Page 84 of The Circle

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I don’t like howtwitchy Alec seems. Alec van den Berg does not twitch. He does not start. He does not sweat. He does not jump. But in the last brief while, I’ve seen him do all of these things. And that make me nervous in a way I don’t get.

It’s not just Alec’s strange behavior, of course. It’s also the fact that Christine is carrying my fucking kid right now that makes me nervous.

And it’s not just Alec’s strange behavior and the fact that Christine is carrying my fucking kid right now. It’s that I feel like I’ve had a premonition, maybe? A dream? About this place? About what we’re walking into?

Screaming. Yelling. Gunfire. Mayhem.

Fuck. Am I a prophet? Or just a person who’s under way more stress than any normal human being who’s not in an active war zone should be under?

But before I have a chance to protest or raise any additional kind of alarm bells (which it’s too late to raise now and wouldn’t matter anyway), Hans turns to us, says, “They are right through here,” and then turns back, opens the door, and we follow him in.

There is a collective, nearly audible gasp when we see what’s waiting for us inside.

The room itself is almost a theater. Or, like, a salon. Like the kind of room where a king or queen or duke or whoever the fuck lived here back in the day might host some kind of event. At the far end of the space is a slightly elevated stage area with kind of like a footlight runner along the lip. The whole castle has clearly been retrofitted at some point because there’s interior lighting throughout and a contemporary electric spotlight is currently shining down from the ceiling into the center of the stage area.

But that’s not what causes us to gasp. What causes us to gasp is what’s sitting on a table illuminated by the spotlight shining down into the center…

The diamond.

The seven-carat diamond that the three of us stole from Alec’s father and that I then stole back and kept in my place above my workshop, and that we took with us to the glass house and that we left in the glass house when we were assaulted and had to escape.

Lars, Alec, Christine, and I were out on the edge of the cliff, but we left the diamond back in the house.

Someone from the team that stormed the house grabbed it up, and now it’s here. Sitting on a stage in a castle in Austria. Lit by a single spotlight. The brushed-metal box with a triangle etched on the top placed right by its side.

And, as if that weren’t gasp-inducing enough, standing just in front of the stage, like a line of sentries, is…

A line of sentries. Literally. A platoon.

There is a squad of bodies, maybe ten or so, all male, dressed in something like paramilitary garb, standing in a straight line, facing us, all in an at-ease stance with their legs spread and their arms behind their backs, elbows akimbo.

A proper fucking phalanx of soldiers.

“What the fuck is all this shit?” It just blurts out of me. I can’t keep it in.

“They are here only to ensure the safety of the transaction. Nothing more.”

Transaction. I still have no fucking clue what this transaction entails. None of us do. Based on all the information we had in front of us up until about five seconds ago, I had concluded that the people behind this are the Russians who were expecting the diamond all those years ago, and that this whole big drama was going to be about them wanting to trade Andra and Theo Watson for it.

But they have it. They have it back. It’s here. So what…?

And then I notice something about the guys standing in front of us. They’re the same ones who were at the house. The country estate. The one outside of London from which we rescued or… retrieved… Alec. I’m pretty sure they are, at least. They’re dressed the same. I think I maybe recognize one of them? And then my belief that this is the same bunch is confirmed by Alec saying, “Liam?”

One of the guys, a young guy, no more than a kid really, looks down toward the ground, sheepishly, and adjusts the rifle that hangs at his side. He twists his neck back and forth a little bit, avoiding our eyes and nodding slightly.

Hans lifts his chin and says, “Yes. You may well recognize some of these men. They are the ones who were charged with keeping you and your brother safe.”

Alec is sweating again. I can almost hear his mind racing. I look to Christine, who shakes her head back and forth in an “I dunno” kind of a way.

“Where is my child? Where is my brother?” Eliza steps forward and I swivel my neck to see if anyone twitches or draws a weapon. No one does.

Because they can’t possibly see us as any kind of a threat. Four unarmed, confused, and utterly psychologically overtaxed civilians facing a wall of seemingly trained… whatever they are? We wouldn’t stand much of a chance. We don’t have the element of anything. And they have the element of everything.

I do start running the mental calculus on what would have to happen if shit jumped off, however. Looking at the room, the angles, the formation of the guys. Trying to decide what, if any, advantage we could leverage.

I can’t see it. At least right now, I can’t see it. We remain subject to whatever they are going to demand of us. And I still can’t see what that is either.