Chapter 16
Restaurant Jules Verne
Paris
A single light shone on the grill in the kitchen. All the same, Mac could only marvel at its cleanliness. Every brass pot and pan gleaming; every surface polished to a sheen. The floor damp from a recent mopping.
“You’re the last one here?” asked Mac, as the dishwasher led the way through the swinging doors into the dining room.
“Someone has to be.”
Mac took a long look around, listening as well as observing. The room, bathed in shadow, appeared cavernous. The tables were set for tomorrow’s lunch service. He advanced a step. He did not see, hear, or sense another presence.
“Take a look.” The dishwasher’s name, Francis, was embroidered on his smock. “They clean up after every service. I didn’t hear anything about a diamond bracelet.”
But Mac wasn’t interested in looking for a bracelet, real or otherwise. “You have the keys?”
A look of confusion clouded Francis’s face. “Keys?”
“To lock up,” said Mac. “You are the last one here.”
“Of course.”
“And to the other offices? I need to look at the security cameras.”
“But the bracelet . . .”
“No bracelet,” said Mac. “I need to see the monitors. I was here earlier with a woman. She disappeared while we were eating lunch. I think someone took her against her will. Where do they keep the monitors? It’s the law. Every public establishment is required to have cameras. Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” said Francis.
“Sure you do. In the boss’s office?”
“Who are you? What do you really want?”
“I told you,” said Mac, holding out an open palm. “The woman I was with vanished. I need to find out what happened. Give me the keys. S’il vous pla?t.”
Francis took a step back. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Don’t,” said Mac. “You won’t make it.”
But Francis was young and fit and strong, and Mac was, well, practically an old man.
So Francis made his move. He spun and dashed back into the kitchen.
Mac was on him in three steps. He threw him against the serving counter.
Francis tumbled to the floor. Mac dropped onto his back, a knee pinioned against his spine. “Just give me the keys.”
Mac didn’t see the elbow coming. It glanced off his cheek, stunning him. He threw a hand to his face as Francis rolled to one side. Mac toppled onto the floor. Francis jumped to his feet, aiming a kick at Mac.
“Go screw yourself!” shouted the younger man.
Mac threw out his hand to knock the leg away.
With his other hand, he grabbed Francis’s ankle.
Francis brought his free leg down on the back of Mac’s neck.
The blow was ineffectual. Mac released his ankle, rolled to one side and stood.
Francis dashed around the counter. He looked wildly around the kitchen, searching, searching.
His eyes locked onto something. He leaned across the counter and freed a copper pot from the rack.
“You don’t want to do that,” said Mac.
“Get out,” said Francis, brandishing the pot as if it were a saber. “Leave . . . whoever you are.”
“I can’t do that,” said Mac as he lunged toward Francis.
As expected, Francis lashed out with the pot.
Mac dodged it and slugged the kid in the jaw.
Francis was stronger than he looked. He took the blow like a pro and swung the pot at Mac a second time.
Mac ducked and felt the pot graze the top of his head.
Coming out of a crouch, he threw a jab. His fist landed just below the man’s eye.
Francis stepped back, teetering. His gaze clouded.
Mac caught him as his knees buckled and he lost consciousness.
Mac found the key ring in his front pocket, along with the €600. He took the keys and left the money, then returned to the freight elevator and locked the door. He didn’t have time to keep an eye on Francis, and he didn’t want the dishwasher causing any more problems.
With haste, he returned to the dining room and advanced down the hall leading to the guest elevator. Two unmarked doors flanked the entry. The last key he tried opened the door to his left. It was a storeroom for cleaning supplies: vacuums, towels, brooms.
He had better luck with the other office. The second key he chose opened the door. It was an executive’s office, with a large desk and fancy chair and photographs on the wall of a man and his family.
He found the monitors inside a closet in an adjoining room. Six screens. A keyboard to control recording and playback. Nothing he hadn’t seen before. The system was currently asleep, probably to save storage space. A relief. He didn’t have to worry about being caught on camera.
Mac powered up the system, then set the time to the previous day at 1:00 p.m., approximately when he and Ava arrived.
A check of the monitors showed the positioning of the cameras.
There were cameras in the elevator, the entry hall, and the dining room, as well as in the kitchen.
All the views Mac needed. He pressed Play, and the restaurant Jules Verne came to life.
At precisely 1:12 p.m., Mac viewed himself and Ava enter the elevator on the ground floor.
Color picture. High def. At 1:15, they were shown to their table.
Fast forward two hours and eight courses to 3:19.
Still in the main dining room. He watched the lovey-dovey wealthy Arab couple seated at the table next to them pay their bill, then leave.
A minute later, Ava took the phone call, the one she had answered with “Grü? Gott.”
Mac’s eyes shifted to another monitor as Ava entered the hallway, phone to her ear.
After a few seconds, she ended the call and slid the phone into her pocket.
But instead of returning to the table, she remained where she was, casually peering in both directions.
It was evident that she was expecting someone.
Mac checked the time stamp. Two minutes had elapsed since Ava had left the table.
Ten seconds later, Ava turned abruptly. A man approached from the direction of the elevator. Tall, trim, elegantly attired, with thick, immaculately combed hair. Mac recognized him instantly. The handsome young Arab who had been seated beside them. The man he had just observed paying his bill.
To Mac’s astonishment, Ava greeted him in the familiar European manner.
Three kisses to the cheek. A handshake. The Arab spoke to Ava with urgency, punctuated by dramatic hand gestures.
He motioned for Ava to come closer. He had something sensitive to impart.
Of course he did. Why else were they surreptitiously meeting while Mac sat in the dining room barely fifty feet away?
Ava leaned her head closer. And as she did, another figure approached Ava from behind.
It was a woman, the man’s wife or girlfriend, the one with the impossibly expensive handbag.
Ava turned, sensing her presence . . . but too late.
The woman plunged a syringe into Ava’s neck.
Ava wheeled and took hold of the woman’s wrist, struggling to free the syringe from her neck.
She was the woman’s physical superior, and for a moment, it appeared as if Ava would strike the smaller woman.
Even from the elevated angle, Mac could read the rage in Ava’s face.
Then, in the snap of a finger, Ava folded at the knees.
Her chin fell to her chest. The Arab man threw his shoulder under her arm.
The woman aided him. Together, they half walked, half dragged Ava to the elevator.
Looking on the entire time was the ma?tre d’, the unctuous Frenchman who had personally conducted Mac on a tour of the restaurant and, with impressive sincerity, assured him that no one had seen madame.
Liar! The ma?tre d’ exchanged words with the man and woman—the kidnappers—and shepherded all three onto the elevator.
Mac shifted between monitors as the ma?tre d’ returned to the restaurant, flattening his tie and checking his hair, but otherwise unperturbed, and Ava descended to the ground, the hostage of the Arab couple.
That was that.
There was no time to be stunned, no time to process everything he’d seen.
Mac rewound the recording and searched for the clearest view of the Arab.
He froze the image and snapped a photo with his phone.
He repeated the process for the woman. No need for the ma?tre d’.
He planned on seeing him face to face soon enough.
Mac left the room as he had found it and returned to the kitchen. Francis was still out. Mac slapped him gently on the face, then not so gently.
“Francis, look at me. There. What is the name of your boss? Not the chef, but the ma?tre d’.”
“Gerard,” said Francis, groggily.
“Last name?”
Francis hesitated, and Mac took hold of his shoulders and gave him a shake. “Rosenfeld,” said Francis. “Gerard Rosenfeld.”
“Rosenfeld . . . you’re sure?”
“Of course.”
Mac considered this. Rosenfeld was more likely than not a Jewish name. If Gerard Rosenfeld was Jewish, why was he conspiring with a man Mac assumed to be Middle Eastern, and therefore Muslim, to kidnap an Israeli woman with deep ties to Mossad, Israeli’s foreign intelligence service?
“Where does he live?” asked Mac.
“Le Marais,” said Francis, sitting up and probing the lump on his forehead. “You know, the Pletzl. The Jewish quarter. Rue des Rosiers. Why?”
The Pletzl . . . Yiddish for “the small place.” Mac knew the area. “Do you have the address?”
“No.”
“What about his phone number?”
Francis consulted his phone and read it out as Mac typed it into his contacts.
Suddenly, Mac realized, his world had become far more complicated.
“I’m leaving now,” said Mac. “I want you to listen to me. Don’t tell anyone I was here.
Don’t go to the police. Don’t mention this to your boss.
If someone asks about the bump on your head, make something up.
Say you tripped and hit your head on the counter.
Or you got drunk and had a fight. Just don’t tell anyone that I was here.
This isn’t for my sake. It’s for yours. You don’t want to have anything to do with me.
I can’t say anything more, but please, please, Francis, believe me. Are we good?”
Francis nodded, more alert now.
“You never saw me,” Mac said once more for good measure. “This never happened.” He stood. “Oh, I’ll need your phone. I can’t take the chance you’ll do something stupid.”
Francis pulled a face and handed Mac his phone.
“Passcode?”
“Really?” said Francis.
“’Fraid so.”
Francis told him the six-digit code.
“Remember what I told you,” said Mac. “I wasn’t here.”