by Fritz Galt
It didn’t take long to learn the truth. “Dr. Yu is not dead.”
There was a general groan from the crowd.
“But the victim is dead,” he sought to clarify. “His name is Herr Professor Fried.”
Nobody in the room seemed to recognize the name.
“So we will continue to interrogate you, one by one,” the chief interrogator said, a vindictive tone in his voice. Those in the crowd were more than witnesses. They were suspects. “And we will start with you.” He pointed directly at Igor Sullivan.
It least this would be quick.
Chapter 25
May trained her eyes on the tiny white bubble in which Liang and her father rode. She had to get around two cars that moved as slow as an old ox, while Liang’s Renault shot away.
She flashed the delivery truck’s headlights to no avail.
Zing. Web-like cracks spread across her windshield.
Someone was firing at them.
“The cops are after us,” Brad cried.
She checked the rearview mirror. What was he doing there? She peered ahead through the splintered glass. The lane was narrow and lined with parked cars.
“Take that!” Brad screamed from the back of the truck.
She heard a scraping sound and looked out the side mirror. A box of blue jeans landed on the pavement and got caught under the front axle of a squad car. Another box flew out the back of the truck. The driver swerved hard to avoid it and grazed a parked car.
She wasn’t seeing much out the cracked windshield. So she slid back in her seat and kicked out the glass.
A gust of wind swept over her. She sat up for a clearer view. The Renault had turned left onto a small bridge to an island in the Seine.
She veered into oncoming traffic and pulled in behind the Renault.
Afternoon sunlight flickered in her face. She kept the delivery truck pointed firmly at the Renault. She could make out the back of her father’s head in the rear window. Beside him sat Liang.
The two represented opposite extremes in her emotional life. Her father was everything to her, and Liang was everything she loathed. And yet the two were inexorably bound to breathe the same air. Was she destined to forever fight for what she loved?
Just then Brad squeezed through the narrow opening to the truck’s cab. “We lost the law for now.” He threw himself into the passenger seat across from her.
How helpful, yet how innocent Brad was. He did not deserve to be caught up in her life. By becoming her lover and now fiancé, he had walked straight into Liang’s crosshairs and become one more person for her to worry about.
He looked tense. “The cops will catch up with us sooner or later.”
They bounded over another bridge to a larger island. The single-arch flying buttresses of Notre Dame Cathedral loomed ahead.
A nagging wail sounded louder, then just behind her.
She zoomed past a Holocaust memorial. Ahead, the Renault pulled a hard right between two parked buses. They were in the rear garden of the cathedral. Pedestrians walking in the warm weather and sunshine had to dive over a hedge.
She manhandled the truck between the buses to follow the fleeing Renault. She was gaining on it. Then she saw a blue light flash ahead. More police were cutting them off.
The Renault fishtailed and lined up for a tight turn onto a bridge.
“Hold on,” she cried. “I will have to crash.”
“Let’s jump.” He reached across the cab to take her hand.
They were still accelerating. The turn was too tight. Squad cars closed in. Brad was right. They had to jump.
With a final spin of the wheel, she climbed out of the driver’s seat toward Brad, who stood by the open door.
“Now.” He held her tight and leaped from the doorway.
She landed feet first on top of a bush. That made the perfect cushion, and camouflage. The police raced past.
Brad pulled her to her feet and dusted his knees off.
“Look,” she breathed.
The delivery truck they had been driving headed for a gap in the bridge where stairs led down to the river. Its momentum propelled it at top speed, and it shot out over the water. It arced in the air and hit the water with an audible splash. Then it rapidly began to sink.
The trailing police car slammed against the bridge and narrowly avoided the same fate. The cops climbed out and stood on their hood to watch the delivery truck drift westward, its roof still visible.
At the far end of the bridge, the Renault slipped into traffic heading out of town.
“We have lost my father,” May said flatly.
“But you saved our butts.”
She finally took her eyes off the distant car and directed her attention to the young man she was supposed to marry. It had seemed like a fine idea the night before when all had been right with the world. And she had intended to give her father the good news after his speech. But he had been kidnapped and might never know.
“We will not marry,” she concluded. She knew the pain it would bring to Brad’s sparkling blue eyes.
He hesitated and swallowed, as if his whole life had been knocked off balance. “You mean…?”
“How can I marry without my father?”
“We will find him,” he said. “We will catch Liang.”
“We have to.” She pulled a long strand of hair from her eyes. “The police must think we are the killers.”
Brad looked increasingly decisive. He tucked her hand under his arm. She followed him, the long blades of grass sensuous under her bare feet. The aroma of roses hung heavily in the air. Soon she was surrounded by a bower of small red roses. He turned to her and placed a firm hand around her waist. “We will get married, no matter what.”
She searched his eyes. “I have to marry by Friday.”
“I know.” The calmness and unexpected maturity in his voice had a soothing effect on her.
“But how…?”
He placed a kiss on her lips. That silenced her. But it didn’t stop her from worrying. The situation seemed hopeless. Their lives were in jeopardy as long as Liang was at large and the police were after them, too. She pulled away. “Liang will kill my father.”
“First, we have to make ourselves scarce.”
Then the air began to hum with music. It was a familiar tune.
He turned and led her toward the western façade of the cathedral. The twin Gothic towers and rose window were impressive. He stepped onto the pavement and she let him take her through the giant arched doorway.
He led her in the cold darkness around tourists who stood and gawked at the interior. She bumped against a woman who dabbed her forehead with a wet finger.
The music came from a pipe organ and echoed throughout the structure. At the far end of the nave, slightly elevated above the rows of empty pews, a wedding ceremony was taking place.
“Soon that will be us,” he said.
Now she knew the music. It was a wedding march. Despite all the events conspiring against them, in three days that would be them, too.
Chapter 26
It was Igor Sullivan’s turn to be grilled. He followed the chief interrogator out of the meeting room and into the stairwell. The harried man pointed for him to take a seat, which he did while the man stood over him. Sullivan recognized the technique of putting a suspect in an inferior position.
In effect, the police had stripped him of all power. Not only had they deprived him of his freedom to leave the building, but they had stripped him of his cell phone. To make matters worse, the cards in his wallet and the name on his passport did not explain why he was wearing the robe.
However, he was still in a superior position. As long as he had information to provide, he had leverage.
“Before we begin,” Sullivan said, “I need to talk to the American Embassy. I work for them, and I would like them to vouch for me.”
The interrogator found his passport. It was the tourist passport he was traveling on. “You are not here officially, Monsieu
r Sullivan.”
Of course he wasn’t posted to Paris. The lack of a diplomatic passport showed that.
“I identified who was shot,” Sullivan said, playing his trump card. “And I’ll tell you who shot Professor Fried if you let me call the embassy. They will establish my bona fides.”
The interrogator shrugged. It was a long shot, but all investigations had to start somewhere. He pulled Sullivan’s cell phone out of an evidence bag, and put a call through to the embassy. Then he handed the phone to Sullivan.
“Get me Robert Steele, please,” Sullivan said. “Tell him this is Igor Sullivan calling. I’m in police custody.” He wasn’t exaggerating his circumstances, much.
A moment later, Robert came on the line. “What did you do?”
“Listen. The police have detained me, and they don’t believe I’m with the embassy. I need you to talk to them.”
“First tell me what you did,” Robert said.
“I was witness to a murder. Some very serious stuff is going down in the Marais, and the French are after my son. I can assure you, the real culprit is Liang Jiaxi, the fellow who shot up Paris with his fighter jet the other day.”
“Put the cop on.”
He handed his phone to the interrogator and strained to hear from a distance. Robert was letting the interrogator have it, in French. The man merely listened, his eyes narrowing. At last, he closed the phone and handed it back to Sullivan.
“Monsieur Sullivan, I do not know why you are dressed like a clown. And I do not like how you are concealing your activities from the National Police. So tell me why you are here at the scene of a murder.”
The words were like music to Sullivan’s ears. He wished he could tell the whole story to the man. But he couldn’t. How could he reveal the truth about Shangri-la as he had learned from Professor Fried moments before his death? He had to honor the code as Yu had read from the document. Shangri-la should remain a secret. It was bad enough that Liang learned the truth. Sullivan had little evidence to support his story, but it had to sound plausible.
“Monsieur,” he began. “The German professor was a longtime contact of mine. He was shot by a Chinese businessman and mob figure named Liang Jiaxi. After shooting Professor Fried, Liang took Dr. Yu hostage and somehow left the building.”
“Then what about this young pipsqueak?” The interrogator brandished the photo of Sullivan’s son.
“That is Brad West, and the other picture is of his fiancée, the daughter of Dr. Yu. She and Brad headed off to catch Liang.”
The interrogator’s frown never disappeared. “Then why did you not come to the police? And why did Brad not come to the police?”
That was tougher to answer. Brad was neither a declared agent, nor an employee of the CIA. In fact, as his case officer, Sullivan had sought to relieve Brad of any further obligations to the Agency.
He rose to his full height and straightened his robe. “Just call your people off of Brad. He is not the cause of this. He is trying to help.”
The interrogator acted indignant. “You think that Americans can operate in France without our approval? Well, there you are wrong.”
“I know that,” Sullivan said lamely. He collected his phone, passport and wallet and headed for the stairs.
“I will let you go,” the interrogator said. “But I may need you for further questioning.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be at the American Embassy. In the meantime, don’t harass Brad or his fiancée.”
He already had his cell phone open. Climbing downstairs in the long robe, he redialed the embassy.
“Get me Robert Steele,” he told the switchboard.
Moments later, he walked with impunity between police vans that surrounded the building.
Robert came on the line. “Oui?”
“Enough with the French. I’m coming at you in English now. Liang has captured a Chinese anthropologist named Yu, and they’re probably heading straight for China. I need French airport security notified and placed on high alert. We have to nab Liang before he can slip out of the country. You might also alert Interpol, in case Liang crosses international boarders.”
“Let me get this straight,” Robert said. “Liang kidnapped a scientist and will take him, bound and gagged, on a commercial aircraft?”
Sullivan paused in the middle of the garden. “That does sound weird, I admit. But this has happened before. Twice Liang has successfully kidnapped the anthropologist. Liang can exert control over him because Yu has one weakness, a daughter.”
“I have a daughter, too,” Robert said.
“At the moment, Brad and Yu’s daughter May are being chased by the French police. We’ve got to call them off.”
“I thought you just talked to the police.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure if they’re buying my story. I’ll tell you the honest truth. There’s nobody better qualified, and I mean nobody, than my son to tackle Liang.”
“Well, I’ll lean on the police,” Robert offered. “But we have to be more open with them.”
Sullivan agreed and hung up. There, in plain sight, he unbuttoned his robe and pulled it over his head. Underneath, he wore a Polo shirt and slacks. That was the real Igor Sullivan. Let him be completely open with the French.
He stuffed the robe into a transparent public trash bag and headed for the street.
Maybe somewhere out there, men did dress in such robes and did live eternally in a bountiful paradise. But that wasn’t him.
Chapter 27
When Igor Sullivan arrived at the chancery, he found Robert Steele working the phones. Beside him sat a powerful looking man whose veins were popping out of his forehead.
“This is Phil Stubbs,” Robert said. “FBI Liaison Officer.”
Phil growled something and resumed his phone conversation. The FBI agent’s bad French wasn’t helping him reach the Interior Ministry.
Sullivan addressed Robert in a low voice. “Where do we stand?”
“The French will add Liang to their long list of suspected criminals, but they won’t mobilize a search or step up surveillance at the airports.”
“Don’t they know that it was Liang in the Chinese fighter jet?”
Robert sighed. “He exposed France’s unpreparedness. I doubt that’s something they want to advertise.”
Sullivan pointed at Phil, who was still trying to get through to his counterpart in the French government. “How’s he doing?”
“Even worse,” Robert admitted.
“Have they called the dogs off Brad?”
Robert shook his head. “They’re still looking for him. They even put out an all points bulletin on Brad and Yu’s daughter. And Interpol has issued a Red Notice for their arrest.”
“Wonderful,” Sullivan said between his teeth. No cooperation on international terrorism, and every effort to solve a murder. This called for exactly what the chief interrogator told him not to do. He needed to go undercover. He needed to mount an operation.
He needed Jade Wang.
Her number was programmed into his cell phone, and his cell phone was with the Marine Guard downstairs. It was better not to let Robert know what he was up to, lest the French catch wind of it.
“If you’ll excuse me.” He stepped out of the room.
He let himself out of the CIA station and climbed down the back stairwell of the four-story building.
Unlike the historic Talleyrand Building by the Jardin des Tullleries, the chancery was created expressly for the American government. Although its façade conformed to 18th Century law and fit seamlessly with the other grand structures on the Place de la Concorde, it was erected in the 1930s and had all the utilitarian charm of a government building.
He grabbed his cell phone from a cubbyhole at Post One and stepped outside. Facing the columns and statues of Paris’ famous central square with its towering Obélisque de Luxor and wreath of continuously flowing traffic, he placed his covert call to Jade.
“Guess what?” she sa
id as soon as she heard his voice. “I’m marrying Earl.”
Apparently, she was unaware of Liang’s latest exploits and her girlfriend’s plight.
He squeezed the phone against his ear and turned away from the traffic. “Does Earl know about this?”
“He asked me. Now we can have a double wedding.”
“Double wedding?”
“Haven’t you heard? Brad and May are getting married, too.”
He spun around and lifted his eyes to the statues that represented the major cities of France. Twenty gilded columns held up lamps, and fountains evoked St. Peter's Square in Rome. What wonderful news. His son was getting married.
“That’s terrific. Congratulations to all of you.”
“So why are you calling?” There was a note of impatience in her voice.
“Oh,” he caught himself. “It’s just that Liang shot a man. He’s got Dr. Yu. And Brad and May are being hunted by the police.”
It took a moment for that to register. But when she spoke, her voice was icy. “Where’s Liang?”
“I’ve tried to get the French to seal the borders and stop him. I believe he’s flying back to China in order to find Shangri-la with Dr. Yu. But the French authorities are slow to react.”
“Flying to Shangri-la?”
It sounded weird to him, too. He hadn’t taken the time to think through how absurd the entire endeavor was. “I don’t have time to explain.”
“If the authorities are sealing the borders, I doubt if Liang will go to de Gaulle,” Jade said, referring to Charles de Gaulle International Airport from which flights departed for China.
“Little does he know the police aren’t after him. They’re after Brad and May.”
“How did that happen?”
He shrugged. “Bad timing, I guess. I’m trying to keep the police from being fixated on Brad and May, but Interpol has issued a Red Notice.”
He waited for her to mull this over. What could she do from her vantage point? He knew her as a woman of action. A pilot. An undercover agent. A tiger in the martial arts. But she was not omnipotent. She had worked long, diligent hours for U.S. military intelligence in Washington before resuming her role in the Chinese PLA Air Force. Not only was she a super counteragent, she served as a valuable stabilizing force, keeping the two oversized military powers at a safe distance from each other.