Krystal Scent (Krystal Vibration Series Book 2)

by Richard Corrigan

Within moments, the door opened and the well-built, thirtyish, dark-haired, six-foot-tall Jacques Lamboise entered the room.

  Durran said, “Karen Krystal, I’d like you to officially meet Jacques Lamboise.”

  Lamboise didn’t extend his hand but gave Karen a nod and sat down in the chair adjacent to her at the front of Durran’s desk.

  Durran said, “Lamboise is going to be working with you. Your first task is to make sense of the messages we’ve been intercepting from a number of the terrorist organizations around the world. The documents are spread out on the east conference-room table. Take a look at them, and then, Lamboise, take Ms. Krystal to a nice lunch.”

  Durran pressed the intercom again and the door opened.

  “Follow Natalie, she’ll take you to the conference room,” Durran said.

  Lamboise got up and walked to the door and went through ahead of Karen and continued down the hall following Natalie until they reached the meeting room.

  Once Natalie left, Lamboise turned to Karen and said, “Look, you might as well know, I don’t want to be here, I mean working on this assignment.”

  “You mean working with me on this assignment,” Karen said.

  “You’re not a seasoned agent, and when you’re assigned to work with a rookie, your life automatically becomes shortened.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can. But what if I need assistance?”

  “I can handle that, too.”

  “I know that you’ve been trained to a point. But have you ever even fired a weapon under real conditions?”

  Karen looked at Lamboise and then at the conference room table covered with documents.

  I’m not going to even dignify that with an answer. “We’ve been asked to study this information. I suggest we put aside the current thread of conversation and get to work.”

  Lamboise said nothing but began to look at each pile of papers.

  After a while, Lamboise said, “I don’t see anything here that could tell us what they’re planning. Unless you see a hidden message here,” Lamboise said with a slight condescending inflection in his tone.

  Karen felt the animosity. She knew he was still thinking about his last question.

  Karen decided to address her French partner’s concern. She raised her eyebrows and said, “I’ve owned a gun for a number of years, and I took lessons on my own before being recruited by U.S. Homeland Security. Their training taught me how to be more accurate.”

  “How accurate?”

  “Best in class.”

  “Have you ever shot anyone or killed someone?” Lamboise asked.

  Karen thought for a moment and then said, “Everything’s in my file.”

  “How are you going to handle a real-life situation when you’re faced with protecting yourself or a partner or a hostage?” Lamboise asked. “What have you experienced that could have resulted in your death unless you attacked first?”

  Karen looked at Lamboise, her eyes narrowed and she said, “When I was told I would be working with someone, you, they gave me your file to read. You said you were given mine. Apparently you didn’t read it. You really don’t know anything about me.”

  Karen gathered her things and said, “We don’t need to talk any further until you read my file.” She turned and walked out of the room. She found Natalie and asked her to arrange for a ride back to her hotel.

  Lamboise didn’t follow but instead headed to Durran’s office.

  While Natalie waited with Karen for the car she gave a quick scan of Karen’s outfit. “Obviously, you’ve had a chance to go shopping. What you have on is much better than the clothes that were supplied by French National Intelligence. And they fit you like a glove.”

  Karen hesitated for a moment. She knew what Natalie was saying, that she had looked considerably unfashionable and that Sharon’s clothes were more appealing.

  “Yes, shopping sort of,” Karen said, and thought that maybe she was too hard on her sister.

  CHAPTER 28

  Durran spoke firmly, “Listen, Lamboise, I don’t care how cold and aloof she seems; we need to find out what she knows. We need to be sure of her before she learns too much about our operations. And, it’s our best chance to learn what the U.S. knows.”

  “But I’ve tried to have a conversation with her.”

  “Did you read her file?”

  Lamboise stayed silent.

  “Look, read it. Then make another attempt at having a conversation with her. And another and another. You’ve got to gain her confidence. I know she’s beautiful. More so than her photo in her dossier. And the dress she was wearing today would turn the head of even the most confirmed misogynist.”

  Durran eyed Lamboise who appeared to be daydreaming. He barked his name.

  “Yes, sir,” Lamboise said.

  “Leave out the innuendoes and the macho charisma you try on females.”

  Lamboise looked down at the floor and then back up to meet Durran’s eyes.

  “I’m serious, Lamboise. You need her. We need her.”

  Lamboise agreed and left Durran’s office.

  ***

  Karen returned to Hotel d’Angleterre and was about to leave her suite to grab some lunch when her cell rang. The ID was room thirty-eight’s number. She answered. It was Lamboise.

  After a short conversation in which Karen asked if he had read her file, and he promised he had, she agreed to meet upon his suggestion that they get together and discuss the strategy they would use to infiltrate the terrorists.

  Lamboise said that he would pick her up at her hotel and they could go to lunch and discuss the situation.

  Regardless of what Paul Durran said to Lamboise about trying to gain Karen’s confidence, Lamboise’s agenda was to get her into bed.

  Karen agreed to meet. She hung up and walked into the boudoir to view herself in the full-length, cheval mirror. She adjusted the seam on the dress. A Cheshire cat smile slowly spread across her face. She touched the ankh hanging from the chain around her neck.

  Sharon, sometimes you’re such a shadchanit.

  ***

  Lamboise was talking with the concierge when Karen sneaked into room thirty-eight with the laundry bag stuffed with the mechanic’s room shredded paper. She set it on the armoire, waited a beat, and then opened the door and floated through the courtyard on her toes and then clacked across the lobby floor.

  Lamboise stopped in midsentence when he saw her. He turned his back on the young hotel employee and said, “Vous avez l'air ravissante.”

  Karen looked at the concierge and said, “Un loup déguisé en mouton.”

  The concierge said, “He says you look ravishing, and I agree.”

  Karen turned to Lamboise and said, “It’s the same outfit I was wearing earlier. You barely acknowledged me then.”

  “You do look ravishing. That dress and the heels, so much better than the agency outfit you had to wear yesterday. And I’m not ‘un loup,’ a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Are you ready to grab a bite to eat?”

  “I guess,” Karen said. He really wasn’t offended by my sheep’s-clothing remark. I’m sure he’s heard it before.

  “We can walk where we’re going.”

  Karen handed her room thirty-eight key to the concierge and said, “Ou revoire.”

  Lamboise opened the door and held it while Karen stepped through. She thanked him and they turned left and walked up Rue Jacob to the corner of Rue Bonaparte, turned right and went two blocks to Les Deux Magots.

  Lamboise held the door again, and he followed Karen as she entered the famed restaurant.

  Lamboise said, “Picasso and Hemingway ate here. Hemingway sometimes wrote here.”

  The hostess seated them in a booth.

  In French, Lamboise asked for a bottle of Domaine de la Pigeade Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, Rhône.

  “Bon choix, monsieur,” the server said.

  Lamboise turned to Karen and said, “She complemented us on the choic
e of wine.”

  Karen just nodded.

  He had to pat himself on the back.

  Lamboise’s manners, literary knowledge, and his taste in wine, piqued her interest as to whether he had a certain amount of class and companion appeal.

  Since Lamboise spoke French to the server, she returned with French menus with no English translation.

  They both scanned la carte to see what they wished for lunch. Lamboise pointed to a number of items and translated them for Karen.

  She allowed him to continue even though she could fluently read and speak French. She spoke to the hotel concierge in French and Lamboise was standing right there. He must have assumed her French was limited. Either he didn’t read her complete file, or it wasn’t mentioned. She thanked him.

  As soon as the menus were closed and placed on the table, the server returned and took their order. She left and within moments, a male appeared with a basket of hot breads and two balls of butter, one salted and the other laced with honey.

  Lamboise immediately opened the napkin that covered the roles and bread, chose a slice of the artisan loaf, slathered it with butter, and took a bite.

  While chewing he said, “This used to be a silk drapery shop that also sold other expensive items. It was owned by a Chinese family. Magot is the Chinese word for merchant. Thus the name Les Deux Magots.

  “There were two of them,” he said, pointing, “the figurines over there. The café used to be called Aux Deux Magots. But then it became Les Deux Magots.”

  Karen turned to look, and the server refilled their wine glasses.

  Lamboise began to tell Karen all about himself. The more he spoke, the more her attraction to him diminished.

  When it seemed he was taking a break from patting himself on the back, she asked, “What did you make of the information from the terrorists that was spread on the conference-room table?”

  Lamboise blinked his eyes as if trying to focus. He was only up to his junior year in high school. He had at least an hour more of personal history to divulge. “I’m not sure what it all means,” he said, with a shrug.

  Attempting to lengthen this particular strand of conversation, Karen said, “It may be information devised to throw us off so that we won’t figure out what they’re really planning.”

  “I thought of that,” Lamboise said. “Speaking of plans, when I was completing my junior year in high school...”

  Karen couldn’t believe that Lamboise was back on himself again. She attempted to return the conversation to business, but as before, it only lasted a few minutes. Clearly, Lamboise was intent on talking about himself in an attempt to increase, in a most Neanderthal way, Karen’s interest in him.

  He has his own agenda.

  Karen had read his file. She knew what he was after, and she had no desire to accommodate him.

  She acquiesced to his egocentricity and let him blather on while her mind drifted. She began to pick up on the conversation in the booth diagonally situated from them. She glanced over.

  It was a curious trio. He was well-tanned, English-speaking, up there in years, and based on the thread of the conversation, Karen determined he was a photographer. Next to him sat a tall, waif-like girl.

  She must be a model.

  She had that malnourished, cocaine-fed, skin-and-bones look. He called her Zerhriya. She was also speaking English.

  Based on the conversation and the fact that the other female continuously had a camera in her hands, she must be an up-and-coming photographer.

  Another bottle of wine was delivered to Karen’s table and the server asked if she should pour for them. Lamboise gave the go ahead. He then offered a toast. Karen submitted and then in yet another attempt to get Lamboise off himself, she said, “That’s a curious conversation at the other table.”

  Lamboise turned to listen.

  The food was delivered and Karen immediately began to eat. Lamboise did, also. They listened to the conversation of the older photographer, model, and novice photographer.

  The topic jumped all around but continually returned to cocaine.

  “It’s the way it is with the jet-setters. The filthy rich,” Lamboise said between mouthfuls.

  “I can’t understand it,” Karen said.

  “Well, maybe if you were wealthy, you’d be involved in similar pursuits.”

  “Pursuits of what?”

  “Sex and drugs.”

  Lamboise didn’t read my file or he would have known about my financial situation that I’m independently wealthy. I don’t do drugs, and I have no desire for meaningless sex.

  Karen chose not to respond to Lamboise’s assessment of the rich and famous and continued to persist in changing the subject back to their problem of discovering what the terrorists were planning.

  But Lamboise always found a way to talk about himself. Karen half listened, asked a courteous question or two, but spent most of the time thinking about the terrorists’ plot and the shredded paper she found in the mechanic’s room. Something was coming to her, but with Lamboise talking, it was difficult to recall what her subconscious mind was trying to communicate.

  They finished their meal, each had a cup of coffee, and Lamboise picked up the tab and asked if she was ready to go. She said yes and they left their booth.

  They stepped outside and walked between the outside tables that were all populated with eaters, drinkers, and smokers. Lamboise took out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Karen. She refused. He lit up, took a long drag, tilted his head skyward and blew the smoke above Karen’s head.

  Karen gave a faint smile of appreciation.

  Lamboise asked, “Feel like walking a little?”

  “Sure.”

  “Have you ever been to Paris?”

  “A few visits,” Karen said.

  They headed up Rue Bonaparte toward the Seine and turned left onto the south sidewalk of Quai Malaquais. Lamboise acted like a tour guide, pointing out different sights as they strolled along the riverbank. He stopped to point out a plaque on the wall of one of the buildings on Quai Voltaire.

  “So, Voltaire died in this house on May 30th, 1778,” Karen said.

  Lamboise choked a little on his smoke. “You know French? You speak it, too?”

  “Oui. Quand je dois.”

  “What’s the definition of when you have to?” Lamboise asked.

  “When I’m by myself in a French-speaking environment.”

  “Like France?”

  “Or Montreal or Belgium, Haiti, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco—”

  “You made your point. You’re full of surprises. How do you happen to know French?” Lamboise asked.

  “My father made sure we learned a couple of different languages so that we could understand what was going on around us when we were in a foreign country,” Karen said, her face tightening.

  “Us?”

  “Me and my sister.”

  “Is your sister an operative, too?”

  “No.”

  He definitely did not read my file.

  Karen spotted another building marker and said, “I remember my parents speaking of how they saw Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn when they danced to the music of Chopin. I only saw him dance in a movie made for TV.”

  “I’ve never seem him dance, live. Only on TV,” Lamboise said.

  Karen’s lips parted slightly. Then she asked, “You watch ballet?”

  “Actually, I own a DVD of the Nutcracker and one of Coppélia.”

  Karen was somewhat cynical as to why Lamboise would own DVDs of ballets unless it was to impress his dates. Was he lying or did he really appreciate the arts?

  CHAPTER 29

  Back in the lobby of Hotel d’Angleterre, Karen asked the concierge for room thirty-eight’s key and told Lamboise to wait while she went to get something for him. She unlocked the door, went to the armoire and retrieved the bag of shredded paper.

  Lamboise gave a courteous nod to the concierge on duty who turned back to continue entering inf
ormation into his computer. Lamboise was anxious to complete his goal of bedding Karen. She was already in her room, and he wasn’t that far away.

  Karen came back out, locked the door behind her, and returned to the lobby with the plastic bag. She pulled Lamboise into the sitting room and said, “Here, take this back to your headquarters, and have someone put it together.”

  Lamboise looked at the opaque plastic sack. He opened it and said, “Looks like confetti. What is it?”

  “I found it in the mechanic’s room where I was held captive.”

  “Looks meaningless.”

  “It’s something that was important enough to be shredded. It needs to be put back together. I think it may be critical information that might help us. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. I’ll come to French Intelligence Headquarters,” Karen said, turned, and walked away.

  Lamboise watched Karen disappear into her room. He sighed and left the hotel.

  Karen waited a few minutes, left room thirty-eight, and returned to her suite.

  Just before she showered and got ready for bed, Paul Durran called to say he was sending a car for her in the morning.

  ***

  Karen arrived at French Intelligence, followed the routine security procedures, and was then escorted once again to the conference room. There, all the information that French Intelligence had regarding the terrorists was still on the table and in piles on some of the chairs.

  Durran wanted both Karen and Lamboise to continue reading through the documents in hopes that they might uncover the terrorist plot. Additionally, there were other members of National Intelligence in the room perusing the information. Durran wanted as many eyes on the documents as possible.

  Karen settled at one end of the room, and was systematically reading through the items, looking at each symbol and trying to decipher whatever the writings had to reveal. She was painstakingly analyzing each sentence when Lamboise entered the room.

  She glanced up, nodded but kept working. She picked up a piece of white paper that clearly had been folded into a smaller form to fit in a pocket. She started reading it and gasped.

  DECLARATION OF JIHAD AGAINST THE COUNTRY’S TYRANTS MILITARY SERIES