by Vince Flynn
“I don’t believe it.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you.” Rapp was starting to get frustrated. “You can go home any time you’d like, Greta. I’m not going to sit here and debate every move with you.”
“You don’t want me here?”
“I didn’t say that. Don’t put words in my mouth. I wanted to see you and I want your help, but this isn’t a debate club. I’m actually good at what I do, despite what happened the other night.” Rapp had explained all of it to her, the bodyguards who weren’t bodyguards, what Tarek had done for a living before he became oil minister, and his opinion that it had all been an elaborate trap.
“I think the fact that you are still alive is proof that you are good at your job.”
“Thank you, now will you stop questioning me and go buy the wig?”
She nodded and then wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest. She squeezed tight but didn’t speak.
Rapp kissed the top of her head and then said, “I’ll meet you back at the hotel in a few hours.”
Greta nodded. “Can’t we just meet back here instead of the hotel?”
“There you go questioning me again. I told you I don’t know how long this will take. It’s better if we meet at the hotel.” Her expression told him she was nervous. “Don’t worry, honey, nothing is going to happen to me.”
Greta got up on her toes and kissed him on the lips. “I love you.”
Rapp took a deep breath and said, “I love you, too. Now go get your wig.” He spun her around and sent her on her way with a playful pat on her backside. Every ten feet or so she looked over her shoulder to see if Rapp was still there. He held his ground, knowing there was a good chance she would try to follow him. When she was two blocks away, Rapp made his move. He started toward the river and then doubled back. The Quai de Montebello was crowded with tourists and Parisians alike. The looming Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame sat on its island in the middle of the river.
Tourists on this side of the waterway were blocking traffic as they snapped photos of the famous church. Rapp kept his chin down, and like the other Parisians on the sidewalk, he darted in and around the tourists without breaking stride. He had a destination in mind. A place he had passed many times. A place where he’d seen the hopped-up, jumpy amble of users who were desperate for a little something to take the edge off their comedown or a more powerful fix that could launch them back into nirvana. Rapp took a right on the Rue du Petit Pont. Two blocks later, he was standing in front of St. Severin’s Catholic church. That was another thing about Paris. Unlike Berlin or London, the odds were overwhelming that almost every church you encountered would be Catholic. They were like the Italians and the Spaniards that way. The Protestant Reformation had never really taken root along the southern edge of Europe.
Very few people were taking photos of the church. St. Severin’s was rich in history, and was a perfect example of Gothic architecture, but it simply couldn’t compete with the grand scale of Notre Dame a short distance to the north. Rapp spotted three beggars. They were perfectly spaced, one directly in front of the church, and one on each corner. There was a chance they were working together but probably not. The more important thing was that all three had drug habits, as was evidenced by their dark, shallow eye sockets and fidgety behavior. Rapp chose one of the cafés across the street and picked a small sidewalk table with a good vantage point. When the waitress arrived, he ordered a coffee and sandwich in perfect French. When she returned with the coffee, he asked if there were any extra papers lying around, and a moment later she returned with three.
Rapp pretended to read the newspapers while he studied the various faces at the nearby cafés and tried to ignore the nagging pain in his left shoulder. By the time his sandwich arrived, he had two good candidates. One of the beggars in front of the church had scrounged up enough cash to make a purchase, and he made a beeline for Rapp’s café and a young man sitting just four tables away. He located a second pusher across the street at another café when the second beggar had reached his quota. For the next hour, Rapp took his time and studied the men and women who stopped by to visit the dealers. The practiced maneuvers of quiet hands exchanging things under the table while the free hands gestured wildly to distract anyone from noticing the illicit trade—it was all part of the drug culture. The pusher across the street was too short and fat to work for Rapp’s purposes, but the one nearby had the general look. Rapp watched a few more transactions take place, left some cash on the table, and picked up his coffee. He approached the man with a smile on his face and gestured toward the open chair.
The man was six feet tall with jet-black hair and a two-day-old growth of black stubble on his face. He was wearing sunglasses, a dark green canvas jacket, jeans, and a pair of brown boots. He motioned for Rapp to take a seat.
Rapp sat and placed his coffee on the table. “Do you speak English?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” the man said easily.
“Good.” Rapp exhaled nervously and looked around.
The man smiled. He could always charge foreigners a premium. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I hope so.” Rapp rubbed his palms on his jeans, continuing to fake nervousness.
The man began to mumble off a short list of drugs and prices.
Rapp shook his head emphatically. “I’m not a druggie.”
This brought a smile to the man’s face. Denial was all part of the trade. “Of course not. What can I do for you?”
“I have a proposal. A job that could earn you a lot of money.”
“And what would this job involve?”
“It involves me giving you the key to an apartment and the combination to a safe.”
The man took a drag from his cigarette and smiled. “What’s in the safe?”
“Some cash.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
The Frenchman tilted his head from side to side. “A lot is a relative thing. What might be a lot to you, might not be so much to me.”
“At least twenty thousand . . . and some jewelry that’s worth more than that.”
He stabbed out his cigarette. “Why me?”
Rapp blinked his eyes nervously and said, “Because I’m an American and I don’t fucking know anyone in Paris. At least not anyone who’d be willing to walk into this bitch’s apartment and take what’s mine.”
“This money is yours?” he asked skeptically.
“Yeah . . . I earned it. We had an arrangement. She was supposed to pay me, but now she’s fucking screwing me.”
“What kind of deal?”
“That’s not important.” Rapp looked over each shoulder as if she’d walk up on them at any moment. “The bitch treats me like a slave. She’s got my passport in the safe, and my money, and she won’t give it to me.”
“So why don’t you just open it yourself and take what’s yours?”
“She doesn’t know that I know the combination and . . .” Rapp let his voice trail off as if he was too embarrassed to continue.
“And what?”
“She’s friends with my parents. Good friends. If they found out I’ve been sleeping with her they would shit.”
The Frenchman lit another cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Let’s back up for a second. Why me? How did you find me?”
“I’m not a druggie,” Rapp said defensively. “I mean, I’m not hooked. I use them from time to time, but I’m not strung out. I have some friends at the university. Everybody knows this is a place where you can get hooked up. You and the fat guy across the street.” Rapp jerked his head in the man’s direction.
The Frenchman smiled broadly, revealing a pair of sharp canine teeth. “So why do you think I would want to help you steal from this woman?”
“You sell drugs. You already break the law and what you do day in and day out is a lot riskier than this. Here’s the deal,” Rapp said, pressing his case. “This bitch is rich. She isn’t go
ing to miss any of this. We’re supposed to go to an art gallery exhibit tonight. We’ll be gone for at least two hours. I can give you the key, the security code, and the code for the safe. I don’t give a fuck what you take. I just want my cash and my passport.”
“You say there’s a lot of jewelry.”
“Yeah.”
“Jewelry is not easy to get rid of.”
“When I say jewelry I mean diamonds . . . little packets of them.” Rapp held his hands together. “I don’t know how much they’re worth, but it’s got to be a lot.”
The man nodded while he thought it over. “If I decide to do this I will take half the cash and all the jewels.”
“Shit!” Rapp came half out of his chair. “Why does everyone want to fuck me?”
“I don’t want to fuck you, I just want it to be worth my while.”
Rapp took a couple of deep breaths and settled down. “Fifty-fifty . . . that’s the only way I’ll do it. You want half the cash then I get half the diamonds.”
“I don’t think so. I am taking all the risk.”
“If I don’t bring this to you, you get nothing. Now you get half of a lot, and all you have to do is walk in there while we’re at the gallery tonight.”
“And how do I know you’re not setting me up?”
Rapp shook his head as if the idea was preposterous. “What . . . you think I work for the fucking police? They hire Americans now? If they wanted to bust you they’d roll up on you right now. I just want my money and my passport and some of those diamonds.”
The man was quiet for a long moment as he looked off into the distance. “How do you know you can trust me?”
“Easy . . . everybody around here knows who you are. If you don’t meet me tomorrow with my stuff, I’ll turn you over to the cops. They’ll know where to find you.”
“Then you will be implicated.”
“I’ll play the dumb American and tell them you got me high and I blacked out. I woke up and my wallet was gone. I had the key and codes written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.” Rapp stopped and waved his hands. “But listen, we don’t need to go down that road. There’s more than enough for us to split. No need to get greedy. You do it tonight, we meet up two days from now right here, and we’re both happy men.”
Luke Auclair was more than intrigued. He’d been studying business on and off at the Collège de France for five years. His grades were less than spectacular and he’d taken to selling narcotics to pay his burdensome bills. Why he never looked for an honest job was a question Auclair avoided asking himself. The truth was he was lazy, always had been lazy, and would likely be lazy until his dying day. If there were a way to avoid work, he would find it. This American was desperate. That much was obvious. He tried to calculate the worst-case scenario. Getting caught in the apartment, but then again he would have a key. He could claim the American invited him. After that, it was cash and diamonds. It sounded like maybe a lot of diamonds. His take could easily be over twenty thousand for a few hours of risk. He liked that kind of return. Auclair began to nod. “All right . . . but if I get there tonight and I don’t think it looks right, I will walk.”
“Fair enough.”
“What should I call you?”
“Frank . . . Frank Harris.” Rapp figured the guy would see the name on the passport, so he might as well tell him the truth. Rapp doubted this guy would even make it through the front door. If they stopped him and were nice, it would be a good indication that he could trust Kennedy and possibly Hurley. If they grabbed him, threw a bag over his head, and stuffed him in a trunk, he’d know he had bigger problems. “What should I call you?”
“You may call me Luke.”
“Good.” Rapp slid a piece of paper across the table. It had the name and address of a café written in black ink. “You know this place?”
Luke nodded.
“Good, I’ll meet you there tonight at seven. It’s only a few blocks from the apartment. I’ll give you the key, the codes, and tell you where the safe is.”
Auclair nodded. “And, again, if I think things don’t look right I will walk.”
“Got it.” Rapp stuck out his hand and they both shook. Standing, he said, “I’ll see you tonight.”
CHAPTER 21
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
THOMAS Stansfield was sitting behind his desk wearing khaki slacks and a blue oxford shirt. It was his Sunday uniform. He’d been to church with his wife and several of his children and grandchildren and was looking forward to heading back to the house on the Potomac for a nice egg bake and some time with his grandkids: Molly, Bert, and little Thomas. Molly was four, and in Stansfield’s biased opinion, she already showed great potential. She was in fact the only person in the entire family who dared boss him around, which provided great entertainment for Stansfield’s grown children. Stansfield himself was highly amused at the confidence displayed by this three-foot-tall towhead. Her little brother Bert didn’t do much other than run around the house and run into things, and little Thomas was, well, little. He was only three months old and Stansfield didn’t have much interest in them until they could verbalize their demands. His wife liked the infants, so they divided and conquered, and it was great fun.
His own kids were shocked by how hands-on he was, since he had been absent for much of their childhood. It had been a different time, of course. Dads were nowhere near as involved in the lives of their children as they were now. There had been some interesting debates about this at the family dinner table of late, and Stansfield for the most part let his kids voice their opinions and take their shots at him. They knew where he worked. Beyond that, they were smart enough to fill in the blanks and extrapolate. They’d been raised in multiple countries and again it was no secret who Dad worked for, but he never talked about it. It was a steadfast rule that he had not broken once during his entire career.
Stansfield was the kind of father who showed his disapproval by a few carefully selected words, and maybe a disappointed look. He never raised his voice, and after they reached the age of five or so, he never laid a hand on them. The truth was his wife had done an amazing job. It also didn’t hurt that the genetics on the brain side were stacked in the favor of the kids. They’d all graduated from college, and three of the kids had postgraduate degrees. Not a single one of them had a drug or alcohol problem, and there had been just one divorce. All in all not so bad, and Stansfield liked to quietly remind them of this when they spouted off about the fact that he spent more time with his grandkids than he had with them. They had all turned out just fine in spite of him. He also liked to point out that the verdict on what type of parents they were was still out. Stansfield had a bad feeling that all of this hands-on parenting was going to come back and bite the next generation in the ass, but that was their problem and not his. His job, as he saw it, was to enjoy his grandchildren and spoil them rotten.
He looked at his gold Timex watch and noted the time. Kennedy was late, which was not normal, even more so because she was the person who had requested this emergency meeting. When Stansfield had walked out of church, he could tell by the look on his bodyguard’s face that something had come up. He told his wife and the kids to head back to the house and that he would be back as soon as possible. He was used to these interruptions, and it normally wouldn’t have bothered him, but he was hungry and looking forward to some downtime. He looked out the window at the tops of the colorful trees. It was a beautiful fall afternoon and Molly would be anxious to explore the woods with their lush bed of vibrant leaves. He was about to call Kennedy when there was a knock on the door.
As was his habit, he closed the file on his desk and concealed the secure cable that had been sent by his station chief in Thailand only an hour earlier. “Enter,” he half yelled due to the soundproofing of the room. The door opened and Stansfield was surprised to see the number-two man at Langley. Paul Cooke was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Paul, I wasn’t expecting you. Come in.” Stansf
ield stood and motioned to the couch and chairs near the window.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Cooke said as he closed the door behind him. He was also wearing a blue Oxford shirt and a pair of khakis as well as a blue sport coat. “How have you been?”
Even though their offices were only a few doors down from each other, the two men did not talk much. Stansfield was not a chatty person, and his job required him to be guarded in all conversations. As the man who ran America’s operatives and spies, he trusted very few people. The previous director had had great faith in Stansfield and left him to make his own decisions for the most part, and when he did get involved, he never consulted his deputy director. Cooke’s job was to oversee the day-to-day operations of Langley and its ten-thousand plus employees. Stansfield took care of his small but important fiefdom, and Marvin Land, the deputy director of Intelligence, had a similar arrangement. The place was now in a sort of limbo, with Stansfield and Land running their own crucial departments until the next director was appointed and confirmed. So far, Cooke had let that old arrangement stand.
Stansfield said, “Just fine.”
“I thought you had a standing rule to stay out of here on Sundays?” Cooke asked.
Stansfield offered him a small smile. “You know how it is . . . just because it’s Sunday doesn’t mean our enemies take the day off.”
“Very true,” Cooke said as he sat in one of the gray armchairs.
Stansfield leaned back into the couch. “What can I help you with?”
Cooke clasped his hands in front of his chin and seemed to consider where he should start. After another moment and a sharp inhalation, he said, “This thing in Paris . . . it’s causing quite a stir.”
Stansfield nodded. He wasn’t a big talker and wasn’t about to expand on the obvious.
Several long moments passed before Cooke continued, saying, “I had a strange meeting yesterday.” He looked out the window as if he was unsure of how to proceed.