The Accident Man

13

The Pitié-Salpêtrière medical complex in southeast Paris dates back to 1656 and the time of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Over the past century it has been modernized and massively increased in size until it is almost a city of its own, devoted to the sick and those who care for them. But tonight its emergency department had turned into a cross between a war zone and a diplomatic cocktail party.

The French minister of the interior was there, along with the prefect of police and the British ambassador. It was past two a.m. when the guest of honor arrived. She was fashionably late, as befitted the world’s most famous woman. But she came in an ambulance, rather than the usual limousine.

The operations director was waiting at the hospital. He found himself getting angry with the delay. It was irrational: The more inefficient the Paris ambulance services were, the better it was for him. He wanted the woman dead, after all. More than anything, however, he wanted it all to be over. He turned to the tanned, compact, leather-jacketed man next to him. “Jesus Christ, Pierre, what took so long?”

Pierre Papin worked in French intelligence. He didn’t have a job title. Officially, he didn’t have a job. This gave him a certain freedom. Sometimes, for example, he worked on projects even his bosses – the ones he did not officially have – knew nothing about.

“Relax, mon ami,” Papin said, pulling a packet of Gitanes from the pocket of his linen jacket. He wore a pristine white T-shirt and a pair of snug-fitting black jeans. He looked like he’d just come from a night out in Saint-Tropez. “We don’t like to rush things in France. You Anglo-Saxons throw trauma victims into ambulances, drive at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, and then wonder why your patients are dead on arrival. We prefer to stabilize them at the scene, then take them très doucement – gently, no? – to the hospital.”

“Well, I hope you explain that to the media. Believe me, they’ll sniff a conspiracy in the delay.”

The Frenchman smiled. “Perhaps that is because there truly is a conspiracy, huh?”

“Not over the bloody ambulance there isn’t.”

The operations director’s mood was not improved by the trouble he was having getting through to Max. They had not spoken for about an hour, not since Max had called to report that the Russians had been eliminated, exactly according to plan.

It wasn’t unknown for Max to disappear off the radar from time to time. His obsessive concern for security, secrecy, and personal survival saw to that. But it was unlike him to go missing before the operation was complete.

The operations director pressed his speed dial again. Again he got no answer. He turned back to Papin.

“What’s the latest news from the doctors?”

The Frenchman took a long drag on his cigarette. “The left ventricle vein was ripped from the heart. The poor woman has been pumping blood into her chest.” Papin looked at the operations director. “This was not a clean operation. The princess will not survive. But a bullet would have been more merciful.”

“Yes, well, that option wasn’t available, was it? What are you doing about the autopsy?”

“The pathologist is waiting outside the room, along with all the other vultures.”

“And the formaldehyde?”

“It will be pumped into the body, immediately after the postmortem. But why is this so important to you?”

“It will create a false positive on any subsequent pregnancy test.”

“So the world will think she was pregnant?”

“So the world will never know for sure.”

Papin frowned. “Tell me, then, why did she have to die?”

The operations director smiled but did not answer the question. “Excuse me one moment.”

He turned away from Papin and dialed again. Still no answer from Max. What the bloody hell was going on?