by Cara Black
Aimée turned to Maria. “Remember what we said? Forget my using the gun. But describe the Basque who helped you, the rail-line diagrams, and everything else you remember.”
Maria swallowed. “The ambassador doesn’t look too happy. I think I’m in big trouble.”
“Wrong. You’re giving him a feather in his diplomatic hat. You’re safe, Maria. Don’t let him forget it.”
Maria gave a small smile and struggled out of the coat. “Wouldn’t want to forget this.” Her torn chemise hung from her thin bruised shoulders.
Aimée pressed a card with Martine’s number into her hand. “Call my friend Martine, the journalist, in a little while. You can trust her.”
A grim-faced ambassador, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, his tie loosened, opened the taxi door. Without a word, he took Maria’s arm, helped her up the steps, and gestured to the waiting paramedics.
He’d left a calling card on the coat. A military-issue satellite cell phone with built in GPS tracking. Courtesy of Colonel Valois.
Just what she’d feared. Sitting in a taxi on the wealthiest street in Paris didn’t equate with fighting rebels in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Or did it?
According to Léo, the moment she flicked on the phone it would activate the GPS, alerting the military, who would immediately track her location. Deal with the devil? She needed to think about that. Figure out how to use it to her advantage.
The phone rang.
Of course, the thing was already on.
Robbé handed it to her.
“Mademoiselle Leduc,” said Colonel Valois. “Interesting solo operation. Our team would have handled it with more efficiency and a lower body count.”
She doubted that. His formerly inviting tone had turned frosty. Maybe he wanted to take back his offer.
“So you say, Colonel,” she said. “I guess you had to be there.”
Pause. “If my men told me that, I’d remind them of the families left behind.”
Sanctimonious bastard.
“Next time a terrorist’s ready to rape a young girl and puts a gun to the head of a man in diabetic shock, I’ll try to remember that.” She bit her tongue. Stupid to provide fodder for an investigation.
“That’s besides the point, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said. “Our mission’s not accomplished.”
“You’ve got the princess—”
“I’m referring to loose ends,” he interrupted. “I think you know what I mean. It’s very much in your interest to cooperate.”
So now he’d twist shooting a Basque terrorist in self-defense against her? Big boys with big toys, Martine had said, and frustrated at not using them. Her intuition told her to act interested in working for him.
“So, don’t I get paid now?”
“Did I imply that?” His tone warmed. “The offer stands. Bien sûr, and according to our terms. Our protocol, that’s the way we operate.”
He sounded like the IT director client at the failing company, whose “protocol” ultimately couldn’t pay Leduc’s fees.
“I’m listening.”
“Keep this phone operational at all times. The moment you’re contacted, respond. Oh, and alert me if you get any calls on the phone in your bag.” Pause. “No more solo operations. Just keep me informed and we’ll take it from there.”
In other words, stay glued to them by GPS, every movement tracked.
“You’re interested in hearing my terms, Colonel?”
“We’ve already set up a bank account with—”
“I didn’t finish, Colonel,” she said. “Commissaire Morbier released and cleared of all charge. C’est tout.”
“But that’s not my jurisdiction, Mademoiselle.”
She stared at the lighted mansions beyond the trees flashing by.
“I’m sure you can work something out, Colonel.”
She flipped the phone closed and hit the OFF button.
She turned to Robbé. “We’ve got places to go.”
Robbé bit his lip. “I want to see Irati.”
“Soon,” she said. “Let’s go, Monsieur. Of course, we never had that passenger, never came here, compris?”
The taxi driver put on his driving gloves and shifted into first. “Understood.” His eyes glittered. “Any chance of a car chase?”
“I hope not,” she said.
He shrugged. As agreed, the grilled metal gate opened and the taxi merged onto Avenue Foch. Ten minutes later, the taxi parked in front of Fondation d’Auteuil, the church-andorphanage complex off rue de la Fontaine.
She noticed Robbé’s whitened knuckles on the insulin kit. “I think you’ve got things to tell me, non?”
“How did you know I live here?”
“Let’s talk inside.” She nodded to the taxi driver. “Monsieur.… ”
He took the Maigret novel from the dashboard. “I know. Reading time.” He winked. “Wouldn’t trade this job for the world. I’m having the night of my life! And call me Théo.”
“Merci, Théo,” she said. “But it’s not over yet.”
Robbé pressed the numbers on the digicode pad with shaking fingers. The gate opened to a long park. The secondhand charity shop with donations from the chic parishioners on the left, the faint outlines of L’église Sainte Thérèse ahead. The orphanage’s workshops, offices, and housing on the right.
“You grew up here, Robbé,” she said, pulling the coat back on and buttoning it against the dank chill.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” he said.
A sign pointed the way upstairs to the orphanage’s housing, indicating a wing of shared rooms for young working apprentices like Robbé. A community setting in which to dwell while mastering a trade and avoid steep Paris rents. Apprenticeships, like those of the traditional guilds. The communal meeting room, with blue and yellow chintz curtains, was dark.
“The Basques sponsored your apprenticeship in the Bayonne printing works,” Aimée said. “That’s where you met Txili, didn’t you? The others?”
“What?”
“Irati told me about you,” she said. “Your life.” Now she had to press him. Get him to reveal Txili. “That’s why you wanted a small wedding. As an orphan, you had no family to invite.”
He looked away. “We wanted an intimate ceremony,” he said, his lisp more pronounced.
“But Xavierre got involved. Of course she meant well, her only daughter, so excited, but it got out of hand,” Aimée said.“Then Txili, your old patron, appeared at the wedding rehearsal party, so happy for you. He wanted to help. He just asked a little favor. After all, you’re Basque. Wasn’t that what he told you? It was why he’d sponsored you, after all. He knew your ETA patriot parents had been killed in a shootout with the French police.”
“Non … non, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But you do, Robbé. That’s why he counted on you with the princess.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t prove that,” he said, moving away.
“Not yet,” she said. “But what happens when Irati discovers the truth? That you murdered her mother?” she said, trying to provoke him. “Of course, you didn’t mean for that to happen, nor for Agustino to die; you didn’t know—”
“Stop.” He put his hands over his ears.
“But you were worried that Xavierre had told Morbier, a flic, the real plan.… ”
“I didn’t kill Xavierre,” he yelled. “She helped me, believed in me. Why would I? I give you my word.”
She believed him, but his wild eyes and jittery hand movements worried her.
“Then who did, Robbé?” she asked.
His shoulders shook. He opened his mouth to speak. Several short thupts sounded, thudding into the arch above them, spitting stone dust over her head. His words froze on his lips.
“Down!” She lunged, pushing him onto the ground.
Another thupt and more dust. A high-powered pistol with a suppressor. She crawled under the stone wall. Took a breath an
d peered over the ledge. A figure flashed under the trees. She heard crunching gravel, the clang of the street gate.
Robbé bolted. She heard his footsteps racing up the stairs.
She took off, skirting the trees, and made it through the gate. Jumped into the taxi. “Which way did he go, Théo?”
She heard the radio tuned low to the talk-radio channel. The open book lay in his lap.
“Théo, wake up.” She shook his shoulder. His head tilted, fell onto his chest. The streetlight beam revealed the line of blood running from his ear.
She gasped. Horror-stricken, she put her fingers on his neck. No pulse.
Her fault. She’d caused this poor man’s murder. Having the night of his life … now she knew what Valois meant. Maybe Théo had grandchildren. She’d been an idiot to think she could do this alone.
Her eye caught on the book. The bright red droplets spattered over the pages. Like the blood pattern on the gravel. As if the killer had leaned in the window to talk to Théo and had a nosebleed when he did the job.
And that’s how she could find him.
She jumped out of the taxi and stared at the dim pavement. A faint blood spatter on rue de la Fontaine. Then it stopped at the corner. Which way?
She turned up rue Ribera. A narrow uphill street, cobbled and dark, past the Romanian Maronite church. He’d go slower than her because of his condition, his nosebleed; he’d be trying to stanch the blood. She reached the corner of rue de la Source.
Nothing.
A cough. Faint, as if he was trying to smother it going up the hill. And it hit her.
Of course he knew her. They’d met in the Basque resto.
She ran across the intersection, perspiring now. Up a steeper narrow street, lined by solid nineteenth-century façades with ornate scrolled pilasters, cast-iron balconies, and cherub-adorned portals. Ivy rustled to the right of a boarded-up hôtel particulier under reconstruction. Creaking wood, then what sounded like footsteps echoing down a passage between the buildings. She paused, sniffed. A trail of cigar smoke wafted in his wake.
She searched the boarded-up entrance. Fingered the wood and found the handle, sliding open the makeshift entry, and stepped inside. She tiptoed past concrete mixers in the damp narrow walkway to the rear that ended at a crumbling stone wall. On the right, a sagging door in a rotted frame led to what had been a kitchen, the windows broken, now filled with leaves.
She pulled out her penlight, her pulse racing, illuminating a high-ceilinged salon with streaking water stains on the peeling wallpaper. The reek of dampness and rot everywhere was punctuated by the acrid whiff of cigar smoke. Down the creaking hallway, her penlight, a small yellow trail, shone on leaves and more leaves.
A sharp wind sliced from the broken windows with metal bars. Sweat beaded her chin; her body shivered hot and cold. For a moment, she wanted to turn back. Listen to the voice in her head yelling go back. But he’d gotten away from her before. Not this time!
She made her feet move.
She emerged into what had been the ballroom, half roofed, half opened up to the cold sky. Crystals tinkled from the remains of a sagging chandelier hanging perilously from the crossbeams. The dank-walled ballroom’s tall doors were boarded up, enclosed on all sides, lit only by the pallor of the moon. Crates and old doors were crammed in the shadows. There were holes in the ripped-up floorboards.
One way in. The same way out. Not good.
Why hadn’t she kept that hammer?
The pistol in her pocket contained one more bullet. Where was he? Aiming for a distraction, she shoved the crates aside on her left. Heard the splinter of wood as they crashed onto the floor.
With a quick step she darted in the opposite direction.
“Let’s talk, since we’re old friends, Beñat,” she said. “At least that’s how you introduced yourself. You were Timo Baptista in your student days, or do you prefer Txili?”
She felt her way along the damp wall. The smell of cigar smoke intensified. He couldn’t suppress his coughing. And then she saw his reflection in the cracked, age-spotted, gold-framed mirror propped against the wall.
He shook his head of close-cropped white hair, a sad expression on his face. His expensive coat hung from his shoulders. “I liked you. Chic, edgy, full of joie de vivre. What happened?”
As if she’d personally let him down. If she wasn’t careful, he’d charm her again, as he had over olives in the Basque bar.
“But you changed,” he said, stepping forward. He tossed the burning cigarillo onto the floor. Ground it out with his foot. “You’ve become a problem.”
She leveled the pistol at him, her back pinned against the rotted doors.
The force of his kick knocked the pistol from her hand and spun it to the floor. Before she could reach for it and grab it, he shoved the gun into a hole in the broken floor with his foot. A plunk and splash of water. Now the gun was in the sewers. Stupid. She’d let her guard down. Perspiration dampened her collar; her shirt stuck to her spine.
“But you’re full of surprises,” Beñat said, his own pistol in his hand now.
“You didn’t need to kill Théo.”
“The old taxi driver? Not my fault he tried to play the hero.” A shrug.
He sickened her.
“Just an obstacle in your way, so you took care of him?”
“These things happen,” he said.
She had to think her way out of this. Stop him any way she could. But how?
“You’re dying, Beñat,” she said, a low throb again in her ribs. “Leukemia. Such a waste. Look at the cost. And for what?”
Shock mingled with irritation on his hollowed-out face. Aimée noticed his thinness. “A cold? You call a chest cold leukemia?”
“It’s eating you up,” she said. “The coat’s hanging off you, with all the weight you’ve lost.”
“So now you’re a doctor?” He snorted. “Bunch of quacks. Never listened to one a day in my life.”
“But you’re tired, non? Those nosebleeds, weakness.… ”
“Weak? I just kicked a gun out of your hands.” He gave a short laugh. “I thought you were smarter, Detective. I researched you. I know all about you and the dwarf.”
“René?” Her hand went to her mouth.
“He drives a classic Citroën. A collector’s item, eh? But for how long?”
René, in danger from the Basque terrorists, a bomb planted in his car? She flicked open the GPS phone in her pocket, hit the ON switch. A beep.
“What’s that?”
“Research, you say?” She spoke fast to distract him. “Let’s talk about the police lab’s research. They’ve analyzed the blood samples from my shoe. Your blood.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He pointed the pistol at her. Right at her chest.
Her stomach clenched. Talk, she had to talk. Keep his attention.
“Your nosebleed, the night you strangled Xavierre,” she said. “I found the telltale little driblets all over the gravel. I stepped on them. There was a sufficient sample to check your blood under the microscope.”
“Why would you … ? But you want to scare me, I see,” he said, not quite hiding the denial and anger in his voice. “A parting shot. Nothing else to fight with, eh, Detective?”
Her turn to shrug. “You want to argue with science?” she said. “Considering your high white blood cell count, the doctor said you didn’t have long. Matter of fact, he said, ‘I’d live each day like it’s his only one if I were him.’”
He shook his head. “Blood’s blood.”
“That’s why you enlisted the terrorists, calling it a patriotic action for the Basque country.” She stared at him. “A lie. And their organization, desperate for passports and cartes d’identités, agreed.”
A fit of coughing overtook him. But he kept a steady bead on her heart. Fear rippled up her arms. She scanned the ground for a pipe, wires, anything.
“Why make Xavierre pay for the Imprimerie Nationale heist that went
bad? So bad that you killed a flic.”
“You talk like she’s a saint,” Beñat said. “Know anything about her past? She owed me. Owed us all.”
“An oath made in her youth?”
He eyed her with a faint smile. “We’ll have company soon. Any minute, my backup team will join us.”
Bluffing? Her hands shook. She scanned the dark ballroom, the passageway. Doubted she could make a run for it before he got off a shot.
“Let’s talk present tense,” she said. “The referendum includes the Paris-to-Madrid high-speed rail through the Basque country. And you didn’t want that. But why? Bad for your business?”
“You could say that,” he said, his tone becoming bored and businesslike. “Revenue losses of seventy-five percent. All that speed, but no local stops for commerce. No access to the region’s factories. Makes the Basque countryside a wasteland.”
Now she put it together. “So you kidnapped the princess to force a new referendum guaranteeing that the high-speed train would run through your district with stops. Millions for you. Hired ETA to sabotage the rail line and make it appear political.”
“What do you know of our long struggle, our culture, our heritage?” His eyes glittered as he edged closer.
“And you’re preserving Basque culture?”
He caught her wrist in a grip of steel. Shoved her against the dripping corner. “Shut up.” His breath reeked of Izarra.
A hypocrite. Greedy, and with his pistol resting cold on her temple.
“Xavierre couldn’t see the big picture.”
Not his way, she couldn’t. And it all made sense.
“She discovered the plan was to line your pocket, not to benefit the Cause. She threatened to expose you.”
“She was going to tell the flic—her ‘man,’ she called him. Can you imagine?” he said. “Et alors, the richer the woman, the tighter the fist. Me, I only wanted to help Xavierre give Irati this big wedding she was fixated on. I wanted the best for Robbé.” He stopped, a genuine look of puzzlement on his face. “That food her sister cooks—awful—you know that. I even offered to pay for catering as a wedding present.”
His concerned tone sent shivers up her arms. More than deluded—amoral, a sociopath—he believed what he said. His clawlike hand tightened on her wrist. The other kept the pistol at her temple.