BACK    CONTENTS    ABOUT

Page 68.

"They are taking Sander to a local hospital," Romain said. "There is nothing we can do then." He gripped Rick's arm with sudden sympathy. He looked devastated, mirroring Rick's feelings. Dispiritedly, they walked rapidly to the river, on the other side of the small city, to the car.

The dancing was over. Hundreds of pilgrims were at a Mass in the Basilica. The streets were thinning out of crowds. Police were already dismantling some barriers—in preparation to evacuating the thousands who had parked their cars and now hoped to get off the crowded roads around Echternach on their way home to all points of the compass. People were streaming out of the city—on foot, in buses, in cars.

"Mélu trusted Hannah," Romain said. "She counted on Hannah to help us get the package and get it to the professor—not knock him over the head and run away with the package."

Rick kept playing his last sight of her over and over again in his head, like that ear-worm music that would not stop tormenting a person. He kept studying her face in his memory—shaking her head, telling him No but about what? Did she mean it's not what you think or did she mean I'm sorry but I must betray you or simply don't follow—save yourself—our lives are in danger?

They got in the car, which Romain was easily able to maneuver out of the parking lot. Without speaking much, they rolled slowly in traffic. It was still bright daylight, though late in the afternoon. Police patrols directed the cars on to smooth passage at every corner.

As they came to the area around the lake, Romain's telephone warbled. He raised it to his ear. "Jo, Mélu, jo…" Romain spoke briefly and put the phone away. "That was Mélu calling from Luxembourg City. Our organization reports a sighting of Savia and Yoichi going into the Müllertal. We may have something to go on."

"The organization?"

"PAX."

"Oh yeah." He felt numb, and had nearly forgotten in the fog of hurt. He convinced himself right then, and there, that she was doing the right thing, whatever it was, and he must trust her completely.

As Romain maneuvered the steering wheel laboriously among slowly moving cars to change directions, Rick asked, "Like what?"

"Hopefully, they are chasing Hannah. If so, we'll chase them. A bit obvious and brutal—no longer subtle—but we have nothing to lose."

The phone warbled again and Romain picked up. "Jo?" He listened for a minute and said, "D'accord." Then he told Rick, "We have people following Savia and Yoichi. They are heading very fast into the Müllertal near Bersdorf. We'll follow and hope to catch Hannah before they do."

Romain drove a short distance back along the E29 on whose four lanes they had come from Luxembourg City earlier in the day. Soon, however, he swung north onto a smaller country road, marked CR118. This was a narrow, two-lane street running among tall trees. The foliage was a mix of conifers and deciduous, fully in lush, early summer foliage. A gentle mist hung among the tree crowns. Dreamy sunlight full of this mix of dust and fog hung over the road wherever sunlight could stab downward among the trees.

"We are in the Little Switzerland or Mill Valley," Romain told him in a frosty manner. This is one of those areas in the country that has castles and beautiful greenery in a wild setting. There is another area like it in the center and west of the country, called the Valley of Seven Castles. Maybe if we get through all this you will visit there."

"I'd love to," Rick said. "If you think you and Mélu feel bad about this thing with Hannah, you can't imagine how I feel. I have a crater inside."

Romain relented. "D'accord—I believe you. You look honestly destroyed. I'm sorry."

"Thanks. I'm sorry about everything in the universe. I'd like for my mind to just go blank and forget everything that happened in the last year or two. I'd love to be sitting in some nameless little tavern in a small town in California, wearing a cowboy hat and slouched over a beer listening to the jukebox and watching clouds go by outside the window. I am so sick and tired of the Army, of Europe, of conspiracies and pissed-off people—I could puke in my hat if I had one."

"Maybe I'll buy you that beer in a small tavern in some nameless little hook in the road in the Ardennes forest."

"With my luck," Rick groused, "the Battle of the Bulge would start up again—that's how crappy my luck has been."

"There is still hope," Romain said. "It looks like Savia & Co don't have the gadget (yet). It looks like Hannah is still alive and running on those long, beautiful legs. We don't know if she is a traitor or just a girl trying to do the right thing the hard way, which seems to be how she does everything in life anyway."

"Yeah, well, her mother's cancer wasn't her fault."

"No, but you stupid people over there should have universal health care like the rest of the world. What is the matter with you? You can never learn from anyone? You have to reinvent the wheel because you are too superior to listen to a hundred other countries that have better living standards and certainly more humane health care? You can afford it—just don't let the middlemen steal trillions of dollars in fake insurance fees. If you stood up to the corporations, they would not have sold your country out to China and India, not to mention Europe and anyone else who would buy. Your young people would not be selling themselves on slave labor contracts like Hannah did."

"Thanks for the lecture. Can we go now?"

TOP