by Tyler Flynn
Hart felt the rage from his past twenty hours build inside him as he pushed off the wall and grabbed the guard’s jacket collar with one hand, holding him away from Clara. Hart gave two jabs to the man’s face, the first landing squarely while the second grazed the man’s cheek. The guard spun and threw a right cross as if it’d been fired from a cannon. Hart ducked, pulling the man down, because his hand still had a firm grip on the jacket collar. Hart, from a crouched position, sprung back upwards and swung his elbow crashing through the man’s chin, spinning him around. He landed against the wall.
The guard grabbed the wall with one hand and knelt with his back turned to Hart. He got up slowly, turning back around, revealing his bloodied face. He stood with his arms at his sides the as blood dripped. But the guard didn’t move forward; he simply reached into his jacket and gripped his gun. Hart cursed. Don’t forget to bring something to a gunfight. The guard almost had the black grip of the pistol out from his jacket when Clara stuck the Taser in the back of his neck. She’d snuck around him as he got up, through the dark shadows of the dimly lit hallway. The guard dropped to his knees and then lay face down, drooling, on the floor.
Clara dropped the Taser into her purse, brushed the hair that had fallen on her face, and nodded towards the suite door. “I’d say our plan is working out quite well so far.”
40
Paris
Zen music chimed in the dark and humid room. The walls, covered in sheer black tile, glittered with yellow light from the Jacuzzi, and the massage table lay perpendicular to the door. Straight ahead was a vanity mirror, its shelf full of products for clients’ indulgences—coconut oil, lavender cream, apricot body scrubs—and smooth, hot stones were laid out on the counter.
Renard sat in a small leather chair in the corner opposite the door in a white terry-cloth robe. Neither Clara nor Hart had seen him upon entering, but when they were both completely in the room, he spoke.
“Yvette, please go. This doesn’t concern you, and I appreciate your discretion. Please close the spa off to guests for the time being,” Renard said to the ashen-faced masseuse, visibly trembling behind the door. “Please.” He pointed his hand towards the door and smiled.
Hart stepped aside as she scampered out, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking as she sprinted towards the lobby and shut the glass doors with a bang.
“That was kind of you to let her go. She is dear to me.” Renard’s right leg was tucked neatly over his left, with his bare ankle dangling as he sat. “You two have had quite the week,” he said, chuckling, examining them.
Holding the Taser, Clara and stepped further into the room. She hovered over Renard, creating space between her and Hart, as a lioness does before pouncing on her prey. Hart, however, was too impatient for the silent drama to play out.
He snapped at Renard without thinking twice. “Why the hell are you doing all of this?” He took a step forward, his fists clenched.
The smile that Renard wore grew while he shook his head from side to side gently and looked at Clara.
“This is who you choose? This excitable American?” He wagged his finger at her and clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“What did I do to you, Monsieur Hart? Well, you are here, so obviously you’ve surmised some things about me. But really, what did I do to you besides gift you a beautiful opportunity? A nice business trip to dreary old Paris—yes, how terrible of me.” He pouted out his bottom lip and looked to the floor in taunting melancholy. “How horrible of me. Demanding you go to London with a beautiful woman who would sleep with you for her own cause? Oh, the unimaginable things you must have done, the dirty things, all for your job. Yes, there must be some sinister reason to this.” He raised a mocking eyebrow.
Clara spoke, her voice even, as if she’d been rehearsing the line for quite some time. “Claude, we have the evidence to convict you on charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, and extortion for your role in Renard Industries funneling money out of France.” She stood with her chin held high but was breathing heavily, and Hart caught a glimpse of her lip twitching.
The room was silent besides the chimes of the zen music. Renard sat upright, causing the leather to squeak. He squinted at Clara, shock spreading across his face, before he burst into laughter and clapped. Clara and Hart exchanged glances: He isn’t taking us very seriously.
Hart’s fatigued mind had a terrifying thought that caused his heart to pound. What if Renard was clean? Maybe Maxim and Clara were duped into wasting time, catching Hart in a web of lies, bureaucracy, and happenstance. Or more likely, maybe Renard was guilty but unrelenting to the end. Either scenario scared the hell out of Hart, because it wouldn’t be easy to prove his or Clara’s innocence without Renard’s confession.
The realization that life would not go back to the way it was hit Hart. There would be no Air France premium cabin seating for him, he wasn’t going to return to his apartment in New York City anytime soon, nor was his company in dire need of him. The one thing he’d been hopeful about, his relationship with Clara, was now clouded in complexity and had forever changed. He felt scared, thrown into a deep abyss of danger. The harsh reality was that unless people started telling the truth, his head would be on the block.
Renard scoffed at Clara’s accusation. “Is this some theory you and your little boyfriend over here thought of after one of your romps? Is he that quick that you need to talk so much and come up with crazy plans?” Renard cackled at the thought. “He’s the one taking the money, Clara.” He burst into laughter once again, doubling over in amusement. “So, you’re a cop but still a stupid woman next to a dumber man. You still don’t get it.”
Hart crossed the room towards Renard in two steps before the man had the chance to look up, Hart punched him in the side of the face. Renard’s skin felt warm and his beard oily from the spa, or was it nerves? Hart grabbed Renard’s robe collar and jerked him forward in his chair.
Hart sneered. “Tell me what the hell it is you’re up to, or, God help me, I’ll use that Taser on your balls so many times they’ll fall off, asshole.” Hart threw him back into the chair like a doll.
Renard’s smile disappeared. “Bravo, Paul.” His face was stoic. “I never thought you’d have that in you. In fact, that was the reason we picked you.” He reached up, straightening his robe to ensure his modesty.
“We?” Hart felt a pang of anxiety.
“Hutchens didn’t tell you? That sly old dog. I asked him to send me someone for a project. In return, I said I would expand my relationship with his company but”—he held his index finger up in the air—“I wanted someone who was going to be easy to control. A yes-man, someone who would be happy to get out of the office to feel important, and someone to follow directions and not their curiosity. Perhaps, some would say, a stupid man. I guess both of us had you pegged wrong, didn’t we, Paul? But he hated you from the moment you screwed his daughter—can’t blame him for that. He traded your services for more money from me.”
Hart’s eyes narrowed, and his head began to spin. “What do you mean, you and Hutchens picked me? For what?” Layers of his predicament kept piling up. He turned to Clara, who returned his look with a blank stare.
Renard sighed and smacked his legs with both hands. “Both of you are dull. Only because I know you’ll never make it out of this hotel alive, I will tell you the entire truth. Even if by some miracle you did escape, no one would believe the undercover cop whose partner turned up dead and then ran away with the suspect. That, my love, was a bad way to do business. It is a modest story, but I’d be happy to share it, because the paradox of my brilliance is that my story will never be known. Well, except by the two of you, but this will sadly only be short-lived knowledge. Anyway, the story is about one man being manipulated by another’s greed.”
Renard sat back down in his chair before continuing. “Clara, your former boss, Bichot, was the spark that started the fire. The fool, stealing money and laundering it out of the country with help of a gluttonous banker. F
or purposes of making my life easier, Paul, you’ve been scapegoated to be that greedy, corrupt banker!” Renard pointed to Hart and clapped. “Congratulations. We didn’t think you were cunning enough, but we set you up perfectly for it, better than you could have done yourself.” Renard beamed as he once again straightened out his robe, taking his time, as if he were savoring the moment.
“I’d caught Bichot stealing from me years ago. But before I stopped him, I was curious why he was doing it. I paid him handsomely and he had a nice life. But I guess greed always lurks just around the corner, tempting us to follow it down mysterious and dangerous alleys. So, I watched Bichot—with your help, Clara. You reported to me his movements up until the day he vanished, by my own doing. But Bichot was foolish. Stealing money from his travel account, he ended up leading me to my destiny when I found the man who’d been helping him all along.
“Igor always had a way about him, a mission that went way beyond making more money. But Bichot was nothing but a pawn to him, discarded as soon as the next move was set up. We began somewhat small—a few decimal points of a percentage here and there—but Igor had grander plans. We opened a small wine shop under Bichot’s name, who did all the necessary paperwork, and it became the base of our operation. It’s amazing how simple it is to move money across countries and hemispheres by pretending to buy products. Then the plan started where we would purchase wine from distributors, say for a thousand euros a case, and then sell that same wine for two thousand euros a case. But the important thing was that we were the ones buying and selling, under different business names and as different people, but it was our own money all along. Tourists would come and pay two hundred percent over the market price for our wine, but most of the time all the purchases we made were entirely made up!” Renard paused to marvel at the scheme.
Clara glanced at her watch. “We don’t have all day. Get on with it.” Hart realized the spa could only be private so long.
“Bien sûr.” Renard scratched his beard absentmindedly. “Well, we were bribing government officials and hiding the illicit sales, making more money than we could have imagined. But money was only going to satisfy us for so long. For Igor, oddly enough, it was never was about money. Beating the system gave him the biggest thrill.”
“We said, what if we could have an effect on the day-to-day business of companies? Competitors, influencers, powerful companies that perhaps were not as visible in our everyday world but nonetheless held true power. Igor’s ideas at first involved some information we’d stumble across, or even maybe a tragic accident, a shipment being misplaced that would cripple a small company. Specific companies would be targeted, and then in some way, either by holding a financial position that worked to our benefit, or entering a suddenly open marketplace, we profited from our own designs.” Renard held up his hands, rubbing his thumbs on his fingers: money. “But I must say that somewhere along the line, Igor decided to get more ambitious with the operation.”
Renard was being coy but perhaps speaking enough so it wasn’t evident he was stalling. Clara again looked at her watch and at Hart, who stood with his hands on his hips, utterly confused. The powerful business titan that Hart had flown over the Atlantic to meet with was sitting in a bathrobe explaining how he set him up for some sinister plan.
Hart tried to work out the details. “Yeah, but you set me up perfectly for what? You’ve managed to hide some money and cleverly launder, what, probably millions by now? But why frame me?”
“I’m getting to that, you impatient peasant. Mon Dieu.” Renard shook his head in disgust at Hart interrupting him. “As I said, my partner became too ambitious. He started exploiting other areas that didn’t have to do with money; rather, he leveraged fear and used it for his own purposes. Where money was once the ruler in his life, politics took over. He wanted to create fear, for one’s family, for lives to be changed forever, companies destroyed, and ultimately countries changed. He took things too far. Used people to kill for him, like the London attack. He said it was for us, but it was always for him.” Renard put his head in his hands and stared at the floor, private memories flashing in front of his eyes as Clara and Hart watched on.
“Things got carried away. We were ambitious, but we forgot why we started and we went too far. But I was cornered, trapped by the invention of my own game. Igor wanted to exploit a fear of differences, assimilation, and he thought that two birds could be killed with one stone. Josh Cornwall was just another example of violence in exchange for profit, but I saw it as my opportunity to get out. I framed you for this, Paul, because I need to start over, to get away.”
Hart rubbed his temples and heard a small noise outside the closed door. It was probably one of the guards stirring awake, falling about on the cold tile.
He turned his attention back to Clara. “So, we’ve got what we need, right? This confession can make things work? Clear both our names?”
Clara pursed her lips “We’ll need it in writing and in front of other DGSI personnel, I’m afraid.” Clara looked at her watch. “I think we better take Monsieur Renard in and explain everything. There are good people in the organization we can trust like Directeur Pierre-Emmanuel. He’s known me since my training. He knows I couldn’t do any of this.” She’d said this nearly as much to herself as to Hart.
Renard held up a finger. “But you’re both missing two critically important pieces of information. Don’t you care to know? The first being that I’ve set up Mr. Paul Hart so well that no matter what kind of confession you think you’ve gotten, he still looks guilty as sin. It would take weeks, months, if not years, to uncover. By that time, I will be long gone.” He beamed, seemingly unfazed by his interrogators.
“After all is said and done, the only evidence that will remain will be that Paul flew to Paris, spent a few days combing over accounts, then flew off to London, where he handed over tickets—very visible on the hotel’s security cameras, mind you—to Igor, my partner in crime. Then with the help of his newfound lover, Clara, who overspent outrageously on some wine at auction, Hart sent the money himself, from the account only he had access to, on the plane he booked to return to Paris. He used the perfect laundering scheme: a charity auction where no one would think twice about overspending.” He let the phrase hang in the air for a second. “Strangely Monsieur Hart books the private plane at the last minute without telling his lover, whom he lies to and tells he was summoned back to Paris. But the odd thing is that Hart himself booked the flight. Well, actually I booked the flight but pretended to be you, Paul. But most critically, don’t forget the short position in the unforeseen downfall of a company whose CEO gets murdered at a match, where Hart was to attend. You even invited the man with tickets you brought!
“Paul, I purchased the tickets from the account you created for me and of course used your name. It’s your word versus mine, but I didn’t leave a paper trail. Then on top of it all, two undercover agents go to arrest the alleged mastermind of the plot—that’s you, Paul—and one of them dies in a shoot-out. But thankfully, the other, who happens to be his lover, remains alive. Convenient?”
Renard stood and clapped his hands together in mock congratulation. “Well done, you two. Even if you were to get someone to listen to your version of the story, who would believe the two lovers who ran away from a murder? No one! But you won’t get the chance to speak, because the second crucial piece of the puzzle is that Igor, the doer of dirty deeds, is here to say hello.” Renard looked towards the door to the suite.
Behind Hart, the door handle jiggled, and the door opened slowly. The muzzle of a Beretta entered the room. Hart took a step in between the door and Clara as Igor strode in calmly, blocking Igor’s view of her Taser. He stood near the door; Hart figured it was too far away for her to make a move.
Igor wore a dark-blue car coat over a navy pinstripe suit, black driving gloves, and black lace-ups. He had several cuts on his face and his eyes were severe, darting from Clara to Hart and finally to Renard.
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear!” Renard clapped his hands in excitement. “I was just telling these two lovers about my plan to frame them for our own little adventures. I think it’s time we close up shop and let the heat die down a bit. Figured it better to ask forgiveness than beg for your permission to do so.”
Igor’s face turned rigid, his jaw clenched, and eyes narrowed as he shot a look at Renard, careful to keep watch of Clara at the same time. “Our adventures, you say? So that’s the game you were playing with them.”
His English was good, Hart knew from the charity gala, but mix in a bit of stress, and a hint of an accent came through. Hart took a step back from Igor, trying to give Clara more cover.
Renard was irrationally happy while Hart and Clara watched the scene unfold. Igor carried an aura of evil, and Hart could nearly feel the danger. His mind cried out that he should run. He’d seen Igor murder in cold blood the night before without hesitation, and Hart assumed the worst was to come.
Renard’s smile flickered before he answered Igor. “Oui, our adventures. The amazing things we’ve accomplished. What we’ve done together. It wasn’t easy, but we should be proud. This guy yesterday, Josh; you sure made Paul look rich for a few moments.” Renard stood in his robe, hands out to his sides as if searching his audience for reassurance. “Right, we’ve done some amazing things, and now we are free, let’s quit while we are ahead.” He pointed at Hart with his index finger. “We’ve set him up for the ultimate frame job. So, Igor, shoot them here, and let’s, you and I, take off somewhere. How does Croatia sound?”