Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Your ass is in hot water, buddy.” Jean-Luc sipped his drink. “We better dazzle the old man with our evidence and data.”

Niko nodded as he chewed another bite of his sandwich. “Maybe I’m in the wrong line of work. Maybe I’m too susceptible to the allure of a female. Maybe I’m not as sharp as I thought I was.” Finding out Hae-Won was alive shook him to the core. Not only had a member of The Red Hand wormed her way into his life and his heart, but she deceived him on every level. For two years he mourned her and bore the guilt of walking away with those files still on his screen.

“You and your ‘maybes.’ Get over yourself. Let’s get this bitch and put her where she belongs.”

Niko crumpled the paper from the sandwich, tossed it in the trash can and approached Jean-Luc’s desk. “I should have suspected Hae-Won when I found this picture of Aly and me in Qimat’s pocket.” He slapped the picture on Jean-Luc’s desk.

His friend examined it. “This was taken downstairs in the garage.”

“Turn it over.”

Jean-Luc read the information written on the back before raising his gaze to Niko’s. “Your height is given in both metric and English measurements. Alyson’s is not. Only those close to you know you sometimes joke about only being five feet eleven and a half inches.”

Niko sat on the edge of Jean-Luc’s desk and fiddled with his friend’s prized piece of the Berlin Wall. “That mention of my height bothered me. I figured it was written by someone here in the unit. Have to tell you the thought of working with a traitor bothered me, but so did something else. Just couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“Have you figured it out?”

Niko ran a hand across the back of his neck. “I’m embarrassed to admit it. I watched her, one day, print notes on the backs of photographs she took the day before. She used a Sharpie just like the ink you see right there. Same neat printing on an angle.” He exhaled a long sigh. “If I had been more alert, I could have apprehended her earlier. Aly wouldn’t have been shot.”

“No one expects to see a dead woman’s printing, especially after two years.”

“I’m not just anyone. I’m in a position that requires me to question everyone and everything. I failed.”

Jean-Luc leaned back in his chair and pointed to the photograph. “So you thought this was written by someone in the unit? Who did you suspect?”

“Everyone except you.”

Jean-Luc grinned. “You bastard, you did think it was me.”

“No, never you.” There was no other man he trusted as much as his childhood buddy.

“So, you have no qualms about hammering my face until it looks like raw meat, but you would never accuse me of betrayal?”

“Damn straight.”

Jean-Luc laughed. “Liar. Oh, just got some chatter I want you to hear.”

“First let me arrange for someone to take Aly and her family to the safe house. Looks like I’ll be here for several more hours.”

“Send André. He’s young and appealing to the women. Maybe Gwen will take her eyes off me and focus on him. The woman looks at me like she hasn’t had a piece of meat in years, and I’m the last filet mignon left in the market.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Gwen. The woman’s just lonely after losing her husband in Iraq.” He ignored Jean-Luc’s snort, picked up the phone and dialed a number. “I’ll bet a woman like her could straighten out your mangy ass.”

His friend extended a finger.

Niko had no sooner sent André on his errand when Michelle, the unit’s forensic phonetician, approached holding a file and wearing her typical General-Grim expression. The woman loved her job and excelled at wringing every possible detail from a taped phone conversation, but she was short on personality.

“I have a match, several in fact. Having your DVD to use as my baseline was a tremendous help.” She removed a sheet of graph paper from a file and slapped it onto Niko’s desk. “Here is the graph showing the amplitude and strength of sound of Hae-Won’s voice as taken from your DVD.” Michelle spread out three more pages. “Here are the graphs from those three phone conversations you taped.” She pointed to several peaks and valleys on the computer generated graphs. “Exact matches, all of them. Hae-Won was the speaker.”

It was unusual for Michelle to smile. She was a serious person, but the corners of her mouth tilted up slightly.

“There’s more?”

“On two of the phone conversations, this one from a year ago and this one a mere three weeks back—” she tapped her fingernail on two graphs “—Hae-Won was talking to a male. Same man. Iranian. From the northern part of the country. Mid-twenties. Uneducated. Highly nervous.”

Niko glanced at Jean-Luc and smiled. “Isn’t she the greatest?”

Her expression now was absolutely smug. “There’s more. Church bells ringing in the background.”

“Really?’ Niko leaned forward in his chair. He would see Michelle got a raise; she was top-notch at her job. “Can you indentify the bells? Notre Dame?”

She shook her head and slipped her hands in the pockets of her pants. “St. Germaine des Prés. I would say no more than six blocks away. No less than four.”

Niko tapped computer keys on one of his three keyboards. A screen with a detailed map of Paris slid down from the ceiling. He punched in the address of the church and zoomed in to areas within a seven block radius. He opened his drawer, removed a laser pointer and handed it to Michelle. “Show me.”

****

Alyson took a shower while her dad and sister slept. Both were suffering jet lag and lack of sleep. She dressed in the khaki linen pantsuit she found on sale on her shopping trip with Gwen. After putting on her wig, she stepped into taupe heels. She wrote a note explaining where she went to eat, grabbed her shoulder bag and headed out the door.

The Café de Flore was a few blocks up the street. Once the meeting place of philosophers and artists, it was now a stopping place for tourists looking to have a drink where Picasso, Hemingway, John Paul Sartré and other notables once argued philosophy and art trends. The lovely building graced a corner like a queen on her throne. Awnings reached out to give protective shelter for its sidewalk tables. Above the awning were wrought iron balconies festooned with lush ferns, draping across the tops of the awning, lending a whimsical air to the building.

An empty bench across the street beckoned. Alyson sat and removed her sketch pad from her yellow leather shoulder bag. Quickly she sketched the skeleton of the building, adding windows, balconies, ferns and awning painted with the name of the famous café. Time passed and, if her grumbling stomach hadn’t reminded her it was past time for a meal, she could have spent hours sitting there drawing.

Whispers of history and artistic charm flowed from the Jewel of the Seine to her fingertips. The allure of Paris rekindled Alyson’s joy of sketching, an enthusiasm she never should have abandoned, being an art teacher. Life, it seemed, dimmed her passions. She stood and smiled. No more. Being here taught her a lot about her spirit—and her heart.

Alyson moved across the street to the Café de Flore when she saw a couple stand and vacate a sidewalk table. After ordering wine and a salad, her attention was drawn to an older couple at a nearby table, heads close and hands entwined while they murmured to one another. Alyson set her bag on the empty chair at her table and pulled out her sketch pad and charcoal pencils. Within minutes she was engaged in capturing the enduring love of the silver-haired couple. What delightful, heart-touching expressions they had.

A voice fractured her concentration.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Her breathing hitched.

Slowly she turned toward the agitated voice and came eye to eye with Hae-Won. Oh, good Lord! The woman’s hair was much shorter than in Niko’s video; it was chin length now. The angry expression and the annoyed voice were the same. Alyson quickly turned her head, acting as if she were once again focused on her sketching. What should I do? Run? Stay and pretend she didn’t notice? She was wearing the wig, after all. Surely she wouldn’t be recognized.

She flipped the page she was working on until she found a clean one. Watching Hae-Won out of the corner of her eye, she began sketching her nemesis. Maybe if she drew it well enough and showed it to Niko, he would believe Hae-Won was still alive. Her wrist flexed and twisted as she drew what she saw out of the corner of her eye.

When Hae-Won’s voice indicated she’d probably be looking at her male companion, Alyson would take a quick studying glance at her. Her sketch was almost completed when someone grasped her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “Nice likeness. Do you think it captures my spirit?”

Sweet Jesus, help me!

Alyson shifted slightly and stared into Hae-Won’s hate-filled eyes. Cold dread gripped her. Hae-Won’s hold on her shoulder tightened, but she refused to wince.

“We meet again, Alyson. Instead of spending money on that wig, you should have bought a new purse. That ridiculous yellow bag is quite distinctive.” Something round and hard jabbed into her waist. “Do anything wrong and I’ll shoot you again. This time, I’ll kill you.” Hae-Won jerked her head toward the older couple. Her companion stood behind the man and woman, who were blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding around them. The young, dark-haired man watched as if waiting for a command. “After my lover kills those two over there. You want to watch them die, bitch?”

Alyson swallowed, hoping to force back the bile rising in her throat.

The young man removed a latex glove from his pocket and slipped it on.

Her mouth was too dry to respond. Alyson merely shook her head. Josette died because of her impetuousness; she couldn’t allow anyone else to suffer the same fate. She stood and permitted Hae-Won and her lover to lead her away.

****

Henri’s cane thundered through the early-morning quiet as he approached the area where Niko and Jean-Luc were pouring over data and listening to taped phone conversations. They worked on a plan for hours; a plan to invade an apartment in which they deduced members of The Red Hand were living. Henri’s voice pulsed with tightly reigned anger. “You want to tell me how a dead woman’s purse ended up at the Café de Flore?”

Niko’s head jerked up. “What?”

Henri collapsed into a chair and leaned forward. “I just got a call from Captain DeMarché. Seems a customer at Café de Flore ordered and then left. Not an uncommon practice after eating, but not before. The woman left her sketch pad and purse behind—a yellow leather shoulder bag.

Oh hell! Aly! Cold fear filled Niko’s stomach and overflowed into his veins.

His supervisor obviously saw the effect his announcement had on Niko. “The waiter waited for his customer to return, but she never did. When the owner of the café searched the yellow bag for I.D., he found it belonged to Alyson Moore from America. The owner recognized her name from all the news reports about her incident at the Louvre and her death from the shooting. So, he called the police, who notified me.” He cracked his cane across the top of Niko’s desk. “I better damned well get some answers. Honest answers and fast!”

“Have someone bring the shoulder bag and sketch pad to me.” Niko fought the fear clawing at his gut like a rabid animal.

Someone had Aly.

“At this point, you have no right to demand anything!” Henri’s voice roared. “I want some answers.”

Jean-Luc stood and moved next to Niko. “When the ambulance took Alyson to the hospital, we thought a subterfuge would keep her safe.”

Henri glanced from Jean-Luc to Niko. “We? You two stick closer than Siamese twins. Why was I left out of the loop?”

“Would you have agreed to our plan? I had to protect Aly. I couldn’t take any chances with her life.” Niko’s mind raced to compute data: Aly was missing. She left behind her bag—a gift from her dad—and her sketch pad. Therefore she left the café against her will.

She’d been abducted. He guessed just like the earring and bangle left behind for clues, she left her bag and sketch pad for clues.

“Aly?” His superior leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Damn, your dick got the best of you again, didn’t it, boy?”

Niko wanted to choke the man. He had no clue about the essence of Aly’s goodness and strength. No idea how much he loved her.

“So just whom did the department pay to have cremated?” Their superior glowered first at Niko and then Jean-Luc.

Jean-Luc sat on the corner of Niko’s desk. “I found a homeless woman in the morgue. The city would have paid for her cremation anyway. We just gave her a name, an identity.”

“The city, yes, but we are budgeted by the country of France. Again, I’m asking why am I just now hearing about this?”

“Because you would have ranted just like you’re doing now. Because you would have considered our plan’s effects on you, not on her safety. Just like you’re doing now.” Niko stood. “A woman is missing, no doubt in The Red Hand’s captivity. You know their penchant for violence and yet you want to waste time complaining because you were excluded from something.” Niko turned to Jean-Luc. “How soon can we get this raid on the move?”

Henri stood and leaned on his cane, his eyes opened wide. “Raid? What raid?”