Free Three Wishes by Jenny Schwartz Page A

secure?”
    Eli’s hand rose reflexively to his earpiece as he nodded.
    “Good.”
    David collected the cups and carried the tray in. Anna met him halfway, protesting that he undermined his dignity playing waiter.
    He relinquished the tray to her. “I want you, and everyone, to stay safe inside till Eli says it’s safe.”
    “Tcha.”
    Clearly, she disapproved of a weapons display on her doorstep, but whether because she objected to the violence or the curtailment of her freedom, David wasn’t sure. Her solid aging figure trotted away.
    “Stay in the kitchen,” he called. The security team would keep her there through whatever display Cali put on.
    He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes.
    In the distance, Eli was herding Joshua and Hassan and two small boys who should have been at school. The boys were sent off at a run, casting back quick glances of fear.
    Trust Eli to put the fear of hell into men, let alone the junior variety. Although Miriam hadn’t hesitated to confront him and demand David’s presence. The woman didn’t have the sense of a goose. There were times when fear was the right response.
    So it was up to him to scare her and disappoint her and drive her away. If Cali gave a good demonstration of the weapons, Miri would be gone in a couple of hours.
    David opened the door to the sunroom with a vicious jerk. They would all watch the weapons display from behind the bombproof, bulletproof glass. And Cali had his permission to blow the world to hell if it scared Miri out of his life and back to safety.
    He’d survive the loneliness.

Chapter Ten
    Cali had piloted a helicopter before. But the experimental Morningstar was something else again. She’d borrowed it from a US military research-and-development facility. She hadn’t bothered to be discreet either, and the security alarms were screaming the unthinkable theft on the other side of the Atlantic.
    It had been a long night. Setting up a weapons display that would frighten and disgust Miriam into leaving required imagination, logistical discipline and sheer effort. And then there was Cali’s darker purpose—David’s death.
    It would take some doing to kill David, and him only, when he was hiding behind the bulletproof glass and in the midst of a small crowd.
    Fortunately Cali’s vow to kill every man who commanded her wishes allowed her a degree of temporal freedom. He didn’t have to die on the spot. She just had to set and light the fuse of his destruction.
    The helicopter accelerated as her energy gathered in anticipation. She reached for control, centering herself and slowing the chopper. The weapons display was timed to the microsecond. She wouldn’t let her excitement derail it—nor would she admit to nerves.
    But it bothered her that she hadn’t seen Andrew all night. He should have been dogging her footsteps, checking that he could keep David safe from her plans, her lethal intent. It couldn’t be that he trusted her.
    “A vow is a vow. I will kill David. He deserves it.”
    She was flying east, the Mediterranean Sea storm-tossed beneath her, and the hint of land at the horizon growing larger.
    Everything was in place. Guns of all sizes, grenades and land mines, fakery from Hollywood mixed with death-dealing reality. There were dummies set to mimic human casualties and a soundtrack of screams. Colored smoke would add to the chaos. It would be a battlefield of total destruction. Miriam would see David as the supplier of Armageddon.
    And when it was all over, when Miriam left and David was alone, there would be live land mines and other traps. She’d set them so that no one else could trigger them. David, and David alone, was her prey.
    She was about to fulfill his second wish.
    The helicopter arrived at the base of the cliff, out of sight of the house and its noise muffled.
    Three, two, one … “Showtime.”
    The blades of the helicopter filled the air with their ominous thunder. The sea churned away beneath it, and rocks bounced