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“Have you talked to the wounded man?”
Simon gave her a bitter laugh. “What do you think?”
Neville thought about it for a second. “They won’t let you anywhere near him.”
“You got that right.”
“I’m so sick of this bullshit. Was Fournier there last night?”
“He was there briefly to issue some orders and then he disappeared.”
Neville folded her arms across her chest and studied the crime scene photos. She tapped the photo of the man in the street. “No wallet . . . no ID. Nothing.”
“No, but I just left the morgue an hour ago and our people found something very interesting. They think his dental work looks American, but the big break came when they inspected the body. They were using the UV black light to check for gunshot residue, and they found faint traces of a tattoo that the man had had removed.” Simon found the photo and showed her.
Neville read the words aloud. “Rangers Lead. What does that mean?”
“Rangers are U.S. Army Special Forces. Rangers Lead is their motto.”
“Ballistics?”
“That’s where things get really interesting. We found shell casings from four different weapons, only one of which was recovered at the scene. It belonged to the deceased DGSE agent, and he only fired one shot. The rough count on shell casings is sixty-two.”
“Sixty-two,” Neville repeated, not really believing the number.
“And we found five different types of blood at the scene.”
“Three bodies and five different types of blood.”
“So we can assume at least five people were involved, and my guess is more than that.”
“And the DGSE isn’t telling us a thing.”
“That’s right.”
Neville shook her head in disgust. “Anything else?”
Simon glanced down at the file. “There is one other slightly odd piece of information. The first two witnesses on the scene were Americans. I’ve already checked them out. One of them is a network TV correspondent and the other one is his cameraman. When they showed up there was a man delivering first aid to the wounded DGSE agent. He yelled at the two Americans to help and then he ran off to get help.”
“And he never came back?”
“That’s right.”
“Was he French?”
“They think so.”
“Have the Americans given us a description of the man?”
“Yes, but it’s pretty generic.”
Neville shrugged and said, “Could be nothing.”
“Or it could be the key to everything.”
“The key is to get in and talk to that DGSE agent before Fournier has him shipped off to Polynesia.”
“Good luck with that.”
