The Diaries - 01 (29 page)

 
***

The hotel was old
and dingy, located near the Frankfurt
Hauptbahnhof
and only a few kilometers from where Gage had found the diaries that had set
off this entire chain of events.
 
Monika
was curled on the small, lumpy bed.
 
The
room was brown.
 
Every shade of it.
 
Chocolate brown.
 
Russet brown.
 
Mahogany brown.
 
The carpet, shit-brown,
was tattered and worn.
 
Monika had been
sleeping for the last three hours as Gage peered out the window, watching the
street and the train station.
 
He had
paid cash for the room and, while he didn’t think anyone knew their
whereabouts, his training had taught him never to underestimate the ability of
a motivated opponent.
 
There were a
million ways to find someone—from highly sophisticated to blind luck—and in the
event Jean or the Glaives were out there, he wanted to see them coming.

He sat on the
rickety chair, gnawing on the back of his thumb, thinking.
 
Knowing his instincts had been right gave
Gage no measure of pride.
 
He wished he
would have been wrong.
 
But he wasn’t,
and now he had a professional spy after him who would use the resources of the
entire French government to find him.
 
Worse,
he had the mob after him.
 
All because
Monika’s cousin had termed the diaries as significantly valuable.

“Follow the money
trail,” he breathed.

Other than the one
diary in his bag, the remainder of the cache was in the storage unit.
 
If he knew it would pacify the people
connected with the man he killed in Metz, he would gladly give them over,
especially for Monika’s sake.
 
Surely
they now knew who she was after making the connection with Michel.
 
By this time, they would be swarming
Saarbrücken
, awaiting her return, probably harassing the
women she worked with.
 
They likely had
no interest in her other than to get to Gage, but that didn’t mean they
wouldn’t kill her in the process.

He turned to look
at her, napping peacefully.
 
People deal
with massive amounts of stress in different ways.
 
She did it by sleeping.
 
In certain lucky souls, it was their body’s
way of defeating the all-encompassing problem.
 
Gage, on the other hand, accrued skull-splitting headaches.
 
Fortunately, for the moment, he felt good.

As Gage sat
sentinel over his woman, his mind kept coming back to Jean
Jenois
.
 
Jean was in bed with the Glaives, and claimed
that the diary affair had a hidden significance.
 
Gage ruefully shook his head.
 
Jean was a liar, a greedy one.
 
And he, too, would now be looking for
Gage.
 
He wanted the diaries—wanted the
money they were worth—but he would now want to get even as well, especially
given the size of his ego.
 
Gage had
humiliated him and, most worrisome was the fact that Jean knew his past,
something which Gage was still having a hard time coming to grips with.

Three hours of solid
thinking and Gage had no solution.

“What are you
doing?”

Gage turned to Monika.
 
She was still lying on the bed, her head
turned to him, her expression pensive.
 
Her caramel eyes looked larger than ever as she studied him, and he was
relieved to see that the rest had calmed her somewhat.

“I’m thinking.”

“Have you got it
figured out?”

“Wish I could tell
you I did.”

Monika sat up, her
breasts exposed before she lifted the bare sheet to cover them.
 
She had taken a shower when they arrived and,
after stripping the coverlet from the bed, she had wrapped herself in the sheet
and asked him to turn the radiator higher.
 
“Come to me.”

Gage took one
final look at the train station before moving to the bed.
 
“I’m sorry, Monika.
 
I shouldn’t have involved you in this.
 
It’s probably worse than I’ve let on.”
 
Always on guard, his head turned to the
window again.

Allowing the sheet
to fall, she took his chin in her hands and turned it to her.
 
Her gaze was intent.
 
“So let’s just leave.”

“Leave?”

“Let’s get all of
the diaries and just go, for good.”

Gage stared at
her, his mouth moving without making a sound.
 
He was trying to make sense of this option, one he had not seriously considered.
 
It had briefly crossed his mind earlier, but
he wouldn’t allow his mind the luxury of even going over it.
 
Had he been all alone, this would have been
the best decision—the only decision.
 
But
Monika was German, this was her home.
 
She had a family and a job and an education—she had a life.
 
He didn’t think, not for a moment, that she
would just up and leave with a man whom she had just begun a relationship, one that
had not even yet been defined.

Finally he replied.
 
“You can’t mean that.
 
Your sister and mother are here.”

Monika rubbed his
muscular forearm, allowing her index finger to trace the veins onto his
powerful hands, which she clasped, interlocking her fingers with his.
 
“I never allowed myself to get too close to
you, Gage.
 
I always knew there was
something beneath the surface with you, something frightening that I had
nothing to do with, and I feared it would always keep us apart.
 
But now I see that maybe this is our
chance.
 
Maybe this is the precipitous
event we needed.”
 
She kissed his
hand.
 
“I need you to be close to me,
with your mind and not just your body.
 
I
can’t just be
the girl who makes your
food, rubs your shoulders and sleeps with you sometimes.” She squeezed his hand
very hard.
 
“I need to be the one who you
confide in about
why
you are the way
you are.
 
Do you understand?”

Gage’s chest rose
and fell.
 
His heart was racing, his
breathing full and heavy.
 
“You really
mean it, about leaving?”

“No, I don’t.
 
Not if you won’t open up to me.”
 
She disentangled her hand from his.

“And if I will?”

“Then I am ready
and willing,” she answered, her face glowing. “Because then we will have a
chance.”

Gage’s mind raced,
pondering the way out.
 
Like a fast-growing
seed, it split open and began to grow roots.
 
Simply leaving Frankfurt would be the most dangerous part of the
mission.
 
As his thoughts were somewhere
in Switzerland, she stood from the bed, grabbing her wallet from her purse.

“I have just over six-thousand
euro in the bank.
 
Let’s take the train
to Munich or Hamburg, far from where they think we are.
 
Let’s grab my money, combine it with yours,
and then we’ll run.
 
They won’t be able
to catch up to us if we’re already hundreds of kilometers from where they
think
we are.”
 
Monika came close to him, her naked body
close to his face as she tousled his already messy hair.
 
“We can rent a car from there, take the
diaries to Italy or Spain, and sell them like my cousin said.
 
Then, just like in the movies, you can find
us new identities and we can leave Europe, for good.”

Gage was entranced.
 
While her plan was somewhat simplistic, the
broad strokes were not at all unlike what he was already thinking.
 
Exposing themselves, anywhere, would be
risky, especially if Jean was using his assets against Gage.
 
But it was the only solution Gage could now
see.
 
He glanced out the window; a light rain
had begun to fall, flecking the window with straight streaks, increasing his
confidence in regard to the cameras which now permeated most major cities.
 
Rain or not, they would need to alter their
appearance.

He placed his hand
on her lower back, hugging her.
 
“If you
mean it,
really mean it
, we need to
go.
 
Tonight.”

“I’m ready right
now,” she said, touching his cheek.

“We’ll have to
wait for nightfall.”

Monika was
beaming.
 
“The sooner the better.”

“Monika,” Gage
said, eyeing her levelly.
 
“We can’t come
back.
 
Ever.”

“I know that,
Gage.”
 
She touched his leg.
 
“I’ve already thought it through.”

Snapping back to
the task at hand, he glanced at his Timex.
 
“I’d rather we wait until it’s at least midnight, and hold out hope it
keeps raining.”

“What about the diaries?”
she asked.

“I’m going to go
get them.”

“We are,” Monika
proclaimed.

Gage shook his
head with conviction.
 
“No way.
 
They may know where I hid the cache, or
perhaps they tracked me to the vicinity.
 
I will do that all alone and you’ll wait for me right here.”
 

She obviously knew
not to argue.

“And I’ll need to
get us some things from the
Apotheke
.
 
Some hair
dye and makeup.
 
And we’ll probably need
to cut and dye your hair, and mine,” he said, pulling lightly on her luxurious
dark locks.

“I’ll let you go
alone,” Monika said, still massaging his head as she stared into his eyes. “But
not before I settle you down.”

“Settle me down?”
he asked.

She lowered herself
to him, pressing her large, soft breasts into his face as they fell back onto
the bed. Taking his right hand, Monika moved it between her legs, sighing
softly as he caressed her.

Gage felt his
throat nearly close up.
 
He moved upward
and kissed her, allowing her to pull his sweater over his head.
 
They rolled over.
 
He moved his head down her body before she
stopped him.
 
She leaned forward and
unbuttoned his jeans; he aided her by getting them off in a rush.
 
Monika caressed his buttocks and pulled him
into her.
 
She controlled his motions, licking
his neck and kissing his mouth.
 
They took
their time for half an hour before she moved on top of him, her actions
speeding and her chest bouncing with each thrust.
 
She grasped his body, pulling him close as
they moved together briskly, with her climax coming just before his.
 
Their bodies damp with a thin layer of
perspiration, Monika stayed on him as she pressed her cheek to his.
 
She stared out the window into the rainy,
darkening sky and spoke softly.

“I love you,
Gage.
 
I have for many, many months.”

Gage had never
told another woman he loved her.
 
And
this was the first time he had ever heard it said to him.
 
Before he could respond, Monika covered his
lips with her finger.

“Save it,
Gage.
 
There will be plenty of time later
to explore our feelings for each other.”

After a hot
shower, Gage pulled on his dirty clothes and sat on the edge of the bed.
 
“I’ve got to go.
 
Do not—I repeat—do not move a muscle or
call
anyone.”

“Gage—”

“If I don’t come
back by sunup, just go to the polizei and tell them everything. Go straight to
their outpost right over there at the train station. Do you understand?”

“How long will you
be gone?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t be more
than an hour and a half, but it could take longer.
 
Why don’t you get some more rest?
 
We may be awake for quite a while.”
 
Gage reached into the pocket of his pea coat
and removed Jean’s pistol, a handsome
Manurhin
.357.
 
He placed it on the bed at her feet.
 
“Ever used one?”

“I hate guns,” she
answered.

“Monika.
 
Just in case.”

She rolled her
eyes.
 
“Okay, okay.
 
I’m sure I can figure it out if I have
to.
 
Point and shoot,” she mimed in a
comical manner.
 
“Like you said, they
have no idea where we are so it doesn’t matter.”

Gage couldn’t help
but start laughing, an enormous weight off his chest from her suggestion that they
leave Germany.
 
Now she was just being
funny, but then her face took on a serious expression.

“Be careful,
Gage.
 
Very careful.” She leaned up and
kissed him, rubbing his face with her hand before placing it behind his neck
and shaking him lightly.
 
“And when you
return, we start our life together.”