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BARCELONA
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LUKE WAS IN THE MIDDLE of a game of poker when his phone rang. It was on the table in front of him and the vibrations made the chips dance across the table.
“Afternoon, Ben,” he answered the phone after a glance at the screen to see who the caller was.
“Are you sober?” Bright asked without preamble. He knew his friend hadn’t been drunk since he left the base hospital, but neither had he been completely sober.
“Close enough for it not to matter. Why, what’s up?”
“Noir was released a few hours ago. He was picked up from prison by Renault and his lawyer and they drove straight to his vineyard,” Bright told him. “If you still insist on going through with this idiocy, you have about sixty-five hours to get to France, meet with Noir, and get him on tape. I was able to persuade Lejour to give you until nine a.m. two days from now. It gives you a bit of extra time, but not much. No-one will blame you if you decide to leave the assignment and let Ney and his team bring in Dubois and Renault and do things that way.”
“We’ve been over this already. I’m going, so stop trying to dissuade me.” Luke surrendered his hand in the game and pushed his chair away from the table, leaving his chips to be divided amongst the remaining players. They weren’t playing for money, so it didn’t matter. “I should be able to get to the airport in about three hours, so get me a booking on the first flight to Paris after that. I’ll need a hotel booking as well.”
He could make the arrangements himself, but he figured Bright could manage it quicker and easier since he could use his position with Interpol to push the arrangements through in the face of any trouble resulting from booking at the last minute.
**
PARIS
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WHILE HIS LUGGAGE WAS being loaded into the boot, Luke slowly manoeuvred into the passenger seat of the taxi. He would have preferred to hire a car and drive himself, but with his arm so heavily bandaged and strapped up there was no way he could manage it.
Throughout the drive to his hotel, he kept an eye out for any sign the cab was being followed. It was a force of habit for him to be so cautious, he had no real concerns about being tailed just then since he was working with Interpol. It was a strange situation for him, but he was used to strange situations, so he didn’t let it trouble him.
The first thing he did once he was alone in the room Bright had booked him into was dig out his painkillers. He downed a couple of them with whisky from the minibar and then, his immediate needs dealt with, he settled on the bed with the room service menu.
The sandwiches he ordered served to quiet his rumbling stomach and once he finished them, he changed his bandages. It was a difficult task to manage on his own and with only the use of one hand, but he got the job done after a couple of false starts, and when he was finished, he put his head down for a nap.
**
THE MOMENT HIS WATCH beeped, Luke’s eyes flew open and he awkwardly pushed himself up, swinging his legs around so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He sat there for a moment while he breathed through the pain the sudden movement had provoked, and then he groped on the bedside table for his phone and dialled from memory the number Bright had given him.
“Olivier Boucher?” he asked when the call was answered.
“Who is this?” Olivier asked, blinking rapidly in the darkness as he tried to focus on the luminous numbers of the clock on his bedside cabinet. He didn’t recognise the voice and he felt a twinge of concern at being woken in the middle of the night by someone he didn’t know, someone who had his private number, which so far as he was aware was known to only a handful of people.
“I’m the man Jean-Paul employed to deal with your boss’ problems in Spain. I want you to deliver a message to Jean-Paul for me, tonight.”
“Why don’t you give him the message yourself?” Olivier asked. He was annoyed at having been woken but also a little cautious about upsetting the hitman. “I know you know where he lives.”
“He’s being watched, as I’m sure you know. It was difficult enough to contact him the first time without being seen. I’m not about to take the risk again. You are a known associate of his, though, and can contact him without arousing additional suspicion. I want you to tell him that I’m waiting for the money I’m owed, and he is to go to the Hotel De Vere tonight to explain why I haven’t been paid. If he doesn’t have a good reason, or he doesn’t turn up, I’ll be paying him a visit, regardless of the surveillance team watching him. I’m sure he won’t like it if I have to do that.” He was bluffing, he was in no shape to even think about doing anything to Renault just then, but he didn’t imagine either Boucher or Renault knew that.
He gave one last instruction and then he hung up.
**
CURSING, JEAN-PAUL all but fell out of bed and sleepily stumbled from the bedroom so he could answer the ringing of his doorbell.
“What the hell do you want, Olivier?” he demanded when he saw who was at the door. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Of course I do,” Olivier said tiredly. “I’m here to deliver a message. Can we go inside? We don’t want anyone to hear the message I’ve been given for you.” As soon as Jean-Paul stepped back he entered the apartment.
“So, what’s so bloody urgent?” Jean-Paul asked after closing the door behind Boucher. “Has Philippe got a new problem he needs sorting?”
“Don’t you think Philippe would have called you himself if the message was from him?” Olivier said more sharply than he intended. He was barely awake and in danger of falling asleep on his feet.
“Okay, so your message isn’t from Philippe. Who the hell is it from, and what is it?” Jean-Paul asked irritably.
Olivier looked around cautiously, as if he expected to find an Interpol agent hiding in a corner of the room, before he said anything. “I got a call a while ago from your hired killer, Caldwell,” he said finally. “He wants you to meet him at the Hotel De Vere, tonight.”
“Did he say why, or why he didn’t come here, or even why he contacted you instead of me?”
“Try asking one question at a time,” Olivier said. “I’m too tired to deal with a barrage. He said he doesn’t want to contact you directly because of the surveillance team watching you, and he insisted that you meet him tonight to explain why he hasn’t been paid the rest of his fee. If you don’t go and see him, he implied that he’ll kill you, and I’m not sure he’ll settle at just you. I don’t know about you, but I value my life at more than two and a half million pounds.”
“You’re used to tricky verbal manoeuvring, what do you suggest I tell him? What do I give him as a reason for not paying him?” Even if he had been more awake, Jean-Paul wasn’t sure he could have thought of a reason good enough to satisfy Caldwell.
“Why don’t you tell him the truth,” Olivier suggested as he smothered a yawn. “I’m sure he’ll understand not being paid until you and Philippe knew he was alive and not under arrest. I know if I was in his position I would.”
“That’s a great comfort,” Jean-Paul said acidly. “Where did you say he wants me to meet him? The Hotel De Vere? What time?”
“He didn’t say. He just said you’re to go there tonight, and if you don’t, he’ll come looking for you and you won’t like it.”
“I don’t imagine I would. Given what he managed to do in Spain, I don’t want to piss him off.”
“Oh yes, he told me to give you this.” Olivier handed over his mobile phone. “I guess he wants to contact you on a number he’s confident isn’t being monitored.” He knew that Interpol and the police would have loved to be able to monitor his phone number but getting a warrant for that was tricky, if not to say nearly impossible, because of his position as a lawyer and the legally privileged nature of phone calls between his client and him.
**
JEAN-PAUL HAD GONE no more than a couple of steps across the lobby of the Hotel De Vere when Olivier’s phone rang. Certain that it was Luke Caldwell, and not sure what to expect, he answered the phone cautiously.
“Hello.”
“Take the left-hand lift to the seventh floor.”
How Caldwell knew he had arrived at the hotel, he didn’t know, but he followed the instructions he had been given without hesitation. He kept the phone to his ear as he rode the lift to the seventh floor, but it wasn’t until the doors opened and he stepped out that he received further instructions.
“Walk round to the stairs and take them down to the third floor. When you get there, call for the lift and get into the one on the right.”
Bemused, and feeling more than a little stupid, Jean-Paul gave serious thought to forgetting the whole thing and going home. If it hadn’t been for the ease with which Caldwell had managed to get into his apartment on two separate occasions, and what he could have done to him had he been of a mind, he might well have left. Instead, he turned and headed along the corridor, following the sign that pointed to the stairs. He guessed Caldwell was having him go up and down the hotel to make sure he wasn’t being followed, but he couldn’t help thinking that the precautions were over the top.
“Take the lift to the top floor and get out.”
The order came the moment he stepped into the lift on the third floor, leaving Jean-Paul to wonder how Caldwell could possibly know his movements. It was obvious the hitman knew exactly where he was, but he didn’t see how that was possible.
The phone in his hand went dead as the lift approached the top floor, and Jean-Paul took that as a sign that there would be no more manoeuvring. He hoped he was right for he was too tired to spend any more time going up and down the hotel to avoid people he couldn’t see and wasn’t convinced were there.
When the doors slid open, he stepped out and found himself face to face with Caldwell, or rather with the gun Caldwell was holding. With an effort he looked past the gun, the muzzle of which was pointed right at his face, and saw that Dubois’ information had been accurate, as it always was. The arm not holding the gun was heavily bandaged and supported by a sling.
The corridor was too dark for him to see Caldwell’s face clearly, but he didn’t need to. The gun was enough to make him stand still and wait for the hitman to say or do something. He couldn’t even bring himself to ask a question, he simply stood there, frozen to the spot.
Caldwell waited until the lift doors closed and then he said a single word, “Strip.”