Foreign Affairs (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)
Page 13
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m not sure I can spend the whole day with you.”
“People tell me it’s not easy,” he said.
BY MID-AFTERNOON they had the head and hands identified as belonging to a man named Pascal Lambert, who lived in a rundown house south of the city, not more than five kilometers from where his head got tossed.
They parked on the street and slipped gloves on as they walked up a weed-invested drive.
“Remember, don’t step on the rats,” Teffinger said.
Fallon smiled.
“Or ride them.”
Inside, thirty minutes later, they found something interesting.
Very interesting.
Chapter Fifty
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Morning
______________
TRUE TO PLAN, DEJA AND ALEXANDRA woke up three hours before daybreak, got dressed without turning the lights on, snuck out the rear exit, and walked west into the Egyptian nightscape with the moon as their flashlight.
The rocks radiated heat even now, but were nothing compared to yesterday.
“It feels like a glacier storm,” Deja said. “I can actually drink water and it doesn’t run straight out my pores.”
Alexandra chuckled.
“You’re turning into a camel,” she said. “By this time tomorrow you’ll have a hump.”
“Can’t wait.”
“You’d look good in a hump, actually.”
“You think?”
“No question,” Alexandra said. “Not everyone can pull them off. But a few can. Quasimodo, for example.”
True.
“And that lab assistant from Young Frankenstein—what was his name?”
“Igor.”
Right.
Igor.
“He could wear a hump with the best of them,” Alexandra said. “And now you.”
THEY MADE GOOD TIME and got to the general area a half hour before daybreak. That gave them a chance to sit down, eat and drink. As the landscape lost its black edge, they hid behind an outcropping and studied the topography through binoculars.
They saw no one.
When it got light enough, they went to where the cave should be.
It wasn’t there.
Alexandra studied the landscape again, harder, and pointed.
“It should be right there,” she said, “wedged between those two outcroppings. We should be able to see it from right where we’re standing.”
“There’s nothing there,” Deja said.
Alexandra paced.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
She spotted a sand viper thirty steps away and threw a rock at it—missing by three meters. The reptile froze, not knowing what happened or what direction it came from. Alexandra threw again, landing within a meter. This time the snake darted away.
“All I can figure is that small stones dribbled down the cliff over the last eighteen years and covered it up even more. I need to get up there and poke around. You stay down here and keep watch.”
Okay.
Fine.
ALEXANDRA TOOK EVERYTHING out of her backpack except a folding shovel, flashlight, rope and water. Then she climbed.
The crag was steep and dangerous.
“Be careful,” Deja said.
“Don’t worry.”
Halfway up, Alexandra lost her footing and almost fell. Then she stayed there, right where she was, until she got her nerve back.
She climbed even higher, twice as high—twenty meters.
“It should be right about here,” she shouted.
“Do you see anything?”
“No, but the rocks look loose.”
She wedged herself into a crag as best she could and clawed at the rocks with her hand. She was right. They were loose and broke away with little effort. She worked harder, removing an outer layer of smaller rocks and dirt. Below that, she found larger rocks that looked like they had been set in place.
“This is it!” she said.
Deja was about to say, “Great,” when something on the ground caught her peripheral vision. She focused on it.
A snake!
I was huge, not more than three meters away, coming right at her and making a terrible attack sound.
SUDDENLY A SCREAM CAME FROM ABOVE—a bloodcurdling scream, so loud and desperate that Deja took her eyes off the reptile and looked up.
What she saw she could hardly believe.
Alexandra was falling, out of control.
Chapter Fifty-One
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Morning
______________
DURAND WOKE SATURDAY MORNING to find Prarie sleeping next to him, nude, on her stomach, breathing heavily. He muscled up, detected a slight but not overly-fierce hangover, and admired the curvature of her body as he walked to the shower. Her ass was round. So was her belly but, like the rest of her body, it was also firm.
Her skin was soft, taut and flawless.
Her purse and glasses were on the dresser.
Her dress, bra and shoes were in a drunken pile on the floor next to the bed.
She wore no panties.
They were in the Seine somewhere.
He was glad she was here and after he showered, he made her coffee and breakfast to prove it. Then he walked her back to her apartment, arm in arm under a nice Paris sky, while they made plans for tonight.
ON THE WALK BACK TO HIS APARTMENT, Durand’s client called and asked, “Anything new?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Durand said. “The caveman on page 5 of the paper—who may or may not be the same man I saw from behind the bedroom door—has a striking resemblance to a taxi driver.”
“Who?”
Durand almost said, Anton Fornier, but didn’t. “I’d rather not throw names around until I dig into it further.”
“When will that be?”
Soon.
Today.
“I still don’t get your interest in all this,” Durand said.
“Just keep working,” the client said. “Do you need more money?”
No.
The money was fine.
Plenty left.
LATE MORNING, Durand went to the Laughing Hat Café, took a sidewalk table in the sun, and drank coffee while Prarie hustled past and brushed up against him as often as she could without arousing suspicion. Durand called some of his more discrete underground sources to find out what he could on Anton Fornier. They all told him the same thing—there were rumors that the man did hits on the side, but they didn’t know if that was true or not.
Okay.
Thanks.
Then someone told him something he didn’t know.
Fornier had a brother in Cairo.
Serge Fornier.
A man who looked even more like a caveman than Anton, if you can believe it.
DURAND FIRED UP HIS LAPTOP, logged onto the net and found a number of articles on Serge Fornier, who turned out to be an archeologist. A few of those articles had a picture of the man who actually did look more like a caveman than Anton.
Interesting.
Durand cocked his head and studied the man’s face.
Was he the one Durand saw from behind the door?
The one who killed Luc Trickett, the boxer?
Suddenly Prarie was at his table, topping off his coffee, filling his senses with the aroma of her perfume. “Is everything okay here, sir?”
He motioned for her to lean in.
She did.
He whispered in her ear, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to not sweep everything off this table and throw you on top of it?”
She diverted her eyes, then looked at him and said, “I’m pretty sure they have rules against that here. But I’ll check with the manager, if you want.”
Durand chuckled.
“Would you?”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Afternoon
______________
AT THE FLOATER’S HOUSE under a beat-beyond-death couch in the living room, Teffinger spotted a piece of pizza that looked like it dated back to the caveman days. That’s not what got his attention, though. What got his attention was the large manila envelope lying next to it. An envelope that looked like it had been inadvertently dropped and kicked. Fallon pulled it out, handling it only by the edges.
Inside were ten or twelve pages of handwritten notes in a foreign language.
“I’m pretty sure this is Egyptian writing,” Fallon said.
Teffinger shrugged.
He didn’t know.
He knew English, that was it.
Behind the notes were ten or so large color photographs of ancient documents inscribed with hieroglyphic writing.
Pascal Lambert, the floater, was a common thug.
A mercenary for hire.
A lowlife.
“Weird,” Teffinger said. “These are the kinds of things an archeologist would have, not a scumbag like the floater.”
Fallon frowned.
“I think I know where he got them,” she said.
Really?
Where?
“From a man named Remy Lafayette, a dead man named Remy Lafayette to be precise, a dead man named Remy Lafayette who got murdered about two weeks ago by someone who stole a lot of his archeological files, to be even more precise,” she said.
Teffinger raised an eyebrow.
“So your theory is that the floater killed this archeologist—”
“—Remy Lafayette—”
“—Right, him.”
She nodded.
“I wish Remy Lafayette had been my case. I’d have one solved.”
TEFFINGER RAKED HIS HAIR BACK with his fingers. It hung in place for a second and flopped back down over his forehead. “You’d have one half-solved,” he said.
Half solved?
Right?
Meaning what?
“Meaning if you’re right in that the floater killed this Remy guy, then it’s pretty obvious who killed the floater.”
He paused to let the words sink in and watched her face as she got a distant expression and processed the information.
Then she looked at him and said, “A co-conspirator.”
Teffinger nodded.
“That would be my guess,” he said. “The floater and someone else, maybe more than one someone else, killed the archeologist and took his papers. Then they had a falling out for whatever reason and the floater ended up floating. That’s why they cut off his head and hands, so he couldn’t be identified and couldn’t tie them to the archeologist.” Teffinger tilted his head. “The more I think about it, you only have it one-third solved, not a half. That’s because two people were involved in throwing the floater’s head out the window.”
Fallon nodded.
Right.
The man who threw the bags.
And the driver.
“Who could have been a man or a woman or a donkey or a midget,” Fallon said.
Teffinger nodded.
“Right.”
FALLON CALLED TARGAUX, who was personally handling the Remy Lafayette case given its high visibility, and filled him in. “You need to confirm that the papers we found belonged to your victim,” she told him.
Silence.
“You got the lead, why don’t you run with it? His niece might know, I’d start with her,” Targaux said. “Hold on—let me pull the file.” Papers rustled. “Okay, here it is, her name is Deja Lafayette. She’s a linguist at a law firm called Berthrand, Roux and Blanc, in La Defense. Got a pencil?”
She did, and wrote down the information.
“You going to jump on it?” Targaux asked.
“I’m already off the ground.”
“Let me know when you land,” he said.
WHEN FALLON HUNG UP, Teffinger asked, “Why does that law firm sound familiar?”
“That’s where that lawyer works.”
Teffinger didn’t follow and wrinkled his forehead to prove it.
What lawyer?
“The lawyer who wasn’t the page 5 caveman,” Fallon said.
Bingo.
Now he remembered.
“The guy who wasted our time,” he said.
“No, the guy who saved our time,” she said. “Come on, we have a dead archeologist’s niece we need to talk to. Deja Lafayette.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Morning
______________
DEJA JUMPED at the exact moment the viper struck, but did it too slow and too late. The reptile’s head hit her foot with a solid force, grabbed on for a second and then released her. She had been hit, no question. What she didn’t know is whether the fangs had penetrated her shoe or not. The snake immediately curled up to strike again.
Alexandra fell directly on it and pinned half of its body under her.
The snake flailed its head wildly and then struck.
Again.
And again.
And again.
But each time it only got the backpack.
Deja picked up the closest rock she could find and brought it down on the reptile’s head with as much force as she could, disorienting it but not killing it. Then she grabbed Alexandra’s arm and pulled her off. The viper immediately headed away, twisting with disorientation, as if its eyes had been smashed.
Deja kicked dirt at it.
Alexandra didn’t move or make a sound.
She was either unconscious or dead.
DEJA TRIED TO WAKE THE WOMAN but couldn’t. Alexandra didn’t respond to shaking or shouting or face slapping. On closer examination, she wasn’t dead. Breath came from her mouth and blood pumped through her veins.
What to do?
If she left to get help, Alexandra would almost certainly get fangs sunk into her face. So instead, Deja poured water on the woman’s hair, covered her face with a hat and then gave her shade by standing over her.
Time passed.
Then more.
Then something happened.
Alexandra moaned and muscled to a sitting position.
Then she made a painful sound, fell onto her back and held her left arm with her right hand.
“Are you okay?”
“No, my arm—”
FROM WHAT THEY COULD TELL, Alexandra’s left arm was broken somewhere between the elbow and the wrist. “We need to get you to a doctor,” Deja said.
“No.”
No?
No.
“We need to keep going,” Alexandra said. “This could be our only chance.”
“Keep going? You can’t climb with that arm, are you nuts?”
“I don’t mean me, I mean you,” Alexandra said. “You need to get up there and get into that cave.”
Deja pictured it and didn’t like what she saw.
Her heart raced.
“I don’t like heights,” she said. “I already told you that.”
“You’ll be fine,” Alexandra said. “Just go slow and watch your footing.”
Deja shook her head.
“No, there’s no way—”
“You have to,” Alexandra said.
Deja kicked the dirt.
“Look,” she said, “here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go back to Luxor and get you to a doctor. Then I’ll call Yves Petit, the lawyer in my firm. He’ll either come down himself or send someone who can be trusted.”
No.
Why not?
“Because he’s up to something,” Alexandra said. “We already talked about that. The only people we can trust are each other.” She scouted the horizon. “Hurry up, before someone starts wandering around out here and spots us.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Afternoon
______________
DURAND KNOCKED ON ANTON FORNIER’S DOOR Saturday afternoon. No one answered, meaning the caveman was out driving his
taxi somewhere like he was supposed to. Good. Durand worked the lock until it clicked, stepped inside and closed the door behind him. A gray cat trotted over and brushed against his leg.
Durand picked it up.
“What’s your name?”
The cat didn’t answer but it did purr.
“Friendly little guy, aren’t you?”
He kept the cat in one arm and scouted around. The apartment was nice, way nicer than a taxi driver could afford. Anton was too obvious with his money. That would get him in trouble someday. The question right now, however, is whether the apartment held any evidence that either Anton or his even-more-caveman-like Cairo brother, Serge, killed Luc Trickett—the boxer.
The boxer’s office had been ransacked.
So Durand concentrated on Anton’s office, to see if anything belonging to the boxer was there. The boxer’s laptop would be the most obvious thing.
He found nothing.
No laptop.
No papers with the boxer’s name on them.
Nothing.
He did find a suitcase in the man’s bedroom closet, which may or may not have been the one used to haul off the boxer’s stuff.
A full-sized computer sat on a desk.
Durand fired it up, copied the files and shut it down.
Then he grabbed a banana out of a fruit bowl, stuck it in his pocket, gave the cat a pat on the head, made sure no nosy neighbors were in the hallway, and left.
No one saw him.
No one ever saw him.
He was invisible.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Day Six—July 17
Saturday Afternoon
______________
WHEN THEY STEPPED OUTSIDE the floater’s rat-in-a-closet house, the sunshine hit Teffinger’s face and went straight to his brain. Fallon walked next to him wearing that face, that body, that raw passion just behind her eyes. She tossed the mysterious Egyptian envelope into the back seat and fired up the engine.
Teffinger squeezed her leg, just above the knee, and said, “Go to the boat.”