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

“Yes. Brand new.” Giselle passed a finger over the touchless control. “This skyscraper is not open yet. One of Jupiter’s child corporations started the project three years ago, a measure of his foresight.” She glanced up at the rolling floor numbers, rocketing through thirty. “He built the tallest structure in Norfolk.”

Norfolk. A burst of cortisol, the body’s fear hormone, heightened Ben’s awareness. He stared at Giselle. “We’re in Norfolk?”

“Oops. I wanted to surprise you when we reached the roof, but the cat is now out of the bag, yes?” Giselle shrugged, raising her hands palms up. “Oh well. But isn’t it wonderful? We’ll be able to see Behemoth from here.”

Norfolk. Not Baltimore.

Ben had expected skepticism from the Director, but he also expected the Company to follow up on his reports as a matter of risk management—maybe even call in a team to check things out. But he’d pointed them to Baltimore. The papers in the envelope—the thumb drive—all fake, and Ben bought it, just like Massir and the case. He really had become the king of red herrings.

He’d given the Company bad intel. Again. No one was coming to stop the ship.

Ben’s failure could not be more complete.

69

The elevator doors opened to a rooftop garden with topiaries and deep green grass. Curved glass pillars, glowing blue, lit the space and bounded a winding stone path. Giselle walked Ben down a set of steps to the first stone and backed away, allowing a pair of grunts packing MP7s to move in and check him out.

One patted him down. The other stood between Ben and the garden, hands clasped behind his back. “Arms out to the sides, Calix. You wearing a wire? Locator?”

“Maybe you haven’t heard. I’m no longer in the Director’s good graces.”

The grunt snorted. “We’ll check anyway, if you don’t mind.”

The handsy one lifted the SIG from under Ben’s sweatshirt and held it up with a thumb and forefinger like a dirty sock. “Gun.” He handed the weapon off to Giselle and kept working until he came to the slight bulge of the injector in Ben’s right front pocket. Tess’s kick. He dug the cylinder out and wiggled it before Ben’s eyes. “What’s this?”

“Antibiotics.” He wished they’d get it over with. His arms burned from holding them outstretched, muscles worn to exhaustion.

“Doesn’t look like any pill bottle I ever saw.”

Giselle intervened. “He’s telling the truth. He used the sat phone we gave him to call in a medic. That’s a Company CO2 injector.”

“Whatever.” The man finished his checks by running a wand over Ben’s front and back. “He’s clean.”

The grunt blocking Ben’s path nodded to his friend and stepped aside.

Ben let his arms fall, grateful for the relief. “What about my meds?”

Mr. Handsy slapped the cylinder into his chest. “Fat lot of good they’ll do ya.”

Ben clutched the injector in his fist and let Giselle walk him into the garden.

A man with dark hair and a Mediterranean tan rose from a patio table near the path’s end. He spread his arms, and his black Mandarin-collar suit shimmered in the light from the pillars. “Ben Calix, as I live and breathe. What a joy it is to finally see your face.” He tilted his head and pulled the other chair from the table, making room. “It’s not as pretty a face as it might have been if you’d come to see me when Hagen so politely asked, but that can be remedied. Come. Sit.”

Giselle lowered Ben into the chair and helped him lean his elbows on the tabletop’s mosaic tiles. Ben recognized a fourth member of their rooftop party standing a ways off and looking out at Norfolk over the aluminum railing—the angry New Yorker who’d bawled out the dockmaster, and probably the one who’d planted the envelope and thumb drive for Ben to find. Jupiter had executed an impressive chess strategy, and seeing the young man gave Ben the feeling of looking into his playbook. “You brought a friend. May I meet him?”

“Not now. Terrance is sulking because I didn’t invite him to the grown-ups’ table. But the truth is, I only brought him to the garden to prove a point.” Jupiter opened his palm, and Giselle gave him Ben’s stolen SIG. With barely a look to aim, he swung the weapon out and fired.

Terrance collapsed, bleeding from a hole in his temple, utter shock in his open eyes.

Jupiter waved a hand at the two grunts. “Get him off the grass.”

Ben let out a deflated breath, watching the guards drag Terrance to the elevator. “Why?”

“Zoysia grass,” Jupiter said. “Highly impressionable, like a memory foam mattress. We can’t leave him there too long.”

“I meant why did you kill him?”

Giselle giggled. “He knows what you meant, mon rêve.”

“I killed him as a show of faith,” Jupiter said, handing her the gun.

“Faith?” That word again. The young man had put his faith in his boss as Ben had put his faith in the Director. Was one side any different from the other?

Jupiter wiped his hands on a napkin and set it aside. “Terrance held a high position in my organization. With that shot, I created a vacancy. I want you to fill it.”

“You’re right. You’re showing a lot of faith in my motivations. But what if I didn’t come here for a cure and a job? What if I came to stop this attack and kill you before your disease finishes me off?”

Jupiter gasped in mock surprise. “Did you see my shocked face. Want to see it again?” He repeated the gesture, then flattened his features. “I saw the strain in your body while my men checked you for weapons. You can barely lift your arms, let alone fight.” He laughed. “Kill me? For what, some kind of perimortem catharsis? I’m not the one who wronged you. Quite the opposite. I’m offering the life the Director stole from you, and so much more.”

A slight nod brought Giselle over to pull