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THEY REACHED THE area near the Pont d’léna forty-five minutes later. Leine exited the town car two blocks away, in an effort to avoid tipping off the terrorist’s over-watch. Jack would take up position with his own over-watch in place and communicate from there.
She walked toward the bridge and surreptitiously scanned the people she passed, alert for anything out of the ordinary. Everyone appeared to be enjoying the bright, sunny day. Their smiling faces and celebratory mood stood in direct contrast to the darkness of Leine’s thoughts.
She reached the Seine and turned toward the steps leading up to the bridge. A dark-haired man wearing sunglasses and a white T-shirt bumped into her and shoved a mobile phone in her hand before melting into the crowd. Seconds later, the phone vibrated. Leine answered on the second ring.
“Look to the right.” It was a man’s voice. “There is a tourist boat with a red banner that reads ‘Seine River Cruise.’ Purchase a ticket and board the boat.”
“Where’s Jinn?” she asked, but the caller had hung up. She pocketed the phone as she walked toward the Seine.
“Boarding the boat,” she murmured, keeping her voice low in case the burner phone she was just handed had listening software installed. Someone on the other end keyed the mic twice, acknowledging the transmission.
She reached the ticket booth and waited behind a family of four buying tickets.
When it was her turn, the ticket taker glanced at the clock and said, “Mais oui. That’s cutting things close. You just made the sailing.” She smiled as she took Leine’s money. “Enjoy the sights.”
“Merci.” Leine took her ticket and walked down the gangway toward the crowded boat. She handed her ticket to the man standing at the entrance to the vessel. He glanced at it and motioned for her to take the last seat near the stern.
She remained standing and scanned the passengers for Jinn or anyone who looked nervous. Most were obviously tourists, gaily chatting with each other, taking pictures and video, and waiting for the boat to get underway. The wheelhouse was amidships, and an awning had been erected down the center of the boat. There were seats near the stern where she stood, as well as in the center, with the majority of tourists sitting near the bow.
Was she being sent on a wild goose chase, meant to keep her occupied while the terrorists mounted their attack? This particular cruise didn’t have any scheduled stops—the boat would head upriver for a predetermined distance and then turn around and come back to where they started.
Or was the boat intrinsic to their plan? The festival taking place on the bridges between where Leine boarded and the Pont Alexandre would give La Pointe the audience she craved. But why the boat? Leine doubted she’d been able to store enough explosives on the vessel to do extensive damage to one of the well-built bridges. True, a suicide bomb would kill dozens of passengers on the full boat, but that didn’t fit La Pointe’s MO. She preferred to do things in a big way—enough to interrupt the endless, twenty-four-seven news cycle for a good chunk of time.
There had to be something else.
A crew member waiting on shore untied the mooring lines and tossed them to the man who had taken Leine’s ticket. He coiled the lines and stowed them, and made sure the gate was secure. The captain engaged the engine and steered the low-slung boat away from the dock and headed upstream. A prerecorded commentary of local landmarks began to play first in French, then in English, continuing in Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.
With a sinking feeling, Leine continued to study the people on board. La Pointe had obviously just used Jinn’s presence as bait, since she hadn’t yet seen anyone resembling the kid in the crowd.
The temperature was warm for so early in April, and most of the passengers had opted for outside seating. The awning provided much-needed shade but also obstructed her view, as did the wheelhouse. She moved to a better position portside and scanned the crowd of passengers near the bow.
A man with his back to Leine blocked her view of several of the passengers, so she made her way forward. As she drew even with him, his gaze met hers and he stepped back, revealing a white-faced Jinn. Wearing a brightly colored backpack, she sat ramrod-straight in a chair mid-row. Her eyes were rimmed with red and dried tears streaked her face.
Leine swallowed her surprise and kept her expression impassive as she considered how to neutralize the man guarding Jinn without causing a panic among the rest of the passengers.
Just then, the burner phone the stranger on the quay had given her began to vibrate. Without taking her eyes off the man and the girl, she slid the device from her pocket and answered.
“I see you have found your little friend.”
The familiar voice was distinctly feminine, with a French accent. La Pointe. She glanced at Jinn’s guard. His expression blank, he stood with his hands clasped in front of him and stared straight ahead as though enjoying the scenery.
“Who is this?” Leine asked the caller. What name was La Pointe using today?
“No, no, no. That would be too easy. You must guess. I will tell you that if you are considering eliminating the man standing next to you, you will want to reconsider. At this moment you and the girl are in a sniper’s crosshairs. If anything happens to him before the boat docks at the end of your journey, you will both be killed instantly.”
“You’re spoiling all the fun,” Leine replied.
Ignoring the sarcastic remark, La Pointe continued. “Your girl fought like an alley cat when we put the pack on her, but once she realized we’d kill you no matter what she did, she became much more manageable. Such loyalty.”
Leine regulated her breathing and loosened her grip on the phone. “I’m surprised you called, Blanche. Or should I call you Salome? I would think someone as important as you wouldn’t stoop to administrative tasks.”
She spoke loud enough to be heard over the engines. The inane conversation would signal to Jack and his team that she was talking to La Pointe.
“You’ve figured out who I am. Brava!” La Pointe chuckled. “As for making the call myself, I wanted to hear your voice before I said goodbye.”
“Oh? Are you going somewhere?” Leine glanced at the likely path of the river boat. At its current rate of speed, the vessel would reach the nearest bridge—the pedestrian-only Passerelle Debilly, which was packed with people enjoying the festival—soon. Too soon. Beyond that lay the Pont de l’Alma, the Pont des Invalides, and the Pont Alexandre, the last two the most well-known and best-loved bridges in Paris.
The woman ignored Leine’s question. “Here is how things will go. The backpack the child is wearing contains a bomb which is attached to her body with wires. If the connection is severed, the bomb will go off.”
Leine studied the pack, estimating the amount of explosives it could carry. If detonated, the damage to the vessel would be significant. The blast would certainly kill both Jinn and herself, but she doubted that was La Pointe’s end game.
“I need to speak with the girl’s guard,” La Pointe said. “Hand him the phone.”
Leine did as instructed and shifted her gaze underneath Jinn’s seat as the man took the mobile. A large black canvas bag had been stuffed into the void. Another bomb? She couldn’t see the wires running up to the seat, but she didn’t doubt they were there.
The man spoke rapidly in French, acknowledging whatever she told him, and handed the phone back to Leine.
“He’s going to have a talk with the captain,” La Pointe said. “Again, you must not do anything to stop him or both you and the girl will be killed. And if you warn anyone about the bomb, many people will die.”
Leine followed the man with her gaze as he made his way to the wheelhouse. He stopped at the open door and engaged the captain in conversation. She turned her attention back to Jinn.
She sat down next to her, carefully unzipped the top of the backpack, and peered inside. A bright red countdown display that read 2:49 was visible through a mass of wires. Once tripped, the bomb would theoretically go off in less than three minutes.
“Using a countdown trigger and a detonator circuit is a tad redundant, don’t you think?” Leine said, again giving Jack and his team what information she could without tipping off La Pointe.
“Perhaps. But that is not all I have in store. It would be too easy, n’est-ce pas?”
Leine didn’t respond, instead calculating how she could remove the pack without breaking the connection, and throw it into the Seine before one of La Pointe’s gunmen figured out what she’d done and detonated the bomb from afar.
“By your silence, I assume you are trying to work out how much damage one bomb that size could do, yes?”
Leine didn’t say anything, preferring to let La Pointe continue.
“I would warn you not to attempt anything heroic like tossing the backpack into the Seine or something silly like that. Even if you were successful in removing the pack, the girl sits on a pressure plate. Removing the weight will detonate yet another set of explosives beneath her chair. This, along with the bomb in her pack is enough to do some real damage. What do you think? You have had experience with this kind of thing before, no?”
“Not really. Most garden-variety terrorists use one or the other. I assume both contain shrapnel and are designed to cause the most damage?” She eyed the bridge looming ahead of them—the Passerelle Debilly. They would be even with the structure soon.
“Of course. Although, this will only be a small part of the bomb’s effect. The loss of life will be significant, I assure you.” La Pointe paused. “Well, I shall leave you to it. I’ve much more to attend to than this little exercise. One more question, though, if I may.”
“What’s that?” Leine asked, masking her annoyance.
Unable to hide her fear, Jinn looked at Leine, eyes wide. She clutched her mother’s necklace in her small fist. Leine placed a calming hand on her shoulder. No sense in scaring the kid more than she already was.
“I have heard that you were once called The Leopard. Is this true? Are you the mysterious assassin from years ago? Please tell me this is so.”
Leine stopped herself from hanging up on the terrorist. Time was running out, but there was no telling what she’d do in response to the insult. “I’m afraid you received faulty information,” she answered. “I work for SHEN, as I’m sure you are aware. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? The fact that I rescued one of your pet projects from Izz Al-Din?”
La Pointe’s low chuckle rankled Leine. Not the response she expected.
“I’m disappointed. You were not prescient enough to figure out that I placed Chessa in your path. I wanted you to rescue her. Who do you think tipped you off to her location in Tripoli?”
Leine’s breath caught. La Pointe was the informant who called SHEN with the tip to where Chessa was being held? “You sacrificed one of your own?” Leine killed the man guarding the American teenager. La Pointe had surely known he’d be in danger.
La Pointe laughed outright this time. “He was expendable. I sacrificed a pawn to get my queen out of Libya and into Western Europe. No one would ever guess where her loyalties lay—it was the perfect ruse. Although it didn’t work quite as well as I expected, thanks to you. Casualties were...limited. Much like the last time you were involved in one of my pet projects.”
Obviously she was referring to Leine’s role in thwarting the plot to bring the United States and Russia to the brink of nuclear war.
Leine tensed as the river boat entered the stretch of water beneath the pedestrian bridge. The shadow cast by the steel structure chilled the air around them. She kept her hand on Jinn’s shoulder and held her breath, searching the supports for a detonator.
Please don’t let this kid die. Not now.
The explosion never came. Leine exhaled with relief as the boat glided beneath the Passerelle Debilly and came out the other side unscathed.
“Oh my goodness. You should have seen the look that came over your face just now. Your resolution is commendable. Why would I be interested in destroying such an inconsequential bridge when there are others with much more potential?”
“Is there anything else?” Leine ground out the words. Obviously, La Pointe was eating up time while watching her, whether through binoculars or some other means.
“No, but it’s been my pleasure—”
Leine ended the call. She’d had enough. She set the phone on the chair next to her and glanced toward the wheelhouse, looking for the captain. He was nowhere in sight. Neither was the man who’d been guarding Jinn. She turned to the kid.
“Did La Pointe say anything about what she was planning?”
Jinn shook her head. “No. Only that if I try to remove the pack or even move that I will kill myself and everyone around me.”
“You’ll be fine if you keep your weight on the chair. I’m going to find the captain to see if there’s a way to evacuate the boat without causing a panic. I’ll be right back.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.
“Don’t be. You did what you thought was right. Don’t. Move.” Leine headed toward the wheelhouse, scanning the passengers for signs of La Pointe’s man.
When she reached the glassed-in area that housed the boat’s controls, she knocked on the door and peered through the blue-tinted windows. The captain lay in a heap on the floor. Blood soaked his crisp white shirt. She inspected the door handle for a tripwire before she eased the door open and slipped inside, careful not to cause alarm. None of the passengers noticed.
She felt the captain’s throat for a pulse, but there was none. Then she checked the console. The boat had been placed on autopilot. A glance at the GPS told her they were headed straight for the stone support of the next bridge—the Pont de l’Alma.
She was about to disengage the autopilot when she stopped. It was too easy. Why would the man who killed the captain leave the wheelhouse unlocked? La Pointe would have a contingency plan in place. Carefully, she checked underneath and around the control booth and found another bomb tucked up underneath the console. The wires from the steering mechanism and the bomb had been spliced together, telling her that if the autopilot was disengaged the bomb would go off.
“What’s happening, Leine?” Jack’s voice over her earpiece sounded loud in the small space.
“The captain’s dead. There’s a bomb connected to the autopilot. The killer is the man who was guarding Jinn, but I can’t find him. Do your guys have eyes on?”
Jack checked with his team before he came back to Leine. “Negative. If we see him we’ll take him out.”
“That’s a big negative. If anything happens to him, La Pointe’s threatening to kill me and the girl.”
“Sniper?” he asked.
“Yeah. We’ve got another problem. The kid’s sitting on a pressure plate with a bomb inside her backpack and underneath her seat.”
“Jesus. You have to get everyone off that boat.”
“I’ll tell the passengers to move to the stern. The boat looks like it’s made to handle the weight. Then I’ll try to get the pack off the kid.” Leine glanced back at Jinn. She was still sitting where she left her. Good girl.
“Call Miller,” she continued. “Deploy the jammer. I don’t want to have to worry about some asshole getting antsy and detonating one of these bombs.”
“Will do. I’ll work on clearing the next bridge.”
“We don’t have a lot of time. The Pont de l’Alma is only a few minutes away, and according to the GPS the boat’s on course to hit one of the supports. I’m afraid if I try to override the autopilot it’ll blow.”
“Copy that. We’ll do what we can.”
Leine grabbed the radio and flipped it to the PA system, interrupting the pre-recorded commentary. “This is a message from your captain,” she said, putting urgency into her voice. “This is an emergency. Everyone please move to the rear of the boat. You need to clear the bow immediately. There is a bomb on the front of the boat.” She repeated the command in French, Spanish, and German, skipping Italian and Japanese, two languages she hadn’t practiced recently. She hoped it was enough.
It was.
As Leine expected, pandemonium ensued. Panicking, the crowded boat transferred en masse to the stern. By the expressions on people’s faces confusion and horror reigned, but at least they were headed in the right direction.
Leine was about to leave the wheelhouse when one of the passengers stumbled and fell. A woman reached down to help him to his feet but screamed and backed away. Others nearby glanced at the floor. Two more people dropped to the deck.
Someone shouted, “Gun!”