by Tinnean
“Lynx had him in Maintenance 4J.”
She frowned and wrapped her fingers around Reuben’s wrist to count his pulse. “How long was he exposed to the carbon monoxide?”
“We don’t know.” De Becque looked distraught. “He was conscious when we got to him, but only long enough to complain of a headache and nausea. He passed out almost immediately afterward. Femme, you have to save him!”
“He’s going to need oxygen. Dr. Le Favre—”
“That—” De Becque held his lips so tightly they were ringed with white. “Dr. Le Favre and all the medics have locked themselves in their quarters. It will take an act of God to get them out.”
“Merde! How could Tactics recruit such cowards? All right, get—”
And then we heard what sounded like an explosion of gunshots, and I bolted toward the sound.
Behind me, Femme shouted, “Get Reuben to the infirmary. He needs high-dose oxygen. Use the facemask attached to the oxygen reserve bag.”
I blocked out the rest of it. A couple of popping sounds emerged from a door I discovered was secured. I threw myself against it, biting back a groan as I bruised my shoulder, but the damned door refused to yield. Almost wild with the need to get to my lover, I aimed my Llama Mini-Max at the keypad of the lock.
“Not necessary, M. Mann.”
I was about to snarl at Femme to get the fuck out of my way, when she punched in a series of numbers. The sound of the lock disengaging reminded me this was her workplace.
The door swung open, and the two of us slipped inside. A quick glance revealed the body of a young man who’d been shot between the eyes. From the way he’d fallen, I was fairly certain he hadn’t been shot by Mark. Beyond him, I could see another pair of legs behind the shattered remains of a Plexiglas partition, covered with blood spatter.
I dismissed it as unimportant, because Mark was down, swearing steadily. Blood pooled under his right leg. He’d also been shot in the arm—his shirt sleeve was stained red.
The dark-eyed brunette aiming a Ruger at Mark’s head was Anacapri, the psych operative who ran the Division in conjunction with Lynx, although he would probably deny her position within the organization.
“You’ve interfered with my plans one time too many, M. Vincent.”
“Ask me if I care,” Mark snarled. And of course he wouldn’t.
“I should have put you down like a rabid dog when I had the opportunity!”
That was the exact phrase Drum had used. A coincidence? As Mark would say, “Not fucking likely!” Drum and I would have a little talk after I got Mark back to the States.
“Fuck you, bitch.” Mark’s gun was just beyond his grasp, but he didn’t stop trying to reach for it.
Anacapri laughed, a hard sound not in the least pleasant. She was focused so totally on him that it took a few seconds before she realized I was in the room. Her eyes widened, her face flushed, and she started to aim the Ruger at me.
I could have killed her immediately, but I didn’t want her to have an easy death. I aimed at the hand that held the Ruger and fired.
She screamed in pain and outrage, but whatever she might have said was drowned by the roar of another gun being fired, and then her face vanished in a smear of blood, bone, and brains. I glanced to my right. Femme stood there, slowly lowering her weapon.
“Mark always said revenge is a dish best served cold.” A grim smile twisted her lips.
He was a big proponent of that. “Mark!” I went down on a knee. The wound in his thigh scared me, although, thank God, blood wasn’t pumping out as it would if the artery had been involved. “Mark?” Why didn’t he look at me, respond to me?
“We must stop the bleeding. Remove your jacket. We’ll make a pressure bandage with your shirtsleeve.”
“You’ll need the other one for the wound on his arm.” I leaned down and whispered, “Don’t you fucking die!”
“Yes.” A knife slid from her sleeve and into her hand, and she offered it to me, before pressing down on Mark’s thigh.
Mark gave a subdued gasp and lost consciousness.
“You… you’d better have h-heard me.” My voice broke, and I bit down on my lip to keep from whimpering as I shed my jacket and shirt. Then I cut both my shirtsleeves free, fished a handkerchief from the breast pocket of my jacket, laid it over the wound, and wrapped the sleeve around his thigh.
“M. Mann.”
I blinked furiously before I gazed across Mark’s body to where Femme knelt. “Yeah?”
“Mark needs to go to the infirmary too.” Femme had taken the second sleeve and quickly bound up the wound on his arm.
“Yes, of course. How are we going to move him?”
“We have a stretcher in one of the Dungeon’s storerooms.”
I didn’t ask why.
“I’ll send Homme to help you while I get the infirmary ready.” She worried her lower lip. “I’ll be honest, M. Mann. My expertise runs more along the lines of taking people apart rather than putting them back together.”
“There’s a doctor here. Can’t you use him?” I shivered, realizing my arms were pimpled with goose bumps. I picked up my jacket from where I’d tossed it and jammed my arms into the sleeves.
“Le Favre?” She curled her lip. “He isn’t good for much more than extracting splinters and prescribing aspirin. If one of the operatives was injured, they either survived through le Favre’s... care, or they died.”
Well, fuck. I couldn’t leave Mark to the tender mercies of the likes of the Division doctor. As for the doctor I’d seen last year, he was affiliated with the CIA, and while he might not have recognized the agent who’d brought me to him at that time, I wasn’t inclined to put Mark’s life and freedom on the line on the off chance the doctor still didn’t realize who he was.
“I’ll get a doctor here somehow, but please...” I swallowed. “... keep him alive.”
“Trust me—I’ll do my best for Mark.” She touched my shoulder, then rose, but she didn’t leave. Instead, she crossed to where Anacapri lay and kicked her in the ribs so hard I could hear them break.
Femme was a petite woman, but she was considerably stronger than she looked.
She spat into the blood and shattered bone of Anacapri’s face, and only then stalked out of the room.
I had my cell phone out before I realized I didn’t have the number on it that I needed. Fortunately, Mark’s phone was in easy reach. I took it from his pocket, relieved it hadn’t been hit by stray bullets, and opened the contact list.
I found the name I wanted and pressed Send.
Trevor Wallace, the man who ran the WBIS, answered on the first ring. “Yes, Mark?”
“This isn’t Mark.”
“Indeed. May I ask who this is?”
“You may ask, but I’m not telling you.”
“That’s rather childish, don’t you think, Mr.—Shall I call you Mr. X?”
“Call me whatever the fuck you want. This has nothing to do with me. Mark’s been shot, and he needs a good doctor.”
After a moment of shocked silence, Wallace asked, “How bad is it?”
“I can’t tell you that—I’m not a doctor. And the doctor at the Division isn’t worth much, according to Femme.”
“Am I correct in assuming that Mark is in Paris?” His voice became like the Arctic. “This mission was not his responsibility.”
“Perhaps not, but a friend called in a favor, and you should know Mark is nothing if not loyal.”
“You’re correct in that. Why did you call me?”
“I need the name of a WBIS-friendly doctor who’ll make sure Mark doesn’t lose his leg.”
Fortunately, Wallace didn’t waste time in useless handwringing. “Max Futé.”
I sighed. “Max is a good doctor, but he’s in the States.”
“And how did you know that?”
“It’s not important.”
“I imagine you don’t think it is. However, I find it imminently so. Do you realize I now have
your location pinpointed?”
I lost my patience. “Frankly, Mr. Wallace, I don’t care a flying fuck. Goddammit, if you’re not going to give me a name—” I jumped when someone touched my shoulder, and dropped the phone and swung around, my finger tightening on the trigger of my clutch piece.
Homme backed up a step, his hands raised. “I’m sorry. I brought the stretcher, and Femme wants M. Vincent in the infirmary now.”
“All right.” I slipped my gun back into its ankle holster and dried suddenly damp palms on my thighs. The wound on Mark’s arm seemed to have stopped bleeding, but the makeshift bandage on his thigh had soaked through with blood. “I’ll take his legs, you take his upper body. Be careful of his arm.”
Homme collapsed the stretcher until it was a few inches above the floor and angled it so it was parallel to Mark. He eased his surprisingly large hands under Mark’s torso.
“Whenever you’re ready, M. Mann.”
I put too much pressure on Mark’s leg, and he moaned. I flinched and swore. “I’m sorry, babe,” I murmured. “Ready, Homme?”
“Ready.”
We got Mark onto the stretcher, raised it to normal height, and with Homme leading the way, we rushed it out of the Dungeon, down the corridor to an elevator—someone had them working again—and up to the infirmary on the second sublevel.
Chapter 13
“This is the infirmary?” I frowned as we wheeled Mark into the room and I got a good look at it. This place wasn’t sterile; there was no operating table.
It wasn’t a surgical suite.
“Yes,” Femme said shortly. She was at the lone sink, scrubbing her hands and forearms.
The infirmary was a small room, made even smaller by the inclusion of the bed where Reuben lay, still unconscious. The bed was shoved up against a wall, and an oxygen mask connected to the reserve tank mounted on the wall covered the lower portion of his face. De Becque hovered over him, smoothing a hand over Reuben’s hair and whispering in his ear.
“Pierre.” Femme didn’t bother glancing in his direction. “You’re not helping Reuben. Go see how your people are faring. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
For a second, de Becque appeared torn, but then he said, “Oui.” He bent, kissed Reuben’s forehead, and murmured something, then strode out.
“How are you going to keep an eye on Reuben while you’re operating on Mark?” I demanded.
“I do what I must, M. Mann.”
“Is there no other room here?”
“No. Unless you’d prefer I work on Mark in the Dungeon?”
I contained a shudder as I thought of the bodies we’d left there. I shook my head.
Homme set the brake on the stretcher and moved to place a tray table beside it. On the tray table was an array of scalpels, scissors, and other surgical equipment.
Once Femme finished scrubbing, she started an IV line in Mark’s left arm.
I felt cold. Two bags of blood hung suspended from the IV pole.
“Where… where did you get the blood?”
“I have my sources.”
“What I meant was, is it typed and cross-matched?”
“Of course. Did you think I would do anything less than my best for Mark?”
Perhaps not, but that was my lover she was going to operate on.
“How did you know his type?”
She gave me an impatient look. “He carries a donor card in his wallet.”
I scowled at her. Of course Mark didn’t have a donor card. Neither did I. Although both of us had always tested clean, we’d still been frequently out of the country, and because of that were precluded from donating blood. “If you choose not to tell me, you could simply say again you have your sources.”
Femme waved aside my comment, her grin as false as it was innocent. She removed the bandage on Mark’s leg and cut his trousers off. I flinched at the sight of the entry wound, still oozing blood; knowing if there was an exit wound, it would be a mass of torn flesh.
“I’ll need to see if the bullet struck the bone.” She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and a surgical mask, but that was the only nod she gave to aseptic techniques.
She swabbed the area with a disinfectant, selected a scalpel, and set to work.
I opened my mouth to suggest x-raying Mark’s leg might be a better way to discover what damage the bullet had done, then realized it wasn’t a worthwhile suggestion: the Division didn’t seem to have an X-ray machine.
The sight of blood had never bothered me much—in my career, I had seen things that would turn the stomach of anyone not in the business—but watching Femme slice open Mark’s thigh to probe for bone or bullet fragments made me feel sick.
Femme glared at me over her surgical mask. “M. Mann, if you faint—” Her brow furrowed. “Never mind. Homme, get him out of here.”
She was right, as reluctant as I was to admit it. I was useless here, and if I distracted her, I could put Mark’s life in danger. I gave a last look to his pale face and left the room.
Once in the corridor, I took out my cell phone and called Mother.
“How are you, sweetheart?” she asked, her voice cool and contained. In spite of that, I could tell she’d been worried.
“I’m all right. De Becque’s people seem to have everything under control.”
“And Mark? How is he?”
“He’s... he’s been shot. Femme is operating on him.”
“Dear God! From what I observed in the sick bay here, it’s obvious she’s a very accomplished woman, but... what can I do to help?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know of a surgeon here in Paris who wouldn’t dance a fandango at the thought of letting Mark bleed out or turning him over to one of the intelligence organizations that would like nothing better than to have him in their grasp, would you?”
“Hmm. There used to be a surgeon in Italy—he did occasional work for an obscure branch of MI5, but that was almost thirty years ago.”
MI5 dealt with national security. I didn’t ask why they had an Italian doctor on their books. Although, come to think of it, the doctor could have been an expat.
“I can call Folana.”
“I know Monte Carlo is in the same time zone as Paris, but is she likely to be awake at this hour?” I glanced at my watch. It was almost 5:00 a.m.
“If she isn’t, Bart most likely will be, and I can get the information from him just as easily. I’ll be at the Division as soon as Babineaux can get me there.”
“Thank you, Mother, but seriously, it isn’t necessary.”
“I’m afraid it is. Babineaux is desperate to know if Giuliani is all right.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “I didn’t even know he was supposed to be here.” I looked around, and spotted Homme standing a few feet from me—waiting to catch me in case I did pass out? “Just a second, Mother.” I covered my phone so if the news wasn’t good, it wouldn’t be heard. “Homme, do you know where Giuliani is?”
“The last time I saw him was just after a shootout with some of the Scarlet Chamber’s people. He was fine then.”
I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be good enough for Babineaux—it wouldn’t have been for me. “Is there any way to find out how he is now?”
He raised both eyebrows, then tapped his left ear, and for the first time I realized what he wore in it wasn’t a hearing aid but a communications link. “De Becque, it’s Homme. Babineaux is requesting an update on Giuliani’s status.” He listened intently for a minute or so before saying, “Thank you. He’ll be relieved to know that.” He tapped the link twice, apparently ending the conversation. “Please have madame your mother inform Babineaux that Giuliani is in one piece.”
“Thank you, Homme.” I began speaking into my phone. “Mother, please tell Babineaux that Giuliani is fine.”
“I will, Quinton. I’ll see you soon.”
“Tell Babineaux to drive carefully. If he gets into an accident—” I shuddered at the memory of what had happened last fall.
>
“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. Good-bye, sweetheart.”
“Bye, Mother.” I disconnected the call and put my phone away. I gazed helplessly at the door behind which was my lover. I couldn’t remain here, pacing the length of the corridor outside the infirmary.
“Let’s go,” Homme said.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Dungeon. We’re going to clean it up.”
“We are?”
“I assumed you’d want a distraction until Femme can tell you how your M. Vincent is faring.”
“She doesn’t have my cell number.” We’d be a couple of flights down from the infirmary.
“No, but she has mine.”
“All right.”
He gave a satisfied nod and headed for the nearest elevator, and I followed him.
The odor of death hung heavy in the Dungeon, but it didn’t seem to disturb Homme. What kind of work did he and Femme do here?
He swore viciously. “It’s a good thing Lynx and Anacapri are already dead. Femme is going to be furious when she sees what they’ve done to the place! I’ve got to get this straightened out before she comes back down here.”
I looked around, confused. Aside from the Plexiglas, two bodies, and a good deal of blood, I couldn’t see what Femme might object to.
“Shit!” I muttered. Mark’s phone was lying near a puddle of blood. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, unable to remember if I’d ended the call or just left Wallace hanging on the line. Well, it was unimportant. According to Wallace, he already knew where we were. I cleared my throat. “Can you straighten it out later?”
“All right. Who shot the bitch in the face?” Homme asked as he walked to the psych operative’s body and gave it a cautious nudge with his toe. Was he expecting her to leap to her feet and attack us?
“That would be Femme.”
“It’s dangerous to cross her.” Homme sounded proud. He stared down at Anacapri’s ruined face and shivered, and I thought perhaps I’d read him wrong, that he didn’t have the stomach for this job; that was, until I noticed the flush high on his cheekbones and the way his lips were parted.
I had no intention of asking him if Femme’s action turned him on—it was obvious it did, even though the loose cut of his trousers concealed his erection, if he had one.
