by A. C. Fuller
7
Warren arrived at the École d'économie de Paris just before dusk. The soft light made the thin layer of snow look pinkish gray. On any other day it would have been beautiful. Now, police cars surrounded the college and all Warren could think about was the shooting. At least eight dead, including the shooter.
In New York City, they’d tracked down Michael Wragg, who’d jumped to his death rather than being caught. In D.C. and Miami, the shooter had been a hired assassin, The Truffle Pig, who’d been executed by members of the New Vegas Mafia during his escape. Warren still had no idea who the shooter in London had been.
Something was different about the Paris massacre, though. The killing was at close range and there’d been multiple casualties. Warren had briefly considered whether the people killed in the École d'économie de Paris had been murders five through nine, but that didn’t make sense. Other than David Fontes, the victims were of little international importance. There were still targets in Tokyo, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. And there still hadn’t been a murder in Las Vegas. Everyone believed the head of the WTO had been the real target of the massacre. The others just ancillary casualties.
The scene was no longer busy. Yellow and black police tape surrounded the entire building. Barrage de police. Ne pas traverser. But it wasn’t the scene he was interested in.
The killing of David Fontes was different, and he wanted to find out why. As he’d done in London, he studied the buildings around the crime scene. There were no tall skyscrapers, but there were plenty of spots from which a sniper could have taken the shot. So why had the murder been done up close?
He put himself in the mind of the person planning the killing. Newspapers had reported the name of the shooter: Augustin Gustave Berge, a former member of the French police who’d gotten into radical politics after his firing. Warren shook his head. Berge would have known what sort of security Fontes would have. He wouldn’t have planned the assault the way it happened. Rule number one of combat, never give up the high ground. Around here, Berge had plenty of high ground.
No, he must have been in one of the buildings across the street, similar to the snipers in the earlier killings. The two buildings each took up half a block. The police tape blocked neither of those, but he had to believe investigators had checked them out. Still… there was no guarantee of that. The building on the right was completely dark, likely an office closed for Christmas Eve. The one on the left was an apartment building. Half the windows were lit. In a few he saw people preparing meals and talking. Faint music drifted down from an open balcony door.
Fires had told him the U.S. State Department owned a block of apartments there, which they used to house Embassy visitors. A day ago, a U.S. Congresswoman had noticed a cleaning van parked in the back lot for the third day in a row. Also for the third day in a row, she’d noticed that no cleaning was taking place, just a guy in the van smoking cigarettes and reading a newspaper. Not illegal, but suspicious. After the shootout, the Congresswoman called Fires from the airport. Fires, instead of calling the French police, passed the tip around the Embassy, which sent out a couple DSS Special Agents to investigate. Finding no van, stonewalled by French investigators, and eager to get home for Christmas Eve, they’d given up.
The building had plenty of windows that would have worked for a sniper. Something must have gone wrong. More security than Berge expected, or maybe a faulty rifle—but Warren doubted that. Berge likely had one of the nine, and they were top of the line.
Warren stuck his tongue out a little and wrinkled his forehead in concentration. A snowflake touched his tongue.
That was it.
He pulled out his phone and opened up the homepage of Le Monde, then Le Figaro and Les Échos. He didn’t find what he was looking for. Next he loaded Libération. There it was. A photo of the crime scene, which had tastefully excluded the dead bodies. The photo showed the interior of the meeting room—desks and chairs flipped over, a buffet table sitting sadly in the corner. In the foreground, three large umbrellas. Fontes had been shielded by umbrellas as he walked in. Probably because of the snow, but they could have served as another element of the increased security. U.S. presidents usually entered and exited buildings under canopy cover—Secret Service protocol. It made sense that world leaders like Fontes would have similar protection at this point, given that any one of them could be the next target.
He began to cross the street, figuring he’d wait for someone to leave the apartment building, then grab the door before it locked. Or he might be able to gain access to the office building through a shared basement.
He stopped in the center of the street.
On the seventh floor of the office building a light had flicked on. A single bright window in a sea of darkness.
He watched. For a full minute he stood in the road. He couldn’t discern any movement, but the light stayed on.
A pair of scooters turned onto the street and he stepped back to the curb, eyes fixed on the window.
Then someone was there. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. A figure of medium height and build, dressed in dark clothes, maybe a jumpsuit of some sort, had appeared at the window. The figure wiped the window with something, then got on his knees. Whoever it was, he moved like a man. He was cleaning the floor now, scrubbing it with something.
Warren scanned the street. Nothing. No one.
He jogged around the side of the office building. In the back, he found a large parking lot shared by the apartment building and the office building. In the far corner sat a van. It had a cartoonish picture of a woman vacuuming a carpet with an industrial carpet cleaner. Stenciled on the side: EXPERT DU NETTOYAGE LE TAPIS.
A cleaning van. At five o’clock on Christmas Eve. And he happened to be cleaning only one office that was perfectly situated for an assassin with a sniper rifle. Along with the tip from Fires, this was enough. The van belonged to an accomplice of Berge.
Thinking quickly, Warren raced to a dumpster behind the apartment building and rifled through the trash. He didn’t see what he needed. To the right of the dumpster, he found an old radio with a bent, two-foot metal antenna. He broke it off and sprinted for the van, shooting a look at the back door of the office building.
The “cleaner”—Warren was sure that word described the man—was there to erase any evidence of the shooter. He’d be out and in the wind the second he finished.
He bent the skinny end of the antenna into a fish-hook shape and stopped at the far window of the van so he couldn’t be seen from the building. He wedged the antenna down through the window and tried to tug at the lock. It slipped.
A door creaked across the parking lot. Through the van window, Warren saw movement at the back exit of the office building.
Squinting in the dark to see the lock, he pressed his face into the frosted window and tugged with the antenna. This time the lock popped.
He slipped through the door, re-locked it, and shoved the antenna into the inside pocket of his jacket, bending it down as he did so. He closed the door softly behind him. The van was largely empty, but in the back on the right side was a huge wheel of thick orange hose—the sort that attaches to carpet shampooers.
The crunch of snow under feet got louder as the cleaner approached. Warren had two options. The first—and smarter—was to position himself behind the driver’s seat and grab the man as soon as he sat. The second was riskier, but more likely to yield useful information. He chose the second.
Moving quickly, he duck-walked to the back, careful to step only on the thick raised ridges of the metal floor to avoid making a sound. The side door slid open just as he wedged himself between the massive spool of hose and the side of the van.
His breaths were long, slow, and silent. In everyday conversation he could lose his cool. In moments like this, he was ice.
Something rattled as it hit the metal floor. The side door slid closed. Then the driver’s side door opened and closed. The van started with a gentle rattle
and eased out of the parking lot.
The van turned right, then left. He heard two shrill rings.
The first voice came through the car’s speakers. “Is it done?”
“It’s clean.”
8
Warren pressed his feet into the floor.
There was a long silence before the driver continued, “He left little trace. He did the best he could under difficult circumstances. If he’d stayed to scrub the site, he might have missed his chance.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking…”
“Thinking what?”
“Added security almost saved Fontes. The next targets will certainly have increased security.”
“We’ve planned for that. Tokyo and San Francisco are prepared.” The man’s voice was hard to make out from the back of the van. He spoke in short, crisp sentences and his words were clipped, almost robotic. Warren didn’t know Ibo Kane’s voice, but he had to believe it was him on the line, running the call through some kind of digital anonymizer.
“I know,” the driver said. “But I can help.”
“Help how?”
Warren had never seen an interview with Kane but could picture him. Since Cole’s article was published, his face had been all over the Internet. He closed his eyes and allowed an image of the billionaire to fill his mind. Handsome but severe, with short black hair, a sharp nose, and eyes like black ice.
“Los Angeles will be difficult,” the driver said. “We’ve known this from the beginning. It’ll be more difficult now. I had no idea how big this would get.”
“I did. Please, Dorian. Make your proposal.”
“Take me to America.”
Warren’s mind raced, but he made a mental note of the driver’s name. Dorian. It likely wasn’t his real name, but it was still worth remembering so he could pass it along to French police. He considered using an app on his phone to record the call, but doubted it would capture the sound clearly. It wasn’t worth the chance that he’d bang an elbow into the side of the van, drop the phone, or make another unintended sound.
Kane finally spoke, “Be on the roof of the Gregor Building, Champs-Elysées. One hour.”
“The roof of… why?” Dorian sounded confused.
“That’s when my helicopter leaves.”
“You’re in Paris?”
Kane said nothing.
“You’ll let me travel with you?”
“You served twelve years in the Special Forces?”
“In Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, yes.”
“And you were dishonorably discharged?”
“For refusing an order. An order that violated the French Constitution and put our sovereignty at risk. I would not see France become like the rest of Europe.”
“Be there in an hour. I could use someone like you in the final phase.”
“Final phase?”
“There are things you don’t yet know.”
“Somewhere else?”
“Not somewhere else, something else.”
The words floated to the back of the cold van as though Warren could see them, taste them.
Not somewhere else, something else.
Warren didn’t know what it meant.
Neither, it appeared, did the driver. “I… I—”
The line went quiet. Warren listened to the low whoosh of the tires. Sirens from a passing ambulance wailed.
“Don’t worry,” Kane said. “I’ll explain when you arrive.”
The call ended.
Warren’s knees burned from crouching. He shifted his right leg, careful to keep his body pressed up against the hose to avoid clanging the wall of the van with an elbow or shoulder. Pulling his prosthetic into place, he sat cross-legged. Slowly, he pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. Shielding the screen with his body so the light wouldn’t be visible, he texted Cole.
Warren: Gregor Building, Champs-Elysées. Kane will be on roof in one hour. Call local police. A cleaner broke into the apartment building across from the site of the shooting. Name=Dorian. I think he scrubbed evidence.
He sent the text, double checked that his phone was on silent, and stowed it. It might not be enough to get a rise out of the local police, but it was worth a try. Cole’s story had taken off in the media, but French police couldn’t arrest someone based on a theory from a blog. And Warren knew from experience that there were two systems of justice in the world. One for men like Kane, one for everyone else. When a billionaire was accused of a crime, there were no police raids busting down his door at 3 AM. No, if Kane was ever questioned, the chief of police would show up with flowers and chocolates, humbly requesting the privilege of an interview. Unless there was overwhelming evidence that Kane had committed a crime in France, he was above the law.
So the question was—why was Kane in Paris, and had he committed a crime? Local police would ask themselves those two questions. If Cole relayed the message—and if Warren was lucky—they’d immediately escalate the situation to federal law enforcement, which would likely coordinate with the MI5 in London and an alphabet soup of U.S. agencies who were working on the nine murders.
Loud classical music filled the van. A string quartet, tinny but melodic. It sounded terrible through the cheap stereo, the sharp notes burrowing into his skin as they echoed back and forth off the walls. The smell of a lit cigarette wafted into his nostrils and there was the whoosh of a cracked window.
For ten minutes they rode. Warren’s entire world was smoke and classical music and a thin stream of cold air on his face. The Eiffel Tower appeared through a side window, bedecked with sparkling white lights. Soon they’d cross the Seine, only a couple miles from Champs-Elysées.
He had to make a move.
Stretching his legs out before him, he readied himself. He inched his head out from behind the roll of vacuum hose and glanced at the rearview mirror. If the driver looked as Warren crept to the front of the van, he’d be visible. He decided not to creep.
The van passed over a seam in the road—a quick thud thud—followed by an uphill climb then a slight descent. They’d crossed the bridge.
Warren peeked again. Out the side window, all was darkness.
He quickly looked at his phone.
Cole: Where R U? Made the call. Police said they’d check. Called Fires at Embassy. Said she’d alert a contact in the CIA.
He opened the audio recording app on his phone and pressed the red button, then shoved it back in his pocket. He stood slowly, crouching awkwardly to keep his head from hitting the ceiling. He took a vacuum attachment about four inches long from a holder bolted to the floor. Made of rigid white plastic, he hoped it would feel the same as the barrel of a 9mm handgun when pressed into Dorian’s side.
The van approached a stop light.
Warren took three slow breaths. In, out. In, out. In, out.
When the van stopped for the light, he sprang forward, head slouched down. Dropping to his knees between the two front seats, he rammed the plastic into Dorian’s ribcage. “Keep your hands on the wheel.”
Dorian turned his head slightly.
Warren pressed the pointed plastic harder into his ribs. “Eyes. Forward. When the light turns green, you’re going to pull forward. Then you’re gonna turn onto the side street and park. Nod if you understand.”
Dorian nodded. “Who are you?”
“I didn’t tell you to speak.”
The light changed. Dorian followed Warren’s orders, parking in front of a fire hydrant in the center of the block.
“Keep your hands on the wheel and don’t look at me. The nine millimeter pressed between two of your ribs might not kill you, not immediately. The first shot will crack both ribs. The second will tear through the lower portion of your lungs.”
The man’s eyes shifted toward Warren, but his head didn’t move. “Amerloque Noir,” he muttered. His voice dripped with disdain and his eyes burned with hatred.
Warren didn’t know the phrase, but
he thought “noir” meant “black.” This wasn’t going to be a friendly conversation. “I’m going to ask you a series of questions. If you fail to answer me, I’m going to shoot you.”
The man said, “I’m prepared to die.”
Warren believed he was. He knew when an enemy was afraid. This one wasn’t. “Is Dorian your real name?”
Nothing.
“Was that the apartment where the shooter was supposed to kill David Fontes?”
Dorian smiled, but said nothing.
“Why are you meeting Ibo Kane?”
A twitch in the man’s eyes. A moment of confusion. Then it hit Warren. This man didn’t know General Ki was Ibo Kane. Either he hadn’t read Cole’s article or, more likely, he’d assumed it was a lie. This was his way in.
“Your beloved General Ki is the international businessman Ibo Kane. He’s one of the richest men in the world. Richer than Raj Ambani, richer than Ana Diaz and the Deputy Crown Prince. He’s using you to kill those who threaten his business interests.”
He waited, gauging the man’s response. The twitch in his eye told Warren this was new information, but the man showed no other reaction.
“Do you read the papers?”
“They lie. Controlled by evil powers.” Dorian’s voice was cold and steady.
“I was in the room when Michael Wragg jumped to his death. One of your”—Warren paused for emphasis—“brothers.”
The man blinked. “T-Paine?”
“His screen name, yes. He was an old racist living in New York City, above a fried fish place. It helps to be honest with yourself about who your friends are. Who you are.”
Dorian said nothing.
“I don’t think Wragg would’ve wanted to help Ibo Kane. And I don’t think you do. You’ve been duped.” He let it hang in the air. “The Paris murder was botched, likely because of the snow. I’m guessing Fontes was covered with umbrellas when he got out of the car. So The Shepherd went in, guns blazing, and you were sent to cover the tracks. You know, Kane—I mean General Ki—doesn’t give a damn about you or your cause. He is using you. This whole thing has been a setup. He duped a bunch of racists like you to kill people. You think you’re serving a political cause. You’re serving his cause. And his cause is literally the opposite of yours. Kane wants total world domination, one world currency, a global government beholden to international business. And he wants to run it.”
