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

essentially Disneyworld versions of Paris, Milan, and so forth. The intent was to attract the wealthy strata of Chinese society, sell them all highbrow real estate and residences, and then lure in the tourists as well. Alas, so far they’ve all been failures and remain mostly empty. Therefore, perfect for clandestine, private meetings that could be considered socially sensitive.”

Lily gaped as she gazed at their surroundings. That’s why no one sat at the outdoor cafés and why the only people she saw in the distance were all dressed like her—the employees.

“This one was financed by Minmetal Holdings to the tune of nine hundred sixty million dollars,” Smith went on. “It’s an exact copy of Austria’s well-known village of Hallstatt.” He pointed off between a row of flats, past which a wide, empty square led down to a waterside quay and a wide body of rippling gray water. “That’s not the quaint lake in the mountains of upper Austria. It’s the South China Sea.”

Lily felt dizzy. She was still in China; her dream was a nightmare. She hadn’t escaped or been rescued at all. But Smith himself was here, which made absolutely no sense. She curled her fingernails into her palm and dug in.

Wake up, damn you!

Then she felt Smith’s long strong arm enveloping her waist as he pulled her closer to steady her.

“I realize it’s a bit much to take in,” he said. “But you must be starving. So let’s eat.”

It took them awhile to descend to the quay. Lily’s body still ached from her neck to her ankles, and she’d had no real nourishment for days. As she walked arm in arm with Smith, she noticed the bruise of an infusion needle on the back of her wrist. She’d been given something while she slept, perhaps simply sucrose or something else, so she still wasn’t convinced that what she was seeing was real. At any rate, she felt unsteady on her feet but not faint.

At the bottom of a half-circle of marble stairs was a wide portico of cobblestones, which led to the right, and a winding road that circled “Hallsatt’s” beautiful, empty, private town homes. Lily squinted past that to a strange vision across the flat oval bay—modern skyscrapers looming in the mist.

Smith guided her gently to the left, where a portico entrance of a typical Gasthaus awaited, complete with heavy wood-framed windows, inner sills lined with beer steins from the Middle Ages, and, just beside the thick double doors, a menu in German held by a smiling, plaster mountain elf. They walked inside, and Lily swallowed another gasp.

The restaurant’s only customer was General Deng Tao Kung. He sat at a large, round wooden table, with two of his young adjutants standing behind him. The table was arranged with a typical Austrian repast—juices and mélange coffee, fresh eggs, strudels, and cheese of all kinds.

Kung rose from his chair, a white napkin tucked in his uniform collar, smiled his kindly uncle expression, and opened his hands in silent offering. If Smith hadn’t been there, Lily might have run screaming.

But Smith was there, and he walked Lily over, pulled out a chair for her, and bookended her between him and Kung.

“How are you feeling, Miss Stone?” the general asked.

Lily glanced at Smith, who smiled and nodded. “Stone” it would remain then.

“Intact, General,” she said. “Thanks to you, I expect.”

A waitress hurried over to pour their coffees. She was dressed, of course, exactly like Lily, but she had “strudel” braids cupping her comely Asian face.

“I confess that your condition alarmed me,” Kung sang as he spooned some steaming scrambled eggs onto Lily’s white plate. “But, sadly, didn’t surprise me. I must apologize for that once more...”

“There’s no need, General,” Smith said. “Lily’s chosen profession engenders such risks.”

“No, sir.” Kung waved his hand, and Lily was surprised by his deferential tone. “I feel that I must.” He dropped his fingers on Lily’s arm as a father might do with his daughter. “You see, Miss Stone, I had no idea who you were, and I made a poor judgment. Once Mr. Smith explained to me your true target and intentions, I was very embarrassed.”

“Please, Deng,” Smith said before sipping his mélange. “It’s all in the past.”

Lily looked from one man to the other as she forked up some eggs while gulping some juice. Considering what she had been through, she was sure her slight bending of decorum would be forgiven.

General Kung was calling Smith sir, and Smith was calling the general by his first name. The latter smiled and leaned into Lily. “The general is a consummate gentleman,” he said. “I only had to elucidate Colonel Hyo’s ill manners, and he was aghast.”

“Yes.” Kung nodded. “Chaoxian have an unfortunate tendency for dissembling and flattery that masks their base intent. They do not yet seem to truly understand how this world of ours works.”

As the general spoke, Lily saw that he seemed to start suffering a bout of growing discomfort, perhaps indigestion. Smith, who apparently sensed it as well, interjected. “But where are my manners? The breakfast table is no place for such talk. Please eat, drink, enjoy.”

So they did. It wasn’t until afterward, when the general made his gracious good-bye and Smith began to chaperone Lily away from the restaurant, that any sort of recognizable reality resumed.

“What the hell just happened?” Lily all but blurted.

The Smith who replied was not exactly the same Smith who had met her at the bedroom, led her here, and joined her for breakfast. This Smith was calm but free of any artifice.

“My friendship with the general,” he told her, “and your freedom, rests with the nature of our modern world. It supersedes all politics. Certain considerations, mostly financial, but also existential, outweigh political winds, which the pragmatic always expect to change. And the Chinese are nothing if not pragmatic.” He nearly chortled. “Poor Kung. He was becoming ill from all our blunt talk. Pragmatic they are. Candid and direct they are not.”

Although well fed, with her body