CHAPTER FOUR

Three hours later, Hugo walked out of the hospital to an awaiting black Cadillac. The driver, a young woman with big eyes and dreadlocks, smiled.

“Mr. Marston, glad to hear you’re okay. I’m Cecilee Walker. I don’t know if you remember me.”

“Of course I do.” Hugo nodded. “You drove me to the airport once, and on that ride I asked you to call me Hugo, not Mr. Marston.”

“Yes, sir, that’s right.” Her smile widened. “I guess I’m the one who forgot.”

“No problem.” He climbed into the front passenger seat. “There was no need for a car. I could’ve taken a cab.”

“Not really, Sir . . . I mean Hugo.”

“What do you mean?”

Walker put the car into gear and eased away from the curb. “If you’d taken a cab, you would’ve gone home.”

“Which is where you’re taking me now. Right?”

“Not really, no.”

Hugo turned to look at her. “Then where are we going?”

She was still smiling. “You don’t like surprises, huh?”

“Not after a day like today, I most certainly do not.”

“We’re going back to the embassy.”

“Why?”

She glanced at him, and then looked back at the road. “It hasn’t occurred to you, has it?”

Hugo sat back and closed his eyes. “Any more guessing games and I’ll fire you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Then I’ll shoot you.”

Walker laughed. “Hugo, think about what you just did.”

“Got into a car?”

“You’re a hero, Hugo. You stopped a mass shooting.”

“If I stopped it, it wasn’t a mass shooting.”

“You prevented—” She sighed, the way a disappointed parent might. “Don’t play word games with me. You’re a hero.”

“A very tired one, who would like nothing more than to go home right now.”

“Weren’t you just lying around in a bed at the hospital?”

“Getting poked with needles, thank you very much.”

“Welcome.” She shot him a worried look. “So is everything okay?”

“A few results to come back, but I don’t have rabies, tetanus, or leprosy. At least I think that’s what they said.”

“A good start, then.”

“As good as it gets. Now then, you were taking me home.”

“Eventually, yes.” This time the look she gave him was more sympathetic. “I’m afraid the ambassador wants to get to work on this shooter, figure out who is he is and why he wanted to gun people down in the Tuileries.”

Hugo looked at her with suspicion. “But he knows I can’t do that. I’m a witness and, technically I suppose, a potential suspect,” he said. “Plus, the entire Paris police force will be doing that, and we have good people in the office who can help out. Like Mari—what’s she doing right now?”

Mari Harada was Hugo’s number two. Months after the death of Ryan Pierce, his long-time second-in-command, Hugo had called to see if she’d be interested in coming to Paris. It was a promotion for her within the State Department, so she said yes, and Hugo immediately requested her transfer from the Berlin office. They’d first met at a conference in Italy, where she’d impressed him with her lecture on the rise of nationalism in Western Europe. Afterward, he bought her coffee and found out she’d also worked for the FBI. She’d been a forensic anthropologist and their paths hadn’t crossed, but it was a professional coincidence, and a bond between them. She’d had to leave the Bureau after contracting multiple sclerosis, and was now using an electric wheelchair and state-of-the-art voice-to-text software, so she didn’t have to type.

Ambassador Taylor had been on Hugo to get someone in to ease the RSO’s workload, and had assured Hugo he wasn’t “replacing” Ryan at all—he was filling a position. And when Taylor saw her résumé he was all aboard. In the couple of months she’d been working at the embassy, Taylor had been more than impressed with her enthusiasm and intelligence, especially in matters technological, which had become her forte since she was less able to get to anthropological sites. Taylor had even pointed to her tastefully appointed office as an example to Hugo, and a counterpoint to his sparsely furnished one. She had decorated it with calligraphy from Bodhidharma and a pair of replica Jomon vases to reflect her father’s Japanese heritage, and on the wall behind her desk she’d hung a print of the 1917 self-portrait by Christian Khrog, who was her favorite Norwegian painter and, like her mother, from Oslo.

As she steered the car onto Rue de Rivoli, Cecilee Walker threw Hugo another look. “Oh, Mari will be there, don’t you worry.”

“Right. And everyone knows she’s ten times more competent than I am, so take me home and let her handle it.”

“No can do.”

“What if I give you a direct order?”

“Someone higher than you in the food chain already gave me one.”

“I know, I know. But he’s used to me disobeying his orders, so you wouldn’t get in trouble for not doing his bidding.”

Walker laughed quietly. “It’s not his bidding that I’m doing.”

“I don’t understand.” Hugo turned to look out of the window to his left, where the Tuileries lay in darkness. He’d seen on the news that police had closed it early, ushering an already nervous public out and leaving a dozen men and women to patrol inside, more to restore a sense of security than anything else. Hugo looked back at Walker. “If you’re not doing his bidding, then . . .”

“Well, he wants you there, don’t get me wrong.”

“Walker, I’m warning you . . .”

“You’re right—Mari can do all the background stuff with the Brigade Criminelle. That’s not why he wants you at the embassy.”

“Then why?”

“To meet someone.”

“Is it Oprah? I’ve always wanted to meet Oprah.”

“You probably can now, but no, it’s not. I’m taking you to meet the president of France.”

Hugo turned in his seat to stare at her. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.” She gave him a wink. “I told you. You’re a hero now. And presidents love to meet heroes, you know that.” She pointed to the glove compartment. “I put a hairbrush in there for you.”

“A hairbrush?”

“Yeah. Come on, Hugo, you know how it works. One president plus one hero equals . . .”

“Oh, good God. You’re right.” Hugo groaned again. “That equation equals cameras.”

He looked out of the window at the traffic ahead of them, toward the embassy, which sat overlooking Place de la Concorde. He’d spent his career with the FBI avoiding the limelight. He always let others handle that side of things, but Cecilee Walker was right. This time, it was all on him. He reached for the glove compartment, and a hairbrush he most definitely needed to use.