The Phoenix Affair - Dave Moyer (smart ebook reader TXT) 📗

take depending on how prompt these guys are.” He paused. “What do you have in mind, and who’s Allen’s guest?”

“Looks like a Paris cop of some kind, very alert guy, picked us up as we walked down the terminal at De Gaulle. Kept his distance, but I’m pretty sure he’s following Allen, on the subway.”

“Just a minute,” Ripley said, covering the phone, he turned to Cameron. “Hey, Colonel, did you say some guy eyeballed you at the airport when you came in the other day?”

“Yeah,” Cameron replied. He was shrugging on his coat, preparing to leave. “I’ve got to get moving to get the family moved. Why?”

“Smith's got a guy following him. Can you describe your guy?” Ripley proffered the phone.

Cameron took it, quickly describing LaPlante from his own quick observations in the airport and earlier today from the restaurant window. Jones grunted assent that meant, “same guy”, and Cameron added, “be careful with him, then, Mr. Smith. The guy is spooky, nearly spotted me through a plate glass window this afternoon by accident, completely random event, but he’d only seen me for moment a day earlier. The guy’s some kind of spook. Now I gotta go.”

He handed the phone back to Ripley, then made a cutting motion across his own throat and gestured to have it back. Ripley gave over his own number and closed the line.

“Any change in plan, Colonel?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so. You?”

“Maybe, I’m still thinking. Anyway, I’ll call you in a few hours and we can compare notes, make adjustments if necessary. Get moving now, take care, Colonel.”

“You too, Ripley. Don’t make too big a mess tonight.” A pause, and he added, “nice training with you again.”

“Same, now get outta here, talk to you later.”

Cameron nodded, opened the door, and was gone.

Ripley sat staring out the window at what could be seen of the Paris skyline down the narrow street. It wasn’t much. He looked at the small table across the room, then at his watch, considering whether to turn on the phone and do something at midnight when Salah, presumably, should be making his call to check in. He decided against it, nothing to gain there but a phone number he already knew, and a voice he already had recorded. No, better to leave that, let the phone be off and seemingly dead, he’d already checked the battery.

Looking back out the window he continued to struggle to put the pieces together. Somewhere in his mind he’d made a connection, but he couldn’t quite bring it to the surface. He lapsed into the slow, rasping breathing routine, clearing his thoughts. As expected, it came to him in a time he could not name until he looked at his watch: five minutes. Amazing, the passage of time.

He rose and began to sweep the hotel suite, thinking carefully of everything he’d touched. He took a washcloth from the shower, wet it and lathered it up with soap, and began to wipe things down. This took another seven minutes. He returned to the bedroom where Salah once again lay snoring loudly. He decided to leave him bound, no sense in not sending a subtle message to his friends in the FNP. He gathered up his equipment, stuffed it all into the black duffle it’d come in. Back out in to the sitting room and he made one last sweep. “Well, I’ve probably missed something, but then again, they’ll know someone was here anyway,” he mused. On an afterthought, he picked up Salah’s phone and pocketed it. It would be cute to leave it for the French, have them sort out the rest of the Paris gang for him, but he wanted the rest of the numbers for himself, and there was no time now. He grinned at the missed chance for mischief, and shrugged unconsciously. He took one last look around the suite, then walked to the door, opened it with his washcloth, and left.

Cameron was perhaps fifteen minutes ahead of him now. “Not enough,” he thought. The washcloth went into a laundry chute in the hall, and he was down the elevator and out on the street a few moments later. He walked a block west and stepped into the coffee shop where Colonel Cameron had begun this very, very long day. The tired waitress took his order, and while he waited, he dialed the phone number Smith had given him, and waited. XIII. Northern Paris

Ibrahim lay on his bed, unable to sleep, mulling over the events of the last two days. “Extraordinary” was the only word that he could conjure up to describe them. They’d started out simply enough: a simple assignment, follow a Saudi general and see what he would do in Paris. But things seemed to have gotten rapidly out of control, and now he was sending some of his people, not wholly reliable people he reminded himself, to kill a family in a Paris hotel. “Madness” was the new word this realization conjured up.

He turned to his left and looked at the digital clock on the table beside the bed: twelve-seventeen. Salah should have called as instructed. Ibrahim looked back up at the ceiling and tried to make sense of his discomfort. He sorted and re-sorted the last two days to see if the events fit together in some way that made sense. He shook his head. They didn’t seem to. Everything had a good, solid explanation, and he was about to put an end to the worrisome general. He closed his eyes again, determined to sleep.

Ten minutes later he opened them again, the feeling would not go away. Getting up, he went into the living room, sat on the shabby couch, and opened his own cell phone. He dialed Salah’s number and waited. Two rings, and then the female techno-voice began to tell him in French that the number he’d dialed was not available. He hung up. “Probably the battery is dead,” he argued. He walked back into the bedroom, intending to get back into the bed. Instead he stood there, looking out the thin curtains on the window at the night beyond.

Without really thinking about it, he crossed the room to the closet, found a duffel bag on the floor, and slung it onto the bed. Coming out of the trance, he looked at it there, open, empty, waiting; he marveled at whatever had made him do that. Still, he decided, “Allah is merciful.” With a purpose now, he began to go through the closet, throwing things he might need onto the bed, moving to the small chest of drawers for other things. Soon there was a good sized pile, and he began to fold it all neatly into the bag.

*****

The taxi driver was tired and ready to get rid of this fare, but the man didn’t look like the kind one could just kick out of the car, regardless of how late it was. He looked in the mirror again, but the face was difficult to see in the shadow cast by the back of the front seats. “Just drive” the voice said menacingly, sending a chill through the cabbie that made his bowels feel watery. He put his eyes back on the road and said an Ave Maria, resolving not to look back again.

They were headed back north, not quite having reached his subway stop, but about as far away as he could have been from where Jones now wanted to get, as fast as he could. He did not know this part of Paris, but it was after one o’clock and there was virtually no traffic, so he thought the cabbie could make a little better time. “How much longer?” he asked, still in the harsh voice.

“Perhaps ten minutes, monsieur. I do not know this part of the city well. Are you sure of the address?”

“I’m sure, just drive, and pick up the pace, will you. I’m in a hurry.” Jones retreated further into shadows of the back seat to think about what he would do when they got there.

*****

David Allen emerged from the subway stop at St. Michel, checked quickly behind him, and, not seeing LaPlante, dialed a number on his phone. He listened for thirty seconds, grunted, and snapped it back into the clip on his belt. Without hesitation, he spun round and headed back down the stairs. At the bottom he spotted LaPlante, coming toward him, but he pretended not to notice. Instead he affected a look of confusion, scanning wildly about for a subway system map, and seeing one, walked over to it and studied it for a moment. He dug into his pocked for a piece of paper, looked at it, and then back at the map, reaching up with his free hand to trace the Brown and then Purple lines from the Marais to St. Michel. Satisfied with his course, he turned again, caught LaPlante watching him from the stairs up to the street, and went straight for the escalator down to catch the train to Marais, his new destination the Hotel du Vieux Saule with LaPlante in tow.

Fifteen minutes and he was there, coming up onto the street, a left turn toward the hotel that allowed him a peak to his left to see LaPlante falling in behind. He dialed his phone.

“Yes?” It was Ripley’s voice.

“I’m nearly there. Any change?”

“No,” Ripley replied. “I’m there already, third floor, room 319. Call me when you get to the third floor so I don’t shoot you on the way in. Your friend still with you?”

“Yeah. See you in a minute or two.” Allen rang off. He checked his watch as he crossed the street, it was one-thirty. A moment later he stepped through the hotel door, looking to his left, into the bakery as though looking at the sign for the shop’s hours. Once he was past the dozing desk clerk, he turned to the elevator, thought better of it, found the stairs and walked up.

Ripley sat at the window, looking out at the street, waiting. He saw LaPlante round the corner just as Allen disappeared beneath him. The Frenchman walked slowly up the opposite side of the street and disappeared into the same dark doorway where he’d taken Salah just over three hours ago. He shook his head to wake up. “Gotta stay sharp.” His phone vibrated and he headed for the door, drawing the 10 millimeter S&W Pistol with the long silencer from its place at the small of his back.

*****

It was cold now, especially snugged into the arched stone niche that surrounded the door. LaPlante had not planned on being out all night. But the man he’d followed did not seem to Renee to be what he wanted to appear to be. He was good at disguising his walk, his mannerisms, but LaPlante was good at this, and he thought the man reeked of “intelligence agent.” He’d used his phone already to confirm with his headquarters that no known French agent had arrived by private jet at De Gaulle tonight. “No ‘known’ agent,” he groused to himself for the third time. “Merde, those shits at headquarters. Everyone thinks they need to keep secrets.” Still, he didn’t think this man was French. He was nearly sure