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

an extra measure of pride, but do you really believe an attempt to bring down the world’s most important covert agency begins with you?” He shrugged, holding the apple in a limp hand. “Why not me? Why not Giselle? She’s twice as smart as the rest of us.”

Another spike of ice. The same numbing emptiness as before. Ben didn’t answer. He couldn’t bring her name to his lips, and Sensen didn’t know they’d been seeing each other.

Ben and Clara joined Sensen in the kitchen, and Ben kept a watchful eye on their host. They’d left the guns behind in the living area, but he imagined Sensen had hidden one or more firearms in every room. Ben would respect him less if he hadn’t.

Sensen lit a fire in a wood-burning stove, and the three sat at a long table of gnarled and polished wood.

Ben knocked on the tabletop. “Belgian honey oak? Like the door and the entry table?”

“All part of a set I bought at auction. Some know-nothing Hollywood actor remodeled his newly purchased castle and discarded its best features.” For the first time, he looked Ben up and down. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks. I’m trying out a muddy furrow survival grunge thing.”

The German cracked a smile and leaned across the tiny space to retrieve a tan bottle from the refrigerator. He offered one to Ben, who waved it off, accepting a clear bottle of Gerolsteiner sparkling water instead. Sensen offered one of each to Clara. “Calix failed to properly introduce us. Call me Sensen. Ben and I used to work together.”

“Clara.” She chose the sparkling water and used it to point at the dachshund, curled up on the floor beside her. “And this is Otto.”

Ben didn’t like the way Sensen said used to, as if they would never work together again. He finally brought himself to say the words he’d been struggling with since the moment before Clara’s entrance. “Giselle’s dead.”

The smile dropped from Sensen’s lips. “I’m sorry. I know you two were close. I could see it in the way she looked at you. And you contend this is part of what’s happening to you?”

Contend? Ben didn’t argue the semantics. He nodded.

The German did the same and took in a long breath. He steepled his fingers, a surgeon bringing bad news. “You must realize how this looks to all of us. The mission in Rome went awry. The intel you attained is bad. The enemy agent you blame is dead—burned by your own hand. And the only Company witness who could either exonerate or condemn you is also dead.”

Ben pounded the table. “Are you saying I murdered Giselle?”

“I was there,” Clara said at the same time, fire in her voice. “Ben’s innocent.”

Sensen raised his hands. “I’m only bringing the perception to your attention. You were cut off and your Company protections removed. Perhaps your closeness with Giselle exposed her too. Either way, you must try to picture this through the Company’s eyes. To them, your sins are apparent. And to me, these calamities can be explained by only one thing—a severance.”

A severance. Ben hadn’t heard that term in years.

Clara cocked her head. “Ben? What’s a severance?”

He didn’t like the change in the way she looked at him. “When a spy goes bad, or demonstrates gross incompetence, the Company cuts him off—with extreme prejudice. All protection for covers is removed. All support is gone.” He lowered his forehead into his palm. “Enemies can move in and take you at will.”

“We call it a severance,” Sensen said.

Ben rolled his head to look at Clara. “But it’s a myth, a campfire ghost story told at the schoolhouse to scare the new recruits.”

The German shook his head. “It is a reality. Your reality. A false mission. A dead team member. Incompetent. Failure. Traitor? How can the Company see you in any other light?”

Ben shook his head, closing his eyes. “They’re wrong. I’m clean.”

“None of us are clean, my friend. Not one of us is pure.”

Clara finished a swallow of her water and stared at him hard. “How so?”

“Consider the graveyard at the edge of my property. Consider the unnamed buried there, rotted, long ago abandoned by even the worms and maggots.”

Her bravado seemed to falter at the mention of the graves. Her glass bottle clinked on the table as she set it down. “Wh-what about them?”

“I’m sure each, in life, proclaimed his own purity, as Calix proclaims his now. And upon their deaths, each prayed to God for paradise in the hereafter. Yet each knew in their deepest hearts that they deserved eternal fire.” He shifted his gaze to Ben. “This is the nature of man.”

“A philosophical opinion,” Ben said, waving it away with his Gerolsteiner.

“A fact. Especially in our business. Stop living in denial, Calix. Turn to introspection, and perhaps you’ll find your answers.”

Introspection. Could this executioner-philosopher be right? Ben had made mistakes in the past. He’d committed acts the rest of the world might see as atrocities. He’d fallen for Massir’s gambit. In Rome, he had desecrated a temple, stolen from the homeless, and burned a corpse. In Paris, he’d fought the police. He’d killed a man.

He felt the sniper’s eyes weighing on him and raised his own. “You’re wrong. This isn’t on me. And this isn’t on the Company—not entirely. At the source, this is Leviathan.”

“Mm.” Sensen left the table to stoke his fire, muttering to himself. “Leviathan. A sea monster.”

“What do you know of them? Have you heard of an individual called Jupiter?”

“No. But . . . it’s odd. A coincidence.”

Clara watched them both. “Ben tells me you spies don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Genau.” Sensen stirred his embers with a set of iron tongs. “Just so. And that is the only reason I bring this up. I saw it on my last mission, a month before Paris—a hasty kill in Rotterdam.”

“The failed bombing,” Ben said.

“Correct.” Sensen added a log, positioned it with his tongs, and closed the door. He looked at Clara, as if wary about speaking in front of her, but then