No One Takes My Child

Chapter 1

Rachel Mara sat on the floor of the Galleria Borghese, holding her legs to stop them from shaking. Pressed up next to her was a man who was breathing as though he’d just run a distance his lungs couldn’t handle. She could smell him — and not his sweat.

‘I need to switch places with you,’ she whispered. They were lined up along the wall. Sobs could be heard from further down the row. The man didn’t respond. She tried again. ‘Excuse me, sir? We need to swap positions.’

His head snapped around. ‘What are you talking about?’ 

There was a man with an assault rifle over by the door. He turned in their direction. 

Rachel waited a moment before responding to the question, staring at the polished floor in front of her. ‘I need to be where you’re sitting, and you need to be where I’m sitting.’ She spoke under her breath, without looking at him. ‘We need to switch places.’

‘Are you crazy? No way.’

‘When he turns away I can slip forward,’ she said, referring to the still-watching masked guard. ‘You slide across behind me and I’ll move to where you are. He’ll never notice.’

‘Of course he’ll fucking notice!’ The man had a thick French accent, but his English was clear. 

‘There must be two hundred hostages in this gallery, and there can’t be more than ten of them on this floor. Only one of them is watching this room. Two of us switching places when his back is turned won’t be obvious,’ Rachel said. 

‘Why do you want to switch places?’ 

‘I just need to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because my fifteen-year-old daughter is about six people down the row.’ 

The man skipped a breath. They both felt the weight of her words.

There were raised voices coming from the doorway and the guard’s attention was momentarily captured.

‘OK, go-go-go,’ her neighbor whispered. Rachel shifted forward in one movement, felt the cumbersome weight of the man slide behind her and in three seconds was back against the wall. They sat completely still, both of them holding their breath.

Nothing.

‘Thank you,’ she said softly. The man shook his head as if willing her to shut up. 

Rachel turned to the woman now sitting to her right. She was dressed expensively but not well, and her eyes were as wide as a spooked gazelle’s. Before Rachel could start making her case again the woman spoke.

‘I heard everything you just said to my husband and there’s no fucking way.’

The armed man looked in their direction as though he’d heard something. The barrel of his AK-47 searched the room. Rachel waited a moment and then decided it was safe to speak, only to have the man’s wife cut in again. 

‘No doubt they will move us at some point. Who knows, you can get to your daughter then. But if you do anything stupid they will kill us. There’s no way I’m moving.’

‘Do you have children, ma’am?’

‘Don’t even try that,’ the woman spat. ‘You’re not even old enough to have a fifteen-year-old daughter. That would have meant —’

‘I was eighteen.’ Rachel finished for her, hardly disguising her frustration. She took a breath. Snapping wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Begging might. ‘Look, I really need your help here. You saw how easy it is to do. All you’d need to do is shuffle across. I’m the one who will move forward. I’ll be drawing the attention, not you. Please do this. You’re the only one who can help me here.’

The woman was like stone. 

Rachel felt a familiar anger. No one is more infuriated by stubbornness than one who is stubborn herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the armed man by the door. He was dressed like any other tourist — sneakers, jeans, an over- and under-shirt — only with a balaclava over his face and a gun in his hand. 

It was only a matter of time …

Sure enough, satisfied that nothing was going wrong, he turned away from the Gallery of Lanfranco, the room they were being held in, to see what was happening next door. 

It was time to see if this woman would gamble her life on her convictions.

Rachel shot forward on the cold floor and then across. The woman next to her was startled. Rachel was sitting about two feet forward, directly in front of her and completely exposed.

‘Come on! Move!’ Rachel hissed.

Pressuring this woman into doing something she didn’t want to do was going to be like forcing a bear into a cupboard with a broom. And while she waited to see if she would submit, Rachel sat right out away from the wall, an instant target if the guard decided to turn back. 

And that’s exactly what he began to do.