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

“Threatening to shoot him. This was a test?”

He holstered his weapon. “I’m sorry.”

Clara took one step closer and slapped him across the face. “You are a monster.”

“I know.” He wandered over to the Peugeot, running on the same autopilot that had drawn his gun. “The police are coming. We have to keep running.”

The Peugeot had survived the blast, minus the passenger side windows and mirror. Ben kicked out a patch of flame on the front right tire and tucked his hand into his jacket sleeve to knock burning debris off the roof and hood. He brushed the shattered glass off the passenger seat and stood clear, pulling the door wide for Clara and her dog. “Get in.”

She didn’t argue, though he knew she had every reason to walk away.

On the way around the hood to the driver’s side, a chunk of black plastic caught Ben’s eye, lying on the drive’s white gravel. It looked like a corner fragment of a small box, with insulated wire and a piece of silicone chip melted to the interior. Definitely not a piece of the car. He slipped it into his pocket and dropped to a knee to hotwire the ignition under the daggers of Clara’s glare.

“I really am sorry,” he said, getting behind the wheel. “I had to be sure you were telling the truth.”

She let out a huff. “Just drive.”

Numbness.

Ben couldn’t feel pain anymore, not the bruise under his eye from Hagen’s fist or the double knot on the back of his head from the crash into the mirror and the strike from Duval’s gun. He felt only tingling numbness, like a man phasing out of existence, leaving nothing in the place of his flesh and bone but rage.

The explosion had drawn witnesses who saw the Peugeot leaving the scene. The police would find them, get descriptions. Ben kept to the side roads in a maddening zigzag race for the western border.

“I’m sorry,” Clara said thirty minutes into the journey.

“For what.”

“For your loss. I’m still angry with you for the accusations—for threatening Otto—but I can see Giselle was both love and dear friend to you. And these people you are fighting. They took her. I’m sorry.”

“She knew the risks of our profession. We both did. We walked into the job and the relationship with our eyes open.”

Clara turned in her seat, scowling. “What an idiotic thing to say.”

Her audacity shook him from his daze. “What do you know about it?”

“You think I haven’t heard this phrase before? Hmm? ‘He knew the risks.’ Is this supposed to bring anyone comfort?”

He knew the risks. The hurt in her voice spoke of someone she loved. He. “Your brother.”

“I told you Peter took my father’s anger for me. He stayed as long as I needed protecting, but when I went off to art school in Bratislava, he took his chance. He joined the army.”

“The Slovak Ground Forces?” From what Ben knew about the organization—mostly a shooting club for Soviet-era artillery enthusiasts—the job carried little danger.

“No. The British army. He called ours a joke, and the Brits offered him citizenship for service.” Clara hugged Otto tight. “Peter passed an English test at our village church. Seven months later, he finished training as a nurse in their Army Medical Service. Three months after that, he died in a UK hospital. He’d contracted COVID-19 from a patient. A messenger service delivered the letter to our doorstep.” She laughed. “A letter. Nothing more. Not the journal he kept. No dog tags. I took the bus home from Bratislava to read it for Father, because his English is terrible. But he must have figured it out. He drank himself into oblivion before I arrived.”

Ben remembered thumbing through her book—the sketch of the man passed out at a mechanic’s worktable. He had seen it as a study of an old drunk. But Clara had sketched a study in grief.

“‘He knew the risks,’” she said, spitting out the words. “Peter’s commander wrote that in his letter. ‘He was brave. He knew the risks.’ How are those any comfort?”

Ben kept quiet, eyes on the road.

“No one asked me about the risks. No one asked Father. And Peter signed up to escape our home, to find a better life, not to become some cog in their machine. Expendable. There is a phrase for it.” She rubbed her forehead, as if trying to recall. “I found it on the internet, the percentage of soldiers who will die, written into the general’s plan.”

“Acceptable loss.”

She looked at him, eyes full of tears. “Yes. But it is not acceptable. My brother. Your Giselle. The deaths of those we love are never acceptable.”

Clara fell silent, staring out the broken window, and Ben let her declaration stand for them both.

Not acceptable.

He would get answers. And when he had his bearings again, those responsible for Giselle’s murder would pay.

Clara wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sniffled. “Giselle was to be your lifeline. So, now what? Do we run, forever looking over our shoulders?”

“No.”

“Then tell me the plan. Where are we going?”

“Luxembourg. I need to see a man about a bullet.”

22

No agents patrolled the crossing from France to Luxembourg, and none had for decades. The Schengen Convention had abolished border checks during the EU’s first chaotic birth pangs—a blessing to all spies.

An enterprising local had turned the old vehicle inspection area at the former Longlaville checkpoint into a paid parking lot and the guardhouse into a storage shed. Ben glanced through the shed’s frosted windows as he drove past. Boxes, bicycles, and a single kayak were stacked inside, a strange mix of utter normalcy. Giselle would have created some story for the kayak or suggest they steal it and ride the river through town. Ben chuckled, but his smile quickly faded.

Clara stretched and adjusted her seat belt. “Where are we?” She had slept since Reims, where Ben had stopped to cover the