The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

to blend in. Both men power-walked their way, with Blue Jacket staying wide to flank.

If Ben ditched the girl now, maybe they’d forget her and follow. “I’m sorry, Clara. I have to go. Good luck.”

“Good luck with what?”

He didn’t stay to answer, he’d already turned and broken into a run.

Behind him, the dachshund barked. Clara let out a squeal.

11

Ben jogged to a stop. His gamble had failed. He turned to see Brown Jacket with an arm around Clara, holding her shoulder in an iron grip.

“Calix! Get back here.”

“Yeah. Okay.” The spy’s walk of shame.

Blue Sweatshirt continued strolling toward him—a sheep dog corralling the stray.

The dachshund never ceased its barking.

Pedestrians on the bridge paused to watch.

Brown Jacket flashed a badge. “Capitaine Luis Duval, Sous-Direction Anti-Terroriste,” he said and continued in French. “Nothing to see here.”

The Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate. SDAT. A French counterterrorism cop. Strange. All the law enforcement databases listed Ben as Jacob Roy. This cop had called him Calix. And while Ben could believe SDAT might respond to an explosion in a flat, these two had been there when the explosion happened, already watching. Plus, Ben didn’t like Duval’s face. He couldn’t leave Clara with these guys.

Duval returned the badge to his belt and shoved a hand in his pocket. An angular form appeared in the fabric—a gun aimed at Clara’s spleen.

Blue Sweatshirt had taken up a post at Ben’s shoulder, walking a step behind him. “Nice and easy, Calix. This is over for you and your girlfriend. Don’t make trouble.”

There are no coincidences in the intelligence world. A virus doesn’t just happen to start in a town that has a virology lab without a direct connection to that lab. The cousin of a known terrorist doesn’t just happen to travel to a US city a week before a bomb goes off. And two French cops don’t just happen to appear outside a spy’s apartment building on the day his world goes haywire.

Don’t make trouble.

Ben’s flat was gone.

His stuff, gone—nearly everything he owned bleached and burned.

His head pounded from where it had hit the medicine cabinet.

His face still burned from where bleach and acetone had sunk into his abrasions.

And that dumb dog wouldn’t stop barking.

Yeah, he thought. I’m gonna make some trouble.

Ben accelerated his gait, pushing his center of gravity forward like a boulder on a shallow hill. “Clara! Can’t you shut that dog up?”

The shout, meant to off-balance Duval, worked. The stern look of total command on his face waned. Blue Sweatshirt lost the professional composure he’d maintained since taking up his post at Ben’s shoulder. “Calix?” he blurted out. “What are you doing?”

Ben kept accelerating.

The dachshund took this as his cue to double down. He ramped up the intensity and the pitch, front legs bouncing off the ground with each piercing yap.

Blue Sweatshirt jogged to keep pace with Ben. “Calix, stop.”

First confusion, then anger filled Duval’s eyes. With Ben two meters away and not slowing, he pulled the gun out of hiding. He didn’t have time to aim.

Ignoring the weapon, Ben slammed a heel in Duval’s chest. He felt a rib crack. The gun hit the bridge. Ben snatched it up by the barrel—a Beretta Nano. He gave a tilt of his head and pushed out a lip. “Not bad.”

Fingers grazed his shoulder, not yet catching hold.

Ben spun and smashed the Beretta’s butt into the bridge of Blue Sweatshirt’s nose. The man staggered back and dropped to a knee, blood spurting from his nostrils. A follow-up smash to the temple put him out cold.

“You wanted to come with me?” Ben grabbed Clara’s hand. “Fine. Let’s go.”

A few steps in, once she had recovered some coordination, she planted her feet and yanked his arm right back. “Not without my dog.”

“Leave him. He’ll slow us down.”

“No!”

Duval groaned and struggled to regain his feet. He still had some fight in him.

Clara pointed at the dachshund. “Otto comes with us. That is final.”

The pedestrians had formed a circle around them, several filming with their phones.

Ben didn’t have time for an argument. He tucked the gun away and went back for the dog. On the way, he gave Duval another kick to the ribs. “Stay down.” He picked up the dog, and the two sprinted together across the footbridge into the busy streets south of the Eiffel Tower.

12

Get far fast. Then get farther faster.

The same rules that had applied to Ben’s escape from the old city in Rome applied in Paris. With a dachshund named Otto clutched in his arms, and a blue-haired woman he hardly knew hanging on to the loose, bleach-spotted fabric of his sleeve, Ben ascended the steps to the above-ground platforms at Bir-Hakeim Metro Station. He had one driving thought on his mind.

He had to reach Giselle.

The reappearance of the dead Dutchman and the second mention of the mysterious Jupiter tied Ben’s present very-bad day to the botched mission in Rome. He had to warn Giselle before whatever malady had brought his life crashing down infected her too.

He used cash to buy paper tickets for the turnstiles, unable to trust the Navigo transit card registered under Jacob Roy. Given the day’s events, it had probably been burned before he first set foot in Paris late that morning.

The midday crowd left Ben and Clara standing in the aisles of the eastward train. When it lurched into motion, Ben grabbed the overhead bar, leaving Otto tucked under one arm like a football. The dachshund seemed happy there, but once the train settled, Ben pressed him into Clara’s arms. “I think this is yours.”

She scratched the dog’s ears for a moment, then reached up to touch Ben’s cheek.

“Don’t.” He caught her fingers and gently pressed them away. “Please.” What had started as a cut left by a knuckle had grown into a knot, partially closing his right eye. He checked his reflection in the train window. The distortion didn’t help, but even without it, he looked a fright.

The hand Ben had pressed away from his cheek now