Author's note: Kidnap starts in November of the year when the Queen met her granddaughter. The story is rated T but please be aware that it contains so called 'adult themes'.

~ Kidnap ~

Chapter 1 - Prelude

Joe Romero, Head of Security of Her Majesty the Queen of Genovia, could imagine foreigners thinking that the Kingdom of Genovia was a fairy-tale country.

Its capital had become wealthy in the days of the Baroque and unfortunatelly that showed. Joe had once heard an American child who was walking in Pyrus's main street cry out: ´Where are Donald and Mickey and Captain Hook and Tinkerbell?´ The parents were unsuccessful in convincing their son that they were not in Disney World. The boy had pointed at the De La Fleur hotel with its pink-ish ornamental towers and he hadn't recovered from the absence of his heroes until a chocolate covered pear was pushed in his hands.

Another fairy-tale aspect of Genovia was the Royal Audience. In other western countries it was a long forgotten custom but Genovians who faced a problem involving the state could still drop by at the Castle and bother their Monarch. There was an audience going on now and Joe studied the line of waiting countrymen. He would be relieved when the last Genovian had left. It wasn't that he worried about curious people sneaking into the Castle: there was security everywhere. Almost everywhere. Tradition demanded that the subjects should be able to ask their liege's advice without anyone eavesdropping and as a result the nearest guard to defend Her Majesty stood ten metres to her left.

Joe and several of his men were scanning the crowd. There were men and women waiting, old and young alike, poor and rich. He was pleased to see people with a non-Genovian background: when they had found their way to the Queen, they had found their way into Genovia. Everyone was a little nervous and the closer they got to Her Majesty the less they spoke. Some were moving their lips, silently rehearsing what they would tell their Queen. Others looked in every direction except to the throne.

Joe wasn't too shy to stare at his charming Queen. She listened, advised and reassured and everyone who left the throne room was relieved and impressed.

A young woman had brought her son with her and when they walked away from the Queen, the boy freed his hand from his mother's to run back to the throne. The mother panicked but the Queen smiled when the child handed her yellow flowers that he had held in his pockets. Word of the boy's action spread and it caused most people to smile. Via a monitor Joe noticed that the man who was next in line was very tense. Without actually running Joe hurried forward.

When the man knelt for the Queen, Joe started to think he had been overreacting.