Kill Shot (25 page)

Vega cleared his throat and grabbed his phone. “I have other business to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

Fournier placed his hand on Vega’s wrist and kept his gaze on Neville. “Francine and I have a long history. I fell in love with her, but she broke my heart. One should never mix business and pleasure. I’m afraid our history is complicating matters.”

Neville tossed her head back in fake laughter. “Actually, Max, I found out he was cheating on me, and I told him I never wanted to see him again. Lying comes very easy to Paul, so you have to be very careful in dealing with him.”

“Come now, Francine,” he said with a pouty grin.

“Don’t worry, Paul, I got over you a long time ago, but I did learn some valuable lessons. For instance . . . that you are an incredibly selfish and deceptive man.” She turned to Simon. “What would our profilers call that?”

“Narcissistic.”

“Yes . . . thank you. That is the right word.”

Fournier held his hands up in mock surrender. “I should have treated you better. It is one of my great regrets. Now if you’ll excuse us, Max and I have some important business to attend to.”

Neville turned to Simon. “We seem to have worn out our welcome.”

“It appears so.”

Neville stood and, looking at Fournier, said, “You will of course make your men available for me to interview?”

“Anything I can do to help,” he said with a playful grin.

Neville took one step away from the table and then turned back. “I forgot to mention that we are looking for that fifth guest. He fits the general description of the other four men who were killed . . . the supposed bodyguards. You wouldn’t happen to know where we could find him?” Neville asked with a provocative smile.

Fournier pushed his glass forward and stood. He walked around the table and put his hand on Neville’s shoulder. With his mouth only a few inches from her ear he said, “Darling, I don’t know what you are up to, but I would suggest you run back to your husband and children. This is a dangerous game you are playing, and if you are as smart as you think you are, you should know that I am not someone to be trifled with.”

Neville jerked away from him, slapping his hand off her shoulder. “Do not touch me!” she snapped, loudly enough for most of the restaurant to hear. “This mess has your smell all over it, and don’t think that just because you work for the Directorate you are above the law.”

Fournier’s bodyguard stepped in and grabbed Neville by the elbow.

She responded by pulling out her badge and shoving it in the man’s face. “Take your hands off me.” Wheeling back to Fournier, she said, “I have already spoken to the inspector general’s office. We have a meeting in the morning where I am going to fully brief him on my investigation, and my fears that your department is somehow involved in this. I will also inform him that you threatened me.”

“I did not threaten you, Francine.” Fournier sighed as if the idea was preposterous.

Neville composed herself. “I’m on to you, Paul. You show up at the scene of the crime at practically the same time as I did, one of your men is seen going to the roof, and now we’re missing a crucial piece of evidence. You float this idea that these four dead men were Tarek’s bodyguards, but I can’t find anyone who says he had bodyguards protecting him. This entire mess is beginning to smell like one of your dirty little operations.”

“Francine, you should be very careful about throwing around such wild accusations.”

“They might sound wild to the average person, but anyone who is familiar with your work will understand that this is right up your alley. In fact,” Neville said, just realizing something, “I’d be willing to bet an entire year’s salary that Tarek was on your payroll.”

It was Simon who reached out and touched his boss this time. “Francine, we need to go.” Simon, looking at the exchange from afar, realized that Neville had more than likely hit uncomfortably close to the truth. It would be a legal nightmare trying to get the DGSE to open the files they kept on Tarek.

“I am not afraid of you, Paul. I know how you like to do things in the shadows. You can’t stand being exposed in the open like this. Mark my words, you will regret your decision to involve yourself in this mess.” Neville turned and marched through the restaurant, Simon in tow.

When they reached the lobby, Simon said, “Well, that wasn’t exactly what I expected.”

“It wasn’t what I expected either,” Neville snapped.

“Boss, do you know what Tarek did before he became Libya’s oil minister?”

Neville stopped in the middle of the lobby and faced Simon. She searched his face for a clue. “What?”

“The word is he worked for the Mukhabarat . . . Libyan Intelligence.”

“Shit,” Neville mumbled under her breath. She grabbed a clump of her black hair, shook her head, and in a voice filled with desperation, said, “This just keeps getting worse.”

“We need to be careful.”

She looked back toward the restaurant. “That’s what he wants us to do. He wants us to be afraid of our shadows. Move slowly . . . that’s why I made that scene in there. He can’t stand the thought of his dirty little secrets being made public. If we want to get to the bottom of this, moving cautiously is the last thing we should do. We need to expose him and do it quickly.”

Simon grimaced. “Francine, this is very dangerous. We have nothing that ties him to any of this.”

“You think he just showed up before the bodies were cool because he was out for a walk? His man just wanders onto the roof while we’re all focused on the room? I don’t buy any of it.”

“I know it doesn’t look good, but none of this is solid enough to implicate him.”

“Then we’ll have to find something. The crime scene should be wrapped up by tonight. We will have plenty of manpower available, and I want to find out who that man was . . . Max.”

“Francine,” Simon said with caution, “he is more than likely a source for the Directorate. I’m telling you, this is dangerous.”

“Yes, and we work for the National Police. The Directorate can play all of the games they want when they are abroad, but not here in Paris. We are the law.” She could see that the always-rational Simon did not like this turn of events. Like many, he feared the reputation of the Directorate. Neville knew their only hope in getting to the bottom of what really happened was to ignore the fear and push forward. Any pause would give Fournier the time he needed to pressure the people who could relieve her from the case. “Just trust me . . . we need to move fast. Don’t worry about Fournier. He put himself in the middle of this by showing up at the crime scene and sending his man up onto the roof. I want answers. I want you to start with this Max guy and then get me the name of Fournier’s man who was on the roof. I want to question him myself.”

Simon knew there was no dissuading her from this path, so he nodded. This was part of what made her so good at her job. If a case became personal, she was tenacious. Maybe he could talk some sense into her in a day or two. That was if they had that much time. Fournier and his type would not play fair. As they stepped into the late-afternoon light an ominous feeling clutched at him. Would Fournier and his faceless minions be so brash as to harm his boss? Simon shuddered at the possibility. He couldn’t let that happen. As he opened the rear door of the sedan for Neville he took a quick look up and down the street. There were all sorts of men standing about—assistants, drivers, and bodyguards for the affluent who were inside the hotel. Undoubtedly one or more belonged to Paul Fournier. Simon made a mental note of each face. He’d been a police officer for sixteen years. He’d started out walking the narrow streets of the Marais Quarter. Early on, he learned he had a gift for faces. He hoped that gift hadn’t left him.

Simon settled into the backseat next to his boss and paused for a second before saying, “I think it would be wise to give you and your family a little protection until this has blown over.” He knew she wouldn’t like it, but he said it anyway, mostly because it was the right thing to do. Neville didn’t speak for a long moment, and when she did it was what Simon expected.

“I’m not afraid of Paul Fournier.”

Well, you should be
, Simon thought to himself, but he didn’t dare say it. “I never said you were. This is a very high-profile case that is going to attract a lot of attention. I think it would be a wise precaution.”

“Nice try. This is about you being spooked by a spook from DGSE.” Neville shook her head. “I’m not afraid of the man. He’s a coward. He can’t intimidate and use his dirty tricks in the bright light of day, and he sure as hell isn’t going to harm a ranking detective of the Judicial Police.”

He knew her well enough to know that at least for now it would make little sense to try to pursue the matter. He nodded his agreement, but silently he began exploring the various precautions he could put into place. As long as Neville never knew what he was up to, there would be no harm done, but if she found out, he cringed to think of how she would react. Simon looked out the window and decided he would simply need to be careful. To ignore the threat would be foolish.

T
HEY
made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms, his one good one and her two. When Rapp woke up an hour and forty minutes later he stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. There was no fluttering or blurred vision, confusion over where he was or the time. He felt alive and sharp and relaxed all at the same time. Greta could do that to him. He didn’t know how exactly, but he suspected it had something to do with her naked body pressed against his. They always slept with their bodies intertwined, as much skin on skin as possible. Her warmth and energy simultaneously comforted him and made him feel alive.

There was no denying she made him happy, happier than he’d been in a long time. So much so that, as he lay there, he actually thought about dropping everything and driving back to Zurich with her. He could scare the shit out of Kennedy and quite a few others. The phone call would be easy. Just dial the service and leave a message. Tell her that he was done. That he’d put his ass on the line, and they’d repaid him by betraying him. And then would come the part that would make everything very definitive. He would have to threaten her, by explaining in detail what he would do to anyone who came looking for him and that if that happened he would fly back to the States and leave a trail of bodies. Maybe even add something about a packet of information that would be mailed to the FBI or the Department of Justice or God forbid the media.

He frowned at that last part. He couldn’t do it. It would make him no better than all the egomaniacal, opportunistic politicians who were constantly taking shots at the CIA. Kennedy and Stansfield were good people, or at least they tried to do the right thing. Hurley, maybe not so much. Whether Stansfield ordered it or not, Hurley would come after him. The man was funny that way. If Rapp cut a corner or did things his own way, Hurley would fly into a rage, but the man never bothered to confront the fact that there wasn’t a rule he himself hadn’t broken. Stansfield had told Rapp once that the problem he and Hurley had was that they were too much alike. Rapp sure as hell hoped they weren’t. Hurley could be petty and sadistic and extremely unfair and Rapp had told Stansfield so. The deputy director added a few more negative observations to Rapp’s list and then said, “And ultimately very good at what he does. He cuts through all the BS. He sees the purest path toward achieving his objective and he seizes it . . . just like you.”

Rapp had replied, “But he’s a prick.”

Stansfield smiled in his easy way and said, “Yes, he is, and after you’ve been at this for three decades you might be one, too.”

Rapp desperately hoped not. Part of him respected Hurley for his toughness and tenacity, but he couldn’t imagine going through life as such a sour bastard. Rapp wondered if he really could kill him. There’d been plenty of times when he’d envisioned it, but never in a definitive, professional way. His fantasies were more along the lines of bashing his head into the floor over and over again until his brains spilled out. Rapp realized there was a very real chance that taking Hurley out was exactly where this was headed. If he ran, and he might have no choice, he’d have to kill Hurley or the man would hunt him for the rest of his days.

Greta’s head was resting on his chest and his right arm was wrapped around her. They’d met nearly a year ago in Zurich and it had been love, or at least lust, at first sight. Greta’s family had a string of banks located in most of the major financial centers. Her grandfather and Thomas Stansfield had been allies in the fight against communism, and the family still helped Stansfield with some of the more delicate aspects of their operations. So far they had kept their relationship a secret. Greta knew what Rapp did, to an extent, but the wound in his shoulder was a harsh reminder that she had fallen in love with a man who was in a very dangerous line of work.

Rapp slid his hand down her side, her slender waist, and then her hip. He kissed the top of her head and took a deep breath. He wanted to remember this. Total peace; joy in his heart and a woman he passionately loved at his side. This was how normal people lived, but not him. His training had been thorough, and in ways Rapp hadn’t expected. Hurley had talked to each of them about women. His policy was gruff and to the point. “You can hump all the women you want, but you can’t fall in love and you sure as hell can’t get married. If you fall in love or get married, I’ll put you out to pasture or kill you.” And that was just one of many reasons Rapp thought Hurley was a jackass.

It was tempting to spend the rest of his life naked and in bed with Greta, but he knew it was a romantic fantasy. If that was ever his hope there was a lot of work to be done first. There had probably been a time when he could have taken the road more frequently traveled, but that was gone. The truth was more than the simple fact that he was a trained killer. He was good at it, he enjoyed it, and he was not ready to walk away from it. Maybe he really would turn out like Hurley if he lived long enough. The thought depressed him.