“Do you see the balcony with the red flowers?”
Duchamp nodded.
“It was the balcony just to the right of it, either on the same story or the one above. He showed the flash so quickly I couldn’t determine the exact floor, especially since I wasn’t looking for it.”
“Close enough. Which floor do you want to take?”
“Ten,” said Perry, “You go to nine. I don’t know that building very well, do you?”
Duchamp nodded as they threaded through traffic and arrived at the front door. “Upscale condominiums, for the people who want to vacation close to the tour Eiffel. Even fancier than your hotel.”
“That could mean he’s either in possession of a condo, or has done something terrible to the renters.”
They sprinted toward the stairwell. Duchamp flashed something vaguely like police credentials to the doorman, who nodded and stepped aside as they raced through.
“Is that a police ID?” Perry asked as they began climbing the stairs.
“It came with the wallet,” Duchamp laughed. “I had it laminated. It works very well unless someone actually asks to examine it, then I have to go to Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
Duchamp held up the Colt.
It did not take them long to scale the nine stories. As Duchamp prepared to exit the stairwell, Perry said, “Be careful, Michel. This guy is evil and dangerous. Don’t underestimate him.”
Duchamp, sensitive to Perry’s pain, merely nodded. He opened the door and passed through, even as Perry reached the doorway for the tenth floor.
As he moved into the hallway, he took a moment to get his bearings and scan for security cameras. There appeared to be one on each end of the hallway. This didn’t overly concern him, as he was sure Flick wasn’t in the security office, but he took note of them nonetheless. He wouldn’t put it past Flick to have hacked the system to better anticipate Perry’s arrival.
Looking to his left, he estimated which doorway corresponded with the location of the glint, and, seeing four doors in that direction, ascertained it was most likely the second door in which he was interested. Staying close to the wall, he quickly moved toward it.
A plastic plate on the beige door said “10-5,” and he hesitated, looking down the hallway once more to see if he still liked his original assessment. It had to be this condo. He tried the door.
Locked. And this time the lock was electronic. There would be no picking this one. He took a step back and gave the door a powerful kick. The jamb splintered and the door flew open. Perry knew at once he’d picked the wrong floor.
A young couple lay on the floor of the condo, completely naked and tied together with nylon rope. Their mouths had each been stuffed with a rag, and clear packing tape had been wrapped around them to keep the fabric gags in place. They were both alive and clearly terrified, as Perry crashed into their condo, gun drawn. The only injury to either was the man’s right arm to which a piece of paper had been stapled. A thin line of blood had stained it, but the words upon the sheet could still be clearly read: “You lose. Again.”
“Shit!” Perry turned to run back to the stairwell when the woman began to make urgent but unintelligible sounds. Perry turned to face her. “My friend is in danger. You’re safe. I’ll be back.”
He sprinted to the stairway door, not at all sure he’d told the couple the truth.
When he reached the door of the condo directly below the one he’d entered, he found it in a similar state, as Duchamp had also clearly kicked in the door. He stepped cautiously inside.
As he moved silently along the hall that led from the entrance, he felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to stand up. There was a distinctive odor present. In his years of service, he’d smelled it a couple of times. A sickly, faintly-metallic aroma only encountered in locations with lots of—
“Blood,” Perry muttered.
And blood there was. It seemed to be everywhere, beginning at the end of the hallway where a small puddle stretched into the next room, curling to the left as the victim had apparently been dragged.
With growing apprehension, Perry moved in that direction. As he turned the corner, his gun entering the room first, he saw a sight that made his knees start to buckle.
In the middle of the room, directly in front of the balcony doors, he saw Duchamp, laying nude on the floor in a still-widening pool of blood, his clothing bunched up beneath his head. A small wound on his neck, exactly in the spot Flick had punctured Trina’s throat, was no longer spurting, as Lion’s heart had clearly stopped beating. He was posed exactly in the same way Trina had been.
Perry’s head began to spin. He looked at his friend, but saw his wife instead. His vision began to blur as tears filled his eyes. Poised on the precipice of despair, Perry Hall let loose a scream, not of horror or defeat, but of pure animal rage. He shook his head violently, continuing to scream.
Flick was near, and he was going to kill him. That thought, combined with the cathartic scream, brought him back to the present.
Perry examined the slain agent and noticed something he hadn’t seen at first—a single bloody footprint near Duchamp’s head. Flick had never been this careless before. He guessed the speed with which he’d left the tenth floor had caused the assassin to rush, making him uncharacteristically sloppy. He looked at the shoe print. It looked like a sneaker tread, unremarkable, save for one thing. Amid the lined pattern was a five-pointed star, clearly visible in red outline on the white carpet.
Perry looked around the condo, quickly sizing up all the places someone might hide. There were plenty. He moved toward a recessed alcove angled in a way that denied him the ability to see if someone was tucked inside. As he began to close on it, he heard a sound from the direction he’d just come. Whirling around, he realized it had been the sound of glass breaking, something small. Something like a mirror. Looking through the doors to the balcony he thought he saw a shadow flicker briefly across the glass. He moved toward it, keeping close to the wall.
Like the sliders in his suite, these had heavy, room-darkening blinds installed, but they were drawn back. As he approached, he could clearly see the right side of the outdoor space; not so the left. He was almost to the door now. It was pulled slightly open. He reached for the handle to pull it back farther when the curtain beside him fluttered. Before he could react, an arm reached out holding a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol. Perry saw the motion from the corner of his eye, but he was at an awkward angle and couldn’t move out of the way. The heavy pistol came down hard on the back of his head.
11
In the movies, they always depict the person who has been knocked unconscious as coming to rather quickly. Maybe he blinks his eyes a few times, rubs his head once or twice, then he’s ready to find out his fate. In reality, it is a slow and painful process.
Perry opened his eyes to find his vision so blurred he thought he must be underwater. He slipped into insensibility before he could realize he was breathing, and therefore not underwater at all. Several minutes later, his eyes fluttered open again and he was vaguely aware the room he was in was rocking slightly. He had just enough time to decide he was trapped in an earthquake before darkness took him again.
The third time his eyes opened, he managed to keep them that way, though at great cost. His head pounded. He reached with his right hand to feel the back of his skull, and felt a sizable lump. When he tried to raise his left hand, he found it moved an inch or two, then stopped. He managed to focus enough to see he was handcuffed to something. And that he was sitting on the floor. A floor that swayed slightly.
It took him several more minutes before his brain came online enough to accurately survey his situation. When he did, he realized the swaying of the room was because it was, in fact, the interior of a river barge. And, although he had not spent a huge amount of time near thermonuclear devices, he gradually realized he was handcuffed to one right now.
“I hate it when I’m right,” he said alo
ud. To his surprise, a woman’s voice answered him.
“And how often does that happen?”
The voice seemed familiar. Up to now everything Perry had looked at, including the bomb which was now his conjoined twin, was close by. Finding the source of the voice meant focusing on more distant objects, an entirely different skill set altogether. Eventually, with no small amount of effort, he managed to focus on the human form seated a few feet away and handcuffed to a wall railing.
“Amanda?” he said.
“Hello, Perry,” she said.
“But…you have a head. You’re alive!”
“Well, I’ve always had bad luck.” Her bitter words struck familiar chords Perry did not wish to have strummed. “They killed Bart when he refused to help them open the clutch. They tried everything. They beat him, they burned him, they even cut off his foot. Well, that was partially to torture him and partially to trap me.”
“We figured that’s what had happened,” Perry said.
“Who is ‘we’?” Amanda asked.
“Duchamp and I.”
“Duchamp!”
“He’s not coming,” Perry said, speaking quickly to prevent Amanda from anticipating a last-minute rescue. “He ran afoul of Flick.”
“Flick! Oh, I’m sorry, Perry.”
Perry surprised himself by uttering a derisive laugh. “I suppose I should be saying the same to you. I don’t know who might be the headless woman I saw in that shrine to Bart’s foot, but that was definitely him in the other chair.”
Amanda nodded. “I saw that beautiful display. Staged for your benefit, I believe. To convince you we were both dead, while they continued to work on me. I’m pretty sure it was a prostitute in Montemarche’s employ that you saw.”
“Prostitution as well as legitimate enterprises? Our friend Montemarche likes to cover every angle, I guess. But what do you mean, ‘work on you’?”
“When Bart refused to reveal the access pattern to the titanium clutch, they brought me in. I was prepared for physical torture. They’d put me in a room next to the one where they were hurting Bart, and I heard his screams. I figured they’d do the same to me. But instead they held a gun to Bart’s head and told me they’d pull the trigger if I didn’t reveal the secret. I was brave, Perry. For about a second. But when they pulled the hammer back, I screamed, ‘Left, left, down, up, right.’ A moment later the clutch was open. It was then they swiveled Bart’s chair around to show me they’d already killed him with a bullet between the eyes. I betrayed the Free World to save a man already beyond saving.”
Perry now understood the depth of Amanda’s remorse. Not only was she grieving the loss of her husband, she was guilt-ridden over allowing Scorpion total control of the stolen nuke.
At that moment, a diagonal column of light appeared from above them, as the hatch to the hold was thrown open. They turned to see three pairs of feet descending the steep steps. The first two men who appeared Perry did not recognize. The third was Montemarche.
“Well, well,” Montemarche said jovially. “A heartwarming SpyCo reunion! Have you been reminiscing about all the people of the world you’ve helped subjugate?”
“Don’t talk ideology to me, you piece of shit,” Perry spat out. “You’d subjugate your own mother if there was a euro or two in it.”
Montemarche’s mouth thinned into a wan smile. “I’m afraid your attempt at shaming me has no teeth, Mr. Hall; I made what money I could from my mother years ago. But you are right. I care nothing for the more esoteric causes of my organization. It is correct there are some in Scorpion you would characterize as—” He turned to the shorter of the two men who were accompanying him. “Quelle est l’expression que les Américains utilisent?”
“‘Vrai croyant,’“ the man replied.
“Ah, true believer, yes! We have some true believers in our ranks. I do not take much stock in what they say, however. For me it is most definitely about the financial transaction.”
Perry was skeptical. “So how does destroying Paris and murdering millions of people work to your financial good.”
“Why, the insurance checks alone will net me close to a billion!” the Frenchman laughed. “But that is shortsighted, Mr. Hall. No, the real money will come from the governments who will believe the same thing could happen in their capitals. A billion euros will be a…a…” He turned to the squat henchman again.
“‘Déposer dans le seau,” the henchman said.
“Yes, of course. A drop in the bucket. Dear me, I really must brush up on my American idioms.”
“Good idea,” Perry said. “I have one or two I’d like to try out on you. Let’s start with fu—”
“No time!” Montemarche interrupted. “I see by the lovely green descending numerals on the handy digital readout that our little friend will detonate in just over fifteen minutes. That idiom I do know. Say hello to my little friend.”
“That’s not an idiom, moron. It’s a quote from the movie Scarface.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Montemarche said, waving his hand dismissively. “It is time for you to start your voyage toward the Ile de la Cité, Notre Dame, and molecular annihilation. I don’t imagine it will hurt, Mr. Hall, and that is, of course, unfortunate. But there will be pain. The few survivors of the actual blast will know much suffering. And that, mon ami, is another commodity I take immense pleasure in trading.”
Montemarche turned to the two men. To the shorter one he gave instructions to engage the automatic navigation system on the barge, and to inform the helicopter pilot to prepare for departure. The taller man was instructed to make sure the handcuffs of both Amanda and Perry were tight and secure.
For the first time, Perry took note of this second man. There was something about his face he disliked immediately. He was also dressed differently than the rest of the flunkies—sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers instead of the polished black shoes of the others. Perry imagined his voice would be equally annoying, though Montemarche had not spoken to him at all. The man went first to Amanda, squeezing the cuff until it bit into her wrist hard enough to make her wince, a notable reaction, given Amanda’s legendary tolerance for physical pain. The reaction made Montemarche, who waited by the stairs, smile. The man then walked toward Perry.
Even at this late moment, Perry’s mind raced as he worked through all the ways he might possibly take the tall man out when he got close enough. But even as the man moved within range of Perry’s feet, which were unfettered, he realized even if he disabled him, even if he killed him, he would still be handcuffed to a nuke, and the other two would be able to come and go as they pleased. A grim pall fell over his spirit as he began to accept his fate.
The man reached him, and Perry heard a faint liquid sound. He noticed for the first time there was a small pool of blood next to him, no doubt from the back of his head where Flick had pistol whipped him. The man had stepped in it as he cinched the cuff tight around Perry’s wrist.
As the man walked away, satisfied the cuff was as tight as he could get it, Perry heard Montemarche speak from the top of the stairs.
“Farewell Mr. Hall. It is now time for me to leave the city, so that I can enjoy the end of Paris from a safe distance. I hope you and Mrs. Pickering have a pleasant…transition.”
The poorly-dressed man laughed quietly and began to climb the stairs. As he did, Perry looked at the floor. His heart leaped in his chest. There, in the patch of light from the open hatch was a bloody footprint. And in the center was a five-pointed star!
“Flick! Flick! Get back here, you filth!”
But the assassin merely paused at the hatch, grinned horribly, and gave Perry a crisp salute. The hatch slammed shut.
12
It did not take long for reason and logic to begin draining away from Perry’s longsuffering mind. From where he sat, he could see the timer counting down. Although his knowledge of nuclear bombs was not extensive, he knew they generally did not have timers on them. He assumed Montemarche had the device modif
ied to include as an additional layer of psychological torment.
He could hear Amanda’s sobbing, quiet at first, then rising in pitch and intensity until it became hysterical. He could understand her despair. It must be far greater than his. The prospect of his own life coming to an instantaneous conclusion was not terribly upsetting to him. But she was going to her death both freshly widowed and knowing her weakness had doomed over two million men, women, and children.
His mind spiraled deeper into something all too familiar from the tortured nights of loneliness following Trina’s murder. He now realized he could have killed the man responsible. Even with one hand cuffed he could have taken his revenge, immobilizing Flick with a swift kick and tearing out the bastard’s throat with his free hand or even his teeth. Knowing he’d let the man whose death he’d pictured a million times in a million different ways simply walk away, pushed him fully into insensibility.
He began to hallucinate. At first, he just saw her eyes. So blue…so illogically blue. Then, little by little, her face materialized around the eyes. Her beauty was complete and perfect, even in the wispy, almost wraith-like form it was taking. She was smiling. A breeze played through her hair.
Amanda’s screams tried to break through Perry’s delirium, but they could not. To him, they sounded like the buzz of a distant bee or a discordant bird call. No human could produce such sounds, his mind told him.
Trina was wholly formed now. She stood before him, beaming. Exactly as she had when the justice had pronounced them husband and wife. He had never seen a person’s face look happier than hers had in that moment, but that was only because he couldn’t see his own.
It seemed to Perry, as he fell further and further from his gruesome reality, that she hovered just above the floor, and as he looked he realized she was floating above the bloody print on the floor of the hold. It was as if she was silently confirming her murderer’s identity and, Perry now realized in even deeper anguish, reproaching him for letting Flick escape.
Assignment- Adventure A SpyCo Collection 1-3 Page 15