8. Alexei #4
I nod at the mike. “Tell your people you’ve got me on camera leaving via the basement garage.
” Keeping my Luger on the other guy, I take out my knife and hold it up in front of her face.
“J’ai appris le francais de mon père,” I say.
I learned French from my father. “So don’t even think about trying to fuck me.
I want your people out of the hotel, or you both die. Do it.”
I unmute the mike and push it toward her, keeping the blade inches from her eyes.
“Petrovsky a quitté l’h?tel,” she says, her voice admirably steady. Petrovsky has left the hotel. “Il vient de quitter le sous-sol.” He just left the basement.
“In which direction?” a man asks in French through the comms speaker.
East, I mouth.
“Est,” the woman repeats obediently.
“Bien. Il ira droit dans le barrage routier, et nous l’y emmènerons.
” Good. He’ll walk straight into the roadblock, we’ll get him there.
The man, who must be the street sweeper I saw, orders her to stay in the van and says that he and someone I imagine is newsstand lady will follow me.
Hoodie guy is ordered to stay in the park.
When she’s given confirmation, I take my hand away and sit her up. “Who sent you?”
She hesitates.
Smiling coldly, I turn the knife so the light from the computer screens gleams on the blade edge.
“If you’re here for me, then you know my reputation.
” I place the tip of the knife at the top of her T-shirt and deftly slice the sleeve open.
“Unless you want that material to be your skin, I suggest you tell me who sent you.”
She stares at the knife, barely breathing. “We are DGSE.”
I hide my surprise with no small effort. The Directorate-General for External Security is France’s main foreign intelligence agency, equivalent to the CIA.
“That’s adorable,” comes Lars’s dry retort in my ear. “The DGSE’s encryption protocols are about as exciting as a tax audit. These fuckers are running custom-rolled encryption that’s a hacker’s wet dream.”
I rest the flat of the blade against her face and smile coldly. “Nice try, chérie. Tell me who you work for.”
Her eyes widen. “DGSE believe you are here to extend the Cardenas cartel’s operation into France. That makes you an international terrorist, which falls under our jurisdiction.”
“I admire your commitment to the lie.” I press the flat of the blade harder against her skin. “But I’m short on time. I want a name.”
“Nous l’avons perdu,” crackles the French comms in the van. We’ve lost him.
I shove the microphone toward her. “Say you’re trying to find me.”
The woman’s eyes dart toward the van doors, so obviously it’s almost embarrassing.
“Don’t even think about it.” I twist the knife so she feels the thin edge of the blade.
“Je le cherche,” the woman says. I’m looking. She’s remarkably cool under the circumstances.
“Skinny guy is on the move.” Mickey’s voice comes sharply through my own comms. “Get out of there.”
“Who put out the contract?” I press the knife edge just hard enough against the woman’s cheek to draw a thin line of blood.
“I don’t ask those questions.”
“Bullshit.” I twist the point harder. The wound won’t scar, but it’s enough to make most people flinch.
This woman barely blinks.
“If you took the contract,” I say, pressing slightly harder, “then you know my reputation with a blade. Give me a name.”
“I can’t.” Either she hasn’t done her homework or she’s one very cool customer.
“If you ever want to take another contract, I suggest you fucking do.” I slide the knife point to just beneath her eye. “It’s hard to aim a gun with one eye.” I smile coldly. “Trust me. I know.”
Seemingly oblivious to the blood dripping onto her T-shirt, she meets my lone eye directly. “Fine,” she says steadily. “Owens. The man who paid us was called John Owens.”
This motherfucker again?
I should have killed him in the airport, and fuck the consequences.
“Merci,” I say, not without sarcasm.
The man I knocked out earlier stirs against the door, moaning.
I crack the handle of my knife against the woman’s temple, knocking her cold, then deliver a similar blow to the moaning guy for good measure.
I press the button lowering the divider to the front seat and climb over it.
I can see Hoodie guy in the rearview mirrors, sprinting down the road toward the van with his gun drawn.
Reaching across the inert driver, I open his door and push him out to sprawl on the road.
I start the van and pull out.
“Lars.” I tap my comms. “Can you cut the trace to this van?” I take a series of fast turns, keeping an eye on the figures slumped in the rear.
“I’ve got a lag spike,” comes Lars’s laconic response. “Gotta go AFK.” Abruptly, the comms go dead in my ear.
Shit.
Someone is listening. Or watching. Or both.
Either way, I need to get the fuck out of Paris—and as far away from Ofelia as possible.
I pull the van to a halt beneath a bridge, then move into the maze of backstreets, taking the comms out of my ear and crushing them underfoot. Then I pull my phone to pieces and put them down a grate into the sewer beneath.
Until I get to the bottom of whatever the fuck is going on here, nobody close to me is safe.