The Coil (24 page)

“I think you have been a bad boy again. Business papers and applications. Ugh!”

“
Merci,
Jackie.”

In the front of the shop, the bell chimed again. “Numbers,” she sniffed, turning toward the sound. “I abandon you to your misery.
Ciao
.”

As the door closed behind her, Simon set aside the photos of the wall and thumbed through the other prints. They showed summaries of contracts, due-diligence reports, proofs of insurance, tallies of profits and losses, histories of loans and investments, on and on with mind-numbing repetition that would surely make only an accountant's heart sing.

Simon kept at it, remembering the baron's words—that he would loan his killer no more money for his “deal” unless he received the Carnivore's files. As soon as Simon formed an overview, he found a pad on the desktop, took out his pen, and made notes.

As the night closed around them, Liz followed the woman into an urban wilderness where every square inch of habitable space was crammed with buildings, all crowded together like victims awaiting execution. Violent graffiti and posters smothered surfaces up to fourteen feet above the noisy streets—the height someone standing on a ladder or a friend's shoulders could reach. There were few pedestrians.

At an age-ravaged building of dirty brick, Liz saw the woman slow. The glass entry door had been boarded over. Above it hung a battered sign: E
ISNER
-M
OULTON
. The place looked abandoned. Liz recalled reading that the company was having financial problems. Despite being one of the world's largest multinationals, Eisner-Moulton was closing and selling off properties throughout its many divisions.

As the woman stopped beneath the sign, an unmarked panel truck coasted in beside her, its engine dying before its wheels stopped. It was an aging Volvo, like hundreds of thousands—millions—on Europe's highways. The rear doors swung open, and eight men jumped out. Dressed in jeans and shirts, they were striking only because of the powerful rifles they carried. They encircled the woman as she gave orders.

One carried a tire iron. He ripped the boards off the entry door, smashed the glass, reached through, and unlocked the door. All but the driver swarmed inside. No one on the sidewalk or in the cars rushing past paid attention. Crime was just another way to make a living in this run-down part of Belleville.

When muffled gunfire erupted somewhere inside, the metal garage door rolled up, and the driver skidded the truck inside. As the door dropped shut, Liz recalled a proverb: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Maybe not always a friend, but certainly worth looking into. Her senses afire, Liz checked left and right, slung her shoulder bag across her back, and darted through traffic to the building's broken door.

 

Sarah described the problem. “The good news is the glass in the window directly below ours is broken. So if we can figure out how to make a rope, we can lower ourselves and go in there. The guards won't be expecting that. Then we'll have a chance to slip away.” She considered Asher. “But are you well enough? Strong enough? Because if you're not, then we'll both stay here and—”

Asher interrupted. “Pain is just pain. It's a non-issue, considering the alternative.” He looked around. “There's no rope?”

“None. I've searched everything.”

“Damn. Okay, then we'll have to find something else. Improvise.” He focused on the mounds of castoffs. “Any bed-sheets or rolls of canvas? A hose? I see a lot of garden stuff. How about plastic tarps? Or maybe a long chain, like an anchor chain?”

As she shook her head, he paused, staring at the stack of bicycle tires. Sarah followed his gaze. The tires were thin, highly flexible, the kind used for racing.

“A chain of tires!” Sarah said. “We can link them together using slipknots.” But as she headed for the pile, she stopped. “Listen!”

Asher scowled. “Gunfire!”

“Someone's coming. Lie down. Quick!”

She pressed the sheet of plywood back against the window and rushed the gurney toward him. As he lay down, the door slammed open. Two armed men in stocking masks burst in, while a third remained in the hall, his Uzi moving smoothly back and forth, alert for trouble. She had never seen them act defensively. They had always been in control.

One grabbed her arm and put a gun to her head. A second pushed Asher's gurney toward the door. She could almost smell the tension. She stomped her guard's shoe, wrenched away her arm, and ran to catch up with Asher. She took his hand. His mouth was working with frustration, a flush of rage rising up his throat.

“Behave yourself,” she whispered. “Maybe we're being rescued.”

She glared into his eyes, and he grimaced acknowledgment. This was not the time or place to fight, not in his condition and with their lack of resources. The guards hurried them along the hall. It was lined with closed doors. Paint peeled from the walls. Ahead waited a freight elevator, its doors opening up and down, like a shark's jaws. The men pushed them inside and hit the
DOWN
button.

 

Sweat poured off César Duchesne as he methodically raised and lowered the thirty-pound free weight, working his right pectoral muscles. He sat on a stool, gazing out across Paris's serrated skyline toward the Eiffel Tower. It stood silver and glimmering in the dark, like a surreal Christmas tree.

Air-conditioning rustled the curtains, cooling his sweat as his mind weighed the information he had and what he still needed to know. He had still not reported to Cronus that Mac had been terminated and Sansborough was on the run. But then, he had not reported everything anyway. It was clear the operation had become far more unstable than anyone expected. Before he talked to Cronus again, he wanted to add good news to balance the bad. This was not a job he intended to lose.

Still, when his cell rang, he did not rush. He finished the curl, lowered the weight, and limped to his bedside table.
“Oui?”

It was Trevale, his nasal voice instantly recognizable as he shouted in French, “We have lost Sansborough!”

César Duchesne had raised emotionlessness to an art form, but this was too much even for him. He swore and ran a powerful hand over his shaved head. When Sansborough returned from London, Duchesne had ordered a three-person surveillance team to wait at the Gare du Nord. The team was both diverse and natural to the cityscape—a taxi-man, a deliveryman, and a female student on foot. Of course, there was the GPS tracker in Sansborough's cell, too. So when the tracker alerted them to a truck emerging from the hotel's underground garage, they followed, until they realized she was not inside. Instantly, they returned to the hotel but picked her up visually only when she stepped out to tail some middle-aged woman.

Duchesne demanded, “Where did Guignot lose her?”

“Belleville.”

Not Belleville! “What happened?”

“Renée was able to stay with her on the Métro, and then Guignot took over at the Gambetta stop, where Sansborough got off.” Trevale sighed. “He had a flat tire.”

“A flat tire? How is that possible?”

“Not all things can be controlled. He ran over a nail and the tire expired.”

“What about this woman she's been following? Who is she?”

“We think…she may have been there…outside the hotel yesterday, too. Sitting.” Then, in a rush of guilt: “You know how busy that intersection is.”

“She was staking out the hotel? And you missed her!” Worse and worse. This could be the woman Sansborough suspected of killing Mac. “Did Guignot say Sansborough was
still
following the woman?”

“Exactly. Then his tire blew.”

Duchesne went into action. “Send everyone to Belleville, but tell Guignot to stay back. She'll recognize him. We must see what she finds.” As he grabbed his coat and cap, he issued more orders, gave an address, and cut the connection. Running out the door, he punched in more numbers and barked in French, “You may have dangerous company.”

“You're too late! They're here!”

 

Liz glided inside the warehouse's front door, stepped over broken glass, and slipped to her right in the gloom. The place reeked of mold and gasoline. Only two overhead fluorescent lights illuminated the vast first floor, leaving much of it in deep shadow. She crouched at the edge of what once must have been a lobby, but the walls had been torn down. Beyond it was a loading area and an elevator.

There was no one in sight, and the shooting had stopped. Somewhere above, shoe soles slapped concrete. She advanced cautiously, hugging walls. That was when she saw the black van—parked on the other side of the panel truck, not far from the elevator. The kidnap vehicle was a black van, and this deserted warehouse looked like a good place to hide a prisoner. But there was nowhere here in this open place to conceal anyone. If Sarah was here, she would be upstairs.

Behind Liz was an open door in a side wall. She moved swiftly toward it. Just as she had hoped, inside was a stairwell. Light glowed faintly far above, down through the darkness. She closed the door and rushed blindly toward the stairs. And stumbled.

She had run into something heavy, pliable. She bent to look, waiting for her eyes to adjust. And recoiled. It was a human leg. She breathed slowly. The leg was still attached to a corpse. An Uzi lay near the dead man's hand. He wore a nylon stocking over his face, and his white shirt glistened with blood, the exposed flesh raw. There were bullet wounds in his left leg, too. But unlike the shot through his chest, which had entered from the front, the leg wounds had come from the side. Either he had twisted sharply to run, or more than one shooter had gotten him.

She pressed his carotid artery. No pulse. She peeled up his stocking mask and stopped, surprised. It was the man who called himself Chuck Draper, Asher's hospital sentry. She swore under her breath. Since Draper was here, maybe both Sarah and Asher were, too. She must hurry. But as she raced upstairs, gunfire detonated again. Bullets ricocheted down, exploding brick chips from the walls. The battle had reignited, and now she knew how Chuck Draper had died—from wild fire here.

Heart racing, she turned, plunged down the steps and out of the stairwell.

Near the loading area, she crouched, watching two men bolt down the ramp near the elevator. They had M-16s. The woman and a third man followed, both with French 5.56-mm FAMAS assault rifles. As the quartet converged on the elevator, two masked figures slipped across the back of the open area and disappeared into shadows.

 

As the gun battle raged, the oversize elevator carrying Sarah and Asher descended. At each floor, the three guards peered warily through the metal latticework, assault rifles ready. Bullets blazed past. Shadows darted. Tension grew electric.

“Police, maybe?” Sarah asked.

No one answered. Abruptly, the cab stopped. The unexpected jolt threw them to the floor. The man nearest the controls rebounded and smacked the
START
button, while Asher heaved one leg back onto the gurney. The two other men dragged Sarah up. When the elevator did not move, the man punched the
UP
button. Again nothing. He jammed it with his thumb, holding it in. Nothing. They were stuck between the second and third floors, helpless. Desperation in their motions, the men paced and peered up and down, searching for the enemy or perhaps a way to escape.

“Either the elevator's broken, or they've trapped us,” Sarah told them.

“Climb out of this coffin,” Asher urged. “Save yourselves.”

But the one at the elevator's controls said, “We've got to tell the poor sods.”

“Dammit, shut up!” said the middle man.

The first one ignored him. He turned his masked face to Sarah. “This wasn't supposed to happen. The blokes that hired us said to keep you incommunicado but safe. We don't know who the bloody hell's out there, but odds on it's not the bobbies. You'll want to stick with us. We're your only hope. It's got to be you they're after.”

Sarah's mind reeled.
Incommunicado but safe? What kind of kidnapping—
The elevator gave a sickening lurch and descended once more. If the attackers were not the police, who were they? Why would they want Asher and her?

“Stay with us,” the man whispered. “You'll live longer.”

 

Hunched close to the floor, both curious and wary, Liz held her breath as the elevator cage lowered into view. Her first sight was of three men in stocking masks, who dropped to crouches, aimed their Uzis through the steel mesh door, and fired.

Almost simultaneously, the quartet that had been waiting opened fire, too.

As the air thundered, Liz's stomach knotted with fear. In the back of the elevator was what looked like a gurney, capsized to create a metal wall. White sheets and blankets were a chaotic tumble in front, while behind it wiry black hair rose up.
Asher.
With a surge of joy, she drank in his hawklike face, the piercing black eyes, the furious scowl. And then he dived back down as if yanked. Sarah? Sarah must be there, too!

Just then, one man in the elevator fell onto his side, yelling and holding his bleeding thigh. Before he hit the floor, another bullet slammed into his head, exploding it. At the same time, one of his comrades pitched forward, a bullet sundering his throat. The last man had little chance, out-gunned four to one. Still, he dropped flat behind one of his dead friends, propped up his rifle, and fired.

Desperate, Liz leaped up and ran toward the truck, planning to steal it. There must be some way to disarm the driver. She would ram the damn attackers.

Behind her, feet hammered down the stairwell. She glanced back, saw two men, saw one fire. Never saw the bullet. It ripped through her arm. The force spun her around. She fell as the gunmen raced past.

Sarah screamed, “Liz! Liz! I see her, Asher! Liz!”

Reeling with pain, Liz tried to get up. To reach Sarah. She saw Asher on the gurney, being pushed into the panel truck. He was strapped down and shouting. Two men carried Sarah by her arms. She yelled and swore and tried to kick them.

Frantic, Liz dragged herself back to where Chuck Draper lay. As she groped his corpse and the floor, she heard the truck's engine roar into life. The Uzi was gone. It must have been swept up by the men who shot her. Arm pulsing blood, she pushed herself to her feet and lurched back to the loading area.

They had shot out the overhead lights, making it almost impossible to see. Tires squealed, and the panel truck bolted out through the open door, lights streaking. She yelled, forcing her feet to move faster, following the red taillights. She stumbled along the sidewalk. Dirt smudged the truck's license plate, making it unreadable.

She tried to accelerate again…to catch it…to believe she could still save them. Fury shook her, blinded her, settled into her chest, and mingled with a bone-deep fear for them that wiped away her pain. If she'd had a gun when she arrived, she and the doomed men on the elevator could have caught the four attackers in a cross fire. After that, she would have had to figure out how to deal with them, but she knew she would have. In her gut, she knew she could have rescued Sarah and Asher.