AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where is she?” I shout at the trembling figure.
She looks up. Tears streak her face and she looks human for the first time this evening? “No idea,” she says, her voice dead. Then she struggles to her feet, pulling her son up. “I need to find Hugh.” They stumble away.
I start to push my way through the heaving mass of people as a voice says through the microphone, “Please stay where you are, ladies and gentlemen. We must clear the room in an orderly manner. My men will come around and tell you where you may wait.”
I can’t wait. I need to find Cress, so I move forward.
JL grabs my sleeve. “Stop, Max,” he hisses.
“Have to go find Cress,” I grunt, trying to pull away.
“Yavuz took her.” JL releases me and I back away—right into Inspector Poulliot.
“Come with me,” he says and leads me out.
Once out under the arcaded walk, he points down toward the Seine. “We have a car on the Rue St. Paul. We must go quickly.” Then he turns and runs past groups of police, down the Rue de Birague, to a waiting marked Rénault. Allan is leaning against the side, but as we near, he throws the doors open and gets in the back seat. Poulliot slips behind the wheel while I collapse into the passenger seat, quickly fastening my seatbelt.
As he guns the engine, I find my voice. “Where are we going?”
Poulliot glances at a readout on his mobile. “We are tracking your friend Yavuz and your fiancée. He is making slow progress through the traffic, but it looks like he is heading toward the airport.”
“I don’t understand. How did you know to track him?”
Poulliot glances at me, then takes one hand off the wheel, gesturing at Allan, who is leaning forward, elbows on knees, peering at the GPS system glowing in the dash.
“Allan realized that Arslan was wanted in Turkey as a terrorist, under an assumed name. He had escaped from a medium-security prison several months ago, along with Nasim Faez and eight other men. Evidently he then traveled to London under another identity, before resuming his real name.”
He takes another look at his mobile screen. “Once we had those pieces, we started watching his brother Emre. Earlier today, Emre rented a car and left it parked on the Rue Turenne. We placed a tracking device. And now we are following Yavuz, his brothers, and Mademoiselle Taylor.”
“Toward Charles de Gaulle, you said. You think they are planning to take her out of the country?”
Poulliot shrugs. “No idea what is in your friend’s mind. Maybe they plan to take her to Turkey. Or maybe somewhere else. Wherever they are going, she is the bait to catch you.”
“Not Turkey,” Allan says. “They can’t go back to Turkey. The police are on the lookout.”
“You notified them?” I ask.
“Not necessary. They have been looking for him since his escape. He’ll take her somewhere near here, I think, where they will have set some sort of trap or ambush.”
I glance out the window and see the sign for Bagnolet.
“He’s on the A1,” Poulliot says. “I’ll hazard a guess that they’re heading for Goussainville.”
“What makes you think so?” Allan asks as I say “Never heard of it.”
“Goussainville is one of the ghost towns of France and conveniently close to Paris.”
His mobile rings and he has a swift conversation in French. “Confirmed. Not sure why they chose the A1 rather than the A3. It’s slower but that gives our guys time to get set up before they arrive. We’re guessing that they will go to the chateau. Not only is it an abandoned shell, bu it is in it’s own grounds so a bit private.”
“I thought you said that the village is abandoned,” Allan says.
“The old village is abandoned, although these days it’s popular with tourists for day trips. But at night, separated by what were gardens from the other buildings, it’s a perfect spot to set a trap. They will see the headlights and know you have arrived. Then we’ll see how it all plays out.”
“The important thing is to make sure that Cress is safe.”
“Of course,” Poulliot agrees, but my fists clench as I glimpse Allan’s dubious expression in the rearview mirror.
My mind is sorting through all the events since that damned envelope arrived in Chicago. “This whole thing must have been planned well in advance.”
