One for One (John Flynn Thrillers Book 3)

by A. J. Stewart

  “Some guys knocked on my parent’s door. The kinds of guys who ask questions in a hard way.”

  “What did they want?”

  “Me.”

  “What happened?”

  “My parents said they hadn’t heard from me. But the guys, or different guys maybe, came again, when my mother was home alone. And they visited my father at work. They roughed him up a little.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Gorski took a long breath. “He had a heart attack. He’s okay, recovering in hospital.”

  “I’m sorry. You didn’t say anything last night.”

  “John, I thought this was my problem, not yours.”

  “Why do you think they’re back now, after all this time?”

  Gorski shifted his feet. “Because of you.”

  “How so?"

  “Follow my logic here,” Gorski said, turning to a cork board. “Clearly this had something to do with what happened in Iraq. We’re in Afghanistan and get called to Baghdad to find a suspected shipment of weapons. We find the link man, we find other interested parties getting into our business—like General Thoreaux. But they are clearly disparate units. Same objective—the weapons, or whatever they were—but not working together. Maybe even not aware of each other. You know what we called that when we hunted terrorists.”

  “Cells.”

  “Right. So, we learned of this group orchestrating things. Maybe it was real, maybe it was fantasy. Maybe there are men in suits sitting in dark rooms controlling the world. More likely very rich people are writing the rules to suit themselves without knowing what the others are doing. So after the thing with my parents, I starting thinking, whether or not they are part of a common group or not, they seem to act separately.”

  “Like cells.”

  “At the most. I find the suits in dark rooms theory a bit much to accept. How do you keep that sort of thing quiet? I don’t know. But what if they worked like terorrists. There are discrete cells that operate with common themes but without knowledge of what the others are doing, or even who they are.”

  “What does this have to do with me leading them to you?”

  “I’m getting there, John. You see, after I dealt with Lisowski and Wilk, it stopped. Now, I knew for a fact that they weren’t the top of the ladder. Wilk gave me a name, also surely not the top, but the next rung up. But it stopped dead. I was researching and figuring out my next step, but in the meantime it all just stopped.”

  “Why?”

  “Best I can figure, I killed off a cell. Now, of course, someone above always knows someone below, so this name in Paris, he knew about Wilk, but maybe not Lisowski. Lisowski was Wilk’s guy. But maybe the name in Paris has a whole list of Wilks, and maybe he didn’t think anything of losing one cell.”

  “Wilk was shot in the head. That had to get some attention.”

  “Of course. But there was method to my madness, John. It was reported in the media as a mob hit. He was seen in the company of lieutenants of a known Russian mafia guy. One of these new oil oligarchs. And a day later, he is found in Ukraine having been tortured and shot dead. Police investigated. Maybe the Paris name knew about the Russian mob connection and wrote it off and stayed well away.”

  “But they’re back.”

  “Right. Someone has reconnected the link. Like the old cell, but not. These new guys are not like the old guys. Not lawyers and corrupt tax officials. They’re bruisers sent in with a minimum of planning. Because it happened fast. Something made them look at the dead cell again and try to set up anew. To try and find me all over again.”

  “What happened?”

  “They found you.”

  Flynn sighed and thought it through. Both men stood in the basement looking at Gorecki’s cork boards. Woolen thread connecting him and his parents and Lisowski and Wilk and General Thoreax. And Flynn.

  “You think they found me and set things up again?”

  “No. I think they found you, they came for you, and they lost you. You took them out. Isn’t that right? They threatened your woman and you fixed it. So they lost you again. But now they know you’re alive. Cent per cent. A fact. Fontaine is alive. Not dead in the Iraq desert like everyone suspected. But they lost you. So they reconnected long forgotten links. New cells where old cells once were.”

  Flynn tossed it around again, and then one more time, picking holes in it. There were plenty, if he wanted to believe that. But really they were just assumptions. The underlying logic fit.

  “I brought them back to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. They found you. They were looking so why wouldn’t they, eventually? Not your doing. So you took them out. Of course you would. As would I. But now the old cells are being resurrected, or recreated, perhaps. That’s why when I heard about the general’s demise two weeks ago, I figured it was you. He was the next link in the chain.”

  “And we always work the chain,” said Flynn.

  “From little things, big things grow. Isn’t that what you used to say?”

  “Both trees and cancer. Good and bad. So what now.”

  “Now we do what we always did. We found the worst of the worst, didn’t we? Back in the day? How did we do that. Link by link. From the bottom up. No cell is truly cellular. Cells must integrate at some point. And I have the next link.”

  “As do I,” said Flynn.

  “Thoreaux gave you a name.”

  “Of course. That’s why I went to Africa. So what’s the name you have?”

  Gorski looked at his web of wool and traced his finger to a photograph. “Pierre Robert.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Another lawyer. Just what the world needs.”

  “Mob guy?”

  “Not that I can tell, but the line between legitimate and illegitimate gets very blurry at that level of society. But what I do know is the guy is connected. So knowing who the next link is . . .” Gorski shrugged. “I’ve come up with a hundred possibles, and there could be a hundred more.”

  “So we get in his face,” said Flynn.

  “I’ve thought about it. But he’s not an easy man to get near. So tell me about your name.”

  “Alain Beaumont. He was Thoreaux’s handler, for want of a better word. I’ve done a little research as I made my way here, but all I really know is that he’s a bureaucrat in the French ministry.”

  “So, we have two links, both in Paris.”

  “Before we go knock some heads, I’d like to know more,” said Flynn.

  “As would I. We have two links. Perhaps we can use them to find a common point higher up.”

  Gorski set Flynn up with a laptop and then got to work on the PC on his desk. They worked all day, typing, reading, linking. They ate sandwiches made from thick bread for lunch and then got back to it. As darkness fell outside Gorski leaned back and rubbed his eyes.

  “I don’t think I can look at a screen anymore.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Gorski looked at Flynn. “You with me?”

  “Uh-huh.” Flynn was looking at his screen.

  “You want to share?”

  Flynn leaned back from the screen and rubbed his face. “Yeah. So, Beaumont and Robert have about a thousand links. They move in similar circles. It could be anyone.”

  “I know.”

  “But what law firm did you say Robert worked for?”

  “He doesn’t work for a law firm. He’s in-house counsel for a billionaire industrialist by the name of Loup. Jean Loup. He practically owns half of France,” said Gorski.

  “Right, Loup.”

  “You have something?” Gorski slid his chair over to Flynn’s laptop.

  “Loup and Beaumont were classmates at Sciences Po.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  “The Paris Institute of Political Studies. It’s a selective, and therefore exclusive, university. A breeding ground for the ruling class.”

  “So how many politicians and businessmen went there.”

&n
bsp; “Lots of them. But Loup and Beaumont were there at the exact same time. Twice. Both did undergraduate at Sciences Po, and Beaumont went back for his postgraduate work. A duel program. One year in Paris and one year at Colombia University in New York City. Which he happened to do at the exact same time as Loup was doing his MBA.”

  “Where?”

  “Columbia Business School.”

  “They both went to New York?”

  “They did.”

  “So we can assume they know each other.”

  “Well, I’d say.”

  Gorski nodded and slid back to his computer. He began typing furiously.

  “Let’s follow that thought,” he said.

  Flynn stood and looked over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking to see if Beaumont is married.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be married to Loup.”

  “He’s not. Loup has a wife and daughter.” Gorski kept typing. “Social media. It’s the most wonderful invasion of privacy, and people just give it over.”

  “I know.”

  “So here we are. A post from Beaumont’s wife for a happy anniversary. Harmless, right?”

  “I suspect you think not.”

  “Now we know the date. So we do a bit more searching. We use the archive to find a marriage between this surname and that surname on this date.”

  “You can do that?”

  “It’s divided by region. But we start with Paris, since that’s where they live and went to university. Then we check his home region and her home region. Et voilà.”

  “What?”

  “His wife’s name is Brigitte. They were married in her hometown of Lille. And the witness of record to the marriage . . .”

  “Loup?”

  “Jean Loup.”

  “What do you know,” said Flynn.

  “I know we’re going to Paris to get a better look at Monsieur Loup.”

  Chapter Six

  Paris, France

  It was a full twenty-four hour journey from Gorski’s farmhouse to Paris. They discussed flying but both preferred to keep away from the higher security of airports. Flynn preferred traveling by train anyway. He had explored a good deal of Europe on R&R leave during his Legion days. It was one thing he disliked about his homeland. Despite a long history of rail barons, and an extensive network, few people seemed to travel by train in the United States. He understood that the distances were so great that air travel was often more practical and usually cheaper. But he had missed the gentle rocking and the changes of scenery right out his window.

  After their research day they spent the following day preparing. After that Gorski locked up his house and they used a snowmobile that he had in his shed to ride into Zakopane. They got a train to Krakow, and then down through the Czech Republic to Vienna. Then onto Salzburg in the Austrian Alps, and then through Munich and Stuttgart and Strasbourg and on to Paris.

  The snow in Poland gave way to rain in Paris. They used the metro to cross the city to where Loup’s offices were. La Defense was a purpose-designed office precinct west of the Seine, a touch short of nine kilometers from the Louvre Pyramid. Flynn always thought of the pyramid as the central point in Paris, despite kilometer zero actually being a couple of kilometers farther east, outside the Notre Dame cathedral.

  La Defense was anything but a Parisian postcard. Its skyscrapers and glass and chrome reminded Flynn more of pictures of Chicago than the creamy-gold Lutetian Limestone of central Paris. The misty rain and the soulless echo of pedestrians scurrying from one meeting to another didn’t help Flynn’s impression.

  Loup’s HQ was easy enough to find, overlooking the Grande Arche, the centerpiece structure in the precinct. There was a massive granite block with chrome lettering in front of the building that told anyone who might have missed it that it was called Tour Loup, or Loup Tower. Photographs showed it to be rather utilitarian structure, flat on top where many others offered artistic curves or pyramids or spires.

  They spent some time walking around the block where the building stood. There were plazas and art installations that attempted to make the area something more than just an office park, but Flynn wasn’t buying it. He was glad for the existence of La Defense. It had been developed from the ground up starting in the 1960s with one purpose in mind: to keep high-rise office towers out of central Paris. Flynn suspected much of the charm of the Champs-Elysées would be lost today if it were lined by tall office towers. La Defense wasn’t one of Flynn’s favorite places in Paris, but it was, in his opinion, a masterstroke.

  Many of the people walking from building to building were dressed in business attire, but the light rain meant everyone wore an overcoat and carried an umbrella. Flynn and Gorski didn’t look completely out of place despite their ball caps and backpacks. They looked like tourists. There were a few of them around as well, but Flynn really didn’t see the point.

  Apart from the main lobby entrance, there was a tenant only entrance on the two side of the building that was activated by keycard access. At the rear, which was actually two floors lower, was access to an underground parking garage.

  “What do you think?” asked Gorski.

  “Hard target. Too big to watch all entry points, and Loup could just as easily come in a vehicle and into the garage and then stay inside until the left in the same vehicle. Which means we’ll never even lay eyes on him. We need to know more.”

  They retreated to the RER train and headed out of the city. Flynn was looking for built-up but not touristy. The arrondissements in central Paris were a poor option for what he wanted. The hotels there were often fastidious about checking ID. Although both he and Gorski carried counterfeit IDs, Flynn preferred to not use them whenever possible. Even fake IDs could create a paper trail.

  He found a candidate not far from the Le Vésinet-Le Pecq station. Just a neighborhood, people who worked in greater Paris and commuted in, a high street with a boucher and a boulangerie and a tabac. Flynn found a small hotel with two stars by the door and moss growing under the front windows. This was no kind of tourist hotel. It was where people put extra family during holidays, or down-at-heel businessmen stayed. There was a small front room that held three old reading chairs, and a front desk with a bell. Behind the desk a middle-aged man with a face like he had expected more from life sat watching football on a tiny television. Flynn spoke French.

  “How much for a room?”

  The man didn’t look at him. Apparently a goal was imminent. But then the goal wasn’t scored, because the man threw his hands at the television like this was the expected result.

  “Merde,” said the man. “Thirty Euro.”

  “Two beds?”

  The man looked up now, first at Flynn and then Gorski, and then their backpacks. He shrugged.

  “Thirty-five. With breakfast.”

  Flynn dropped a fifty euro note on the counter.

  “ID,” said the man, as he reached back for a key hanging from a collection of hooks on the wall behind him.

  “That’s the extra fifteen.”

  The guy didn’t miss a beat. He wasn’t flush with customers, and fifty was fifty. He dropped the key on the counter and slipped the fifty away.

  “Le premier étage,” said the man, returning to his game.

  There were only two stories. They took the stairs up one floor and found the room. It was small and basic, with garish fleur-de-lis wallpaper, two single cots and a wash basin. A small television with antenna sticking up from it was on a chest of drawers.

  Gorski nodded like it would do just fine, and he slipped off his backpack.

  “I’m going to find the bathroom,” he said. He stepped out of the room and into the hallway. Flynn dropped his pack at the end of one of the beds and took off his coat and hung it across the basin. Gorski came back.

  “There’s a shower,” he said. “Might as well use it.”

  They both did. First Gorski and then Flynn. They both dressed in fresh trousers and shi
rts and hung their wet gear up to dry.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Gorski. “We need to understand what Loup’s movements are, and Robert’s, too. And we need to know more about Beaumont.”

  “We need to know a lot.”

  “For example, Loup’s name is on the building, but we haven’t confirmed that he even works there. We’re shooting blanks, and we’re shooting them a shadows.”

  “So we need to get into the building. Take a look around.”

  “Might not be easy.”

  “It’ll be very easy. We’ll find a tenant inside and make an appointment.”

  “Okay. What about his house?” asked Gorski.

  “You know where that is, right?”

  “Penthouse apartment in Avenue Montaigne. That’s his city home. He’s got a country estate and a ski place in the Swiss Alps and another place in Mauritius. That’s what I could so far, anyway.”

  “Okay. Let’s try this. Your French is less rusty than mine. You find out who the tenants in Loup Tower are, and get a meeting with one. Do some recognizance. Security, elevators, restricted access. You know the routine. I’ll go to his house and follow him. If he’s in the 8th arrondissement, he doesn’t have an underground garage, so he’ll have to come out onto the street. At least I should be able to ID him.”

  “Sounds like plan. We need burner phones.”

  “Any ideas?” asked Flynn. “They don’t have Walmart here.”

  “What’s Walmart?”

  “A store in the US. A big store.”

  “Here we can just to a tabac, or La Poste.”

  “Burners would be best.”

  Gorski nodded and looked out the grimy window. The light was fading and the sky was still heavy but the rain had stopped.

  “Get your coat. Let’s go for a walk.”

  They wandered down to the high street where all the stores were. They were some restaurants and cafes and a pharmacy. Gorski kept walking until he found a lane that cut off the main street. The lane was filled with market stalls under plastic canopies. The rain had driven the early customers away but they seemed to have returned. It was cheek to jowl down between the two rows of stalls. They walked and passed stalls with kitchen utensils, and cheap toys, and jackets and gloves. Toward the end was a guy with a North African look sitting behind a display of sunglasses and old cellphones.