Christian refused to be discouraged. "There's a file on the pocket knife. Suppose I sharpen the picklock?"

"Could you really stick that into somebody's back?" Elizabeth demanded.

"Into Schmidt's I could," was the unhesitating reply. "If we unscrew the lightbulb, the room will be totally dark. As soon as he came in I could stab him."

"And I could persuade Eric to join the good guys," Elizabeth said. "Which wouldn't be too easy even if I could speak Danish. In the meantime Radsky would come up the stairs with his blackjack in one hand and his gun in the other."

"No, no. You hide behind the door and hit Eric over the head. We haven't time for debate."

"What do I hit him with?"

"The chain," Christian said triumphantly. "It's heavy. As you ought to know."

"Speaking of the chain," Elizabeth said, overcome by a horrible qualm.

"No problem. That's where my handy picklock comes in."

"If you sharpen the picklock into a knife, you can't use it to pick a lock," said Elizabeth, leaving unvoiced her suspicion that this latter activity might not be as easy as Christian believed. "Oh, this is ridiculous! Control your bloodthirsty impulses and face reality. We're much better off with the window. Speaking of which, don't you think maybe we ought to start working on the chain?"

"No, I don't. Eric opens and closes the lock when he takes you downstairs. We don't want any signs of tampering."

"Then there's nothing we can do until after they bring our dinner."

"No." Christian closed his eyes.

"Are you going to sleep again?"

"Any other ideas?"

"Well, we could eavesdrop some more. They might say something important."

Christian a.s.sented graciously to this suggestion. It was necessary for them to put their heads close together, and Elizabeth found the position extremely distracting. Christian's warm breath tickled her chin. Then she started convulsively as a high, shrill keening sound pierced her ear.

"What the h.e.l.l is she doing that for?" Schmidt's voice asked.

"I believe she is singing," said Radsky, amused.

"It's the most G.o.d-awful noise I ever heard. Hey, Grandma, cut that out."

"Leave her alone," Cheryl said. "She's not hurting anything."

The keening rose to a pitch that made Elizabeth want to clap her hand over her ear. "Jee-sus," Schmidt shouted. "So help me, Grannie, if you don't stop that-"

"She does not understand you," Radsky said. "The woman is senile, I tell you. But if that unearthly noise a.s.sists her culinary skills, then okay."

"It smells good," Cheryl said.

"The food is all right; it's the floor show I can't stand," muttered Schmidt.

Elizabeth had to agree with him. The shrill voice had an eerie, monotonous persistence that reminded her of Satanists summoning up demons.

"Go in the other room, then," Cheryl said. "You better check on Eric anyhow. I can't see him from the window."

Schmidt retreated, slamming the kitchen door.

Christian was the next to surrender. Murmuring, "I think I'm going deaf," he pulled himself out. Elizabeth remained doggedly at her post until a great clas.h.i.+ng of pan lids was followed by Radsky's question, "Is it ready, Mother? Good."

Elizabeth decided it was time to come out. "They'll probably be up here pretty soon," she reported, peering over the edge of the bed at Christian, who was lying down, hands clasped under his head.

"The sooner the better," was the reply.

Even if she had not overheard evidence of Schmidt's increasing ill temper, Elizabeth would have sensed the change in the atmosphere as soon as he appeared. He was holding his gun in plain sight, and he behaved as if he wanted an excuse to use it. His inquiries as to how they had whiled away the afternoon hours were loaded with unsubtle and offensive innuendos, and he kept watching Christian with a greedy, antic.i.p.atory smirk. Elizabeth felt sure he was wasting his time. Christian was too cool and level-headed to be provoked into a reckless move; but he was unquestionably the one Schmidt was after. When Schmidt escorted Elizabeth downstairs he didn't even speak to her, except for a curt "Don't take all day." When Christian returned, Elizabeth could tell by his flushed face and tight lips that Schmidt had been needling him.

After Eric had placed the tray on the bed, Schmidt motioned him to leave. The big man would have protested, but Schmidt used the hand that held the gun to repeat his gesture of dismissal, and Eric plodded out.

"Come here, sweetheart," Schmidt said.

"Who, me?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'm not talking to lover boy. Come here."

Elizabeth was not afraid for herself. Schmidt was interested in violence, not s.e.x. He was bored and tense, and like all persons of limited imagination, the only thing he could think of was to hit someone. Elizabeth considered screaming for help. Radsky impressed her as more practical than his ally; he wouldn't want to risk damaging his hostages.

Before she could decide what to do, Schmidt started moving toward her.

"Leave her alone," Christian said.

Schmidt laughed and made a lunge for Elizabeth. He caught her wrist and pulled on it, dragging her to her knees.

Christian hit him. It was a neat, clean uppercut to the jaw, and it was probably the most ineffectual of all possible blows. It staggered Schmidt but did not seriously inconvenience him. With a little grunt of satisfaction he reversed the gun and swung it in a sweeping arc aimed at Christian's face. Christian saw it coming and tried to pull back. The movement gained him a vital half inch and probably saved him from a fractured jaw, but the blow was hard enough to topple him. He hit the floor with a crash and lay still.

Schmidt's smile had the sleepy, sated look of someone who has just relieved a pressing need. He shook himself and slipped the gun into his pocket.

"See you later, sweetheart," he said, and went out.

Elizabeth got down on her knees beside Christian. His eyes were open. One hand nursed his bleeding cheek.

"Christian!" Elizabeth cried. She raised his head in her arms. "Oh, Christian, darling!"

"Oh, G.o.d," said Christian.

"That was not a smart thing to do," Elizabeth said.

Christian freed himself from her embrace and sat up, supporting his back against the bed. He glared at her for a moment, his lips moving, as if he were searching for a devastating retort. Words failed him. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he pulled her across his lap and kissed her till her ears started to ring.

It was Christian who finally stopped things. Conspicuously short of breath, he remarked, "I think this is turning into a different type of movie."

"Don't be a pedant."

He captured her hand and brought it to his lips-an unexpected gesture that would have destroyed her remaining defenses if they had not already lain in ruins.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you, too, and in the near future I hope to demonstrate it at length. Right now I'm too preoccupied with other problems to do either of us justice."

Gently Elizabeth touched his bleeding cheek. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes, it hurts. What an idiotic question. No thanks to me that it isn't worse. I shouldn't have let him get to me."

"Stop blaming yourself. If you hadn't hit him, I would have."

"Don't think he doesn't know that. I just hope to G.o.d he doesn't get uptight again and come back for another round."

"Let's get started, then. The sooner we're out of here, the better."

Christian retrieved the broken knife blade from under the bed and handed it to her. "See what you can do with the sheet while I work on the chain."

The single sheet was heavy old linen, coa.r.s.e and stiff. Without the knife Elizabeth would have had a hard time tearing it. When she had finally braided it into a strand that looked stout enough to bear Christian's weight, it made a depressingly short rope.

"We'll have to use the blanket too," she reported. "How are you coming?"

Christian's manipulations with the picklock had been accompanied by grunts and curses. "I'll get it," he replied, without looking up.

"Maybe we could lift the bed and unwind it," Elizabeth suggested.

"You can't go running around the countryside with twenty pounds of chain draped over your arm," was the querulous reply. "And lifting the bed wouldn't be enough. I'd have to take it apart. Ow. d.a.m.n!"

The picklock had slipped again. Elizabeth should have been depressed by the confirmation of what she had feared-that picking a lock was a skill possible only to trained experts. But her mood was incorrigibly exhilarated. She refused to admit the possibility that her love affair would begin and end in this horrible little room. Tactfully she refrained from further comments and reached for the blanket.

In order to remove it from the bed she had to s.h.i.+ft the tray, which she had forgotten-as, apparently, had Schmidt. When she gave it a closer look she understood why he had not been concerned. There were no plates or utensils or bottles on it, only a pile of sandwiches and a plastic container of water. The tray itself was wood, too flimsy to serve as a bludgeon.

"They ate it all up," she remarked, lifting the tray and pulling the blanket from under it.

"What?"

"The lovely meal the singing cook prepared. They must have eaten every sc.r.a.p. All we got was ham sandwiches."

Christian did not reply. His breathing consisted almost entirely of muttered expletives.

Dismembering the blanket was a much more difficult job than tearing the sheet. It was wool, hardened by innumerable was.h.i.+ngs into a consistency resembling felt. Elizabeth's hands were sore before she had it in pieces, but when she finished fastening the strips together, the length looked promising. She watched Christian's increasingly frenzied efforts for a few moments before she spoke.

"If worse comes to worst, you'll have to go for help."

"No."

"They won't come in here before morning. You'll have plenty of time."

"No."

His hands were bleeding from dozens of tiny cuts where the tool had slipped. Elizabeth's throat tightened. She had to clear it before she spoke.

"Give it a rest. It's early yet. Why don't you eat something?"

She thought Christian was going to hurl the infuriating instrument across the room, but he controlled himself. "Okay," he said. "That's a good idea."

She knew what was driving him because the same fear made her heart beat too fast. Schmidt was frighteningly unpredictable in his present mood. There was no guarantee that the familiar routine would be followed. She understood the effort it cost Christian to stop working and felt the sickness that surged up in him when he bit into food that was an affront to his churning stomach.

"It's very good ham," she said, chewing valiantly.

"Naturally. Denmark is famous for-" He let out a howl, dropped the sandwich, and clapped his hand to his jaw.

"What on earth-"

"I just about broke a tooth," Christian said indistinctly. "Some a.s.s left a piece of bone or-" But the object he extracted from the uneaten interior of the sandwich was not bone. It gleamed in the light.

"It's a key," Elizabeth gasped. "Oh, Christian, do you think . . ."

"It's too small to be the key to the door." Slowly, almost fearfully, as if frustration of this new hope would be too much to bear, he tried the key in the lock of the iron anklet. The click was the sweetest sound Elizabeth had ever heard.

"I don't believe it," Christian muttered. His fingers caressed her ankle. "I never did believe in literal responses to prayer."

"With all due respect to G.o.d, I think it's Eric we have to thank for this miracle."

"Right. It must have been Eric."

"I wonder why he brought the key tonight, of all nights."

"He's not as slow as he looks," Christian said. "Maybe he noticed we've been working on the window. I'll bet he's the one who put the boards up; Schmidt and Radsky aren't handyman types. Or else-maybe he's received word that Wolf is in the neighborhood. He knows what will happen to the poor devil if that bunch get their hands on him, and they have made sure he has no way of warning his brother."

At least the weather was on their side; as usual, the skies were gloomy, and rain appeared imminent. Even so, night crept on with maddeningly coy deliberation. The delay was doubly agonizing because it involved a choice on their part. The later the hour, the better their chances of escape, but there was the ever-present danger that someone would come upstairs. A single glance would betray their plans.

Christian summarized the situation. "If anyone comes up those stairs, we go out the window. It's that simple."

They did all they could to minimize the risk. The boards were loose, held by a few threads of screw; a single wrench would remove them. The makes.h.i.+ft rope was fastened to the bedpost. Christian stood by the window peering out through a crack. Elizabeth was under the bed listening. From time to time they changed places.

The members of the gang were in the kitchen, but there was not much conversation. The amplitude of the evening meal had reduced them to satisfied silence and -in Schmidt's case-belches. From the fact that no one made a remark about him or his missing brother, Elizabeth deduced that Eric was present, and typically taciturn.

Some time later Schmidt said abruptly, "Think I'll have a look at our little birds in their cage."

Elizabeth came as close to a heart attack as she would come for another thirty years. Before she could move, Radsky said, "No, you will not. There is too much at stake for your games. You lack control."

Schmidt grumbled, but did not insist.

She mentioned this exchange to Christian when they changed places, thinking it would rea.s.sure him. It only made him angry, and there was a hopeful light in his eyes when he said, "I almost wish the son of a b.i.t.c.h would come up."

A few hours earlier this would have prompted Elizabeth to a sarcastic reference to his wounds and bruises. Now she said, "You can beat him up later, darling, I promise," and stood on tiptoe to brush his cheek with her lips.

"Thanks," Christian said, grinning. He disappeared under the bed.