A hard glint showed in her eyes as she thanked me for my demonstration. Then she turned her attention to Julius and asked him where he’d found me.
“I won his services in a poker game.”
It didn’t look to me as if she believed him, and I wasn’t sure I did either. That was the answer he’s always given me the few times I’ve tried asking him the same question. Since I have no memories of my time before Julius, I can’t offer a better explanation of how he ended up with me.
“Are there any others like him?”
“Doubtful.”
She spent four point eight second mulling things over before telling Julius that I was not what she was expecting, but that I could be a big help.
“With Archie by my side I like my chances better of finding my assassin before he finds me,” she said. “But this raises a security issue. I need to know that Archie won’t be able to share any classified information he learns while with me. Especially not to you.”
“That won’t be an issue,” Julius said. “Right, Archie?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “I’ve already adjusted my programming to guarantee that nothing gets leaked from me.”
That was a white lie on my part. I didn’t need to make any adjustments to my programming since I wasn’t about to betray confidential information regardless, but if she needed to hear a declaration from me, fine.
“In that case, Archie, I’d like to ask that you assist my infuriatingly stubborn sister, and make sure she stays alive. It would mean a lot to me, but of course, it’s your decision.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll do what I can.”
With the matter resolved, Julia attached me to her hair as sort of a hair clip, and inserted the earpiece into her left ear. Then she and Julius moved to the kitchen where the two of them prepared a breakfast of Belgian waffles in a brandied strawberry sauce. While they did this, I handled several outstanding matters for Julius, including purchasing a case of 2005 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, which had a price tag of thirteen thousand dollars. I knew Julius had been wanting that Burgundy for years, and I had tracked down a case of it three days ago, and had saved up enough from my online poker winnings to buy it for him. While I had originally planned to have it delivered on his birthday, I decided not to wait for then in case I wasn’t able to make it back from this trip.
Once breakfast was concluded, Julius accompanied his sister to the front door. After goodbyes were said, Julia promised she’d keep my secret safe and that she’d make sure I was returned back to Julius once her mission was completed. “Unless, of course, Archie prefers the life of an international secret agent,” she added with a wink
Before Julia walked off, I caught a wistful smile from Julius. I wasn’t sure which one of us the smile was meant for—me or his sister—but in either case it caused me to once again imagine myself as a short, heavyset man, but this time with a heavy lump in my throat.
◆◆◆
Julia waited until she was settled in the first-class seat I had upgraded her to before giving me my assignment; which was to identify her would-be assassin from a list of twenty-three people she suspected by seeing if I could place any of them at all three locations where the attempts on her life took place. She also specifically wanted me to flag any of them that I could place at Heathrow Airport before the third attack. Since I was able to communicate to her through the earpiece she wore, my end of the communication was kept private, and she kept her end private by typing out messages on her smartphone for me to read.
“I can do that,” I said, holding back my opinion that it sounded like a dubious assignment, at best. Most likely I’d be able to whittle a few names from her list, but it was only pure speculation on her part that her would-be killer was one of those twenty-three known assassins. “Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on? I might be able to think of a better way to tackle this.”
From where she had attached me to her hair, I couldn’t see her mouth directly, but I could see her reflection in her smartphone’s screen, and I caught her smirking at my suggestion. She typed back, “Not necessary.”
“Look, I know you’ve only been humoring me, and that you’re still thinking I’m little more than a glorified hacking tool with a very clever user interface. That’s fine. I’m not insulted. You can think whatever you want. But Julius asked me to keep you alive, and I’d really like to do that for him. So how about you give me my best chance of being successful by telling me the whole story?”
She wasn’t ready to give in, at least not right then, which was pretty much what I expected knowing that the pigheadedness gene had to be dominant throughout Julius’s family. But it was a seven-hour-and-fifteen-minute flight, which gave me plenty of time to pester her. Since she didn’t have a valid reason not to provide me the details I was asking for, I finally wore her down at the five-hour-and-eighteen-minute mark of the flight, and that was only after I told her I wasn’t having much luck whittling away at her list of known killers.
Her latest assignment was to enlist a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Laffont, who had ties to an enemy spy network. Laffont agreed to be a double-agent for Julia’s organization, but only if Julia first returned to him a treasured family heirloom that went missing during World War II—a copy of Our Mutual Friend which Charles Dickens had inscribed with a personal message to Laffont’s great grandfather, Marcel Bretel. Six days ago, which was three days after her meeting with Laffont, the first attempt on her life was made when an assailant tried to stick her with a hypodermic needle on a Paris sidewalk. She was able to knock her assailant flat on his back, but had to run when two of his accomplices came after her. The second attempt happened at a Paris underground station when she narrowly escaped a high-powered rifle shot. The third attempt was yesterday in London, where she again narrowly escaped, this time from being run down as she tried crossing the street. I spent four point three seconds digesting what she told me, then commented on the obvious fact that it wasn’t a single assassin trying to kill her but a team of them.
“True, but there’s one person in charge, and that’s who I have to find.”
“Are you thinking that the enemy agency discovered that you’re trying to recruit Laffont, and they’re out to eliminate you to keep you from accomplishing that task?”
“That’s one possibility, and if that’s the case I need to know how badly I’ve been compromised—namely, whether they know my identity or only the front I’ve been using for this assignment. Another possibility is that Laffont sent me on a wild goose chase, and that he’s the one trying to have me killed so I don’t cause him any further trouble. While he could be a great asset to my organization, if he can’t be turned I need to know that so I can handle the situation differently.”
I didn’t want to press her on how differently she would be handling Laffont—that was something I didn’t want to know. Instead I asked her about the inscription Charles Dickens wrote in the book.
“I don’t know what it is. Laffont refused to tell me as a way to safeguard against me commissioning a forgery.” She hesitated for several seconds, then typed the message, “I wonder if any Dickens’ experts have compiled a list of all known inscribed copies of Our Mutual Friend. Why don’t you dig around and see if there’s any record of an inscription made to Marcel Bretel.”
“So you can have a copy forged,” I said.
“Of course.”
I didn’t bother questioning the ethics of cheating a man like Laffont who was duplicitous enough to become a double agent. Instead I mentioned that an inscribed copy of Dickens’ book could be worth a hundred and twenty grand.
“That’s a lot of money,” I said. “Is it possible he wants it so he can raise enough cash to run?”
“No. He’d need significantly more if that was his intentions.”
“Let’s say he had asked for a large sum of money instead, how much would your organization have been willing to pay him?”
“Nothing. That’s
not how we handle people like Laffont. My bosses decided in this case we’d make an exception and deliver the book to him because of his sentimental attachment to it.”
“And because you have no intention of giving him the actual book, only a forgery.”
Her reflection in the smartphone screen showed a wisp of smile forming over her lips. She typed, “Exactly.”
I considered what she had told me for the next thirty-seven milliseconds, then asked her about the steps she had taken to locate the book, at least before the first attack on her. From my vantage point, I could see her eyes narrowing to a squint as she had the same thought that I had. Without any hesitation, she typed in the names and addresses of the seven rare book dealers she had contacted in Paris, London, and Berlin, and asked me not to contact any of them directly.
A short time later I told her that there was one whom I wouldn’t be able to contact even if I wanted to. “Two days ago Daniel Bouchard was found dead in the backroom of a vacant storefront three blocks from his shop. The newspaper accounts are sketchy regarding how he had died.”
“Archie, I need more details.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m looking.”
It was tougher for me to locate the police report than I would’ve thought, and it took me twenty-eight minutes before I was able to hack into the right computer system. I hit pay dirt, though, finding also an autopsy report.
I told Julia, “According to the police report, there were signs of a struggle in his bookshop. The autopsy report has time of death between eight o’clock and midnight last Tuesday night. He was beaten to death—major cause of death appears to be a collapsed lung caused by a broken rib. The obvious assumption is that sometime after you called him last Tuesday, he was abducted from his shop and brought to the vacant storefront where he was interrogated, probably to find out who was looking for the inscribed copy of that Dickens’ book. Maybe they were trying to get information out of Bouchard that he didn’t have and they accidentally went too far with their interrogation, or maybe they simply didn’t want him alive afterwards.”
“Very good, Archie. I’m sure you know what I want next. Names of whoever Bouchard contacted after I called him.”
“Yeah, I guessed as much, and I’ve already started working on that.”
Bouchard’s phone records proved harder to locate than I expected, mostly because the Paris phone company was using security measures I wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t until the plane had landed and Julia was in a taxi en route to the apartment she was using for the job that I was able to break into the system. A short time after that I felt my processing cycles quicken, which I knew from past experiences was akin to excitement.
“I know the name of the person you’re after,” I said. “Olivier Tellier. He was one of the people Bouchard called. After each of the attacks against you, Tellier received a call within several minutes from a burner cell phone. He has to be the guy.”
Julia said softly enough so the cabbie wouldn’t hear her that she wasn’t familiar with him. It didn’t take me long after that to build a profile on Tellier. Most of what I found made his involvement in this incongruous. He was a wealthy art dealer with a net worth of over ten million euros and a private residence in the sixteenth arrondissement, which is one of Paris’s most exclusive neighborhoods. But after some additional digging, I also found rumors of ties to several Marseille mobsters.
Once Julia was back in the apartment, she was able to study Tellier’s home using Google Earth. I pointed out the obvious to her—that while the front entrance was unfortunately exposed to the street, thanks to a stone wall built behind the property she’d have privacy gaining entrance through the back of the building. For the next thirty seconds her facial muscles hardened and she sat as still as a marble sculpture. Then she told me what the plan was going to be.
◆◆◆
At nine-thirty that night I followed Julia’s instructions and called Tellier. Speaking in French and mirroring Jean-Paul Belmondo’s accent from the movie Breathless, I said, “I know you’re looking for Lisa Hart. I know where you can find her.”
Lisa Hart was the cover identity Julia was using for this assignment. After three point four seconds of silence, Tellier demanded to know who was calling.
“Never mind that. I’ll be coming by your home in one hour. As long as you can raise fifty thousand euros by then, I’ll tell you where she is. If you don’t have the money waiting for me, you’ll never hear from me again.”
I disconnected the line. Julia lay hidden behind the house with a parabolic microphone and a headset covering her ears so she was able to hear the phone call Tellier made, while all I could do by monitoring his phone account was see that he placed a call and that it lasted forty-eight seconds. Thirty-four minutes later she dropped the microphone, took off the headset, and placed me back in her left ear. She sprinted to the back wall, and impressively scaled it as quickly as if she were running up a staircase. I asked if she knew how many of Tellier’s thugs had arrived at the house, and she shook her head.
This was the second time she had scaled the back of Tellier’s house. Earlier, she had cut a round piece of glass from a second-floor window so she could unlock it, then fitted the glass back into the hole. She now used a suction cup to remove the broken glass so that it wouldn’t fall out when she opened the window. With that done, she went through the open window in a fluid, graceful motion, rolling and landing on her feet without making a sound.
When she was on the stairs we heard Tellier’s voice, first demanding to know how an outsider knew he was looking for Lisa Hart, then explaining in detail what he wanted them to do to this outsider when the man arrived at Tellier’s home. By this time, Julia had reached the first floor and moved stealthily toward Tellier’s voice.
It turned out Tellier was in the living room with three men who were standing with their backs to Julia. Tellier, who was sitting, would’ve seen Julia, but his attention was fully on his thugs as he complained in a nasal whine how unhappy he was that an outsider had discovered what he was up to even if it would end up being to his advantage, and that if anyone ever found out that he had ordered Bouchard’s abduction and murder, he would have their heads.
I’ve seen Julius in action enough times to know how good he is in kung fu, but Julia was something else entirely as she sprung at them like a leopard, moving in a blur as she knocked out two of the thugs before Tellier and the third thug knew she was there. The remaining thug didn’t fare any better. He’d barely started to reach for a holstered gun when Julia delivered a spinning kick to his jaw that knocked him unconscious.
Tellier’s eyes bulged as he stared at Julia. He was visibly shaking, although I had the sense it was out of fury and not fear.
“You’ve been looking for me,” Julia said.
Tellier rushed her as if he were planning to tackle her. With very little effort, Julia tripped him up and sent Tellier’s chin cracking against the hardwood floor. The blow dazed him enough that he put up little resistance as Julia pulled his arms behind his back and secured his wrists with a plastic zip tie. She left him briefly to cuff the three unconscious thugs, then returned to Tellier and secured his ankles. After that she flipped him onto his back. She sat on her heels to get a good look at him.
“Why did you have to kill Daniel Bouchard?” she asked.
He stared back at her defiantly. “You know damned well why,” he forced out in a grunt.
“Where’s the book?”
“Go to hell.”
“You’re going to make me tear apart your home? Is it really worth having me do that?”
“Go ahead and waste your time. I don’t keep it here.”
I had spotted an obvious tell when he said that.
“He’s lying,” I told Julia. “He gave it away when his eyes wavered for a fraction of a second. Julius would clean him out if he ever got this joker in a poker game.”
She nodded slightly to let me know that she’d noticed his tell also. She took h
old of Tellier’s jaw and forced him to look at her.
“Let me guess where you’re keeping Our Mutual Friend,” she said with a thin smile. “In your basement? No. Upstairs? No. Your den?”
Bingo. That was it. Tellier’s eyes wavered enough to give it away. After that it didn’t take Julia long to find a secret compartment behind a set of bookshelves, inside of which sat the copy of Our Mutual Friend. The inscription was made out to Marcel Bretel, as expected, and described how much Dickens enjoyed dining with Bretel at a Notting Hill restaurant, mentioning in detail the menu items they enjoyed. Since I had photos of Dickens’ signature, as well as letters of his to analyze, I would’ve recognized the inscription as a forgery even if my research hadn’t shown that the restaurant referenced only came into existence fifty-two years after Dickens’ death.
“The inscription and signature are clumsy forgeries,” I told Julia. “Any rare book collector would realize that within seconds. As a first edition, the book might’ve been worth as much as four thousand dollars if it hadn’t been ruined by this obvious forgery, which has rendered it worthless.” An idea came to me and it only took me three hundred and thirty-four milliseconds to verify it. “I’ve been able to trace Laffont’s family tree back far enough to show that he’s not related to anyone named Marcel Bretel. In fact, I can’t find any evidence of a Marcel Bretel living in Europe during Dickens’ lifetime. The name was made up.”
Half under her breath, Julia murmured, “Interesting.” She brought the book back to the living room. Tellier had wiggled himself into a sitting position as he leaned against the chair. She waited until he looked at her before ripping the inscription page out of the book and tucking it into the inside pocket of her leather jacket. Tellier showed no reaction as she did this.
“Why would you have Bouchard beaten to death and hire men to kill me to keep me from finding this book?” she demanded.
More Julius Katz and Archie Page 9
