The Phoenix Affair

by Paul Clark

  *****

  Ripley’s car was now parked a block west of the Paris hospital near La Defense with a clear view of the emergency entrance. The police were still inside, had been for the past half hour, probably trying to talk to Kisani if he’d come to, but at least to set the staff in there straight about when they were to be called. It was too early to do anything, Kisani was the last patient to come in, he’d still have most of the staff’s attention. “The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient,” Ripley breathed within the confined space of the car. “When these guys are gone and some new emergency comes in, that will be the time.” He had things to do in any case.

  He reached first into the inside pocket of his coat, and found the small slip of paper from Kisani’s own pocket, pulled it out. “Inspector’s coupon” he smirked, “but, it’s in French, so he bought it here. No real help.” He laid it on the passenger’s seat. Next he felt in the right outside pocket, finding nothing but his goggles, which he put into their case on the floor on the passenger’s side, and zipped it closed. Next, the left pocket, a larger piece of paper, thinner. He looked at it in the dim light of the star flashlight. “Dry cleaning receipt,” he saw. The print was in French and what he supposed was Arabic, but perhaps it was Farsi, even Kurdish—he spoke none of any of them. “Probably Arabic, though one never knows these days.”

  He checked the time, it was nearly midnight in Paris. “Worth a try,” he said to the night, and dialed the shop’s phone number. You never knew about dry cleaners, maybe an all night place with one day service. The phone rang four times on the other end, and Ripley was about to stab the “End” button on the phone when a voice answered, in what had to be Arabic.

  He said in French, “Is this the Al-Sharani cleaners’ service?”

  “Oui, monsieur, it is, but it’s late, we are closed.”

  “Fine. What time do you open tomorrow, please?” Ripley asked.

  “At eight, monsieur.”

  “Good, and is this the right address,” he read it out, “where is that, exactly?”

  The voice gave the directions, a shabby suburb up north if he remembered right, about half way to De Gaulle.

  “Good night” Ripley said, and hung up. “What else do we have?” He felt in his right front pants pocket and found what he’d thought was a business card. Instead he had a photograph, a guy in his fifties perhaps, bald on top, olive skin not too dark. Dark eyes, though, mustache, hair cut clean over the ears and short on the sides. “Military guy, I’d guess, maybe Italian by the look of him, maybe even Greek, or a Turk. Probably the guy the dwarf was following.” He flipped the picture over. There was some hand writing on the back, again in some kind of Semitic script he didn’t know. The picture was posed, like something official, maybe from a passport, definitely not a candid or a surveillance shot.

  He put the photo on the seat and felt in his other pockets. “OK, that’s it” he said absently, with a quick glance at the hospital entrance down the street. Nothing new there, except the police were getting in their car to leave. “Now what kind of story do we have here?”

  He began sorting possibilities, trying to make a coherent picture out of what he’d been told by Jones, which wasn’t much, and what he had in front of him from Kisani. There were all kinds of possibilities, of course, many combinations that could fit the data, but some would be more likely than others, and this was what he was good at, this and killing quietly, but not tonight. He worked on this for nearly fifteen minutes, and finally had what he thought was the best that could be done.

  “So, Kisani is Moroccan, and he lives in the Arab slum out toward the airport. He does his dry cleaning there, so he spends most of his time up there, not much of a downtown boy. That’s a guess, but he got himself mugged down here, which a real downtown guy would probably not have done. So he probably hangs out up there, mostly. He’s got this picture of a guy to follow, so someone put him up to that. The someone lives out there in the same neighborhood I’ll bet, so he’s probably also an Arab of some kind. Whoever that someone is has access to a government picture of this other guy, maybe his passport records, maybe drivers license, something like that. So, maybe the guy’s government is following him, or maybe someone else’s. Or, maybe these guys are AQ (he called Al-Qaeda that, it was easier) and they have someone on the inside that has access to such things. Nasty if that’s the case. No trace of a weapon on Kisani, he obviously isn’t the kind of guy who’s going to kill with his bare hands, so whoever is following this guy was just following for now, nothing more. Why? Because they want to know what he does, who he sees, where he goes. Why? Because they don’t know something, and they need to know? Worried about a security breach, perhaps? Hmmm. That would explain a lot. They’re not sure, so don’t want to set off alarms unnecessarily, but they can’t afford to let it go, at all. OK, so what we’ve got here are some bad guys, probably, that think this guy” he looked at the picture, “knows something, and they want to know what before they take him out. And, we have to assume they have other guys, a group of people, that can and will take this guy out if they decide that’s necessary. A cell, then, operating in the north of Paris, with access to government photos of people, wherever the picture-guy is from. Nice, this might be fun.”

  Anything more would be just guesses, but it wasn’t bad, considering he’d only been on this for a few hours. An ambulance was approaching from behind him, lights flashing but no siren. “OK, time to do this next deal,” he mumbled, but he had another thought. “What we need is one of our guys working this neighborhood, obviously something’s going on up there that we want to keep track of.” He made a mental note to mention that to Jones. Ripley did not have anyone who could do that on his staff, legal or otherwise, but Jones might be able to send someone out.

  He speed dialed the phone again.

  “Hello,” came the familiar, deadpan voice.

  “Viper again” Ripley said. I need the hospital near La Defense, Paris, emergency department if there’s a separate listing. How long?”

  “A minute, maybe less. Wait one.”

  “Dial it when you have it, I’ll hold.”

  In forty five seconds a phone began to ring in his earpiece.

  “Paris West Hospital, Emergency, good evening” said the Parisian woman.

  “Hello, good evening” Ripley replied, sounding agitated. “Madame, I am worried. My brother in law has gone missing, and the police told me he might be there with you. He is a short man, in his mid thirties, dark hair, dark mustache, do you have anyone . . .”

  “Oui, monsieur, we have a man like that, he came to us by ambulance only an hour ago, not more, but . . .”

  Ripley interrupted, sounding more agitated, “My God, is he all right? My poor sister will have a heart attack! An ambulance, you say? May I speak with him, is he conscious?”

  “No monsieur, he is not, but the doctors say he will be fine. He was beaten, God help him, and he is bruised, has a broken rib, and a slight concussion, but he will be fine. The doctors say he is not to be disturbed tonight, mind you, but he will be awake tomorrow by ten. You may call then. Do you have a pen and paper, I’ll give you the number for his room.”

  “Yes, Madame, I have it, please go ahead,” Ripley smiled the evil smile, copying the number in his notebook. “Thank you, Madame, you are very kind.”

  “But monsieur, what is your brother in law’s name, he had no identification. . .” but she did not get to finish. Ripley hung up for a moment, then hit the speed dial yet again.

  “Hello”.

  “Viper. Here is a phone number, Paris, a hospital room. Can you put a tap on it, this is high priority.” He read the number and waited. A lot depended on the age of the phone system. The building did not look new, so it might have an older system with an analog switch, and the number in Kisani’s room might be just an extension, which would mean the communications wizards would be out of luck. It was worth a
try, though. The hospital windows looked like they didn’t quite match the façade, too modern, so there’d been a renovation. Maybe he’d get lucky and the phone system was updated with a digital switch. That one the comm whiz kids could get to.

  “We have it, sir. What do you need?” the voice declared. Ripley couldn’t believe his luck tonight.

  “Good. Keep it until I cancel, please, tape everything in or out, try and trace any incoming calls and log any numbers dialed from that line. Call me on this line at the first call, either way. Got it?”

  “Got it, anything else?”

  “Nope, that’s it for now, thanks.” Ripley hung up. Kisani would sleep it off for the rest of the night, the doctors would see to that. “Nothing left to do here,” he decided. He fired up the car and turned for home and bed. There would be plenty of work to do in the morning.