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asked, “Are you finally going to let me kill this little shit?”
Hurley contemplated his fresh drink and the question at the same time. Victor liked to cut to the heart of the matter rather than dance around an issue. “I didn’t decide to bring you along for your looks.”
Satisfied with the answer, Victor smiled and took a big swig of beer.
Hurley saw how pleased his dog was with the answer and it gave him pause. Those traitors he’d killed—he’d been following orders. There was never any joy in it. Victor seemed downright thrilled over the prospect of killing a fellow team member. Hurley knew there was no love lost between the two, but this seemed to be taking it a little too far. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Why?” Victor growled, “You hate the little fuck just as much as I do.”
“How I feel about him is none of your business,” Hurley snapped. “We’re going to give him a chance to come in on his own.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Hurley looked into his drink for a long moment and then drained it in two big gulps. He set the glass down on the bar and threw down some bills. As he stood he said, “If he doesn’t come in all bets are off.”
Hurley started to walk away, while behind him, Victor took a couple of big swigs and drew his forearm across his mouth to reveal a broad grin. He was clearly happy about the prospect of ending Rapp’s life.
CHAPTER 12
PARIS, FRANCE
MONSIGNOR de Fleury shuffled his feet as fast as they would carry him. He had known what he would do even before Fournier arrived. The three dark-skinned visitors had an ominous presence, or at least two of them did. The tall, well-dressed one was nice enough, but the other two were wicked men. They reeked of menace. The priest had facilitated many such meetings and was used to dealing with bodyguards. These two were not part of a security detail. They did not have that caring, watchful way about them. They were concerned only with themselves.
De Fleury was a faithful man, but that faith was placed in God and not men. He had seen what evil men were capable of, and as a shepherd, it was his job to help protect the flock from the wolves. These men were not sheep, and they most certainly didn’t have the best interest of France in their hearts. They were killers. De Fleury had dealt with such men before, and he could see it in their eyes and in the way they moved.
He did not know what the slick-talking Fournier was up to, but the old priest was going to find out. The church was closed and other than the two night watchmen who were patrolling the perimeter, he was by himself. De Fleury moved through the shadows, through the transept, and just before the pulpit he turned right and shuffled down the outer aisle of the nave, past the lesser altars and finally to the wooden confessionals. He carefully opened the third door and stepped in. He left the light off, doing everything by feel. After sitting on the cushioned seat he leaned his head against the wood-paneled back wall, just above an iron grate that circulated air from the chapel below. De Fleury had discovered the acoustic peculiarity many years ago while dutifully listening to confessions. A private mass was being said in the crypt chapel, and the voices floated up from below with such clarity that he found it difficult to concentrate on the penitent sitting on the other side of the screen.
De Fleury had kept his contacts with French Intelligence over the years and a famous church like Sacré-Coeur with throngs of tourists coming and going was the perfect place to meet sources and operatives. This Fournier fellow liked the idea of meeting in the crypt for some reason, and de Fleury made no effort to dissuade the man, or tell him that his conversations could be heard from the confessional above. Secrets were something the priest was accustomed to hearing and not repeating, but he did not eavesdrop for his own indulgence. There was something about this Fournier fellow that was off. It was nothing drastic, but de Fleury had spent a lifetime observing people. In addition to the agent’s being rather taken with himself, there was a shiftiness about him that the priest noted from the beginning. The man was an actor and a manipulator, and de Fleury guessed that the underlying drive was the need to feed his narcissistic personality.
It was shocking to him that the Directorate hadn’t picked up on these traits earlier in his career. To put someone with his personality in charge of the Special Action Division seemed to be a very dangerous thing. The previous meetings in the crypt had mostly been with double agents who worked for other governments, and while de Fleury had heard some very interesting things over the past few years, there had been nothing that he considered a grievous offense to the Republic. Tonight, however, he had an ominous feeling that the Republic’s best interests were not being guarded.
As the words began to float up from the crypt, his concern only grew. The guests were Muslims and their lack of respect was obscene. Before the priest could get over his initial shock at the slurs against his beautiful basilica, Fournier said something that took his breath away. Surely they weren’t talking about the bloody hotel murders that had gripped Paris? Within seconds they answered that question beyond any reasonable doubt. The priest grew increasingly alarmed with each passing moment by what he heard. What in hell was Fournier doing associating with such people? Why would he aid them in any way?
It was money, of course, and some arrangement that the DGSE had made with these animals. A Faustian deal undoubtedly made by careless men with no understanding of history. De Fleury had seen firsthand the horrific results of appeasement. It was a path chosen by feebleminded people who were morally incapable of confronting evil. He saw many parallels between the Nazis, the communists, and these jihadists. They were all sociopaths at heart—obsessed with their own tribal desires and utterly incapable of conferring justice or compassion on those outside the tribe. If you were not one of them, you were a lesser human, and thus deserved to be treated in any way they saw fit. And if that meant blowing up airliners and buses full of innocent civilians, then so be it.
De Fleury did not move when the meeting ended. The normal protocol was for Fournier and his guests to let themselves out at properly spaced intervals from different locations. The doors would lock behind them. The priest sat motionless in the dark confessional for a long time analyzing what he had learned and considering what he would do with the information. His contacts in the government were not what they once were. Almost all of them were either dead or retired. And he couldn’t say for sure that he could trust any of the few he had with information of this magnitude. There was always the press, but de Fleury had no fondness for them and no stomach for airing the dirty secrets of the Republic on the front pages of the daily rags. He would have to find another way.
Caution was of the utmost importance. A man like Fournier would do anything to protect his image. The priest knew how it would play out. At his age, it would take nothing to suffocate him while he slept or toss him down a flight of stairs. Either would kill him, and either would be so plausible the police wouldn’t even bother with an autopsy. De Fleury stood and stepped from the confessional. As he worked his way quietly toward the rectory a possibility occurred to him—a man whom he had helped a long time ago. He was a foreigner, but a trusted ally. He was still in a position to do something with the information. Maybe he could deal with Fournier and these men without having to go public. The old priest decided he would sleep on it. In the morning he would pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit, and if it were to be, he would make the call.
CHAPTER 13
SUNDAY morning arrived with the sound of church bells clanging in the distance. Rapp slowly opened his eyes and took inventory of his pains and aches. He was surprised that his shoulder didn’t feel worse. He clenched his left fist and felt the burn go deep. He took some solace in the fact that it was slightly better than the day before. Raising his right hand from under the sheets he noted the time. It was 9:03. He had slept for nearly twelve hours, and that was after napping for six hours the previous afternoon. He remembered waking once during the night to use the bathroom and take another handful of
painkillers. He rolled his head toward the window, looking at the shades framed in white light—his mind already working through the events that had brought him to this hotel, and the one question that he still couldn’t answer. Who could he trust?
The desire to flee is not always wise. That was what he’d told himself while riding the Metro in the early morning after the slaughter at the hotel and now he found himself repeating the mantra once more. He had the skills to disappear, but what would he do with the rest of his life? It was one of many things Rapp had learned in his new line of work. He knew he’d changed a great deal in the past year. All of his senses had been sharpened. He could no longer simply walk into a room. Faces, potential threats, and exits all had to be assessed and categorized, and casually so as to not draw any attention. Everything he did was strategic planning on an extremely high level. How do you outthink your opponent when the stakes are life and death? Every move, every variation of each move, has to be analyzed and the risks weighed against options until you can zero in on the path that gives you the best chance for success.
After leaving the warehouse at first light his needs dictated his actions. Shelter, care, and food were at the top of his list, and they all had to be obtained without attracting any attention. That was when the urge to flee was the strongest. To just jump on the closest Metro train and go straight to the Gare de Lyon train station, gather his emergency bag from the locker, and flee the country. He could be across the border into Switzerland in three hours. Run straight into the arms of Greta and there was a good chance Hurley would know within a day. The first order of business was almost always to get out of the country where you had committed the crime, and Rapp had been told specifically on this one that he was to get out of France immediately after killing Tarek.
Getting ambushed and shot had obviously complicated things, but Rapp was disinclined to follow through with those orders for multiple reasons. The police were sure to be on high alert after the shootout at the hotel. They would be monitoring the ports and train stations and the immigration and border control agents would be scrutinizing every detail. While Rapp seriously doubted that they had a description of him, there was enough doubt to make him hesitant. He’d lost blood, and he was in pain. He could chance it, but an alert border agent might have him escorted into a private room for some interrogation and a strip search. Once his shirt was off there would be no denying that he’d been shot.
Fluent in French, Rapp liked the odds of staying put in Paris and blending in with the city’s ten million inhabitants. Greta could collect a few things for him and then she could come to him. He did get on the first Metro train he found, however, and after a transfer he was emerging from several hundred feet underground into the grand Gare de Lyon station. Traffic was light, but as he’d guessed the police were unusually alert. Rapp, with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of the stolen jacket, kept his chin tucked in and his eyes uninterested as if he was just another laborer heading off to work. The lockers were located near the bathrooms. He purchased an espresso and a croissant from a vendor and used his wait to casually determine if any of the police had taken notice of him. They hadn’t, so he proceeded to the lockers, retrieved his backpack, and stepped into one of the stalls in the men’s room.
Four minutes later he emerged in a pair of jeans, hiking boots, blue Roots sweatshirt, and a Montreal Canadiens cap. The Palestinian passport had been torn up and flushed down the toilet and the worker’s clothes stuffed into a trashcan. His backup gun was still strapped around his ankle, but other than that he was just another tourist. He left the terminal and stepped onto the first waiting bus, not caring where it would take him as long as it was quickly away from the station. A few minutes later he found himself rolling through central Paris. When the air brakes hissed at the hideous Pompidou Center, Rapp got off. He knew of a Best Western just around the corner—the type of place that catered to tourists eager to be near Paris’s great museums.
A half block later he found a pay phone. It was brand new, shiny stainless steel; France Telecom’s newest card-operated model to help thwart city degenerates who were fond of breaking into the coin-operated machines. Rapp slid his telecard into the slot, grabbed the receiver, and punched in a number from memory. She answered on the third ring.
“Good morning, Frau Greta,” Rapp said in French. “How are you?”
