by Cara Black
Thank god.
“Thesset, it’s Aimée,” she said. “You called?”
“Five minutes ago a license plate, reported stolen last night, showed up on a traffic report,” Thesset’s terse voice erupted.
René’s comment about how car thieves stole plates to disguise vehicles came back to her. “On a Mercedes?”
“A maroon Mercedes coupe matching your description down to the custom fog lamps.”
At last.
Thesset gave the location, just off Place Victor Hugo.
“I’ve instructed officers to leave the vehicle in place for six hours. Counting on the boyfriend to return this on the quiet,” he said. “I don’t want to know any more. Call me crazy for sticking my neck out, eh. Do I have your word?”
“Absolument, Thesset.” Her spine tingled.
Her one lead. Correction: a possibility. Thesset had come through. At least Morbier had one ally. For now.
She had to move fast. But with her description in circulation and patrols combing the lanes, she wouldn’t get far. Best to avoid them and stay here. Safer to curl up in a luxurious hole and watch Morbier convicted from the sidelines?
She tossed the remains of the crème brûlée in the trash. In the black marble bathroom she scrubbed off her makeup with lavender-scented soap, praying that Sebastian’s patron’s style sense extended to his armoire.
She hadn’t bargained on him having only one arm.
A flesh-colored arm, down to the lifelike latex rubber fingers, leaned inside. Along with shirts, all colors, seamed at the elbow. Not much good to her, except for the one full-sleeved tailored white dress shirt. Silver cuff links attached, and formal black tie ready with one snap. About her size. No reason to dress it down when she discovered a velvet le smoking—a man’s tuxedo jacket with quilted lapels. Or matching satin side-seamed black-cuffed trousers. She notched the lizard belt in the last hole so it rode on her hips, and stared at herself in the tall beveled deco mirror.
Big problem.
She removed one diamond stud earring and put it in her pocket. No time to peroxide her hair, so she reached for a broad-brimmed fedora, slipped on the soft vicuna silk-lined long coat. Turned to look in the mirror.
She could probably pass for a man at a distance.
She rolled down the trouser cuffs to cover Martine’s Prada boots. Using the apartment phone, she called a G7 taxi, the reservation-only service. Seven minutes later, she descended in the creaking elevator and, head down, entered the taxi waiting out front.
The taxi driver turned and raised an eyebrow. “You booked an hour, ‘Monsieur’?”
“For now.” She sat back. “Place Victor Hugo. Wait in front of the café Midi.”
* * *
FOR TEN MINUTES she checked the dark street radiating east from Place Victor Hugo. A high stone wall ran down one side of the canyon-like rue Lauriston near the former French Gestapo headquarters. She located the maroon Mercedes parked on rue Copernic. A few leaves clustered under the windshield wipers.
She felt the engine hood. Warm. Driven recently. Inside, on the leather passenger seat, was a street guide of Paris. Wedged between the gearshift panel and seat were the edges of something dull gold and narrow. She wiped the window with her sleeve, shone her penlight in, and recognized the red-diamond— pattern Ormond insignia on the rectangular cigarillo box. A slender six-pack pocket-size box of Meccarillos.
Where had she last seen a cigarillo? She racked her brain as she scanned the street.
Given the block of apartment buildings, inner courtyards connecting to inner courtyards, the man or men could be in any of these—or on another street altogether. Hundreds of people inhabited this block.
Prepare for the unexpected, her father always said; think of another scenario before it surprises you.
It came back to her—the acrid burning smell of the cigarillo near the plate of gâteau Basque at Xavierre’s on Monday night. Of course. The man had left his cigarillo, still burning. She imagined him wounded, stanching the blood, a heated argument, him grabbing Xavierre’s scarf to strangle her.
Given the effort he’d taken in stealing the plates, she figured he planned on using the car again. But when?
She couldn’t waste this chance. Or stand in a dark cold doorway without being noticed. Think. Use what you have, her father had also said.
She rooted in her bag for the camera René had purchased as backup for their undercover computer-surveillance contract. Just the thing. Still in the box. A mini wireless camera with a built-in transmitter. More suited for a nanny-cam, the camera fit in her palm and had a visibility range of up to twenty meters away, restricted to line of sight. It transmitted video to a small receiver.
She prayed to god it worked outdoors in dim light as well as indoors.
The tiny camera was powered by a nine-volt battery and could run for up to fifteen hours. Enough for what she needed, she hoped.
She scanned the limestone buildings, the high stone wall opposite, for a location in which to install the camera. Rue Copernic was a one-way street. For a moment, sheltered from the night wind by the wall and buildings, streetlight filtering over the crosshatched metal tree grille, she heard a faint rushing of water.
Opposite, the EAU DE PARIS sign on the wall indicated the reservoir, the one the café waiter had mentioned. The wall must support the aboveground pools. No need for a sorcière with a witch-hazel branch to locate water here.
No time to memorize the street and building locations. On the back of her checkbook she sketched the street and the car’s location, using the wide, dark green door of the Eau de Paris as a landmark. Given the camera’s short range and the darkness, it was impossible to view the whole street, but the microphone would catch the sound of approaching footsteps and guide her.
So she’d attach the camera to the car. If it pulled away, the camera would film the route. She ran her fingers along the rooftop, felt the sunroof lip curve, a space. For now it would work.
She pulled a stick of cassis-flavored gum from the bottom of her bag, chewed it, then attached the gum to the sunroof lip and positioned the camera over it. She activated the camera, clicked the transmitter ON, then checked the receiver.
A woman pushing a stroller emerged from the apartment door behind her. She pulled a blanket over the infant inside and smiled at Aimée. Aimée smiled back, took a few steps, and lifted the receiver to her ear as if talking on her cell phone. The woman stopped a few steps away, putting the brakes on the stroller to converse with a man emerging from an apartment.
A watcher? Lookouts? Surveilling the car?
Aimée hit MUTE on her cell phone, just in case, nodding and pretending to listen to the receiver crooked between her neck and shoulder.
By the time she’d walked halfway down the street, she’d slid the receiver into her coat pocket. With this wireless model, she’d have the car in sight if it kept within fifteen kilometers of her. More than she needed. Unless, with the stash of stolen blank documents and the princess, they left Paris en route to the border. But she couldn’t do anything about that right now.
At the end of the street, she checked the monitor in her pocket. The red light blinked in transmission mode. The dark outlines of the Mercedes roof glinted with raindrops.
But she needed a clean cell phone, to hook up to her laptop and record the feed. She needed René’s help.
At Place Victor Hugo, the lit fountain sprayed and the taxi waited. She slid into the back seat. “Rue de la Reynie, s’il vous plaît.” She passed a twenty-franc bill over the leather backrest.
“Eh, you pay at the end,” he said, tired eyes under his brown-gray grizzled hair.
“My battery’s dead. Mind if use your cell phone? Local call.”
“Then I’d have to give you change and.… ”
“Keep it.”
She used the taxi driver’s phone and punched in René’s number.
“Oui?” said René.
“It’s Aimée. Has anyone a
sked about me? Called?”
René cleared his throat. “Oui, Madame. Matter of fact, even more than that.”
She heard conversations in the background. She shivered. “The EPIGN’s at the office, aren’t they? Big man, bland face.”
“I’d say so,” he said.
“Then you haven’t heard from me. You’re going home, it’s late, closing the office,” she said. “Bring me a fresh cell phone, too. Leave. Matter of fact, why are you there?”
“Some people need to work, Madame. To pay bills.”
As if she didn’t?
“I’ll meet you in your garage. Ten minutes.”
Within ten minutes, the taxi crawled up narrow medieval streets leading to Beaubourg. The soot-stained spires of Saint-Merri loomed, highlighted against the space-age red-and-blue— tubed Centre Pompidou behind it. Her hands shook.
The taxi pulled over under a streetlight. “Monsieur, I’d like to book another hour. Can you wait here?”
“Pas de problème.”
She kept to the walls on narrow rue Quincampoix, entering the back door of René’s garage. The automatic garage door opened and René’s DS Citroën rolled in. She waited behind the dustbins until the aluminum shuttered door rolled back down.
Darkness.
Then she felt a gun in her ribs.
Wednesday Night
OUT OF BREATH and shaking, Maria scraped a twisted wire into the crumbling concrete surrounding the iron rung holding her leg chain. At this rate, it would take hours to dislodge the rusted iron. Hours she didn’t have. She prayed that her father was cooperating with their demands. But for the life of her, she didn’t know if he would—after last time. Or if he could.
Only the steady drip of water accompanied Joxi’s moans. His tossing and turning raised the goose bumps on her arms. The man was in pain, his condition worsening. And the others had left.
They were alone. Her stomach gnawed with hunger. No food.
His moaning escalated.
Unnerved, she set down the wire, held the chain, and crept over to him. Joxi was covered by a rough blanket, and his sweat-beaded face was flushed. Broken red blood vessels marked a path from his swollen eye; the blood-soaked bandaging crisscrossed his inflamed cheek. Sour smells of sweat emanated from him.
His vise-like grip encircled her wrist. “Ur … ur.”
A moan, or the Basque word for water? In a stone niche, she saw bottled water among the strewn contents of her bag. She scrabbled her fingers through the objects. No cell phone. Her agenda containing addresses, phone numbers was gone. Fodder for ransom demands?
But she couldn’t stand Joxi’s moans. Or understand how they’d leave their wounded comrade. Or her. Hadn’t the mec promised.…
Or maybe she didn’t want to understand. Didn’t want to face the fact that they’d left them to die.
With trembling hands she raised the plastic bottle to Joxi’s lips. He gulped, dribbles running down his chin, over the blanket. Again and again, greedy for more.
A small sample-like packet labeled PENICILLIN sat in the stone niche. “How about your medication?”
His dark eyes rolled back in his head. His body arched, then bucked in sharp convulsions. But his grip held like iron. Good god, what could she do?
Was he dying? Having seizures? The fever burned from him like fire.
She lifted his head, opened his mouth, put the antibiotic tablet on his tongue. Closed his mouth. “Chew.” Then she emptied the water bottle over his face. Patted his brow, his face, his arms with the now-sopping blanket, trying to cool him down. Phrases in Basque tumbled from his dry lips. Rhythmic, chanting. A Basse Navarre dialect she didn’t understand except for occasional Spanish words: tree, boulder, rushing water. What sounded like a child’s song.
He lay there, shaking and helpless. White scars ribbed his shoulders, his chest, like welts from an old beating. What kind of life had he lived? she wondered. She’d never nursed her boyfriend like this, or taken care of him. He hated her being nearby if he was sick.
Twenty, thirty minutes passed; she couldn’t tell time down here in the dark. She kept on swabbing Joxi down. Finding more bottled water, wetting the blankets until his convulsions subsided into infrequent jerks.
“Hotz … no.”
Now chills wracked him. His teeth shattered. He grew aware, his eyes darted. For a man of machismo, he acted as helpless as an infant. She didn’t know which was worse: his shaking from chills, or convulsing with fever.
How could she find something dry to wrap him in? Why was she doing this when her life depended on getting away?
She found another jacket, a pair of discarded overalls, a stained plastic tarp, and wrapped him as tightly as she could to generate body heat. In the corner she eyed tubes of paper, unrolled them, and covered him like the homeless she’d seen in the doorways covered with newspapers to keep warm. She kept rubbing his arms, his legs, until her shoulders ached. After a while, his shaking subsided; his eyes closed.
She sighed in relief. And realized for the first time that the fear had left her: she’d been too busy. Tired, she leaned down on the earth floor, clasped her arms around her knees to ease her aching back and shoulders.
The kerosene lamp sputtered low on the flickering wick, casting long shadows on the stone. She looked up. Joxi’s heavy-lidded, half-open eyes watched her.
“Why?”
She stretched her neck, felt his forehead. “Your fever’s down.”
“You tied me like a hog for butchering.” His one dark eye glittered.
“Against the chills.” She tucked the plastic tighter around him. “You were delirious.”
His hand shot out, grabbed her hair. Tight. Pulling the roots of her hair. Pain seared her scalp. “Why did you use these?”
“I … I took anything to keep you warm.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “You were convulsing with fever, then shaking with cold. That’s the thanks I get for.… ” And then it all hit her: the tiredness, the hunger, being chained up. She burst into sobs.
The look in his eye changed.
“Miatzte ama, just like my mother. Shut up.” He struggled to sit up. “Roll these up. Put them back as you found them.”
She rubbed her head. The chain around her ankle bit and rubbed her skin raw.
“Now,” he barked.
She put them together. Diagrams of what looked like train tracks, rail lines. She rolled them back up, slipped them in the tube.
His gaze wavered.
“Why did you help me?”
She blinked. “I don’t know. You’re a human being?” She shrugged. “Maybe that’s stupid. Maybe you’re going to kill me.”
“That’s the plan.”
She backed up in fear, shaking her head.
“Will you do two things?” He leaned on his elbow, coughing. “Do them the way I say.”
“So I’ll die sooner?” She spit on the floor. “Forget it.”
He grabbed the lip balm and tweezers from her things. “Slather this in the lock on your ankle chain; twist your tweezers inside until it clicks open.”
“Quit playing with me.”
“It’s gotten me out of jail every time.” He looked at his watch on the stone niche. “Now. Do it before they return.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Your comrades left us to die.”
“Comrades? You think a true Basque patriot lines his pockets? Kills an old comrade?” He winced in pain. “I heard the snakes. They thought I’d gone unconscious.” He shook his head. “Don’t let on. The trick’s to act the same. When they load up, make a break.”
Surprised, she stared at him.
“How can I get out?”
“You’re on your own there.” He coughed, a wheezing from deep in his chest. “Now hand me that bag.” He pointed to a khaki canvas shoulder bag in the corner.
“Why should I trust you?”
“A life for a life, compris?”
“You’re making a deal?”
“You’re not
from the Motherland, eh? Basques always make deals.”
Could she trust him? But from the shaking of his hands, the tiny beads of sweat forming again on his brow, she’d gotten the better deal.
Wednesday Night
A LIGHTNING CHOP batted Aimée’s arm down. The stinging crosscut to her ribs whipped her against the garage wall. She yelled and toppled into the dustbins. Pain seared her side. Choking for breath, she raised her arm to ward off the next blow.
“Now the other arm. So I can see it.”
She heard the flick of a switch, and light flooded the underground stone-walled garage.
René stood, legs spread, arms extended in firing stance with a Beretta aimed at her head.
“Nice, René.” She gasped. “Register your arms as lethal weapons. Forget the Beretta.”
René’s grip wavered. “Mon Dieu, with the outfit I thought a man—”
“If you bought it, the EPIGN will. That’s what counts.”
René pocketed the gun, reached down to help her up. “Désolé, Aimée. Are you all right? Does it hurt?”
Only when she breathed. She got to her feet. Staggered.
“Let me wrap your ribs. Come upstairs.… ”
“No time.” She pulled out the video receiver, grabbed the wall as her vision reeled and then righted itself. “I need you to hook this up to your laptop, record and monitor the feed.”
René stared at the dim video playing on the palm-sized screen. “But that’s the Mercedes. I recognize the roof line.”
“That’s right, René, parked with stolen plates on rue Copernic.” She winced at every breath. “Did you bring me a phone?”
His brow crinkled in worry. He took his cane from the car. “What the hell’s going on?”
“I didn’t want you involved,” she said. “Look, just trust me—”
“Not until you tell me what all this means, why the EPIGN was asking questions.”
“There’s not much time.”
“I’m waiting, Aimée.”
So she gave him the short version.
“Kidnapped?” René rocked on his handmade Lobb shoes. “If Euskadi Action, this ETA group, kidnapped the princess using the Mercedes, are they likely to use it again?”
