The Treasures of Saint Germain

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Seeing two enormous black birds swooping over the Champs Élysées, Hayden screamed out a warning. Kinimaka bellowed too and mayhem seized the entire area with an unshakeable chokehold. Sharp bursts erupted, adding panic to the mix. Hayden instinctively hit the ground, Kinimaka falling like a building at her side.

Right where he always was.

The thunder approached. The Hawaiian’s arm draped her shoulders but she shrugged it off, listening hard. Those small bursts sure as hell weren’t gunshots. Over the tumult she heard Drake’s unmistakable accent.

“It’s all a trick, love! Webb’s off down t’ road!”

Understanding little but the urgency of the words, Hayden rose and took in the scene. The choppers approached, as loud as monsters, but the incendiaries they were dropping were not much more potent than fireworks. This was all that Webb could muster then, now that he had become a fallen king. Birds guided by desperate men, paid-off and almost certainly about to spend the rest of their lives behind bars. For what?

Something only Webb’s resources could provide no doubt.

Hayden watched the choppers, already disappearing. Nobody fired, the local authorities were digging out radios to help track them. Hayden looked around for Webb, but already knew what she would find.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

“Bastard has more lives than Jon Snow.” She looked over to Drake’s position. “You go help them, Mano. I’ll search for Webb.”

“Are you sure?”

Hayden stalked off, hunting the hunter.

Drake estimated the exact moment the creeping Interpol agents would catch the mercs’ attention and then let lose an entire clip, winging two men and sending the others scurrying. Dahl broke cover with Mai and ran hard. Alicia lined a lurker up as he prepared to take one of the agents out, and fired her weapon just a second or two before he did.

“They’re running,” Drake observed.

“Let Torsty and the Sprite have ’em. That’s grunt work.”

Drake laughed, still surveying every angle and wondering if Webb or the mysterious mercenaries had anything else planned. Maybe Hayden should have winged him, but Webb looked like he’d already been shot. It certainly wasn’t hard to disappear into the crowd along the Champs Élysées, especially when three-quarters of it were panicking. That left them with just a couple of alternatives.

Where did Webb come from? And who are the mercs?

“Hey love, fancy a bit of interrogation?”

Alicia eyed him. “Is that some kinda Northern pastime, or something?”

Drake hung his head. “Whoa, that north-south divide. It never gets old.”

“So you mean the mercs?”

“Yep, that’s what I mean.”

“ ’Cause, to be honest I’m happy either way.”

“What else is new?”

Cautiously they approached the area round where the mercs had made their stand. Some were dead, others bleeding, watched over by several none-too-concerned local cops. Dahl had already hooked his arms under one man and was pulling him into a sitting position. Yorgi and Lauren walked up and hovered around the fringes, not getting involved but always listening, always watching.

“Are you likely to talk?” the Swede asked in cultured tones. “Or would you like me to introduce you to some of my friends?”

The man, a blue-eyed, bearded individual with an old scar across his forehead, rested his back against a low wall, breathing heavily. Drake saw he’d been shot in the stomach, but wasn’t in too much imminent danger.

Apart from the obvious.

Alicia knelt down so that her eyes were level with the merc’s. “You gonna talk, or am I about to get some close-up target practice in?” She held her weapon across her knees, casual style.

The merc winced, making a show of being torn between loyalties, then caved. “You ain’t about to like what I’m gonna say,” he drawled in an American accent. “Joined this crew just a few weeks ago. Extra insurance, they said. Didn’t firkin help much.” He shook his head sadly.

“Keep talking,” Alicia growled.

“Wish I’d never bothered. But the money; it was good. Firkin good. Could’a taken a year off, maybe two.” He paused as a pair of eyes bored into his own, those eyes owned by a fellow mercenary clearly more invested in his client than he was. Dahl dragged the man out of the way.

“Guess I should keep it shut,” the merc muttered.

“Don’t worry, they’re gonna get theirs,” Drake told him. “This is your chance to get less.”

The merc looked dismally at the floor. “I can’t remember the last good decision I made,” he said. “The job was easy. Watch a palace, watch a house. Report back. Report on the foot traffic, guys who appeared to be interested in certain areas or items. Watch real close. My brother did it. Then I did it. Became a family thing.” He tried to guffaw then sobered and continued. “We were using field glasses, walk-bys, crooked guards and cleaners, food companies, mobile listening devices, photography. We pretended to be tourists…” he tailed off. “Every trick in the book they had.”

Drake joined Alicia at his level. “Who is they? And to do what?”

“They’ve been on it for years.” The merc seemed surprised. “Easy money. Some of these local mercs forgot how to pull a firkin trigger they got so cozy. But then—” he blinked “—something happened.”

Drake looked up. The team were gathering around, the Interpol agents also listening. Traffic had ground to a halt up and down the road and a man was shouting through a bullhorn.

“This guy, this Webb, appeared from nowhere. Got their panties in a bunch up at Transylvania he did; scared more of Webb muscling into what they consider their territories than ole Vlad the Impaler, they were.” He guffawed, then coughed and grimaced in pain, holding his stomach. “Then… then Versailles happened, and that’s when the hens really started destroying the henhouse. Webb again. Some head honcho went off the rails in panic, faster’n a Fourth of July firecracker… called doom down on that poor bastard’s head.”

Alicia rocked on her heels. “I wouldn’t describe Webb as a poor bastard.”

“Whatever, dude.

“But do go on,” Dahl encouraged.

“Versailles changed the game. Suddenly they were all on alert, taking calls and disappearing to make quiet calls. Favors here and there too. The big boss man called us long-distance like, every hour. More guns, more ammo. And dude, I don’t even know what we were guarding.”

Alicia slapped him across the face. “Call me dude again, I dare ya.”

“Umm, sorry. I call everyone du… that. But like I said — I don’t know what we were guarding.”

“Any of those guys know?” Drake jerked his head at the other mercs.

“Dunno. Maybe. Try Milner there. He’s a veteran. We were told to watch for Webb and take him out. Before that though, orders were to find an old book inside his jacket. They said we should get that too.”

Drake watched Dahl stride off to chat with Milner. “Your boss then, mate? Who is he?”

“Ah, I don’t know much, dude. It’s some kinda organization, or group. Low key. But, shit, they’re firkin fanatics. Pure, radical freaks. I know they have good lives, wealthy lives. They’re privileged, and I mean like gods. But this one thing with Webb seemed to set them off.”

“Names?” Drake asked. “Anything? Addresses? Nicknames? Phone numbers?”

“I got nothing. But I could list all the places we were tasked to guard.”

“That’s a start.”

The merc broke out into another fit of coughing, making Alicia shuffle back. Drake waved to a nearby medic.

“Make sure he lives.”

Alicia tucked her gun away. “Doesn’t matter who we follow,” she observed. “Webb and these assholes won’t be far apart.”

“True. But we’ll soon know what Webb visited in Paris. And then we’ll know why. Next time, the good guys will be a step ahead.”

Alicia squinted. “Good guys? Did I miss something?”

“You don’t think we’re good?”

“I guess we have our moments.”

Mai walked up then, and Dahl returned. The looks on their faces said the other mercs hadn’t talked. Kenzie hovered at the fringes, eyeing proceedings, as Hayden garnered as much information as she could from the local cops and Interpol.

“So where did Webb come from?” Mai asked.

Hayden reeled off an address. “It’s a ten-minute walk from here.”

The team gathered, checking weapons and ammo, staring at the dark street from where Webb and the mercs had previously come.

“Any more of his friends down there?” Smyth asked, referring to the chatty, despondent merc.

“Says their team was eight strong. Could be some went back to keep watch or—”

“Or destroy the place,” Alicia said. “Let’s move.”