Kill Shot

Rapp hesitated. “Have you ever worked on something like this?”

“Not specifically, but I have plenty of first-aid training and I grew up hunting, in case you forgot.”

“Of course I didn’t forget. I watched you kill an elk at eight hundred meters.”

“That’s right. And I don’t see how I could do a worse job than you.” She gestured at his haphazard tape job. “Do you have more supplies?”

“Yeah . . . they’re in the bathroom.”

“Good . . . get on the bed.”

He smiled. “Slow down, princess. I’m not just a piece of meat. Maybe you could buy me breakfast first.”

She ignored him and went to grab the supplies.

“Fine, I’ll order my own breakfast. Can I get you anything?”

“No, I’m fine.” She came back out of the bathroom with a plastic shopping bag and motioned for Rapp to sit on the bed. She set the supplies down and took her jacket off. After pushing the sleeves of her sweater up, she headed back into the bathroom and started scrubbing her hands.

Rapp grabbed the phone and ordered breakfast for two. If Greta didn’t eat her food he would. When he was finished ordering she sat down next to him on the bed and began peeling back the tape as carefully as she could manage. Rapp tolerated it fairly well until she pulled the bandage off the back of his shoulder. A semidried scab was stuck to the gauze and came off with it. Greta took a warm washcloth and gently wiped down the entry and exit wounds. After that she started dousing cotton balls with rubbing alcohol and did a more thorough job. Rapp did his best to ignore the burning.

“How does it look?”

“I’m not sure,” Greta answered. “There’s a lot of swelling. How do you feel?”

“Not bad.”

She grabbed him by the chin and turned his face toward her. “Don’t lie to me. This has to hurt.”

“It doesn’t feel good, but it sure as hell beats being dead.”

She looked at the front of his shoulder and then the back. “You were shot from behind.”

“That’s right. How could you tell?”

“The wound on your back is small and the one in front is bigger. You’re lucky the bullet didn’t hit anything major. What kind of round—nine-millimeter?”

Rapp was surprised. “I think so. How did you know?”

“I told you, I grew up hunting. Almost everyone in my country is taught how to fire rifles and pistols, even the girls. I’ve seen what a rifle round does to flesh. If you had been shot with a rifle round the exit wound would be much bigger.”

“You’re right. It was probably a nine-millimeter.”

Greta finished cleaning the wound, placed fresh gauze bandages on both holes, and wrapped gauze around the shoulder and under his armpit to make sure everything stayed in place. When she was done she went back into the bathroom and washed her hands. Rapp hadn’t missed the fact that she had gotten very quiet over the last five minutes. When she came back out he found out why.

Greta stood directly across from him, leaned against the wall, folded her hands across her chest, and said, “You were involved in that bloodbath at the Hotel La Fleur the night before last.”

Rapp was speechless. He should have seen it coming, but the pain pills had made him a little sluggish. “Greta, you know I can’t talk about my job.”

She looked away from him and starting chewing on her bottom lip. “Innocent people were killed. Several guests and a busboy, not to mention the prostitute, the oil minister, and his entire security detail.” She turned her blue eyes on him. “Please tell me you weren’t involved.”

Rapp was trying to plot the fine line he was going to walk when there was a knock on the door. A male voice announced that it was room service. Greta looked as if she might cry. Rapp grabbed the gun and looked through the peephole. The man was in his early twenties. Rapp pulled the wedge out from under the door to let the waiter in and then walked over to Greta. In a voice barely above a whisper he said, “I will explain everything after he’s gone.” His words didn’t appear to calm her, so he tried again. “Greta, I didn’t kill any innocent people. The papers don’t have the story right.” Rapp kissed her on the forehead and then went into the bathroom and closed the door. He looked into the mirror, took a deep breath, and tried to figure out how much he could tell her.

CHAPTER 15

PARIS, FRANCE

THE unusual pair moved down the narrow sidewalk at a casual pace. One was tall, just under six-four, and fair-skinned, with wispy sandy blond hair. The second man was of medium height and powerfully built. He had thick black hair that looked as if it hadn’t been combed in a week. His full beard ran down his neck, where it blended in with tufts of coarse chest hair poking out of the open collar of his royal blue shirt. The tall man was wearing jeans, a brown turtleneck, a rust-colored sweater, and a tweed sport coat with the collar turned up. A tan cashmere scarf knotted around his neck helped fight off the cold. Jones was almost always cold, while his bear of a friend shunned gloves, hats, and scarves even on the rawest of days.

Today, as on most days, though, Bernstein was wearing a field jacket open and flapping as he walked. Bernstein didn’t wear the jacket for warmth, he wore it because he tended to carry a lot of stuff. Pockets were a necessity of his job as a freelance photographer. He was never without at least one camera, usually his trusted black Leica M6, which was hanging around his neck. His pockets were always stuffed with extra batteries, film, lenses, and all sorts of tools, including maps and various forms of identification and cash concealed in secret pockets.

The two men stopped at the corner of Rue de Tournon and Rue de Vaugirard. The Palais du Luxembourg loomed across the street. It was an attractive building dating all the way back to the early seventeenth century but Paris was filled with such buildings and after sixteen years of calling Paris home, the two men scarcely noticed such things anymore. Heavy clouds had settled over the city. Jones regarded the cold gray sky and shivered. He thought the day was supposed to clear up, not get worse. He tucked his chin down, shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, and mumbled to himself.

“Did you wear your long underwear?” Bernstein asked with a sly grin on his face.

“Damn right. It’s freezing.”

Bernstein slowly turned his broad head toward his friend and said, “It’s fifty-six degrees.”

“And there’s no sun and the wind is picking up. It’s freezing.”

It never failed to amaze Bernstein that someone who had grown up in Minnesota could be so affected by a drop in temperature. He smiled and shook his head.

“I know what you are thinking. If I put on some weight, maybe I wouldn’t be so cold all the time.”

“No . . . that’s not what I was thinking.”

“Then what?”

Rather than argue about something so pointless, Bernstein said, “I was thinking about how excited I am to hear what he wants us to do.”

“I’m sick to my stomach over it, actually, but what are our choices?”

“We really don’t have any, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful.”

“And remember . . . no matter how much he bullies us we don’t have to do everything he tells us to do.”

Bernstein gave a sarcastic laugh, watched the light turn green, and then began to walk across the street. As Jones fell into step, he said, “He holds all the cards. He recruited us, he helped us get started, and he could easily end our careers . . . or at least yours.”

“Don’t think he wouldn’t ruin yours as well.”

“I’m not saying he wouldn’t try, I’m just saying nobody gives a shit who I am. If my photos are good or my footage kicks ass, they’ll still line up to buy it just like they always have. You, on the other hand, are a whole other story.”

They crossed into the park and walked down the east side of the palace. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately,” Jones said. “I’m not so sure he would. I don’t think Langley would like the exposure any more than we would.”

“You’re talking Langley. He’s not Langley, and he hasn’t been Langley in a long time. He hates Langley.” Bernstein separated from his friend and allowed an old man with a cane to pass between them. “Your mistake is that you believe he thinks like all of the other government types we deal with.” Bernstein shook his big head. “He’s nothing like them.”

Jones’s face soured. “You’re right. He’d love to expose us and ruin our careers.”

“That book deal you just signed . . . you can kiss that hundred-thousand-dollar advance good-bye.”

Jones’s face grew angry. It was all so unfair. He had worked hard, more than fulfilled his end of the bargain, but they wouldn’t let him go. He hated to admit it but he knew Bernstein was right. Sixteen years as a distinguished journalist, the first ten with the Associated Press, and then the last six as CBS’s Middle East correspondent. One whisper that he was a spy for the CIA and he would become the biggest pariah in his field. He’d be fired by his employer and with it his expense account and entire way of life would vanish, and then he would be ostracized by all of his colleagues and hated by almost every friend he’d made over his professional career. Although, maybe it might help book sales, he thought. Times had changed, despite what his handler had always said. The mean old bastard loved to describe to him in detail what would happen to him if he was ever exposed.

“You can’t let this shit get to you,” Bernstein said, trying to snap his friend out of his funk. “At least hear what he has to say.” As they continued down the crushed-gravel path Bernstein wondered about the roles they played. Jones was the on-air talent—the pretty face with the deep voice and sympathetic blue-gray eyes. A nice head of hair, but thinning just enough to give him the seasoning of a man who has seen the world and knows the difference between right and wrong. Insecurity came with the job, unfortunately. There was always someone younger and better looking out there hot on his heels. Bernstein was the hustler—never afraid to go anywhere if it meant getting the shot. They’d both won a mantel full of awards. Where Bernstein was reckless, Jones was cautious. The taller of the two had saved them more than a few times by refusing to enter a particular hot spot. He had an uncanny sense for situations that were about to fall apart, and Bernstein had learned to respect it.

They continued for a good hundred yards without speaking, passing the Octagonal Lake and making their way toward the eclectic corner of the park where the young, old, brilliant, and strange gathered to play chess. As they rounded the lake, Jones decided to make one of his pronouncements.

“I have a bad feeling.”

Bernstein was long past giving him shit about these premonitions. He cleared his throat, looked over both shoulders, and asked, “What is it?”

“I think this has something to do with the massacre at the hotel the other night.”

Bernstein digested the news, took a few thoughtful strides, and said, “No sense worrying about it until we hear what he has to say.”

“I’m not so sure. I’d just as soon tell him to fuck off. I could be in Cairo by nightfall, and they can all kiss my ass. I’ll still write my book, and maybe I’ll out all these fuckers.”

Bernstein knew his friend well enough to know he was prone to theatrics and grandiose statements when he was nervous. “You might want to keep that thought to yourself.”

“Oh, trust me . . . I know. I’m the one he yells at, not you.”

“That’s because I keep my mouth shut.” Bernstein shoved his hands into his pockets. “You ask too many questions.”

“I’m a reporter. That’s what I do for a living. I ask questions. Lots of them.”

“Well maybe today you could give it a break. Just sit there and listen for a change.”

They found an open table with a little space between them and the guys who were playing chess. Bernstein produced a folding chessboard from his jacket and two Ziploc bags—one filled with white pieces and the other filled with black. Holding the bags under the table, he extracted one piece from each and then held his fists out for Jones to choose.

The Minnesotan tapped the right hand and Bernstein cringed as he opened it to reveal a black bishop.

“Oh, great. You get white. I might was as well quit right now.”

Bernstein didn’t want to hear any more complaining, so he handed the white bag across the table.

“I don’t want your charity.”

“And I don’t want to hear you bitch anymore . . . besides, we both know I don’t need the first move to win.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“No thanks,” Bernstein responded as he started to set up the black pieces.

The two were so focused on setting up the board that they failed to notice a bald man in a khaki trench coat sit down at the table next to them. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses and thin leather driving gloves. He took a newspaper from under his arm and set it on the table. In a gravelly voice, just above a whisper, he said, “So you’d just as soon tell me to fuck off. Be in Cairo by nightfall and out my ass.”

The color rushed from both of their faces, and Bernstein gave his friend a look that said he would like to shove every last chess piece down his throat. Slowly, they both turned their heads and looked at the man sitting four feet away.

Stan Hurley slid his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose and looked straight at Jones. “How about I put a bullet in the back of your head, and we call it even?”

The tall reporter sat gaping for a moment, as he was too shocked to think of a reply. Slowly his mouth started to move, but no words came out, and then he started to stammer as if he were back in grade school.

“Stop fucking mumbling,” Hurley ordered. “How long have I been working with you two?”

Again, Jones began to stutter.

Hurley, as impatient as ever, answered his own question. “Seventeen fucking years and this is how you want to treat me, you selfish prick? I got your ass out of that jam in Turkey. I helped both of you find jobs, and there’s been no shortage in cash that has come your way over the years, and you act like you’re a fucking victim.”

“I was only . . .”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear you speak yet. I’m still trying to figure out if you’re worth the risk.” Hurley leaned back and crossed his legs. “Turkey, and I’m not talking about Thanksgiving . . . I’m talking Midnight Express. Two stupid college kids deciding they’re going to try to bring a bunch of drugs out of the country and then sell them stateside and make a nice profit. I’m talking big hairy Turkish guards gang-raping a couple of East Coast journalism majors. I thought that nice little visual was seared into your brainpans, because it sure did seem like it when you were both bawling like babies for me to save your asses all those years ago.”

Bernstein looked solemnly at Hurley and said, “I have not forgotten the fact that you saved us, and I never will.”

“You’re not the one who worries me, Dick. It’s pretty boy here.”

Jones had managed to get some saliva in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to croak out his words. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I haven’t been feeling all that well and it’s put me in a bad mood.”

“Mood?” Hurley threw the word back with disgust. “Mood has nothing to do with this. This is serious shit, and while I know you think you made a deal with the devil, you should open your mind to the possibility that all these years you’ve spent rubbing elbows with all of your fellow bleeding-heart reporters has turned you into a half Commie.” Hurley leaned in close. “The U.S. of Fucking A. is not the bad guy in this fight. The CIA is not the bad guy, and if you opened your eyes and fucking looked around at all the nasty shit you’ve seen, you’d know that. We’re not perfect, but we’re a hell of a lot better than the opposition. Now . . . I’d like to hear from you, Brian, what in hell has been so difficult about our little relationship?”

Jones looked down at the chessboard and cleared his throat. “It’s just that it’s unethical for a journalist to work for you and your organization. It puts a lot of stress on me. If word ever got out . . .” His voice trailed off and he began to shake his head.

“Unethical.” Hurley laughed. “You mean like trying to transport illegal drugs from one country to another. Would that be unethical or should we just cut through the bullshit and elevate it to a crime punishable by twenty years in a Turkish prison?”

“We were young and stupid.”

“And now you’re older and still stupid. How about the cash I’ve given you over the years? I assume you assuaged your ethical burden by giving all the money to the Little Sisters of the Poor?”

Jones lifted his chin and shook his head.

“You know what, Brian, you need to get off your high horse. You’re not the only journalist I have in my pocket, and I didn’t even invent this game. There’s been plenty before you and will be plenty after you. You need to start thinking of me as your godfather. You think you would have won that Murrow Award three years ago if it wasn’t for me making sure you didn’t get shot?”

“Nope,” Bernstein said as if there were doubt in the statement.

“You need to listen to him more,” Hurley said, pointing to Bernstein. “Your problem, Brian, is that while you are basically a good guy, you are way too insecure. Stop worrying about what your colleagues think of you. A few of them might be your friends, but most of them would just as soon see you fall flat on your face and take your job. You made a deal with me a long time ago and I saved your ass. That is something you should never forget. If you’re willing to step back and take an honest look at this relationship, you’d understand this has been a very beneficial one for all of us. If you’re not willing to do that, then let’s end this thing right now, and trust me on this, I’ll be the one outing your ass and ruining your career, and a month from now they’ll find you swinging from the rafters of that cabin you have up in Thunder Lake. You’ll be so pumped full of drugs no one will doubt for a second that you committed suicide.”

A wide-eyed Jones asked, “How did you know I had a cabin on Thunder Lake?”

Hurley shook his head and said, “Oh, for Christ sake.” He turned to Bernstein and said, “I’m putting you in charge of him. You guys have fifteen minutes to get your shit together. A big guy named Victor is going to show up. If you guys aren’t here, I’ll assume you want to end our relationship, which would be really stupid, because I will assume you are now my enemy and I will be forced to put certain plans in motion . . . the kind of plans that will be nearly impossible to stop once they are started.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Bernstein offered quickly.

“Good. I’ll dispense with Victor for the moment. I assume you’re both familiar with the bloodbath that took place the other night?”

Jones gave his friend a See, I told you so look and asked, “At the hotel on the Seine?”

“Yep . . . Are you guys already covering it?”

“The bureau has someone on it.”

Hurley thought about that a second. “Maybe you should show some initiative. Start digging a bit. I assume you still have some contacts with the police.” Hurley had plenty of contacts of his own all over Paris, but he didn’t want to go tipping his hand. At the moment, everything he had was based on gossip and rumor. He needed the hard facts that the police were dealing with.

Bernstein scratched his beard. “We have some pretty decent sources, but this is Paris, so you know what that means.”

Hurley did and reached into his pocket. He retrieved a thick envelope. “Ten thousand francs. You need more, let me know.”

“Receipts?” Jones asked, regaining a bit of his sense of humor.

“Along with expense reports in triplicate, please.” Hurley pulled two relatively small devices from his pocket. He handed one to Jones and the other to Bernstein. “Those, gentlemen, are the newest in cell phone technology . . . the StarTAC by Motorola. My number is already programmed. As soon as you know something I want to know something.” Hurley also handed them two chargers. “We don’t think the French are up and running on intercepting these things yet, but let’s be careful. You’ve both made enough international calls to know how the game works.”

Both men nodded. They had indeed. Countries could get very ugly about foreign reporters wanting to tell the world about certain atrocities that they were committing. Jones and Bernstein often had to work out special codes with their producers back in New York.

“Also . . .” Hurley started, “I might need you to pull some surveillance shifts.”

Jones let out a moan that said You have got to be kidding me.

“Don’t worry,” Hurley said. “I’ll make sure you’re compensated. You get your head back in the game and get me what I need and I’ll make sure you both walk away from this with a fist full of cash.”

Now that Hurley was calm, Bernstein wasn’t going to wait for his friend to inflame him again. “Thank you. We’ll get right on it.”

“Victor is a big guy . . . impossible to miss. Just do what he says and everything will be fine.” Hurley stood and placed his hand on Jones’s shoulder. “Brian . . . you’re not a bad guy . . . you’re just self-righteous. You think you’re the only noble man in the game.” Hurley shook his head. “Trust me, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

CHAPTER 16

LITTLE yellow flags littered the grassy area across the street from the hotel. Commandant Neville had received the call shortly after 10:00 a.m. She’d already showered and was lounging with her husband and two kids. She’d given up on going to church with two kids in diapers, so Sunday mornings were spent on the floor of their tiny flat. She and her husband tried to simultaneously read the papers and keep the kids occupied with an endless stream of irritating shows that supposedly were going to make Marc, who was two and a half, and Agatha, who was nine months, the smartest kids of their generation. Neville didn’t actually believe it, but she was all for anything that kept them occupied for more than ten minutes. When the call came, she put on a white shirt, black slacks, black pumps, and a gray trench coat. Knowing the cameras would be following her every move, she even put on a dab of makeup and bushed out her short black hair.

A vivid, low fall sun sparkled off the Seine. Neville’s eyes were concealed by a stylish pair of oversized Chanel sunglasses that covered nearly a third of her face. She wore them as much to shield her from the bright sun as to shield her from the prying eyes of the reporters. She had yet to hold a press conference, and she didn’t want them reading anything into her expressions until she was ready. She stood in the middle of the area and tried to make sense of it all. The reporters were back, thick as summer flies, shouting questions and snapping photos and in general being their irritating selves. In addition to the press, there were hundreds if not thousands of curious onlookers who couldn’t resist the morbid pull of the crime scene.

Neville kept her concern beneath a placid mask. She’d learned over the years that it was best to look serious at murder scenes—even angry could work, but it was never okay to laugh or be caught joking with other officers. The investigation, only in its second day, was becoming something of a mess. These little yellow flags, for instance, had only been placed this morning. The entire area from river to street was now blocked off with bands of crime scene tape and another ten officers to make sure nothing was tampered with. Neville thought it was a waste of manpower, but her superiors had insisted. The problem, she knew, was that this entire space had been crowded with people the day before. They had stepped all over the evidence and if this ever got to court it would be all but useless. She did, however, gain something very important—a new angle.

Neville looked back at the hotel and the balcony outside Tarek’s suite. She chided herself for not expanding the perimeter right away, but as her boss had explained, the amount of evidence in the hotel itself was overwhelming. Nine bodies, shell casings and slugs everywhere, and then on top of that they’d found the room with all of the surveillance equipment. They still didn’t have that one quite figured out. No one on the hotel staff remembered any security for the Libyan oil minister. They had over fifteen statements from employees saying Tarek had arrived with a single assistant. That assistant was now unavailable for comment, securely locked behind the gates of the Libyan Embassy.

The tough one to stomach for Neville was that she had more than thirty officers assigned to the case, and she had only learned of the spent shell casings that were strewn about the sidewalk and gutter in front of the hotel the previous evening. The press might eat her alive for that one. She went back to the crime scene, examined the casings, and wondered how many had been crushed, kicked, and taken during the course of the long day. They were more or less spread out under the suite’s balcony. The logical assumption was that either someone had stood on Tarek’s balcony and fired into his room, or someone had stood on his balcony and fired at someone or something down on the street.

She went up to the suite, stood on the balcony, and looked into the room. The wall directly in front of her was untouched, whereas the wall to her right was pocked with bullet holes. Turning toward the river, she looked down at the sidewalk where the shell casings had been found and imagined firing a weapon. After a long moment of reflection she ordered her deputy Martin Simon to rope off the area, bring in the metal detectors, and begin the search for 9mm slugs.

Neville then went home full of self-recrimination for the mishap. She had allowed herself to be sucked into the most plausible theory—that one man, or several men, had killed Tarek, the prostitute, the supposed bodyguards, and then two guests and a hotel worker on his way out the back door. In barely a day’s time it was all falling apart. The Libyans were so far refusing to talk, saying only that the four men were there to protect their oil minister. As a police officer, Neville despised being lied to, and like most cops, she had a very well-tuned BS detector. The four dead men were not bodyguards. They might have been sent to keep an eye on Tarek, but they most certainly were not bodyguards. She would have to ask around, but to the best of her knowledge, she’d never heard of bodyguards using silenced weapons.

Neville ignored the reporters who were yelling her name, instead choosing to act as if the pattern of little yellow flags would give her a glimpse into how to solve the crime of the century. Martin Simon approached from behind and called out her name. When Neville turned, she could tell by the open-eyed expression on his face that the case was about to take another turn.

“What’s up?”

“Let’s take a walk.” Simon glanced back toward the hotel. “There’s something interesting you should see.”

Neville fell into step with the red-haired Simon. Although he was two years older than her, his red hair and freckles made him look as if he were ten years her junior. When they were clear of the throngs of reporters and onlookers, she said, “Please tell me we didn’t find another body.”

Simon laughed. “No more bodies. I think nine is enough.”

“Then you’ve solved the crime for us?”

Simon shook his head as they entered the lobby. “No, but I think I’ve found something that is going to upset you.”

She pulled off her sunglasses and placed them in her purse. The hotel staff watched them with understandable anxiety. More than half of their guests had checked out and future reservations were being canceled at a quick clip. Neville felt bad for them. They were overworked and stressed and this thing was far from over. Every single one of them, whether they had been on duty or not, would be interviewed at least twice more. It was an avenue that had to be pursued for two reasons. Either one of the employees had seen something without realizing it, or one of them was involved in giving the killer or killers information about Tarek’s comings and goings.

They entered the elevator, and when the doors were closed, Simon said, “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“That’s because you drink too much coffee,” Neville said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Don’t start, boss,” he said as he watched the brass arrow move from left to right, ticking out their ascent. “While I was lying awake staring at the water marks on my ceiling, I asked myself why someone would stand on the balcony and shoot toward the street and the river.”

“And?”

“The nine-millimeter casings we found on the street match the ones that were scattered all around Tarek’s suite, and in the hallway, and the ones found by the body at the back door.”

The elevator stopped at the top floor and the doors opened. Neville exited first. “So you think they were fired by one of our Libyan bodyguards.”

“Maybe . . . but for the moment, I’m more interested in who was being shot at than who was doing the firing.”

Neville’s thin lips pinched to the left in an expression that told Simon she wasn’t following his line of reasoning.

Simon stopped walking in the middle of the hall and acted as if he was holding a gun. “If I’m standing on the balcony and firing at someone below, why am I firing at them, and how did they get there?”

Neville shook her head abruptly as if she was trying to clear her thoughts. “What are you talking about?”

“Somebody, or several people, killed those bodyguards, and then they had to get out of the hotel. We jumped to the conclusion that the same person or persons killed Tarek, the prostitute, the bodyguards, then killed the two guests and the worker.”

“Correct.”

“Then who was shooting from the balcony down onto the street, and more important, who were they shooting at?”

Neville visualized what he was saying and said, “I see your point.”

Simon opened a service door at the end of the hallway, revealing a steep, narrow metal staircase that led to the roof. “Whoever was being shot at was not the man who killed the employee who was in the alley. You wouldn’t leave by the back door and then come around to the front of the hotel where there’s a greater chance that you’ll run into someone.” Simon started climbing the stairs. The hatch that led to the roof was already opened.

Neville followed her fellow officer onto the roof and immediately noticed two of her best crime scene technicians.

“So I’m lying in bed,” Simon continued, “and I think, the most logical explanation is that someone left that room last night via the balcony, and if they left via the balcony they must have had a rope.” Simon stopped next to a black cast-iron vent stack and dropped to a knee. Neville followed suit. “You see where the soot has been rubbed free right here?” He pointed to the general area but did not touch it.

Neville could see a circle that wound itself around the cylindrical vent stack. She nodded.

Simon rose to his feet and walked to the edge where one of the crime scene technicians was taking measurements. “Bernard, tell her what you found.”

The man was in his fifties and rail-thin. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of his nose and said, “Fibers in this spot right here.” He pointed to the ninety-degree stone edge of the cap.

“What kind of fibers?” Simon asked.

“I won’t know until I get back to the lab, but they look like the type of fibers used in the construction of climbing ropes.”

Neville nodded, looked back at the vent stack, and then at the spot that Bernard had identified. She could see the discoloration in the stone, as if something had rubbed away the grime. She peered over the edge and directly beneath was a balcony. “I assume that’s the balcony of Tarek’s room?”

“It is,” Simon answered.

Neville looked back at the vent stack. “A rope?”

Simon nodded.

“So where is it?”

“That’s a very good question. In fact, I began asking our people if anyone removed it. No one did, of course. Our people know better than that. But I did find one officer who was on the scene early, who says he definitely remembered a rope running down the side of the building.”

“He’s certain of this.”

“I had him show me the exact spot where he remembered seeing the rope.” Simon pointed down. “He showed me where he parked his car and led me directly to the spot right beneath us.”

Neville looked at the buildings to her left and right. The heights didn’t match but the buildings abutted each other. “So you’re telling me there was an accomplice on the roof when the police arrived who then pulled up the rope and fled.”

Simon looked at the sea of yellow flags across the street. “I’m not sure. There’s another possibility.”

Neville could tell by his expression that he was deeply concerned about something. “What’s bothering you?”

“What’s not bothering me would be a more accurate question.”

She shared the same ominous feeling. “Spit it out.”

“I think someone may have tampered with the rope.”

“You mean removed it?” Neville asked.

“Yes.”

“Shit.” This thing just kept getting worse. “We have a list of all the people who’ve been in and out of here in the last thirty hours?”

“I’m working on it.”

“What about the guests?”

“That was the next thing I was going to talk to you about.” Simon walked away from the edge of the roof with Neville in tow. “Five guests are unaccounted for.”

“What do you mean, ‘unaccounted for’?”

“They checked in earlier in the week and didn’t bother checking out. Their luggage is still in their rooms.”

Neville grabbed him by the arm. “Do we have descriptions of them?”

“Yes,” Simon said with a cautious tone.

Neville thought about the dead bodyguards. “Dark hair, dark skin . . . all in their twenties?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Have you talked to the employees who checked them in?”

“Yes.”

“Have you had them ID the bodies?”

“Not yet. We’re working on getting them to the morgue.”

Neville nodded. It was Sunday and they were still trying to wrap their minds around this thing. She was still trying to see how these new bizarre pieces fit into the puzzle when Simon said he had one more piece of information.

“The room with all of the surveillance equipment down the hall from Tarek’s . . .”

“Yes.”

“The hotel’s computer says the room was unoccupied and being remodeled.”

“Has anyone on the staff confirmed that it was in fact being remodeled?”

“Not so far, but I haven’t talked to everyone.”

Neville thought of the missing rope, the missing guests, who were more than likely lying on cold metal tables in the morgue, the strange behavior of the Libyan Embassy, and now this room full of surveillance equipment. “Has the forensic team finished going over the room with the surveillance equipment?”

“Yes.”

“Tell them I want them to focus on matching any hair samples with the four bodyguards in the morgue. Nice work, Martin.”

“You would have figured it all out,” he said trying to play down the whole thing.

“Maybe . . . maybe not. Let’s see if we can punch some holes in it and keep it between us until we know we have it right.” Neville headed for the steps.

“Where you off to?”

“Remember the guy from the Directorate who showed up last night?”

“Your ex-boyfriend?”

Neville was about to argue the point, but figured it wasn’t worth it. “I have a feeling he and his people know a lot more about what happened here than they’re letting on.”

“I agree,” Simon said, rushing to catch up with her, “and that’s why I’m coming with you.”

“I can handle it on my own.”

“I know you can,” Simon said as he started down the steps. “But it’s always good to have an extra set of eyes when you’re dealing with professional liars from the Directorate.”

CHAPTER 17

CHET Bramble sat in the back of the van and watched the monitors come online one by one. The static of the little ten-inch monitors flickered to black and white images of the interior of the apartment. They now had audio and video on the safe house. He could see his two men move from one screen to the next. He adjusted the lip mike on his headset and said, “You two dildos done dicking around?”

“One more minute,” the voice crackled. “I need to take a crap.”

“Very funny, dickhead.” Normally Chet would have laughed at such a juvenile comment, but not today. “I told you two this guy is a sneaky fucker. Get your asses moving and get out of there. If he walks in on you, you’ll be dead before I can get in there and save your worthless butts.”

The two men began collecting their gear and moving toward the door. Bramble leaned back in the small chair and exhaled, rubbing his right forearm. The temperature was dropping and it was starting to ache. He was a big man—six feet three inches of sculpted muscles and brawn. He had a broad forehead, a thick neck, and a pair of legs that provided a sturdy base to an immovable object. His entire persona exuded violence and he still couldn’t figure out how Rapp had beaten him more than a year ago. By rights he should have wiped the mat with the young recruit, but somehow the sneaky little fucker had put him in some move he’d never even heard of and about two seconds later there was a sound like a dry branch snapping in two. There was a moment of nothing and then searing pain, followed worst of all by the fact that his arm was bent in a way that it was never meant to bend.

Chet Bramble was the son of a Georgia pig farmer. He had only one sibling, Bob, who had spent nearly an hour hung up in his mother’s narrow birth canal. Rather than do a C-section, the country doctor yanked and pulled and twisted with a pair of forceps until little Bob was wrenched from his mother’s womb. The end result was that Bob had a deformed head and was a little slow mentally. He was two years younger than Chet, but from the age of four on, he was nearly identical in size. Bob was his older brother’s shadow for much of their youth. Chet loved him and fiercely defended him against any and all antagonists no matter their age or size, but as he became a teenager he quietly grew to resent him.

Chet’s mother spent her days baking, doing chores, listening to Christian radio, and reading the Bible. His father, Jacob, or Jake, as his friends knew him, was a massive man with a puritan work ethic and absolutely no sense of humor. He drove both his boys hard, but drove Chet harder for the obvious reason that he wasn’t half retarded. As soon as they could walk they were helping feed the pigs, and not long after that they were shoveling shit. So much shit that all these years later, the mere mention of it filled Chet’s nostrils with the overpowering smell.

As far as Chet could tell, none of his DNA came from his mother’s side. She was a frail little thing and her brothers, two lawyers and an insurance salesman, were pussies. Chet was big and strong like his dad, who had played football for the University of Georgia. There was, however, one big difference between father and son. While Jake was a stoic man who was slow to boil, Chet was hot-tempered and prone to flying off the handle with little or no warning. There was one exception—his brother Bob, and his endless simple questions. When it came to him, Chet had the patience of Job, but that was where it ended. The fights started early on and continued all the way through his senior year in high school.

It wasn’t that Chet couldn’t control his temper, it was that he chose not to. He’d learned at an early age that it felt good to pummel another person with his fists. His first real fight was in second grade, and like most fights at that age, it started on the bus. A couple of fifth-graders were picking on Bob, who was a kindergartener at the time. In addition to his odd-shaped head and his simplemindedness, Bob had a speech impediment that Trevor Smith and Nate Huckster simply couldn’t resist imitating. The first day Chet sat in his seat and stewed, worried that if he did what he was thinking he’d end up in such big trouble that his father would whip him. That night he didn’t sleep well. He lay in the bottom bunk, with his brother sleeping soundly a few feet above him, and plotted. He imagined all of the things he would do to Trevor and Nate if they dared make fun of his brother again. Chet decided there would be no warning. He instinctively knew that warnings wouldn’t do a thing—that talking was useless, and that he needed to send a clear message to everyone who even thought about teasing Bob.

Trevor and Nate started in the next day from the moment they got on the bus. Chet was sitting next to his brother when the two goons grabbed the seat behind them and started in with their stuttering and teasing and laughing, and with each passing mile, Chet let his anger grow. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he passed the time by imagining what he would do to these two when they got off the bus.

It went down on the sidewalk in front of Benjamin Lincoln Elementary School. The two fifth-graders followed Chet and Bob as they filed toward the front door with all the other students and continued to heckle Bob, who, although he was a kindergartener, was as tall as the average fourth-grader. Chet was by far the biggest second-grader, and he was unnaturally strong thanks to his father’s genetics and all of the heavy lifting he had to do around the farm. There was one other thing: Chet was quick, lightning quick, from chasing pigs. Without warning, Chet spun to his left, his GI Joe lunchbox clutched firmly in his right hand. He swung it with such force that he broke Nate Huckster’s jaw, knocking him out cold. The fifth-grader slid to the sidewalk like a wet noodle.

Trevor Smith froze as he watched his friend go down. Nowhere in his imagination had he seen this coming. His own fight or flight reflex never had a chance to engage. The dirty little pig farmer was on him like a violent summer storm. A flurry of punches and then kicks were delivered, and Trevor Smith ended up curled on the sidewalk next to his friend begging for the beating to stop. It was a teacher who saved him, by literally yanking Chet off his feet.

The fallout was interesting, and it taught Chet a lesson he would never forget. Chet didn’t care what they were going to do to him. The beating he’d delivered to those two jerks was worth it. He’d never been in trouble before, but he knew what happened to kids who fought in school. They were sent to the principal’s office and usually given detention, which almost always involved cleaning erasers after school. That punishment would be light. He got the feeling he would get a little more than that. They’d probably paddle him, but he was tough enough to take it. There wasn’t a thing they could do to him that could match the wrath of his father. That was the one thing that had him worried—his father. But then again his father had told him on more than one occasion to make sure no one picked on his brother. All Chet knew was that watching his defenseless brother get picked on made him sick to his stomach, and that he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t do something about it. He was prepared to take whatever punishment they gave him. One other very important thing happened that day—Chet realized he enjoyed beating the crap out of other boys.

The principal was nowhere near as upset as Chet thought he would be. Apparently, there was something very novel about a second-grader beating the snot out of two fifth-graders. Chet learned by certain things that he heard in the following days that Trevor and Nate weren’t much liked by the faculty. Evidently, they had been terrorizing the school for several years and the teachers couldn’t wait for them to move on to the middle school across the street. The other thing he learned was that teachers in general don’t take very kindly to kids picking on mentally challenged students. Where Chet had really miscalculated, though, was with his parents. His father barely said a word, while his mother lost her mind. She was obsessed with the fact that Nate Huckster was the son of the preacher at their church. In Chet’s mind, this was all the more reason to give him a beating, since the son of a preacher should know better than to pick on a slow-minded kindergartener. However, that’s not the way Emma saw it. This was an embarrassment to the family. The Hucksters were good people. Great-Grandma Huckster was a founding member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Trevor Smith’s grandfather owned the bank, which carried the note on their farm.

Chet rode home in the backseat of his mom’s Ford wagon with Bob and listened to her scream at his father about a lot of things that he didn’t understand. When they were finally home, his father took him out to the barn, where he fully expected he would be told to drop his pants and assume the position. It never happened. His father placed his giant hand on his shoulder and nudged him toward a hay bale. He made no attempt to enlighten him on the meaning of social pariah, uncouth dirt farmer, or any of the other things that he had heard his mother scream about in the car. He told Chet in no uncertain terms that he would deal with his mother, he was proud of him that he had stuck up for his brother, and yes, the son of a preacher should know better than to make fun of a gentle boy like Bob, and if he didn’t know better, he deserved to have the snot knocked out of him. As far as the Smiths and the note on the farm were concerned, there was nothing to worry about. Trevor’s father had been an all-conference running back in high school for one reason. Jake Bramble blocked for him and as starting right tackle, there wasn’t a defender in the conference who could stop him. Trevor’s dad was a good man, and when he found out his son was picking on little Bob, he would be delivering a second beating.

Chet couldn’t understand any of it, but something had changed in him. He didn’t tell his father, and he sure as hell didn’t tell his mom. He had enjoyed beating those two boys more than anything he had ever done in his life. He replayed it over in his mind with pure glee, often smiling and laughing aloud to himself. As happens in rural communities, word spread pretty quickly that Jacob Bramble, the three-time all-conference tackle for the beloved Georgia Bulldogs, had a seven-year-old son who had beaten the snot out of two eleven-year-old boys. A period of calm followed where the other boys gave him due respect, not wanting to get smacked in the head with a GI Joe lunchbox by the psychotic pig farmer. The high school wrestling coach, however, stopped by to talk to his dad about channeling Chet’s natural talents in the right direction.

Chet never knew this, but his dad had been worrying about his son long before the fight in front of the school. He had sensed a mean streak in him that was evident when he was around the animals. He would kick the pigs and spit on them when they didn’t do what he wanted them to do, and there was the time he caught him dropping the cat from the rafters of the barn. Jake hoped it was a phase, but in the meantime, he saw wrestling as a way to channel his son’s energy into something with discipline.

At first it worked. Chet devoted himself to wrestling with the zeal of a missionary. By the age of ten, he was Georgia state champ for his age and weight class. As he continued to excel in wrestling, he began playing full-contact football. He was an absolute beast. He played fullback and linebacker. Other teams were afraid to run against him, and when he carried the ball, he would often choose to run opposing defenders over rather than seek the open field. By the time high school rolled around his body was transformed into a mass of solid muscle. He started for both varsity teams as a freshman, and as a junior he was all-state in two sports. The girls loved him, the boys feared him, and unfortunately, Bob was becoming a bigger and bigger embarrassment. As everyone advanced, Bob’s brain seemed to be stuck somewhere between third and fourth grade. In Chet’s junior year, they were playing their archrivals for the conference championship and one of the linemen on the other team started to make fun of Chet’s brother, calling him a retard and every other cruel thing he could think of. Chet, who was already known as a dirty player, responded decisively. Several plays later the team ran a sweep. Just as the whistle blew, Chet caught the oaf standing around the pile and he buried his helmet in the side of the kid’s knee, snapping it at a ninety-degree angle.

Chet had been extremely proud of himself. To this day, he could put a smile on his face when he remembered that big fat bastard lying on the ground crying like a little girl. The following year, in the same game, the fat bastard’s little brother returned the favor. He performed a crackback block on a reverse and shattered Chet’s knee. At the time, every team in the SEC was recruiting Chet. The following week every single offer was rescinded, and Chet’s football career was over. His grades were never great, so going to college to do anything other than play football seemed like a waste of time. He spent six months in a cast and then another six months lying around growing increasingly bitter about life while he made little effort to rehab his knee.

His father could see what would become of his son if he were damned to the pig farm for the rest of his life, so he drove him to the army recruiting station. Jake Bramble already lived with a bitter woman who ignored the fact that they were steadily building an extremely profitable operation. She couldn’t get past the public embarrassment that she was married to a pig farmer. He wasn’t going to watch his son sit around and waste the rest of his life wondering what could have been.

So at eighteen Chet joined the army. Two years later he was a ranger, and three years after that he joined the baddest of the bad—Delta Force. There were some bumps along the way, most of them involving bar fights or reprimands from officers who didn’t appreciate Chet’s sarcastic sense of humor and chose to focus on his lack of respect for rank. The odds were good that eventually Chet’s penchant for drinking and fighting and disrespecting officers would up and land his ass in big trouble.

Sure enough, it happened off-post one hot August night at a popular joint in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was one of those places with dining on one side and a big dance hall on the other, where they would crank the country music and southern rock all night long. Scantily clad girls with tied up T-shirts and short shorts served ice-cold beer out of galvanized tubs, and the booze flowed at the right prices. On weekends, the place was packed with army personnel, some in uniform but most in mufti. Chet and his Delta buddies wouldn’t be caught dead wearing their uniforms off-post in a bar, so when a group of officers rolled in with their dates wearing their dress blues, Chet couldn’t resist. It started simply enough. He threw some insults in their direction that were more or less drowned out by the loud music. The group of officers could smell the Delta boys from a mile away, with their long hair, beards, mustaches, and bulging muscles. Things took a decided turn for the worse when Chet tried to cut in on a young second lieutenant whose wife was the hottest chick in the joint by a mile.

The lieutenant, who was considerably smaller than Chet, took offense. Chet shoved him, and before anyone had a chance to calm things down, a full bird colonel with jump wings, a combat infantry badge, two purple hearts, and chest full of ribbons was right in the thick of it. The rest of the Delta boys had the sense to back off, but Chet was too pissed drunk to realize he was about to cross a Rubicon that an enlisted man should never cross. The colonel informed Chet that his commanding officer was an old friend, and if he went back to his table right now, he would be willing to look the other way and forget that he ever saw him lay a hand on an officer. Chet nodded drunkenly and for a long moment seemed to consider the colonel’s offer. Then he told the officer to fuck off. The colonel was sober, squared away, and a badass in his own right. He looked to the other Delta boys and advised them to get their buddy the hell out of here before he had him thrown in the stockade.

And that was when Chet unleashed a big left hook that glanced off the top of the colonel’s head. Before anyone could react, the colonel delivered two lightning punches—the first to Chet’s nuts and the second to his solar plexus. As Chet dropped to his knees, the colonel delivered the coup de grace with an open-handed chop to the back of the neck that knocked Chet out cold.

The next day Chet woke up on a concrete floor with his neck so sore he couldn’t lift his head to take in his surroundings. It took him a moment to realize he was in the stockade at Fort Bragg. Then he heard voices. One of them was familiar. It was his CO. The events of the previous night came back to him in a fuzzy haze. Chet knew he was in some deep shit. He heard another voice and thought it sounded like that peacock colonel that he was going to pound the crap out of. Chet rolled over to get a look at them and realized he had thrown up on himself.

“Mike, it’s your call,” his CO said. “I got no problem if you want to court-martial his stupid ass.”

The colonel was dressed in his green BDUs, his pants bloused into a shiny pair of jump boots and his hands clasped behind him as if he was standing at parade rest. “I’m tempted. How the fuck does someone this stupid get into Delta these days?” He cocked his head to the side to look at the Delta CO. “When I was in with you, they actually tested us to make sure we had a brain.”

“Yeah, well, unfortunately we don’t test them when they’re drunk.”

“Maybe you should start.”

The CO turned to the door and said, “Stan, why would you want such an obvious retard?”

With great effort, Chet craned his neck to see who his commanding officer was talking to. A man in a gray suit was standing in the doorway. His hair was cut military short, but there was a casualness in the way he stood.

He regarded Chet for long moment and then said, “I remember a few times where I wanted to take a swing at an officer. I think I did once actually. Not sure, though. I was pretty drunk, too.”

The colonel who had kicked Chet’s ass shook his head in disgust. “I don’t want to waste my time dealing with this shithead . . . and God knows, Jim, your D boys don’t need any more bad publicity.”

The CO was quietly relieved. His old buddy was right. The best outcome here was to hit the eject button and let Hurley deal with this jackass. “Stan, he’s all yours.”

Stan Hurley stroked his mustache and nodded with a sense of anticipation. “Nice doing business with you, gentlemen.”

“You’re welcome.” The two officers moved down the hallway, relieved to be rid of this problem.

“Get up,” Hurley commanded.

“Who the fuck are you?” Chet mumbled.

Hurley grinned. This hayseed might have to learn things the hard way. “Who I am is none of your business. All you need to know is that I just saved you from spending the next five years of your life in Leaven-worth. Now get your ass moving, Victor.”

“My name isn’t Victor.”

“It is now. Let’s go.”

That was three years ago, and at first Chet wasn’t sure about his new line of work. He was grateful to have avoided going to jail, but he wasn’t too thrilled that he was no longer a member of the world’s most elite commando team. Before he knew it, though, Chet could see he had found the perfect place and the ultimate mentor. No more saluting, no more rules, and the best part—he got to kill people.

Bramble looked above the monitors at the photos taped to the wall of the van. There were five of them. The first one was a simple headshot, black and white. It made Bramble hate Rapp even more. The man was ruggedly handsome. Where Bramble had to chase pussy, it seemed to fall into Rapp’s lap. To add insult to the whole thing, the jerk seemed to always turn it down. “I hate you, you arrogant prick.”

Bramble wondered where Hurley had gotten the photo. They weren’t big on photos in this line of work—especially posed photos. The other four were all surveillance pics, one of them taken on this exact block in Paris, right in front of the safe house. Again, how it had been obtained, and why, gave Bramble a healthy dose of concern. Hurley or that twat Kennedy had ordered the surveillance on Rapp. No, he thought to himself, she loves him too much. He’s her little pet. She would never put him under surveillance.

It had to be Hurley. He was a smart fucker. At times Bramble thought the tough SOB hated Rapp almost as much as he did. He wants me to kill him, Bramble thought. He wants me to rid him of this problem and I’m going to be more than happy to oblige him.

CHAPTER 18

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

IRENE Kennedy was sitting in the sunroom of her two-bedroom brownstone in Old Town. Her husband was out training for yet another marathon while she was midway through her second newspaper and her third cup of tea. Her marriage could be better, but it could just as easily be worse. There was no shouting or violence, but there was an unstated truce and an underlying knowledge that they did not love each other more today than they had the year before. Kennedy was wrapped up in her work, and he was wrapped up in himself, and she couldn’t decide if she should stick with it or move on. Divorce was a messy, protracted battle, and besides, she wasn’t the kind of person who quit something so important so easily.

There was a fair amount of self-recrimination over her lack of effort, but her job afforded her little time to come up for air, and, as she’d learned over the years, her husband was hardly the kind of person who would meet her halfway. He was basically a spoiled, selfish boy who refused to grow up. This was all lost on her when they were dating—when things were easy. He was turned on by the fact that she worked for the CIA, and she was turned on by the fact that he was a good-looking, smart man who made her laugh. He was a college professor who had a very flexible schedule, which worked well for her. When they were dating Kennedy didn’t see any of the negatives. Even the first few years of marriage went well. Then the complaining started. Karl always seemed to be getting the raw end of some deal. It usually involved a simple discussion at a party, or a double date with one of the tenured members of his department. To Kennedy the conversations seemed normal—two adults agreeing to disagree. But then they’d get home and Karl would go on for hours about how rude the other person was. How insulting the person had been and that he could tolerate a lot of things but ill-mannered adults was not one of them. Kennedy never saw it. She worked in the ultimate defend-your-position job. Day in and day out she had to take tough stances and was often told by her superiors that she was wrong. With so much going on there was no time to pout. Kennedy eventually began to see him as an incredibly insecure man who couldn’t bear the thought of being upstaged, at least intellectually. She reasoned that this was why he was teaching philosophy to freshman at American University. The job allowed him to play god to a bunch of kids who were just thrilled to be living away from their parents, and wouldn’t dare challenge a learned professor.

As she saw this ugly side of him, she instinctively withdrew, and he instinctively saw her retreat as a betrayal, and that was how they ended up in their current state of marital detente. So on Sunday mornings he ran, and she got some much-needed downtime. It also happened to be the only day she wasn’t expected to work, although if a crisis popped up it didn’t matter what day or time it was, she had to head in. None of this bothered Kennedy. Her job was interesting, challenging, frustrating, and ultimately crucial to the security of the country. What Sundays offered, as long as the enemy was cooperating, was a certain degree of solitude. It gave her the necessary time to filter through the thousands of data points she’d been dealing with during the week—all of the various operations and needs of her people and the operations that were being mounted against her country. She needed at least one day out of the week to step away from all of it and try to gain some perspective.

She was doing that on a subconscious level, while plowing through the Arts section of the Times, when the phone rang. Kennedy was irritated. It wasn’t yet 9:00 a.m., which for a Sunday morning was early. Kennedy considered not answering it, and then thought that it might be her mother. She set down her tea and walked to the kitchen where the phone was hanging from the wall. She looked at the small readout of the caller ID and her eyes narrowed. It was an international call. Kennedy had already checked the message service twice since getting out of bed and had spent a good portion of the morning wondering if Rapp had crawled into a Parisian sewer and died, which although she liked him would not be the worst possible outcome for her employer.

Calling her house directly was a major breach of protocol, but then again Rapp had proven that he wasn’t big on following her rules. Curiosity got the better of her and she reached for the handset. “Hello.”

“Good morning.”

There was no mistaking the voice on the other end. It was Rapp. Kennedy’s face flushed with resentment over his reckless ways. “You know this isn’t a secure line,” she said, not able to completely mask the annoyance in her voice. There was a frustrating sigh on the other end and then . . .

“Listen carefully.” His voice had a hard, I don’t give a shit edge to it. “As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as a secure line on your end.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re smart, figure it out.”

“I’m in no mood for your games,” she said in an attempt to assert control. “You’re in some hot water. There are some people who think you’ve screwed this thing up in the worst possible way, and since you haven’t bothered to check in, you’ve led them to speculate about how much you can be trusted.”

“I’m glad you fucking desk jockeys have it all figured out from four thousand miles away. I can just hear your uncle second-guessing every move I made even though he hasn’t a clue what went down.”

“Listen . . . this thing wouldn’t look any better from ten feet. It’s a mess and it’s your mess.”

“You’re damn right it is. The only problem is none of you have the foggiest idea what happened.”

“It’s hard to know what happened when your subordinate doesn’t bother to pick up the phone and check in.”

“Well . . . while you were sipping on your latte or tea or whatever the fuck it is that you drink, your subordinate was floating down a river with a bullet hole in his shoulder.”

Kennedy stared wide-eyed at the wall for a moment. Two visuals crowded her thoughts. The first was a wounded Rapp submerged in the murky water of the Seine and the second was the massive cavern beneath the National Security Agency in Maryland that housed the Cray Supercomputers, which were more than likely recording and processing this call. Chastened by Rapp’s information, she said, “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Listen, I can be in the office in twenty minutes. Can you call me there?”

Rapp laughed. “I don’t think you understand the problem. I was set up.”

“Set up?” her face twisted into a frown.

“They were waiting for me. Your advance team missed them, and I missed them. They knew I was coming. I barely made it out of there alive.”

Kennedy was thunderstruck. “I don’t understand how that could have happened.”

“I thought that’s what you’d say. I’ll make this real simple. You’ve been compromised. I don’t know by whom, but either someone has penetrated our little group or we have a traitor among us, and since I’m the one way out on a limb getting shot at, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t exactly trust any of you until you get it figured out.”

Kennedy was pacing from one end of the kitchen to the other, frantically trying to figure out what in hell was going on. A dozen obvious questions popped into her mind, but they were on her damn home phone, and she couldn’t risk asking what she needed to ask. She glanced at the clock on the microwave and wondered if she could catch the next flight to Paris. “I’ll come to you. I’ll bring you in.”

“And how do I know I can trust you?”

Kennedy scrambled to come up with an answer. She thought of how she had recruited him, how she had been his only advocate from the very beginning. The only one who truly recognized his talent and potential. And then she put herself in his shoes. She’d been in the field many times, but never in a situation as stressful as the one he was in right now. The sense of isolation would be overwhelming. Dr. Lewis’s admonition came back to her forcefully. They had created him, and if he turned on them . . . She shuddered at the thought. “You can trust me, and you know it.”

“I’m not really in the mood to trust anyone at the moment.”

“I’ve had your back every step of the way,” she pleaded. “I went to the mat for you yesterday.” She thought of the argument in Stansfield’s office. “Just as you guessed, my uncle was very critical.”

“That’s a shock.”

Kennedy started to say something and then held back. She really needed to talk to Stansfield and tell him what Rapp had told her. “Listen, we need to get off this line. I am going to come to you. Check the service in an hour and I will have more information for you.”

“And what makes you so sure I want to be brought in? Knowing how your uncle operates I’ll end up in solitary for a month hooked up to a car battery.”

Kennedy cringed. He was right, of course. Taking a big risk, she said, “I want you to be careful. Check the service and . . . one other thing . . . he sent some guys over yesterday to look for you.”

“Who?” Rapp said, the suspicion evident in his voice.

Kennedy hesitated and then said, “Victor, your old friend, was one of them. I argued against it.”

The omission was greeted with silence. Kennedy imagined him on the other end of the line seething—his laserlike focus feeding off his hatred for Victor. “They’re keeping an eye on the apartment. Don’t go there,” Kennedy offered. “I will be there as soon as I can to bring you in. All right? Check the service. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’ll think about it.” There was a long pause and then Rapp said, “There were five men who crashed the meeting. I took care of four of them. There was one left . . . the one who winged me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Kennedy’s brow creased with wrinkles, as she tried to decipher what he was saying. “No.”

“I stuck to protocol. I didn’t do anything I wasn’t authorized to do.”

“Okay,” Kennedy said, still trying to figure out what he was hinting at.

“I wasn’t the only one who walked out of there. The fifth man is responsible for the other three. I went out the window.”

“I’m still not sure I understand . . .”

“You’ll figure it out. I have to go.”

The line went dead and Kennedy slowly placed the handset back in its cradle. She replayed the entire conversation in her head, wondering if there was anything that the NSA or FBI could use against her. It was all pretty vague, but it might be enough to land her on someone’s radar screen. She cursed Rapp for calling her at home and then thought about what he’d told her. That it had been a setup. She was moving across the room for the front hall closet without thinking. She needed to brief Stansfield immediately. She grabbed her coat and her car keys from the hook by the door. She hoped Stansfield would see things her way. If he didn’t, she prayed Dr. Lewis was wrong. The last thing they needed was an enraged Rapp looking to settle a score.

CHAPTER 19

PARIS, FRANCE

THE black Renault sedan had tinted windows that made it impossible to see who was in the backseat. It was double-parked in front of the luxurious Hotel Balzac only a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe. A policeman had already tried to move the car but was rebuffed by the driver, who sat securely behind the sedan’s bulletproof windows. The driver was armed with a unique badge that sent the police officer on his way. He also wore a gun on his right hip. The other man in the front seat had the same badge and gun and also had access to an Uzi submachine gun, which was hidden under the dashboard. The vehicle was retrofitted with a thin skin of Kevlar between its frame and the metal exterior. The man in the backseat had traveled the world and had seen more than a few men gunned down in their cars, so he took this aspect of his personal security very seriously.

When Fournier was younger he had carried a gun. It was part of his job, and it didn’t hurt that certain women were turned on by the cold steel he wore on his hip. He had killed precisely three men during his career—all of them execution style. His bosses ordered the hits, and he carried them out without question. The men were ne’er-do-wells and reprobates. In one case, the target was a traitor who was selling state secrets; in another, it was an agent who was fomenting problems in Algeria; and the third was a Syrian woman. He was never told why she was to be killed, and she was the one of the three that sometimes visited him in his dreams. She was a stunning woman in her midforties with a perfect oval face, raven black hair, and eyes to match. It had been in a Parisian hotel. She was eating breakfast dressed in a white robe. When Fournier entered the room she gave him a knowing nod, set her coffee cup down, shook out her long black hair, and looked up at him with unblinking eyes. When Fournier drew his silenced weapon she showed no fear and instead offered him a small smile. The other two men he’d shot in the head, but for some reason he couldn’t put a bullet in the exquisite face before him, so he lowered his muzzle a few inches and placed three bullets in her left breast.

His gun-toting days were done. Fournier had access to virtually any gun he wanted, but in general, he found them to be a pain in the butt. They were bulky, and they made his suits look lopsided. Fournier spent enough on his suits that it wouldn’t do to have them look off. He was a man of style. Besides, he was no longer on the front lines. He was the one giving the kill orders now. The guns and his protection could be left to his trusted bodyguards.

Pierre Mermet brushed a wisp of thin brown hair from his forehead, opened the file on his lap, and extracted the first set of photographs. “Mossad . . . Efram Bentov is his name. He arrived this morning along with at least two others. They passed through customs separately, took different forms of transportation into town, and all miraculously ended up at the Israeli embassy.”

Fournier frowned and took the photos. “Not very smart.”

“I agree.”

“Counting yesterday, that brings the total number of suspected Mossad agents to six.”

“That we know of.”

“And the three that flew in yesterday . . . they’re still lying low at the hotel on Rivoli?” Fournier asked.

“That’s right.”

Fournier took the other photographs. “Any weapons?”

“Not that we know of, but we must assume.”

Fournier nodded.

“Do you want them picked up for questioning?”

“Not yet. I want to see what they’re up to first.”

Mermet’s mouth twisted into a pensive frown.

Fournier had seen the look many times. “You don’t like my decision?”

“The three at the hotel have no diplomatic papers. We could force the issue. If they have guns in their room or on their persons we could hold them and question them indefinitely.”

“We could do that,” Fournier said in an easy voice, “and then my counterpart Big Ben Friedman would grab some of our people in Israel and do the exact same thing and where would that get us?”

“Given what happened at the hotel the other night, I think we have more leeway than we could normally expect.”

“We do, but Ben Friedman is a bear I would prefer not to poke.”

Mermet took the rebuke well. “It’s just that we’re spread thin. We have six men following the Russians, eight following the Brits, and ten on the Americans.”

Fournier knew what Mermet was thinking. If this continued for any length of time, they would have to call in more men and ask for more money and that would mean more eyes in the government would be drawn to what they were up to. “I understand your worries. If nothing has happened by tomorrow, we’ll reassess . . . maybe even nicely ask a few of these gents to leave so we don’t have so many heads to keep an eye on.”

“And there’s undoubtedly a few we missed.”

Fournier had thought of the same thing, but he had certain information that he wasn’t willing to share. “One more day and then we will focus on the Jews, the Brits, and the Americans. Any more interesting news to share about our American friends?”

“Yes,” Mermet said, almost forgetting that he had a new face to run by his boss. “The three who showed up yesterday . . . they’re still cooped up in the van on Chaplain. Another man showed up this afternoon.” Mermet found the photo and handed it to his boss.

Fournier’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Oh, my God.”

“What is it?”

“Who . . . who is it, you mean.” He shook his head. “This is a man I have not seen in some time.” Fournier looked out the window, thinking of one of his earliest assignments in Southeast Asia. “He is very dangerous.”

“Who is he?”

“Stan Hurley. CIA, or I should say, was CIA. I had heard he’d retired a few years ago.”

“He looks a little young to retire.”

Fournier nodded. “Hurley is like a shark. They only know one thing. Men like that don’t retire . . . they just simply die one day. I should have known better.”

“I assume he was on the operations side of the business.”

“Yes.” Fournier shook his head as he thought of the time he’d watched Hurley slice a man’s ears off in Vietnam. And then there were the stories he’d heard over the years involving the Soviets. “He was very good at his job. Drove the Russians nuts, or so I’ve been told.”

“So what is he doing in our fair city?”

“That is a very good question. Did your men follow him?”

“No . . . we didn’t know who he was and thought it was better to stay with the surveillance van.”

Knowing how thin they were stretched, Fournier couldn’t chastise Mermet. “Tell our people to check the customs database. Look for the name Stan Hurley and any other aliases we may have on file. The next time he shows up, I want him followed. I want to know every move he makes.”

“I assume they should exercise a fair amount of caution.”

“That is a very astute observation, Pierre. He is a man very comfortable with violence.”

“An ally, though?”

The idea made Fournier smile. France’s relationship with the United States was fraught with complications. “Traditionally yes, but we have no way of knowing who he is working for at the moment.” The truth was Fournier trusted no one, but he knew that position would sound a bit too paranoid to a pleaser like Mermet. “We shouldn’t assume he is still beholden to the CIA. Just find him and let me know as soon as you do.” Fournier reached for the door handle, assuming the meeting was over.

“There are two more things. Your friend, the Spaniard.”

Fournier let his hand fall to his knee. He was parked in front of the Balzac because he was going in to meet Max Vega. “Yes.”

“Well . . . his friend has not left the country.”

Fournier thought of Samir the idiot. He so disliked the man that he didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “You’re certain.”

Mermet nodded. “He’s upstairs in Vega’s suite right now.”

Fournier swore to himself. These fundamentalist morons were turning out to be more trouble than they were worth.

Mermet saw the frustration on his boss’s face and offered, “I can have him forcibly deported if you’d like.”

Fournier shook his head vehemently. “We don’t need to draw any more attention to these fools than they’ve done on their own.” He might have him killed, though, if the man continued to be such an irritant. “What’s the last issue?”

“Your old friend, Commandant Neville?”

Fournier smiled as he remembered the passionate sex they’d had. “Yes.”

“She had a forensics team on the roof of the hotel all morning.”

“There is nothing for her to find. You took care of that problem.”

“I removed the rope, but there is undoubtedly some evidence that was left behind.”

Fournier shrugged. He supposed the problem was unavoidable. Sooner or later, Neville was going to figure out that all the ballistics didn’t add up. The Libyans were holding up their part of the deal, but that would only work for so long. Neville would figure out that the bodyguards weren’t in fact bodyguards. The only question was what type of evidence she could collect to prove her suspicions. The entire crime scene was a mess and he and Mermet had done just enough to make her job all the more confusing. Turning to his most trusted aide, he said, “I would not worry about her. She is not going to get very far in solving this case.”

“Well, she’s looking for you, and I’ve been told she’s suddenly very interested in compiling a list of everyone who was at the crime scene the morning in question. Especially a certain sandy-brown-haired man who was with you.” Mermet was speaking about himself. “What would you like me to do?”

“Lie low. Stay away from the office. I will handle her.”

“All right.”

Fournier reached for the door again and Mermet asked, “Anything else?”

With one foot on the pavement, Fournier turned back to Mermet and said, “Yes. Find me Mr. Stan Hurley. I would very much like to have a talk with him.”

CHAPTER 20

IN general, big cities the world over shared the same basic makeup. They had centers for banking and finance, business districts, retail meccas where you could buy almost anything, museums and concert halls, above- and belowground rail systems, and roads that traveled out from the central downtown to suburbs like arteries from a heart. There were parks and neighborhoods that accommodated the super rich, the destitute, and everything in between. The affluent neighborhoods had fine restaurants, fine jewelers, art dealers, and boutique stores that carried the most expensive clothes. The poor neighborhoods had pawn shops, greasy restaurants that had to bribe health inspectors to keep their doors open, gambling shops, houses of prostitution, check-cashing hovels with bars on their windows, and of course drug dealers.

Paris was no different really, other than the fact that Parisians loved their art so much that they had more museums than most. While Rapp was confident that he could handle himself in any neighborhood, no matter how rough, he thought it was best not to complicate things. What he was looking for could be found in little pockets of almost every quarter of Paris. He could jump on the Metro and go out to one of the slums in the outer ring, but a hardened criminal would ask too many questions, and might bring a few of his cohorts along, all of which would unnecessarily complicate things. Rapp didn’t need a true thug. He just needed someone looking to make a little money. Paris was filled with lonely strung-out souls—men and women who had fallen to the addiction of heroin, or crank, or crack, or whatever else they were calling it these days.

Over the last year, Rapp had gotten to know many of the intimate details of the City of Love. Paris had been his base of operations, and other than working out and acting as if he was employed by an American software importer, he was left with time to explore and observe. In between assignments he would return to the apartment in Montparnasse and recharge by attempting to live life like a normal person, which was no easy thing when you were constantly looking over your shoulder. Rapp had been born with a great sense of awareness, but to survive in his line of work, he knew he had to take that awareness to another level. He needed to be keenly attuned to his environment at all times.

The easiest way for him to do this was to practice on his runs and stay very alert while eating most of his meals at nearby cafés. There was no better way to watch and observe people than sitting at a café with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other, or depending on the time of day, maybe a glass of wine and a cigarette. He was always on the lookout for a face that he had seen one too many times—someone new to the neighborhood who might have more than a passing interest in his comings and goings. He spent a great deal of his time working out. He ran nearly every day, his routes always varied, but as things worked in Paris he usually ended up at the river where he didn’t have to contend with traffic and stoplights.

Rapp often cut through the Latin Quarter, home to some of France’s greatest institutions of higher learning, such as the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. The narrow streets of the quarter were lined with cafés and bookstores that catered to the literary elite of France—poets, writers, theorists, and philosophers who were treated with a respect that no other city could match. These demigods of Parisian culture had certain needs that the public in general accepted. In order to tap into their genius and break their earthly bonds, many of them needed the assistance of certain hallucinogenic drugs. Rapp wasn’t interested in these people. They were too old and too wise for what he had in mind. The quarter was also populated by thousands of students, and a subset who wanted drugs for no other reason than to delay their passage into adulthood. Drugs had a powerful effect on certain people. They created dependence and were expensive. Over the years, this harsh paradox had driven countless souls to sell their bodies for sex and commit crimes as small as theft and as heinous as murder to feed their addiction. The longer the time between fixes, the more quickly logic and rational thought fell to the wayside.

Rapp was looking for just such a desperate soul as he emerged from the St. Michel Metro stop wearing a pair of black Persol sunglasses and a three-quarter-length black trench coat with the collar flipped up and his chin down.

“Why won’t you tell me your plan?” Greta asked.

It was a bright afternoon and the sidewalk was heavy with a blend of Parisians and tourists. The North Americans were easily identified by their girth, their bulky clothes, their various packs, fanny, back, or otherwise, and cameras dangling from their wrists. The Asians traveled in tight packs, were smaller, and had nicer cameras that were slung around their necks. The Russians and other Eastern Europeans added another interesting mix. The women usually wore too much makeup, their hair was bleached and dried at the ends, with dark roots, and their men wore lots of jewelry and track suits, or at least track jackets and oversized sunglasses as if they were Elvis impersonators. The Brits, Germans, and other Europeans were a little more difficult to pick out, but Rapp could still tell the difference.

He placed a hand on Greta’s waist. With her good looks and blond hair, she stood out like a beacon. “I told you I have a thing for brunettes.”

“A weird sex fetish, no doubt.”

“Something like that.”

Greta stuck out her tongue and made a sour face.

“If you’re going to make faces like that we could skip the wig and put you in a pair of pigtails.”

She smacked him in the chest with the palm of her hand and tried to pull away.

Rapp held her tight. “I already explained, if you want to come with me tonight we need to put you in a wig.”

“No one knows who I am.”

They’d already been over all of this back at the hotel. “Probably not, although Stan most certainly knows you and he’s about as alert as they come.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just go to him. He is a good man. He will hear you out.”

“And then he will lock me up and put me through the wringer for a month.”

“The wringer?” Greta asked with a confused frown.

“He’ll take away my watch and all my clothes and put me in a very dark cold room and fuck with my mind for as long as it takes for him to make sure I’m telling the truth.”

“I don’t believe it. I’ve known him since I was a little girl.”

“There’s another side to Stan. A very dark side.” He could tell she wasn’t buying it. “Greta, you know what we do for a living.”

“You’re spies.”

More or less, Rapp thought. “And spies kill people. We deceive and we lie and we conspire to get what we need and we put on all kinds of fake fronts to make sure that nice people like you don’t see the nasty ugly man behind the mask.”

She succeeded in pushing away this time. “You’re telling me that’s who you are?”

“No,” Rapp moaned. “I’m telling you that’s who Stan is . . . and maybe that’s who I’ll be someday, but I sure as hell don’t plan on it.”

“But you are a good liar?”

“Not like Stan Hurley, but when I’m on assignment I do what it takes to get the job done.”

“And when it comes to me?”

Rapp placed both hands on her shoulders. “If I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t have bothered to call. I would have let you go to Brussels and you would have been a nervous wreck when I didn’t show. Instead, I called you. You came to Paris and this morning I told you things that could get me killed and you still doubt me. Greta, you can’t discuss any of this with your grandfather or anyone else. I like your grandfather. I know what he did during World War II and then after when the Russians started throwing their weight around. If he found out that I had involved you in this in any way, I have no doubt he would pick up the phone, call in a favor, and I would spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Sooner or later someone would catch me snoozing and put a bullet in my head.”

“My grandfather would never do that.”

“Your grandfather is a very serious man, and he would consider it a betrayal that his granddaughter had fallen in love with someone like me. He would want to protect you and the best way to do that would be to have me eliminated.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t know what else to tell you.” Rapp was starting to get frustrated. “You can go home any time you’d like, Greta. I’m not going to sit here and debate every move with you.”

“You don’t want me here?”

“I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I wanted to see you and I want your help, but this isn’t a debate club. I’m actually good at what I do, despite what happened the other night.” Rapp had explained all of it to her, the bodyguards who weren’t bodyguards, what Tarek had done for a living before he became oil minister, and his opinion that it had all been an elaborate trap.

“I think the fact that you are still alive is proof that you are good at your job.”

“Thank you, now will you stop questioning me and go buy the wig?”

She nodded and then wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest. She squeezed tight but didn’t speak.

Rapp kissed the top of her head and then said, “I’ll meet you back at the hotel in a few hours.”

Greta nodded. “Can’t we just meet back here instead of the hotel?”

“There you go questioning me again. I told you I don’t know how long this will take. It’s better if we meet at the hotel.” Her expression told him she was nervous. “Don’t worry, honey, nothing is going to happen to me.”

Greta got up on her toes and kissed him on the lips. “I love you.”

Rapp took a deep breath and said, “I love you, too. Now go get your wig.” He spun her around and sent her on her way with a playful pat on her backside. Every ten feet or so she looked over her shoulder to see if Rapp was still there. He held his ground, knowing there was a good chance she would try to follow him. When she was two blocks away, Rapp made his move. He started toward the river and then doubled back. The Quai de Montebello was crowded with tourists and Parisians alike. The looming Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame sat on its island in the middle of the river.

Tourists on this side of the waterway were blocking traffic as they snapped photos of the famous church. Rapp kept his chin down, and like the other Parisians on the sidewalk, he darted in and around the tourists without breaking stride. He had a destination in mind. A place he had passed many times. A place where he’d seen the hopped-up, jumpy amble of users who were desperate for a little something to take the edge off their comedown or a more powerful fix that could launch them back into nirvana. Rapp took a right on the Rue du Petit Pont. Two blocks later, he was standing in front of St. Severin’s Catholic church. That was another thing about Paris. Unlike Berlin or London, the odds were overwhelming that almost every church you encountered would be Catholic. They were like the Italians and the Spaniards that way. The Protestant Reformation had never really taken root along the southern edge of Europe.

Very few people were taking photos of the church. St. Severin’s was rich in history, and was a perfect example of Gothic architecture, but it simply couldn’t compete with the grand scale of Notre Dame a short distance to the north. Rapp spotted three beggars. They were perfectly spaced, one directly in front of the church, and one on each corner. There was a chance they were working together but probably not. The more important thing was that all three had drug habits, as was evidenced by their dark, shallow eye sockets and fidgety behavior. Rapp chose one of the cafés across the street and picked a small sidewalk table with a good vantage point. When the waitress arrived, he ordered a coffee and sandwich in perfect French. When she returned with the coffee, he asked if there were any extra papers lying around, and a moment later she returned with three.

Rapp pretended to read the newspapers while he studied the various faces at the nearby cafés and tried to ignore the nagging pain in his left shoulder. By the time his sandwich arrived, he had two good candidates. One of the beggars in front of the church had scrounged up enough cash to make a purchase, and he made a beeline for Rapp’s café and a young man sitting just four tables away. He located a second pusher across the street at another café when the second beggar had reached his quota. For the next hour, Rapp took his time and studied the men and women who stopped by to visit the dealers. The practiced maneuvers of quiet hands exchanging things under the table while the free hands gestured wildly to distract anyone from noticing the illicit trade—it was all part of the drug culture. The pusher across the street was too short and fat to work for Rapp’s purposes, but the one nearby had the general look. Rapp watched a few more transactions take place, left some cash on the table, and picked up his coffee. He approached the man with a smile on his face and gestured toward the open chair.

The man was six feet tall with jet-black hair and a two-day-old growth of black stubble on his face. He was wearing sunglasses, a dark green canvas jacket, jeans, and a pair of brown boots. He motioned for Rapp to take a seat.

Rapp sat and placed his coffee on the table. “Do you speak English?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” the man said easily.

“Good.” Rapp exhaled nervously and looked around.

The man smiled. He could always charge foreigners a premium. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“I hope so.” Rapp rubbed his palms on his jeans, continuing to fake nervousness.

The man began to mumble off a short list of drugs and prices.

Rapp shook his head emphatically. “I’m not a druggie.”

This brought a smile to the man’s face. Denial was all part of the trade. “Of course not. What can I do for you?”

“I have a proposal. A job that could earn you a lot of money.”

“And what would this job involve?”

“It involves me giving you the key to an apartment and the combination to a safe.”

The man took a drag from his cigarette and smiled. “What’s in the safe?”

“Some cash.”

“How much?”

“A lot.”

The Frenchman tilted his head from side to side. “A lot is a relative thing. What might be a lot to you, might not be so much to me.”

“At least twenty thousand . . . and some jewelry that’s worth more than that.”

He stabbed out his cigarette. “Why me?”

Rapp blinked his eyes nervously and said, “Because I’m an American and I don’t fucking know anyone in Paris. At least not anyone who’d be willing to walk into this bitch’s apartment and take what’s mine.”

“This money is yours?” he asked skeptically.

“Yeah . . . I earned it. We had an arrangement. She was supposed to pay me, but now she’s fucking screwing me.”

“What kind of deal?”

“That’s not important.” Rapp looked over each shoulder as if she’d walk up on them at any moment. “The bitch treats me like a slave. She’s got my passport in the safe, and my money, and she won’t give it to me.”

“So why don’t you just open it yourself and take what’s yours?”

“She doesn’t know that I know the combination and . . .” Rapp let his voice trail off as if he was too embarrassed to continue.

“And what?”

“She’s friends with my parents. Good friends. If they found out I’ve been sleeping with her they would shit.”

The Frenchman lit another cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Let’s back up for a second. Why me? How did you find me?”

“I’m not a druggie,” Rapp said defensively. “I mean, I’m not hooked. I use them from time to time, but I’m not strung out. I have some friends at the university. Everybody knows this is a place where you can get hooked up. You and the fat guy across the street.” Rapp jerked his head in the man’s direction.

The Frenchman smiled broadly, revealing a pair of sharp canine teeth. “So why do you think I would want to help you steal from this woman?”

“You sell drugs. You already break the law and what you do day in and day out is a lot riskier than this. Here’s the deal,” Rapp said, pressing his case. “This bitch is rich. She isn’t going to miss any of this. We’re supposed to go to an art gallery exhibit tonight. We’ll be gone for at least two hours. I can give you the key, the security code, and the code for the safe. I don’t give a fuck what you take. I just want my cash and my passport.”

“You say there’s a lot of jewelry.”

“Yeah.”

“Jewelry is not easy to get rid of.”

“When I say jewelry I mean diamonds . . . little packets of them.” Rapp held his hands together. “I don’t know how much they’re worth, but it’s got to be a lot.”

The man nodded while he thought it over. “If I decide to do this I will take half the cash and all the jewels.”

“Shit!” Rapp came half out of his chair. “Why does everyone want to fuck me?”

“I don’t want to fuck you, I just want it to be worth my while.”

Rapp took a couple of deep breaths and settled down. “Fifty-fifty . . . that’s the only way I’ll do it. You want half the cash then I get half the diamonds.”

“I don’t think so. I am taking all the risk.”

“If I don’t bring this to you, you get nothing. Now you get half of a lot, and all you have to do is walk in there while we’re at the gallery tonight.”

“And how do I know you’re not setting me up?”

Rapp shook his head as if the idea was preposterous. “What . . . you think I work for the fucking police? They hire Americans now? If they wanted to bust you they’d roll up on you right now. I just want my money and my passport and some of those diamonds.”

The man was quiet for a long moment as he looked off into the distance. “How do you know you can trust me?”

“Easy . . . everybody around here knows who you are. If you don’t meet me tomorrow with my stuff, I’ll turn you over to the cops. They’ll know where to find you.”

“Then you will be implicated.”

“I’ll play the dumb American and tell them you got me high and I blacked out. I woke up and my wallet was gone. I had the key and codes written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.” Rapp stopped and waved his hands. “But listen, we don’t need to go down that road. There’s more than enough for us to split. No need to get greedy. You do it tonight, we meet up two days from now right here, and we’re both happy men.”

Luke Auclair was more than intrigued. He’d been studying business on and off at the Collège de France for five years. His grades were less than spectacular and he’d taken to selling narcotics to pay his burdensome bills. Why he never looked for an honest job was a question Auclair avoided asking himself. The truth was he was lazy, always had been lazy, and would likely be lazy until his dying day. If there were a way to avoid work, he would find it. This American was desperate. That much was obvious. He tried to calculate the worst-case scenario. Getting caught in the apartment, but then again he would have a key. He could claim the American invited him. After that, it was cash and diamonds. It sounded like maybe a lot of diamonds. His take could easily be over twenty thousand for a few hours of risk. He liked that kind of return. Auclair began to nod. “All right . . . but if I get there tonight and I don’t think it looks right, I will walk.”

“Fair enough.”

“What should I call you?”

“Frank . . . Frank Harris.” Rapp figured the guy would see the name on the passport, so he might as well tell him the truth. Rapp doubted this guy would even make it through the front door. If they stopped him and were nice, it would be a good indication that he could trust Kennedy and possibly Hurley. If they grabbed him, threw a bag over his head, and stuffed him in a trunk, he’d know he had bigger problems. “What should I call you?”

“You may call me Luke.”

“Good.” Rapp slid a piece of paper across the table. It had the name and address of a café written in black ink. “You know this place?”

Luke nodded.

“Good, I’ll meet you there tonight at seven. It’s only a few blocks from the apartment. I’ll give you the key, the codes, and tell you where the safe is.”

Auclair nodded. “And, again, if I think things don’t look right I will walk.”

“Got it.” Rapp stuck out his hand and they both shook. Standing, he said, “I’ll see you tonight.”

CHAPTER 21

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

THOMAS Stansfield was sitting behind his desk wearing khaki slacks and a blue oxford shirt. It was his Sunday uniform. He’d been to church with his wife and several of his children and grandchildren and was looking forward to heading back to the house on the Potomac for a nice egg bake and some time with his grandkids: Molly, Bert, and little Thomas. Molly was four, and in Stansfield’s biased opinion, she already showed great potential. She was in fact the only person in the entire family who dared boss him around, which provided great entertainment for Stansfield’s grown children. Stansfield himself was highly amused at the confidence displayed by this three-foot-tall towhead. Her little brother Bert didn’t do much other than run around the house and run into things, and little Thomas was, well, little. He was only three months old and Stansfield didn’t have much interest in them until they could verbalize their demands. His wife liked the infants, so they divided and conquered, and it was great fun.

His own kids were shocked by how hands-on he was, since he had been absent for much of their childhood. It had been a different time, of course. Dads were nowhere near as involved in the lives of their children as they were now. There had been some interesting debates about this at the family dinner table of late, and Stansfield for the most part let his kids voice their opinions and take their shots at him. They knew where he worked. Beyond that, they were smart enough to fill in the blanks and extrapolate. They’d been raised in multiple countries and again it was no secret who Dad worked for, but he never talked about it. It was a steadfast rule that he had not broken once during his entire career.

Stansfield was the kind of father who showed his disapproval by a few carefully selected words, and maybe a disappointed look. He never raised his voice, and after they reached the age of five or so, he never laid a hand on them. The truth was his wife had done an amazing job. It also didn’t hurt that the genetics on the brain side were stacked in the favor of the kids. They’d all graduated from college, and three of the kids had postgraduate degrees. Not a single one of them had a drug or alcohol problem, and there had been just one divorce. All in all not so bad, and Stansfield liked to quietly remind them of this when they spouted off about the fact that he spent more time with his grandkids than he had with them. They had all turned out just fine in spite of him. He also liked to point out that the verdict on what type of parents they were was still out. Stansfield had a bad feeling that all of this hands-on parenting was going to come back and bite the next generation in the ass, but that was their problem and not his. His job, as he saw it, was to enjoy his grandchildren and spoil them rotten.

He looked at his gold Timex watch and noted the time. Kennedy was late, which was not normal, even more so because she was the person who had requested this emergency meeting. When Stansfield had walked out of church, he could tell by the look on his bodyguard’s face that something had come up. He told his wife and the kids to head back to the house and that he would be back as soon as possible. He was used to these interruptions, and it normally wouldn’t have bothered him, but he was hungry and looking forward to some downtime. He looked out the window at the tops of the colorful trees. It was a beautiful fall afternoon and Molly would be anxious to explore the woods with their lush bed of vibrant leaves. He was about to call Kennedy when there was a knock on the door.

As was his habit, he closed the file on his desk and concealed the secure cable that had been sent by his station chief in Thailand only an hour earlier. “Enter,” he half yelled due to the soundproofing of the room. The door opened and Stansfield was surprised to see the number-two man at Langley. Paul Cooke was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Paul, I wasn’t expecting you. Come in.” Stansfield stood and motioned to the couch and chairs near the window.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Cooke said as he closed the door behind him. He was also wearing a blue Oxford shirt and a pair of khakis as well as a blue sport coat. “How have you been?”

Even though their offices were only a few doors down from each other, the two men did not talk much. Stansfield was not a chatty person, and his job required him to be guarded in all conversations. As the man who ran America’s operatives and spies, he trusted very few people. The previous director had had great faith in Stansfield and left him to make his own decisions for the most part, and when he did get involved, he never consulted his deputy director. Cooke’s job was to oversee the day-to-day operations of Langley and its ten-thousand plus employees. Stansfield took care of his small but important fiefdom, and Marvin Land, the deputy director of Intelligence, had a similar arrangement. The place was now in a sort of limbo, with Stansfield and Land running their own crucial departments until the next director was appointed and confirmed. So far, Cooke had let that old arrangement stand.

Stansfield said, “Just fine.”

“I thought you had a standing rule to stay out of here on Sundays?” Cooke asked.

Stansfield offered him a small smile. “You know how it is . . . just because it’s Sunday doesn’t mean our enemies take the day off.”

“Very true,” Cooke said as he sat in one of the gray armchairs.

Stansfield leaned back into the couch. “What can I help you with?”

Cooke clasped his hands in front of his chin and seemed to consider where he should start. After another moment and a sharp inhalation, he said, “This thing in Paris . . . it’s causing quite a stir.”

Stansfield nodded. He wasn’t a big talker and wasn’t about to expand on the obvious.

Several long moments passed before Cooke continued, saying, “I had a strange meeting yesterday.” He looked out the window as if he was unsure of how to proceed.

Stansfield gave him nothing more than a slight nod that told him he was welcome to continue. If Cooke had a story to tell, he was going to have to do it on his own.

“Franklin Wilson asked me over to his house.”

The often overwrought secretary of state had undergone some type of reformation since his wife’s decline in health. As far as Stansfield understood it, Cooke and Wilson barely knew each other. Asking Cooke to meet him at his house was a little odd. “On a Saturday afternoon?”

“Yes, I know.” Cooke played along as if he thought it was all a little bizarre himself. “He is very upset about this Paris thing.”

“A lot of people are upset about what happened in Paris . . . none more so than the Libyans and the French. Why is our secretary of state so distressed?”

“He’s upset because he thinks you’re not being honest with him.” Cooke studied Stansfield for a hint of nervousness, but the old granite bastard didn’t give him so much as a twitch. “Does that concern you?”

“I learned a long time ago, Paul, that I can’t control what people say or do in this town. Franklin Wilson is a very opinionated man, who has been acting a bit strange since he institutionalized his wife. If he has a reason to be upset with me, he can pick up the phone and tell me himself.”

Cooke crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. He would have to tell Wilson exactly what Stansfield had said about his wife. Maybe even play it up a bit. If the man had a hard-on for Stansfield now, he was going to want to gang-rape him after he heard this. “It goes a little deeper than that,” Cooke said. He cleared his throat and then added, “He thinks you were involved in what happened the other night.”

“The other night meaning . . .”

“Paris.”

Stansfield stared back at him without saying a word.

“You don’t have anything you’d like to say?” Cooke asked.

“I’ve found it best not to respond to wild accusations.”

“Well,” Cooke said with a big exhalation, “I’m just trying to give you a little heads-up. The man has the president’s ear, for God’s sake, and for some reason he thinks you were involved in the assassination of the Libyan oil minister.”

“And he came to this belief how?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Interesting.”

“That’s your response?” Cooke asked, making no attempt to hide his frustration. “That is a very serious accusation. You’re not going to deny it?”

Stansfield studied Cooke for a long moment. He sensed something that he didn’t like. Cooke was fishing, and he got the specific feeling that Wilson had put him up to it. With the director’s office open down the hall, who knew what delusions of grandeur were floating through people’s heads these days. Cooke did not have the analytical abilities to run Langley, but he could certainly see Wilson waving the job in front of his face to get him to do his bidding. “Paul, you should remind the secretary that we’re all on the same team, and he should probably think twice before he starts throwing around wild accusations that could seriously harm this country and our foreign policy.”

“So you had nothing to do with what happened the other night?”

Cooke might not have known it at the time, but Stansfield could see that a line had been drawn. Any Langley man who was dumb enough to be a messenger for the State Department was dangerous. Stansfield looked Cooke straight in the eyes and said, “I had nothing to do with it. Are you satisfied?”

Cooke accepted the answer even though he knew it was a lie. “Well.” He slapped his knees and stood. “I’m heading over to Paris in the morning. See if I can help smooth things over.”

“What exactly do you have to smooth over?”

“That might be the wrong choice of words. I want to reassure our allies that we had nothing to do with this.” Cooke started for the door and when he reached it, he looked back to Stansfield and said, “You’re more than welcome to join me if you’d like.”

Stansfield took the invitation with a reasonable nod. “I’ll think about it. I’d have to move a few things around, but it might be worth the trip. It’s been a while since I paid a visit to our friends at the DGSE.”

“Good.” Cooke left the office, closing the door behind him, a satisfied grin on his face.

Stansfield sat motionless for a minute or so, running the various possibilities through his head. Any way he looked at it, he didn’t like what he sensed. The old spy’s strength was his ability to take facts, plug in a person’s motivation, and predict what he was after. Cooke was up to something. Stansfield considered the possibility that he had underestimated the man. He very quickly concluded that there was a good possibility that he had. Frowning, he decided that he would have to move quickly to deal with the situation. He ran down a list of trusted operatives he could call on. There were no files for these men; all of them were retired yet still very useful. Stansfield decided on an asset and then asked himself if he should have a talk with Marvin Land. Stansfield and Land had a great deal of professional respect for each other, as they had fought side by side against the Soviets. He wondered if Cooke had already tried to play Land. That would be an interesting yet very stupid move.

CHAPTER 22

PARIS, FRANCE

IT was midafternoon on Sunday and the restaurant at the Hotel Balzac was crowded. The place was always swarming, as it was ideally located for tourists, diplomats, and high-society shoppers. There were a handful of hotels in Paris that catered to the ultra-rich, and this was one of them. The head maître d’was on Fournier’s payroll, as were a few of the top waiters. For special occasions, Fournier was not opposed to putting his own people in the uniforms of restaurant employees so they could eavesdrop on certain influential diners. Not today, however. The head of the DGSE’s Action Division had ordered his men to make sure the corner table and the surrounding area were swept for listening devices. One of his men was standing five feet from them, blocking them from the rest of the restaurant. He was trained to look for directional listening devices, and he would subtly shift his position by an inch or two every half minute to block any would-be listener from having a direct line of sight to his boss.

Fournier had a hefty expense account for this exact reason. He needed to rub shoulders with the right people, and with rare exceptions, those people had expensive tastes. Switzerland was known for banking, but Paris was where international businessmen came to get deals done. Fournier had no problem meeting Max Vega in public. In fact, it was good for him to legitimize their dealings. Industrial espionage was a big part of Fournier’s job, and any intel he could get on foreign companies that were conducting business in France or competing against French companies abroad was a top priority.

Vega sat on the board of one of Spain’s top telecommunications companies. He was considered a rising star in the burgeoning market of mobile phones. Vega was a bit of a contradiction. His mother was Spanish and his father a wealthy Saudi prince. His Spanish mother didn’t take too kindly to her royal husband taking a second wife. She hung around for nearly a year, and then when he married wife number three, a seventeen-year-old Yemeni, her Spanish pride could take no more. She left him and returned to Madrid. She took her son Omar with her, and legally changed his name to Max Vega after her father, who had been against her marriage to the Saudi in the first place. Two years later, at the age of ten, Max was shipped off to a boarding school in Switzerland and then at eighteen to the London School of Economics. After that he blazed a trail through three investment houses and a mergers and acquisitions firm, and all the while he performed brilliantly and accrued a nice tidy sum for his talents.

Fournier only half listened to Vega talking on his mobile phone. His office had tried to ascertain the thirty-eight-year-old’s net worth, but it had proven difficult. He was easily worth twenty million on his own, but Fournier’s top financial analyst thought that he was receiving funds from his father, who had well-known radical leanings. Twenty million was a nice number, but Vega lived way beyond that. The theory was that while Vega was talented and relatively well off, it was his father who had bought his seat on Telefonica’s board.

Fournier could only guess at what had driven Vega to reconnect with his Saudi father. Curiosity was undoubtedly a part of it, and he was sure the psychiatrists at DGSE, one a devotee of Carl Jung and the other of Sigmund Freud, could go on for hours telling him how it had something to do with his collective unconscious or his unfulfilled ego and his insecure id and some oral fixation he’d had as a child. All of it bored Fournier. He was less concerned with how people became who they were than simply who they were. He wasn’t in the business of changing people. He was in the business of getting valuable information from them, and bending them to the use of the Republic.

These radical Islamists were all mentally unstable as far as Fournier was concerned. What he was still trying to figure out was where Vega came down on the religion side of this mess, and in general what he was after. He appeared to be the classic smooth European businessman, but Fournier had real fears that underneath his five-thousand-dollar Savile Row suit lurked a fundamentalist who might bite him in the ass. Fournier didn’t like not knowing. He was the one who deceived, stacked the deck, and got things to work out in his favor. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Vega was manipulating him. This deal that Vega had offered him was going to blow up in his face if he didn’t get it under control quickly, and he didn’t like that feeling one bit.

These were the thoughts that were circulating through Fournier’s brain as he took a sip from his second glass of Syrah and looked into Vega’s oily black eyes. It was easy to like Vega when you compared him to the two imbeciles, Rafique and Samir. It still irritated Fournier that Samir had fucked things up so badly. He had given the fools everything they asked for, and Tarek, that greedy idiot, had been the perfect bait. As far as the Directorate was concerned, Fournier would be killing two birds with one stone. He would get rid of Tarek, and he would also receive assurances from these radicals that they would keep their suicide bombers out of France. His superiors would understand his motives and appreciate his initiative. As for the cash on the side, Fournier had already moved it from one bank in Switzerland to another. It would be untraceable, and unlike other intelligence agencies the DGSE wasn’t too hung up about its people padding their retirement accounts. It was considered the wise thing to do. As long as the Republic’s best interests were kept at the forefront, it was a beneficial situation for all.

As far as this assassin was concerned, Fournier was fairly ambivalent. He’d seen the list of men that he’d killed, and not a one of them would be missed by those who were allied against terrorism. But while Fournier had no love for Islamists, his number-one job was to keep France secure from the reprisals of the zealots. That meant protecting France both at home and abroad. If Vega and his people wanted this killer dead, it was of no concern to France. But he wasn’t dead. It had all failed, and in a spectacular fashion. Fournier had worked his contacts, found out that the Libyan oil minister was on the list, and helped them set the trap. At first Fournier had been hit with a wave of panic over the news that this assassin had killed not only Tarek but four of Samir’s men as well. He immediately assumed the assassin was that good, but with another day came more perspective. Samir was an idiot. That much was undeniable, which meant that maybe this assassin wasn’t quite so talented.

Fournier took a sip of wine and wondered for a moment where the assassin might be. The man had almost certainly fled France. Fournier was confident that his role in the hotel massacre would never see the light of day, but there were a few loose ends to tie up, and as soon as Vega got off his phone Fournier would jam his terms down the younger man’s throat. And then he would restructure their deal.

Vega finally snapped his phone shut and laid it on the table. “I am sorry, but that was a very important call.”

Fournier swirled the red wine around in his glass and then said, “Max, I have enjoyed working with you.”

“And I with you as well.” Vega smiled and held up his glass of Perrier.

The congenial expression melted from Fournier’s face. “I have, however, not enjoyed working with your two associates.”

Vega smiled as if that was a minor thing. “They are a little rough around the edges.”

“That is an understatement.” Fournier set his glass down and asked, “Are they up in your suite right now?”

Vega got the feeling that the Frenchman already knew the answer to his question, but Vega was not so ready to concede the point. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Fournier grunted. “Not at liberty. Don’t jerk me around, Max. After what happened the other night, my hospitality is wearing thin. I made a simple request. I told you I wanted Samir out of my country immediately.”

Vega nodded.

“If our relationship is going to work I need you to understand certain things. When I tell you that I want something to happen, and I want it to happen immediately, it needs to happen.”

“I understand, but there are certain complications.”

“The only complication that I can see is that Samir is still in France. The police are expanding their investigation. It is only a matter of time before they figure out there was a fifth man. Samir has become a liability. I cannot afford to have him walking around. He knows too much.”

“I think you worry too much. Samir is a loyal man. Nothing will come of this.”

“Samir is loyal to you and your organization. He has no loyalty to me . . . in fact he has threatened me.” Fournier shook his head as if he could still barely believe it. He ran the Action Division for the DGSE, this little Arab puke threatened him in his own country, and now Vega was trying to play it off as if it was no big deal. The stupidity of it all pushed him to make a rash decision. “Max, I do not think you take me seriously enough. I am losing faith in you and your people . . .”

“But,” Vega said, trying to interrupt him.

“But nothing,” Fournier snapped. “Have any of my men threatened you?”

“No.”

“They don’t even speak to you. But you let this incompetent fool Samir threaten me. Don’t mistake my civility for a bottomless wealth of hospitality. I have worked with you because it is in our mutual interest but I am now starting to think that dealing with you is no longer in the best interest of France.”

“I disagree . . .”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Fournier said in an icy tone. “I like you, Max, but I am worried about your judgment. If you can’t honor a simple request, then I can no longer deal with you, and make no mistake, this is France.” Fournier tapped the linen tablecloth and leaned in to within a few inches of Vega. “If Samir is not out of this country by tomorrow morning, you will force my hand.”

Vega felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He cleared his throat and pushed his chair back a few inches. “There has been a complication.”

Fournier half laughed, expecting some lame excuse. “Please do tell.”

“I have been informed that I am on the list.”

“The list?” It took Fournier a moment to understand which list he was referring to. “You mean the same list Tarek was on?”

“Yes,” Vega said with a solemn nod.

Fournier took in the new information and his mind immediately seized on a potential problem. “You are sure?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“My father passed along the information. He wants Samir and Rafique to keep a very close eye on me.” Vega paused for a beat. “And he is sending more men to help protect me.”

Fournier didn’t bother to hide his displeasure. “And when were you going to inform me of this?”

“I only found out this afternoon.”

“On your phone?” Fournier asked as he pointed at the black mobile phone on the table.

Vega nodded.

Fournier cringed. “I have told you before, you cannot trust those devices. We can intercept them. So can the Russians, the British, and the Americans.”

“We have our codes,” Vega said, shaking his head. “They can listen all they want. All they will ever hear is a man talking to his father about business.”

Fournier didn’t share his confidence. He knew the capabilities of his own organization, and they paled in comparison to what the Americans could do. This meeting had taken a decidedly bad turn. Fournier thought of his various options and was about to tell Vega it was time for him to leave France when a very unwelcome visitor appeared at the table.

CHAPTER 23

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

STANSFIELD was still rolling Cooke’s visit around in his mind when Kennedy finally showed up with the youthful-looking Dr. Lewis. He set the one problem aside and prepared to deal with another one. Kennedy had refused to tell the head of Stansfield’s security detail why she needed to see him so urgently, and the deputy director of Operations was not surprised. CIA headquarters was just five minutes from their house, and it was common for him to be called in on a moment’s notice for the simple reason that most of his conversations had to be held in a secure environment.

Kennedy plopped down in one chair and Lewis took the other. Stansfield returned to the couch and looked at Kennedy. “What’s the problem?”

She had been thinking about how much she should tell Stansfield, and in the time it had taken to get dressed, pick up Lewis, and get to Langley, she had decided that it was best to keep nothing from him. “Rapp called me this morning.”

“I assume you mean he called the service and left you a message.” There was a touch of concern in his voice.

Kennedy nervously cleared her throat and said, “He called me at home.”

He took the news stoically and said, “So he’s alive.”

“Yes.”

“Did he have an explanation for missing his check-in?”

“Yes. He was shot.”

If Stansfield was alarmed, he didn’t show it. “How bad?”

“I’m not sure. He said he’d been hit in the shoulder. That was all.”

“And this was on your home phone?”

His tone was devoid of judgment, but Kennedy knew it was there. She nodded reluctantly.

Stansfield was far from thrilled to hear this news. He sat motionless for a few moments and then said, “Your phones are clean as far as you know?”

“They were swept two weeks ago.”

“Do you record your calls?” Stansfield asked this only as a precaution.

“No,” she answered honestly, “I’ve never seen the need.”

“How long did the call last?”

“Less than two minutes.”

The answer seemed to take some of the tension out of Stansfield. “I need you to repeat everything that was said.”

Kennedy relayed nearly verbatim what Rapp had said. The only thing she omitted was her warning Rapp about Victor’s keeping an eye on the apartment.

“Have you talked to Ridley?” Stansfield asked, referring to Rob Ridley, the leader of the advance team.

“Yesterday. He assured me that Tarek was traveling without bodyguards.”

“So the advance team missed them and Rapp missed them as well,” Stansfield said. “I find it hard to believe both of them would miss something so obvious.”

“I do as well.”

“So . . . we have four dead men in the room that the Libyans are claiming were Tarek’s bodyguards, but our best advance team and one of our best operatives somehow never saw them.” He took off his glasses and set them in his lap. “That doesn’t add up.”

“No it doesn’t. And this part about the fifth man . . . the one who shot Rapp.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t get it at first, but now it seems obvious. He’s telling us that he had nothing to do with the deaths of the two hotel guests and the worker in the alley. He specifically said he stuck to protocol. That he went out the window and the fifth man was responsible for the other three.”

Stansfield had understood what Rapp was trying to say the first time Kennedy repeated the conversation. His mind had already jumped to another detail. “I received a report from our station chief last night. He said the four dead bodyguards all had silenced MP5s.”

Kennedy pursed her lips. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“You’ve had protection details. Have you ever seen your details carry silenced weapons?”

Kennedy thought about the men who occasionally kept an eye on her when she was in a particularly nasty part of the world. “No . . . come to think of it.”

“There’s also a rumor that the Paris police are having a hard time finding anyone who saw these bodyguards with Tarek.”

“You mean in the days preceding the attack?”

“Yes.”

“This doesn’t add up.”

“No it doesn’t,” Stansfield said. “You said Mitch said it was a trap?”

“Yes.”

Stansfield stood and walked over to his desk. He stopped and looked out the window at the rolling Virginia countryside. He began connecting the dots and after a half a minute he said, “I think he’s probably right. Bodyguards don’t carry silenced weapons.” Stansfield turned around. “Bodyguards make sure they are visible so they can act as a deterrent and bodyguards don’t fire their weapons aimlessly . . . at least not good ones.”

“I’m not sure I follow the last part?” Lewis asked.

“Apparently over three hundred rounds were fired in that hotel room. Doesn’t that seem a bit excessive to either of you?” Stansfield shook his head. “Put yourself in their shoes. You are tasked with protecting one of your country’s most important ministers. Do you think you are going to simply rush into the room, guns blazing on full automatic? Tarek and the prostitute were shot more than a dozen times each. I took another look at Mitch’s file yesterday. He’s one or two shots to the head and that’s it.”

Lewis nodded. “That’s how Hurley trained him. The caliber of the weapon and the distance to the target dictate the number of shots. Rapp likes to get close for the kill shot . . . that’s what Hurley calls it.”

Stansfield had heard it all before. Rapp was not the first person Hurley had trained. “Get close, keep it simple, one or two shots to the head, and then get clear.”

“That’s what he tells his trainees,” Lewis said.

“So does either of you believe that Rapp went into that hotel room and shot Tarek a dozen plus times and then pumped as many rounds into the prostitute?”

“Not unless he lost his mind,” Lewis replied.

Kennedy frowned and said, “It’s not his MO. He uses a nine-millimeter Beretta . . . 92F. Eighteen rounds in the grip plus one in the chamber. Two backup magazines and a small backup nine-millimeter. There’s no way he’d waste that many rounds on two people.”

“No,” Stansfield said, “plus we have to assume he killed four of the bodyguards.”

Kennedy looked at her boss and said, “The two hotel guests and the employee were all sprayed with bullets. Multiple shots to the chest and face, in one case.” Kennedy shook her head. “I should have seen it sooner.”

“And I should have, too.” Stansfield put his hands on his hips and tried to focus on what was bothering him. He was missing something in the midst of this sea of facts—something that was right in front of him.

Kennedy knew him well enough to see what was going on, so she kept her mouth shut. Lewis wasn’t much of a talker, so he simply observed.

Stansfield turned the problem around and looked at it from the other side. Rapp had said it was a trap. How would you lure someone like Rapp into a trap? You offered him up a nice fat target like Tarek. But how would they know Tarek was on the list, and why would they be so willing to sacrifice him? Both questions bothered Stansfield, but in vastly different ways. “Rapp thinks we have a leak.”

“Yes.”

“How many people have seen the list?”

“The complete list,” Kennedy said. “As far as I know, you, Stan, myself, Rapp, and Ridley.”

“But there could be more?”

“There can always be more. You taught me that.”

Stansfield nodded. “True, but what about your list?”

“I destroyed my copy. I keep the list up here.” Kennedy tapped her forehead.

Stansfield had done the same. “And Mitch?”

“I spent a weekend reviewing it with him and then the entire file was destroyed.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“But he could have written things down later,” Lewis added.

“I don’t think that’s his style,” Kennedy said. “He has a pretty good memory.”

“And Ridley?”

“I have no way of knowing for certain, but he’s pretty thorough.”

“Where is he right now?”

“Amsterdam.”

“I want a full debriefing, and I want you two to handle it. Head over there. It will be easier.”

Kennedy nodded and asked, “What about Stan?”

“I’ll deal with Stan.”

With obvious trepidation, Kennedy asked, “How soon?”

“I think I might be Paris bound in the morning.”

“Really?” Kennedy asked, her surprise obvious.

“Cooke asked me to go over with him. Help smooth some things over.” Stansfield intentionally kept his suspicions about Cooke to himself.

“I’d like to head over as soon as possible,” Kennedy said to her boss. “Hopefully this afternoon.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I’m the only one he really trusts. I should be the one to bring him in.”

“You don’t think he trusts Stan?”

Kennedy looked to Lewis for help.

As was his habit, Lewis had his hands steepled under his chin. Glancing at Kennedy he said, “Tell Thomas what Mitch told you about Stan.”

“He thinks if Stan brings him in he’ll shove him in solitary for a month and slap him around.”

Stansfield pondered that for a moment. Rapp was likely not far from the truth. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to send Kennedy over. He could have Hurley begin looking into how Tarek might have upset the Libyans.

“I’m concerned that we have a deeper problem here,” Lewis said to Stansfield.

“Such as?”

“I’m putting a report together right now. I want to make sure I’ve drawn the right conclusions before I give my final recommendation, but in the meantime, I would argue very strongly that you keep Stan and Victor away from Rapp. Let Irene bring him in and she and I can handle the debriefing.”

Stansfield considered that for a moment and then nodded.

“I’ll need you to order Stan to stay away from Mitch. And there can be no doubt in Stan’s mind that you want your orders followed to the letter.”

“Does this have anything to do with Rapp’s suspicion that we have a leak?” Stansfield asked.

“Possibly, but my bigger concern is that we need to avoid a confrontation right now, and I think we can all agree that Stan and Victor enjoy confrontation.”

Stansfield came back to the couch and sat. “You’re worried about Mitch?”

Since receiving the call from Kennedy, Lewis had been trying to figure out the best way to phrase his thoughts without alarming Stansfield to the extent that he might do something rash. He placed his hands in his lap and said, “Rapp is a unique individual . . . extremely effective. When you look at what he’s done this past year, I think we would be foolish to question his loyalty. But . . . I think certain resentments have built up.”

“With Stan?”

“Yes . . . and others. He has become our wonder boy. We have turned him loose to great effect, and up until now, he’s given us amazing results. Stan doesn’t appreciate what he’s done and Victor seems to hate him for the sake of hating him. As you well know, Stan has control issues, and he doesn’t like the fact that Irene and Mitch have been allowed to operate outside his direct authority. He was very quick to blame Mitch for what went wrong in Paris, and he did so without any evidence. Now it looks as if none of this can be laid at Mitch’s feet. In fact, it’s quite amazing that he managed to eliminate the target and get away.”

Stansfield nodded. “Hearing this new information, I see your point.”

“Rapp said something to Irene on the phone this morning that I think is very telling. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of, ‘I’m glad you desk jockeys have it all figured out. I can just hear your uncle second-guessing every move I made even though he has no idea what went down.’ That is a statement filled with resentment.”

“Toward Stan?”

“Yes and possibly others. I’m sure you remember how it was at certain points in your career. We have all been there . . . thousands of miles away, feeling isolated and abandoned by bosses who issue orders without the foggiest idea what the situation on the ground is actually like.”

Stansfield could recall many such instances. “So I send Irene over to bring him in, I keep him away from Stan, and then we sit down and sort the rest of this out.”

“Basically, but I do have to bring up a concern. I have a good handle on Rapp’s psyche. He’s far less complicated than you would think. He’s very linear. He has it in his mind right now that someone in our group has betrayed him and almost got him killed. It is my estimate that he will not stop until he finds who that person is, and when he does, he will kill him.”

Stansfield considered this for a moment and then asked, “Even if I order him to stand down?”

“He has a great deal of respect for you. If you can convince him that you are going to deal with this person, he might stand down, but he is going to want proof that the problem has been dealt with.”

Stansfield nodded, turned to Kennedy, and said, “Bring him in. I’ll call off Stan, and then we are all going to sit down, and I am going to put an end to all of this infighting. From now on when I give an order I expect it to be carried out and anyone who can’t abide by that will no longer be a part of this team.”

Lewis and Kennedy shared a quick look and then nodded.

“I mean it,” Stansfield, said obviously tired of the squabbling, “and trust me, I’m well aware that I have a blind spot where Stan is concerned.” The two men had a long history that stretched from Berlin to Budapest to Moscow and the Middle East and beyond. Stansfield shook his head in disgust over his mistakes. “This crap is going to end and it’s going to end right now.”

“Yes, sir.” Kennedy stood and thanked him for his time. “Is it okay if we do Ridley’s debriefing in Paris?”

“Fine. Just make sure the location is locked down and secure.”

“I will. Thank you. We’ll give you an update as soon as we’re on the ground.”

Stansfield watched them go. He wasn’t sure they understood how precarious things had become. If they had a leak it needed to be stopped before they were all hauled before a congressional committee and eventually to jail. They had the right of it about Rapp. That was for certain. Stansfield had always understood the risk of ordering a talented, highly motivated man to kill for his country. The cold, detached killers were easier to predict. Rapp, though, was far from dispassionate about his job. He couldn’t kill these men fast enough. It was his hatred for terrorists that drove him to kill with such efficiency. How would he react if he was pulled in and shut down? Not well, was Stansfield’s guess. How would he react if he found out someone at Langley was selling their secrets to their enemies? By definition, that individual would be a traitor, and Stansfield had little doubt what Rapp would want to do to such a person.

CHAPTER 24

PARIS, FRANCE

THE plates had been fairly easy to find. There was a big underground car park a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. Rapp went to the third subfloor and found a sedan in a nice dark corner. He quickly unscrewed the front and rear plates and then headed for the fourth subfloor. The private vehicle plates started with a string of four numbers followed by two letters and then two numbers. It took him a few minutes to find a vehicle that had plates that matched the first two numbers. Most people didn’t know their tag number, but as a precaution, it was better to get the first number or two right. People tended to ignore what looked familiar. He popped the plates off and then quickly installed the plates he’d taken from the first car. It was standard tradecraft.

The owner of the first car would soon notice that his plates had been lifted because there would be a blank space where he was accustomed to seeing a plate. He would then report them stolen. Paris was a big city with serious crime. Stolen license plates were not high on the list of things to track down, but nonetheless, Rapp wanted some separation in case luck turned against him. It might be months before the man or woman who owned the second car was pulled over for having stolen plates. He or she would then realize that the plates were stolen and report them as such. By then, Rapp and Greta would be long gone. Greta’s silver A4 Audi was not the problem. It was the Swiss plates that drew too much attention. If they had to flee, they didn’t need an innocent bystander giving her license tag to a police officer, and they certainly didn’t want Hurley to see them.

Rapp arrived back at the hotel with his shoulder feeling marginally better and his mind satisfied that they were ready for tonight. Greta was waiting for him in the room and looking a bit nervous despite her effort to seem otherwise. She wanted to know what had taken so long, and he told her about the license plates and a few other seemingly meaningless tasks that he’d performed. Before she got on a roll he turned the tables and started asking her questions about her afternoon. While he listened, he emptied the contents of one of his shopping bags onto the bed. There was a sewing kit, a pair of jeans, a new jacket, and some other items. Rapp laid the jeans on the bed and retrieved his silenced Glock from the back of his waistband. Greta stopped talking at the sight of the gun. Rapp placed it over the left thigh of the jeans, grabbed a marker, and began to make an outline.

“Did you try on the wig?”

Greta ignored him. “What are you doing?”

“My shoulder holster is rigged for a lefty and my left hand isn’t much use right now. I need to make a holster for my gun. Keeping it stuffed in the back of my pants isn’t the best move.”

“Why . . . because you might shoot yourself?”

“No, it’s not very comfortable and not very easy to draw when you need it.”

She nodded while she watched him take a pair of scissors to the new jeans.

When Rapp had his hunk of fabric he placed the new black denim jacket on the bed and opened it to reveal the inside front left side. He set the gun down and then laid the jean patch over it until he had the angle right. He pinned the fabric to the flannel liner and then got out a needle and thread.

“I didn’t know you knew how to sew.”

Rapp gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s one of my many talents. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head. “Just tired.”

Rapp plunged the needle through the denim and the flannel and then brought it back up before he pierced the denim on the outside of the jacket. “Why don’t you try the wig on for me? We don’t want any surprises tonight.”

Greta wanted to ask him why he needed to bring a gun if there was no risk, but she knew it was a stupid question. His whole life was a risk, and she’d been trying to ignore that fact for as long as she’d known him. She grabbed her shopping bag and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She took her ponytail and twisted it into a bun and then carefully placed the wig over her blond hair. After tugging the left side down and then the right, she patted the top and shook it out. It was fine, but she didn’t like the fact that she was looking at a stranger.

Rapp heard the door open and looked up from his needle and thread. The black hair ran several inches past her shoulders. Her perfect face was framed by black bangs that stopped an inch above her eyebrows. Rapp didn’t realize it, but his mouth was hanging open.

“What do you think?” Greta asked.

“I think I’m horny.”

“Not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be.” Rapp set the jacket on the bed and stood. He walked over to Greta, stopping only a foot away. She looked at him for a second and then protectively folded her arms across her chest and looked across the room at the blank wall. Her body language was clear enough, but Rapp was not so easily deterred. He gently placed his right hand on her chin and turned her face toward his. “I’m sorry I got you involved in this. Maybe it would be better if you went back to Zurich. I’ll do what I need to do and when things have settled down I’ll come see you.”

“And if things don’t settle down?”

Then I’ll probably be dead, he thought, but he didn’t dare say it. “They will. I’m good at my job, honey. Trust me when I tell you these guys have more to fear than I do.”

She shook her head and her eyes began to fill with tears. “You were almost killed the other night. If that bullet had been just a few inches to the right you would have bled to death. As it was you almost fell to your death. I just don’t understand why you can’t leave with me right now. Walk away from this insanity.”

“This isn’t the type of job you just quit. You’re going to have to trust me on this, Greta, and if you can’t then you should head back to Zurich.”

“Is that what you want me to do?” The first tear began to roll down her left cheek.

Rapp didn’t like to see her like this. He wiped the tear away with his thumb. “I want you to be safe and the safest place for you is definitely not with me, but there’s another part of me . . .” Rapp’s voice trailed off.

“What?”

“There’s another part of me that can’t bear the thought of never seeing you again.”

More tears fell. “It doesn’t have to be that way. All you have to do is . . .”

“Walk away.” Rapp shook his head. “It’s not going to happen, darling. I need to see this thing through, and then we can talk about it.”

Greta reached up and grabbed his face with both hands. “I love you.”

Rapp smiled. “I love you, too.” He bent down and kissed her. His right hand left her chin and found the small of her back, pulling her in tight. Their kisses became deeper and more passionate. Rapp’s breathing grew heavier and he slid his hand down to her perfect little ass.

Greta moaned. She knew what he wanted and she wanted it every bit as badly. She missed him and wanted nothing more than to lie in his arms and spend the rest of the weekend in bed. But she pushed herself back a few inches and asked, “What about your shoulder?”

Pulling her close, Rapp whispered in her ear, “We’ll just have to be careful.”

Greta started unbuttoning his shirt.

Rapp hooked his thumb under her sweater and slid it around her hip to the front of her jeans. He found the top button and with his thumb and forefinger he popped the button open. It was suddenly as if the starter had fired the gun. They began tearing each other’s clothes off, stopping only to help the other with a particularly stubborn garment. Shirts, pants, sweater, socks, and shoes flew in every direction until Rapp was left in his white boxers and Greta in her sheer black bra and thong. Other than the bullet hole in Rapp’s shoulder and his bruising, they were the picture of perfection. He was hard and chiseled, every muscle defined and ripped tight. She was lithe and shapely in all the right places and her skin was as soft as anything he’d ever felt.

Greta pushed him back onto the bed, where he sat looking up at her, his hands on her hips. Greta grabbed his face and said, “I’m not wearing the wig.”

Rapp wasn’t going to deny that the wig was a turn-on, but Greta was so beautiful she could have been bald and she still would still have driven him nuts. “You don’t have to wear the wig.”

Greta smiled, pushed him onto his back, and climbed on top of him. She reached up and pulled the wig off with one hand while she undid her blond hair with the other. A gentle shake of the head and her hair fell to her shoulders. “Just sit back and relax. I’ll take care of everything.”

Rapp smiled, closed his eyes, and for the first time in days his mind was clear of thoughts of retribution and murder.

CHAPTER 25

PARIS, FRANCE

THE bodyguard did his best, but chivalry got the better of him—that and the fact that the woman called out his boss’s name with such intimacy that he was disarmed. Francine Neville stepped around the fit DGSE sentry and offered her right cheek to Fournier. She knew that would put him in an impossible situation. Part of Fournier’s carefully constructed image was that he was both a ladies’ man and a gentleman. Neville knew she was still a desirable woman, and in front of this well coifed crowd, the spook would have no choice but to greet her with a kiss.

Fournier was startled, but managed to hide it by pretending to plant a kiss on Neville’s right cheek and then the left. “Francine,” he said enthusiastically, “how nice to see you.”

“And you as well, Paul.” She grabbed the back of a chair and asked loudly enough for a third of the restaurant to hear, “May I join you?”

In a voice barely above a whisper, Fournier said, “I would love for you to join us, but we are in the middle of a rather private matter.”

Neville waved her hand in the air to dismiss any concern and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t overstay my welcome.” She pulled out the chair and sat. She then motioned to the last available chair for Simon to join her. “Paul, this is Martin Simon, one of my top people.” Before Fournier could respond, Neville turned her delicate brown eyes on the foreigner sitting to his right. “Hello.” She extended her hand across the table, palm down. “I’m Francine.”

Vega smiled warmly and took her hand. “Very nice to meet you, Francine. I’m Max.” He intentionally ignored the mousy-looking man who was with her.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” Neville said.

“My dear, the business of the Directorate is always important,” Fournier said, not bothering to hide his irritation. “But obviously the security of the Republic is not so important to you.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t all agree on the best way to keep the Republic safe.” Not wanting to give Fournier a chance to reply, Neville turned to Max and said, “I detect a slight accent. Are you Spanish?”

He nodded.

“CESID?” Neville asked, wondering if he worked for Spain’s main intelligence agency.

Vega laughed. “No, I am a simple businessman.”

Neville returned her gaze to Fournier, not believing a word that came out of the Spaniard’s mouth. Her smile vanished. “I thought you would like a quick briefing on the investigation.”

Fournier glanced uncomfortably at his guest and then returned his attention to his old conquest. “Now is not such a good time. Maybe we could talk later. Why don’t you call my office and set up an appointment.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Your office hasn’t been much help.”

Fournier wondered how she had found him.

“No worries, though. This will only take a few minutes, and then I’ll be on my way.” She took great joy in seeing the pained expression on Fournier’s face. “Yesterday you offered to help with the investigation and my superiors were thrilled. They asked me to see if you could help with a little problem.”

“If it is within my power, I would love to be of assistance.”

“Good. I am told you have a very cozy relationship with the Libyans.” Neville smiled in a humble way. “Being local law enforcement, we have no such contacts, so I was wondering if you could ask them why these supposed bodyguards were never seen in public with the Libyan oil minister.”

Fournier blinked several times before responding. “I’m not sure I understand your question.”

“The four dead men who you referred to as Tarek’s bodyguards . . . We can’t find a single witness who saw them. Tarek checked into the hotel with his assistant, who told one of my officers that they were traveling without bodyguards.”

“That seems a little strange,” Fournier said.

“What seems strange? You telling me they were Tarek’s bodyguards or Tarek’s assistant telling my officer that they were traveling without protection?”

“Francine, my dear, I assumed they were Tarek’s bodyguards, just as you did. I have no information that would say otherwise.”

She nodded. “Well, the assistant is now at the Libyan Embassy. They won’t let us interview him.”

“I’ll see if I can change their minds,” Fournier offered in a helpful tone, even though he had no such intention.

“There’s another interesting tidbit. We have been unable to locate five of the hotel guests.”

“I’m not totally surprised. The place was crawling with cops and reporters. They probably left and checked into other hotels.”

“No,” Neville said, shaking her head. “Their bags are still in their rooms and you wouldn’t believe the coincidence,” she said in mock shock. “Four of those guests match the descriptions of the four dead bodyguards.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and we found a room down the hall from Tarek’s that was loaded with surveillance equipment.”

“I thought that was the room where Tarek’s bodyguards were keeping watch.”

“That’s what we thought, but according to Tarek’s assistant he didn’t have a security detail with him.”

Fournier pursed his lips into a thoughtful expression and then in a helpful tone said, “This assistant was probably scared out of his mind when your officer interviewed him. Maybe he left out a rather important detail.”

“And what about the hotel staff and guests we interviewed? Tarek left the hotel at least seven times and no one remembers seeing a security detail with him.”

“Well,” Fournier said, trying to come up with a logical explanation. “Maybe Tarek didn’t want them with him in public. Maybe he preferred a low profile.”

“The room with all of the surveillance equipment in it . . . the hotel computers had it blocked off. The computer said it was being renovated even though it was renovated only a year ago.”

Fournier frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Neville could see through the act. “Do you know what else doesn’t make sense?”

Fournier got a bad feeling that he wasn’t going to like the answer to this question. “No.”

“My officers say that while you were in Tarek’s suite with me, one of your men made a little visit to the roof.”

“I had several men with me. I don’t know where they were specifically. I instructed them to spread out and see what they could find out.”

“I’m sure you did,” Neville said, her tone changing from congenial to suspicious. “A rope was taken from the roof.” She wasn’t going to tell him how she knew. “Any idea what happened to it?”

“Surely you are not trying to say one of my men tampered with evidence.” Fournier acted as if he was offended by the accusation.

Neville kept her eyes locked on him. “Paul, I know you better than most. I know you are an extremely deceptive man who is involved in all kinds of nasty things that, God forbid they ever came to light, might possibly destroy our country, so please don’t act offended. Deny all you like, but we both know you are capable of transgressions far worse than interfering with my investigation.”

Vega cleared his throat and grabbed his phone. “I have other business to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

Fournier placed his hand on Vega’s wrist and kept his gaze on Neville. “Francine and I have a long history. I fell in love with her, but she broke my heart. One should never mix business and pleasure. I’m afraid our history is complicating matters.”

Neville tossed her head back in fake laughter. “Actually, Max, I found out he was cheating on me, and I told him I never wanted to see him again. Lying comes very easy to Paul, so you have to be very careful in dealing with him.”

“Come now, Francine,” he said with a pouty grin.

“Don’t worry, Paul, I got over you a long time ago, but I did learn some valuable lessons. For instance . . . that you are an incredibly selfish and deceptive man.” She turned to Simon. “What would our profilers call that?”

“Narcissistic.”

“Yes . . . thank you. That is the right word.”

Fournier held his hands up in mock surrender. “I should have treated you better. It is one of my great regrets. Now if you’ll excuse us, Max and I have some important business to attend to.”

Neville turned to Simon. “We seem to have worn out our welcome.”

“It appears so.”

Neville stood and, looking at Fournier, said, “You will of course make your men available for me to interview?”

“Anything I can do to help,” he said with a playful grin.

Neville took one step away from the table and then turned back. “I forgot to mention that we are looking for that fifth guest. He fits the general description of the other four men who were killed . . . the supposed bodyguards. You wouldn’t happen to know where we could find him?” Neville asked with a provocative smile.

Fournier pushed his glass forward and stood. He walked around the table and put his hand on Neville’s shoulder. With his mouth only a few inches from her ear he said, “Darling, I don’t know what you are up to, but I would suggest you run back to your husband and children. This is a dangerous game you are playing, and if you are as smart as you think you are, you should know that I am not someone to be trifled with.”

Neville jerked away from him, slapping his hand off her shoulder. “Do not touch me!” she snapped, loudly enough for most of the restaurant to hear. “This mess has your smell all over it, and don’t think that just because you work for the Directorate you are above the law.”

Fournier’s bodyguard stepped in and grabbed Neville by the elbow.

She responded by pulling out her badge and shoving it in the man’s face. “Take your hands off me.” Wheeling back to Fournier, she said, “I have already spoken to the inspector general’s office. We have a meeting in the morning where I am going to fully brief him on my investigation, and my fears that your department is somehow involved in this. I will also inform him that you threatened me.”

“I did not threaten you, Francine.” Fournier sighed as if the idea was preposterous.

Neville composed herself. “I’m on to you, Paul. You show up at the scene of the crime at practically the same time as I did, one of your men is seen going to the roof, and now we’re missing a crucial piece of evidence. You float this idea that these four dead men were Tarek’s bodyguards, but I can’t find anyone who says he had bodyguards protecting him. This entire mess is beginning to smell like one of your dirty little operations.”

“Francine, you should be very careful about throwing around such wild accusations.”

“They might sound wild to the average person, but anyone who is familiar with your work will understand that this is right up your alley. In fact,” Neville said, just realizing something, “I’d be willing to bet an entire year’s salary that Tarek was on your payroll.”

It was Simon who reached out and touched his boss this time. “Francine, we need to go.” Simon, looking at the exchange from afar, realized that Neville had more than likely hit uncomfortably close to the truth. It would be a legal nightmare trying to get the DGSE to open the files they kept on Tarek.

“I am not afraid of you, Paul. I know how you like to do things in the shadows. You can’t stand being exposed in the open like this. Mark my words, you will regret your decision to involve yourself in this mess.” Neville turned and marched through the restaurant, Simon in tow.

When they reached the lobby, Simon said, “Well, that wasn’t exactly what I expected.”

“It wasn’t what I expected either,” Neville snapped.

“Boss, do you know what Tarek did before he became Libya’s oil minister?”

Neville stopped in the middle of the lobby and faced Simon. She searched his face for a clue. “What?”

“The word is he worked for the Mukhabarat . . . Libyan Intelligence.”

“Shit,” Neville mumbled under her breath. She grabbed a clump of her black hair, shook her head, and in a voice filled with desperation, said, “This just keeps getting worse.”

“We need to be careful.”

She looked back toward the restaurant. “That’s what he wants us to do. He wants us to be afraid of our shadows. Move slowly . . . that’s why I made that scene in there. He can’t stand the thought of his dirty little secrets being made public. If we want to get to the bottom of this, moving cautiously is the last thing we should do. We need to expose him and do it quickly.”

Simon grimaced. “Francine, this is very dangerous. We have nothing that ties him to any of this.”

“You think he just showed up before the bodies were cool because he was out for a walk? His man just wanders onto the roof while we’re all focused on the room? I don’t buy any of it.”

“I know it doesn’t look good, but none of this is solid enough to implicate him.”

“Then we’ll have to find something. The crime scene should be wrapped up by tonight. We will have plenty of manpower available, and I want to find out who that man was . . . Max.”

“Francine,” Simon said with caution, “he is more than likely a source for the Directorate. I’m telling you, this is dangerous.”

“Yes, and we work for the National Police. The Directorate can play all of the games they want when they are abroad, but not here in Paris. We are the law.” She could see that the always-rational Simon did not like this turn of events. Like many, he feared the reputation of the Directorate. Neville knew their only hope in getting to the bottom of what really happened was to ignore the fear and push forward. Any pause would give Fournier the time he needed to pressure the people who could relieve her from the case. “Just trust me . . . we need to move fast. Don’t worry about Fournier. He put himself in the middle of this by showing up at the crime scene and sending his man up onto the roof. I want answers. I want you to start with this Max guy and then get me the name of Fournier’s man who was on the roof. I want to question him myself.”

Simon knew there was no dissuading her from this path, so he nodded. This was part of what made her so good at her job. If a case became personal, she was tenacious. Maybe he could talk some sense into her in a day or two. That was if they had that much time. Fournier and his type would not play fair. As they stepped into the late-afternoon light an ominous feeling clutched at him. Would Fournier and his faceless minions be so brash as to harm his boss? Simon shuddered at the possibility. He couldn’t let that happen. As he opened the rear door of the sedan for Neville he took a quick look up and down the street. There were all sorts of men standing about—assistants, drivers, and bodyguards for the affluent who were inside the hotel. Undoubtedly one or more belonged to Paul Fournier. Simon made a mental note of each face. He’d been a police officer for sixteen years. He’d started out walking the narrow streets of the Marais Quarter. Early on, he learned he had a gift for faces. He hoped that gift hadn’t left him.

Simon settled into the backseat next to his boss and paused for a second before saying, “I think it would be wise to give you and your family a little protection until this has blown over.” He knew she wouldn’t like it, but he said it anyway, mostly because it was the right thing to do. Neville didn’t speak for a long moment, and when she did it was what Simon expected.

“I’m not afraid of Paul Fournier.”

Well, you should be, Simon thought to himself, but he didn’t dare say it. “I never said you were. This is a very high-profile case that is going to attract a lot of attention. I think it would be a wise precaution.”

“Nice try. This is about you being spooked by a spook from DGSE.” Neville shook her head. “I’m not afraid of the man. He’s a coward. He can’t intimidate and use his dirty tricks in the bright light of day, and he sure as hell isn’t going to harm a ranking detective of the Judicial Police.”

He knew her well enough to know that at least for now it would make little sense to try to pursue the matter. He nodded his agreement, but silently he began exploring the various precautions he could put into place. As long as Neville never knew what he was up to, there would be no harm done, but if she found out, he cringed to think of how she would react. Simon looked out the window and decided he would simply need to be careful. To ignore the threat would be foolish.

CHAPTER 26

THEY made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms, his one good one and her two. When Rapp woke up an hour and forty minutes later he stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. There was no fluttering or blurred vision, confusion over where he was or the time. He felt alive and sharp and relaxed all at the same time. Greta could do that to him. He didn’t know how exactly, but he suspected it had something to do with her naked body pressed against his. They always slept with their bodies intertwined, as much skin on skin as possible. Her warmth and energy simultaneously comforted him and made him feel alive.

There was no denying she made him happy, happier than he’d been in a long time. So much so that, as he lay there, he actually thought about dropping everything and driving back to Zurich with her. He could scare the shit out of Kennedy and quite a few others. The phone call would be easy. Just dial the service and leave a message. Tell her that he was done. That he’d put his ass on the line, and they’d repaid him by betraying him. And then would come the part that would make everything very definitive. He would have to threaten her, by explaining in detail what he would do to anyone who came looking for him and that if that happened he would fly back to the States and leave a trail of bodies. Maybe even add something about a packet of information that would be mailed to the FBI or the Department of Justice or God forbid the media.

He frowned at that last part. He couldn’t do it. It would make him no better than all the egomaniacal, opportunistic politicians who were constantly taking shots at the CIA. Kennedy and Stansfield were good people, or at least they tried to do the right thing. Hurley, maybe not so much. Whether Stansfield ordered it or not, Hurley would come after him. The man was funny that way. If Rapp cut a corner or did things his own way, Hurley would fly into a rage, but the man never bothered to confront the fact that there wasn’t a rule he himself hadn’t broken. Stansfield had told Rapp once that the problem he and Hurley had was that they were too much alike. Rapp sure as hell hoped they weren’t. Hurley could be petty and sadistic and extremely unfair and Rapp had told Stansfield so. The deputy director added a few more negative observations to Rapp’s list and then said, “And ultimately very good at what he does. He cuts through all the BS. He sees the purest path toward achieving his objective and he seizes it . . . just like you.”

Rapp had replied, “But he’s a prick.”

Stansfield smiled in his easy way and said, “Yes, he is, and after you’ve been at this for three decades you might be one, too.”

Rapp desperately hoped not. Part of him respected Hurley for his toughness and tenacity, but he couldn’t imagine going through life as such a sour bastard. Rapp wondered if he really could kill him. There’d been plenty of times when he’d envisioned it, but never in a definitive, professional way. His fantasies were more along the lines of bashing his head into the floor over and over again until his brains spilled out. Rapp realized there was a very real chance that taking Hurley out was exactly where this was headed. If he ran, and he might have no choice, he’d have to kill Hurley or the man would hunt him for the rest of his days.

Greta’s head was resting on his chest and his right arm was wrapped around her. They’d met nearly a year ago in Zurich and it had been love, or at least lust, at first sight. Greta’s family had a string of banks located in most of the major financial centers. Her grandfather and Thomas Stansfield had been allies in the fight against communism, and the family still helped Stansfield with some of the more delicate aspects of their operations. So far they had kept their relationship a secret. Greta knew what Rapp did, to an extent, but the wound in his shoulder was a harsh reminder that she had fallen in love with a man who was in a very dangerous line of work.

Rapp slid his hand down her side, her slender waist, and then her hip. He kissed the top of her head and took a deep breath. He wanted to remember this. Total peace; joy in his heart and a woman he passionately loved at his side. This was how normal people lived, but not him. His training had been thorough, and in ways Rapp hadn’t expected. Hurley had talked to each of them about women. His policy was gruff and to the point. “You can hump all the women you want, but you can’t fall in love and you sure as hell can’t get married. If you fall in love or get married, I’ll put you out to pasture or kill you.” And that was just one of many reasons Rapp thought Hurley was a jackass.

It was tempting to spend the rest of his life naked and in bed with Greta, but he knew it was a romantic fantasy. If that was ever his hope there was a lot of work to be done first. There had probably been a time when he could have taken the road more frequently traveled, but that was gone. The truth was more than the simple fact that he was a trained killer. He was good at it, he enjoyed it, and he was not ready to walk away from it. Maybe he really would turn out like Hurley if he lived long enough. The thought depressed him.

As Rapp carefully slid his arm from under Greta, he promised himself that he would never let that happen. In the bathroom he closed the door and checked his reflection in the mirror. The black circles under his eyes were almost gone. It was amazing what the body could do with some food and a lot of sleep. The bandage on his shoulder was blood-free, but the bruising on his back looked pretty bad. Rapp flexed his fingers on his left hand and then moved his arm around in a small clockwise motion. The flex didn’t hurt but rotating his shoulder hurt like hell. He tried a few more motions with varied success and then got in the shower. Not wanting to get his bandages wet, he cleaned from the waist down, toweled off, and contemplated shaving. He had two days of thick stubble. There were pros and cons to keeping it, but in the end the cons won out and he shaved. Any concealment it offered would be marginal, and on the other side of the ledger was a mountain of evidence about how police treated men who were dressed nicely and clean-shaven versus men who were not.

Greta was still asleep while he put on his dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and lace-up black combat boots. Unfortunately, she awoke at the sound of Rapp adjusting the Velcro straps on his bulletproof vest. She propped her head up with a second pillow and pulled the sheet up high around her neck.

“Why are you wearing that?”

“Just a precaution,” Rapp said truthfully.

Greta wasn’t buying it. “Mitch?”

“Greta?” Rapp said.

“I’m serious.”

“And so am I, and that’s why I’m putting it on.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her blue eyes a bit more chilly than normal. “I thought you said this was going to be easy.”

Rapp got the two bottom straps just the way he liked them and said, “I don’t plan on getting in an accident every time I get behind the wheel, but I still wear a seat belt.”

“Your point?”

“I don’t plan on getting shot, but since it’s already happened once this week you’ll have to excuse me if I decide this is a good idea.”

She frowned and lay there unflinching, but in the end she decided there wasn’t much else she could add. She watched as Rapp carefully pulled on a black cotton dress shirt. He buttoned all but the top button so his white vest was concealed. He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. Cupping her cheek with his hand, he said, “You have two hours to get ready and be in position. If you don’t want to come along that’s fine. You can wait here or head home if you want.”

She shook her head. “I’m coming with.”

“Good. And can you be ready and in position in two hours?”

“No problem, but where are you going?”

“I have a few more things I need to pick up and I need to take a look around.”

“You can’t stay and eat with me?”

“I’d love to, but there’s not enough time. Order some room service and when you’re ready make sure you pack all of your stuff and put it in your trunk.”

“I know,” she repeated like a good student. “And take your backpack and make sure I don’t check out because we might need to come back.”

Rapp considered the tense, anxious expression on her face. He leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t worry so much. This is just going to be a little observation from a safe distance. Nothing will go wrong. I promise.”

“Famous last words.”

Rapp smiled. “You’re such an optimist.”

CHAPTER 27

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JIM Talmage chose the four-year-old metallic gray Toyota Camry because it was the most common make in the District and also the most common color. He had three dogs to choose from, and the choice was easy. The German shepherd would stand out too much and the white Scottish terrier only slightly less, so it would be his trusted mutt, Bert. Talmage had picked him up from a pound three years ago. Bert was only four months old at the time. The pound had no papers on him but a lot of opinions as to who his parents were. As Bert grew it became obvious to Talmage that he was a mix of border collie and Labrador. Of his three dogs, Bert was the smartest by a long shot. He had a black coat with a fist-sized patch of white at the chest, and the only reason he needed a leash was so as to not alarm one of the many fascists that walked the streets of the District looking to scream at anyone who didn’t have his dog on a leash.

Bert sat near the trunk of the car while the sixty-one-year-old Talmage surveyed his equipment. He looked older today because he had put some powder in his hair giving it more of a gray look. All of his equipment was contained in four black cases that could easily be moved from one trunk to another. One case contained a variety of cameras, from big SLRs that could handle thick, long lenses to tiny cameras not much bigger than a man’s thumb. Talmage chose the camera he would use, but didn’t pick it up. Instead he opened a medium-sized square duffel bag with two zippers along the top. A piece of nylon fabric connected both zippers so they could be opened at the same time. Talmage pulled them back and the top of the duffel bag opened like a tongue. Neatly folded jackets were arranged inside along with a variety of hats. Talmage chose a houndstooth driving cap to start with and then he put on a trench coat that reversed from black to khaki. He chose the khaki side and moved on to another black case.

Inside were a variety of transmitters as big as a box of playing cards and as small as a ladybug. He considered his subject before deciding and then pulled on a thin pair of brown leather gloves and grabbed two options as well as a receiver. He didn’t bother checking them, as he had done so back in his basement shop earlier in the day. The receiver was placed in the left pocket of the trench coat and the two transmitters in the right. Next he chose a medium-sized SLR. It was a Canon, the kind of camera carried by tourists who were serious about their photos, but not the kind of monster carried by a pro. He twisted a 135mm lens onto the end and hung the camera around his neck. He closed both cases and then his hand hovered over the third for a second. It was full of directional listening devices, and he wouldn’t need any of them for the next hour. His hand stopped over the fourth case and he seemed hesitant to open it. He knew what was inside, he just wasn’t sure he needed to be packing heat.

There had been a time in his career when he wouldn’t have even considered not carrying, especially in the District. He had all the proper paperwork should the police stop him, but that wasn’t why he carried. He carried because many of his subjects were under extreme pressure, the kind of pressure that could cause certain men to do stupid things if they discovered they were being followed. The other reason he carried in the District was the criminal element. D.C. had been in the top five in the nation for murders for more than a decade and running. It was the thugs that made him decide to punch in the code and pop the case. Inside were a Browning 1911 .45 caliber pistol, a Beretta 9mm pistol, and a customized Colt .45 caliber machine pistol with a collapsible butt stock and threads for a suppressor. Talmage grabbed the Browning. He was in a nice part of town, the part of town that the city’s criminal element liked to visit to commit violent crimes.

The last things he grabbed were a copy of the New York Times, Bert’s dog leash, and a plastic shopping bag. Talmage closed the trunk and activated his customized alarm with a key fob. Bert sat perfectly still while Talmage attached the leash. He even stopped slapping his tail against the pavement. The man and beast then started across the parking lot toward the trees, the walking and biking paths, and the dark brown Potomac River. Bert kept pace with his owner, never pulling on the leash or tripping him up by walking underfoot. When they made it to the first path, both dog and owner stopped. In unison they looked left and then right and then stepped off.

They continued to the next path and then onto the threadbare grass just beyond. Talmage surveyed the river. Twenty-five yards away a young couple in a kayak zigzagged their way upstream, laughing at their own inexperience. Out in the middle of the river a six-man crew slapped the water in unison as they flew back downstream. Closer to the far shore and a little to the north, two more kayaks were navigating the rocks. This time of year it wasn’t too difficult, but come spring it would not be for the faint of heart. To his left a single scull worked its way against the current. Talmage looked down at his camera and flipped a couple of the dials before bringing the viewfinder up to his right eye. He swung casually to the left, zoomed in on the lone rower, and snapped three photos.

And then he and Bert started south on the walking path. As Talmage and his subject drew parallel Talmage kept his eyes front and center. Only an amateur would try to steal a look and risk exposing himself. For nine minutes, they walked the path, minding their own business and smiling back at the occasional dog owner who wanted to share their common association with a smile and a nod. They eventually reached their objective, a dumpy little place called Jack’s Boathouse. The business model was fairly simple. Rowing, crewing, and sculling were popular on the East Coast, especially with those who went to certain upper-crust schools and even a few where drinking was more important than academics. A fair number of those graduates matriculated to D.C. after graduation, and rather than act like a gerbil on a wheel at their local health club, they came to the Potomac during the warmer months and got one of the best workouts known to man. Jack’s catered to these people by renting various boats, sculls, and kayaks and also providing storage for those who didn’t have the room at home for their equipment, or didn’t want to bother lugging it back and forth.

Talmage had already learned two things about his subject: He owned his own single scull and he was too cheap to rent a spot for it, so he drove it back and forth, tying it to the roof of his eight-year-old sky blue Volvo station wagon. Talmage could now see the station wagon to his left parked among the various vehicles in Jack’s packed parking lot. He checked upriver first to see the location of the subject. Talmage judged he was too far away to notice what he was about to do. And if he could see he’d be too out of breath and focused to notice what was going on nearly a mile downriver.

Talmage started talking to Bert, for no other reason than to buy some time. Surveillance was a tricky business, especially in this town. You never knew who else might be lurking about with eyes on your target. After a minute of looking crazy talking to his dog, Talmage thought he was clear. He started for the cars, not directly for the Volvo, but in its general direction. He casually nudged Bert where he wanted him to go, and when he had him in near-perfect position he gave a one-word command.

Bert stopped right on his mark and squatted down, his left rear leg tapping the ground as if he was priming a pump. A few seconds later, Bert was finished with his business and Talmage slid him a treat and said, “Good boy.”

Bert took the treat and wagged his tail while his owner got down on one knee and pulled out the shopping bag. With the bag turned inside out, Talmage scooped up the pile and tied the bag in a knot. He transferred the bag to his left hand and then before standing he reached out and steadied himself on the front bumper of the Volvo. Even a trained professional would have had a hard time seeing what he’d done. Talmage then walked over to the nearest garbage can and deposited Bert’s droppings. They started back up the path to the north. Up ahead through the trees Talmage could see the man in the lone scull turning around. He was just a speck at this distance. Talmage knew it was him only because he’d catalogued every person on the river and the walking and biking paths as well. He was as certain as he could be that he was the only person surveilling the deputy director of the CIA. It wasn’t something that he’d been thrilled about at first. If the Gestapo at Langley or the FBI busted him, he would likely spend several long months behind bars being denied his legal right to counsel.

As to why he was following Cooke, Talmage had no idea, but he trusted the man who had given him the job. Talmage owed Thomas Stansfield his life, and he’d decided a long time ago that he would probably never be able to repay him, but showing him a little gratitude was at least a good start.

CHAPTER 28

PARIS, FRANCE

HIS checklist complete, Rapp moved through the neighborhood with the collar of his jeans jacket pulled up high around his ears and his chin tucked down. The early evening air was damp and cool. A plain blue baseball cap covered his thick black hair and he was wearing a pair of black eyeglasses with clear lenses. With his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyes swept both sides of the street. He’d done some loose reconnaissance an hour earlier and had spotted two vans within a block of the apartment. He was fairly confident which one contained Victor and the other men. Rapp’s only real worry at this point was whether his new drug-dealing friend would show up for their meeting. If he didn’t, Rapp would either have to go knock on the door of the van or figure something else out. So far nothing obvious had presented itself, but he had time. His conversation with Kennedy had gone about as well as he could have hoped. She would take his concerns straight to Stansfield, and the old Cold Warrior would never disregard something this serious. If the Orion Team had been penetrated, Stansfield would have a major dilemma on his hands, and he would move at top speed to find out the identity of the traitor.

Rapp showed up at the café and took a quick look at the crowd. Night was on the city, and the dinner crowd was brisk. The temperature hovered near sixty degrees and there were only a few people sitting outside at the small green bistro tables. Rapp glanced inside. There was no sign of Luke, so he grabbed one of the small tables outside that gave him a good view of the intersection and placed his back to the building. He checked his watch. He was five minutes early. He wondered briefly if drug dealers were punctual and decided more than likely not. He picked up a paper, and when the waitress approached he ordered a glass of red wine. Rapp rested his left hand in his lap and made a fist. A muted stab of pain went from his fingertips all the way up his arm, into his shoulder, and then flared up his neck. Part of his training had covered the nasty hazards of his business, and how to stay alive should he fall on the receiving end of a gunshot or a variety of other attacks meant to kill him. The electric shock that ran up his left arm told him he had some nerve damage. It would more than likely heal, but only if he babied it. The pain pills were a mixed blessing. They allowed him to go about his business without having to deal with the distraction of pain, but they also gave him a false sense of confidence that could cause more damage. His best guess was that his arm was no better than 50 percent. He could use it if he had to do something like making a simple magazine change, but if he had to punch or grab with any sort of force or leverage the damage would be intense. The wound would reopen and the bleeding would begin anew.

That’s why he’d decided to sew the new holster into the left side of the quilted jeans jacket. This way he could reach across his body with his right arm for an easy draw. Now more than ever, he understood why they’d trained him to shoot with both hands. He was a lefty with a natural eye, but it had taken a good deal of work to get his right hand up to snuff. At twenty-five feet he could place all one hundred rounds in the black shooting left-handed, and he could place all but a handful in the black when shooting with his right hand.

Rapp glanced down and unbuttoned one of the brass buttons on the jacket so he could have easier access to the pistol, just in case his new drug-dealing friend did something stupid. He had been trained to think ahead, to always cover the gamut of possibilities. He took a sip of wine and placed a pack of Gauloises cigarettes on the table. It was a nasty habit, and one that Rapp had reluctantly begun, but his job required long periods of sitting and watching while trying to act as if he wasn’t watching. He had become the worthless man who hung out at cafés for long hours, drinking, smoking, working on crossword puzzles, and reading important books that barely held his attention. If you wanted to fit in, if you wanted to pass the time without looking like a private eye, a policeman, or an intelligence officer, it was better to adopt the appearance of yet another Bohemian artist who was trying to avoid work.

As the appointed hour came and went Rapp nursed his wine and lit a cigarette. He decided he would wait until thirty minutes past the hour, maybe ten minutes past that at the most, and then he would abandon his plan, meet up with Greta, and try to come up with something else. Five minutes later Luke approached from the west, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Rapp was pleased to reconfirm that they were roughly the same size and build. Luke hadn’t shaved in a few days and his face was covered with thick black stubble. They moved differently, of course, but on second thought Rapp realized that would help. Victor and his crew would assume Rapp had adopted some kind of disguise and had changed his gait. Only Rapp, Ridley, Kennedy, and Hurley had access to the apartment. When Luke showed up they would jump to the most logical conclusion and Rapp would watch how they reacted.

He watched Luke stop at the nearest intersection. Even though the light had turned green he did not move. Rapp was wondering what he was up to when he saw Luke turn and greet another man. He was a big fellow, almost six and half feet tall, with a big, knobby, bald head and arms that hung halfway to his knees. Rapp had learned to spot that on the lacrosse pitch. Rapp himself had long arms, but only a few inches longer than most. It was enough to give him a nice advantage in things like fights and stick handling. This mountain of a man, however, looked more like an ape, and his hunched shoulders made his arms appear even longer than they were.

Rapp had specifically told Luke to come alone, and he could tell by the smile on his face that he had knowingly decided not to honor Rapp’s request.

With his cigarette dangling from his lips, Luke sauntered up to the table and sat on Rapp’s right. The goon loitered for a moment and then grabbed a small chair and spun it around backward and sat with his arms folded over the back of his chair. He stared at Rapp as if he was contemplating eating him for dinner.

“Good evening,” Luke said, “I’d like you to meet my friend Alfred.”

The big man stuck out a scarred and puffy right paw. Rapp reluctantly offered his own hand. Alfred clamped down and began to crush Rapp’s hand. Rapp squeezed just hard enough to prevent the man from breaking any bones. When he was done with his juvenile game Rapp turned his attention back to Luke. “I told you to come alone.”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t like traveling alone at night. Paris can be a very dangerous city.” With a thin smile he added, “I find that Alfred has a way of deterring people who would like to harm me.”

Rapp took a closer look at Alfred. His nose was broken in at least two places and there was a fair amount of scar tissue built up under each eye, as well as some cuts above each eyebrow and along his cleft chin. Rapp had to consider the bullet hole in his left shoulder. He was sure he could take him, but if things didn’t go smoothly and quickly he would also probably open the wound and begin bleeding again. If it came to violence Rapp would need to be certain he landed a decisive blow right at the start. He decided to force the issue. He picked up his cigarettes and shoved them in his pocket. “It’s too bad we won’t be able to work with each other.”

“And why is that?”

“I already told you.”

Luke scoffed as if it had been a minor request. “My friend Alfred is very trustworthy. You need not worry about him.”

“Your friend Alfred will stick out like a sore thumb . . . did you bother to think about that? He might as well have ‘I’m a violent criminal’ tattooed on his forehead. If anyone sees him in the building they will know he doesn’t belong, and they will call the police. You, on the other hand, look enough like me that no one will bother you with a second look.”

Luke signaled for the waitress and said, “It doesn’t matter. I will be bringing Alfred along for protection.” Turning his attention to the waitress, Luke ordered a glass of wine for himself and a beer for Alfred.

When the waitress was gone, Rapp said, “This isn’t going to work. I’ll have to find someone else.” Rapp set down his wine and started to stand.

“Alfred,” was all Luke had to say.

Rapp felt the pull in his shoulder as the big man grabbed him by the forearm and yanked him back into his chair. Rapp masked the pain coursing through his shoulder and looked at Luke with a cool expression.

“No need to rush off,” Luke said. “Nothing has changed. I simply wanted someone I trusted to join me for this strange job that you have brought to me.”

Rapp looked down at his arm, which Alfred still held tightly. He had already taken inventory of his surroundings. In a voice that shouldn’t have left any doubt about his seriousness, Rapp said, “Luke, you have misjudged me. I am not someone you want to screw with. Tell your man to let go of my arm right now, or we are going to have a big problem.”

Luke gave an amused giggle and the big man leaned forward, his pronounced underbite making him look like he had an IQ of sixty. “I’ll let go of your arm when I’m fucking ready.”

Rapp gave a quick nod, turned his attention back to Luke, and said, “I’m going to count to ten, and when I’m done your goon will have either let go of my arm, or I’m going to cause him a great deal of pain.”

Alfred laughed loudly, and Luke said, “There is no reason to make threats.”

“One . . . two . . .”

Luke was smiling. “You Americans are so dramatic. Stop your counting and hear me out.”

“Three . . . four . . .” Rapp’s eyes were locked on Luke, but he could hear the big man to his left laughing. Rapp decided to stop counting, and his right arm shot across his body. His fingers were folded under, his second row of knuckles forming a jagged edge of hard bones. Rapp’s eyes zeroed in like bomber sights on Alfred’s pronounced Adam’s apple and guided the strike with precision, the rigid knuckles of his right hand connecting with the soft thyroid cartilage and the larynx behind it. There was a crunching noise followed by a heavy exhalation of air as it left Alfred’s mouth.