the crowds both passing and rubbernecking—the drivers had to activate their piercing tah-too, tah-too Martin's Horn sirens that echoed among the tightly spaced buildings.

Romain regarded Rick with a dazed, furious look. "What has happened?"

Rick shook his head. "No sign of Savia and Yoichi.

"Something happened—did she hit Sander over the head?"

"I have no idea," Rick said sadly.

Romain got in his face. Rick understood the rage. "Did you know?"

Rick shook his head. He could sympathize with the other man's confusion and anger.

"So she didn't say anything to you?"

"Not a hint. I can't believe it."

"It seems impossible—but she could be playing both sides. In this game, you never know who betrays his best friend, his wife, his boss. Her boss. Whatever."

"Let's keep our cool."

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