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

The wall across from Ben lit up. A flashlight beam panned to the alley’s end and froze.

He held his breath. After too many heartbeats, the beam evaporated.

“Come on. I know an all-night bodega on the next block. I’ll buy you a bag of macarons to still that rumbling belly.”

The voices drifted off.

Ben released a great fog of breath and continued his work. He clicked on a penlight and searched the cobblestones.

A streak of char marked the spot where the sparking phone had fallen. He panned the light up the wall beside it to head level and found a pockmark—a hole, really. Limestone never held up well against high-velocity rounds. He shined the light inside, and his shoulders drooped.

Nothing. The sniper had cleaned up his own mess, digging his slugs from the wall.

The second and third holes confirmed it. No slugs. No answers. A wasted trip. Ben sighed and let himself fall back against the limestone to rest and prepare for the trip back through the police net.

Something glinted in the beam of his penlight.

Ben panned the light over the cobblestones and found the object again, in the crack between two blocks. He dropped to a crouch. Fingers wouldn’t do the job, but the multi-tool he’d brought along worked nicely. Steel scraped against stone and grout as he worked the tool’s needle-nose pliers into the crack. Carefully, he drew out a metal sliver—a curved piece of a dark alloy. He held it under the penlight. The sniper had not been so thorough after all. He’d left a bullet fragment behind.

The alloy looked familiar. Ben dropped the sliver into his fingers to measure the weight and rigidity. Tungsten carbide.

He sat back on his heels and lowered his head. A name fell from his lips. “Sensen.”

18

A trio of policemen unknowingly pinned Ben down in the boxwoods of René Viviani Square, across the water from Notre Dame. The cops hadn’t seen him, but they hung out on the Double Bridge, smoking and shooting the breeze at the dead center.

Often the best thing an operative can do is wait. Diversions and distractions are designed to draw attention. Gunshots and broken windows are great for pulling a sentry away from a gate or street corner, but in the long run, when you’re trying to disappear, they only invite more trouble.

French cops and their smoke breaks.

The group hung around for another thirty minutes, so long Ben almost nodded off. When he finally got moving again, after more than two hours in the city, the cathedral island’s streetlamps looked like warm windows in a cabin at the edge of a dark wood.

Ben checked the river on the way across. A thin coating of vapor hung over the surface, building fast. The cooling air trapped in the canal above the Seine had started its nightly winter magic. He and Clara needed to get moving, but as he quickened his steps, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He heard heavy breathing. Or was it the scuff of his own soles against the cobblestones?

The river made sounds hard to trace. Ben put a hand near his gun and checked the steps to the water at the north. Silent—nothing but stone and moss. He relaxed.

The crunch of steel against the base of Ben’s skull sent a shock wave through his body. He crumpled, groaning, blinking to banish the haze from his vision. Instinct kicked in. He felt the Glock’s grip already in his palm, halfway out of the holster.

“Do it, Mr. Calix. Draw your weapon.” A man, breathing heavy and wearing a familiar brown jacket, materialized from the blur in Ben’s vision. He bent close to hold a compact revolver a foot from Ben’s nose. “Give me a reason to shoot.”

“I’d rather not, Monsieur Duval.”

“It’s capitaine. Capitaine Duval. Get to your feet. I’m tired and hurt. And I’m sick of this game.”

Duval’s gun arm hung a little low, a result of his broken ribs. Ben guessed he couldn’t hold the revolver much higher than his navel without serious pain. “Is that your spare?” He grinned and answered his own question. “Must be. Your Beretta is probably in an evidence lockup by now. I bet it’s embarrassing for an SDAT investigator to have his piece stolen, emptied in a standoff with patrolmen, and tossed into the street.”

“I said, get up.”

“Sure.” Ben took his time. Nausea swept over him, threatening to knock him down again. He swallowed back his bile and straightened. “How’d you find me?”

“Our police forces are covering the roads and trains, leaving you only one route out of this district—the river. I’ve been patrolling the south bank. Tell me. Where is the girl?”

He must not have seen Ben leaving the cathedral earlier. He hadn’t found Clara’s hiding place.

“She ditched me.”

“Smart girl. I’ll find her for you. I’ll take good care of her.”

A surge of pain washed through Ben’s head, sending another wave of nausea through his gut. It might have been concern for Clara. Then again, he’d taken two good knocks in the same day. He’d be lucky to get out of this without long-term damage.

Duval had him—wounded and covered. But the cop hadn’t called in the troops. Not a good sign. “Who are you working for? Jupiter? Leviathan?”

Duval’s eyes went vacant for a fraction of a second. He didn’t seem to recognize those names.

Ben chuckled. “Do you even know who you’re working for?”

“I work for a man who pays well and wants to speak with you. That is enough.”

So, he didn’t know. Another answer remained out of Ben’s reach. “Sorry to disappoint your boss, but I won’t be taken alive.”

“I can’t tell you how gratified I am to hear you say that.”

“Don’t be. Previous experience tells us your chances of winning this fight are slim.” Ben’s hand inched along his hip.

The cop saw. “Yes. Good.” Duval slowly raised the revolver to level, clenching his jaw against the pain. “A gunfight is what I want, like something from your Old West