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

“Look.” Clara tore a page from her sketchbook. “I asked our host to describe the sea monster from the bomber’s backpack. He remembered it well.”

Ben studied the sea monster drawing. Its three coils wrapped around a globe, and a forked tongue lashed out from between its fangs. Leviathan. Maybe. A poor clue, but his only clue that didn’t point straight back to his own agency. He gave her a fleeting smile. “Thanks.”

“So where will we go now?” she asked, cutting into her steak. “Rotterdam?”

“I will go to Rotterdam. I had some time to think in the shower, let the steam clear my head. You’re staying here, where you’ll be safe.”

Her knife clattered to the plate. “Safe? With the sniper?”

“Sensen has no quarrel with you. I’ll work it out—play on his sense of honor and pay him for the favor.”

Her lips parted in protest.

Ben held up a hand to stop her. “No arguments. I’m doing this for my sake as much as yours. I need to stay light and move fast from now on.” He took his tray and left.

Sleep came only with the use of a sedative, another boon from Sensen. Ben could safely say he’d paid for it. Several thousand euros covered the pill, the damage to the house from the gun battle, and playing innkeeper to Clara for a week. Ben figured if he hadn’t come back for her by then, he’d be dead, and she’d be on her own.

The following morning, he and Clara said their goodbyes at the door to her room.

“Are you sure it’s safe for me to stay here?” she asked.

Ben nodded. “Sensen is a good man, or tries to be. But just in case . . .” He gave her the revolver. “Keep it close.”

Clara tucked the gun into her waistband and pulled her borrowed sweater down over it. “Come back to me.”

“I will.”

“You said that before, remember? What if you don’t?”

“If I’m not back in a week, ask Sensen to get you a clean passport and a one-way ticket out of Europe, wherever you and Otto want to go.” He showed her a roll of bills. “This will cover it, with enough left over to get you started wherever you land.”

She glanced down at the money. “A gun. Getaway cash. You’re not inspiring confidence with these gifts.”

“I have no confidence left.”

“I do. This will all come right in the end. You’ll see.”

Ben saw no trace of exaggeration, no false bravado in those ice-blue eyes. “How can you know?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I just do. Call it faith.”

Faith. That word again. But where had faith taken Ben? On the run. Banished from the Company by the Director. Girlfriend murdered. How much longer could he hold on to faith? How much more could he take?

“I have to take the Peugeot.”

Clara gave him a smile. “As if I wanted that piece of junk anyway.”

Otto appeared at her ankles, and Ben kneeled to scratch his ears. “You take care of her, you hear me?”

The dachshund’s watery gaze spoke of understanding and affirmation. Don’t you worry. I’ve got this.

When Ben straightened, Clara wrapped him in a hug and held it for a long time. She let her cheek brush against his. He felt a kiss. In a barely audible whisper, she repeated her former command. “Come back to me.”

Downstairs, Sensen sat wide awake and dressed for the day in a large stuffed chair near the door. “I thought I told you to be gone before I woke.”

“Maybe you should learn to sleep in.”

“This business makes light sleepers of us all. Besides, I wanted one more chance to lay eyes on the strange and tragic creature who came to visit my chalet.”

Ben didn’t quite catch his meaning. “Tragic, yes. But strange?”

“A man trapped in his delusions, ready to face destruction rather than face the truth of his own failures.”

Germans. In Ben’s experience, they never minced words. Sensen remained true to his heritage.

“I also wanted to give you this.” Sensen handed him a slip of paper. “The address of the pier where the dog flagged the bomber.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. And I mean that. Don’t mention this to anyone. I’ve already done you—the severed Company man—too many favors.”

Sensen saw him to the door, and Ben paused at the threshold. “While you’re feeling generous, I’d like one more favor.”

“I told you. I can’t get you a meeting with the Director.”

“Not the Director. Colonel Hale. Ask him to meet with me—a few minutes, that’s all.”

Sensen looked as if he might argue, but sighed. “All right. But you know how these things work. He’ll choose the time and place, not you. How do I reach you with the rendezvous point?”

Ben hastily wrote a nonexistent email address on the paper Sensen had given him and ripped the piece off, handing it over. “Send it to this address. Use the old schoolhouse code.” He turned to go, then glanced back. “By coming here, I’ve violated my severance. I know you have a duty to report in. What will you do if the Company escalates to a kill order?”

“I’ll do my job. And when the bullet enters your skull, you’ll know I had no choice.”

27

The trek north to the Netherlands took most of the day, including a stop for brunch and some fashion shopping in the military town of Bitburg, Germany, where Americans driving beat-up cars had been a fixture since 1952. He also stopped at a print and copy shop in Liege, Belgium. As before, Ben avoided the highways. He used the utility roads near the North Sea coast to work his way east into the industrial port of Rotterdam. He knew the place well. All the Company men and women did.

Rotterdam has been a smuggler’s paradise for centuries, once the largest port in the world, with river access as deep into Europe’s interior as Switzerland. Thirty-five kilometers of warehouses, petroleum depots, and megaship piers make it a perfect covert hub, one of Europe’s most well-transited entry points for spies,