Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

a brace. She found her footing, walked around the bed, and made her way to the left-hand window. She fingered one edge of the curtain aside and looked down.

“Good Christ,” she gasped.

She was in one of those quaint little towns on the shore of some Alpine lake. There were two long rows of pastel flats, capped with red and black tile roofs, embracing a long, curving lane of rain-washed cobblestone. Multicolored umbrellas hung above outdoor café tables, and at the end of the lane was a beautiful white church with a tall black spire and a Roman numeral clock.

Only one problem. The surrounding countryside looked nothing like any geographical spot she knew of in Europe. Her head swimming, she turned away from the window and pressed her naked cheeks against the wall to steady herself. Then she saw her image in the dressing table mirror, and carefully made her way over there to stare.

Her hair had been washed and braided. Her lips were healed and glossed, and makeup hid the bruises around her eyes. She could still see some welts on her inner arms and thighs, but they’d also been salved and soothed. Her broken fingernails had been preened down and manicured. Even her mound had been trimmed.

“Not bad for a cornered rat,” she murmured. “I wonder who the customer is.”

She had no idea how long she’d been there, but she’d obviously been drugged and treated while under. There was only one way to find out. She got dressed, not really surprised that everything fit. The boots were a trial, but even those had been selected one size too large to accommodate her swollen, socked feet.

She picked up her passport and cell, and smoothed her red dress in the mirror. She smirked at herself—a cross between a beer garden waitress and a Viennese escort. She flipped the brass door handle down and went out.

She took a few shaky steps in her boots and stopped. She was looking down the length of a long, straight stairway of glossy white wood, with a plush red runner and a thick chestnut balustrade on the left. She gripped the rail with her left hand and moved down slowly, clutching her passport and cell to her chest. At the bottom was a lead-framed stained-glass door. Her stomach murmured in hunger. She pushed the door open and saw flowers.

Hundreds of them. Roses and tulips of all colors—some arranged in half-cut wine barrels, some jutting from small fenced gardens, and many more popping from balcony boxes. The scent was almost too much.

Just below her was another short staircase of blue slate, and at the bottom of that, facing away from her, stood a woman in a throwback white nurse’s uniform, including the nun-like hat. The nurse heard Lily’s boots on the stones and turned. The front of her hat had a red cross on it, but her features were Asian. She smiled, walked up to Lily, and took her elbow to help her down.

“Wo sind wir?”—Where are we?—Lily asked in German as she realized there was no one else around. Not another soul, and the air was weirdly devoid of sound—no cars, footsteps, laughter, or music. But at least she heard some birds outside, or else she’d be sure she was dead.

“Hallstatt,” the nurse said.

Lily nodded as they negotiated the last stair, wobbling a bit on the polished cobblestones. Hallstatt, she recalled, was that famous quaint village somewhere in upper Austria on the shores of the Hallstätter See. She’d seen it in travel brochures.

“Not the original,” said a basso male voice. “But close enough.”

Lily turned to her right. He was tall, in his sixties, and wearing a gray pin-striped suit with a cobalt tie and matching pocket leaf that was so expensive it didn’t look expensive. But she knew it was costly because it looked like it had been tailored directly on to him. He had thick, swept-back, steel-gray hair, an angular face, and, incongruously, tortoiseshell sunglasses.

Lily looked him over and blinked. “Where’d you leave your DeLorean?” she asked because he looked exactly like John DeLorean, a famous playboy car designer, although he’d died in 2005. He also seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as if by magic.

The tall man smiled. “The comparison’s often mentioned,” he said. “But I don’t drive.”

Lily resisted for a second but had to ask. The situation was just too bizarre. “Are you God? Or the other guy?”

He laughed and nodded at the nurse, who stepped aside. He took Lily’s elbow and began guiding her slowly along the lovely main avenue of the beautiful, empty town.

“It’s Smith, actually,” he said.

She looked up at him and her eyes went wide. “Not the Smith.”

He nodded with a small oh-well shrug.

“But you’re not...” Lily sputtered. “I mean I’ve seen you twice on the boardroom monitor. You’re always in silhouette, but you were a bit tubby and bald.”

“That’s a stand-in,” he admitted. “Always liked the Wizard of Oz.”

Lily felt dizzy again, only this time from relief. “Well, at least that makes sense.” She unhooked her elbow from his hand and switched, gripping the crook of his arm instead. “Since I’m dressed rather like a slutty Dorothy.”

Smith laughed again and pointed down the lane, where a young woman dressed exactly like Lily was walking into a shop. “I’m afraid the only couture they had was the standard employee uniform.”

Lily’s brow furrowed at the sight of her doppelganger. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“And look there,” Smith said. “That’s not right.” He was pointing at a chunky red phone booth with glass windows and the word TELEPHONE stamped on its cap. “If they’re going to pirate everyone’s architecture, then dropping a London phone booth in Hallstatt is an additional crime.”

“If who’s going to. . .” Lily stopped walking and looked up at him. “Mr. Smith, I’m totally lost.”

He smiled down at her. “You’re not lost, Lily. You’re in China.”

She swallowed. “Excuse me?”

“Yes. In Guangdong Province, to be precise. There are actually nine such copycat cities in China,