The Diaries - 01 (49 page)

They stopped on a
stone in the center of the yard and, as Gage allowed the scope to move about,
he could see the semicircle of stones, and then on both sides of the
semi-circle, covered in camouflage netting, the throws.
 
A built-in
skeet field.
 
Interesting.

Even though he
wasn’t yet ready to proceed, Gage slid back down the tree, making certain he
could see the group from the ground.
 
He situated
his body comfortably in the high weeds, the log he had found earlier positioned
perfectly as a pivot and resting point for the rifle.
 
Leaning to his right, he removed the Walther’s
pieces from the bag, assembling it and affixing the scope.
 
He eased forward, positioning his elbow on
the stones he had laid in place earlier.
 
In a habit taught many years ago, Gage used his right hand to tug gently
on the bolt.
 
With his right eye, he
peered downward to witness that the Swiss 7.5x55mm round was seated correctly
in the chamber.

“Get comfortable,”
Gage whispered to himself.
 
He nestled
into the spot, making sure to rest his index finger outside of the trigger
guard.
 
After a few deep breaths, Gage
put his eye back to the scope and watched as the tubby man readied his shotgun
to fire.

 
 
***

“I don’t want this
one,” Nicky said flatly.

“Well
exactly
which one do you want?” Marcel
retorted, his impatience showing through.

“Go get me the
Beretta.”

Without a word,
Marcel walked back to the house, cursing loudly once inside.
 
He went upstairs, fumbling with the
complicated dual locks.
 
After several
minutes, he retrieved the gun and left the gun case open in case Nicky wanted
another one.
 
He padded down the stairs
and out the door.
 
Nicky was standing with
his hands on his hips, his face crimson.
 
“What was the hold-up?”

Marcel let out an
exasperated breath.
 
“The locks on that
new case are a pain in the ass.
 
Anything
else I can do for you today, master?”
 

“Don’t be a
smartass.”
 
Nicky broke the shotgun,
jerked two shells from his jacket, rammed them in then clicked the barrels
shut.
 
For a time he stood there, eyes
fixated on Marcel.
 
Finally he turned to
the field. “Need to warm up a bit.”
 

Marcel walked to
the side, retrieving the remote-control device, standing almost directly behind
Nicky.
 
“Ready.”

Nicky assumed a
firing stance. “Pull!”

The reports from
the shotgun reverberated through the trees, sending a flock of catbirds
scattering into the sky.
 
The first clay
pigeon flew unmolested to a resting spot on the side of the hill.
 
The second pigeon had just completed the
zenith of its arc, bouncing slightly as the second shot missed it by scant
inches, barely interrupting the cushion of airflow as it rushed by the orange
object.

“
Merde
!” screamed Nicky.
 
He flicked the lever, breaking the shotgun and allowing the two hot
shells to clatter to the ground.
 
After
staring at the shotgun for a moment, Nicky turned and hefted the weapon in
Marcel’s line of sight.
 
“Had you seen
this one before?”

“Only in the rack,”
Marcel answered, attempting to sound interested but failing.

“You don’t like
it?”

The shotgun was
the color of polished copper, the image of a nude woman—curiously similar to
the Mona Lisa—painstakingly scrimshawed into the stock.
 
Marcel offered a smile that was more of a
grimace.
 
“It’s breathtaking.”

“It was a gift from
our previous opium importer, that Angolan…or whatever the hell he was,
Jaki-Jaki
, back when we used to do that business together
in the south.”

Marcel’s eyes
wandered as he remembered how that relationship ended.
 
“Is that the shotgun that…?” he asked, his
voice trailing away.

Nicky’s mouth
creased into his most devilish grin.
 
“I
blew his big black cock off with it.
 
He
laid there and bled to death like the man-loving pig he was.”
 
Nicky spun back to the center of the valley
view, raising the shotgun again.
 
“That’s
what happens to people who try to take my money.
 
Before today, it was the only time I fired it.
Pull!”
 
Nicky nailed the first one,
flying low and fast.
 
He missed the
second one badly, cursing again.
 
As he
reloaded, he once again turned to Marcel.
 

“So, the American:
it has been nearly two weeks.
 
You and
that bird-nosed intelligence imbecile still cannot find him?”

Marcel closed his
eyes.
 
He had hoped Nicky was going to
let it go.
 
Jean’s warnings about the
American’s disappearance must not have been good enough for him and, after
their German sources had also come up snake-eyes, there was really nothing else
they could do.
 
“There has been no sign
of him, anywhere,” Marcel answered.
 
“And
I actually believe Jean’s story about him being CIA.
 
The Germans found dead-ends everywhere.
 
You can call them yourself if you like.”

“And Jean?
 
You checked with him again?”

“He hasn’t
returned my call.”

Nicky pushed two
more shells into the gun, eyeing his advisor.
 
“Like I originally thought, that pig has probably killed the American
and taken the money...or those diaries.”
 
He looked away before looking back.
 
“It was diaries, wasn’t it?”

Marcel lowered his
gaze to the shotgun that was now degrees from being pointed at his own
stomach.
 
“Nicky, Jean told us that the books
were likely a prop.
 
Remember?
 
The book dealer owed Leon, and Jean said the
American would have used a prop only to get to Leon.”

“A prop?
 
A prop?
 
What is this, M-G-fucking-M?
 
Of
course he said that!
 
Jean
Jenois
is a conniving, thieving, whoring piece of bourgeois
garbage.
 
Find him.”
 
He spun.
 
“Pull!”
 
Both orange clays were
blown to fragments in two seconds’ time.

“Now I’m getting
dialed in.”

Marcel stepped
into his vision.
 
“Nicky, thanks to a
lucky break in locating Pierre
Ramzy
, we now have
thirty million
more euro than we had a
month ago.
 
Why on earth would you
concern yourself with this piss-ant American and some silly story about
valuable diaries?”
 

“The stuff with
Pierre was business.
 
Pure business.”
 
Nicky placed the shotgun into the leaning
stake and stepped off the platform, sipping from a tall gin and tonic he had
brought with him.
 
He was clean-shaven
and looked remarkably pulled together.
 
After
a few long breaths of the pleasant afternoon air, he finished off his drink and
gestured to Marcel, his voice low and gravelly.

“You would wish I
drop this business with the American?”
 
He crunched ice and placed the glass back onto the stand.
 
“This Hartline man, he’s a real piece of
shit.
 
He killed Leon…and to you Leon
might just be my cousin…but to me he was a brother.”

“I see,” Marcel
said, not seeing at all.

“When I was a boy
and fell down, Leon was there.
 
When I nailed
my first piece of ass, he was in the metro tunnel with me, keeping watch.
 
But it was the times he saved me, Marcel,
that meant the most to me.”
 
He paused.
 
“It will be my great honor to kill in his
name.”
 

Marcel had heard all
the stories about Leon.
 
There was even
one very strong rumor, about the time when Nicky and Leon had been in jail as
late teens, in which a group of Moroccan immigrants had tried to take Nicky by
force, sexually.
 
It was rumored that
Leon shanked two of them, saving Nicky before they were able to begin their act.

“Yes,” Nicky
said.
 
“The affair with Pierre, our
traitorous embezzler, was business.
 
But
this American, Marcel…someday, when I find him…it will be my very distinct
pleasure to disembowel him while he’s conscious.”

Just as Marcel was
about to reply, Napoleon perked up and growled.
 
He was staring at the rise to the north, the hackles on his back
standing on end.
 
Marcel turned, seeing a
dull glint on the hillside.
 
It came and
went.

Nicky massaged the
dog’s neck.
 
“What is it,
Napi
?”

 
 
***

Through the scope,
Gage could see the dog staring in his direction, his posture indicating
aggression.
 
He watched the two men’s
reaction, and he knew that the over-alert dog had gotten some sort of
inclination that he was here.
 
It
couldn’t be his scent, could it?
 
No,
Gage decided, not over a distance as great as this.
 
He had shifted slightly when the dog had
turned, and then Gage realized that the sun was nearly out in full force, for
the moment, as a break in the scattered clouds had appeared.

It was the lens of
the scope.

The Walther’s
scope was at least thirty years old.
 
A
fine scope by shooting standards, the lens had been manufactured prior to the
arrival of technology that dampened the reflective properties of the
glass.
 
The new scopes didn’t reflect
light; this one did.
 
Gage tilted the
rifle to the right, making certain the lens’s angle to the sun was too great to
be reflective.
 
But when he moved it, it
created one more glint of light.

There!
 
Marcel saw the light flash again, and this time Napoleon barked
loudly.
 
He stared at the hillside as
Nicky resumed his game.
 
Scanning to the
left and right, Marcel focused on a location at the highest point of the knoll.
 
Is
there a dark shadow there in the blowing weeds?
 
A shadow in the shape of a man?
 

He lit a cigarette
and turned his attention back to the skeet field.
 
Occasionally, though, his eyes would flick
back to the hillside.

 
 
***

Metz, France

Captain Damien
Ellis had decided to come back to Metz alone.
 
Since he and Sorgi were running the investigation themselves, Sorgi was
better off back in Frankfurt.
 
He could
do more good with the department’s resources at his fingertips than if they
were both in the field with no backup and no intel.

“Okay, General
Halpin
, let’s see if you’re right,” Ellis whispered to the scenic
city that spread out before him.

A temperate day, he
rubbed a sheen of perspiration from his forehead as he stepped to the front of
the Police de Metz station, staring into the anteroom where he had been so
rudely treated just a week before.
 
He
was prepared for some give and take.
 
In
order to get whatever information he could about the men Hartline/
Schoenfeld
might have come to seek his revenge against,
Ellis planned to take Officer
Lloren
back to the book
store and clue him in to what he thought had likely happened.
 
He was even considering relating the story of
his first sighting of Gage in the hotel lobby, and how he felt the two
incidents were related due to the mention of diaries.
 
It was his only card, and he intended to play
it.

Ellis stepped
inside, knowing a senior detective like
Lloren
would
probably be off duty on a Sunday.
 
He
hoped they would either call him in or give him his address.

“Afternoon, I’m
trying to find Officer
Lloren
.”

“And who should I
say is here?” asked the desk sergeant in good English, eyeing Ellis curiously.

“Captain Damien
Ellis, U.S. Army CID.
 
He’s working
today?”

“
Oui
.”
 
The man stood
and disappeared down the hallway.
 
Ellis
waited for ten minutes before
Lloren
emerged from the
back.
 
He was definitely perturbed by
Ellis’ presence.

“Inspector Ellis,
what a surprise,” he said monotone.
 
“I
thought we were done with each other.”

Ellis gave him a
pinched smile.
 
“Yes, well, after I
returned to my unit, I put some things together that may help you in the
investigation of the missing shop owner, and I was hoping that—”