Glen & Tyler's Paris Double-cross (Glen & Tyler Adventures Book 3)

by JB Sanders

  Tyler nodded. "And?"

  "Dunno. He's kind of grubby looking. Bad guys?" Glen ventured.

  "Who can play in this game?" Jacques said, over the rim of his expresso cup. He had a deep, rich, smokey voice. He reminded Glen strongly of the actor Jean Reno.

  Tyler motioned at him encouragingly. "Is Glen right? Is he a mercenary or a neo-Nazi?"

  "Pfft. Gendarme. Not worth your time." Jacques made a very Gallic dismissive gesture.

  "Oh, it's the way he holds his cigarette, right?" Glen said.

  "Oui. Probably a Parisienne to boot. Arrogant pricks, every one of them," Jacques said emphatically.

  "And if he'd cupped his hand around it, maybe with a facial scar?" Tyler smiled.

  "Then he'd be a bad-ass Legionnaire. And working for Intelligence." Jacques said.

  "Hmmm, and that small van parked next to the Peugeot?" Glen nodded vaguely towards it.

  "Bad guys. Stupid choice." James chimed in. "They'll never be able to follow us in morning traffic, especially if we're on foot."

  Tyler smirked. "What are the odds they're using a parabolic mic to listen to us right now?"

  "Pretty good." James face lightened perceptibly, but he didn't smile. He never smiled.

  "What about that woman at the news agent who's been reading that same magazine for fifteen minutes?" Glen said.

  "Ah!" Tyler said as if Glen had brought up some rare species. "Now she's interesting. I think she's a spotter for some paparazzo. James?"

  He nodded. "She works for a freelancer."

  Tyler sighed. "I guess we're still pretty small potatoes, or there'd be a small crowd of them outside."

  The bell over the door tinkled and a man in rough jeans and a hooded jersey shuffled into the cafe. He moved slowly but purposefully to the back. Something about him made Glen nervous.

  "I have a gun." He spoke French low and intensely at the guy behind the counter. The man motioned with the hand in his pocket. "Empty the register."

  Tyler shook his head, and spoke quietly, calmly, also in French. "You don't want to do that."

  Despite Tyler's quiet volume, his voice carried.

  The man turned a little jerkily and looked at Tyler. "What?!"

  "You don't want to rob this place." Tyler said, his eyes staring into the other man's intently.

  "Why?" The man had been shaking slightly, but seemed to go still under Tyler's gaze.

  "First, there are the police watching me." Tyler motioned out at the street, never taking his eyes from the man. "If anything goes wrong in the café, the police will be here in a minute or two."

  The man licked his lips, and Glen could see his hand shake slightly.

  "So? I'll shoot one of you if they come in here?" Even though the man spoke softly and with a scary unevenness, he seemed to make the phrase a question.

  "Second, I'm being stalked by neo-Nazis who want me to find something for them. They would be very put out if that didn't happen." Tyler sipped his coffee, but again his eyes never left the robber's. It was like Tyler was holding the man still just with his eyes.

  The man thrust out his chin. "I don't like them. I'll shoot them just the same."

  Tyler nodded, as if the man had just made a good point in their argument about existentialism.

  "Third, my bodyguards have guns, and one of them has a gun pointed to your head."

  The man tore his gaze away from Tyler's hypnotic stare, turning his head very slightly to see Kevin holding an automatic pistol very close to his head.

  "Now, I would recommend that you very slowly pull that hand out of your jersey, and then allow him to put handcuffs on you." Tyler set his coffee cup down.

  The man pulled out his hand, very slowly, and Kevin cuffed him. Then Kevin searched him, found the small gun and took it.

  The patrons of the café applauded.

  Kevin and Jacques escorted the man outside and into the arms of the waiting police, who had just driven up.

  The man behind the counter motioned to Tyler, who went over.

  "Monsieur, thank you!" He shook Tyler's hand enthusiastically. "That was amazing what you did. Whatever you and your friends are eating, it is for free."

  Tyler frowned. "Hmm, I appreciate that -- Monsieur Trauffat? Yes? But who is your district representative?"

  Monsieur Trauffat looked confused. "Uh, Madame Bouvant. Why?"

  "Ah, you may want to let me pay you after all. I mean no disrespect, but in a few days ..." Tyler leaned in and spoke softly. "I might not be your favorite person."

  Monsieur Trauffat looked more confused, but then brightened. "I don't believe you -- and if you want, come back and ask me."

  Tyler nodded, and gave him a bow. "Thank you, Monsieur Trauffat. Most kind of you. Your pastries are the best I have ever tasted, and your coffee is worth getting out of bed early for."

  Monsier Trauffat smiled broadly, and clapped Tyler on the back. "Ha! You have a way with words, monsieur."

  ***

  "Make it quick, Glen, I'm due in microbiology in ten minutes." Janine sounded harried, and the background sounds were crowded around her.

  "Hey, Janine." Glen held the satellite phone to his ear as they walked back to the hotel. "I saw Lance again yesterday. He's doing ok. Not great, but ok."

  "What do the lawyers say?"

  "There's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but nothing concrete. If it goes to trial--"

  "--Trial!?" Janine's voice cracked.

  "It's not that likely, but if it does, they're pretty confident they could get him acquitted."

  Janine breathed a loud sigh. "Ok, that doesn't sound too bad, I guess. And?"

  "Tyler's working on another angle."

  "Oh, of course he is. Anything I should know about?"

  "I don't really know what he's got cooking." Glen gave Tyler a smile, and took his hand as they were walking. "But I'm sure he'll fix everything."

  Tyler smiled back at him.

  "See that he does, Glen. Love you, gotta run."

  "Love you."

  Glen hung up. "Ok, she's updated. I'll call my folks from the room."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Puzzles and Paintings

  Wednesday 9am

  "You have any trouble getting the pastries from that café?" Tyler pointed at his ear and James made the all-clear gesture.

  "No, sir. No trouble at all. Antoine took us right to them, we retrieved all of them and have them stashed nearby. We brought up the one you're looking for and have it stowed in the laundry room." James pointed to one of the doors off the suite's main hallway, where the bugs they hadn't removed didn't cover.

  "We have a laundry room?" Tyler asked, bemused.

  "And a sauna and a kitchen and enough bedrooms to put up most of my immediate family." Glen said, with a little exasperation.

  "Who thankfully aren't here to walk in on us canoodling."

  Glen just snorted.

  Inside the laundry room, they took the painting out of the case, and propped it up on a chair. James brought in a lamp to shine a better light on it.

  Glen thought the painting was really quite good. Of course, it was painted by John Singer Sargent, widely considered a master of portraits, so that was hardly a surprise. It was a pleasant, appealing sort of portrait. A young man, perhaps Glen and Tyler's age, was seated in a large ornate maroon-upholstered chair. He was dressed in slacks, a jacket, and a tie that all looked very 1920's. His hair was dark brown, and slicked back with some sort of pomade. He was very handsome, and reminded Glen a little of Tyler, but he had an expression on his face of such proprietary ownership in whomever he was looking at that it was kind of offensive.

  In the foreground, there was a large map laid out over a table, the edges of the map spilling over the sides to the point where it obscured the table legs. The map itself was an overhead view of a city, crossed by grid lines and divided into light and dark squares, like a chess board. Indeed, several chess pieces were placed on the map. A beam of sunlight coming throu
gh a window behind him, like the last dying ray of light from the setting sun, captured the rook where it stood on the board. Through the window behind the seated man, a crowded graveyard was visible, in Parisian Catholic style, and it seemed that if you looked close, you might just make out the names on the stones.

  Between the light, the expression on the man's face and the color, the thing was at once like a photograph, perfectly capturing its subject, and yet at the same time an impressionistic blur that conveyed an overwhelming sense of privilege.

  In short, the painting was amazing.

  "Wow, Great-grandfather was pretty good looking in his youth. Not at all like that scary picture of him in the Library back on the island." Tyler smiled.

  "Yeah, although that expression makes him look like an asshole," Glen said.

  "Well, from all accounts I have of him, he was." Tyler pointed at the map slash chessboard. "This is wrong."

  "What's wrong about it?"

  Tyler scratched his head. "It's something about Great-grandfather's famous switcheroo move, but I'm having trouble remembering the specifics."

  "Switcheroo?"

  "Ooh, right, it's one of those family secret things I keep meaning to tell you. Or show you. Great-grandfather was infamous, in the family lore, for successfully cheating at chess." Tyler motioned at the painting. "He had a particular move."

  "Successfully cheating?"

  "Yeah, well, people kept playing him, he kept winning and no one called him out on it. I'm surprised someone had the balls to put it in a painting."

  "So how is that a family secret?"

  "He liked to boast to the family about it. And I guess it seemed a shame to tell on him."

  "Wow." Glen looked at the painting again. "So, first, your Great-grandfather really was an asshole, and second, this is a clue."

  Tyler nodded. "Yeah, it's got to be. A clue that only one of the Conrads could get." Tyler leaned into the painting again. "Oh!"

  "What?"

  "I remember now. It was a rook and bishop thing. He'd get those two pieces near each other, distract his opponent and then switch the squares they're on." Tyler pointed. "If that's true, it means the bishop and rook should be in different places."

  "Which means the bishop should be the one in the ray of light." Glen pondered. "That square is ... Île de la Cité, the island where some pretty important government buildings are located, a castle or two, and of course Notre Dame."

  "The church?"

  "The church? You mean cathedral?" Glen gave Tyler an irked expression.

  "Sure, sure, cathedral. So if this is a clue..." Tyler smiled.

  "Yeah, I think it is. They've probably been looking in every castle-related location on the island, instead of in every church or cathedral." Glen smiled, turned his head and used a funny voice. "They've been looking in the wrong place!"

  Tyler laughed at the quote. Then he sobered up. "Ok, so we have to look in a church -- which one?"

  Glen gestured at the painting. "I think that's easy, or at least, I know where to start: Notre Dame."

  "Why?"

  "Well, there's only one Bishop of Paris, and his place has always been in Notre Dame, at least for the last few centuries." Glen shrugged. "But that doesn't tell us what specifically we're looking for -- we need another clue."

  Tyler nodded, reached behind him and brought out two magnifying glasses. "Clue search time!"

  For the next few minutes, the two of them scoured the painting's details.

  Tyler was looking at something in the folds of the window's expensive-looking velvet drapes, but Glen made an explosive comment before he'd found anything.

  "Oh!" Glen exclaimed.

  "What?"

  Glen pointed at the graveyard in the painting and smiled. "The name on that gravestone."

  "Bobo?" Tyler frowned. "That's a pretty odd name for someone buried in a regular cemetery. Shouldn't that be in a pet cemetery or something?"

  "I don't know, I guess so. What? You've got a look."

  Tyler barked a laugh. "Ha! No, it's a ... ah, right, it's a family thing. Almost no one outside the estate would know this story."

  Glen put his hands on his hips and gave Tyler an arch look.

  "Great-grandfather had a statue next to his outdoor chessboard. Whoever won a game got to kiss Bobo. There's a really funny story, don't know if it's true, about Winston Churchill kissing the statue on New Year's --"

  "Tyler? Short version?" Glen gave him a repressive look.

  "Spoil sport. It's a good story and I'm going to tell it to you later." Tyler got a stubborn look, then smiled. "The upshot is, the statue was St Barnabas and I have no idea why we called it 'Bobo', but there you are."

  Glen nodded distractedly. "So we're looking for a statue of St Barnabas in Notre Dame for the next clue."

  "Right, time for a road trip. Hmm, let me put some thought into the timing. There are ... wrinkles in this." Tyler paced for a moment, thinking.

  Glen looked up from the painting, which he'd been looking at some more. "Oh man, your grandfather really was a bastard."

  "What? This is news?"

  "No, it's just -- this painting is sort of a forgery." Glen pointed. "These clues, these details? They had to have been added after World War Two, right?" Tyler nodded. "But John Singer Sargent died in 1925 -- he couldn't possibly have painted this the way it is. Someone had to have come along after and added those details."

  Tyler nodded encouragingly. "Right. Or?"

  Glen sighed. "Or the whole thing is a forgery from start to finish."

  Tyler smiled. "Now you're getting it. You think my grandfather wouldn't have done that if he thought he had to?" Tyler looked at the painting. "Although what I think happened is sorrier. I think that Sargent really did paint my great-grandfather and then my grandfather doctored the painting to add the clues."

  Glen looked a little ill.

  "Well," Tyler continued, in a light tone. "On the upside, I have a much better portrait of my Great-grandfather to hang in the library."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Before the Earth Was Round

  Wednesday evening, nightfall

  "Old defectors, old spies, they get a bit cuckoo. They hear voices, talk to the dicky-birds. It's normal."

  From Smiley's People by John le Carrè

  ***

  "What are we doing here?" Glen asked.

  "A little side job, one I unfortunately have to do in person. We're going on a spy cruise."

  "A spy cruise?"

  "Yeah," Tyler said. "They arranged for a bunch of Cold War guys, spies, to get together and chat. All sides."

  "There were more than two?"

  "Well," Tyler shrugged. "Both sides, anyway." Tyler gave him a look, one Glen wasn't entirely sure he got right: anxious? "Do me a huge favor?"

  "Anything."

  "Don't ask too many questions about this part. Or none. None would be better." Tyler looked oddly guilty.

  "Ok, but you'll owe me a story about all this later."

  Tyler burst into a smile, his face lighting up with a terrific glee. "Oh, there's a sum up. You can bet on it."

  "Ok, stud. Lead on."

  They descended the staircase to the Seine. The late afternoon was a little damp, and mist rose off the river like it was haunted. The sun was struggling through the fog to reach them. Pulled up along the dock was a river boat, one designed for tourists to see Paris by river. What made this one different was all the security men hanging around it.

  Not that most people would have noticed them, particularly. But Glen had been surrounded by top-notch security for much of the past two years, and he recognized the symptoms. Two of them were obvious, standing next to the gang plank, a visual warning for anyone paying any attention at all. Less obvious were the "boat crew" appearing to work on deck, which Glen could see was make-work. Much less obvious was the street cleaner who was paying them a little too much attention. Oh, and that woman pushing her baby carriage. I mean, really, Glen thought,
what mother is going to take her baby out in this damp?

  Glen and Tyler's own security guys stopped with them at the duo next to the ship.

  "I'm sorry, this is a private function." The man on the right said in French.

  "I'm only here for the croissants," Tyler said in return, in English.

  The man nodded at Tyler. "Very well, Monsieur Conrad." He had a heavy French accent. "But you are only allowed two companions, not five."

  Tyler looked back at their four-man team, then turned back. "I know, only these two will be with me." Tyler pulled Glen's hand to his, and put his other hand on James' arm, pulling him forward. James looked unhappy.

  The security man nodded. Then the two men scanned them with devices. One was your standard metal detector, and Glen was a little surprised when it didn't go off passing over James. The other man appeared to be using some kind of bug detector, which was unusual.

  "Alright, you may go aboard. Your other men will have to go back up to the street. Please follow Sergei." The security man pointed at one of the boat's crew who had come over to meet them on the deck.

  James went first, then Tyler and then Glen. They were escorted along to the other end of the boat, to a glassed in room with comfortable chairs and small tables. No one else was there. Sergei seated them at one of the tables on the river side, and asked if they would like tea or coffee. Glen asked for coffee, Tyler asked for tea and James had nothing.

  After a few minutes, an elderly man in a wheelchair rolled into the room, his electrically-motivated chair making a slight buzzing sound as he propelled himself over to the table. The man was, or looked, well past eighty. His hair was patchy and white; his face a mass of wrinkles and spots. His eyes were oddly large looking in the thick-lensed glasses he wore.

  The man nodded at Tyler. "Mr Conrad."

  "Mr --" Tyler started.

  "I am known here as Smith." He had an English accent, although Glen couldn't place the region. That probably meant London. The man gave a dry, hoarse laugh. "Although with all the secrets and lies on this tub, no one is fooled."