Bausch was feeling better. Having represented himself as a policeman who’d been injured in the line of duty—a stretch, but that’s what he’d told the receptionist at the busy midtown clinic—he had been put straight to the front of the line.
A nurse worked on his nose for an agonizing few minutes, then cleaned things up, applied a better bandage, and gave him something for the pain. A doctor inspected the bump on his head, his traumatized testicles, and made him piss into a cup. His opinion, in the end, was that no lasting damage had been done. With all that out of the way, they told him to go home and get some rest.
As if, Bausch had thought miserably.
It all took an hour. As soon as he stepped outside, the clinic’s antiseptic scents were replaced by crisp evening air. The falling sun cast long shadows across the urban landscape. In the distance he saw Place des Martyrs, the memorial park renowned for its intricate topiaries, and beyond that the entrance to Am Tunnel, once an underground portal to the city’s ancient fortress, now a gallery of contemporary art.
His mood began to brighten. As he set out along Avenue de la Liberté, in the direction of police headquarters, his pain meds were kicking in. He decided it was time for damage control. He needed to find Jardine and get the latest on the murder investigation, and also come up with a plausible story for what had happened in the interview room. Bausch had not quite reached the first intersection, his thoughts locked on a fantasy of delivering a right cross to the blonde’s pretty face, when a bullet flew through his heart.
At base, Bausch was an instinctive detective, and he’d once been quite good. As he began falling, he knew right away what had happened, his brain outpacing the shock and pain. Strangely, what flashed into his mind were Valerie German’s words from that morning as she stood over Moussa Tayeb’s body.
Never knew what hit him.
In that instant, Bausch knew perfectly well what had hit him.
Excruciating pain short-circuited his brain, yet as the sidewalk came at him in what seemed like slow motion, Bausch managed one last conscious thought, a wistful thread of hope: he had been shot within steps of a very capable emergency clinic.
As it turned out, where he fell was irrelevant. The placement of the bullet, combined with its caliber, put survival out of the question. Jean-Claude Bausch was dead ten seconds after he hit the pavement.
There were few complications in a spy’s life that couldn’t be resolved with hard cash. Slaton was sure that by now his photograph, likely a poor image lifted from a security camera, was being circulated by the police. There wouldn’t be much push behind it—he was wanted only tangentially, having been in the company of a murder suspect who was about to be released.
That in mind, he took simple countermeasures. At a tourist shop near the stadium he purchased a souvenir baseball hat with the Duchy’s coat of arms, and also a windbreaker with a hood that could be reversed—dark blue on the outside, gray within. His wraparound riding sunglasses remained in place. He also bought a blue-and-red scarf with the logo of Paris Saint-Germain, the famous French soccer club. The local team’s gear had been on sale, following a dismal season, but Slaton didn’t want to engage fans regarding a team he knew nothing about. The scarf went into his makeshift backpack, an option for change if needed.
Once the police headquarters building came into sight, he began fine-tuning his reconnaissance—maps on phones were good for orientation, but they lacked the detail necessary for tradecraft. The building was isolated, bordered on two sides by residential buildings and hemmed in by minor roads on the other two. In the distance, he saw the towering light fixtures of the soccer stadium, and he wondered if there was a game this evening. With night fast approaching, Anna might be released after dark. If so, the floodlights would be a dominant factor.
The idea of loitering in the residential areas seemed fraught with complications, so he gravitated to the sidewalks around the stadium. The playing field remained out of sight, bordered by a fence and high hedges. Outside that perimeter, a sidewalk ringed the facility. He cast a casual look over his shoulder. He’d seen no one following him since leaving the river, but even so, having reached his destination, Slaton ran a basic surveillance detection route, making a few abrupt turns and doubling back once. At the end, he was confident he was alone.
All he needed now was a quiet place to wait.
Anna had no idea what was going on behind the scenes, but she’d been told she would be released soon. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy had its way. She was fingerprinted a second time and a photograph was taken. A representative from the department’s internal affairs division went over her statement regarding the altercation with Inspector Bausch. She signed three waivers, and met with a woman who introduced herself as a “victim advocate.” Anna assured the woman she bore no psychological trauma from the event, nor did she have any inclination to file a complaint or a lawsuit. She just wanted to get the hell out.
At one point she noted a burst of activity around the station, and she caught word that an officer had been shot somewhere downtown. The reaction was predictable: outrage and calls for an overwhelming response. Things calmed after that, and she was finally placed into the custody of a man from the interior ministry who led her to the exit. Nearsighted and officious, his name was Ducrette, and when they reached the front door, with freedom a mere thirty feet away, he stopped her for one last word.
“You are not to leave the city for ten days,” he admonished. “That is our agreement with your government. If you attempt to leave in that time, immigration charges will be brought against you. Israel has agreed to honor these conditions.”
She frowned at the little twit. “Sure. Can I have my passport back now?”
He reached theatrically into his inner lapel pocket, but his hand came out empty. It looked like a bad magic trick. “That will be returned in ten days.”
Anna spun on a heel and walked away.