Prince Joe. Suzanne Brockmann
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headset’s microphone.
“Ditto,” Bobby whispered. “We got canned goods and a wine cellar. No movement, no life.”
Joe caught sight of the motion the same instant Blue did. Simultaneously, they flicked the safeties of their MP5s down to full fire and dropped into a crouch.
They’d found the stairs going up.
And there, underneath the stairs, scared witless and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, was the crown prince of Ustanzia, Tedric Cortere, using three of his aides as sandbags.
“Don’t shoot,” Cortere said in four or five different languages, his hands held high above his head.
Joe straightened, but he kept his weapon raised until he saw all four pairs of hands were empty. Then he pulled his NVs from his face, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the dim red glow of a penlight Blue had pulled from his pocket.
“Good evening, Your Royal Highness,” he said. “I am Navy SEAL Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto, and I’m here to get you out.”
“Contact,” Harvard said into the radio, having heard Joe’s royal greeting to the prince via his headset. “We have made contact. Repeat, we have picked up luggage and are heading for home plate.”
That was when Joe heard Blue laugh.
“Cat,” the XO drawled. “Have you looked at this guy? I mean, Joe, have you really looked?”
A bomb hit about a quarter mile to the east, and Prince Tedric tried to burrow more deeply in among his equally frightened aides.
If the prince had been standing, he would have been about Joe’s height, maybe a little shorter.
He was wearing a torn white satin jacket, reminiscent of an Elvis impersonator. The garment was amazingly tacky. It was adorned with gold epaulets, and there was an entire row of medals and ribbons on the chest—for bravery under enemy fire, no doubt. His pants were black, and grimy with soot and dirt.
But it wasn’t the prince’s taste in clothing that made Joe’s mouth drop open. It was the man’s face.
Looking at the Crown Prince of Ustanzia was like looking into a mirror. His dark hair was longer than Joe’s, but beyond that, the resemblance was uncanny. Dark eyes, big nose, long face, square jaw, heavy cheekbones.
The guy looked exactly like Joe.
A few years later
Washington, D.C.
All of the major network news cameras were rolling as Tedric Cortere, crown prince of Ustanzia, entered the airport.
A wall of ambassadors, embassy aides and politicians moved forward to greet him, but the prince paused for just a moment, taking the time to smile and wave a greeting to the cameras.
He was following her instructions to the letter. Veronica St. John, professional image and media consultant, allowed herself a sigh of relief. But only a small one, because she knew Tedric Cortere very well, and he was a perfectionist. There was no guarantee that Prince Tedric, the brother of Veronica’s prep-school roommate and very best friend in the world, was going to be satisfied with what he saw tonight on the evening news.
Still, he would have every right to be pleased. It was day one of his United States goodwill tour, and he was looking his best, oozing charm and royal manners, with just enough blue-blooded arrogance thrown in to captivate the royalty-crazed American public. He was remembering to gaze directly into the news cameras. He was keeping his eye movements steady and his chin down. And, heaven be praised, for a man prone to anxiety attacks, he was looking calm and collected for once.
He was giving the news teams exactly what they wanted—a close-up picture of a gracious, charismatic, fairy-tale handsome European prince.
Bachelor. She’d forgotten to add “bachelor” to the list. And if Veronica knew Americans—and she did; it was her business to know Americans—millions of American women would watch the evening news tonight and dream of becoming a princess.
There was nothing like fairy-tale fever among the public to boost relations between two governments. Fairy-tale fever—and the recently discovered oil that lay beneath the parched, gray Ustanzian soil.
But Tedric wasn’t the only one playing to the news cameras this morning.
As Veronica watched, United States Senator Sam McKinley flashed his gleaming white teeth in a smile so falsely genuine and so obviously aimed at the reporters, it made her want to laugh.
But she didn’t laugh. If she’d learned one thing during her childhood and adolescence as the daughter of an international businessman who moved to a different and often exotic country every year or so, she’d learned that diplomats and high government officials—particularly royalty—take themselves very, very seriously.
So, instead of laughing, she bit the insides of her cheeks as she stopped several respectful paces behind the prince, at the head of the crowd of assistants and aides and advisers who were part of his royal entourage.
“Your Highness, on behalf of the United States Government,” McKinley drawled in his thick Texas accent, shaking the prince’s hand, and dripping with goodwill, “I’d like to welcome you to our country’s capital.”
“I greet you with the timeless honor and tradition of the Ustanzian flag,” Prince Tedric said formally in his faintly British, faintly French accent, “which is woven, as well, into my heart.”
It was his standard greeting; nothing special, but it went over quite well with the crowd.
McKinley started in on a longer greeting, and Veronica let her attention wander.
She could see herself in the airport’s reflective glass windows, looking cool in her cream-colored suit, her flame-red hair pulled neatly back into a French braid. Tall and slender and serene, her image wavered slightly as a jet plane took off, thundering down the runway.
It was an illusion. Actually, she was giddy with nervous excitement, a condition brought about by the stress of knowing that if Tedric didn’t follow her instructions and ended up looking bad on camera, she’d be the one to blame. Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades, another side effect of the stress she was under. No, she felt neither cool nor serene, regardless of how she looked.
She had been hired because her friend, Princess Wila, knew that Veronica was struggling to get her fledgling consulting business off the ground. Sure, she’d done smaller, less detailed jobs before, but this was the first one in which the stakes were so very high. If Veronica succeeded with Tedric Cortere, word would get out, and she’d have more business than she could handle. If she succeeded with Cortere…
But Veronica had also been hired for another reason. She’d been hired because Wila, concerned about Ustanzia’s economy, recognized the importance of this tour. Despite the fact that teaching Wila’s brother, the high-strung Prince of Ustanzia, how to appear calm and relaxed while under the watchful eyes of the TV news cameras was Veronica’s first major assignment as an image and media consultant, Wila trusted her longtime friend implicitly to get the job done.
“I’m counting on you, Véronique,” Wila had said to Veronica over the telephone just last night. She had added with her customary frankness, “This American connection is too important. Don’t let Tedric screw this up.”
So far Tedric was doing a good job. He looked good. He sounded good. But it was too early for Veronica to let herself feel truly satisfied. It was her job to make sure that the prince continued to look and sound good.
Tedric didn’t particularly like his younger sister’s best friend, and the feeling was mutual. He was an impatient, short-tempered man, and rather used to getting his own way. Very used to getting his own way.
Veronica