The Tangled Webb (16 page)

CHAPTER 45

B
eneath an ancient bridge across the river Seine a tour boat floated by as James and Kate were sitting on the balcony of their apartment. They drank coffee and talked about Max Baer who had so far succeeded in eluding them.

Although this could change at any time because Sam Wright, with his loose lips, had clenched the noose a notch tighter.

The Latin Quarter was a beehive of activity as hordes of bounty hunters swarmed the district, hungry to capture Baer and claim the huge reward.

In the past several hours there had been a couple of bogus leads as teams followed suspects fitting the description of Baer’s lady friend and tailed them along the Quarter’s narrow streets, only to come up empty handed.

Kate fixed her gaze on a spot across the river where the Latin Quarter straddled the river Seine.

“The old fox is hiding there.”

“Don’t worry,” James told her. “It’s only a matter of time.”

The phone in his pocket began ringing and a few minutes later he finished the call and joined Kate in the kitchen.

“It was Thomas Lynch. His people have come across something they think could lead us to Baer.”

She turned from the sink.

“That’s great news.”

“He asked me to come out to the chateau, wants to discuss it in person.”

“I understand.” She kissed him. “I’m going to stay here and hold down the fort. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

“Okay.”

He walked toward the door and she called to him.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks sweetheart, we could use some.”

She turned back to the sink and looked out the window, and a feeling of discomfort washed over her.

For James the rolling hills of the western suburbs of Paris were a nice break from the stressful atmosphere back in the city. He felt the tension melting away as he got closer to Falcon Lair.

At the gatehouse the same security procedures were performed.

“You may proceed,” the guard said. “Mr. Lynch is expecting you.”

The huge gate opened and he drove along the extended driveway and into the motor court. He rang the doorbell and waited. Moments later Alfred came to the door.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Webb.”

“Hello, Alfred.”

“Mr. Lynch will see you in the drawing room. Please follow me.”

He led the way through the spacious interior and they came into a room crowned by a beamed ceiling and elaborate cornices. Alfred turned and disappeared, leaving James alone.

A short time later he heard a voice.

“James, how are you?” Thomas asked, coming in from the terrace through a pair of French doors.

“Okay, I guess. And you?”

“Terrific, never better. How about shooting a few games of pool, like old times?”

“You’ve got a billiard room?”

How stupid of me, a chateau like this probably has such a room
, James was thinking.

“Come on, let’s discuss this over a couple of beers.”

James followed Thomas along a corridor leading to a rear wing. Here in the billiard room, they selected their cues from a rack on the wall.

“Nine-ball?” asked Thomas.

“Fine.”

After winning the lag to decide who would break, Thomas blasted the cue ball into the pack, making the six-ball in a side pocket. He then made the one and two balls and Alfred appeared in the doorway.

“Anything to drink, gentlemen?”

“A couple of Heinekens, Alfred, in chilled mugs,” Thomas replied.

“Yes sir.”

James rallied after a miss by Thomas, though Lynch won the first game. They drank and played a few more games and the conversation shifted to a more serious tone.

After a run of three balls in a row, Thomas pocketed the six-ball, saying, “This Max Baer character, he’s hiding in the Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne.”

Thomas missed an attempt at the seven-ball and James took aim at it.

“We’ve learned that much,” James said, sinking the ball. “But we still don’t know his exact location.”

He pocketed the eight-ball and was forced to try a bank shot on the nine to win the game. When he missed by a hair Thomas leveled his cue.

“My people are convinced they know where he is,” Thomas said, pocketing the ball.

“Nice shot.”

“Thanks.”

James racked the balls for another game and Alfred walked in with two chilled mugs of the premium Dutch beer. He put them on a table and disappeared.

Breaking the neatly racked balls, Thomas sunk the two-ball and quickly made the three, four and five.

“I got a call from the White House this morning,” Thomas said. “The FBI knows you’re in Paris.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“They want me to help bring you in, can you believe it?”

Alfred reappeared in the doorway.

“An urgent phone call for you, sir.”

“Thank you,” Thomas replied. “Forgive me, James, but will you excuse me? This could take a while.”

“Sure. I need the practice anyway.”

James turned his attention back to the pool table.

This won’t be the first time I’ve waited around for an important person.

CHAPTER 46

A
fter
James went out of the apartment on his way to Falcon Lair, Kate got a call from Anton Moreau, the point man on one of the search teams in the Latin Quarter.

He had been in hot pursuit of the artful, and elusive, Max Baer.

Like his competitors he’d assigned the bulk of his investigators to the chase for the “ghost”. For Moreau the huge cash reward was just too alluring to pass up.

An alert detective on his team was roaming the isles of a store in the Latin Quarter when he saw a woman answering to the description of Baer’s lady friend. He followed her and noticed as she put three quarts of whiskey in her shopping cart.

The gumshoe decided there were only three possible explanations for this. She was getting ready for a big party, she was a raging alcoholic or she was buying the liquor for someone else.

He lingered as she continued through the store.

His hunch was proven correct when she put a bottle of men’s aftershave in her cart. After moving through checkout the woman walked four blocks and carried a grocery bag under each arm. She reached an intersection and glanced over her shoulder before rounding the corner.

The detective spoke into a small microphone on his wrist.

Three blocks farther she stopped in front of a Renaissance style apartment building and again she glanced back.

This time he ducked out of sight in a storefront alcove.

Apparently satisfied that no one was following her she entered the building.

The private eye ran to the entrance and easing inside he heard the shuffling of her feet as she climbed the stairs. He moved slowly up the stairs, being careful in his movements.

When he came to the third floor he peered over the railing as she was setting her bags down and putting her key in the lock of an apartment.

Once she was inside he scrambled back down the stairs and into the street, speaking into the microphone on his wrist and giving the building’s address to an associate.

Then he waited.

Soon a man rode up on a motorcycle and looking up at the building, asked him, “Well?”

“It’s on the fourth floor, at the back.”

“And she meets the description?”

“Yes. And she’s buying whiskey by the quart.”

“Let’s have a look,” the man said.

He wasn’t a detective, but a skilled technician who carried a Glock pistol with two fifteen-round magazines, a weapon he could fire with precision.

He began climbing the stairs and then he turned to the detective.

“Four floors?”

“Right.”

“When get to the third floor stand a watch. Stay alert and let me know if anyone’s coming.”

The detective nodded.

They moved slowly up the stairs, eventually reaching the top floor where the technician pulled a small video camera from his shoulder bag. Attached to the camera there was a quarter-inch cable with a lens on the end.

Carefully he fed the cable through the small space at the bottom of the door and peered into the screen.

He saw two people on the sofa, a man and a woman.

Sharpening the camera’s focus, he zoomed in closer.

A wide grin swept across his face.

He had seen photos of Max Baer.

This is a match
, he thought.

After taking some photos in close-up he packed his gear into the shoulder bag and headed back down the stairs.

He passed the detective on the third floor.

“We’ve got him.”

They emerged in the street and he told the detective to stay put. Following instructions the technician made no attempt to apprehend Baer himself.

He climbed on his motorcycle and sped through the streets of Paris like greased lightning, reaching his firm’s office and handing the camera to his boss, Anton Moreau.

He was ecstatic.

Moreau transferred the camera’s data to his computer and attached the photos to an e-mail, sending them to Kate.

Then he called her.

“Are you looking at the photos, Kate?”

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

All of the hand ringing, and the waiting.

The exhausting manhunt.

Unbelievable.

“It’s him,” she managed to say.

“One of my men is watching the building, but I suggest you move quickly. Now about the reward. I hope you’ll forgive me, but in situations like this payment for services can be, shall I say, overlooked. I have to insist on full payment before I disclose his whereabouts. My firm is quite reputable. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” Kate replied. “Can you meet me outside the Baribus Bank on the Champs-Élysées in twenty minutes?”

A silence.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten.”

Inside the bank Kate and Moreau sat across from a banker who slid a form across his desk. She filled out the authorization for a wire transfer, from her account into the account of Moreau’s firm, for the sum of a half million Euros, plus expenses to date. After verifying the deposit to his account, Moreau handed Kate a small piece of paper with Max Baer’s exact location.

She eyed the address and Moreau noticed a grin on her face.

They thanked the banker for his assistance, stood and headed for the exit.

Holding the door, Moreau admired her persistence.

“You’re a courageous woman, Kate.”

“I can’t thank you enough, my husband will be thrilled.”

“It was a pleasure doing business with you. Good luck.”

As Moreau walked away his smile grew wider with each step.

Kate turned to her call phone and tried to contact James, but got no answer.

James was unaware that many of the rooms at Falcon Lair were fitted with meshing beneath the layers of plaster on the walls. And windows had been replaced, the new ones having the meshing imbedded in the glass panes.

The effect had been to eliminate the transmission of electronic signals and prevent eavesdroppers from listening in on conversations between Thomas Lynch and his guests.

And while some of the rooms could facilitate wireless communications, the billiard room was not among them.

Kate returned to the apartment and contacted Nicolas. James had arranged a contingency plan with Nicolas that would go into effect if Max Baer was found.

Nicolas enlisted the help of another covert operative who would assist in the raid on Baer’s hideout.

I wish James were here,
Kate thought.
I’ll have to press on and wait for his call.

Nicolas must have been waiting for her call because he picked up on the second ring.

“Hello.”

“We’ve got him, Nicolas. We’ve got him!”

“That’s great,” he replied.

He agreed to pick her up in thirty minutes. Kate packed some items in a shoulder bag, including a 9mm handgun.

Then she paced back and forth in the living room, wearing the finish off the hardwood floor.

We’re about to raid the hideaway of a vicious murderer.

Downstairs, Nicolas pulled to the curb in an SUV, its windows darkly tinted. A rear door opened and Kate climbed into the back seat.

“Where’s James?” Nicolas asked.

“At Falcon Lair. Thomas Lynch phoned earlier telling James his people were on to Max Baer’s location. I’ve called and left messages but he hasn’t called me back.”

“Maybe he and Lynch are someplace without cell service, are you ready to go?”

“Let’s do it.”

Nicolas turned to the passenger seat.

“Simon, this is Kate Webb.”

He spun around and gave her a quick smile. “Hello.”

The two men didn’t speak on the way over to the Latin Quarter.

Their minds were occupied with the possibility of killing someone.

They pulled onto the block where Baer’s apartment was located and stopped a block away. The men wore casual clothes except for the submachine guns under their blazers. Each of them had a shoulder bag with his gear.

A silence.

Kate glared at Nicolas.

“Give me the vest,” she said firmly.

“I don’t like this, Kate.”

“Listen to me. I’ve chased this bastard all over France and I want to see his face when we come through the door. Now hand it over,” she demanded, referring to a bulletproof vest.

He gave it to her. “But Simon and I are first through the door.”

“Agreed,” Kate said, putting on the vest.

They checked their communications equipment before advancing toward the apartment building and approaching Moreau’s detective who was still outside the lobby and keeping watch.

“Any unusual movements?” asked Nicolas.

“No. They’re still up there.”

“You can take off now.”

Slowly and quietly, Nicolas led Simon and Kate as they went up the stairs in tight formation. At the third floor landing they took out their silenced submachine guns.

Nicolas set his shoulder bag on the floor and removed a camera like the one Moreau’s technician used.

He began moving up to the fourth floor and Kate grabbed his arm.

“Remember, he must be taken alive.”

A quaint notion
, Nicolas thought.

In his experience, when violent men found themselves in a corner, the normal response was an act of desperation, like throwing grenades and spraying bullets everywhere.

“Of course,” he assured her.

While Kate and Simon waited on the landing, Nicolas climbed to the fourth floor and slipped the camera cable beneath the door.

Peering into his screen, he saw Baer sitting on the sofa, sharpening a large knife.

He couldn’t see the woman.

Patiently, he went to work. It took five minutes to pick the door lock, the deadbolt taking another five.

Kate tried to suppress an urge to bite a fingernail.

Simon whispered in her ear, telling her to take deep breaths to slow her heartbeat.

That’s easy for you to say.

Moving back down the stairs, Nicolas spoke softly.

“We’re a go.”

Removing the 9mm pistol from her belt, Kate pressed her body tightly against Simon who in turn placed himself in formation behind Nicolas.

They moved up the stairs.

Outside the apartment door Nicolas held the knob and whispered.

“One . . . two . . .”

He swung the door open and quickly closing the distance, pointed his submachine gun at Baer.

“You move, you die.”

On instinct, Baer had raised his knife in the air. Simon was behind him and he twisted his wrist, freeing the weapon.

Then he searched the sofa and found a gun lodged between the seat cushions.

Suddenly the woman came out of the bathroom and Simon grabbed her and sat her in a chair.

“Sit there and keep quiet,” he commanded.

Kate stood above Max Baer and stared at him.

His eyes were like steel, cold and hard. He showed no emotion.

“You’re one tough old bastard to nail down.”

Stunned, he gave no response.

Nicolas was anxious to get clear of the location, figuring someone might have been alerted during the raid. He did a quick search of the apartment and collected a cache of communications equipment in a plastic bag.

Simon searched Baer and the woman but found nothing.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Nicolas said.

Prodded by gun barrels in their ribs, the fugitives were led from the apartment and out into the street. Simon had gone ahead and pulled the SUV to the curb near the building’s entrance.

They shoved Baer and the woman into the back seat and took off down the street.

A few blocks away Kate pulled to the curb and Simon and the woman got out.

“Loose lips will get you killed,” he warned her. “Do you understand?”

Shaking, she nodded.
Yes.

Then she staggered away and Simon walked in the opposite direction.

Kate sped off along a narrow street toward the river Seine and Nicolas was in the back seat with his gun pointed at Baer.

Moments later he finally spoke.

“What do you want from me?”

Kate’s eyes remained on the road ahead.

“Information, you and I have a lot to talk about.”