The Hunter

CHAPTER 13

Paris, France

Monday

22:48 CET

On the computer monitor a black-and-white image flickered incessantly. The picture was grainy, in places distorted, but the quality was just about adequate. It was low-res CCTV, so Alvarez was hardly expecting crystal clarity, but it would have been nice if the footage hadn’t given him a bitch of a headache.

He pinched the skin between his eyebrows and wiped the tears from his strained eyes. He felt like shit and guessed he looked no better. He stood in the basement of the US Embassy along with Kennard while a young tech guy whose name he didn’t have time to remember controlled the equipment.

After he’d got off the call with headquarters, Chambers evidently had applied pressure on the French because Alvarez had received copies of all pertinent documentation. He’d also been given copies of the security recordings from the hotel in which five people, including a woman no less, had ended up shot to bits. According to the police report one of the two corpses found in the apartment building opposite was another woman, and an elderly one at that. This was the single craziest thing he’d worked on in his time in the CIA.

Alvarez had been an operations officer in the National Clandestine Services, previously known as the Directorate of Operations, for nearly eleven years. Before that he had served in the Marine Corps after leaving college, but life as a jarhead hadn’t been for him. It had felt like treading water, always waiting for something to happen, but it never had. He’d joined up as a punk kid eager to see what he was made of, and the continual training and occasional humanitarian mission hadn’t shown him what he wanted to find out. It had been a different time then, now he would probably get more action than he could stomach. He had joined the forces for the wrong reasons, but he had signed up with the CIA for all the right ones. Alvarez hadn’t looked back since.

On the screen two men entered the elevator.

‘Who are these guys?’

While Alvarez stood straight backed with his big arms folded in front of his bigger chest, Kennard was hunched over, sleeves rolled up, elbows resting on the desk as he peered at the monitor. Kennard was a decade or more younger than Alvarez and was technically his number two, but Kennard liked to act as if they were partners. Alvarez, always the diplomat, let it pass to keep their working relationship friendly.

Kennard had an inch or two over him, used too much junk on his hair, and seemed to be on the agency gravy train just to get the health care. He was probably looking at it as a career stepping stone. Join the CIA out of college, get a few years under the belt; get experience and training; and then move on to bigger, better, and more highly paid things in the private sector. Alvarez didn’t have much time for that kind of attitude. He was in the CIA to do his duty as a patriot.

Kennard was usually all mouth and wouldn’t shut up unless his life depended on it, but he hadn’t been his usual cocky self all day. Perhaps the seriousness of the work had finally given the guy a much needed wake-up call. People were dead. This wasn’t some game.

Alvarez flicked through the photocopy of the preliminary case report. It had some extras his original copy didn’t have. He’d acquired the additional information from an agency source inside the Paris police. It had cost the US taxpayer a pretty dollar, but the thick wad of euros had done what the supposed agreement to cooperate had not.

He found the section of the report that listed each of the dead bodies. Apart from the old lady killed outside her front door, none of the corpses had identification. What most did have were radios with earpieces, guns, and ammunition. The French hadn’t ID’d any yet, but Alvarez had fed his copy of the fingerprints into the system and was waiting on the results. Something very big involving some very bad people had gone down at the hotel.

Watching the recordings was a mind-numbing process, but Alvarez’s motivation couldn’t be higher. Andris Ozols had been set to meet Alvarez when he was murdered and the intel he had been carrying stolen. Recovering that information was Alvarez’s priority, but equally important to Alvarez was catching the fucker who killed the Latvian and, at the very least, nailing him to the closest available wall.

Unfortunately the hotel made use of only two CCTV cameras, one in the lobby and one at the rear entrance. Cameras on every floor would have made Alvarez’s life a whole lot easier. With only two lots of footage to go on, Alvarez had to rely on what the police report told him to piece together what had happened. That report was, however, still frustratingly brief and full of holes. It would be a while before those gaps were filled.

‘Here he comes,’ Kennard said. ‘Walking to reception.’

Alvarez looked at the report. ‘Mr Bishop, room 407.’

On the screen Alvarez watched the mystery man move from the reception desk to the elevator, where he seemingly waited for it to arrive before suddenly standing to one side. Obviously hiding from the two men who stepped out.

Both he and Kennard had watched the relevant parts at least twenty times, and it still amazed Alvarez what he was seeing. As one of the soon-to-be-dead guys stood in the lobby, the killer moved right past him, coming so close it looked as if they were touching, before slipping unnoticed into the elevator.

‘Smooth,’ Kennard whispered.

Alvarez found himself nodding. ‘Fast-forward a moment.’

The tech worked the controls and a whizzing sound accompanied the scrambling picture for a few seconds.

‘That’s enough,’ Alvarez said.

On the screen there were now two men, clearly anxious, frantically stabbing at the elevator buttons before rushing to the stairwell and disappearing.

Kennard shook his head. ‘And a few minutes later they’re both corpses.’

‘They came to the hotel for him, not the other way around,’ Alvarez said. ‘Okay, let’s skip until the other guys come in.’

Alvarez loosened his tie for perhaps the tenth time, while Kennard stared at the screen. The tech worked silently on the fast-forwarding. The room was stuffy. There were no windows and the air conditioner was on its way to machine hell. Outside it was bitterly cold, but Alvarez, Kennard, and the tech geek had been in a ten-by-ten box full of electrical equipment for several long hours. The air was practically poisonous.

‘Here we go,’ Kennard said.

The man who had to be Ozols’s killer stepped out from the elevator and sat down in an armchair. Infuriatingly he kept his face hidden from the camera at all times, not overtly so, but with a gentle angling or inclination of the head ensuring the camera didn’t pick up his features. It was too much to be just luck.

He couldn’t have known where the camera was positioned before he arrived at the hotel, but he had checked in several days before, and the hotel only kept recordings for forty-eight hours. After that they were reused. Alvarez couldn’t see the point of that. The hotel might as well not have any cameras at all. He’d told the manager as much.

The killer reappeared on the recording for just a few seconds, moving through the lobby to the stairwell. Then he was gone again, and that was the last time he appeared on the footage. One body had been found in the kitchen, so to Alvarez it was a reasonable guess that the killer had left that way instead of the tradesman’s, where the second camera was located. Then, more people had been killed in the building opposite, and another in the street itself.

Alvarez stood without moving as the rest of the recording played on, hoping for something else that might help. He was dog tired. His eyes stung. He was sure Kennard was feeling the same. He guessed the tech geek was used to staring at screens all day and didn’t have a problem with it. He probably found this kind of crap exciting. Freak.

After another thirty minutes Alvarez finally pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘We’re not going to get anything more from this.’

Kennard nodded. ‘Agreed.’ He cracked his knuckles. ‘You think they do Chinese chow in this town? I don’t know about you guys but I could do with some crispy duck. I’m sick of this frogfood crap.’

The tech found his voice. ‘There’s a good place a couple of blocks west with some damn fine Asian ass waiting tables. I’ll show you.’

‘Good.’ Kennard slapped his stomach. ‘I’m starved.’

Alvarez was in no mood to eat. He spoke, half to himself. ‘One guy murders Ozols, then two hours later he goes back to his hotel where seven shooters try and kill him, but instead he kills them all.’

‘Yeah,’ Kennard said, eyes on the door.

‘We’ve got a description from the receptionist for a tall or average-height Caucasian with brown or black hair. But it could be dyed. Can’t remember the eye colour. Maybe glasses. Some age between twenty-five and forty. He’s got a beard but that’ll be shaved by now if it wasn’t stuck on, so what we’re left with implicates pretty much every other white guy out there.’

‘That’s about the size of it,’ Kennard agreed. ‘This is bullshit. We’ve got nothing.’ He picked up his jacket.

Alvarez couldn’t argue. He pushed his palm against the grain of his stubble as he thought about what to do next. He was drained but didn’t want to sleep. There was still too much to do. His cell phone rang and he was quick to answer it. When he had hung up he smiled at Kennard.

‘You were saying?’