by Vince Flynn
When Fournier was younger he had carried a gun. It was part of his job, and it didn’t hurt that certain women were turned on by the cold steel he wore on his hip. He had killed precisely three men during his career—all of them execution style. His bosses ordered the hits, and he carried them out without question. The men were ne’er-do-wells and reprobates. In one case, the target was a traitor who was selling state secrets; in another, it was an agent who was fomenting problems in Algeria; and the third was a Syrian woman. He was never told why she was to be killed, and she was the one of the three that sometimes visited him in his dreams. She was a stunning woman in her midforties with a perfect oval face, raven black hair, and eyes to match. It had been in a Parisian hotel. She was eating breakfast dressed in a white robe. When Fournier entered the room she gave him a knowing nod, set her coffee cup down, shook out her long black hair, and looked up at him with unblinking eyes. When Fournier drew his silenced weapon she showed no fear and instead offered him a small smile. The other two men he’d shot in the head, but for some reason he couldn’t put a bullet in the exquisite face before him, so he lowered his muzzle a few inches and placed three bullets in her left breast.
His gun-toting days were done. Fournier had access to virtually any gun he wanted, but in general, he found them to be a pain in the butt. They were bulky, and they made his suits look lopsided. Fournier spent enough on his suits that it wouldn’t do to have them look off. He was a man of style. Besides, he was no longer on the front lines. He was the one giving the kill orders now. The guns and his protection could be left to his trusted bodyguards.
Pierre Mermet brushed a wisp of thin brown hair from his forehead, opened the file on his lap, and extracted the first set of photographs. “Mossad . . . Efram Bentov is his name. He arrived this morning along with at least two others. They passed through customs separately, took different forms of transportation into town, and all miraculously ended up at the Israeli embassy.”
Fournier frowned and took the photos. “Not very smart.”
“I agree.”
“Counting yesterday, that brings the total number of suspected Mossad agents to six.”
“That we know of.”
“And the three that flew in yesterday . . . they’re still lying low at the hotel on Rivoli?” Fournier asked.
“That’s right.”
Fournier took the other photographs. “Any weapons?”
“Not that we know of, but we must assume.”
Fournier nodded.
“Do you want them picked up for questioning?”
“Not yet. I want to see what they’re up to first.”
Mermet’s mouth twisted into a pensive frown.
Fournier had seen the look many times. “You don’t like my decision?”
“The three at the hotel have no diplomatic papers. We could force the issue. If they have guns in their room or on their persons we could hold them and question them indefinitely.”
“We could do that,” Fournier said in an easy voice, “and then my counterpart Big Ben Friedman would grab some of our people in Israel and do the exact same thing and where would that get us?”
“Given what happened at the hotel the other night, I think we have more leeway than we could normally expect.”
“We do, but Ben Friedman is a bear I would prefer not to poke.”
Mermet took the rebuke well. “It’s just that we’re spread thin. We have six men following the Russians, eight following the Brits, and ten on the Americans.”
Fournier knew what Mermet was thinking. If this continued for any length of time, they would have to call in more men and ask for more money and that would mean more eyes in the government would be drawn to what they were up to. “I understand your worries. If nothing has happened by tomorrow, we’ll reassess . . . maybe even nicely ask a few of these gents to leave so we don’t have so many heads to keep an eye on.”
“And there’s undoubtedly a few we missed.”
Fournier had thought of the same thing, but he had certain information that he wasn’t willing to share. “One more day and then we will focus on the Jews, the Brits, and the Americans. Any more interesting news to share about our American friends?”
“Yes,” Mermet said, almost forgetting that he had a new face to run by his boss. “The three who showed up yesterday . . . they’re still cooped up in the van on Chaplain. Another man showed up this afternoon.” Mermet found the photo and handed it to his boss.
Fournier’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Oh, my God.”
“What is it?”
“Who . . . who is it, you mean.” He shook his head. “This is a man I have not seen in some time.” Fournier looked out the window, thinking of one of his earliest assignments in Southeast Asia. “He is very dangerous.”
“Who is he?”
“Stan Hurley. CIA, or I should say, was CIA. I had heard he’d retired a few years ago.”
“He looks a little young to retire.”
Fournier nodded. “Hurley is like a shark. They only know one thing. Men like that don’t retire . . . they just simply die one day. I should have known better.”
“I assume he was on the operations side of the business.”
“Yes.” Fournier shook his head as he thought of the time he’d watched Hurley slice a man’s ears off in Vietnam. And then there were the stories he’d heard over the years involving the Soviets. “He was very good at his job. Drove the Russians nuts, or so I’ve been told.”
“So what is he doing in our fair city?”
“That is a very good question. Did your men follow him?”
“No . . . we didn’t know who he was and thought it was better to stay with the surveillance van.”
Knowing how thin they were stretched, Fournier couldn’t chastise Mermet. “Tell our people to check the customs database. Look for the name Stan Hurley and any other aliases we may have on file. The next time he shows up, I want him followed. I want to know every move he makes.”
“I assume they should exercise a fair amount of caution.”
“That is a very astute observation, Pierre. He is a man very comfortable with violence.”
“An ally, though?”
The idea made Fournier smile. France’s relationship with the United States was fraught with complications. “Traditionally yes, but we have no way of knowing who he is working for at the moment.” The truth was Fournier trusted no one, but he knew that position would sound a bit too paranoid to a pleaser like Mermet. “We shouldn’t assume he is still beholden to the CIA. Just find him and let me know as soon as you do.” Fournier reached for the door handle, assuming the meeting was over.
“There are two more things. Your friend, the Spaniard.”
Fournier let his hand fall to his knee. He was parked in front of the Balzac because he was going in to meet Max Vega. “Yes.”
“Well . . . his friend has not left the country.”
Fournier thought of Samir the idiot. He so disliked the man that he didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “You’re certain.”
Mermet nodded. “He’s upstairs in Vega’s suite right now.”
Fournier swore to himself. These fundamentalist morons were turning out to be more trouble than they were worth.
Mermet saw the frustration on his boss’s face and offered, “I can have him forcibly deported if you’d like.”
Fournier shook his head vehemently. “We don’t need to draw any more attention to these fools than they’ve done on their own.” He might have him killed, though, if the man continued to be such an irritant. “What’s the last issue?”
“Your old friend, Commandant Neville?”
Fournier smiled as he remembered the passionate sex they’d had. “Yes.”
“She had a forensics team on the roof of the hotel all morning.”
“There is nothing for her to find. You took care of that problem.”
“I removed the rope, but there is undoubtedly some evidence that was left beh
ind.”
Fournier shrugged. He supposed the problem was unavoidable. Sooner or later, Neville was going to figure out that all the ballistics didn’t add up. The Libyans were holding up their part of the deal, but that would only work for so long. Neville would figure out that the bodyguards weren’t in fact bodyguards. The only question was what type of evidence she could collect to prove her suspicions. The entire crime scene was a mess and he and Mermet had done just enough to make her job all the more confusing. Turning to his most trusted aide, he said, “I would not worry about her. She is not going to get very far in solving this case.”
“Well, she’s looking for you, and I’ve been told she’s suddenly very interested in compiling a list of everyone who was at the crime scene the morning in question. Especially a certain sandy-brown-haired man who was with you.” Mermet was speaking about himself. “What would you like me to do?”
“Lie low. Stay away from the office. I will handle her.”
“All right.”
Fournier reached for the door again and Mermet asked, “Anything else?”
With one foot on the pavement, Fournier turned back to Mermet and said, “Yes. Find me Mr. Stan Hurley. I would very much like to have a talk with him.”
CHAPTER 20
IN general, big cities the world over shared the same basic makeup. They had centers for banking and finance, business districts, retail meccas where you could buy almost anything, museums and concert halls, above- and belowground rail systems, and roads that traveled out from the central downtown to suburbs like arteries from a heart. There were parks and neighborhoods that accommodated the super rich, the destitute, and everything in between. The affluent neighborhoods had fine restaurants, fine jewelers, art dealers, and boutique stores that carried the most expensive clothes. The poor neighborhoods had pawn shops, greasy restaurants that had to bribe health inspectors to keep their doors open, gambling shops, houses of prostitution, check-cashing hovels with bars on their windows, and of course drug dealers.
Paris was no different really, other than the fact that Parisians loved their art so much that they had more museums than most. While Rapp was confident that he could handle himself in any neighborhood, no matter how rough, he thought it was best not to complicate things. What he was looking for could be found in little pockets of almost every quarter of Paris. He could jump on the Metro and go out to one of the slums in the outer ring, but a hardened criminal would ask too many questions, and might bring a few of his cohorts along, all of which would unnecessarily complicate things. Rapp didn’t need a true thug. He just needed someone looking to make a little money. Paris was filled with lonely strung-out souls—men and women who had fallen to the addiction of heroin, or crank, or crack, or whatever else they were calling it these days.
Over the last year, Rapp had gotten to know many of the intimate details of the City of Love. Paris had been his base of operations, and other than working out and acting as if he was employed by an American software importer, he was left with time to explore and observe. In between assignments he would return to the apartment in Montparnasse and recharge by attempting to live life like a normal person, which was no easy thing when you were constantly looking over your shoulder. Rapp had been born with a great sense of awareness, but to survive in his line of work, he knew he had to take that awareness to another level. He needed to be keenly attuned to his environment at all times.
The easiest way for him to do this was to practice on his runs and stay very alert while eating most of his meals at nearby cafés. There was no better way to watch and observe people than sitting at a café with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other, or depending on the time of day, maybe a glass of wine and a cigarette. He was always on the lookout for a face that he had seen one too many times—someone new to the neighborhood who might have more than a passing interest in his comings and goings. He spent a great deal of his time working out. He ran nearly every day, his routes always varied, but as things worked in Paris he usually ended up at the river where he didn’t have to contend with traffic and stoplights.
Rapp often cut through the Latin Quarter, home to some of France’s greatest institutions of higher learning, such as the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. The narrow streets of the quarter were lined with cafés and bookstores that catered to the literary elite of France—poets, writers, theorists, and philosophers who were treated with a respect that no other city could match. These demigods of Parisian culture had certain needs that the public in general accepted. In order to tap into their genius and break their earthly bonds, many of them needed the assistance of certain hallucinogenic drugs. Rapp wasn’t interested in these people. They were too old and too wise for what he had in mind. The quarter was also populated by thousands of students, and a subset who wanted drugs for no other reason than to delay their passage into adulthood. Drugs had a powerful effect on certain people. They created dependence and were expensive. Over the years, this harsh paradox had driven countless souls to sell their bodies for sex and commit crimes as small as theft and as heinous as murder to feed their addiction. The longer the time between fixes, the more quickly logic and rational thought fell to the wayside.
Rapp was looking for just such a desperate soul as he emerged from the St. Michel Metro stop wearing a pair of black Persol sunglasses and a three-quarter-length black trench coat with the collar flipped up and his chin down.
“Why won’t you tell me your plan?” Greta asked.
It was a bright afternoon and the sidewalk was heavy with a blend of Parisians and tourists. The North Americans were easily identified by their girth, their bulky clothes, their various packs, fanny, back, or otherwise, and cameras dangling from their wrists. The Asians traveled in tight packs, were smaller, and had nicer cameras that were slung around their necks. The Russians and other Eastern Europeans added another interesting mix. The women usually wore too much makeup, their hair was bleached and dried at the ends, with dark roots, and their men wore lots of jewelry and track suits, or at least track jackets and oversized sunglasses as if they were Elvis impersonators. The Brits, Germans, and other Europeans were a little more difficult to pick out, but Rapp could still tell the difference.
He placed a hand on Greta’s waist. With her good looks and blond hair, she stood out like a beacon. “I told you I have a thing for brunettes.”
“A weird sex fetish, no doubt.”
“Something like that.”
Greta stuck out her tongue and made a sour face.
“If you’re going to make faces like that we could skip the wig and put you in a pair of pigtails.”
She smacked him in the chest with the palm of her hand and tried to pull away.
Rapp held her tight. “I already explained, if you want to come with me tonight we need to put you in a wig.”
“No one knows who I am.”
They’d already been over all of this back at the hotel. “Probably not, although Stan most certainly knows you and he’s about as alert as they come.”
“I don’t understand why you can’t just go to him. He is a good man. He will hear you out.”
“And then he will lock me up and put me through the wringer for a month.”
“The wringer?” Greta asked with a confused frown.
“He’ll take away my watch and all my clothes and put me in a very dark cold room and fuck with my mind for as long as it takes for him to make sure I’m telling the truth.”
“I don’t believe it. I’ve known him since I was a little girl.”
“There’s another side to Stan. A very dark side.” He could tell she wasn’t buying it. “Greta, you know what we do for a living.”
“You’re spies.”
More or less, Rapp thought. “And spies kill people. We deceive and we lie and we conspire to get what we need and we put on all kinds of fake fronts to make sure that nice people like you don’t see the nasty ugly man behind the mask.”
She succeeded in pushing away
this time. “You’re telling me that’s who you are?”
“No,” Rapp moaned. “I’m telling you that’s who Stan is . . . and maybe that’s who I’ll be someday, but I sure as hell don’t plan on it.”
“But you are a good liar?”
“Not like Stan Hurley, but when I’m on assignment I do what it takes to get the job done.”
“And when it comes to me?”
Rapp placed both hands on her shoulders. “If I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t have bothered to call. I would have let you go to Brussels and you would have been a nervous wreck when I didn’t show. Instead, I called you. You came to Paris and this morning I told you things that could get me killed and you still doubt me. Greta, you can’t discuss any of this with your grandfather or anyone else. I like your grandfather. I know what he did during World War II and then after when the Russians started throwing their weight around. If he found out that I had involved you in this in any way, I have no doubt he would pick up the phone, call in a favor, and I would spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Sooner or later someone would catch me snoozing and put a bullet in my head.”
“My grandfather would never do that.”
“Your grandfather is a very serious man, and he would consider it a betrayal that his granddaughter had fallen in love with someone like me. He would want to protect you and the best way to do that would be to have me eliminated.”