The Red Cell by André Gallo (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📕

hope you like it too, Kella. We’ll be having Ciorba, a sour soup; venison with Mămăligă, a sort of polenta. And for dessert, I thought we’d go back to the tried and true cuisine of France, Baba au Rhum, cake soaked in rum.”

As Liz set the table, Charlie poured a Romanian Cabernet for the three of them then went upstairs to take a quick look at the street from one of the bedroom towers. Liz entertained Kella by recounting anecdotes from their tours in Thailand, Italy, and, more recently, in Bucharest. While Charlie had been under official cover, Liz had experienced life as a diplomat’s wife. It showed.

“We first went to the Dragului because of its name, which means ‘the Devil’s Restaurant.’ And it refers to the vampire legends. The model for Count Dracula was a medieval warlord named Vlad Tepes, a famously cruel local tyrant known as Vlad the Impaler. When the Sultan’s messenger refused to remove his fez in his presence, Vlad Tepes had it nailed to his skull with a spike. His castle is about an hour away.”

Upstairs, Charlie decided the Mercedes had only triggered his professional paranoia and decided it was simply a false alarm.

Downstairs, Liz called the restaurant. After hanging up, she asked Kella, “Is that an engagement ring?”

“Yes it is,” Kella replied, smiling and raising her hand for Liz’s inspection. “Decisions about the wedding are being made as we speak,” she said, revealing what was uppermost in her mind. “We’re going to have a church wedding in Paris. But is it going to be Notre Dame? I don’t think so. Too grandiose, probably too expensive, and too unavailable. Or perhaps it will be Saint Severin on the left bank, a neighborhood church with hundreds of years of history.” She shrugged helplessly. “I will find out after I leave Romania.”

“If you were getting married in Rome I could give you some good advice. But I’m sure you know more about Paris than I do. I need to call the restaurant again.”

After a conversation in Romanian, Liz hung up the phone. “Mr. Georgescue assured me our order is on the way. He also told me our friends had gotten lost, but he gave them directions to our house. Who could that be, Charlie?” she asked, as he rejoined them.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably the guys in the Mercedes. Not a false alarm after all. I need to call the station, and I’m going back upstairs to look outside one more time. I’ll call down if I see anything. In the meantime, please go get us weapons from the safe room.”

With that, Charlie left the room. Twenty minutes later, he ran down the stairs and took an Armalite M-15 from Liz. Kella was already holding one, and Charlie told his wife to go to the safe room.

They waited anxiously, weapons at the ready. Charlie peered out the front window and said, “An old, cream-colored Dacia just pulled up in front of the house. Showtime.” Charlie stayed at the front of the house and directed Kella toward the back.

“Two guys coming out of the car,” he said loudly enough for Kella to hear. “They’re looking for something in the back seat. Maybe their weapons. Okay, now each has a bag, large enough to hide a weapon. They’re coming up the front walk.”

“I see no movement back here,” Kella said peering through a back window.

“I recognize one of the Dragului waiters,” Charlie said. “I think we’re okay.”

A moment later, there was a knock on the door. It was their dinner, which two Dragului waiters quickly laid out on the dining room table. After they departed, Charlie beckoned Liz back upstairs.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if our so-called guests followed our food up here. Let’s wait a few minutes and put out the light,” Kella said. She positioned Liz by the kitchen window, while they retrieved their Armalites from a closet.

“I’m going to bring the food to the kitchen to…” Liz started to say, before Kella interrupted her. “Wait!” she shouted. “Three guys with overcoats in the front. Two going around the back. Liz, get back downstairs. Use the telephone there to call the station again.”

Covering the glass-paned back door from a corridor connecting to the front of the house, Kella’s heart was pumping hard, and adrenalin was pulsing through her veins. What was she doing here with this weapon? Any other woman two weeks before her wedding would be parked in a safe and warm environment planning the event.

Well, not my first rodeo. She smiled inwardly at this Americanism, and also tried to wipe everything from her mind except the present moment. There had to be at least one man she could not see coming toward her. She should probably have been hiding outside instead of sitting inside like a target. Her body tensed and her nerves on edge, she decided it was too late and resigned herself to wait.

The sound of gunfire from the front of the house suddenly commanded her focus. Almost at the same time, she saw a man peering through the glass pane of the back door. Having heard the firing, he smashed the glass closest to the door handle with the butt of a machine pistol. He unlocked the door from the inside and pushed it open.

Kella waited, as the intruder walked in behind the muzzle of his weapon sweeping it left and right as he moved forward.

“Stop and drop your weapon! “Kella shouted, falling to one knee, and aiming her M-15. The intruder immediately fired in her direction. As bullets flew over her head, Kella felt time slow and could almost count the bullets zinging by. She was only twenty feet from the shooter and, strangely, she noticed his furrowed brow, his half-opened mouth, and the open top button of his shirt. As if in slow motion, she squeezed off a burst,