The Paris Betrayal Read online

  “I don’t really care. My job is to bring you in alive, but if you’re a vegetable, that’s on you, not me.” Long fingers found Ben’s carotid arteries and squeezed. “There’s a narrow space between coma and death when cutting off the blood flow to the brain. I’m not that precise. Good night, Calix.”

  Bleach washes.

  Fire purges.

  The gray fog closed over his vision, and Ben’s duty to activate the cleaning kit became his final focus. He did not intend to be taken and tortured. With his final ounce of consciousness, he’d destroy the flat, protecting the Company. His kit had two manual switches—one near the front door to be activated during escape, the other in the bathroom as either a backup or a suicide switch. With the last of his fading consciousness, Ben abandoned all resistance, tore the scalpel from Hagen’s hand, and jammed the blade into the bathroom socket.

  The fake socket caved in, and the scalpel stuck into the rubber switch behind it.

  A series of pops rippled through the walls and ceiling.

  Hagen loosened his grip, looking up.

  Ben rolled free, coughing, and yanked the vinyl shower curtain down over his own head.

  10

  A heavy mist of bleach and acetone filled the bathroom. Under the vinyl curtain, Ben dropped to his knees. Free of Hagen’s grip, he had time for three wheezing breaths before the fumes creeped under the edges to find him. A patch of his face burned. He must’ve been cut in the fight. Outside his makeshift shield, Hagen gagged and groaned. The dresser rattled. He’d fled into the main room. Ben had to press his advantage before his attacker recovered, and before the second, deadly phase of the cleaning kit kicked in.

  Two more packets of bleach had exploded over the bed and in the kitchen, leaving no safe space in the flat. Ben stumbled from the bathroom, fighting the urge to breathe, and found Hagen growling and trying to wipe his eyes with the sweatshirt under his jacket. Hagen heard Ben coming and took a swing. Ben sidestepped the punch, lining up a shot through his blurred vision, and landed a hook that toppled his opponent. He stomped on the two scalpels still buried in the man’s thighs, forcing a scream that would only pull in more choking gas.

  His lungs begged for air, and his mental clock kept ticking. The incendiaries were timed to ignite two minutes after the chemical packets blew, when the air had reached the right saturation of flammable vapor. He couldn’t hang around to play with Hagen any longer.

  Ben recovered his Glock and Hagen’s cattle prod from the carpet and kicked through the drywall beside the door, bending to work a hidden backpack free from the resulting hole. The hall outside seemed strangely quiet after the tumult of the fight. He gently closed the door, picked up his folded coat, and pulled it on over his bleach-stained shirt. To cover the throbbing wound on the back of his head, he used a stocking cap from his go-bag. Then he shouldered his pack and feigned the calm of a man heading out for a walk.

  He made it halfway to the stairwell door before it opened. Clara came walking through.

  She had the dog with her. She always carried that dog. Ben could never remember its name. “Clara?” He glanced behind him. Only seconds to go now. “Your floor is one down.”

  “Yes, I know. I want to talk. Earlier when I spoke of dinner—”

  “We said we’d do it another time.” He tried to steer her back toward the stairwell.

  She jerked her arm free and stopped, poking him in the chest. “You said another time, Jacob. As always. You are busy, or tired, or packing, or unpacking. I’m not proposing marriage. Just dinner. Two neighbors, foreigners in this city sitting down for a meal.”

  “Either way, I’m spoken for.”

  “Really?” She made an indignant side-to-side motion with her head, flopping her blue strands back and forth. “I’ve never seen this woman. Is she real or imaginary?”

  Ben had lost count of the seconds, but the two minutes had to be almost up. “I have to go.” He kept walking. “We have to go.”

  Thankfully, she followed, sniffing the air. “Why do you smell like bleach?”

  “Calix!” Hagen burst out of the flat and staggered into the hall. He extended his SIG.

  Ben stepped in front of Clara, drawing his Glock and firing at the same time. He never saw if his shots hit the mark.

  A blast rocked the building. The fireball enveloped Hagen. Cracks ran up and down the hallway plaster, and dust fell from the ceiling. The cleaning kit’s incendiary cord had finally lit the fumes.

  The explosion buried Clara’s scream. Before it settled, Ben had her moving toward the stairwell. “Like I said. We have to go.”

  By the time the two reached the street, police sirens wailed in the city—three, maybe four blocks away and closing. Pedestrians shouted, running into the traffic to get away from the building. Ben pointed north, up the river. “Go that way. There’s a clinic on Rue de la Tour. Get checked out.”

  He walked south, glancing up at the smoke rising from the building. Everything he owned, everything but the clothes on his back, destroyed.

  “Who was that man, Jacob?” Clara walked beside him with the dachshund on his leash, stubby legs racing to keep up. “Why did he call you Calix?”

  “I told you to go to the clinic.”

  “You shot him.”

  “You can’t prove that’s what killed him. Might’ve been the explosion. You need to go. It’s not safe.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on. The cuts? The swelling? My father was a mean drunk. My brother took the worst of it. I know a face that’s taken a beating when I see one. You had a fist fight, shot that man, and then blew up your own flat.”

  He wheeled around on her, speaking through clenched teeth. “Go away.”

  His sudden turn seemed to catch two men off guard, half a block behind. A man in gray trousers and a brown jacket averted his gaze. A black man wearing a dark blue sweatshirt made the same movement, walking through the park across the street from the first. A good twenty meters separated the two, but they were clearly working together. Hagen had brought friends, and they’d seen the girl talking to Ben.

  “Fine,” he said. “Come with me.”

  He led her another block to the river and the walkway under the Passy Viaduct, in the Eiffel Tower’s shadow.

  Clara had almost as much trouble keeping pace as her dog. “You could slow down, you know.”

  “No we can’t.”

  She stopped anyway—not from defiance, but because the dog had picked that moment to draw a line in the sand. He tugged at his leash, refusing to go on.

  “Ugh. Otto! Come, boy. Otto, come here!”

  “Pick up your dog, Clara.”

  “He’s fine. He’ll come. He’s not usually like this.” She patted her leg, switching to Slovak. “Otto, ty tupý pes, ku mne! Ku mne!”

  Ben watched the bridge behind them. Mr. Brown Jacket and his friend Blue Sweatshirt knew they’d been made, and they were no longer trying to blend in. Both men power-walked their way, with Blue Jacket staying wide to flank.

  If Ben ditched the girl now, maybe they’d forget her and follow. “I’m sorry, Clara. I have to go. Good luck.”

  “Good luck with what?”

  He didn’t stay to answer, he’d already turned and broken into a run.

  Behind him, the dachshund barked. Clara let out a squeal.

  11

  Ben jogged to a stop. His gamble had failed. He turned to see Brown Jacket with an arm around Clara, holding her shoulder in an iron grip.

  “Calix! Get back here.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” The spy’s walk of shame.

  Blue Sweatshirt continued strolling toward him—a sheep dog corralling the stray.

  The dachshund never ceased its barking.

  Pedestrians on the bridge paused to watch.

  Brown Jacket flashed a badge. “Capitaine Luis Duval, Sous-Direction Anti-Terroriste,” he said and continued in French. “Nothing to see here.”

  The Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate. SDAT. A French
counterterrorism cop. Strange. All the law enforcement databases listed Ben as Jacob Roy. This cop had called him Calix. And while Ben could believe SDAT might respond to an explosion in a flat, these two had been there when the explosion happened, already watching. Plus, Ben didn’t like Duval’s face. He couldn’t leave Clara with these guys.

  Duval returned the badge to his belt and shoved a hand in his pocket. An angular form appeared in the fabric—a gun aimed at Clara’s spleen.

  Blue Sweatshirt had taken up a post at Ben’s shoulder, walking a step behind him. “Nice and easy, Calix. This is over for you and your girlfriend. Don’t make trouble.”

  There are no coincidences in the intelligence world. A virus doesn’t just happen to start in a town that has a virology lab without a direct connection to that lab. The cousin of a known terrorist doesn’t just happen to travel to a US city a week before a bomb goes off. And two French cops don’t just happen to appear outside a spy’s apartment building on the day his world goes haywire.

  Don’t make trouble.

  Ben’s flat was gone.

  His stuff, gone—nearly everything he owned bleached and burned.

  His head pounded from where it had hit the medicine cabinet.

  His face still burned from where bleach and acetone had sunk into his abrasions.

  And that dumb dog wouldn’t stop barking.

  Yeah, he thought. I’m gonna make some trouble.

  Ben accelerated his gait, pushing his center of gravity forward like a boulder on a shallow hill. “Clara! Can’t you shut that dog up?”

  The shout, meant to off-balance Duval, worked. The stern look of total command on his face waned. Blue Sweatshirt lost the professional composure he’d maintained since taking up his post at Ben’s shoulder. “Calix?” he blurted out. “What are you doing?”

  Ben kept accelerating.

  The dachshund took this as his cue to double down. He ramped up the intensity and the pitch, front legs bouncing off the ground with each piercing yap.

  Blue Sweatshirt jogged to keep pace with Ben. “Calix, stop.”

  First confusion, then anger filled Duval’s eyes. With Ben two meters away and not slowing, he pulled the gun out of hiding. He didn’t have time to aim.

  Ignoring the weapon, Ben slammed a heel in Duval’s chest. He felt a rib crack. The gun hit the bridge. Ben snatched it up by the barrel—a Beretta Nano. He gave a tilt of his head and pushed out a lip. “Not bad.”

  Fingers grazed his shoulder, not yet catching hold.

  Ben spun and smashed the Beretta’s butt into the bridge of Blue Sweatshirt’s nose. The man staggered back and dropped to a knee, blood spurting from his nostrils. A follow-up smash to the temple put him out cold.

  “You wanted to come with me?” Ben grabbed Clara’s hand. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  A few steps in, once she had recovered some coordination, she planted her feet and yanked his arm right back. “Not without my dog.”

  “Leave him. He’ll slow us down.”

  “No!”

  Duval groaned and struggled to regain his feet. He still had some fight in him.

  Clara pointed at the dachshund. “Otto comes with us. That is final.”

  The pedestrians had formed a circle around them, several filming with their phones.

  Ben didn’t have time for an argument. He tucked the gun away and went back for the dog. On the way, he gave Duval another kick to the ribs. “Stay down.” He picked up the dog, and the two sprinted together across the footbridge into the busy streets south of the Eiffel Tower.

  12

  Get far fast. Then get farther faster.

  The same rules that had applied to Ben’s escape from the old city in Rome applied in Paris. With a dachshund named Otto clutched in his arms, and a blue-haired woman he hardly knew hanging on to the loose, bleach-spotted fabric of his sleeve, Ben ascended the steps to the above-ground platforms at Bir-Hakeim Metro Station. He had one driving thought on his mind.

  He had to reach Giselle.

  The reappearance of the dead Dutchman and the second mention of the mysterious Jupiter tied Ben’s present very-bad day to the botched mission in Rome. He had to warn Giselle before whatever malady had brought his life crashing down infected her too.

  He used cash to buy paper tickets for the turnstiles, unable to trust the Navigo transit card registered under Jacob Roy. Given the day’s events, it had probably been burned before he first set foot in Paris late that morning.

  The midday crowd left Ben and Clara standing in the aisles of the eastward train. When it lurched into motion, Ben grabbed the overhead bar, leaving Otto tucked under one arm like a football. The dachshund seemed happy there, but once the train settled, Ben pressed him into Clara’s arms. “I think this is yours.”

  She scratched the dog’s ears for a moment, then reached up to touch Ben’s cheek.

  “Don’t.” He caught her fingers and gently pressed them away. “Please.” What had started as a cut left by a knuckle had grown into a knot, partially closing his right eye. He checked his reflection in the train window. The distortion didn’t help, but even without it, he looked a fright.

  The hand Ben had pressed away from his cheek now rested on his arm. “I’m making this harder for you, aren’t I?” Clara said. “Whatever you’re doing. I’m not helping. I’ll get off at the next stop.”

  “You can’t. They’ll scoop you up.”

  “Who? Those policemen?”

  “I don’t know. The badge looked real, but I think they’re working for someone else—someone bad. Do you believe me?”

  The answer came back without pause or hesitation. “Yes.”

  How could she put her trust in him like that? So soon. So easily. He narrowed the eye he could still control. “Why?”

  “You might have pushed me away these last six months, but I’ve seen you—the way you help old Madame Bisset when she comes home with her shopping, the way you pick up rubbish the teens leave in the stairwell.” She smiled. “The way you lie about always having someplace to be, just to spare my feelings. You are a good man, Jacob—” Clara stopped and cocked her head. “I mean . . . Ben Calix?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Ben.”

  “So where are we going, Ben.”

  “We need to get you out of town, somewhere safe. And then we can figure out next steps. I know someone who can help.”

  “Your imaginary love?”

  He nodded. “She’s part of my world. And she’s skilled. She’ll know what to do.”

  Clara went silent as the train stopped at Dupleix and La Motte-Picquet–Grenelle stations in quick succession. She made no effort to get off at either. It seemed she meant what she’d said about trusting him. “And what happens if these dirty cops catch us?” she asked as the doors closed again.

  “Hard to say. Torture, probably. Whoever’s paying them will work me over for weeks to get at everything I know.” The train set off again, diving from the aboveground tracks into a tunnel. “You, of course, don’t know anything. They’ll figure that out pretty quick. A smart interrogator might hurt you to make me talk—for a while, anyway. A few hours. A few days. Eventually they’ll get bored with it and kill you.”

  An elderly man seated on a bench at Ben’s knee tipped up the brim of his cap with his cane and stared at them both.

  Ben frowned back at him. “Une blague,” he said in French. “A joke.”

  The old man didn’t laugh. He didn’t get the chance.

  A screech of brakes brought the train to a halt and sent passengers bumping and stumbling into each other. Murmurs passed through the crowded car.

  “What was that?” Clara asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The conductor made an announcement a few seconds later. “Mesdames et Messieurs, the station ahead has asked us to hold here due to a problem with our track. We will update you with more details as they become available.”

  Ten minutes went by, and no more details came.

  No c
oincidences.

  “I don’t like this,” Ben said, leaning over the old gentleman to peer through the window. He saw nothing but the black tunnel wall.

  Clara shrugged. “It happens . . . sometimes.”

  “Yeah. But why today?”

  Before he finished the question, the train started up again. The station lights appeared a few heartbeats later. Pedestrians gathered on the platform, impatient. Ben recognized two figures among them.

  Looking harried and abused, one holding his ribs and the other holding a kerchief to his bleeding nose, Duval and Blue Sweatshirt strode up and down the platform on the wrong side of the yellow line, searching the incoming cars for their targets.

  13

  Passengers moved to the still-closed doors and patted the glass. Duval and his partner worked their way inward from the platform ends, peering into windows with cupped hands.

  Clara leaned a shoulder into Ben’s chest. “Why don’t they let us off?”

  Without answering, he pivoted his body to hide hers, so that only the dachshund separated them. He stared into her eyes and slid both hands behind her neck, thumbs tracing her jawline.

  She swallowed. “Um . . . What are you doing?”

  “Hiding your blue hair.” He tucked the blue strands back and pulled the fur-lined hood of her coat up to cover her head. “There. Now we’re not quite as conspicuous, are we? Can you hide Otto in your coat?”

  The murmurs in the car grew louder. The patting on the glass became a pounding on the doors. A woman shouted in French at the security cameras. The conductor answered with an announcement. “Mesdames et Messieurs, the track problem mentioned earlier has engaged our train’s safety measures and will not allow us to open the doors. We apologize for the inconvenience and again ask for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.”

  “Yeah, right.” Ben gave Clara a skeptical look. “Time to go.”

  “How? The doors won’t open.”

  “The side doors, sure. But every one of these trains has a fail-safe door at the back. Let’s head for the rear car.”