Zero Dark Chocolate (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 5)

by Linsey Lanier

  Miranda thought about how stubborn her friend could be. There was little assurance she could offer to help persuade her to go along with the plan.

  The whole fiasco of the night began to weigh on her. The abandoned building. The light in the window. The explosion that had killed an agent and badly wounded another.

  “We were duped tonight,” she said.

  “It was a set up. They guessed we were coming.”

  “Yanick must have found out we were working with French Intelligence. He was one of them once, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared up at the ceiling. They hadn’t known what they were up against when they started. If they had, maybe they would have been more careful. But would even that have helped? Maybe they were doomed from the start.

  She reached for his cheek. He looked so very tired. “We don’t have much of a chance, do we?”

  He took a moment to reply. “Statistics of abducted survivors vary. Many factors play a part in the ratings. Circumstances. The motive of the kidnappers. Their skill, intelligence.”

  He was evading the inevitable.

  “It’s more than the money in this case,” she said. “Yanick has a grudge against his old employer. He wants to get even. He wants to prove a point.”

  “That appears so.”

  Shuddering, she closed her eyes and let out a half moan, the sense of loss overwhelming her. “We’re not going to see Becker again, are we?”

  It took a long moment for him to answer. And when he did, the pain etched into the lines of his handsome face broke her heart in two. “No, I don’t think so.”

  They’d lost.

  They’d tried their damndest and they’d lost one of the best friends she’d ever had. Fanuzzi would never be the same.

  In the dark, she felt Parker reach out for her. She pulled him to her, needing his warmth.

  His strong, gentle hands skimmed over her face, her shoulders, her breasts, searching for the same solace. His lips sought hers and she met him in a desperate kiss filled with need for much more than physical contact. She arched against his mouth, waves of emotion engulfing her.

  Fear and despair. Pain and longing. Her eyes filled with tears. She felt Parker’s tears drop over her face and trickle down, blending with hers. They mourned their loss by losing themselves in each other.

  And then without a word he slipped between her legs and inside her, filling her with himself. And with more. With life. With courage to hope. Even in the midst of hopelessness.

  No matter what there was still love. Their love. Fanuzzi’s love for Becker. The love of deep, lasting friendship she’d never understood until now.

  And when they came together, she clutched Parker’s body, letting herself cling to a spark of hope. A tiny ember that still burned deep within her.

  No matter what tomorrow brought, she would do her best to find their friend.

  Dead or alive.

  Chapter Forty

  Dave felt a bump. Then another bump.

  His head hurt like a mother, worse than after that all night party last New Year’s Eve. He realized his eyes were shut. He opened them—and saw only blackness. There was something over his head. He tried to move but he couldn’t. His heart raced with panic.

  Where the heck was he?

  Bump. Bump. Bump. Ouch.

  His temples throbbed. His finger throbbed. His finger. Now he remembered what they’d done to him. He’d lost the end of his pinky.

  When the big man’s cleaver had come down, his first thought had been, How am I going to text? And then came the pain.

  Unspeakable, unbearable pain.

  He’d screamed at the top of his lungs. Over and over until the skinny man had shoved something into his mouth. He must have been fighting to stay conscious then. The woman had taken a hot pan and seared the stub, then wrapped it in gauge. He had tried to stop her. He hadn’t realized she was trying to help until the room began to spin and he’d passed out.

  But they weren’t in that room anymore.

  Wherever they were it smelled different. Not stuffy and closed in like those rooms. He could hear water dripping somewhere.

  He felt a hand groping under his back. He wanted to jolt up in reaction but he was so groggy. Someone lifted him up. Soft grunts reverberated in his head. Then swearing in French.

  His body was pushed up, pulled down, as if he were being stuffed through a hole. They’d drugged him again. Had to be. Maybe he was still lying in that ratty bed in the lonely room. Not that that would be much comfort.

  He felt someone set him down on a hard, rocky surface.

  “What now?” he heard a voice say.

  “One moment.”

  There was a long pause while hands pulled at his chest. Then whatever had been covering his face was pulled off.

  “He won’t be needing this,” someone said.

  Dave blinked and looked around. He was lying on the ground in some cave like place.

  He saw the thin man and the big man with the green tattoos standing over him. They had lanterns and in the light he could make out something like grins on their faces. He turned his head and saw another dark bundle lying along the wall.

  It was the woman.

  What are you doing? Where are we? he wanted to ask. But his brain wouldn’t work. His mouth refused to move.

  He turned his head the other way and came face to face with a skull. A skull embedded into the cave wall. And all around it were dozens more. He knew where he was.

  The Catacombs.

  The network of underground caves under Paris that long ago was used to bury the dead. Part of it was a tourist attraction. He’d wanted to take Joanie. She’d refused. But other parts of it were forbidden, dangerous. Though young folk and students sometimes broke into them to explore or party. Some people got lost in there and never came out.

  Joanie. Would he ever see her again?

  The two men were talking to each other in French again. The skinny one bent down. Dave tried to crawl away but he was bound head and foot and his muscles weren’t working right.

  He felt a sting in his neck. Just like the one on the Champs Elysees when the skinny man asked for directions.

  His vision began to blur.

  The two men picked up the lantern and turned to go.

  No! You can’t leave us here! Again, his mouth didn’t work. And the vision of the two figures moving away grew blurry.

  He struggled to stay awake, to fight whatever drug they had given him but his eyelids were drooping and he felt as if he’d drunk two kegs of beer.

  But before his eyes closed completely, he looked down at himself. Around his chest was the vest of a suicide bomber.

  His question. Would he ever see Joanie and the kids again? The answer was clear now.

  The answer was no.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The Paris sun was bright and cheery as Miranda and Parker headed north in Haubert’s metallic gray Citroen with Fanuzzi wedged between them in the back seat.

  They made their way through the friendly tree-lined streets, past the pretty iron filigree balconies, the stately buildings with their symmetrical limestone and flowery scrolls over arched doors and windows. And across the deep green Seine.

  A lovely place for a ransom exchange.

  Haubert had arrived at the hotel just before eight with another driver to replace the wounded Nadeau. His name was Fayette. A good-looking dude with shaggy brown hair over his ears and a New York Yankees shirt he proudly displayed to them.

  “I love American baseball,” he explained.

  Miranda recognized him from the briefing. He was the one who said he’d trained under Yanick.

  But there had been little time for chitchat. It had taken every minute of their prep time to talk Fanuzzi into doing things their way.

  She had on a sleeveless red cotton blouse, jeans and running shoes she hadn’t wanted to wear because Parisians thought them unstylish. But when Miranda had pointed out s
he might need to run, she changed her mind. Her frosted hair was wrapped in a blue bandana—she’d thought wearing the tri-colors of the French flag would be appropriate.

  Miranda and Parker were dressed down as well, wearing casual clothes in muted grays. Miranda had on sunglasses and had stuffed her thick wiry hair into a ball cap Fanuzzi had loaned her. Haubert was almost unrecognizable in a checkered shirt over a Tee and jeans, but then that was the idea. They all hoped to blend seamlessly into the scenery.

  The Citroen rolled through a six-corner intersection and the pedestrians on the sidewalks grew dense. They made their way up another quaint street and finally reached the Champs Elysees where police in yellow jackets were directing traffic, about to block off the parade route.

  Locals and tourists dressed in summer garb crowded the streets, lining up on either side of the wide avenue with cell phones and cameras in hand to catch a glimpse of the parade.

  There would be fireworks that evening, Parker had told her, and a magnificent light show at the Eiffel Tower. But Miranda didn’t think any of them were going to feel like celebrating.

  Haubert turned onto the main avenue, went up a block then turned into a side street. He pulled over to the curb behind a silver blue Fiat. A vehicle holding more members of his team.

  Fanuzzi began to fidget at the wires under her blouse. “Are you sure this is the right way to go?”

  Haubert turned around, a comforting expression on his face, though his sharp red beard and glasses made him look like a scolding schoolteacher.

  “Relax, Madame Becker,” he told her. “You have some of the best professionals in the world with you.”

  But even the best couldn’t guarantee success and Fanuzzi was sharp enough to know that. She was also sharp enough to know she was outnumbered. “Okay. You win.”

  She glanced at her watch, stared out the window again.

  They had a few minutes.

  Two men and a blond woman got out of the car in front of them. They were dressed in casual T-shirts and jeans and looked like tourists but Miranda recognized the woman from Haubert’s office as they headed up the street.

  Haubert held out his cell phone to Fanuzzi and pointed to the display on it. A map of their current location.

  He pointed out the back window. “When the bus stops at that corner, you will get out and walk here.” He indicated the corner they’d just turned.

  “Walk down here where the officers are setting up.”

  Fanuzzi nodded.

  “Then turn right at the green kiosk, follow the curve of the street around to here. Turn here. That is where the bench will be.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I have men stationed here and here.” He pointed to spots across and down the street.

  Those were the agents who would make the arrest. Haubert wanted to keep everything above board. No loopholes to slip through. Miranda was up with that a hundred percent.

  “Got it,” Fanuzzi said, sounding annoyed.

  They’d been over the route a dozen times back in the hotel room and she wasn’t stupid, but you could never be too careful with an operation like this.

  Miranda turned to her. “You can do this, Fanuzzi. You are one tough cookie.”

  She gave her a sad smile and a quick hug. “Thanks.”

  Then the bus pulled up behind them screeching to a noisy halt the way city buses do.

  Parker jumped out and hurried to the back of the car. Casting furtive glances over his shoulder, he opened the trunk and pulled out Fanuzzi’s rolling suitcase. It was a blue-and-white flowery thing that shouted “tourist,” but it was the best they could do.

  This morning they’d had a heated debate over whether to put a tracker on it, but in the end decided Yanick was too likely to find it.

  Out the back window Miranda watched Parker put the handle in Fanuzzi’s fingers and give her a hug for luck. Then he strolled around to the driver side window and pretended to chat leisurely with Haubert while Fanuzzi headed for the corner.

  She made the first turn just as the bus was pulling away. From most angles, she looked like she’d just gotten off.

  “Time to move,” Haubert said, and he and Miranda got out of the car and headed with Parker down the same path Fanuzzi had taken.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  It wasn’t hard to stay well behind Fanuzzi as she bobbed along with her blue bandana and flowery suitcase.

  The streets under surveillance made an odd-shaped triangular block with a curved road on one end, the point chopped on the other. A little tricky to navigate for anyone but a native Parisian. Or someone who’d rehearsed it on the map twenty times over breakfast, as she had.

  The crowd on the sidewalk ran from curb to building and people cussed at them in every language as they pushed their way through. The parade was about to start and everyone wanted to see it.

  Miranda was getting used to the reaction.

  Less than a thousand feet away the majestic arch was in view, and the parade participants were lining up and getting ready to march.

  The festivities were about to begin.

  As Fanuzzi disappeared around the second corner and moved away from the activities the band started and the company began to move.

  Haubert and Parker had filled her in on the details that morning.

  The parade was a military ensemble. Cadets from all the nearby academies would take the lead, marching along in their spiffy dress uniforms with their fancy caps and decorated batons.

  They would be followed by personnel from an array of armies. Belgium and Britain and Mali and more. Then came a mounted brigade, motorcycles, tanks. They would all proceed down the two plus kilometers of the famous avenue to the Place de la Concorde where the President and his entourage would await them.

  Then there would be a bunch of boring speeches.

  Just as Miranda turned the corner after Fanuzzi, three jets soared over the arch, spewing the colors of the French flag into the air. Drums rolled and a chorus broke out into the French National Anthem.

  On the opposite corner Miranda spotted a guard. One of Agent Valcourt’s men, she assumed, Yanick’s old boss who was in charge of security for this shindig.

  For not the first time today she thought it odd that Yanick had chosen this time and place for the exchange. It made her wonder if the bastard had something up his sleeve.

  If he tried anything funny, she’d be damned if she let him get away with it.

  No time to think about that now. Fanuzzi had just disappeared around the last corner.

  Parker hurried over to it, nonchalantly peered around it and gestured with a hand at his side for her and Haubert to come ahead.

  Miranda strolled past him around the corner and pretended to stop and window shop at a nearby display. In a laid-back move, she took off her sunglasses and hung them on the neckline of her tee-shirt, checking the pistol in the holster under her lightweight summer jacket. Pulling a compact out of her pocket for powdering her nose, she opened it, and in the mirror caught a glimpse of Fanuzzi heading for the bus stop bench about twenty feet away.

  It was a gray iron seat nestled between two city elm trees. Across the street stood a windowed Metro entrance. Miranda knew one of the agents who’d gotten out of the silver blue Fiat earlier was in there, armed and watching. Two others were at the end of the street.

  A row of sedans were parked along the designated lane on the other side of the bus stop. One of them was a charcoal Renault which held another agent.

  If he showed, Yanick would be surrounded.

  At the end of the curb near the bench sat a small billboard advertising what looked like perfume. At the opposite end of the block stood a corner café. The two agents were stationed there. She glanced up.

  The building with the window display had a security camera, just as Haubert had said it would. A third-party recording of the exchange would be the icing on this pastry.

  Miranda adjusted her earpiece and heard Fanuzzi’s suitcase rumble over the g
rating around the foot of a tree. Then the noise stopped.

  She checked her mirror again and watched her friend sit down.

  Dear God, let this go off without a hitch. Though she didn’t even know what that meant at this point.

  Slowly she moved her mirror in a circle to scan the street behind her and then her heart stopped when she caught sight of the tall frame, the dirty blond hair, the long hooked nose.

  Yanick was moving among the row of trees, heading straight for Fanuzzi.

  She hadn’t even seen where he’d come from.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The throbbing in Dave’s head reminded him of the time he’d gone to a Metallica concert in college and sat in the front row. His stomach churned so hard he wanted to vomit.

  Food poisoning? Where had they eaten last night?

  And then he opened his eyes and saw the skull in the wall two inches from his face. He started.

  “Do not move!”

  He turned his head. The woman. The black-haired one who had cooked the chicken fricassee. The one with the knives. And the cleaver.

  What was her name? Odette.

  She was sitting upright, alert. But she was bound with rope all around her dark clad frame.

  “Let me help you.” He tried to get up.

  “I told you,” she snapped. “Do not move!” She was staring at his chest with big, wild eyes.

  He looked down at himself—and remembered. The two men who had captured him had put a suicide bomber jacket on him and left them down here in the Catacombs.

  Giddily he started laughing to himself.

  “What is so funny?” the woman demanded.

  “I was just thinking. What a way to go out. Blown to bit and buried beneath the city of love.”

  She curled a lip at him. “The drugs have made you stupid.”

  “I think this whole thing has made me feel pretty stupid. Didn’t my mother always tell me not to talk to strangers?”

  He laughed again and then they both were silent for a long time, listening to the sound of water dripping somewhere as their fate pressed in on them. There was a faint glow of a light from somewhere. That was what allowed them to see a little.