1 Prologue

Nestled between wooden crates with swirling black ink scribbled on their sides, was Ram and I. Previously, I had mistaken it for calligraphy, but Ram corrected me and said it was Turkish. Either way, it seemed elegant and gracefully, like his mom at the last State dinner until she had one too many glasses of wine and nearly puked on the Chinese Foreign Minister. She is not an alcoholic or anything, do not get the wrong idea! She was just extremely stressed that day (a big important bill had almost fallen through in the Senate).

The echo of footsteps quickly silenced us, then the bark of muffled, static eroded orders through a walkie talkie saved us from discovery.

Soon the plane began to move, slowly at first but suddenly it was fast enough to hold us firmly against a larger, cold, metal box.

"Is it time yet?"

The question was the second most familiar thing in the immediate vicinity. Second only to Ram, of course.

"Just about."

Two little words warmed my chest and brought a mischievous grin to my face.

He stood first, extending a hand to help me up, then firmly holding my shoulders to help keep my balance. The first few steps, for both of us, were shaky and uncertain. The room had gone dark as soon as the airlocked door closed. The only source of light came from a small red LED light that told us the door was password protected. With the quick wave of a flashlight over the panel, we discovered the numbers 1,8,9,0 to be noticeably worn.

"Thoughts?" I asked him.

He was so close I could feel his arm brush mine as he reached forward to type in a guess.

"1980? The year the ambassador was born?"

I swatted his hand away.

"Too easy, and either way he was born in 1976, his wife was born in 1980."

"But that's also the year of a military coup and declaration of martial law."

With a huff, I told him to go ahead and give it a try. The dull tone and flash of the red light confirmed he was wrong.

"1890?" I asked him.

"Maybe? I'm blanking."

Another dull tone, but this time, a hatch in the ceiling opened. The bright beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness and soon we were hiding once again. Our efforts were useless though, we had already been seen and the Turks were coming.

"We need to get out of here!" Ram whisper-yelled into my ear.

"No, duh!" I replied, also attempting to keep it down.

"1089? 1098?"

"1908! Young Turk Revolution!"

Lady Luck was on our side today. The door was unlocked, all we had to do crank it open with the long metal handle.

"Harness," Ram said, thrusting the black contraption into my hands. I watched him put his own on, repeating the process for myself. He also put on a tightly packed black backpack, but there was only one of those.

Then, another hatch, this one much larger opened nearly above us and big burly men began to yell in Turkish.

"Davetsiz Misafir!" I had no idea what that meant, but their tone was very telling. They were not happy they had stowaway on their plane.

"Go!" I yelled to Ram, pushing him into the door.

"You are not helping!" he yelled back. Finally, after a few hits of his shoulder and my help holding down the stubborn handle, the door popped open.

Seconds later I was flying through the air, and hurtling hundred maybe thousands of feet back toward the ground.

I screamed, but the rush of air past my popping ears was all I could hear.

Oh my gosh. In the heat of it all I'd forgotten about Ram... and the fact that he was the only one with a parachute.

I frantically searched for him, yelled his name, but he was nowhere to be seen. This was the end. I was going to die like this.

As morbid thoughts and familiar fears planted themselves in my mind's garden, I was yanked roughly upward.

I turned my head to find Ram behind me, clipping me to him with a new and shiny carabiner. He wrapped his arms around my torso, under my armpits, and somehow still managed in the tangle of our bodies to pull the ripcord.

We were jolted up right a final time, and an uninvited scream escaped my dry throat. Slowly now, we were descending. A great mass of blue and yellow hung above us.

"Are you okay?" he asked yelling a bit as it set in that the world was now quiet, aside from the breeze whistling around us.

"Seriously!" I yelled back, at first I must have seemed angry but soon we were both grinning like madmen, "I just fell thousands of feet-"

"Maybe one, definitely not multiple," he interrupted.

"-without a parachute-" I continued.

"I had one, and it's specifically designed for tandem jumps."

"-and your first question is 'are you okay?' To tell you the truth, I'm fantastic! This is incredible!"

He laughed.

"Does anything hurt? Tweak anything?" he teased.

"Shut up, dummy!"

"That's Ranger Rothchild to you, girl!"

At that point we were both laughing crazily once again.

I looked down and all around us seeing the pink dotting the landscape, flecks flying up through the air, covering portions of the streets and parks. The Potomac glittered in the setting sun's last rays, and lastly, I noticed the monuments, white marble domes and spires, memorializing our country's past.

To my dismay I slipped down, falling just the slightest bit, as Ram unhooked his arms from mine and grabbed onto another set of cords.

As we dipped from side to side, he aimed us toward the Reflecting Pool, the one place we could be sure had no people. No one wants to go swimming in that.

"Can we do this again sometime?" Ram asked. I turned to look at him incredulously but then noticed the corners of his mouth turned up in a triumphant smirk.

Taking on one of my own I replied, sarcasm dripping off each of my words, "The international incident, sneaking aboard the Turkish Ambassador's plane? Or do you just mean the skydiving?"

"Just the skydiving." He laughed, "Maybe we can play paratrooper and jump off my garage again.

I could only laugh and nod in response. The last time he'd done that, he fell and broke his wrist.

"The only problem is, I'm not sure how our buddies are going to feel about us giving this another shot."

"Who? Amy and Mike? Are you scared of them now?"

"No," he said his tone suddenly pretty serious, "Them."

He pointed first to the left, and then to my right. I gave a shy and nervous wave to each pilot of the F-17's.

Their outward speakers erupted with a loud and frustrated man's voice yell, "Violette Mirielle Bohsi! I swear when I get my hands on you-"

It cut out, but quickly came back, this time a woman's voice, "You too, Ambrose! You are going to wish I'd never had you!"

"I think we're really in trouble this time, Ram."

I could feel him tensing behind me, but then quickly go limp, instructing me to do so as well.

The water was freezing and gunky. It's years of lying stagnant with the sun of the prolonged Washington DC summer beating down on it has reduced it to a mosquito breeding ground.

I splashed and coughed as my head emerged from the two and a half feet of water. I struggled to get free of the harness and relieve myself of the dead weight of the parachute and.... oh my....Where is Ram?!

"Ram!" I screamed as I hurried to stand.

He was not there behind me. I reached down into the water looking for him, nerves and worries getting the better of me when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Vi," his voice said.

Ram, he's okay.

"Did you lose something?" He chuckled.

I turned to him, grabbing him tightly around the waist.

"You," I replied. I sniffed a bit, so he pulled me in tighter. He was here. He was fine. We had just gone sky diving in restricted airspace.

"Mon Dieu!" cried a woman in a distinctly Parisienne accent, "What the hell do you think you were doing? You could have died!"

Amy, who makes up half of our direct protection detail, stood at the edge of the pool glaring daggers at us. We were clinging to each other even tighter now, sharing the green and dark muddy brown filth that covered us. The bunch in my hair was the hardest to get rid of.

I suddenly started to feel really guilty. She looked completely out of wack. Her hair was unkempt and her mascara ran enough to leave dark circles under her eyes. I do not know if I had ever seen her this truly upset. She hid her worry well behind her anger though.

"I'm sorry... I-" I started to apologize when a panic stricken man jogged up besides her, his tie flying over his shoulder.

"Are you kids okay?!"

Mike, the other half of our detail. He was usually all fun and games, congratulating us on our adventures and conquests, but this time he seemed genuinely upset as well.

"You..." Amy said in her scariest of tones. The worst was always when she refrained from yelling. Her explosions after bottling up for even an hour were terrifying.

Mike held his hands up in mock surrender as she set her sights on him. I thought she might push him into the pool with us for good measure.

"How did you let them out of your sight?!" She screamed, punching him repeatedly in the arm and stomach. It was nothing too brutal, but the never ending string of multilingual curses leaving her mouth was nothing to sneeze at either.

Eventually her angry gaze returned to us as well, though it never really left Mike, and she continued on in French. I think the gist of it was: 'You, lunatics! I could kill all three of you!' but in a much less polite way.

"Amy, we already said we were sorry!" Ram totally just hijacked my apology but now was not the time to be stingy about it.

"Oui! Nous sommes vraiment désolé." I pleaded our case in her native tongue as well.

"Whatever she said, I second!" Mike looked ready to just throw himself in the water, it would probably hurt less than being thrown in. He, a former naval seal, was quite literally shaking in his boots (but they were actually leather dress shoes). He for sure thinks she will kill him this time.

"How about we go home?" I suggested, releasing Ram and wading towards the edge of the pool.

"I'll second that!" Ram threw his hand up and followed behind me, "I'm beat."

"Not so fast, les enfants," Amy stopped us in our tracks, "You didn't forget, did you? About a formal dinner with the monarchs of Anverslan? And a certain Princess, in particular?" Amy's arms were crossed on her chest and eyebrow raised.

I suddenly understood why she had yet to push Mike in the pool. There was not enough time for him to change before the dinner. There would barely enough time for us to clean up ourselves.

"Can I call in sick?" I faked a cough, "Hear that? We can't have me getting royalty sick! Especially not those from an allied nation! We could be accused of biological warfare!" I pleaded my case, but Judge Amy looked ready to wack me with her gavel.

"Don't be dramatic!" Amy scolded, "When we arrive, you will quickly and quietly go get ready! You'll have about 30 minutes. Now out of there! Before you really do catch a cold."

She grabbed my arm and pulled me up with Mike reaches for Ram.

Before I knew it, we were swept up in a flood of agents and emergency workers. A police officer wrapped me up in a shock blanket and a paramedic put a bottle of water in my hand. I could see firefighters fishing for our parachute and a secret service agent confirming that "Bonnie and Clyde" had been retrieved.

We were ushered into the second row of an SUV, the heat blasting from above and below. Mike sat behind the wheel and Amy in the passenger seat while Agents Boyle and Donahue closed the doors on either side.

Ram laid his head against mine and sighed. I could tell he was smiling. For now we could take everyone's words and move on, because they had no power over us, but you can bet tomorrow we will not be so lucky. When our parents get their hands on us, I think we'll be lucky to be alive.

"30 minutes sounds nice, " Ram said wrapping his arms around my waist. He was warm and comforting and we were both very sleepy, though it was only about six o'clock in the evening.

"Yeah," I joked, "Just enough time for a nap before princess flirty pants arrives."