Clara fell silent, staring out the broken window, and Ben let her declaration stand for them both.
Not acceptable.
He would get answers. And when he had his bearings again, those responsible for Giselle’s murder would pay.
Clara wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sniffled. “Giselle was to be your lifeline. So, now what? Do we run, forever looking over our shoulders?”
“No.”
“Then tell me the plan. Where are we going?”
“Luxembourg. I need to see a man about a bullet.”
22
No agents patrolled the crossing from France to Luxembourg, and none had for decades. The Schengen Convention had abolished border checks during the EU’s first chaotic birth pangs—a blessing to all spies.
An enterprising local had turned the old vehicle inspection area at the former Longlaville checkpoint into a paid parking lot and the guardhouse into a storage shed. Ben glanced through the shed’s frosted windows as he drove past. Boxes, bicycles, and a single kayak were stacked inside, a strange mix of utter normalcy. Giselle would have created some story for the kayak or suggest they steal it and ride the river through town. Ben chuckled, but his smile quickly faded.
Clara stretched and adjusted her seat belt. “Where are we?” She had slept since Reims, where Ben had stopped to cover the broken passenger windows with a garbage bag he stole from a dumpster, secured by duct tape from his go-bag.
“This is the border.”
“Of Luxembourg?”
“Yes.”
“Can we stop for a bite to eat?”
“No.” He reached into the back seat, grabbed his backpack, and dropped it in her lap. “Egg white bars and gummy bears. Don’t forget to share with Otto.”
She ate, glowering at him and passing the occasional morsel to her dog, while Ben skirted the eastern edge of Luxembourg City. He chose the small highway along the River Syre for the turn north. Any highway made him nervous, but if he didn’t reach his goal before sunset, the man he planned to meet might kill him.
“The terrain is rising,” Clara said, leaning forward to look out the windshield. “This bullet man of yours, he lives in the mountains?”
“Snipers love a good perch.”
“So he’s a sniper.”
“A good one.”
“And you are friends?”
“I thought we were.” Ben kept his eyes on the road and the intersections ahead—any pockets where cops might be lying in wait. “Until yesterday, when he tried to blow my head off. His name’s William Sensen. He works for my people, not for Leviathan.” He shook his head, once again fighting off his own suspicions. “None of this makes any sense.”
Ben left the highway and wound his way up a narrow road barely wide enough for the Peugeot. They passed a ruin overlooking a sheer drop. Stone walls. A crumbling tower. Probably some duke’s hunting lodge from way back in the day. Americans would have fenced the place off and surrounded it with orange cones. The Luxembourgers had thrown up a hasty metal sign with one sentence in three languages—none of them English. The French line read Procédez à vos risques et périls. Proceed at your own peril. Ben nodded and let out a mirthless laugh.
A kilometer past the ruin, he took a gravel road west and continued to climb until it ended in a clearing. “We’re here.”
“Here?”
“That’s what I said.”
Clara pointed out through his side of the car. Headstones and slabs dotted a stepped hillside with the names all worn away and no fence or wall to guard them. “This is a graveyard.”
“Sensen lives farther up on the ridgeline, in an old chalet he restored. He calls it Hochsitz Wipfel, the Treetop Perch. We met there at the start of a mission once.” Ben lifted his pack from her lap and dug out his knife and two spare magazines for his Glock. He pulled out Duval’s revolver as well, laying it on the dash. “You know how to use this?”
“Does it matter? If a sniper wants me dead, he’ll kill me.”
If a sniper wants you dead, kid, he’ll kill you. Ben could see Hale’s stern face when he’d said those same words years before. How had his schoolmaster’s saying wound up on Clara’s lips? He kept his hand on the weapon. “What did you say?”
“I said he’ll kill me if he wants to. I’ll never see him, right? Isn’t that the point of a sniper?”
“An old spy I know used to say the same thing.”
“Because it’s common sense. But I’ll take the gun if it makes you feel better.” She pushed his hand away from the revolver, picking it up and waggling it at him. “These things are point-and-shoot, right?”
“Cute. Stay in the car.”
She saluted. “Whatever you say.”
Three paces from the Peugeot, Ben heard a car door slam. He glanced back to see Clara on her way around the hood, following him with Otto on a leash. His head dropped to his chest. “Maybe your English isn’t as good as I thought. What happened to staying in the car?”
“I don’t like this. Assassins move around a lot, right? How do you know he still lives here?”
“Fresh clippings.”
She gave him a quizzical look.
Ben headed for the shadow of the pines, nodding at the rows of slabs and headstones. “Who do you think trims the weeds around these graves?”
23
CHAVILLE, FRANCE
Duval watched the cottage burn, digging a finger under the bandage on his head to get at an itch. The Chaville fire department struggled to manage the blaze, fed by all that oil. He’d arrived at nine o’clock and sent the town’s municipal police force out to form roadblocks. Their chief obeyed his every command like a trained poodle. The man knew their place. But the locals wouldn’t catch their quarry. Duval didn’t want them to.
He needed to catch this one alone.
“I think the bomber is our man Calix from yesterday.” Renard returned from gathering witness statements, notebook out, white tape plastered across his face to keep his nose straight. The restriction dulled his speech. “I got a description from a caretaker at the next cottage down. He saw a man, a woman, and a dachshund near the house after the explosion—on the lake side, close to the path.”
“I suspected Calix did this the moment we received the call. He’s on a rampage. What else?”
The sergeant checked his notes. “Ehh . . . I have a physical description . . . He carried a backpack . . . approached the house . . . and . . . Ah.” He raised his pen like a flag. “A car. He drove off in a Peugeot.”
“A cream-colored Peugeot 308.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
Duval kicked the remains of a sideview mirror lying on the grass between them. “He left part of it behind.” He pulled Renard out of the way of a fireman running between the hoses and the truck. “I’m losing patience, Sergeant. Tell me something I haven’t figured out on my own.”
“How about this? The witness says the car belonged to the woman who lived here.”
“Belonged?” Past tense. “Was she home?”
“The caretaker believes so. I can find out her name from the buyer registry, connect her to Calix.”
Duval took some time to process this. Another death. Violent. A justification to shoot Calix on sight—almost. He stared into the dying flames. “I spoke to a witness as well. A jogger. She also saw Calix and the woman near the house, on the lake side, close to the path. But she saw them before the blast, not after.” He shifted his gaze to Renard. “She saw Calix using some kind of remote control.”
Duval had not met any jogger. He had not debased himself by canvassing for witnesses in years. But her imaginary statement tweaked the narrative to fit his objective.
Renard dutifully recorded every word in his notebook. “Name?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your witness. The jogger.” The sergeant held his pen poised at the ready. “I need her name.”
“She wished to remain anonymous.”
“But, Capitaine—”
Chatter interrupted them from the radio on Renard’s belt. The sergeant snapped his notebook closed and answered. After a few moments of discussion, he lowered it again. “Chaville’s lieutenant says his units are spread thin. He wants us to call in reinforcements from Le Chesnay and Versailles.”
“They’re not available.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“But we have not even checked.”
Duval picked up the damaged mirror and held it before his partner’s face. “Look what he did to you.” He shoved it closer, making sure Renard saw the dirty tape across his nose and the yellowed circles under his eyes in the shattered reflection. “That is Calix’s work, or have you forgotten?”
Renard swallowed, shaking his head. “I have not forgotten.”
“Then do you want some shoddy municipal police force to catch our man? Or do you want to be the one to bring him in?” He let the mirror fall to the grass. “You and me.”
Renard signaled his agreement by relaying Duval’s message over the radio. No reinforcements. When finished, he asked a hesitant question. “Capitaine, the jogger’s statement about Calix and the remote control is important. If the caretaker can’t confirm it, won’t we need her for the trial?”
Duval turned away again to watch the firefighters battle the blaze. “There’s not going to be any trial.”
24
A sniper’s primary defense is concealment. Stay hidden. Remain a ghost. Be the bogeyman. His second defense is distance. The shooter with the longer reach usually wins. The smart shooters choose to live in places offering plenty of both. What’s a sniper when he’s at home? In a word—deadly.
Ben left the trail and walked uphill through the tall pines, aware of every dry needle that snapped under the weight of his steps—aware each step might be his last.
À vos risques et périls.
At your own peril.
He knelt, one leg at a time, and stretched his body out to crawl the last five meters to the top of a low ridge. Slowly—ever so slowly—he pushed a couple of rocks aside to improve his view.
A canted valley ran left to right before him, descending and widening to the west to offer a commanding view of Luxembourg’s lower hills. To the east, the valley narrowed and climbed until its two ridges met in a level hilltop where a chalet stood, once an old ruin like the castle on the road below. On Ben’s last visit, Sensen had described a three-year effort to restore the chalet stone by stone, including its square tower. The Peugeot’s arrival at the graveyard had likely triggered an alarm. By now, Sensen would be lying in his tower, finger on the trigger.
With his gaze, Ben traced an imaginary line up the valley to the chalet. Four hundred meters, the most dangerous quarter mile of his life. He checked the western sky. Almost time.
Keep moving.
He slid his body over the ridge, heading about a third of the way down before turning east and crawling along the downrange side of a fallen log. Running along the ridgetop among the bare trunks of the pines, silhouetted against the sky, would have been suicide.
Splinters of rotting bark showered Ben’s neck, sending him into motion before the sound of the gunshot caught up. He rolled right, pressed up to his feet, and ran. “That didn’t take long.”
He sprinted for a bear-sized boulder, but a second shot split the rock face and steered him the other way. Ben had no choice but to dive headlong into a muddy furrow. He lay there, arms covering his head, waiting for the echoes to quiet.
When he dared to breathe again, Ben noticed an olive drab box lying in the furrow with him, not much bigger than a deck of cards. A camera box? Maybe. A mine? Not Sensen’s style. Other than a splatter of mud from Ben’s dive, the box looked unmolested by the forest. It hadn’t been there long. Inching closer, he saw cursive writing on the top, in black Magic Marker.
Open me.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Ever since his phone went haywire in Paris, Ben had been fighting the feeling he’d fallen down a rabbit hole. This confirmed it.
Curiosity bested his caution, and he picked the thing up, willing it not to explode. Inside, he found a wireless earpiece and a note.
Wear me.
Ben wiped his fingers clean on his sleeve and pressed the device into his ear. “Hey there, Willy.”
A slug lodged itself into the furrow’s edge, inches above Ben’s shoulder, followed by the crack of the weapon almost four hundred meters up the valley. “Don’t call me Willy.” Sensen spoke impeccable English, barely tinted by a German accent. “You know I hate it.”
“Yeah, I know. Nice trick with the box.”
“Thank you.”
“How many did you place?”
“Just the one. You’re so predictable.”
Another gunshot reminded Ben to keep still. “I placed the box the day I arrived home from Paris. I’ve been waiting for you ever since. You came up the valley, I drove you into that mud. Easy.”
“So, why am I still alive?” Ben pressed his body deeper into the mud, scanning what little he could see of the forest. No escape routes. “You can’t expect me to believe Paris was a legitimate miss.”
“Not a miss. A message. You’re cut off, Calix. Leave. Go home. But first, answer a question. What did you do?”
Cut off. The Company had abandoned him. Ben’s vision swam. Until that moment, he’d fought off his suspicions—ignored the signs and clues. He really had fallen down a rabbit hole.
“Calix?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I did nothing wrong.”
The sniper answered with another shot, close enough to Ben’s foot to let him feel it. “Lies bring death, my friend. We all know this truth.”
Ben dragged himself deeper into the furrow. He gritted his teeth against the stench of rotting moss and toadstools. “I swear.”
“The Company does not put innocents on my list, Ben. Please. Did you sell a secret? Is the pay no longer satisfying? Or is this some clash of ideals? Confession is good for the soul. Let me be your priest.”
“And my executioner.”
“If you persist. Tell me your sins, walk away, and live. Remain silent, or approach the house, and die.” To emphasize his point, Sensen fired off another round. He could do that all day. Ben imagined he had stacks of his special ammunition up there.
Carefully, Ben checked the pine’s lengthening shadows. One more minute. Maybe two. “There’s another option. A frame. My mission went south. Massir, the Algerian who gave me the intel that led us there, showed up unannounced.”
“Can you produce him for interrogation?”
“I kind of set him on fire.”
Crack. A rock exploded. A chunk of it sliced Ben’s arm. Behind him, the setting sun shined up the valley, a blinding white winter sun—Ben’s only chance at survival. He made his move.
A string of shots missed wide, hitting rock, tree, and mud. Most importantly, they were all low. The sun’s glare had stolen Sensen’s ability to gauge depth and range. Ben might just have a chance. He shifted his vector with every third footfall, moving from cover to cover, but always advancing. A hundred meters from his goal, the light faded. The sun had outpaced him. Ben fired at the tower window and heard his own ricochets through the earpiece.
“You think you can kill me?”
Ben kept running up the hill. “I’m not here to kill you. I want to talk, find out what’s going on. You have to trust me.”
“I can’t take the risk.” The voice came from the rocks and trees to Ben’s right, not his earpiece.
Sensen remained invisible until he moved, stepping forward with his rifle aimed at Ben’s head. He wore full camouflage with mesh veil beneath his hood—a faceless tactical reaper. “As I said. You are so predictable.”
Ben had been sure the shots were
coming from the chalet’s tower. “How?”
“Remote control, Calix. What century do you think we live in?” Sensen took another step. “Last chance. Confess and walk away.”
Ben wheeled a hand upward and caught the long barrel as a bullet traveled through, turning his body at the same time. He heard a window shatter.
He raised the Glock, but Sensen released the rifle and punched his arm to spoil his aim. The German kept punching, hitting him with a double body shot, then drew a larger Glock from his hip. Each man brought his weapon to the other’s head, and each caught the other’s wrist. They fell and rolled, wrestling on the hillside, firing off rounds to no avail.
“Stop!” Clara appeared from the trees, covering her head and pointing the revolver at the two men. She growled at both of them. “If either one of you hits my dog, I’ll kill you. Weapons down!”
Neither man argued. Ben, underneath Sensen, cocked his head and grinned. “I might be predictable. She’s not.”
25
“Look what you did.” Sensen thrust his chin at the chalet’s ornately carved oak door. Three bullets had lodged themselves in the wood. “Do you know how long I worked to restore that piece? It is one solid section of Belgian honey oak.” He pushed it open and waved Ben inside while Clara covered them both with the revolver.
“Those are your rounds,” Ben said, removing his shoes before proceeding into the living room. He remembered Sensen had a thing about that.
“Your assault. Your fault.”
“I’ll cover the damages.”
“How will you pay? From where I’m standing, you’re out of a job.”
“I’ll get it back.”
“We’ll see.”
“Hey!” Clara entered behind them with Otto at her heels. She waved the gun and widened her eyes as if to say I’m still in charge and don’t you forget it.
The two men shared a look, then both laid their Glocks on a long entry table built from the same oak as the door. Sensen set his rifle in a hall closet and peeled off his top layer of camouflage. “Is she always like this?”
The Paris Betrayal Page 10