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

he was American: the shoes, Renee thought, were American. An American agent in Paris at this time of night, running all over town on the subway, was certainly interesting and worth a little discomfort. At least it wasn’t raining.

A look at his watch showed he’d been waiting for fifteen minutes, and he was on the point of crossing the street to quiz the desk clerk on the man who’d just entered the hotel, when he stopped and faded back into the deep shadow of the door. Four men were walking up the other side of the street, in his direction and that of the hotel. He could not really see four men, but they were talking, and he could hear them walking along in the near-silent night, no traffic to be heard anywhere. It was four, he was sure of that, and he willed his eyes to pierce the darkness. Nothing. “Probably a bunch of drunk teenagers,” he murmured under his breath. He continued to watch, knowing they would pass under the awning of the hotel and through the pool of light on the sidewalk outside the door. Then he would cross and begin his work.

They were there in another thirty seconds, but he was shocked when they turned abruptly, hurled open the door and piled through it. “What’s this?” Something was not right. Renee’s brain was in overdrive, sorting what he saw. “Shit,” he yelled aloud. He fumbled for his phone, dialed, and waited for an answer. On the third ring he couldn’t wait any longer and he began to walk briskly across the street for the door of the hotel. The four men, and there were definitely four, hadn’t been in a hurry, they’d stormed the door, like an attack of police or infantry. They were all dark-haired, certainly not fair-skinned at all, but he could not say more in the short glimpse and poor light. He was nearly across the street when the other end picked up.”

“FNP Headquarters.”

“This is LaPlante, Detective Inspector Renee LaPlante. I have an emergency and need an immediate counter-terrorist squad at,” he looked up at the address on the awning, and moved to the side into the shelter of the brick wall so he would not be seen from the lobby, “Number 6 rue de Picardi, the Hotel Vieux Saule. NOW!” He was yelling. He leaned to his left, peeking through the door. There was no clerk visible at the reception desk.

“Hold a moment Inspector,” the voice said blandly.

“Shit!” Renee said again. He hoped he was wrong, but his guts told him four Arabs had just entered this hotel to attack the American he’d just followed. And he was unarmed, as usual for the airport duty. No gun, nothing.

“Inspector, I have a team enroute. They should reach you in fifteen minutes.”

“Shit!” he yelled into the phone. “There may be dead people here in five minutes! Tell them to hurry, for God’s sake, and tell them to call me NOW on this number.” He read it, listened to the repeat, and hung up. Moments ticked by, the phone didn’t ring. “Go in?” he thought, “have a look around, maybe go up the stairs? See if the desk clerk is OK? Maybe this isn’t what I think and the clerk has just gone to the WC?” “No,” the other half of his brain replied. “I know what I saw, and I have no chance, unarmed, against those 4. If they finish in the hotel and come out through the lobby, they’ll finish me as well. I’ll wait.” He peered cautiously around the corner again. Nothing.

The phone rang and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “LaPlante,” he answered.

“Inspector, we are enroute to your location. What is the situation there?”

“Who is this?” LaPlante asked.

“Squad Leader Olivier, sir. What is the situation there?”

“Olivier, listen carefully. I am certain that four Arab men have just stormed this hotel, not more than fifteen minutes after a man I believe to be an American agent entered it. You must hurry. How long?”

“Eight minutes, sir, no more.”

“Make it three, or I’ll strangle you myself when you get here. Whatever is happening here, it will be over in eight minutes.” LaPlante could just make out a new roar from the vehicle. Olivier must be driving.

LaPlante could not believe it could take so long. He left the line open, peeked around the wall again into the lobby, again seeing nothing. He retreated, and leaned back to wait.

*****

The attack had been about what he’d expected. A sharp knock on the outer door, a pause, and then they’d broken it down. He’d been surprised by the silenced weapons, a nice touch, but they’d been as cold, ruthless, and stupid as he thought they’d be. They came through the door bunched up, no discipline to cover the room, and they’d begun to fire immediately at the beds and the pillows bunched under the blankets. They’d spoken in what he knew to be Arabic, nothing else sounded like that.

Ripley had taken the lead man center of mass, a double tap to the chest from the big ten millimeter. It hurled the man backward into the next following him, but as the two collided Allen fired his first volley, taking number two from the side and forcing him to his own left, out of the way of the third man. Everyone was firing now, and Ripley had felt a round or two strike the heavy wooden chest he’d hidden behind. Number three and four had kept firing, not seeing, or not understanding what was happening even as their leaders went down. Without a pause his weapon came back down into battery, the sights settling in the middle of a dark face, mustache, still shooting at beds, oblivious of the death about to strike him. Two quick pulses of his trigger, the first round took him in the forehead, and he dropped his aim enough to put the second through the chest. He heard a last “phhhhhuttt” from Allen’s gun, a scream, and then mostly silence. Feathers from the pillows floated everywhere, smoke and the smell of cordite mingled with the familiar odor of fresh death.

Both men moved quickly. Allen went to number four, who he’d only shot in the knee, nearly blowing the leg off. The man was moaning softly, eyes closed. Ripley frowned at his new acquaintance, and, their eyes both so well adjusted to the dark, Allen smiled back visibly and shrugged. “They were all down, it was a good shot, just for practice. Besides, quick is too kind for this kind of crap.” He nudged the man’s mangled leg, drew a sharp moan, and then the man passed out.

Each quickly searched the dead, pocketing wallets from all four. Ripley stood and hissed, “Let’s MOVE,” and he disappeared through the broken door. “Leave him, maybe the FNP will get something out of him, and I’ll get it from them by the end of the week.”

Together they ran to their left, away from the stairs and elevator that led to the lobby. At the end of the hall they turned right, down another long hallway, the east side of the building. At the end of this there was an exit door, already open, and they went through, closing it behind them. From there, down the fire escape three floors to the street. The alley opened two blocks west, and another two blocks east, nothing near the immediate front of the hotel. Ripley’s car was there. He fired up as Allen shut his door, and drove slowly down the alley to the east, turning south onto the boulevard and steering for the US Embassy. It was six minutes after two in the morning.

*****

The counter-terror squad arrived noisily at five minutes after two, just as the shooting finished on the third floor. The team piled out, Olivier storming over to LaPlante. “Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing,” LaPlante replied. He looked at the troopers, thinking “good, very good.”

“I’ll lead, then, follow my last man and stay out of the way,” Olivier said. He motioned to his team, made two hand signals. The team formed up, two men went through the door and stopped to cover the lobby, two more dashed into the lobby, leapfrogged past them. They took up positions at the entrance to the bakery and under the reception desk’s counter. Nothing moved. The rest of the team and LaPlante walked in, looking around.

LaPlante smelled it first: blood. He waked deliberately to the desk, then around it through the half door. The young man was dead, a pool of dark blood under him on the polished sandstone floor. He’d been shot twice in the chest.

“Shit,” Olivier hissed from over his shoulder. “Any idea what floor these maniacs are on?” He gave two signals, and four men moved to the stairs and elevator. One gestured down the hall to the east, and Olivier acknowledged with a waive that sent him halfway to the end.

“None,” said LaPlante. Then he looked at the desk above the dead man; there was both a book and a computer screen. Stepping carefully to avoid the blood and not spoil the crime scene, he took the book. One glance told him nobody had checked in after seven o’clock the previous evening. Many Americans earlier yesterday, but all apparently couples. A Saudi family the night before, or Arab at least. Al-Auda. That was a little odd, but Saudis often came to Europe. There was a note in the margin with another name: “Paul Cameron.” The light went on.

“Third floor,” LaPlante said aloud, too loud. “Room 319. MOVE!”

Olivier was quick, hand signals again, two men went up the stairs, another two had the elevator open. Another went down the hall, joined his partner, and together they ran to the end, made the right turn and disappeared. Olivier held up five fingers, ticked them down one by one, and at zero the elevator closed and went straight to the third floor.

They could all smell the cordite when the door opened, the two men on the stairs arriving almost at the same time as the elevator. Now they moved slower. Olivier spoke into a microphone, quietly, requesting another squad and a crime scene unit. He motioned to the stair team, which scuttled down the hall to just short of the open doorway, low along the wall. The hall team rounded the corner at the far end, and saw Olivier’s signal. They took up positions ten feet away from 319. Across the hall, a door clicked briefly open, a head peeked out, and then abruptly closed.

Otherwise it was quiet. Olivier cocked his head for a moment, listening. Then he stood up and walked casually down the hall and into the room, lowering his submachine gun. He was no longer worried.

LaPlante was right behind him, what he saw was a mess. Three dead men, the hotel room a shambles. One man shot, moaning in pain on the floor. All the men were armed, bullet holes in the walls, furniture, all the beds, feathers everywhere. He shouted suddenly “BACK DOOR!”, turned and ran out. Olivier turned as well, the gun coming up. They rounded the corner and saw the “Sortie” sign over the door at the end of the hall. LaPlante ran harder. He burst through the door onto the fire escape landing, leaned over, looked down to the alley below. Nothing. “Shit,” was all he could say. He turned back into the hall and shoved Olivier aside. It was nine minutes after two; Rene LaPlante was three minutes too late.

*****

Twenty miles north, Jones was a very frustrated man. The cab had dropped him off where he thought he should be, but he could not find the address he was looking for. The neighborhood was a warren of crooked, narrow streets, and nothing he tried had worked. He’d spend nearly twenty minutes searching. Now he’d found it, but it was dark, quiet, nothing moving. He’d been watching the building for a minute and a half,