Even the magic box had not calmed Manfred.
Gurt was a loving mother, but she did not subscribe to the irrational thought that a child should be given a choice between obedience and "time out." When discipline was called for, she applied it, usually to the seat of Manfred's pants. It was old-fashioned but effective to make markets, airlines and other public places more enjoyable. Unfortunately it had gone out of style in America.
Gurt's father looked up from his Süddeutsche Zeitung, speaking in English as Gurt insisted whenever Manfred was present. "Why not take the automobile into town? You may find something to amuse him there."
Not one to cater to irritable children, even her own, Gurt gave the idea consideration. Inflicting a whining child on someone else, even a grandparent, was selfish, another concept long dead in America. But it might work. Baden-Baden liked to call itself Europe's vacation spot, as indeed it had been when crowned heads from Portugal to Russia had visited in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to partake of the mineral baths that supposedly had curative powers. The custom dated back to the first-century Romans who had founded the town.
European royalty was notably lacking these days, but tourists still came to take the baths, lounge in the Belle Epoch hotels and gamble in the Rococo casino that sat like a gem on green velvet in the narrow meadow that was the valley of the river Oos. The river, though scenic, would hardly rate the status of a creek in the US.
Gamble.
Also horse racing.
Horses.
Manfred loved to watch the horses as they were put through their morning exercises.
Gurt took her son by the hand. "Come, Manfred, we will go see the horses."
That suggestion, along with the hint they might have lunch in whatever American junk food spot had recently opened, brightened the child's disposition to the extent he forgot his usual complaints when buckled into the child seat that occupied most of the backseat of the ancient but pristine Volkswagen.
The road, a snake of pavement, wound around steep hills. Gurt had driven enough here that she knew every bend well enough to reduce driving to an almost subconscious level.
Certainly her mind was not completely on the task at hand.
Why was it, she asked herself, that women are ultimately stuck with the job of nurturing the children?
Because if men did it, no one would ever grow up.
Still, it wasn't fair that Lang was doing something exciting in Rome while she was reduced to taking a tot to watch horses. Of course, she admitted, she had not given Lang the chance to experience his son's early days, his first step, his first word. Perhaps she had been a bit overly independent, too fearful her freedom would be compromised.
That was when she noticed the big Mercedes in the rearview mirror.
Rich people were fairly common in the area, so expensive cars were no surprise.
But this one was flashing its lights and blowing its horn as though to pass.
"Car make noise," Manfred observed, twisting his neck to look out of the rear window.
In itself, again no surprise. The wealthy were frequently in a hurry.
But pass?
The ribbon of asphalt had few straight stretches and fewer shoulders. The outside of each turn was lined with flimsy-looking Armco barrier and the inside tended to climb vertically.
There was a bump from behind that nearly tore the steering wheel from her hands.
Manfred began to cry.
Who is this maniac? Gurt wondered, fighting to regain control.
Then she remembered the hail of bullets at Lang's country place and the fiery ruin that was his condo. The man at the Atlanta airport. Whoever wanted Lang dead was perfectly willing to use his son to get to him. And her.
But how…?
She mentally kicked herself. Airline reservations were easily hacked. All someone had done was ascertain she had flown into Frankfurt. Her passport would have been registered at customs and immigration, a passport that listed Baden-Baden as her address. Dumkopf! Working and living in Frankfurt, she could have listed it instead. For that matter, her employer could have provided her with papers with any address in the world, rules notwithstanding.
Now these people had her actual address and were trying to either run her off the road or get her to stop.
Another not-so-gentle tap on her rear bumper emphasized her problem.
Reaching to the floor, she retrieved her purse with the agency-issued Glock she had stopped to pick up upon her arrival in Frankfurt to replace the one airport security mandated she leave in Atlanta. The people in the Mercedes wouldn't expect her to be armed. If they pulled out to push her to the edge…
No, that would only invite return fire. No gunplay, not with Manfred in the car.
The BlackBerry? Doubtful she could take her eyes off the road long enough to dial. And the hilly terrain made the use of cell phones an iffy proposition.
Think.
Her agency training had taught her any number of mundane objects could be used for self-defense. She opened the glove box. Only insurance documents and a couple of road maps. Tire tools? In the trunk. The people in the Mercedes would be on her before she could even get to them.
She took her eyes off the road long enough to glance around the interior of the VW.
Then she had an idea.
VI.
Rome
It was obvious Lang's pursuers were gaining on him even if they were taking their time about it. He turned a corner and spied a trattoria, a small, usually single-family-operated eatery specializing more in home-type cooking than the formal fare of a ristorante. Outside, a waiter in an apron stained with tomato sauce was bussing the five tables with paper tablecloths.
Lang remembered his own lunch. It gave him an inspiration.
"Dove il cabinetto?" he asked.
The waiter was still protesting that the restrooms were reserved for paying customers as Lang stepped around him and went inside.
Now Lang had to rely on luck. If this place was like a thousand others, the single-sex toilet, the kitchen and a few more tables would all be in the back. There might even be an exit to another street.
The downside lay in the local knowledge of the two behind him. If they knew there was no other exit, all they had to do was wait for him to come out.
His plan was to draw them in.
Sweeping aside a curtain, Lang was in the tiny kitchen. The chef, in grease-splattered white, looked up from a four- eyed gas stove on which artichokes were frying. He started to say something but then gaped as the waiter and the two workmen charged in behind Lang. Everyone was close enough to touch everybody else.
In a single motion, Lang snatched the wooden-handled skillet from the stove and heaved its sizzling contents into the face of the first man.
He screamed, clutching his face as though tearing away the frying skin would end his agony.
Lang continued a swing. The huge iron pan slammed against the head of the second man, who dropped to his knees with a moan, then collapsed to the floor and lay still.
The chef and waiter stared openmouthedly as Lang walked back to the front of the place where an older man stood behind a butlers' desk on which were several credit card machines.
"You might want to rethink your menu," Lang said as he went through the door to the outside. "Some people just can't tolerate fried food."
VII.
Baden-Baden
It was difficult to keep one eye on the tortuous road and the other on the rearview mirror but somehow Gurt managed.
"Manfred," she said as calmly as she could above the clatter of the VW's four cylinders at full rpm, "unbuckle your seat, get out of it and lay down on the floor."
"But Mommy…" the terrified child protested.
"And do it now."
Gurt was using that I-am-about-to-turn-you-over-my- knee tone that the little boy had learned meant the time for negotiation was over. She could only hope that small three-year-old fingers were equal to the task.