The Tangled Webb (19 page)

CHAPTER 53

K
ate had been in a light sleep for almost thirty minutes when she felt a gentle nudge on her arm. She looked up to see the friendly woman who had offered her a chair.

A drizzle had settled over the Tuileries Gardens and raindrops slowly began to fall.

“
Thank you again
.
”

At the water basin she watched as the woman scurried from the garden along with everyone else.

Suddenly a humpbacked man came up behind Kate.

Sensing a presence she turned and recoiled as his black eyes stared through her.

She was stricken with panic and terror.

He pointed a gun at her midsection.

“The time has come for you to die,” Boris said. “The Deacon sends his regrets.”

Acting on adrenaline and instinct, Kate did something James taught her. She shifted to the side and swiftly thrust her knee into his groin.

His reflexes were quick, however, and he partially deflected the blow. The gun went off and the bullet missed her by inches.

She was clenching her fist to strike his throat when he suddenly jolted violently and reeled backward.

Two bullets seared holes in his chest.

Kate gasped in horror as he collapsed into the water basin.

Boris lay on his back and his lungs convulsed as he fought for air in his watery grave.

Nicolas came from a wooded area and ran toward her. He reached into the basin and checked his pulse. Then turning to Kate, he pulled on her arm, saying, “Come on. Let’s go.”

She ran alongside Nicolas, sputtering, “How did you know?”

“Just a hunch. I thought Lynch’s people might be staking out police headquarters in case you went for help. The assassin back there was tailing Roche.”

“I’m glad you follow your hunches.”

Nicolas guided her around a corner.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your nap.”

“How kind of you.”

They came to his SUV beside the curb and Nicolas unlocked the doors. Climbing in, Nicolas quickly drove away.

Trying to catch her breath, Kate turned to him.

“Damn it, you work close.”

He shrugged and driving along a narrow street, acted as though the killing in the garden was an ordinary event.

Heading toward her apartment, Nicolas said, “The assassin back there, he was Lynch’s hatchet man, a sadistic psychopath.”

“I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”

“Lynch must think you’re getting too close for comfort.”

“That’s what I want to talk about.”

When they got to the apartment, she hurried into the kitchen, opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of wine, quickly filling a glass and draining it.

“Easy Kate,” Nicolas said.

“I’m not a heavy drinker but now might be a good time to start.”

He gave her a sympathetic smile.

“You’ll be fine.”

Halfway through the second glass her nerves began to ease. They settled into a couple of chairs on the apartment’s balcony and Nicolas could sense that Kate had something on her mind.

“What are you thinking about?”

She locked eyes with him.

“A raid on the chateau.”

Surprised and not expecting this from her, he fell silent.

Finally he spoke.

“You’re talking about an extremely risky undertaking. For all we know, the two senators who were kidnapped are captives there.”

“Probably. Do we have any alternatives for saving James?”

“Lynch could be expecting us,” Nicolas said.

Kate bolted upright in her chair.

“Maybe, but he won’t know when we’re coming. We’ll have the element of surprise.”

“True,” he replied. “We’d need a first-rate team and the men would have to be handpicked.”

Kate became animated.

“Now you’re talking.”

“The team would have to come from the U.S. It’s the only way to ensure absolute secrecy. I’ll make some calls.”

He walked into the dining room and sat at the table as Kate brought notepads and pens. It was getting close to eight o’clock and both were running on empty stomachs.

“Do you have anything to eat?” Nicolas asked.

She began preparing a meal as he worked the phones. It was two o’clock in the afternoon back in the U.S. and Nicolas was able to connect with most of his contacts during business hours.

An hour later they had finished eating and Kate said, “It’s been a long day for me. I think I’ll go lie down.”

She stopped at the doorway to her bedroom.

“Wake me if you get anything important.”

He made notes on a pad, saying, “Will do.”

Two more hours passed as Nicolas went about the task of reaching out to America for help.

Shortly after eleven o’clock he got a call from someone he knew.

“Are you on a secure phone?” the man asked.

“Yes sir.”

During their conversation the subject focused on national security interests at the highest level.

As Nicolas ended the call, a grin crossed his face.

He walked to the bedroom door and knocked gently.

Kate came out, looking disheveled.

“I must’ve been tossing and turning,” she said, noticing his smile. “Good news?”

“We’re getting help from an unexpected source.”

“Anyone I know?”

“We’ll talk about it later. I need to sleep.”

“I’ll make up the spare bedroom.”

Kate pulled sheets from a closet and made the bed for him.

“Thanks. My watch alarm will wake me at three o’clock. I’ll head out to Falcon Lair and get a head start on the reconnaissance.”

The apartment was now dark and Kate lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as a million thoughts raced through her mind. She knew time was running out.

Will we get to James in time? Is he still alive? What does Lynch have in store for us?

CHAPTER 54

T
he main level of the chateau was completely dark except for miniature wall sconces casting dim rays of light every thirty feet.

There was an eerie stillness as Olga sneaked across the kitchen’s floor tiles.

The silence was broken when a light came on behind her.

She turned and saw Alfred.

“Where do you think you’re going at this hour?”

His tone was accusatory and condescending.

“I’m getting out of here,” Olga told him.

“You are going nowhere, woman.”

“Don’t try to stop me.”

Alfred advanced on her.

“I’m warning you.”

Olga drew a gun from her pocket and pointed it at him.

“Step back.”

He brushed the command aside.

“You pretentious old fool,” she said.

He looked down on her with a nasty disdain.

“You don’t have the gumption to use that gun.”

With no hesitation she slammed the stock of the gun into the side of his neck and he collapsed on the floor.

Then he looked up.

Now she was looking down at
him
.

“That’s one way,” she said, hovering above him. “Would you like to see another?”

She pointed the gun toward their apartment above the kitchen.

“Now get your pompous ass up those stairs.”

He struggled to get on his feet and began to comply.

“But how did you …?”

“… get Mr. Webb’s gun out of the safe? As usual, you underestimate my intelligence. The combination is taped to the underside of a drawer in your bedside table. It took me all of thirty minutes to find it. It’s
you
who is getting slow. You can’t remember things so you write them down.”

When they entered the bedroom, she motioned with the gun toward a walk-in closet.

“Get in there.”

He walked in and she closed the door behind him. She then reached under the bed, removing a hammer and a wedge she had made in the chateau’s workshop. Putting it beneath the door she raised the hammer, delivering several blows to the wedge until the door jammed in a closed position.

“You won’t get away with this,” he shouted from the opposite side of the door.

She turned on the television, raising the volume and drowning out his voice.

Have a nice life,
Olga thought as she scrambled back downstairs.

According to her plan, she had an hour to herself before sunrise. Moving under a veil of darkness, she bolted through a garden on one side of the chateau.

She stopped at a halfway point and retrieved a plank and ladder she had hidden earlier.

Suddenly, she saw an armed guard heading in her direction.

The guard came closer, one of several patrolling the estate.

Olga hoped to conceal herself along a hedge and she held her breath under a moonless sky. The guard moved through the garden, so close that his footsteps could be heard.

His boots crunched on a gravel pathway.

Then he stopped.

Olga’s heart jumped a beat.

The guard lit a cigarette and lingered only ten paces away.

The seconds felt like hours.

He finally moved on.

She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the plank and ladder.

Scurrying across the lawn she came to a strip of gravel beside a high perimeter wall.

Years earlier, Olga had seen workmen installing plastic sheathing along the perimeter of the estate. Covered with a layer of gravel the strip was connected by underground wires to the chateau’s security system.

The strip acted as a pressure sensor to alert personnel to a security breach in the event an intruder stepped on the pad.

Olga held the plank along one side of the pressure pad, and then she eased it down to the opposite side, creating a footbridge to cross the sensor strip.

Now safely across she placed the ladder against the perimeter wall, climbing it and dropping to the ground on the other side.

On the northern boundary of Falcon Lair, a heavily wooded area of public land stretched out.

Olga had never before stepped foot on this land.

She had only a compass and a flashlight to guide her from the chateau out to the main road.

She began trudging through the underbrush and the flashlight cut the darkness.

As she moved through the dense foliage, branches cracked underfoot and the noise caught the attention of a man nearby.

Initially he thought the source of the noise was a deer or some kind of animal. Putting on night-vision binoculars, he moved cautiously in the direction of the sounds.

Then he crouched in the brush.

And waited.

Peering through the greenish lens of his binoculars he saw a figure coming closer to him.

He reached into a shoulder holster and removed a Glock pistol.

As Olga swept aside a branch the man suddenly appeared, dressed in all black.

She froze.

To her surprise, and relief, he lowered his gun and smiled.

“Let me guess, you’re escaping from the chateau?”

Olga nodded.

A lucky break,
he thought.

“I’m Nicolas. And you are?”

“Olga,” she managed to say.

“Pleasure to meet you. I’m a friend of James Webb. Please tell me he’s alive.”

“I don’t know.”

Moments earlier all was lost, and now Olga was in the hands of a friendly stranger. Actually, it was a coincidence. After completing his reconnaissance at Falcon Lair’s perimeter, Nicolas was returning to his vehicle when he chanced upon Olga.

“Follow me,” Nicholas told her.

The machete slashed at branches, clearing a path through the thicket of underbrush. A few hundred yards farther they reached the SUV that he had parked earlier.

He got behind the wheel and Olga sat in the passenger seat.

Moments later the SUV passed the entrance to Falcon Lair and Olga felt a chill run up her spine.

The SUV then came over a hill on the roadway and a beautiful sunrise appeared on the horizon.

Olga soaked in the warming rays of the sun which hinted at a newfound freedom for her.

CHAPTER 55

T
he household staff awoke at Falcon Lair and began moving about the chateau. The servants gathered in the kitchen for the day’s assignments and duties. On this particular day, however, Alfred was nowhere to be found.

The head housekeeper told the staff to remain in the kitchen while she went looking for him.

She climbed the stairs to the apartment above the kitchen and heard a television on high volume.

She knocked on the door.

Getting no response she entered slowly.

Once inside, pleas for help began coming from the closet. She noticed the door had been wedged shut, and returning to the kitchen, enlisted a male staffer to help her. He fetched a hammer and removed the wedge, rescuing Alfred.

Angry and disheveled, he changed into his formal attire and hurried downstairs where Thomas Lynch confronted him.

“What the hell is going on?” Lynch snarled.

Alfred dutifully gave an account of Olga’s daring escape.

Lynch’s eyes narrowed.

“You let her get the better of you.”

Alfred cast his eyes downward.

“Yes sir, unfortunately.”

Displeased, Lynch summoned a guard who escorted Alfred down into the dungeon where a guard put him into a cell.

On the main level of the chateau Lynch reorganized the staff, making adjustments for the departure of Alfred and his wife. He then walked down a wide corridor and into the library.

Covered in rich mahogany paneling, a row of French doors framed a view of the city of Paris in the distance.

Lynch sat behind an antique desk and stared out at the city.

Alfred! Such a fool. I should have relieved him years ago.

Lynch had seen the late-evening newscast last night. He grimaced, recalling camera coverage of Boris, his ruthless henchman, being pulled from the water basin at the Tuileries Gardens.

And then there was the highly public spectacle of Max Baer and his dramatic demise.

Not the kind of person to dwell on such things, Lynch reached for a secure phone and made a call to a contact he had cultivated.

“Send a dozen more of your best men. I’ll expect their arrival this afternoon,” he told the man on the other end of the line.

While Lynch felt secure in his protection under the laws of diplomatic immunity, and he considered an assault on the chateau a low probability, he still was vigilant. The extra mercenaries would increase his force strength at Falcon Lair and reinforce his existing security team.

He walked from the library and stopped in the doorway of a room that resembled the cockpit of an airplane. Controls and switches and all manner of electronic equipment lined the walls.

A guard was controlling cameras throughout the chateau and grounds and sending live video feeds to the command center. His eyes were fixed on a bank of monitors as a second man stood behind him.

Sensing a presence the chief of security turned and saw Thomas Lynch in the doorway.

“I’m bringing in a dozen more men this afternoon,” he said. “I want them brought together with the others in a combined security force.”

“Yes sir.”

“Tell them to keep their eyes and ears open. I want to be notified of anything unusual.”

“Will do.”

“Olga might be traveling on foot if she hasn’t gotten help from the outside. Scramble a helicopter for an aerial search and send teams out on the ground to comb the area in a five-mile radius.”

“I’m already on it, sir.”

Lynch figured she wouldn’t get far. He would concoct a story implicating Olga in a sham robbery involving the theft of valuables from the chateau. A call would then be placed and an all-points-bulletin would go out through Europe for her arrest.

Lynch began stepping away and then stopped.

“By the way, how did she get out?”

The chief swiveled his chair around.

“Over the wall. She used a plank as a footbridge to defeat the sensor strip.”

“Clever.”