In the last chapter Ohmie was whisked off to the hospital. Both his father and Mme Benoir show up. Assassins show up at the hospital. Mme Benoir discloses her heroic ancestry and determination to help.

Dad was still gone setting things up. Mme Benoir was out fueling up her car for Dad to use. She had said that she knew it was low, but had come on to the hospital to see me. She was also going to pick up a bag of foodstuffs in case we had to run and hide out. She knew that we would never just lead them back to her chateau. Mom was dozing in the chair beside my bed. When a doctor entered the room. I could see him all the way into the room—all of him. Mom only saw over the bed.

Two things: one, he didn’t tap, tap, tap on the door. Two, he was wearing dirty tennis shoes. They were made of leather, but still sneakers. And old and dirty. And three. Three things. And three, his stethoscope was backwards. I’d never seen any medical person put the pick-up piece on the left, always on the right, their right.

I furrowed my brow at Mom, blinking hard. She nodded. My bet was that she’d picked up on some other clues.

The fake doctor looked around the room. No doubt reconnoitering the security. “You are feelink better, yes? We weel transfer you soon. To other floor. Good day.”

As he turned to leave, Mom let him have it with her cast right over the top of his head. Him being not overly tall gave her a lot more torque. It broke her cast, and probably didn’t do his head any good at all. Mom winced a little. I’m sure it hurt her arm, too. After first closing the door, Mom tied him up with his belt and the TV cable. Then she gagged him with a face cloth and a cut-up towel. Who knew that Mom carried a knife? After dragging him into the bathroom, I don’t know if she finished him off or not. She might’ve been taking the time to get him all the way in so the bathroom door would close. Or…

Mme Benoir came back with fish sandwiches. I wasn’t much for eating. Mom told her about their friend using the bathroom. Mom said that he was probably doing recon, and would already be missed. Mme Benoir hadn’t seen any of them when she came in, but that didn’t mean anything. Probably in their car.

Dad returned with a mannequin. Really. A female a little larger than me. He said that it cost him three hundred Euros and if he’d had time, he could’ve bought a brand new one for half that. Spy work is expensive! Turns out he had to break the legs. It was an older model made without flexible limbs. They would bend, he’d said, but not enough. They bend just fine now.

Mme Benoir went to work on making herself look like Mom. She couldn’t use the bathroom, so Dad turned his back. I shut my eyes – mostly. Dad made the dummy look like me, a scarf, a baseball cap and a blanket. Mom helped me get dressed.

“I don’t think they know I’m here,” Dad said. “I used the administrative entrance each time. Right now, I don’t know how many of them there are. It’s me they want. I could show myself, and let them chase me, but they will come for you just in case they don’t capture me. So that’s out. I’ll put our car at the emergency department entrance. They may have someone watching our car right now, and also the emergency department door. I’ll deal with that.”

“Mme Benoir, if you will leave the wig here with Virgy, and go move your car to the main discharge door. We’ll have your Ohmie and the wig near the reception kiosk. And our Ohmie at the emergency exit.

There was something missing to Dad’s plan. I just knew it. But I also knew that he would have it covered.

Mom and I were to wait for gunfire before going outside. I convinced Mom that I could get into the car on my own if she would get behind the wheel and be ready to roll.

Mme Benoir slowly pushed the dummy out to the car. Her job was to give them a chance to identify Mom and Ohmie. It was almost too easy. She could have pushed faster, loaded the dummy and been gone. We needed her to draw any assassins away from the emergency door. Since Mom did not want to show herself, she couldn’t look to spot any of them. And she would have had to expose herself fully in order to get a good look around. We waited, hoping we would hear gunfire from that distance.

Mme Benoir left the dummy in the wheelchair beside the passenger door, the door open, as if waiting for an orderly or nurse to come help her. She waited patiently, until an assassin with his gun out was mere yards away. (Meters to Mme Benoir) The car already running, she put it in gear, ducked low, and sped off as quickly as a four-cylinder Fiat could speed her. The man in front of her car with a pointed weapon suddenly dropped as if shot, which he was, by Dad.

That was our signal. There was more gunfire, but we were too interested in getting into the car and racing toward the back of the hospital to count, or try to figure how many different guns might be involved. I worried about Mme Benoir.

Dad had a borrowed taxi a short distance away. As quickly as he’d dispatched the first assassin, he ran to it to chase Mme Benoir. After crashing into a vehicle that he’d seen chasing her, presumably full of assassins, Dad jumped from the wrecked cab and three dumbfounded Croatians got out of their vehicle and ran back toward the hospital. By then, we were in a parking lot off Gloriastrasse watching for a pedestrian that looked like Dad. He came strolling by like a man walking a dog, only he had no dog. The way Dad told it, there were no terrified bystanders, no cars slamming into other cars to get out of Mme Benoir’s way. No screaming or shouting for the police. Uh-huh. Another day at the beach.

We drove the speed limit on the route we expected Mme Benoir would take, looking for a bullet-ridden blue Fiat.