With his eyes squeezed shut, Bruno gritted his teeth and jerked his legs to the side. For a split second, nothing happened and his heart leapt with joy. Then the searing natural gas-fed fireball enveloped his world.
Brothers Luc and Bruno Florence were vanquished.
Chapter 12
Hours before the blaze that claimed Bruno’s life, Gage drove the blue Opel eastward on A4, L’Autoroute de l’Est, as the tangerine sun began to creep up into the blackness of his rear view mirror. During a pit stop to use the restroom, Gage purchased a map, an apple and a few power bars. After walking around the auto center to stretch his cramped legs, he was back on the road as the sun blazed forth, defeating the cold of the night with the promise of the coming day. Finally, when the sun was fully up in its mid-morning position, Gage took the south exit toward the town of Château-Thierry. He stopped for a cup of coffee in the only open café after quickly surveying the small city.
He was familiar with Château-Thierry’s significance in history, primarily due to military action which had taken place there. Situated ninety kilometers east of Paris, on the Marne River, it had been ground zero for two epic battles, nearly one hundred years apart, during the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. Gage had taken time to read the placard under the bronze monument in the town square before idly making his way to the café next to the five point intersection. As he leaned over the bar, sipping a coffee laced with espresso, he beckoned the petite waitress to lean closer to him.
“Do you know Nicky Arnaud?” he whispered in English.
She reared back, staring at him as if he had just asked her the craziest question she’d ever heard. “I take that as a yes?” he asked.
The young girl glanced around, leaning in again and speaking softly in an admonishing tone. “I do not know him, but I know of him, of course.” She hustled away, taking the order of an elderly gentleman at the other end of the bar, cutting her eyes back at Gage. When she returned, Gage handed her ten euro and motioned her in again.
“And where does Monsieur Arnaud live? I have something for him.”
She wrinkled her brow and shook her head. It was obvious she was fully aware of the mobster’s reputation, fearful to even utter a word about the man.
“Don’t worry,” Gage said. “This won’t get you in trouble. I was once a close friend and he’ll be thrilled to see me.”
After glancing around again, she sighed and whispered, “The village of Sur Marne. The big, new castle over the river.” She accepted the money and scurried away.
Gage downed his coffee and walked outside, staring at the signs in the intersection. The road leading west had a typical yellow French road sign:
Essômes-sur-Marne 2 km
Gage made his way back to the Opel and took the road to Sur Marne. It was curvy, located in the foggy river valley and overshadowed by dormant Champagne vineyards on both sides. He slowed the car upon seeing Nicky’s home. The new castle, as the waitress had termed it, was impossible to miss. Made of limestone, pink and white, it was perched on a hillside in a majestic setting—majestic if it were not so garish—overlooking the Marne. He continued past, alternating his view between the road and the castle, studying it. He made a U-turn further down the road, repeating the process six times before he was satisfied to move forward with his rough plan. Upon finding a concealed place to park the Opel, between two empty buildings with real estate signs out front, Gage retrieved his bag from the trunk and made his way down the street as the sun continued to warm the chill day, signaling what would be the nicest day in weeks.
Just outside of Essômes-sur-Marne, he turned right, walking on a nature trail bounded to the right by a stand of trees. The pungent smell of pine cleared his sinuses as he spied occasional glimpse of the Arnaud castle. To his left was the rise, marked by the castle at the summit, and then the drop to the river and valley below. He stayed on the trail until he was parallel with the castle. At that point Gage walked into the thick trees, making his way up the hill. It was at the crest that he chose a tall tree, donning a lanyard from his bag and climbing with only the rifle’s scope in his pocket. When he reached a suitable vantage point, thirty feet up, Gage tested the lanyard before leaning outward like a worker on a telephone pole. Able to relax, he retrieved the scope from his pocket and trained it on the enormous residence. Initially he saw no movement. The Schmidt & Bender scope provided excellent magnification, allowing Gage to patiently survey the land and the castle from his anonymous vantage point.
After he had marked the position of two security cameras, Gage witnessed a man step out onto the expansive patio. As he eyed the individual, a portly man who lit a cigarette, he watched as another man exited the house and nodded as the smoker talked and pointed. The second man then walked to one of the cars, a Bentley, where he began to unload boxes from the trunk while the other man smoked and watched.
Gage refocused on the smoker, wondering if it might be Nicky. He’d seen pictures of Arnaud on the Internet, but at this distance it was too hard to discern facial features.
In order to get it over with, he considered climbing down, assembling the rifle, resuming his perch and getting off two shots. He judged the range to be eight hundred meters: a milk run for Kenny Mars’s prized Walther WA2000 sniper rifle. As he lifted the scope back to his eyes, Gage considered the man who had finished unloading the car, carrying the stacked boxes onto the patio. After what appeared to be a brief conversation, Gage witnessed the smoker clap the man on the back. Minutes later, the man who’d done the work emerged from the far side of the house, pedaling an old-fashioned bicycle down the driveway. He turned left on the main road and disappeared.
Gage slowly lowered the scope. A servant? Is the other man Nicky Arnaud? He shook his head. Something didn’t seem right. When Nicky eventually heard about brothers Luc and Bruno Florence (if he hadn’t already), Gage knew his guard would go up. Even still, he decided to be patient in his approach. Something about the man on the patio didn’t seem in character with the Nicky Arnaud Gage had read about.
After climbing down, he wolfed down a power bar and drank two bottles of water. Next, he donned the olive and black fatigues from his bag and smeared camouflage paint on his face. Nightfall wouldn’t be for six more hours, and he could not chance the shine of his skin alerting a day hiker or a roving sentry.
***
Marcel was on his third cigarette. He glanced at his watch, shaking his head. Nicky was always so damned slow, as if he were the only man in the world. It was cool outside, but fortunately not nearly as cold as it had been recently. He looked at the high clouds, squinting as he surveyed the broken sky. There was to be a day of warmth before a coming rain, and behind that more Siberian winds for central Europe. Marcel and Nicky were due to drive to Paris later in the day. He dreaded refereeing the meeting between Nicky and Horatio Gaufois from the famed Corse. The two “cooperating” bosses loathed one another and the threat of bloodshed always hovered just below the surface. Marcel checked his phone, silently praying for a cancellation. There were no messages.
Today was going to be a long day.
Not knowing what the holdup was with Nicky, he walked back inside and retrieved the diary.
It had taken Marcel a great deal longer than Gage to recognize Greta’s “lover” as Adolf Hitler. Typically unmoved by titles and magnitude, Marcel was far more taken by her tragic and human plight. Without Nicky’s even knowing of the diary’s possession, Marcel had been devouring the pages at a torrid pace. Sitting on the privacy of the toilet, with his pants still on, he resumed his reading…
Liora is now six weeks old and such a sweet child. Her eyes are large and expressive and I’m confident she now recognizes me due to her smiles. I’ve learned some of her early fussiness was from a condition known as colic. Some of the mothers on our street advised me of changes to what I eat and the situation resolved itself in only a few days. Since then she has been sleeping for over six hours at a time. Liora and I share a room on the second fl
oor. Typically I retire at ten, feeding her around four, and then we both sleep until eight. I haven’t felt so rested in ten years and have wonderful Heinrich to thank for it. He is selfless despite all of the unwarranted challenges he has faced with his grocery business.
Now for the biggest news, diary! Heinrich, sweet man he is, has asked me to be his wife! While this is momentous news for me I feel so very deceitful for not telling him the truth about Liora’s father. I’ve prayed about this, struggled over it and, in the end, I feel justified (for now) in keeping this horrible truth to myself. My holding this in is not out of selfishness, it’s out of love for my child. She now has the chance to have a true father to love and raise her. While I might someday tell Heinrich how she was conceived, I can never tell Liora. It would be too much for a person to bear, even in adulthood.
I’m staying up later than normal to write this entry. Heinrich’s proposal has made me so happy I’m not sure if I will sleep at all. But I also feel quite foolish! Again, my consternation has been made better by my wonderful Heinrich. He proposed to me today, sitting in the parlor, during Liora’s afternoon nap. Once we had talked everything through, not knowing what else to do, I attempted to engage Heinrich by offering to join him in his bed. While I could tell he was taken by my suggestion, he politely declined, telling me we should wait until our ceremony has occurred. Of course I felt terribly foolish afterward, angry with myself and more angry with twisted Aldo for conditioning me in such a lurid way. Heinrich must have sensed my anxiety, kissing me passionately and reassuring me that he felt honored by my proposition and didn’t think badly of me because of it.
Diary, after so many awful years, I have found the perfect man!
Thunderous booms snapped Marcel from his engrossed reading.
“Are you in there?” Nicky yelled, pounding on the door.
Marcel bit his lip in a struggle not to shout something back. Instead he flushed the toilet and ran the faucet while he concealed the diary in a cabinet. He emerged wearing an irritated countenance.
“I walked all over looking for you,” Nicky admonished, wearing flamboyant shooting gear and his silly amber shooting-glasses.
“Sorry to put you out.”
“Is it set up?”
“It’s been set up for hours,” Marcel answered.
Nicky whistled and Napoleon the Doberman appeared from his slumber in the reading room, immediately sidling up to Marcel by the door. Nicky frowned at the dog, snapping his finger and pointing to the floor next to his feet. Napoleon grudgingly moved beside him, head down in what looked akin to human dread.
“You pamper him,” Nicky said. “That’s why he comes to you.”
Marcel chose not to reply, exiting the mansion and crossing the pea gravel driveway to the main yard that overlooked the cliff, the Marne, and the flood plain that stretched out before them.
***
Back in his perch, Gage held his breath as he watched the two figures walk across the porch and the turnout. Both men were short, but the one following was smaller, his mouth moving as he gestured all around the area. Between the two men was a large black and tawny dog: a Doberman.
They stopped on a stone in the center of the yard and, as Gage allowed the scope to move about, he could see the semicircle of stones, and then on both sides of the semi-circle, covered in camouflage netting, the throws. A built-in skeet field. Interesting.
Even though he wasn’t yet ready to proceed, Gage slid back down the tree, making certain he could see the group from the ground. He situated his body comfortably in the high weeds, the log he had found earlier positioned perfectly as a pivot and resting point for the rifle. Leaning to his right, he removed the Walther’s pieces from the bag, assembling it and affixing the scope. He eased forward, positioning his elbow on the stones he had laid in place earlier. In a habit taught many years ago, Gage used his right hand to tug gently on the bolt. With his right eye, he peered downward to witness that the Swiss 7.5x55mm round was seated correctly in the chamber.
“Get comfortable,” Gage whispered to himself. He nestled into the spot, making sure to rest his index finger outside of the trigger guard. After a few deep breaths, Gage put his eye back to the scope and watched as the tubby man readied his shotgun to fire.
***
“I don’t want this one,” Nicky said flatly.
“Well exactly which one do you want?” Marcel retorted, his impatience showing through.
“Go get me the Beretta.”
Without a word, Marcel walked back to the house, cursing loudly once inside. He went upstairs, fumbling with the complicated dual locks. After several minutes, he retrieved the gun and left the gun case open in case Nicky wanted another one. He padded down the stairs and out the door. Nicky was standing with his hands on his hips, his face crimson. “What was the hold-up?”
Marcel let out an exasperated breath. “The locks on that new case are a pain in the ass. Anything else I can do for you today, master?”
“Don’t be a smartass.” Nicky broke the shotgun, jerked two shells from his jacket, rammed them in then clicked the barrels shut. For a time he stood there, eyes fixated on Marcel. Finally he turned to the field. “Need to warm up a bit.”
Marcel walked to the side, retrieving the remote-control device, standing almost directly behind Nicky. “Ready.”
Nicky assumed a firing stance. “Pull!”
The reports from the shotgun reverberated through the trees, sending a flock of catbirds scattering into the sky. The first clay pigeon flew unmolested to a resting spot on the side of the hill. The second pigeon had just completed the zenith of its arc, bouncing slightly as the second shot missed it by scant inches, barely interrupting the cushion of airflow as it rushed by the orange object.
“Merde!” screamed Nicky. He flicked the lever, breaking the shotgun and allowing the two hot shells to clatter to the ground. After staring at the shotgun for a moment, Nicky turned and hefted the weapon in Marcel’s line of sight. “Had you seen this one before?”
“Only in the rack,” Marcel answered, attempting to sound interested but failing.
“You don’t like it?”
The shotgun was the color of polished copper, the image of a nude woman—curiously similar to the Mona Lisa—painstakingly scrimshawed into the stock. Marcel offered a smile that was more of a grimace. “It’s breathtaking.”
“It was a gift from our previous opium importer, that Angolan…or whatever the hell he was, Jaki-Jaki, back when we used to do that business together in the south.”
Marcel’s eyes wandered as he remembered how that relationship ended. “Is that the shotgun that…?” he asked, his voice trailing away.
Nicky’s mouth creased into his most devilish grin. “I blew his big black cock off with it. He laid there and bled to death like the man-loving pig he was.” Nicky spun back to the center of the valley view, raising the shotgun again. “That’s what happens to people who try to take my money. Before today, it was the only time I fired it. Pull!” Nicky nailed the first one, flying low and fast. He missed the second one badly, cursing again. As he reloaded, he once again turned to Marcel.
“So, the American: it has been nearly two weeks. You and that bird-nosed intelligence imbecile still cannot find him?”
Marcel closed his eyes. He had hoped Nicky was going to let it go. Jean’s warnings about the American’s disappearance must not have been good enough for him and, after their German sources had also come up snake-eyes, there was really nothing else they could do. “There has been no sign of him, anywhere,” Marcel answered. “And I actually believe Jean’s story about him being CIA. The Germans found dead-ends everywhere. You can call them yourself if you like.”
“And Jean? You checked with him again?”
“He hasn’t returned my call.”
Nicky pushed two more shells into the gun, eyeing his advisor. “Like I originally thought, that pig has probably killed the American and taken the money...or those diaries.” He looke
d away before looking back. “It was diaries, wasn’t it?”
Marcel lowered his gaze to the shotgun that was now degrees from being pointed at his own stomach. “Nicky, Jean told us that the books were likely a prop. Remember? The book dealer owed Leon, and Jean said the American would have used a prop only to get to Leon.”
“A prop? A prop? What is this, M-G-fucking-M? Of course he said that! Jean Jenois is a conniving, thieving, whoring piece of bourgeois garbage. Find him.” He spun. “Pull!” Both orange clays were blown to fragments in two seconds’ time.
“Now I’m getting dialed in.”
Marcel stepped into his vision. “Nicky, thanks to a lucky break in locating Pierre Ramzy, we now have thirty million more euro than we had a month ago. Why on earth would you concern yourself with this piss-ant American and some silly story about valuable diaries?”
“The stuff with Pierre was business. Pure business.” Nicky placed the shotgun into the leaning stake and stepped off the platform, sipping from a tall gin and tonic he had brought with him. He was clean-shaven and looked remarkably pulled together. After a few long breaths of the pleasant afternoon air, he finished off his drink and gestured to Marcel, his voice low and gravelly.
“You would wish I drop this business with the American?” He crunched ice and placed the glass back onto the stand. “This Hartline man, he’s a real piece of shit. He killed Leon…and to you Leon might just be my cousin…but to me he was a brother.”
“I see,” Marcel said, not seeing at all.
“When I was a boy and fell down, Leon was there. When I nailed my first piece of ass, he was in the metro tunnel with me, keeping watch. But it was the times he saved me, Marcel, that meant the most to me.” He paused. “It will be my great honor to kill in his name.”
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