part0044

Thierry joined Havilah after the medics lifted her into the ambulance. The driver turned over the engine and they began to glide over the water. Before hanging up with the Silver Fox, he told him to have the ballistics checked from all the shootings, including the one involving Agent Albertin, who had been stationed at Havilah’s apartment that evening, and he would have the Italian police generate a report about Gerard Louis’s weapon. When he kicked it across the boutique’s floor, Thierry noticed that it was much smaller than his own SPHP service weapon. He wondered if Louis had used this weapon in the other murders or the SPHP-issued weapon.

Havilah was alert now, but he had insisted that she still be checked out by a doctor. “One can never be too cautious with a head injury.” He moved an errant curl away from her right eye. She tried to move her face from his touch.

“That’s my Havilah. Still feisty as ever. I will tell you all about Claire after we have resolved our current dilemma.”

“And the toothbrushes?”

“Toothbrushes?” He looked puzzled. “Okay, Havilah, I visit the dentist twice a year for cleanings. They give you a new one at each visit. I use an electric one at home as you discovered last evening. I usually take the new ones on my travels.”

He touched her face again. This time she didn’t shift away. Instead she looked at him like he had wounded her worse than Gerard Louis at the mention of Claire. She looked as if she were preparing for the worst— his betrayal and her imminent death.

Thierry continued talking. He couldn’t afford for Havilah to get maudlin. He needed her on point. When she was in fight or survival mode she was a formidable ally or opponent, depending on the occasion.

“Someone is tying up loose ends. I’m thinking you’re one of those ends.”

“The dead man?” She had sat up too quickly. He could see her swoon from vertigo.

“An SPHP agent. Gerard Louis. He was protecting Gaston Carpentier. He may have felt a surfeit of loyalty and sought to avenge him as well. It does not make sense that he would come after you though. You did not kill Carpentier. I do know now how Hervé Simone tracked you so quickly. At first I thought it was Étienne Belami who had told him about your hand, since he was the only person from the agency to visit my apartment when you were there. Then I remembered Louis partnered with Belami. He must have communicated something to him. I haven’t been able to speak with Belami to verify. Then of course we heard Belami had been dismissed from duty by Carpentier this morning.” His voice trailed off. Thierry began to pace the small space in the boat. “And I believe now Carpentier encouraged Louis to tell Simone about your hand as a way to frame you for the Amri-Gilbert murders.”

Havilah seemed to mull over what Thierry had just revealed. “So you think Carpentier killed Didier and Eva or had them killed by Gerard Louis?”

“I don’t know. We are waiting on ballistics.”

“I honestly don’t know, Havilah. There are too many moving pieces and possible motives that are not apparent as yet. Tonight’s shooter has forced a reconsidering of our usual suspects. I initially thought the gunman was Halimi.”

“Halimi? Where is he in all of this?”

“Dead. He was found shot on the metro. But we don’t know who killed Halimi either. It could have been Gerard Louis or the mysterious gunman or someone else. That is what I meant about loose ends.”

Havilah’s mouth fell open for a second. She looked around and then closed her eyes. “I’ve been finger-pointing and wracking my brain all day only to come up empty handed as to who is behind all of this. What about Hervé Simone? FBB says he is on Carpentier’s payroll because he can’t afford his two mistresses otherwise. I know I should have told you earlier but you trust him like a mentor.” She bit down on her lip, as if she were preparing for a round of incredulity.

Instead, Thierry repeated his name and looked at her. He was thinking about what Havilah had told him earlier regarding her encounter with the officers and how he had immediately dismissed it, assuring her that anyone could have used Simone’s name to curry access. The Silver Fox too had emphatically and rather naturally denied any hand in sending officers to retrieve Havilah. He was demonstrably miffed that his good name had been used in such a way. The would-be officers were nonetheless officially attired, according to the notes he had read from another agent’s follow-up interview with the concierge at Le Meurice; and yet Villepin and Duroc were still unlocatable or identifiable. They were like ghosts. Thierry had requested video footage from the hotel with the requisite signed court order from Simone. But that too was slow in coming. The hotel had claimed just as emphatically they had sent it over to the agency’s secure site, but no one had received it as yet into evidence. And now this newest revelation.

He quite clearly recalled Havilah’s irritation upon meeting with Simone at the reception. He noticed it as he was trained to read body language. She had tried to mask it with politeness but it was evident to him that she didn’t trust the Fox. Perhaps I shouldn’t have either , he thought. Simone had told Louis surreptitiously, it seemed, about his and Havilah’s arrival in Venice. Réda Halimi had ended up dead— possibly killed by that maniac Gerard Louis— just when Thierry requested the police pick him up for questioning. And who else would have known where to find a sharpshooter to take out Carpentier and Louis so they would never talk? And where was his good friend Étienne Belami? A sharpshooter like himself. That Simone hadn’t immediately requested that Belami be reassigned to guard Havilah’s apartment once Thierry disclosed that the agent had been dismissed by Carpentier in hindsight now seemed odd.

Thierry shook his head as if to avoid drawing a bead in Étienne’s direction. Since the Silver Fox had of late done a few uncharacteristic moves involving Havilah and Claire, especially his trying to warn him off Havilah, Thierry was now no longer certain at all that Havilah was not onto something.

“So your theory is he was tasked to muzzle you by Carpentier because he was on his payroll to support his mistresses? He got tired of the blackmail situation and had Carpentier killed …?” Again his voice trailed off. He didn’t want to say “by Étienne Belami.” Instead, he said, “That gets us no closer to the Lemieux and Amri-Gilbert murders.”

“Oh, what are the usual motives? Love? Sex?” She gave him a sideways glance as if to let him know that there was hardly anything he could offer to explain away Claire’s presence in Venice. “Money, More Power?”

She stopped, only to begin again. “There was only one group that knew my every move. FBB. They had been tracking me all morning and afternoon and even offered protection. Somehow the rent-a-cops show up at Le Meurice on the orders of Hervé Simone, who claimed he hadn’t sent them. On that jump drive there is video and audio of Didier Gilbert requesting monies, jobs, amnesty for Amri’s group, and other civic-minded requests, like a park, from someone. I didn’t think Carpentier could deliver on those kinds of promises. But the French government could, with Simone acting as a surrogate. Is it possible that Simone is running some kind of counterintelligence operation on behalf of France?”

Thierry looked askance at the possibility that Simone would be involved in something on that scale of chicanery and mendacity. Though clearly the Fox was involved somehow , he nodded to himself. Havilah persisted in whipping up theories until something clicked as “Aha!” for both of them.

“If you think that sounds incredibly farfetched, let’s try this one on. How do we know that Simone isn’t some sort of puppet master who’s been playing both these groups as a chaotic cover for a larger prize? How do we know that Simone isn’t motivated by something else altogether, something having to do with me and the Lathan Conor case? The defendants’ families have a lot of influence, money, and power in France and America. If we can find one clear and provable instance of his being susceptible to committing malfeasance because of blackmail, then some things might more easily fall into place here. Do you know if this upholder of the law has ever bent to blackmail?” Havilah touched her forehead and winced immediately.