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

passed between the Ostrich and the shore, speeding on its way to some urgent call that had nothing to do with Ben—so he hoped.

Basile pushed up the throttle again and corrected their heading. He laid the knife on the dash. “The news program I saw made no mention of a frozen lake.”

“And I never said I was the madman in the report.”

“Mm.” Basile made another of his distinctly French grunts and seemed to focus on managing the boat. After a time, as the shore lights grew brighter, he spoke again. “You paid me a lot, my friend—enough to give me a few days off. But I’m going to ask for something more.”

“Like what?”

“I saw inside your bag earlier. The SIG Sauer 2022.”

“You want it?”

“Mm. And don’t tell me you need it. I know about the Glock hidden in your waistband. A very different gun. Makes me think the SIG is a recent acquisition, and that the previous owner is no longer a concern.”

Ben didn’t correct him. And why shouldn’t he do Basile this favor? He pulled the weapon out. “It needs a cleaning. Like me, it spent some time on the lakebed. Also, you’ll need ammunition. The magazine is empty.”

“Not a problem. Ammunition I can get. Guns are more difficult.” Basile hefted his knife for a moment, then dropped it in his pocket and took the SIG. He racked back the slide and looked down the chamber. “Yes. This will do.”

Basile tossed the weapon onto a folded fishing net and glanced around, breathing in the air. “I would not call this warm, but it’s warmer than Montpellier, for sure. I might stay a night or two. I hear the Hotel Sol is nice. Since I’ll be around—and if you were a madman trying to stop the next attack—would there be anything an old fisherman can do to help?”

Ben hadn’t expected such an offer. He grinned and clapped him on the arm. “Enjoy Valencia’s beaches, and forget about the madman. I think that’s best for all concerned.”

49

Duval swallowed painkillers straight from the bottle on his way through Valencia’s small airport. The morphine had worn off fifteen minutes into his cab ride.

A black sedan waited for him at the curb. The driver leaned against the hood, holding a tablet with his name in bright white letters. A woman—attractive. Nice touch. Perhaps he should quit mourning his failed police career and work for his American friend full-time.

The woman said nothing when she opened the door for him and remained silent as they left the airport boundary. The highway shifted from four lanes to two, then one. Streetlamps and office buildings gave way to houses, then dark fields.

Duval coughed. “Où allons-nous?”

Still nothing from the woman. Perhaps, like the cabbie, she didn’t speak French. He tried English. “Where are we going?”

No answer.

He felt a modicum of relief when a town appeared ahead—a little barrio, older than the community surrounding the airport. The sedan weaved its way through a maze of streets built originally for horses, amid houses of ancient brown brick and peeling plaster. But the barrio also passed.

Again the driver took them into the dark.

Towns and barrios came and went. Fields. Suburbs. The woman behind the wheel traded pavement for cobblestone, then gravel, then pavement again. Wherever they were headed, this could not be the fastest route. Duval stomped the floorboard, gritting his teeth against the pain that shot through his arm. “I insist you tell me where we are going.”

Still no answer.

At length, the sedan eased to a stop. The driver stepped out, walked around the hood, and opened Duval’s door.

“Here?” He poked his head from the car and squinted at the dark. No streetlamps. No houses. Only trees.

The driver gestured at a worn path in the grass.

“There are only the two of us. Where is my contact? Where is the agent who will help me take down Calix?”

“I am your contact, Capitaine Duval. Get out of the car. I want to show you something.”

She spoke French. Melodious French. Relieved, he climbed out, pausing to pop another pill before following her up the trail. The woman moved with easy grace on the rough terrain. Duval did not. He stumbled over a root and bumped his bad arm against a pine. It took all his self-control to bury the pained yelp demanding to escape his lungs. He didn’t want to embarrass himself. What if this beauty became his new partner? A smile crossed his lips at the thought. So much for Renard.

The trees parted a short distance from a cliff overlooking a sprawling industrial complex. Billowing exhaust, silver blue against a sea of mercury high-intensity lights, poured from several factory buildings stretching out like spokes from a central wheel of steel and glass. Warehouses lay between the spokes, and trucks and carts ran through the alleys in steady streams despite the late hour. A central ring-shaped structure had to be the company headquarters, but not—Duval surmised—the place he should expect to find the CEO.

The woman caught him looking past the complex to a house on the small mountain above. More than a house. A modernistic, gleaming white castle. “Yes,” she said. “That is his enclave. His Olympus.”

“The American.”

“His name is Jupiter. And he’s quite pleased with all you’ve done.”

Duval tore his gaze from the castle to meet the woman’s eyes. “Pleased? I have failed time and again. Look at me. A mess. I was meant to capture Calix, not absorb bullets for him.”

“You were meant to drive him.” Once again, she turned her gaze to the complex. Her body followed. The toes of her elegant mid-calf boots flirted with the edge of the cliff.

Duval took the meaning of her body language. “Here? This whole time, he wanted me pushing Calix toward this place? Why not simply say so?”

“Sometimes the act of shepherding a man is physical. Sometimes it is psychological. Jupiter told you all you needed to hear to get the job done. And as I said. He is pleased with