Danielle Steel: H.R.H.

Unable to read the signs and confused by the map, they took several wrong turns and arrived at their destination at nearly midnight. They were quickly stopped by a roadblock manned by Russian soldiers in riot gear. They were wearing helmets, face masks, and carrying machine guns, as they questioned why Christianna and her guards were there. Christianna spoke up from the backseat and said in German that they were looking for the Red Cross representatives in order to work with them. The sentry hesitated, told them in halting German to wait, and consulted his superiors, who were conferring at a short distance. One of them talked to him, and then approached the car himself.

“You're Red Cross workers?” he asked, frowning at them, and looking at them intently with suspicion. He wasn't sure what they were, but they didn't look like terrorists to him. He had a sixth sense for that, which told him that the threesome in the Yugo were there for the reason they said.

“We're volunteers,” Christianna said distinctly, and he hesitated, continuing to look them over. Nothing he saw set off red flags for him.

“From where?” The last thing he wanted was tourists wandering into the mess they already had on their hands. Like the first man they had talked to, he looked tired. It was the second day of the siege, and a dozen more children had been killed that afternoon, and dumped in the schoolyard, which had demoralized everyone. Two others trying to escape had been shot. The entire situation was a copycat event of the similarly awful hostage crisis that had happened several years before in Beslan, in the same region of North Ossetia. This was nearly an exact duplicate, on a slightly smaller scale. But the death toll was rising daily, and it wasn't over yet.

“We're from Liechtenstein,” she said clearly. “I am. The two men are Swiss. We're all neutrals,” she reminded him, and he nodded again. She had no idea if it would make any difference or not, but she thought it couldn't hurt to remind him.

“Passports?” The guard in the driver's seat handed them to him, and he had the same reaction as the customs official to Christianna's. “Yours has no surname,” he told her, sounding annoyed, as though it were a mistake she had made in the passport office when she got it. But this time she didn't want to hand him the letter, she didn't want people in the area knowing that she was there, or making a fuss about it.

“I know. My country does that sometimes. For women,” she added, but he remained unconvinced, and began to look suspicious. He had to be, given what was going on. Reluctantly, she handed him the letter. He perused it carefully, stared at her, then at the two men, back at her, and then looked at her in astonished admiration. “A royal princess?” He seemed utterly amazed. “Here? To work with the Red Cross?”

“I hope we will. That's what we came to do,” she explained. The officer then shook hands with her driver, told them where to find the Red Cross enclave, handed them a pass, and waved them through. It was a most unusual occurrence, to give them access to a hostage scene, and Christianna had the feeling that if she hadn't been a princess, they wouldn't have let them in. The officer respected her, and the two men who had accompanied her to Russia. He even gave them the name of the person in charge. And before they drove on, Christianna asked him quietly not to explain to anyone who she was. She said it would mean a great deal to her if he didn't. He nodded, still looking impressed as they drove off. She hoped he'd be discreet. Having people know who she was would spoil everything for her, or certainly make it difficult. Anonymity in these circumstances was far easier for her. And if the press caught wind of her presence, they would pursue her everywhere, and she might even have to leave. That was the last thing she wanted. She wanted to be useful, not cause a journalistic feeding frenzy, fed by her.

As they approached the school, there were police cordons, military barricades, riot police, commando squads, and soldiers with machine guns everywhere. But having made it through the initial barricade, they were no longer checked as closely. Their passports, when asked for, were only glanced at and no longer thoroughly inspected. They looked at the makeshift passes, and nodded. Most of the civilians they saw were crying, either parents or relatives of children or teachers still inside. It was so exactly reminiscent of the earlier hostage situation in Beslan that it was hard to believe an almost identical event had occurred, in the same state. And finally, after searching thoroughly, and drifting past a fleet of ambulances, they found four large Red Cross trucks, with an army of workers around them, wearing the familiar red and white armbands to identify them in the crowd. Several of them were holding children. They were serving coffee, tending to frantic-looking parents, and standing quietly in the crowd.

As soon as she saw them, Christianna got out of the car, and Samuel, the bodyguard with the commando training, followed her closely, while Max went to park the car in a field that had been designated for families and press. The car had been tight for them to ride in, but at least it had gotten them there. Christianna asked for the name that the officer at the barricade had given them, and was directed to a cluster of chairs standing near one of the trucks. There was a woman with white hair sitting there, speaking to a group of women in Russian. She was reassuring them as best one could. There was very little one could see of what was happening inside, only the constant shifting and moving of soldiers, standing ready and alert. And all of the Russian women were crying. Christianna didn't want to interrupt and stood off to one side, waiting until the older woman finished talking to them. She knew it might be hours before the woman was free to check them out. Christianna stood patiently by until the woman in charge of the Red Cross team noticed her, glanced up, and met her eyes with a questioning look.

“Are you waiting for me?” the woman asked in Russian, sounding surprised.

“I am,” Christianna answered in German, hoping they would find a common language. Usually, in cases like that, it was English or French, and she was fluent in both. “I can wait.” She wasn't going anywhere and didn't want to interrupt. The senior Red Cross member excused herself, patted one woman's arm consolingly, and stepped aside to where Christianna stood.

“Yes?” It was obvious that Christianna was neither a local nor a parent. She looked too clean, not disheveled enough, her clothes were still neat, and she didn't have the worn-out look that everyone else had all around them. The strain of watching the scene unfold had taken a toll on them all. Even the soldiers had cried as they brought back the bodies of the children who had been shot.

“I would like to volunteer,” Christianna said quietly, looking calm, quiet, self-possessed, and competent in the way she addressed the older woman, who had no idea who she was.

“Do you have Red Cross identification?” the woman asked. They had settled on French. The woman in charge looked like she had been through the wars, and she had. She had helped to wrap the bodies of dead children, held sobbing parents in her arms for two days, tended wounds until the paramedics could get to them. She had done everything possible since arriving there within two hours of the attack, even served coffee to exhausted, crying soldiers.

“I'm not a Red Cross worker,” Christianna explained. “I flew here today from Liechtenstein with my two … friends …” She glanced at the two men beside her. If necessary, she would volunteer as a humanitarian emissary of her country, but she greatly preferred to do so as an anonymous individual, if they would allow her to help on that basis. She wasn't sure they would. The older woman hesitated, looking at Christianna carefully.