“You’re talking about kidnapping someone off the street and sequestering him away for interrogation. Paris is not Zubara,” Ling said. “Coming to the attention of law enforcement here is extremely risky.”
“I think I can help with that,” Tailor said. He held up an ID badge to the camera on his phone, but it was hard to make out.
“What is that?”
“Interpol credentials.” He grinned. “No shit. I am the law! Special Organized Crime Task Force. Gives me a lot of leeway, and the local cops are usually pretty deferential.”
“Are you really a police officer, Mr. Tailor?” Ling asked, incredulously.
“Technically, sorta. Enough for this situation, anyway. My boss pulled some strings. Interpol doesn’t actually have arrest powers, but most people don’t know that. Besides, I’m only gonna flash my creds if I have to. I’d rather just snatch the guy and never have him find out who we are.”
“We can use your creds to get the hooker to cooperate, too,” I suggested. “She’ll probably be less worried about client confidentiality if she thinks she’s keeping her own butt out of jail. Maybe if you roll him up on some human trafficking or vice charge, it’ll be less suspicious to Kat than him just disappearing?”
Tailor smiled. “I like how you’re thinking, Val. I can make up some crimes. I’m flying over first thing tomorrow morning so we can plan this out in detail.” He looked at Ariel. “Good job, kid. Call me if anything comes up tonight.” The call was ended and Tailor disappeared from my phone.
“Are you sure about this?” Ling asked me.
Antoine was really not liking our current arrangements. “The Illuminati and Interpol? This carries a lot of risk.”
“Until we have something better to go on, this is worth at least looking into. Get in touch with Lorenzo and let him know what’s going on. If we are going to grab Mertens I want to run it so we risk the minimum number of our people. It’ll probably just be me and Tailor.”
“Stop trying to protect everybody!” Ariel blurted. “You can’t do this all by yourself.” Ling looked like she agreed, but she was an experienced leader, and knew the last thing you wanted to do was undermine the decision maker’s authority in front of everyone.
“You said this is my war, then this is my call. When Tailor gets here we’ll hammer everything out, including a backup and a bugout plan. We’ll have you guys on standby, in case we need to call the cavalry.”
“In other words, Val here doesn’t know if he can trust our old buddy Tailor or not,” Skunky spoke up for the first time. He’d been standing off camera, but since he’d been on the same Switchblade team, Tailor would have recognized his voice.
“What do you think?”
That was a tough question. I thought of Jeff as a man of principle, which was why he’d wound up with Exodus, sucked into trying to do the right thing. Tailor was a pure mercenary to the core. We’d all been like brothers, but it was hard to guess how strong Tailor’s loyalty would be when we were working for different sides.
“You know I love the guy, but Tailor is Tailor. He’s a hell of a soldier, a good leader, but we both know he can be a company man. He’s the sort of guy who’ll take orders for a paycheck, and not think too hard about what those orders are. It’s been a long time.” Skunky shrugged. “But I do know one thing for sure, I don’t need any more evidence that the Illuminati are pure evil.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They trusted Tailor with a badge.”
Chapter 8: Spy Games
VALENTINE
Paris
September 16th
“Jesus, dude, traffic here sucks.”
Tailor nodded without looking at me. The two of us were in his rental car, trying to make it across town. “I fucking hate Paris, man. Between the regular congestion and the police everywhere, it’s impossible to get around.”
“What’s the deal with all the checkpoints? It’s like the city is under martial law.”
“Almost, but not yet,” Tailor said. “They’ve left most of it to the Gendarmerie, but there are French army units on the ground in the city, too. They got ‘em mostly over in the poor parts of town, where the Africans and Middle Easterners live.”
I should have been doing a better job keeping up on the news. “They been having some kind of ethnic tensions or something?”
“It’s getting pretty bad—oh, come on!” he snarled as a little hatchback pulled front of us, causing Tailor to stomp on the brakes. “People in the States bitch about traffic. They have no idea. Anyway, yeah, there’s been a rash of attacks recently. Tribal shit, some of it, but also targeting Jews. Things are tense with that G20 summit coming up in London, too.”
“Why does anyone care about a summit in another country?”
Tailor shrugged. “French economy is struggling same as everyone else’s. The word is, the government will announce some more austerity measures after the summit. There are a lot of people that depend on welfare. They’re gonna be pissed. Paris cops are worried there’ll be a riot. Another riot, I mean. Maybe a big one this time.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Do you know how weird it is to listen to you, of all people, get me up to speed on current events? There was a time when we didn’t know or care what was going on back in the regular world. It was just one third-world shithole after another, and that was all we worried about.”
“Yeah, well, things change.” Tailor looked almost uncomfortable. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this.
“You’ve changed,” I said.
“So have you, Val. You’re different than you were when I left you on that boat.”
The car fell into an awkward silence as we crawled through stop and go traffic. The only people getting anywhere were the motorcycle riders creating their own lanes on the dotted lines.
“You were right, you know,” Tailor said after a long moment. “Right about me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Last time I saw you, you said I was a war junkie. That really pissed me off, but you were right. I didn’t give a damn about anything but our next job. I lived for the thrill, the adrenaline, the . . .” he trailed off. “The killing.”
It was weird to have Tailor open up. “Yeah, it’s a rush. There’s nothing like it.” Combat is terrifying, but also a sort of primal thrill. Like Mark Twain said, there’s no hunting like the hunting of armed men.
“But after Mexico, then Zubara, you know. Getting left for dead twice in a row is kind of a bad deal,” he muttered.
“It is.”
“I guess you came to the same conclusion I did. You just beat me to it.”
“Yeah, well. Circumstances.”
“I don’t think I ever said it, Val,” Tailor said, glancing over at me, “but I’m sorry about Sarah.”
She had been communications and interrogations for Dead Six, and we’d fallen in love. It felt like a lifetime ago, but I could still see her death as clearly as the second it happened. Not a day went by when I didn’t think about her. I didn’t talk about it with anyone, not even Ling. Especially not Ling.
“It eats at me sometimes,” I managed finally.
“It wasn’t your fault, Val. You were the one who saw what was coming. You were the one trying to get everyone out.”
“I know. But it doesn’t change anything.”
He was right, though. A few months into Project Heartbreaker, I could see the writing on the wall. Suffering unsustainable casualties, being sent on virtual suicide missions, all as the tiny Emirate of Zubara spiraled into chaos, my goal had become getting me and Sarah out alive. In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Majestic pulled the plug. Gordon sold us out. And nearly everyone, including Sarah, died.
I will likely never forgive myself for that.
“For what it’s worth,” Tailor said, “I wasn’t thrilled with how it turned out either. It don’t matter now anyway. I know you’re being all secretive about your people, and I get it. It’s insulting,
and kind of hurts my feelings that after everything we’ve been through you don’t trust me, but hey, whatever. I just want you to know I’m done getting sold out.”
Of the few people still alive whom I called friend, I’d known Tailor the longest. He’d been like my brother. He was assigned to train me on my first job with Vanguard, in Africa, right after I got out of the Air Force. He’d been there with me through some of the best and many of the worst times in my life. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to trust him. I wanted there to not be any kind of ulterior motive. Only, what I wanted didn’t really matter. The people Tailor was working for were nothing but ulterior motives, layers and layers of lies, deceit, and manipulation.
“Well, I don’t have faith in your bosses like you do.”
“Faith? I ain’t got faith in shit, Val,” Tailor said, an edge in his voice. “I got . . . well, don’t worry about what all I got. Let’s just say I got contingency plans.”
That actually made me feel better. It told me Tailor was still being pragmatic, and really hadn’t just bought the Illuminati bullshit hook, line, and sinker.
Night had fallen as Tailor and I waited in an upscale hotel room. He had booked both the room and an appointment with the lovely Eloise. As far as her escort service knew, Tailor was an American businessman, with very specific tastes which—if they thought about it too hard—sounded just like he’d been describing her from Jill’s photographs. If Eloise was unwilling to help us, we had ways of applying leverage. I was more worried that she’d be unable to help us. If Georges Mertens didn’t have an appointment with her anytime soon, our lead could go cold before we were able to exploit it.
“She should be here soon.” Tailor was sitting on the bed, watching a German cop show that had been dubbed into French, munching on a bag of potato chips from the minibar. Were they crisps here? Or was that a British thing?
I was standing, looking through the glass door to the balcony, taking in the sights. I’d never been to Paris before, and it really was beautiful. The Eiffel Tower was all lit up. Boats slowly moved up and down the River Seine, tourist cruises from the look of them, and the entire city seemed to glow gold in the dark.
“Someday,” I said wistfully, not looking at Tailor, “I’d like to visit a place and not be on a mission. Just go somewhere as a tourist without anyone trying to kill me.”
“Hell, and you called me housebroken,” he said, through a mouthful of half-chewed potato snacks.
“No, I get why. I’m just surprised that you settled down. It didn’t seem like something you’d want to do.”
“People change, Val. Even me.”
I didn’t respond.
Tailor persisted. “What happened to you, man? You said you got captured by Majestic. What did they do to you? I ain’t the only one who’s changed. You’re different. More mopey than usual.”
“I learned a lot of things the hard way, bro,” I said, still looking out the glass door. I turned to face him. “When this is over, your employers might ask you to kill me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know goddamn well what I’m talking about, Tailor. They’ll want me dead for the same reason Majestic wants me dead: I know too much. It makes me a threat. Having you do it makes the most sense. You can get close to me without it being suspicious.”
“Val, you might have changed, but you’re still a big drama queen. I can’t believe we’re having this fucking conversation right now. If it makes you feel better, I promise I won’t betray and kill you. Feel better?”
I laughed. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Nice to be working with you again too, brother.”
“Just don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you do decide to come after me,” I warned, “you better bring your A-game.”
“Fucker, your A-game is whiffle ball.”
There was a gentle knock at the door. Eloise had arrived. Tailor used the remote to shut off the TV, then he walked over to the door. “Now shut the hell up and let me do the talking.” I stepped off to the side as Tailor loosened his tie and opened the door.
“’Ello,” Eloise purred in a French accent. She was stunning, like movie-star pretty, which probably explained how she made more per day as a hooker than I had as a mercenary. She sauntered into the room in a short blue dress and high heels, clutching a small handbag. She noticed me, awkwardly standing by the bathroom door, as Tailor closed and locked the door behind her.
She didn’t miss a beat. “I see. That’s fifteen hundred an hour for the both of you. Eleven hundred if one of you only wants to watch.”
“Mademoiselle,” Tailor said, pronouncing it mad-am-mow-zell, “you got it all wrong.” He pulled out his INTERPOL identification. “I’m Special Agent Wilhelm Schneider, and this is my partner.”
“Not the kind of partner you were thinking of,” I added.
“Shut up,” Tailor said to me. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
Eloise stepped back, dropped the sex kitten act, and got very defensive. “I have done nothing wrong,” she said angrily. “I work freelance. You are the ones guilty of solicitation.”
“Actually we’re not,” Tailor said. “I didn’t say I wanted to have sex with you, lady, I just said I wanted to see you.”
Eloise folded her arms across her chest and glared at Tailor. “What is it you want, then?”
Tailor raised his phone and showed her a picture of Georges Mertens. “This man is one of your clients, correct?”
Obviously she recognized him. “I do not discuss my clientele. I’m leaving.”
We were ready for that reaction. “Eloise, wait.” She paused and looked over at me. “We’re not trying to bust your customer for hiring you. We’re trying to protect you.”
“Protect me?” she scoffed. “As if.”
“We don’t care about prostitution. Our division profiles serial killers. Georges is a very dangerous man. We’ve been tracking him for weeks. He’s covered his tracks very well, but we’ve tied him to a string of murders of sex workers in five different countries. If he’s hiring you, especially if he’s a regular, that’s his pattern. You are in a lot of danger.”
“He . . . he is a murderer? I don’t believe it. I just saw him last week.”
Tailor, following my lead, thumbed his phone screen a few times. He approached the woman and showed her a gruesome picture of a beautiful young woman who’d been stabbed to death. He’d just picked some from Google earlier. “This was his last victim. Her name was Greta, and she was from Frankfurt.”
Eloise cringed at the photo. “A hazard in my profession.”
“We need your help, Eloise.”
“I want nothing to do with this! I’m leaving!”
“Please, you’re the only connection we have to him. If he gets away, he will kill again. He’s a predator. More women will die by his hand.”
“We won’t let anything happen to you,” Tailor added. Originally I was going to be good cop, and he was going to be bad cop, but it was obvious from the expression on her face that she was softening. So there was no need for him to get all threatening. “We’re not going to put you in harm’s way.”
“What . . . what is it you need me to do?” she asked with trepidation.
“We just need you to help us catch him. Could you contact him and set up a meeting?”
She nodded. “I can. It is not how I usually do business, but I can. I have a phone number. I think he is still in Paris.”
“Can you come up with an excuse to call him, see if he wants to see you?”
“I do not do business that way,” she insisted. “My clients come to me.”
“Yeah, but he’s a regular, right?” Tailor asked. “Tell him you had a cancellation or something, and you wanted to see if your number one client wants to take that time slot instead.”
“Time slot? I am not some . . . some street walker, Monsieur Schneider. I do not see multiple clients in a day.”
“F
ine then.” Tailor tried to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Tell him you have a date that opened up, whatever. We just need to get this guy off the streets. He’s got an EU passport, and he’s been staying one step ahead of the police by moving from country to country. If we lose him here, there’s no telling where he’ll go next. You’re our best shot.”
“Will you help us?” I asked, gently.
Eloise looked thoughtful for a moment. She shifted uncomfortably on her high heels, her hands tucked tightly under her arms. “I will,” she said, looking up at me. “If it will save another girl from this monster, I will.”
I felt bad about lying to her, and not just because I’m a sucker for a pretty face. What she was offering was actually very brave, and I found it to be a very noble gesture on her part.
“You must still pay my hourly fee, though,” she added. “My time is valuable.”
Okay, so it was only a little noble.
LORENZO
Paris
September 18th
After getting settled in at one of Jill’s hideouts, picking up some more clothes and another motorcycle, I made a trip to the bank.
I hadn’t worked in Paris very often. My specialties—blending in to rob tyrants and scumbags—had ensured I’d spent most of my career in poorer countries. Plenty of swaggering targets and second-rate law enforcement kept things simple. But this city was such an important center of international business, the odds were good that I’d find myself here often enough to warrant setting up a stash.
Having once had to escape across war-torn Africa with what I could scrounge on the fly had been an educational experience, so I’d gotten into the habit of hiding rainy-day stashes wherever I went. Without the money and papers I’d left at a storage unit in Russia, I wouldn’t have made it here so quickly. This safety deposit box had been one of my first, toward the beginning of my professional thieving career. My Paris stash was almost twenty years out of date, but it still had some useful stuff in it.
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 17
