The Silenced

Chapter 35

The 2 a.m. pickup went off without a hitch. Nate had slept for just over an hour and a half before he got up and made his way to the trash can on Rue de Rivoli across from the Jardin des Tuileries. Just as arranged, inside he found Liz’s false documents wrapped in a paper bag, stuffed halfway down.

Nate had been afraid when he returned he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. But within a minute of closing his eyes, he was out.

At 4:30 a.m. he woke again, courtesy, as it so often was, of the alarm on his phone. Liz was draped across him, her head on his chest, her legs intertwined with his.

He started to stroke her hair, then stopped, suddenly realizing what he was doing. I should have slept on the floor. Or the bathroom. Hell, I should have taken a second room. His hand started moving again, lifting strands of hair from her face.

Her eyelids parted and she looked at him.

“Time to get up?” she asked.

“Almost,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Your hair fell on my hand.”

She smiled, then pulled herself onto him.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” he said.

“You want me to stop?”

In his mind, he said, Yes, but in the real world, he slid a hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his.

When they had made love before falling asleep, there had been an urgency to it, a want and desire that possessed them both. This time their motions started slower, as if they wanted to remember every second. But then the intensity overtook them, and by the time they finished, Nate now on top, they were both drenched in sweat.

Nate held on to her for a few moments. “We’re already late.”

“Just a little longer.”

“I want to.”

“Then do it.”

“Julien is going to meet us with a car at five-thirty,” he said.

“When did you arrange that?” she asked.

“Last night.”

“Sneaky,” she said. “What time is it now?”

He looked at his watch. “Crap,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s almost five. We need to move.”

“Once more,” she whispered. “He’ll wait. And we might not get another chance for a while.”

She slipped her hand between his legs and moved her lips to his ear.

Yeah, he thought. Julien can wait.

By the time Nate and Liz left the hotel, it was already twenty minutes after five. There was no way they were going to make it on time. Nate pulled out his phone and sent Julien a quick text:

Outside, it took a few minutes longer than he’d hoped to find a taxi, but once they did, traffic was light, so it wasn’t long before the driver dropped them off near the entrance to the Sully-Morland Métro station on Boulevard Henri IV. As soon as the cab left, Nate pointed at the station entrance.

“Wait down there,” he told Liz, then handed her a piece of paper. “That’s your brother’s number. Give me fifteen minutes. If I’m not back, find a pay phone and call him.”

“What do you mean, if you’re not back? Why wouldn’t you come back?”

“It’s just in case. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

“Then I don’t need this.”

She held the paper out to him, but Nate insisted. “Just keep it. For me, okay?”

She didn’t look happy, but slipped the paper into the pocket of her jeans. Once she’d descended the stairs, he walked to the end of the small cobblestone square and turned onto Rue de Sully. Julien’s message had said he’d be parked somewhere along the northeast side.

Rue de Sully was a one-way street with empty cars lining each side, narrowing the useable space to a one-car lane down the middle. Keeping to the opposite side of the road, Nate searched the parked cars for the silhouette of a man sitting behind the wheel. But the further he went without seeing anyone, the more concerned he became. Had Julien already left?

He glanced at his watch. The deadline he’d given Liz was already a third of the way gone. Either he found Julien in the next few minutes, or he turned around and figured out some other way to get them out of town.

Empty, empty, empty, he noted as he continued to check each car. Where the hell are you?

He was almost ready to give up when he spotted Julien six cars ahead on the other side. At least he thought it was Julien. The silhouette sitting behind the wheel of the beat-up blue Peugeot looked right, but all Nate could see was the back of the man’s head and his shoulders.

Still pretending to be out on an early morning stroll, he didn’t cross the street until he was three cars past Julien’s position. As he did he allowed himself a quick glance back at the Peugeot. Definitely Julien. But, he realized, something was wrong. The Frenchman was in the exact same position he’d been when Nate first spotted him.

Nate turned down the sidewalk so that he would pass the Peugeot. As he neared, he could see that both of Julien’s eyes were closed. For a split second he thought that the Frenchman had fallen asleep. But another step closer brought something else into view.

A dark, damp stain surrounding a hole in the middle of Julien’s shirt. Not asleep.

Nate’s mind screamed at him to run, but his pace didn’t falter. He knew showing no reaction was the only thing that might save him. He’d only gone about five car lengths when he heard footsteps on the sidewalk behind him. He searched the road ahead, thinking there would be others coming from that direction, boxing him in. He pulled out his phone, accessed the keyboard, and began typing.

The steps behind him increased their pace. He counted three separate sets.

“Pardon, monsieur,” a voice called out.

Nate was almost done. Only two more words.

“Monsieur,” a second voice, more forceful than the first.

Nate looked over his shoulder, his face displaying the appropriate mix of caution and uncertainty. The three men were only twenty feet away. Two were about the same size as Nate, while the third was a few inches shorter. Nate had seen them all before. He’d watched from across the street as they’d come rushing out of Liz’s apartment building with Julien the previous afternoon.

“Oui?” he said.

“Parlez-vous anglais?” one of the tall ones asked.

“Un peu … a little,” Nate said, hoping his accent was convincing.

“You’re French?”

“Of course.”

“You live around here?”

“Pourquoi? Eh, why? Are you lost?”

The one doing the talking smiled, while the other two stared at Nate. “Not lost,” he said. “And I’m willing to bet you’re not from around here either.”

“Je ne comprends pas,” Nate said.

“I think you do.” The talker looked at the other tall one. “What did Julien call him? Nat? No, it was—”

Before he could finish, Nate’s foot slammed into the man’s stomach. The talker flew backward on his ass, doubling over as he lay on the sidewalk.

The other two were quick to respond, but not quick enough. Even as he was kicking, Nate had switched his phone to his left hand and had reached under his jacket with his right, grabbing the Glock he’d gotten from Julien.

The short one was pulling his own gun free, so Nate shot him first. The second guy didn’t even try for his gun. Instead he rushed forward before Nate could aim at him.

They crashed to the sidewalk, the attacker landing on top of Nate and nearly knocking the breath out of him.

The man reached for the gun, gripping Nate’s wrist with one hand and going for the barrel with the other. Nate rolled to his left and threw the guy’s weight off him. A movement beyond the man caught Nate’s attention. It was the first guy, the talker. He was pushing himself to his feet, a pistol already in his hand.

The guy on the ground didn’t see this, so Nate let the man twist his arm until the barrel was pointed at his partner. Nate pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the talker just below the neck, dropping him to the sidewalk in a heap.

The shot, having gone off less than a foot from the ear of the guy struggling with Nate, stunned him. Nate wrenched his hand free and pushed himself away along the ground. As the man clawed at his jacket, going for his own weapon, Nate shot him in the chest.

Three dead, and enough gunfire to wake up several blocks’ worth of potential witnesses.

Nate scrambled to his feet.

He spotted his phone and picked it up, but it was immediately apparent he would never be able to use it again. The display screen was smashed in and the frame was bent. Not wanting to leave it behind for the police to find, he stuffed it in his pocket, then began running down the street.

There were no sirens yet, but they’d be coming, and soon.

Nate headed back toward the Peugeot. As he passed it, he realized there weren’t three dead. There were four. “I’m sorry, Julien,” he whispered.

He ran as fast as his one and a half legs could carry him, circling around the neighborhood so that he’d approach the Métro station from the opposite direction. Ahead he could see the police had already arrived at the crime scene, the flashing lights of their cars reflecting along the buildings down Rue de Sully.

Nate again looked at his watch. He was ten minutes late. If Liz had done as he’d asked, she should have already called Quinn, and he would have told her to get the hell out of there.

He was just about to descend the stairs when she called out to him. “Nate!”

She was across Boulevard Henri IV, standing near the entrance to a small park. He waited for a break in the traffic, then jogged over to her.

“Why are you still here?” he asked.

His tone made her pull back a couple of inches. “I didn’t know—” Her voice faltered.

“Did you call Quinn?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“I heard the gunshots. I thought they’d killed you. I didn’t know what to do.”

He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. She resisted only a second, then grabbed him tightly. She’d been as concerned about him as he’d been about her.

“It’s okay. I’m fine,” he said. “But we need to get out of here.”

“Those were shots, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “They tried to kill you?”

“They didn’t try hard enough.”

“Will they come after us?”

“Not those guys,” he said.

“No?”

He knew she didn’t really want to know the truth, so he just shook his head, and he guided her away.