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“Understood,” Mfune said.
“And ready,” Epée said.
“Sit tight,” Sauvage said, very pleased.
The crates in the back of the van contained fifty cleaned and oiled AK-47 assault rifles and seven thousand rounds of 7.62mm ammunition.
It was only a matter of time now.
Chapter 67
8th Arrondissement
6:25 p.m.
WHEN I WOKE up, dusk was falling over Paris, and beyond my bedroom door I could hear voices out in the suite’s living area.
How long had I been out?
I checked the clock on the nightstand. Four hours? We’d gotten back from the Dog’s place at around two that afternoon, and despite the fact that we had the contents of the memory stick to examine, I had been so tired and dizzy that I’d gone into my room, fallen into bed, and passed out cold.
After shaving and showering, I dressed and went out the bedroom door, finding several room service carts in the living area, and Louis, Petitjean, and Vans eating and working on laptop computers.
“Jack, you have arisen!” Louis cried, and gestured to the food. “Eat. Drink. Get your strength back.”
“Have you slept?” I asked.
“Why would I do that when there is so much to be done?” he replied.
“I’m beginning to think you’re a meth addict,” I said, moving to the service carts, which were loaded with delicacies from the Plaza’s kitchen. “You find anything yet?”
“Of course we did,” Petitjean said.
As I piled my plate and gorged, they got me up to speed on what they’d learned while I slept.
The memory stick contained thousands of files in various formats. Some were textual and contained random notes in French and English that referred to various people using initials. Other files contained diary entries and mentioned places by name, including several in the south of France. But again, no names used—just initials. And still others—the majority of the files, as a matter of fact—were copies of Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files that documented a large and very lucrative trading and distribution company.
“What company?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Petitjean said, sighing. “And we don’t know what kind of business they’re involved in, or who they’re doing business with, because they’re using an alphanumeric code that we haven’t been able to crack.”
“Drugs,” Louis said. “Has to be.”
“If so, they’re highly disciplined drug dealers,” Petitjean said.
I poured a cup of coffee and said, “Give me a copy of the memory stick. I want to lend a hand.”
“We can do better than that,” Vans said. “Louis’s canine friend uploaded it all into our virtual office. Files that have already been examined are flagged.”
After getting my laptop from the bedroom, I took a seat on the sofa and followed Vans’s instructions to get access to the memory stick files.
I opened a few of the spreadsheets and studied them enough to see that the code made it a waste of time to search them further. I found several Microsoft Word documents that hadn’t been flagged and started opening them. Some did seem like random notes, ideas jotted down, but others were lists of orders to be given to certain initials along with various snippets of that code.
Because I wasn’t sure of my French-to-English translating skills with even the noncoded stuff, I exited those documents as well and did not flag them. Feeling kind of useless, I wondered how Sci would handle this kind of situation. I was about to give him a call, ask him for advice, when it dawned on me that he might try to take an inventory first.
“Can you get me a list of files filtered by type?” I asked. “A directory?”
“Sure. By format or extension?” Vans asked.
