“Gun,” Shen warned.
There was a pistol in his hand.
Antoine barked at him to put it down. The other man who’d been pursuing Georges with me moved up on them, his handgun aimed at Georges too. He was terribly out of breath but he started shouting for Georges to surrender in really bad French.
A strange look came across Mertens’ face. It was the expression of a man who knew there was no way out.
I never knew why he went for it. We had him dead to rights. He couldn’t know who we were, but maybe he assumed anybody trying to capture one of Kat’s men weren’t the type to let him live when we were done. Or maybe Kat had told her people that if they let themselves get caught she’d assume they’d flipped on her and she’d kill their families. I wouldn’t put it past her. Hell if I know. Whatever his reasoning, he had made a fateful decision. I could see it in his eyes. Resignation.
“Don’t do it!” I shouted.
He swung his gun toward Shen.
Several bullets punched Mertens’ chest.
I couldn’t blame them. There was none of that shoot him in the legs or shoot the gun out of his hand bullshit. When somebody is about to send a bullet your way, you put them down. Period. Anything less just resulted in a wounded man killing you.
Georges Mertens fell backwards, rattling the fence as he slid down, until he came to rest sitting in a puddle.
“Son of a bitch!” the man who’d chased him all this way shouted, in English, with a southern American accent . . . that sounded strangely familiar. “You fucking asshole!” I don’t know if he was yelling at Mertens for basically committing suicide, or at everyone who’d shot him. Which included himself, since his pistol was now at slide lock.
Keeping their guns up, Shen and Antoine approached cautiously. Shen pushed Mertens’ pistol away with his shoe. Antoine felt for a pulse. He looked back at me and shook his head.
Everyone who’d just fired was using a suppressed weapon, so hopefully nobody inside the café had heard the noise. We could still get out of here. I looked back. Valentine had almost caught up. He was a lot bigger and heavier than me or the other guy, so not nearly as fast on foot, but his giving directions over the radio had worked. I glanced back at the corpse. Kind of worked.
Another setback, and worse, from the ambush, it was clear Kat was hunting us while we were hunting her. Things were about to get a lot more difficult. I walked in front of the headlights, swore, and kicked the bumper.
Antoine was already patting down the body for intel. He found Mertens’ cell phone and stuffed it into one pocket. “I am sorry, Lorenzo. He left us no choice.”
“Shit happens.”
“Lorenzo?” The little angry dude looked over at me. “Who the hell is . . .” He was still breathing hard. He fell silent when he got a look at my face.
I couldn’t quite place him. The voice was familiar, an angry Tennessee twang that I’d heard before. It came to me in an instant. A mosque in Zubara. Valentine with his arm around Jill’s neck, using her as a shield. And this asshole . . . they called him Xbox then.
“You!” He didn’t even blink, just threw a punch. Lucky his gun was empty or he probably would’ve shot me. I narrowly blocked his arm, and pointed my subgun—which was very much loaded—at his dick.
“Back off, stumpy.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Valentine came running up. “For fuck’s sake, guns down!”
The Southerner was seething, but he wasn’t stupid enough to try anything else. I took a step away and lowered my weapon. What the hell was Tailor doing here? Or at least I thought his name was Tailor, as we’d never been formally introduced. We had met during a gunfight . . . on opposite sides.
“Val, this is the guy from Zubara, the asshole that hit me with a shovel! What the hell is he doing here? Are you working with him?”
“Technically my partner hit you with a shovel.”
“Yeah, sorry I’m a little fuzzy on the memory details there, bub, because I’d just got a concussion from a fucking shovel!”
Valentine got between us. “Everybody calm down, we’re all on the same side here.”
The Southerner had been Dead Six. “He’s Majestic.”
“Mr. Tailor is Illuminati now,” Shen corrected helpfully.
“Don’t tell him my name!” the Southerner, Tailor, protested.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” They were the last people I wanted to know I was still alive. “Those are Montalban allies!”
“Gentlemen,” Antoine boomed, “the police are coming. We don’t have time for this nonsense! Sort it out in the van!”
Chapter 9: Breaking Point
LORENZO
I made it back to one of Jill’s—hideouts—one step above a crack house, late that night, exhausted and bitter. I gave her a quick debrief, and then tried to go to sleep, angry at Valentine for being stupid, angry at Kat for being smart, and basically angry at the world for not cooperating.
Yet despite all that anger, with Jill resting next to me, I actually calmed down enough to rest. No matter what, as long as I had her, everything would be okay. She’d been my anchor in prison, and out.
Only I had another terrible dream that night. Nothing elaborate, nothing special, just Sala Jihan standing in shadows of the bedroom, whispering that I was not focused enough, that I had lost my way, and that the son of murder had no time for distractions.
I had bolted awake, chest burning, snatched up my .45, and pointed it at the darkened corner . . . to see nothing. Still, I waited, until I was absolutely sure there was no one there, and the whispering had stopped.
“Go away, Pale Man,” I muttered. “You can’t have her.”
“Huh?” Jill asked, mostly asleep. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I put my gun away and went back to sleep.
Nothing at all.
Jill was suspicious, but she’d done as I asked. I told her to dress nice, because our stakeout would be in the classy part of town, the rich, touristy part. So when she met me at the riverside, just before sundown, she was wearing a fashionable dress, a nice jacket, and a scarf that was probably really expensive. Jill wasn’t big on the hair and makeup, but she’d gone all in tonight. She was gorgeous. I had just gotten this new suit tailored this afternoon. We actually made a really cute couple.
I offered her my arm. “Right this way, my dear.”
“What’s the deal, Mr. Secretive?” Jill glanced around. There wasn’t really anything of much note here. Behind us were some businesses, ahead of us were boats. “You made it sound like a party.”
I led her down the stone steps. “Kind of.”
“At least warn me if there are going to be metal detectors. I’m wearing a thigh holster under this thing.”
“That’s actually kinda hot, but don’t worry. There’s no security. It should be pretty quiet.”
We followed the walkway closer to the Seine. Now it was obvious we were heading for the docks. One nice thing about all the rain yesterday was it knocked the city stink down and left the air nice.
“Okay, seriously, Lorenzo, who we spying on? I didn’t bring my snorkel. Look at all those cute little boats. You know, I really miss having our yacht.” Then Jill saw the boat we were heading for. It was a long rectangle. It had one floor that was enclosed in glass, while the top was flat, open, and had tables with umbrellas. “Ooh, floating restaurant. Fancy.”
“This is supposed to be one of the best ones in town. The guy who runs it even won on ‘Iron Chef.’”
“American?”
“No way. Old school Japanese.”
“Nice . . . Let me guess, some Montalban dickweed has reservations for tonight, so we’re going to spy on him? Score. I guess that’s way nicer than impersonating a maid and cleaning hotel rooms.” But then Jill realized that there were no other customers inside. “Are we early . . . No . . . Please don’t tell me we’re pretending to be wait staff. I’m a terrible waitress. The only reason I got tips at that greasy spoon in Quag
mire was because of my legs.”
“No, now be cool. And if anybody asks, I’m a rich, eccentric Bollywood film executive producer.”
“Okay then.” It said a lot about our relationship that Jill took that in stride. “What does an executive producer even do?”
“Produce things? Executively. I don’t know.”
“As long as I don’t have to dance and do a musical number, I’m happy. I can’t dance in heels.”
There was a hostess waiting for us. She greeted me as Mr. Kumar (the single most common name in India, which made fake IDs a piece of cake) and told us our table was ready. I’d specified that if the weather was nice, I wanted the best spot on the roof.
We were seated at a very nice table, with a great view off the front of the boat. There were even fresh flowers and candles lit. I swear they’d perfumed the air. Nobody did this sort of thing better than the French. I even got her chair for her, very gentlemanly like.
Jill waited until our hostess had left. “Where is everybody else?”
I made a big deal of looking around, like the fifty other empty chairs up here came as a surprise. “How about that? Must be a slow night.”
“Lorenzo . . .”
“Go big, or go home. Hang on.” They were bringing out the wine. I knew a bit about the subject, enough to fake it in polite society, but I played it safe and had ordered a bottle that cost about the same as a good used car. When the server was gone again I explained, “I took the liberty of ordering drinks, but if you want a Diet Coke or something—”
“Lorenzo!”
“I wanted to give you a nice night on the town, but all the classy places are in public with lots of witnesses and cameras. But not this, so I rented the whole place.”
She was cute when she was incredulous. “What did that cost?”
“One of Reaper’s suitcases full of Euros, but he knows I’m good for it.” There was some noise below as our boatstaurant began moving away from the dock. “We’re taking a little cruise and seeing the lights while enjoying a fine gourmet meal. We’ll head past Notre Dame, that big wheel thing, and by the time we get to the main course, we should be down by the Eiffel Tower.”
“Are you crazy? With everything that’s going on, this?”
I reached across the table and took her by the hands. “Tonight, it’s just us. No mission. No business. Just us. We’ve both been through a lot. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to work. But tonight . . . Tonight I just want to remember what it is that we’re fighting for.”
As I said that she had gotten a little choked up. “I don’t deserve this.”
“You deserve the world.” I didn’t know where her attitude had come from. She was awesome. I was the crook who would have a rap sheet as long as my arm—if I wasn’t so good at not getting caught. The last year had beaten her down, and it was my job to bring her back up. “Let me do this for you, because I love you, and because you saved my life in more ways than you can ever know.”
For once, Jill was speechless. She was so surprised, that for a moment I thought I might have broken her brain. “You? You’re trying to be romantic?”
“Trying?” I spread my arms wide, with the lights of Paris stretched out behind me. “More like nailing it.”
“What are you really doing, Lorenzo?”
I thought about the whispers in the dark, and the still aching burn on my chest, about revenge and justice, and about how none of that mattered without her.
“I’m taking my life back.”
She smiled, and for the first time since I’d been free, that was the smile of the Jill I used to know.
LORENZO
Paris
September 23rd
It had been Reaper who had demanded a face-to-face meeting with Valentine. His latest snooping had turned up some really bad news. Valentine also promised that he’d share all their new intel, which was mighty considerate, considering he’d teamed up with the Illuminati without bothering to tell me. It might be just Reaper’s paranoia, but he said Majestic had access to some next level tech, and didn’t trust phones when they were the topic. Since Reaper’s fieldcraft and ability to move through a foreign city unnoticed was nonexistent, I got to be the bearer of bad tidings.
We picked a café in Goutte d’Or to meet, specifically because it was in a poorer neighborhood that was mostly North African immigrants. All the police cameras around the place had been smashed by the residents. I didn’t think my face was in Majestic’s database, but Valentine’s certainly was, so better safe than sorry.
The place wasn’t crowded, but I asked for a table in the back where it was quiet. Two minutes after I was seated by the waiter, Valentine joined me, wearing a hoodie, ball cap, and big black Ray-Bans. “You look shady as fuck,” I told him. “You’d blend in better if you dressed like a tourist.”
“Yeah, well, this secret agent bullshit is still new to me. Are we actually going to eat? I’m starving.”
“If you want. I’ve got plans for tonight, but I’m free until then. Oh wait, that’s right. You already know about me scouting the smugglers by the airport because I filled you guys in beforehand.”
“I said I was sorry. What do you want, flowers? Did you drag me out here to try to guilt-trip me, or do you need help with your thing tonight?”
I shook my head. “It’s just a sneak and peak. The less presence nearby the less chance they’ll ever know I was there.”
“Do me a favor. I want you to keep one of my people in the loop tonight.”
“Oh, are we keeping each other in the loop now? Is that what we’re doing?”
“Jesus Christ, do we need to go to marriage counseling over this?”
It was so entertaining getting him agitated like that. For someone who was so eerily calm during combat, it sure was easy to push his buttons the rest of the time. “Who’s this person of yours? Backup?”
“Not like that. She’s not going out there. She’s . . . it’s hard to explain. She’s good at analyzing stuff. Pieces of information that seem random to you might reveal a pattern to her.”
“Fine. I thought about inviting an Illuminati hit man too, but I didn’t because I’m a team player like that.”
“You’re not going to let that go, are you?” The waiter came back with our menus. Outside of the trendy, touristy parts of the city, the service was actually a lot better than the stereotypes. Even there, if you weren’t a stereotypical douchebag tourist, people still tended to be pretty cool, and you wouldn’t end up with a stereotypically snooty waiter.
“Merci.” Valentine’s French was truly awful. The waiter left. “So what’s the bad news you have for me?”
“Next time you’re caught on camera, try to smile. Somebody got some cell phone video of an Interpol agent the other night after a shootout.”
“How bad?”
“It’s a little blurry, but it got uploaded to YouTube.”
Valentine sighed. “Super.”
“Look, Reaper thinks this is really bad. He walked me through how the latest facial recognition software works. Glasses aren’t enough to throw off the programs anymore. The good stuff measures your available face, maps your bone structure, builds a 3D model, and extrapolates out anything you cover. If you do have to move in the open somewhere with cameras, best thing to do is keep your head down and watch your feet. Most of them are mounted up high so they don’t get vandalized. Reaper says the software still struggles with angles and profiles.”
“It’s hard to keep your head down when you’re chasing a guy and trying not to get lost. If Majestic knows I’m here, that complicates things.”
“Being a left-handed shooter with the right height and build probably sealed the deal if they had any doubt.”
“This stuff is your wheelhouse or whatever, right? What can I do?”
“Have Antoine’s complexion. No, seriously. Darker skin makes it harder for the cameras to measure facial features. Something about contrast and shadow depth. If you were any whiter you’d be
translucent.”
“Sure, I’ll take some time off to hit the beach, get my tan on.”
“For future reference, I’ve got my super genius hacker trying to get into the local police system so that if you show up there, it doesn’t get flagged. He can’t know about every camera phone upload in the world, though, so you need to be more discreet from now on. We can’t afford another fuckup like that.”
“Fine. How is Reaper, anyway?”
“Better . . .” Maybe. He seemed happy to be working, but I was a little worried I might have validated his fears by telling him about my experiences in prison. “He’s working on that police thing, but apparently Paris is a lot harder to crack without getting caught than Zubara. Go figure. But if we need to meet again, this neighborhood is a good one. Rough enough there’s not a lot of cops, but not so rough that French intelligence is camped on it looking for terror cells. Just don’t go a mile that way. It’s Jihadi asshole central.”
“How can you tell?”
“Graffiti mostly, and lopsided signposts.” Valentine nodded when I said that. He’d been around disintegrating cities enough to know that trick. The local hooligans would shake any pole stuck in the concrete so that it was loose. That way when—not if—a riot broke out, all they had to do was yank the already loose pole out of the ground. They were handy for smashing windows, and the holes broke the surrounding concrete to give them a supply of useful throwing rocks.
“I’ll skip that leg of the bus tour then.”
“Trust me, you’d need a lot better disguise. You’re too tall, too white, and too corn-fed-looking. You look like you just stepped out of a John Deere ad.”
“Number one, you’re just mad because you’re short. Number two, that’s racist. Number three, what are you anyway? Like, what ethnicity?”
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 20
