The Bookseller (32 page)

Just past the embassy they hit traffic on Rue Royale, and Garcia swore under his breath. He then said what Hugo had been thinking. “This could be a trap.”

“No shit.” Tom sat forward. “Do you have backup available?”

“With about five minutes' notice,” Garcia said.

“Don't call them in yet,” Hugo said. “If Chabot was right about Gravois having someone in your office we don't want them to know where we're going. Not until we get there. We can call in the cavalry just before we go in.”

The traffic broke up and Garcia stamped on the gas pedal. The car surged into a gap, then swerved across two lanes into a larger one. As they raced down Rue Royale, Garcia flipped his rear blue light on. “Don't want to get pulled over,” he said grimly. “Don't worry, I'll kill it when we get there.”

It took less than ten minutes and, as they approached Rue Véron, Garcia turned off the blue light and slowed. They turned onto Rue Lepic, everyone silent, eyes watching the street as if danger lurked behind the cars parked along the curb. Where Rue Lepic met Rue Véron, at its east end, Garcia stopped. He picked up the handset for the car's police radio and looked at Hugo.

“Time to call it in?”

“I don't think so.” Hugo undid his seatbelt. “There's a chance that no one will be there. If that's the case and we call it in, we've tipped our hand.”

“How about, if you're leaving me here,” Claudia said, “I call after five minutes or something?”

“
Bon idée
,” Garcia said.

“Yeah, good thinking,” Hugo said. “And there's one other thing we can do.” He took out his phone and dialed Emma. After reassuring her that Claudia's escape wasn't her fault, he asked for a favor. “Can you check number 21 Rue Véron? Find out who it belongs to.”

“Sure, it'll take me—”

“We're there right now, Emma, it needs to take no time at all.”

“Hold.”

Silence settled over the car as they waited. Claudia fiddled with her handbag, taking out her phone and making sure it was turned on. Garcia stared out of the windshield, muttering and checking his watch every few seconds. Tom sat next to Claudia, his eyes closed and head back, impervious to them all. After a minute, he sat up and reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a small pistol. Garcia watched.

“You have a license to carry that here?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“But you know how to use it?”

Tom just smiled.

Hugo saw Garcia open his mouth, so he spoke for Tom. “He's former CIA. I've seen him shoot the wings off a fly, drunk.”

Tom dropped the magazine out of the gun's handle and checked it. “To be fair, the fly was drunk too.”

Garcia hurrumphed and turned to look out of the front of the car.

“Hugo?” Emma's voice.

“Here. What do you have?”

“A lot of nothing. The house is like most, divided into apartments. It's five stories and the top one is empty. Fourth and third are owned by families, all clean, nothing of interest there.”

“French?”

“French names is all I can tell you. Both families have young kids, so they're probably not operating criminal dynasties.”

“OK,” said Hugo. “And the first two floors?”

“Owned by a foreign company called Tepes Properties. I tried to figure out who the directors or principals are, but this company is tucked three or four deep inside corporations and partnerships. No luck getting through those layers, that would take a while. And no idea who's living there now. Sorry.”

“That's what I expected,” Hugo said. “Although, you said the company was foreign. Romanian by any chance?”

“That's right,” Emma said. “I looked up the word and Tepes was the last name of Vlad the Impaler. A Romanian. But how did you know?”

“Lucky guess. Do you have a floor plan?”

“Yes, want me to fax it somewhere?”

“E-mail it, I can see it on my phone.”

A moment's silence. Then, “Done. Hugo, are you doing something dangerous?”

“A little, but don't worry.”

“Right, OK, if you're doing something dangerous but say not to worry, then I'll just make myself an egg sandwich and see if I can get a rerun of Oprah online.”

“Emma, stop. I'm not doing this by myself, I have the French police here.”
One of them, anyway
.

“What about the ambassador, does he know?”

“Most of it. I'll fill you in when we're done, OK? And when I said not to worry, I meant it. We'll be fine.”

Tom frowned and tapped his watch.

“I gotta go,” Hugo said. “Thanks for the help.” He hung up, cutting off more admonitions to be careful. “No clean link from the house to Dobrescu. Sounds like we'll need a team of lawyers to figure out who owns the place, but that itself tells us plenty.” He looked at Capitaine Garcia. “I've done this before, so has Tom. Do you mind if we take point? You'll get the credit if it works out, we'll take the heat if it doesn't.”

“Fuck that,” Tom muttered. “This thing goes bad, you're on your own.”

Garcia gave a wry smile. “Yes, that's probably best,” he said. “We don't do this cowboy stuff too much in Paris.”

“Thanks,” Hugo said. “And I'm hoping to avoid any shootouts. We go fast enough, we'll surprise them. Tom, we'll go in the front. Capitaine, cover the rear of the house and one of us will let you in that way. When we open the back door, capitaine, we'll bang on it three times so you know it's one of us. You hear three knocks, no shooting,
d'accord
?”

“
D'accord
.”

Hugo turned to Claudia and pointed down Rue Véron. “See where that street intersects? Our house is the one on the corner, on the right. Watch us when we go in. Tom will be behind me. If he waves his arm
like a windmill, call in the cavalry. And Tom, you see one bad guy with a gun or any other type of weapon, even a butter knife, wave. OK? We don't want to take any chances.”

“Fine by me,” Tom said.

“One more thing, Claudia,” Hugo said. “If we go in without waving and you hear firecrackers, or see even one person you don't recognize running from the house, make the call.”

“So the only time I'm not calling for help is if the house is empty?” she asked. She was pale and her eyes flicked from face to face.

“Pretty much,” said Tom. “Unless granny opens the door and offers us a slice of cake and a cup of coffee.”

“Right. Now let's see where we're going,” Hugo said, opening his phone. “Here's the floor plan.”

The house was on the corner of Rue Véron and Rue Audran, and according to the plans Emma had sent, it had an old-fashioned, closed layout. The front door faced where the two streets met, opening into a foyer that serviced the whole building, including a staircase that led to the upper levels.

A double door at the back of the foyer, the one that led into what they assumed was Gravois's apartment, would be their first real challenge. Hugo raised an eyebrow and looked at Tom.

“Easy,” nodded Tom.

“Easy?” Garcia protested. “You haven't seen the lock yet.”

“I know,” Tom said. “I'm assuming there's a key under the mat.”

Once they were through the double doors, they would have to decide whether to split up or tackle the L-shaped floor plan together. A long hallway split the
L
into two distinct wings. On the left side lay three rooms, on the right side two more. Judging from their sizes and layouts, Hugo guessed that the rooms on the back left of the apartment were probably the kitchen and a bathroom. The room nearest the front of the house was likely a dining room. That would be the first door on their left as they entered the apartment.

On the right side of the
L
, Hugo guessed, was the living room and, behind it, the bedroom. From the schematic, he could see that the
central hallway went straight through to the back door, which opened into a green space shared by all the houses on the street, roughly half an acre. A perfect escape route, he thought, giving access to the back door of every house in the street or, alternatively, to a gate at the back of the little park that led into an alleyway that curved around and opened up into Rue Audran.

“Interesting,” Tom said. “Doesn't look like there's a way to get to the second floor from inside the apartment.” He pointed at the tiny map. “You have to go out to the foyer and up the shared stairs.”

“I don't understand,” said Garcia. “Why would they rent two floors that aren't connected?”

“Insulation,” Hugo said. “I'd guess the second floor is empty except for security cameras, maybe sensors.” Garcia's face was blank, uncomprehending. Hugo said, “They use the first floor for whatever operation they are running. It's the easiest floor to escape from in case of an emergency. They use the second floor to make sure they aren't spied on. To make sure no one can overhear them. And possibly for storage.”

“They may have built a ladder or makeshift staircase inside,” Tom said. “Nothing substantial because they wouldn't want to attract attention, not if they can help it.” He looked at Hugo. “So keep your fucking eyes open, just in case someone pops down from upstairs. You want to sweep the place together?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hugo said. That meant they'd work back-to-back, clearing one side of the apartment and then the other. With no way to communicate, no radios or other equipment, splitting up to tackle a wing each would be too dangerous. “Everyone happy?” Hugo asked. He looked at Claudia, who was still pale and wide-eyed, her fingers working the strap of her bag. But she forced a smile and nodded that she was OK. “Good,” he said. “Then let's go.”

The three men stepped out of the car, closed the doors quietly behind them, and began walking.

 

 

Rue Véron was as Claudia had described it. Narrow, clean, and hemmed in on both sides by five- and six-story buildings, all with the gray stone façade that made up so many Paris streets.

They took the sidewalk on the same side of the road as the target house. Hugo led, with Garcia in the middle and Tom at the back. They walked in silence, the only sound their footfalls on the concrete, echoing softly off the stone buildings around them. Hugo scanned the street, looking for sentries. He felt confident that there wouldn't be any, simply because men lurking in residential streets attracted the wrong kind of attention. Gravois would probably rely on the house's anonymity for his security.

Number 21 sat on the corner of Rues Véron and Audran and was the only house with both a gate and greenery in the front. The gate was part of an iron railing that separated the sidewalk from the grass on both sides of the corner lot. Inside the rails, shoulder-high rhododendron bushes blocked the view out of, and into, the front windows of the first-floor apartment.

Hugo paused outside the gate and looked up and down the street. He pointed down Rue Audran to the alleyway between the houses that led to the shared park at the back of the apartments. Garcia nodded and made for it. Hugo waited until he'd disappeared from view and then swung the gate open and started down the short path. He was surprised to find the heavy front door unlocked. Behind him, Tom stuck two tools back into his coat pocket and shrugged.

They went into the small foyer, bare except for a worn rug on the hardwood floor. To their right a staircase led upward, just as the plans had shown. In front of them were the double doors to Gravois's apartment, and Tom moved quickly to them. He put his ear to the doors for a moment, then gently tried the handle. Locked. He pulled out a long, thin tool shaped like a dentist's pick and another, much like a flathead screwdriver. The pick and tension wrench, Hugo remembered. Just like old times.

Tom moved quickly and quietly. He inserted the tension wrench and turned it the same way he'd turn the key, offsetting the internal mechanism from its housing. He then went to work with the pick, locating the five pins inside the tumbler and pushing them into the lock's housing.

Five barely audible clicks and they were in.

Tom pulled his weapon and looked over his shoulder, making sure Hugo had his gun in hand, too. When Hugo nodded, Tom cracked the door and both men listened.

Nothing.

Tom stepped inside and Hugo moved in next to him, closing the door quietly behind them. A thick carpet ran the length of the hallway in front of them. Tom moved silently toward the dining room on their left, his gun extended, and Hugo followed, covering the hallway, his eyes on the closed door to his right, the door to the living room. The dining room was dark, the watery sunlight filtered out by a layer of grime on the windows. But it was light enough for the men to see a long table and a dozen chairs, all covered in a thick layer of dust.

They cleared the room in seconds, then swept through the kitchen and bathroom. The door from the bathroom to the hallway was locked. Rather than take the time to pick it, they went back through the dining room. Hugo led, checking that the hallway was still empty before moving to the living room door. It had a large glass knob. He rested his left hand on it, his gun up by his face. Tom squeezed his shoulder to tell him he was ready and Hugo slowly turned the knob. It rotated easily and Hugo held his breath as the lever slipped back and the door cracked open.

Behind him, Tom counted down in a whisper, “Three, two, one—”

Hugo kicked the base of the door. As it crashed into the inside wall, he moved fast. He went to the left, Tom to the right, both crouching, their guns extended. This room was darker than the others had been. A thin band of light around the window to his right told Hugo that the curtains had been pulled shut. With his back to the wall, he could see well enough to pick out the furniture and possible ambush spots. Opposite him was the fireplace, and between it and him was a long, low sofa.

Hugo looked to his right, where bookshelves lined the wall on either side of the curtained window. He saw Tom's silhouette in front of the shelves and watched as his friend crept forward for a clear view of the space between the sofa and the fireplace. Hugo covered that spot with his gun, in case of a trap.

When Tom gestured that it was safe, Hugo swiveled to his left and trained his gun on an armoire, the only other piece of furniture in the room. It was seven feet tall and sat in the corner of the room, but Hugo wondered whether there was space just the other side of it, space enough for a man with a gun. Out of the corner of his eye, Hugo saw Tom by the fireplace, covering the corner for him. The space cleared, they met by the closed bedroom door.

They paused for a second. If this was an ambush, Hugo knew, this was the last place it could be sprung. He nodded to Tom, who reached down and turned the door handle. Tom gestured for Hugo to move away from the doorway before they opened it, so he took a step back. Tom twisted the handle and shoved the door, moving quickly back himself.

Silence. The men met at the opening and Hugo noted that the door had only opened halfway, despite Tom's shove. He looked down at the floor and saw that it seemed to shimmer in the dark. He put out a foot and heard the carpet crinkle. He glanced at Tom, who shrugged. Hugo held up three fingers and counted them down to one. Together, they moved through the door into the room, guns sweeping through the air. Beneath their feet the floor crackled. Plastic sheeting.

It was even darker inside, and Hugo struggled to make out any furniture in the room. But dark for him was dark for whoever else was in here, so he felt confident there was no ambush. Crouching by the door, he ran a hand over the wall behind him. His fingers hovered over the switch. He whispered to Tom in English, “Lights on,” then shielded his eyes and flicked the switch. His eyes took two, three seconds to adjust, and he could see Tom blinking on the other side of the door.

He'd also been right about the lack of furniture in the room, with one exception.

In the middle of the room, in the center of the plastic sheeting that covered the floor, was a single, straight-backed chair. Bound to it with band after band of masking tape, was Jean Chabot.

At least, Hugo assumed it was Chabot. The man's face was unrecognizable. Both eyes were swollen shut and his nose was flattened. A river of blood stained his mouth and chin, completely soaking the front of his shirt, and his hair stood in clumps, soaked with yet more blood.

Hugo approached slowly, looking for signs of life. When he got close, he saw that the man's left ear was missing. He looked down and saw it lying on the floor beside the chair, nestled on a clump of bloody rags. It was white and waxy, like a fake ear sold on Halloween, except for the scraps of skin and blood that marked the cutting line. Hugo put his fingertips where Chabot's pulse should have been and shook his head at Tom. Nearby lay Chabot's cell phone and a scrap of paper. Hugo picked it up. His cell phone number.

“The idiot,” Tom whispered. “You told him to get rid of it.”

They looked around the room and Tom pointed to a trap door in one corner. A short rope hung down from the door, and Tom walked over and put a hand on it.

Hugo looked back at Chabot, but knew there was nothing to be done. He held up a hand, telling Tom to wait, then moved to the light switch and flicked it off. He walked back to Tom, his gun aimed at the trap door.

Tom pulled the rope and they both stepped back. A square of light opened up in the ceiling, broken by the silhouette of a man with a gun. Hugo dove one way, Tom the other, as the muzzle flashed and the sound of a gunshot echoed in the empty downstairs room. The man fired again, blindly, his targets having moved into the dark.

Hugo looked up and saw the man working his way around the hole in the ceiling. He gauged the shooter's progress then took careful aim at the plaster and fired. He heard a howl of pain as the man dropped through the opening, his right shoe, and much of his foot, blasted away by the bullet. As he hit the floor his left arm snapped and he cried out. Tom moved quickly to the man, leaned down, and swiped the butt of his gun across his head.

“Hush little man, go to sleep,” he snarled.

Hugo went back to the rope and pulled the trap door all the way open. A rickety wooden ladder unfurled from above.

“Light, quickly,” he said to Tom, and covered the opening with his gun. “I'll go up. Wait 'til I clear it.” Leading with his gun, Hugo started up the ladder. At the top, he peeked into the room. It was dim, but looked empty. A musty smell enveloped him as he stuck his head through the gap. Mothballs? He heaved himself into the room and felt thin, worn carpet under his hands and knees.

Behind him, a sound.

He swung around and leveled his gun as a dark figure flitted across the back of the room. He fired twice and the figure dropped. Hugo pivoted to check for other hidden assailants, but saw no one. He moved to the fallen man, eyes straining in case he moved, his finger on the trigger. The man lay on his front and Hugo took a leaf from Tom's book and delivered a hefty kick. No response. Hugo flipped him over with his foot and kicked the man's gun into the corner. A quick check for a pulse told him the man was dead.

The darkness in the room had softened, and Hugo could now see from the back of the apartment to the front. Empty.

“I'm clear,” he called, but Tom was already at the top of the ladder. Hugo looked around and noticed for the first time a windowless door not ten feet from the opening, set into the back wall of the house. A fire escape, and probably where the dead man was headed. There'd been no outside staircase on the plans Emma sent, so Gravois must have built one.

As Tom hauled himself into the room, Hugo turned his attention to the front of the house. If there had once been a wall dividing this space into two, it was now gone. It looked like an empty attic, devoid of furniture or decoration, just a stack of five or six boxes in the far corner.

Hugo started toward them, but froze when he heard the crackle of gunfire from behind the house. He turned and ran past the trap door to the fire escape. Tom was already there, wrenching the door open. Light flooded into the room and both men stood inside the doorway, waiting for their eyes to adjust.

“Let's go,” Tom said. He ducked through the door with his gun up, Hugo right behind him. An iron stairway spiraled down into the shared garden. Hugo scanned the area, a rectangle of grass and a few bushes, privacy maintained by a stone wall. No one in sight. At the back, an iron gate stood open.

“Where the fuck is Garcia?” Tom said.

“No idea,” Hugo replied. How many shots had they heard? Two? Three? They reached the foot of the fire escape without seeing any dead or wounded. “Let's go. Keep an eye on those bushes.”

“No shit,” Tom muttered.

They moved through the garden side-by-side. Once, Hugo saw movement in an upstairs apartment window a few houses down, the surprised face of an old man who quickly withdrew. As they reached the gate, they heard sirens. Hugo caught Tom's eye and knew they were thinking the same thing: Claudia. Hugo went through the gate first, dropping down to one knee, aiming left. Tom was a split second behind, covering the right side. The alleyway, the one Garcia had come down as they entered the house, was empty.

Almost.

“Look.” Tom pointed at four shell cases on the ground. They both knelt to look, but not touch. From two different guns, Hugo saw, one a .40 and the other from a smaller .22. Hugo didn't know which was from Garcia's gun, if either.

They stood and moved quickly down the alley, sirens wailing louder now. As they neared the entrance to the alleyway, two more shots rang out. Hugo pointed downward to a pool of blood, but the men barely slowed, Claudia their concern now because the shots sounded close to the car. They turned left onto Rue Audran and ran up to the corner, in front of the house.

As they reached Rue Véron, Hugo looked down the street to where they'd left Claudia. The car was still there, but a dark form lay on the sidewalk about twenty yards away, between them and the vehicle. Tom covered the body with his gun as they jogged forward, Hugo covering the road around them. There were only two other parked cars on the street, on their right, but plenty of other places a gunman could hide.

Thirty feet from the figure on the ground, Hugo knew it wasn't Garcia. He strained to see inside the car, but couldn't. If Claudia was in there, she was either hunkered down or shot. He ran faster, and as they got within feet of the person on the ground, a figure rose from behind the car. Hugo swung his gun toward it and was about to pull the trigger when he recognized Claudia.

Hugo ran toward her as Tom stopped to check on the still form on the sidewalk, a man Hugo didn't recognize, a man who was dead. Hugo ran around the car and found a wounded Garcia propped against the rear tire. Claudia stood behind him, a gun in her hand.

“I think I killed him,” she said, indicating the man on the sidewalk.