The Frenchman was undersized but resilient, grunting and swinging upward with his bad arm as his left tried to hang onto the Colt.
Gage absorbed the weakened strikes, using both hands to finally wrench the Colt free. He pressed it into the man’s heart and told him twice to halt, still using his German out of sheer habit. The smaller man, chest heaving, obeyed. He laid his arms at his side, sounding as if he might vomit as he struggled for air.
“Do not move,” Gage commanded, stepping off of him carefully, the pistol trained steadily on the defeated criminal.
Gage’s eyes went briefly to the diary, lying open and on the floor, and then he turned to view the larger man. He was still out cold, his breathing ragged. Two lines of blood trickled down his head. Gage turned back to the smaller man, switching to broken French.
“If you wanted to simply rob us that’s one thing. But why did you have to kill him?” he yelled, gesturing at Michel’s body.
The smaller man’s eyes burned fiery hatred. He didn’t say a word, breathing snotty breaths in and out of his pointy nose.
The larger man stirred. Gage turned his eyes momentarily to look at him, immediately catching movement from the corner of his left eye. He whirled back, seeing the smaller man jerking what looked like a small revolver from an ankle holster.
Through pure instinct, Gage unleashed one round from the big Colt, seeing it impact the man’s left cheek as the entire back of his head blew across the floor and onto the side of Michel’s dead body.
The smaller Frenchman was no longer a threat. One left.
Gage whipped the pistol back to the left. The large man’s eyes were open but he hadn’t yet moved. Gage skirted the work table and stepped over him, seeing the unique fear enter the man’s eyes that meant certain death was near. Feeling that old feeling in his gut—a feeling he’d despised over the recent years—Gage aimed the pistol at the man’s head. Bile entered Gage’s throat; he hesitated. He chanced a quick look back at the two dead Frenchmen, then turned to the live one that lay beneath him.
The smell of death, stark and unyielding, wafted through the book store, making the air heavy and thick. Gage sucked air in through his nostrils, adjusting his hand on the chunky pistol. His index finger tightened on the trigger. One pound of force. Two. Three. Kill him Gage. Kill him dead cold, here and now. Leave no trail and run like the wind. Gage’s inner voice, the one he had tamped down through years of misery, roared back to life, assaulting his brain’s cerebrum with never before seen vigor.
Gage licked his lips, knowing his instincts were good. But pain and sorrow are powerful emotions, and they too spoke to him. Snippets of the incident at Crete played in Gage’s mind as he stared at the petrified thug underneath him. The other one had killed Michel—in icy cold blood—and had tried to retrieve his ankle pistol to then kill Gage. Gage’s reprisal was more than justified. He struggled with what to do, his Crete panic attack still fresh in his mind.
The two men’s eyes were locked. One full of fear, the other brimming with doubt.
Gage’s inner voice rose an octave. If you don’t eliminate him, you’re guaranteeing yourself trouble!
He ignored his instinct, using his thumb to release the semi-automatic pistol’s hammer slowly against the strike-plate. He flicked the lever safety to prevent an accidental discharge. With no more emotion than an old farmer beheading a chicken, Gage raised the two and a half-pound Colt into the air and smashed it into the fresh cut on the man’s oversized forehead. The Frenchman’s large body went limp and Gage stood for nearly a minute making certain the man’s breathing continued. It did.
Mildly surprised the two shots had not yet drawn the attention of the local police, Gage grabbed the diary from the floor, retrieving his blackjack in the process. He used a rag loaded with an ammonia cleaning solution to wipe all surfaces he and Monika might have touched and, less than two minutes after swinging the pistol, Gage was out the back door and down the small street.
***
Gage entered the hotel, keeping his head down, squinting his eyes. He ignored the bored-looking man sitting behind the front desk reading a paper. As he had done for the entire run from the book store, he forced the shock from his mind. Yes, he had killed a man. Yes, the man had deserved it. Yes, his passivity streak since Crete was now over.
And yes, it almost felt good. That’s what bothered him most, other than the agonizing, head-pounding pain behind his eyes.
But there was no time for reflection, no time for pain. They had to move, and they had to move fast. Monika was in the room, sitting on the bed, smoking with a trembling hand. She jumped up, wrapping her arms around Gage as soon as he entered.
“I thought those men might hurt you!” she cried.
Gage returned the hug briefly. He pulled back and placed a finger over her lip. “Listen Monika, and listen closely. We have to leave, right now. We need to wipe down the room and get the hell out of here.” He slid his glasses back on, the light of the room hurting his eyes.
Monika stared at him, her lips parted. “Wipe down the room?” Recognition flashed over her face. “Gage, what happened up there?”
He looked away before stepping into the small bathroom and wetting two washcloths, pumping both with hand soap. “Wipe down everything. Scrub it hard and don’t worry about leaving it wet or soapy.” Gage jerked the sheets from the bed, throwing all the used towels into the middle of the large rectangle of sheets.
Monika watched him, tears trickling down her face. She began to numbly wipe the knobs of the bathroom door.
“Everything, Monika. Don’t leave anything undone.” His voice was hard and cold and distant. Gage walked into the bathroom, turning on the sink’s faucet as well as the one in the tub, rinsing both with hot water for a full five minutes.
Five minutes later, the two were walking down the three flights of stairs to the lobby. Gage paused, glancing upward at the corner of the small foyer. On the ceiling, above a fake hanging plant, was a small black bubble. It no doubt held a security camera. He leaned close to Monika and handed her his bag containing the two diaries, whispering to her not to use her hands on the door, but to hurry from the building and get the car running. She walked out.
Gage stepped to the counter; it was manned by the same man that had been there when they had checked in. He was swarthy, in his mid-forties, with Bassett hound eyes and the most bored of looks on his face. His boredom would end in seconds.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Gage asked.
The man nodded as if this were the least interesting query on the face of the earth.
“If you remember, I am a guest here.” Gage forced a smile. “I own a security company in Germany and am trying to get more business in this area. If you don’t mind me asking, what type of security system does the hotel use? Is it computer-based?”
The clerk let out a snort. “With our owner? Hardly. We don’t even have a computer,” he answered in good German. “The man is a notorious cheapskate.”
“But I see the camera on the ceiling.”
“Yeah. It’s a twenty-something-year-old system. Uses a DAT tape.”
Gage thanked him, rushing behind the counter before the man could react. He grabbed the Frenchman by the throat, growling at him to stay silent. Using the man’s sweater, Gage jerked him into the back room and, with a hand over his mouth, told him to point to the tape unit. The man pointed to a small closet on the far side of the cluttered room.
Gage muscled him over to the closet, opening the door and seeing the unit. He released his grip on the man, stabbing downward at the base of his neck with the side of his right hand. The man crumpled to the floor as the massive vagus nerve sent a signal to his brain, making every conscious action shut down as if a switch had been flipped. It was the least violent way Gage knew to immobilize the man to allow enough time for him and Monika to slip out of town.
Homicide (perhaps justifiable?) and now assault. And all he had set out to do was learn more about some damned diar
ies.
Things were not going the way Gage had planned.
***
Damien Ellis was parched from the wine and salty food. He placed his half-finished novel on the small table and retrieved the champagne bucket from the bathroom. Slipping on his shoes, he stepped from the chamber on the second floor, glancing around for an ice machine and seeing none.
“Not a Hampton Inn,” he grumbled to himself, shuffling down the hall and descending the stairs. That’s when he heard a grunt and a heavy thud. He stopped where he was, peering over the railing into the lobby.
An attractive girl used her sweater to turn the door’s knob from the outside, stepping in and speaking German in a loud whisper to someone Ellis couldn’t see from his vantage point. The first word she spoke sounded like she was addressing someone. It sounded like “Gauge”.
Then, in clear English, a frustrated-sounding man told her she was supposed to be in the damned car. And to hide the diaries under the back seat.
Diaries?
That’s what the man said.
Ellis was hidden in the darkness of the stairwell. He got a clear view of the man, slightly taller than average, looking somewhere on the short side of forty, with short sandy hair and heavy stubble. He wore a great deal of stress on his face as he glanced around the lobby before hustling out the door, wiping the knob on both sides with a wet rag.
Ellis took a deep breath, not knowing what he was about to see. He stepped gingerly down the stairs, saying hello out loud several times. He knew no one would answer. Ellis could smell sweat and fear as he stepped behind the counter and into the small room behind the front desk. Propped against the wall was a man in a ripped and tousled shirt. A piece of a torn shirt or sheet was around the man’s mouth—a gag. When Ellis leaned the man forward, he realized the man’s hands had been bound by a strip of the cloth as well. He took the man’s pulse, relieved that his heart was beating fiercely and he appeared to be breathing normally.
Ten minutes later, as they waited on the French police, the clerk examined the room as he rubbed his neck. Nothing, other than the tape, had been stolen.
Ellis replayed the snippets of what he’d seen and heard in his mind. The man’s English was American, no doubt. And he had told the pretty girl to put the diaries under the back seat, and she had said “Gauge”.
Gauge. Gauge. Gauge. Ellis burned the moniker into his mind.
Sipping a bottle of mineral water as he chatted with the confused night manager, Damien Ellis chided himself, vowing to just give a statement and get back to his vacation.
“You ain’t Hercule Poirot,” Ellis murmured to himself. “And this ain’t London.”
But ringing in the back of his mind, over and over, was the name Gauge.
***
About the same time the night manager awoke to see a vacationing Army investigator nosing around the front desk, Bruno Florence moaned loudly as he awoke from his pistol whip-induced unconsciousness. He sat up, watched the room spin, then vomited violently, losing all of the sautéed sole he’d so greedily eaten hours earlier. The room was alive with the smell of blood and death. Bruno knew that smell well, everything making sense as what had happened came back to him in a wash of horrific images.
A glance at his watch told him he’d been out nearly an hour. As his head throbbed, Bruno staggered to the front, staying well away from Leon and the dead shop owner. Corpses scared him, and he realized he was crying and whimpering like he once did as a boy. His tears weren’t borne of sadness for his boss. As far as assholes went, Leon was subordinate only to his cousin, Nicky. Everyone hated Leon—behind his back—except Nicky. Only someone like Nicky could love Leon Clavier.
As the fogginess of his unconsciousness dissipated, fear began to paralyze Bruno. He stumbled as he walked through the curtain, falling to the floor, his large body wracked by sobs while he curled into a fetal position behind the front counter. Nicky would definitely have him killed for allowing this to happen. Or Nicky might just kill him himself: something he was prone to do when his blood was up. Bruno pulled himself up, sitting against the wall. Snot and tears mingled to make a sticky dampness that trickled down his face while he stared at the cell phone. Marcel had called several times in the past hour, no doubt anxious over how the situation with the homo had turned out.
Rather than call Marcel, Bruno dialed his brother Luc, getting his mechanical, phone-company-provided voice mail. Glaives don’t record voicemail greetings, even moronic Glaives like Bruno and Luc. He waited ten minutes, calling him again. Nothing. Regrettably, Bruno was sure Luc was probably passed out cold by this hour, a bottle in his hand.
Afraid to make the call but knowing he’d better, he opened and closed the flip phone at least twenty times before finally dialing Marcel. Marcel answered on the first ring.
“Marcel, this is Bruno.” Uncontrollable sobs. “Something very, very bad has happened.”
***
Château-Thierry, France
Rap music blared in the enormous bedroom. It was European rap, blended with a pulsating techno beat. The top-of-the-line stereo distorted as it pushed the heavy tune at the peak of its volume range, the accompanying Bang & Olufson speakers on the verge of blowing.
Not that Nicky Arnaud would care.
The only light in the overdone room was provided by a gigantic built-in LED television; on it played a hard-core porn video featuring far more women than men. At one end of the room was a colossal poster bed, its sheets and garish coverlets rumpled and damp with a profusion of female bodily fluid and semen. Sitting on the gooey bed was a woman worthy of a centerfold, nude, save the stiletto heels and thigh-highs. In her hand was a tumbler full of premium vodka and ice. She watched Nicky—a man she’d met only three days before—in a state of complete boredom. She guzzled the vodka, smacking her tongue afterward, yelling to Nicky that she couldn’t even taste it. Three days of cocaine, sex, uppers and downers tend to deaden the senses.
Nicky didn’t hear her over the music. He was also naked, situated in front of a gilded, full-length mirror. In his left hand was a stiletto; in his right a Katzbalger sword. With his short, uncircumcised penis dangling freely, the Frenchman swung the death objects in something that looked like a lethal dance. He was practicing, having been trained in Chanbara as a teenager. An hour in front of the mirror each day kept his instincts at a high level, or so he frequently bragged.
He turned to face the girl, what’s her name? Dropping the two blades onto the bear rug, Nicky stroked himself, licking his lips ravenously. “Ready to take the beast again?”
She probably couldn’t even hear him over the music, but it appeared she got the gist of the question, rolling her eyes as she removed a mirror from the bedside table, snorting a crooked line of the white powder.
Nicky grabbed the remote and turned the volume down. “You’re a junkie,” he said with disdain.
“Me?” she laughed. “You’re the one with a nose like an industrial vacuum cleaner.”
“Shut up, bitch.” Nicky swaggered to the television and stared at the three women bobbing and moving, their bodies glistening with oil. He pointed to the one with red hair and, just as he was beginning to give pointers, Marcel burst into the room. His face was grim and tight; he held a silken bathrobe for Nicky. The girl, in all her nakedness, didn’t even flinch at the presence of another man.
“Not now, damn it!” Nicky boomed, turning back to the silenced video.
Marcel threw the robe at him, his voice rising to an uncharacteristic level. “It’s important, Nicky. We need to talk right now.”
Nicky examined Marcel’s eyes, seeing the uncharacteristic electricity. Marcel didn’t typically act with such alacrity when summoning him. Appearing momentarily sensible, Nicky nodded.
They moved to the glassed-in balcony, Nicky sipping a mineral water as he looked over the scattered lights of the Marne valley. This was his land. He’d been born fatherless, his mother working as a waitress and part-time prostitute, raising him to
a point where he could begin to provide for himself—something he was forced to do at fourteen when she was killed as collateral damage during a hold-up. Small in stature his entire life, Nicky had learned to be tough and, very early on, had learned the benefits of striking first. In his last year attending school, at age fifteen, one of the larger kids had thrown Nicky’s second-hand jacket in the mud. It was the last thing his mother had ever given him and, as the older teen stood laughing with his buddies, something in Nicky had snapped. He grabbed a hand-sized rock from the ground, smacking the bully in the cheek, knocking him to the ground. While the stunned onlookers watched in horror, Nicky pounded the big kid’s face into hamburger, shattering orbital sockets and knocking all his front teeth out in the process. The kid was in the hospital for weeks of reconstructive surgery. From that moment on, Nicky Arnaud had been a different man.
He’d tried to run but was caught days later outside of Paris. During eight months in the orphanage, Nicky crafted his skills as a brawler and intimidator, developing a crew and running the cigarette and nudie magazine trade. He was small but feared, and not one resident had their way with Nicky, sexually.
But that didn’t include the staff.
One counselor in particular, a sallow, skinny-faced Parisian named Velonois, had trapped Nicky in an office one morning, raping him with force. Velonois threatened to spread the word that Nicky was a queen if he didn’t acquiesce to future encounters. A rumor such as that, especially from a counselor, would have effectively ended Nicky’s reign as someone of influence. The orphanage was nothing more than a medium-security prison—the rumor would have probably led to Nicky’s death. So Nicky did what he had to do, for a period of weeks, all the while vowing to get his revenge. And fifteen months after his release, Nicky followed through. When the police found the body of counselor Pierre Velonois, a bachelor and (as they soon learned) child-abuser, in his dingy basement flat, they’d determined that he had been bound and gagged for nearly a day, sodomized repeatedly with all manner of objects before his life escaped him due to extreme shock and the loss of blood. After digging into some of the rumors at the orphanage, the police let the case go cold, each of them secretly happy with the street-justice the counselor had received.
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