Murder in Bel-Air

by Cara Black

  Was she in a cage?

  Her heart thudded.

  She felt the mesh for a hole or a space. No door or entrance. Was this some shaft, a chute?

  She tried to stand. Stumbled. Tried again. This time, cold air hit her face as she pulled herself up. Her hands explored in the darkness. The only light was a dim glow somewhere above her. Her fingers found a piece of rough metal about waist high that curved around the chute. She rubbed her fingers, smelled them—flakes of rust. And soot. Greasy soot.

  Every so often, her seeking hands caught knoblike protrusions—rivets? Maybe she could use those to climb out.

  Somehow.

  She wedged her leg against the mesh, her back against the metal chute, and hoisted herself up. Then fell, scraping her ankle.

  She’d have to leverage herself up the side bit by bit, starting with the lowest rivet, then using Martine’s Louboutin heels to push herself up. Not that she could see anything. She closed her eyes. Concentrated, taking deep breaths. She could do this, couldn’t she? She had to.

  She hoisted herself up again, wedged one leg against the grating and swung the other, finding the first rivet with her heel. Quickly pushed off, straining her burning legs. She made it a few centimeters higher.

  Keep going. She had to keep going. Focus.

  And ignore the stabbing pain in her ribs; her scraped, burning ankle; the fear she’d fall back down. The dread of being stuck in that tiny space.

  The cold air dried the perspiration on her temples and her upper lip as she pushed and worked her elbows and legs up the rusty chute. Slow progress. If only there were handles to grab, a way to pull herself up.

  Her heel slipped. She jammed it back in place before she could plummet, elbow slamming against a rivet for purchase. She had to make it out.

  The air got colder. Her elbow hit a metal rung. Large enough that she could wrap her arm around it. There had to be more. Fighting the pain, her exhaustion, she hoisted herself up until she felt another rung and grabbed it.

  Thank God.

  Not over yet. She stuck her foot on the rusted rung and climbed, praying it would hold.

  A band of light glowed under a black saucer. She stopped before she hit her head on the metal disk capping the chute. The cap was held up by struts, leaving an open space below it half the length of her arm. She peered through and saw lights below her. The Seine. Dark trees in a park ahead, rail lines on the right. She was above Bercy. The tunnels, warehouses, and loading docks.

  Hunched, head down, she pushed up on the cap with her shoulder with every ounce of strength she had left. It was rusted tight. Now what? Could she fit through one of the openings?

  Perched on the rung, she took off her leather jacket, pushed it to the outside, and tied the sleeves around one of the struts supporting the cap. If she could wiggle through the space under the cap, she could use the jacket sleeves to help steady her on her way down.

  She hiked her hips up and got stuck. With all that damned bed rest, she’d gained a kilo.

  More.

  Merde.

  Jostling and twisting her hips got her a few centimeters further. More twisting and her right hip scraped through. Painful brush burns from the metal stung her wrists. An updraft blew rust flakes into her eyes. Don’t stop. Too much was at stake. Wiggling and scraping, somehow she got her left hip through the space. Climbed onto the metal cap.

  Congratulations, Aimée. You’ve just climbed out of a furnace.

  The city’s lights spread below her, the Tour Eiffel a shimmering needle. It was a huge drop to a concrete lot. The fall would kill her. Going back down into the furnace would guarantee the same result.

  What had she done? Thrown herself into danger, left her little daughter helpless. If she got herself killed, Chloé would be left without a mother.

  Hadn’t Aimée vowed she’d never leave her daughter as her own mother had left her? She couldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t.

  Think.

  There was a building abutting the one she was on, its broken-tiled roof only about two stories down. If she could slide down the outside of the old furnace stack she’d climbed out of, she had a chance of being able to get across the gap to the lower roof without falling to the ground.

  Not a huge chance. But what else was there?

  Then she saw the rungs along the outside of the furnace stack alongside a pipe. Of course, if they had them on the inside, they’d be on the exterior, too. She untied her jacket and slipped it back on.

  The wind whipped painfully at her eyes. With one leg on the cap’s roof, she stretched the other down along the stack, feeling for the top rung. Too bad her fear of heights was making her legs shake. Her arms tingled. Don’t look down.

  She felt for the highest rung with her foot. Got it. She held the pipe, hoping it wouldn’t break, and lowered herself feet first, rung by rusty rung.

  Halfway down, her vision blurred. The rungs wavered, and she felt a burning sensation behind her eyes. Those warning signs coming on. Oh, God, not now. She couldn’t sit down, breathe, and déstresser while she was clinging for dear life to a pipe.

  Dizzy, everything spinning, she lost her grip.

  Where was she? Eyes closed, she shook as the wind went through her, her legs touching something jagged and cold. Then she remembered.

  One deep breath after another. She slowly opened her eyes to the blurred edges of the furnace stack right above her. She’d landed in a declivity in the slanted tiled warehouse roof.

  She stretched her arms and legs out . . . nothing broken. Closed her eyes and took more deep breaths. No more burning sensation. And when she opened her eyes this time, she saw a raised walkway with broken metal rails leading to the building’s far side. And a door. Whether the walkway would hold under her weight, she would have to find out.

  She got on her hands and knees and began progressing over the slippery walkway while trying to ignore the pain in her side. She reached the door that had a sign that indicated it was a staircase entrance and breathed in relief. She tried the handle. Locked.

  No lockpick, no phone. Nothing. Just the memory card taped to the back of her Tintin watch.

  Her heart skittered.

  It was only a matter of time until they discovered she’d escaped. Started searching for her. Maybe they already had?

  Friday Night

  She crawled down the jagged tiled roof, her hands feeling the way as she kept low. In the yard below, she saw a Mercedes parked near an Eco-Emballages truck. Next to the truck was a dark-green crushing machine on a raised platform. A conveyer belt connected to the machine led to a dumpster loaded with truck tires. Part of Eco-Emballages’ industrial rubber recycling operation in the old Bercy wine-depot warehouses. The yard was a long drop from the roof—easily two stories.

  The yard was lit, and she could see figures moving. The crushing machine had started. Blades spun in the gaping open space of the top loader, fed with tires by the whirring conveyer belt. Grinding, metallic whines—the same sound she had heard in the furnace.

  The crusher machine was probably meant to have been her next—and last—stop. She shivered.

  No time to think about that.

  Only how to get down.

  She watched two men in overalls check the conveyer-belt feed, then walk away to another building. Squatting at the edge of the roof, she calculated how far she’d need to jump to land straight on top of the semi’s cab. She’d break an arm or a leg—if she was lucky. She didn’t see any other choice. After stuffing the ankle boots into the pockets of le smoking, she slung her biker jacket sleeves around the iron post of an old billboard sign. Let them dangle in the wind.

  She made herself stand on the broken tiles. Clinging to the jacket’s sleeves, she backed up, step by step, as far as she could, then gave herself a small running start and leapt, swinging her body forward.

>   Her body slammed hard against the semi’s roof. She was slipping and tried to grab the ridge of what she realized was the top of the cab. She couldn’t help it—she screamed. Caught hold of a windshield wiper. As she held on desperately, it began to bend, then broke off in her hand.

  Midnight

  Aimée found herself splayed like an eagle on the semi’s warm hood.

  “What the . . . ?”

  Gérard Hlili was standing with Jean-Christophe, the former president’s son, on a loading dock under the old warehouse eaves. Then they were running toward the semi. Was Jean-Christophe’s voice the other one she’d heard in the furnace?

  Her mind struggled to make sense of this. Germaine had died to help Hlili, and Aimée’s mother had urged her to do the right thing and get him the documents. But unless she was mistaken about what she’d heard in the furnace . . .

  “It’s her,” Hlili said.

  The gun in Hlili’s raised hand decided for her. She scrambled off the hood and dropped onto the running board of the rumbling semi. The engine was on. She pulled open the passenger door, got in, and climbed over the gearbox, rushing to hit the lock on the driver door.

  She had to do something—couldn’t let herself be trapped in there. In front of her was a lit-up control panel with buttons and levers. Merde. She’d never driven a freight truck.

  She hit one button, then another, and heard grinding. The cab tilted. She pressed more buttons, pulled a handle. Thunks and whines . . .

  A shot splintered the side mirror. She threw herself down across the seat as shots peppered the driver’s-side window and door. Shaking, she scooted down into the well by the pedals and pushed down the clutch with one hand, reaching for the gearshift with the other. Strained to push the gear into first, keeping pressure on the clutch pedal.

  The truck jolted and sputtered. The engine died.

  The damn emergency brake was on.

  As she reached for the brake, strong hands gripped her arm, and she was yanked up and across the seat. Someone had reached in through the shattered driver’s side door window. She kicked, trying to free herself as she was hauled straight up. But then her feet were in the air, her body scraping through the broken window out into the night air and deafening noise.

  “Where is it?” Hlili yelled in her ear. They stood on the crusher’s vibrating platform adjacent to the truck. He’d hooked his arm around part of the framework holding the conveyer belt to maintain his balance. Pointed the gun at her head.

  “The plane’s cargo’s toxic, Gérard. Chemical weapons. It’s going to kill your people.”

  If she’d expected surprise, it didn’t show on his face.

  “It’s sarin.” She gasped, catching her breath. “Don’t you understand? You’re supposed to be fighting for them, but it’s ordinary people who will die. ”

  “It’s a tool for our revolution!” he shouted over the metallic grinding whine. “It’s only a small part of a bigger picture.”

  He knew. Didn’t care if innocent people died hideous deaths. They were only a means to an end.

  “Call yourself a visionary, a change maker?” she said. “You’re a terrorist.”

  He shoved her, shaking, still trying to keep balanced on the platform. The blades of the crusher below chomped like angry teeth in the glow of the warehouse yard lights. “Give everything to me now. Including the money.”

  The conveyer belt’s steady whirr moved the tires and dropped them into the crusher with ear-blasting crunches.

  Sickened, she reached for her watch. Unbuckled the leather strap, drenched in sweat. Worthless to him now.

  He cocked the pistol. “Trying something?”

  “I don’t think so.” She pulled the memory card off her wrist. “Here it is.”

  He looked at the small piece of plastic and scoffed.

  “Gérard, I do computer security. What do I need with old papers? I’ve got chips and bytes.”

  “Liar.”

  “Anyway, it’s all useless to you now!” she yelled above the noise. “Surveillance planes have already found the sites.”

  “Not all of them,” said Jean-Christophe, who’d climbed onto the platform. He was still in his safari outfit. “Let me handle her.”

  “You? What haven’t you screwed up?” Hlili was yelling. “It was simple. So simple until you hired the legionnaire, that idiot.”

  Her heart thumped. Jean-Christophe was in cahoots with GBH. They’d kidnapped her together.

  “Why are you working with him?” She had to yell to be heard above the relentless grinding. “Those stockpiled chemical weapons in the caves mean disaster.”

  “Silly girl,” said Jean-Christophe, gravelly voice yelling back over the chomping.

  “Silly?” she replied. “By now, the CIA’s taken over the stash with the French military hot on their heels. You’ve lost your assets.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” said Jean-Christophe.

  Hlili pointed the gun at him. “You tried to double-cross me all along!” he screamed. “You’re only in this for the money.”

  “And you’re not, Hlili?” Jean-Christophe asked.

  “My people, the operation, the planning, the work . . . I did it all. You jumped in when you smelled the money.”

  “You needed me, Hlili!” Jean-Christophe shouted, his eyes on Hlili’s gun. “Never would’ve gotten anything off the ground without me and my connections.”

  “If you’re hiding anything, my rebels will tear you apart.”

  Co-conspirators no more, it seemed. Think fast. Keep them talking.

  “Shut up,” Jean-Christophe said to Hlili. Then he turned to her. “Hand it over,” he said, his eyes flicking from the memory card in her hand to the pistol.

  “Why?” she asked. “Everything’s already been found.”

  “Let me worry about that,” said Jean-Christophe.

  Did he plan to slide away with the help of that spider, Delorme? Or the Liberians?

  She extended her shaking hand—and drew it back. “Wait. Who’s the Crocodile?”

  “Who do you think?” With a swipe of his arm, Jean-Christophe whacked Hlili aside. A scream as Hlili slipped and his arm came loose from the framework pole. He was dumped onto the churning blades in the crusher along with the tires. She heard what seemed like minutes of screaming amid the grinding and cracking bone. Saw a cloud of bloody mist. The pistol had clattered to the platform. Jean-Christophe grabbed it.

  She backed up. But there was nowhere to go. Terror and bile rose in her throat.

  “Want to end up like him?” Jean-Christophe’s slitted eyes bore into hers.

  No honor, as the cliché went, among thieves.

  “You really want this?” she said, holding out the memory card. “Still?”

  His hand grabbed at it, and she threw it into the crusher.

  “Go get it,” she said.

  His eyes followed the card. In that brief second of inattention, she batted the pistol out of his hand into the crusher.

  “You idiot!” he shouted.

  He lunged at her. But she ducked, clutching the framework for support, and kicked out. He tripped and struggled up, his right arm swinging. With her last bit of strength, she shoved him off the platform. A yell as he flew headfirst onto the concrete.

  She had never wanted to get involved. But somehow, she’d ended up attacking one man and watching another ground alive. All because her mother’s cloudy morals had encouraged her to do the right thing. But had she done right by Germaine?

  Saturday, 12:30 a.m.

  With wobbling legs, she climbed down and found an unconscious Jean-Christophe lying on the cracked concrete, a leg at the wrong angle, arms akimbo. Felt for a pulse in his carotid artery. Faint, but beating.

  Made herself rifle through his pockets. Found his car keys and cell phone. The e
ntire time, the roar and churning of the crusher pounded in her ears.

  She became aware of a man by the dumpster, recognized him. Baptiste, the caretaker. She took a few steps toward him and saw tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “You?” she said. “I thought you were a religious man. You were going to let all those people suffer and die. But why? The money?”

  “Don’t be stupid. Gérard had a vision for Côte d’Ivoire,” said Baptiste, his lip quivering. “His plans for education, a water system, a modern infrastructure were brilliant. Forward thinking. He couldn’t do it alone.”

  Hlili had brainwashed the old fool with his charisma, his grand plans, as he had Germaine and her brother, the DGSE, and the CIA. Once Hlili had gotten control, the cause he’d touted wouldn’t have mattered.

  Baptiste’s shoulders slumped. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  She stood up to him. “The right thing.” Locked eyes with him. “You should try it yourself.”

  He roared, raising an Eco-Emballages shovel smeared with garbage and swinging it at her. She dodged the swing easily, and the old man fell to his knees, sobbing.

  Leaving the old man on the ground near Jean-Christophe’s prone body, she climbed into the Mercedes, switched on the ignition, and got the hell out of there.

  She drove to Port de Bercy and got out, leaving the car door open. Let her ears accustom themselves to the almost quiet of the Seine. She breathed in the fresh air, the algae scents, the damp, until her nerves steadied.

  Barefoot, she walked down a deserted ramp. Sat down, letting her legs dangle over the water. A dark moored boat bobbed in the wake of a blue-lit bateau mouche. Laughter and conversation drifted over the water.

  Hollowness filled her. All these lives, this mess, and for what?

  But regret was a luxury, as her mother had said. No time for that. Time for the surviving instigators to pay.

  She slipped on her boots and pulled out Jean-Christophe’s cell phone. Hit the number for SAMU—emergency—gave the Bercy warehouse location, and hung up.