De Payns heaved for breath, standing over Winnen’s bloodied body. ‘We got her.’
‘But Murad’s on the run,’ Shrek pointed out.
Templar hadn’t given up—eleven cars away, he crouched over a parked motorbike, his fingers working under the petrol tank. Shrek and de Payns ran to him, but as Templar got the engine turning over he fell to the ground, clutching his leg.
‘Shit,’ he said, gasping in pain.
De Payns kneeled beside his friend and saw the bleeding bullet wound in the middle of his right thigh. He tore the trouser fabric apart and saw a bloody hole in his muscle, but it was weeping not spurting.
‘It’s just a leg wound, not an artery,’ yelled Templar. ‘Don’t worry about me—get that bastard.’
Shrek leaped onto the bike, an 1100 Yamaha, and handed a helmet back to de Payns.
‘Over there,’ de Payns said, pointing, and Shrek opened the clutch and surged to another motorbike. De Payns dismounted, grabbed the helmet and gave it to Shrek, who put it on and revved the bike.
‘One second,’ said de Payns, not getting back on the bike. A police support van had pulled into the car park and the cops were deploying in hazmat suits and breathing masks. De Payns crept into their van and unclipped two sets of plastic IDs attached to the officers’ jackets, hanging from hooks in the van.
They sat on the horn, trying to carve through the rubbernecking employees, who were converging after Murad had driven through the middle of them. They finally made it onto the street, looked left and right and, spotting the Iveco van to the east, followed it onto the D907. The route was busy and de Payns hung on to the pillion position as Shrek swerved the big Yamaha through traffic at one hundred and forty kilometres an hour, ensuring they didn’t lose the van. Contrary to the American movies, Paris was actually no place for spectacular car chases. There was too much traffic and too many small cross streets. The best hope was to be on a motorbike and keep visual contact. This wasn’t an unusual pursuit for Shrek or de Payns—everyone in the DGSE knew how to get around Paris on a motorbike.
Briffaut burst into de Payns’ earpiece. ‘Was that you on the bike?’
‘Yes—Shrek’s riding,’ said de Payns.
‘Who’s in the van?’
‘Murad,’ said de Payns.
‘Shit,’ said Briffaut. ‘Alone?’
‘Murad is the driver,’ said de Payns. ‘Don’t know who’s in the back.’
‘What’s your location?’ asked Briffaut. ‘I’ll assign a helicopter.’
De Payns gave a location, and as he did Murad’s van veered right through an intersection. Shrek chopped down a gear and revved the bike, just avoiding a small traffic jam and keeping contact with the van.
They swept south and then east again, and now they were on the A13 freeway and the van was flying. Shrek opened up the Yamaha and de Payns watched the traffic flash by as they hit one hundred and eighty.
‘Stay back, this is surveillance,’ said Briffaut over the net. ‘We have no authority here.’
De Payns was happy to hold back. They had no idea who was in the back of the van, and with the bioweapons plot discovered their job now was to see where Murad went, who he joined up with, who would give him sanctuary.
The van crossed the Seine and Shrek and de Payns stuck with it. In front of them the Eiffel Tower loomed.
The van slowed and Shrek tapped down through the gears of the Yamaha, staying back, staying smooth but fast. The van drove slowly along the right-hand side of the street, as if looking down side streets and checking on service lanes. The van sped up again, into a rond-point, turning at the first exit, and they watched the van dive into the right-hand kerb, where service vehicles were allowed to park. Shrek hit the brakes as he found a park in the same service parking area, behind a truck. De Payns’ helmet bounced off the back of Shrek’s and they turned to surveil the street and saw the entrance to the Boulogne–Pont de Saint-Cloud Metro station.
‘Stay here,’ yelled de Payns, keeping his helmet on as he watched Murad, dressed in a black bomber jacket and jeans, skip along the footpath and dive down into the Metro.
‘I’m right here,’ said Shrek.
‘Be careful in there,’ said Briffaut over the radio. As de Payns took off his helmet and dismounted, he could hear the police helicopter overhead.
Ensuring the CZ was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, he headed for the Metro. It was one of the main train routes west across the Seine and there were people everywhere as he got to the concourse. Crowds jostled to get through a limited number of turnstiles—a worse traffic jam than the streets at ground level. De Payns jogged across the concourse, eyes peeled for a tall Pakistani man in a black jacket. When he reached the main turnstile, he realised he could neither get around the throng of people nor get over them. He couldn’t see Murad at either end of the long concourse, so he assumed the terrorist had to be going through to the platforms. De Payns got into the shortest line for the turnstiles, figuring he’d find Murad on a platform or hiding in a toilet.
A tall person behind him wearing a white LA Lakers hoodie got too close, but de Payns shrugged him off as just another rude Parisian. The queue had stalled because an old man in front of him didn’t know how to use his Navigo card; he wasn’t fast enough to go through when the machine beeped. He tried again, walked through and then back, confusing the machine. Travellers in the queue mumbled about the idiot and the Allemand as the old man raised his arm for a Metro employee. Impatient, de Payns started to move to another queue, but as he did he felt the nose of a pistol push into his kidney and an accented voice whisper in his ear, ‘Stay calm.’ The tall man moved into his left shoulder, staying very close, and shepherded de Payns away from the turnstile, pistol in the back, a handful of de Payns’ windbreaker sleeve in his hand.
‘What do you want?’ asked de Payns, feeling the pistol dig deep as they moved back onto the main concourse.
‘An insurance policy,’ said the voice from under the hoodie, and de Payns recognised the distinct tones he’d heard on the Murad voice tape. He realised this man, the man who had been driving the van and wearing a black bomber jacket, had completed a desilhouettage.
‘Insurance for what?’ replied de Payns.
The pistol dug deeper and Murad pushed him along. As they moved around an arguing couple, de Payns turned his right shoulder and swivelled on the balls of his feet, swinging the edge of his left hand into the nerve below Murad’s right ear. A shot went off behind de Payns as he twisted away from the pistol, and de Payns stamped down hard with a kick and connected with Murad’s instep, eliciting a scream. He grabbed Murad’s 9mm pistol in a wrist lock and tore the ligaments and bone in one fast action as he took it out of the terrorist’s grip. The scream was piercing and de Payns now had the man’s black SIG in his hand, but a bearded man in his thirties tried to grab him and knocked him slightly off balance. De Payns instinctively struck the bearded man in the throat and without thinking drove the lanyard loop of the weapon into his face. As Beardy sagged to his knees, the crowds screamed in panic and de Payns realised the bearded man wasn’t in the game—he was just a good Samaritan who’d picked on the wrong person.
Seeing his mistake, he spun to confront Murad, but the terrorist was already over the turnstiles and running, his white hoodie visible above the crowds on the platform-side concourse. De Payns ran and leaped the turnstile but as he got over it, the transit police arrived and drew on him.
‘Drop it,’ said the young female officer, not knowing whether to look at de Payns or the bearded man who lay crying where de Payns had left him. De Payns had the SIG in his hand, and he thought about crashing through and pursuing Murad. But as he gasped for breath, another transit cop came at him from his left, driving a baton lengthwise into his rib cage.
Gasping in pain, he dropped the SIG and the cops moved in, guns aimed and handcuffs ready.
‘Got him,’ said the young female officer, her knee in the small of his back as she tightened the cuffs.
‘The white hoodie …’ started de Payns, but he ran out of breath. There was something wrong with his ribs.