"Is he dead?" Hannah asked.
"He will be in a second," Neeley said, pressing the end of the muzzle against his temple. She paused to see if Hannah would protest, but the other woman said nothing.
Neeley pulled the trigger and the head rocked from the silent internal explosion.
Hannah nodded acceptance. "Was he from the Cellar?"
Neeley looked at the body. "I don't know. I don't think so. It's strange, he didn't ask about the tape or the papers. This guy just wanted us dead. But if it's not the Cellar, how did he know we'd be here?" Neeley grabbed Hannah's arm. "Let's get out of here."
The two women made it out of the park without speaking to each other. Neeley cleaned the wounded flesh of Hannah's cheek once they were safely at the car.
“The question is what do we do about Rue d'Adelshoffen in Schiltigheim?" Neeley asked.
Hannah kept gingerly poking her face and checking it in the rearview mirror. "Let's have an early lunch and maybe find a plastic surgeon."
Neeley grabbed the other woman's hand. "Leave it alone. You'll infect it for God's sakes. You want to go have lunch while armed men are lurking about?"
Hannah rolled her eyes. "Every meal I've had with you has been life threatening. I say we find a very public place. The Cellar wouldn't shoot through the lunch crowd. I think we need a little time to catch our breath and think for a moment."
“If it wanted to bad enough, the Cellar would blow up the lunch crowd,” Neeley said.
Hannah shook her head. “There’s more going on here than we know. Don’t you sense it?”
“What do you mean?”
“This magical mystery tour we’re on. You say it’s because Gant needed to protect you and hide things. I don’t buy that completely. And my husband. Disappearing like that all of a sudden. Why did Nero send him running?.”
Neeley frowned. “Good question. Why would Nero do that?”
“I don’t know yet,” Hannah said, “but before this is over, I think we need to find out.” She nodded. “Let’s do lunch.”
Neeley agreed to a quick lunch but had to add: "I wonder what's at that address?"
Hannah pulled Gant's message from her waistband, the only place she could stick it during her frantic search for a pocket. "By the way, I know what you did."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't be coy, Neeley. It's not a good look for you. I know that you set me up to dig through my clothes so that man would think I had a gun. What if he'd shot me?"
"With the silencer and the locked breach I knew he had to work the slide to chamber a second round. I knew I'd have time. I threw the rock to screw up his aim on the first shot."
Hannah pushed her fading blond hair away from her face, careful not to disturb the stinging slice there. "Well, I think that's a little presumptuous. What if you'd been wrong or he hadn't been distracted?"
"You'd be dead." Neeley started the car and leaned back to check traffic. Neeley pulled the small car smoothly into the heavy traffic. "I want to go to that address before we leave. If we're lucky, we have a few hours before they find us and we can't stay in public places forever. Eventually the public goes home. We need to be in the air before nightfall."
"Neeley," Hannah said, "if we only have a few hours, don't you think we should leave France now? Getting that tape is our only chance, not running off on some goose-chase, no pun intended."
Neeley remained silent and Hannah knew it was hopeless. Hannah also had a very good idea what was at that address and she was surprised Neeley didn’t. But she kept her peace, not wanting to ruin the upcoming meal. The lunch traffic was so chaotic that Hannah soon forgot her complex thoughts and concentrated on learning and using the obscene gestures directed toward them by the irritated French drivers.
The pungent odor of flowers made Racine want to gag. His nose had always been sensitive and what others found sweet he found cloying and vaguely frightening.
He hated parks and this one was the worst. Fucking traffic getting here was a nightmare and it seemed that once again he had lost the bitches. He was definitely grateful that he wouldn't have to contact Nero with more bad news. This time he knew where the women were going thanks to his directional mike and their big mouths.
Racine was chewing on a piece of French bread, a long, thin baguette. A small piece of the crusty loaf fell to the ground. Racine snarled as a squirrel darted across the grassy expanse and poked at the bread. These park squirrels were pretty daring and it only scampered off when Racine's foot swooshed the air alongside its quivering tail.
He looked around and caught a few looks of disdain. A good time for a tower and a sniper rifle. He was muttering as he tossed the remaining bread into the lake. Let the rodent work for it.
As he sauntered off, he tried to steady his anger with two thoughts: Nero didn't know he was in Strasbourg and the two bitches were having their last day. Screw the tape. Nero needed another tape like Congress needed another asshole. Fucker probably had the entire 20th Century on tape or that dotted paper he was always running his fingers over. Besides, this was personal now. Racine had only to think of Kansas City and his guts would twist until he thought he could kill with just the pure energy of his hate.
Racine's car was on the other side of the park but he was in no hurry. His directional mike had picked up the women's conversation clearly. Going to lunch, he thought. Maybe they'd do a little shopping again. Women. Never would a woman be a true professional.
He worked his way through the park, backtracking the women, and discovered the body of the man they'd killed. Racine stared at the corpse. He’d never seen him before, but that didn’t rule out the Cellar employing him.
He checked the body and noticed the close range death shot. Had to be Neeley. The matted brains from the knock on the head he gave to the blond. A bloody mess she was. Bash in some guy's brains and want to eat. That was sick for a civilian. Yes, Racine decided, as he continued to his car, that woman was very sick for a civilian. He couldn't wait to kill her.
CHAPTER 26
Lunch was pretty much symbolic as neither woman could muster up much of an appetite. Neeley toyed with the fruit tart on her plate and tried to get past all that had happened in the park.
“Who do you think the man was?” she asked Hannah.
“I don’t know,” Hannah admitted, her thoughts elsewhere.
“If he was from the Cellar why didn’t they stop us in Atlanta? Or have someone waiting when we got off the plane?”
“Good questions,” Hannah said. “I need more data before I can give you an answer.”
“’More data’?”
“More information,” Hannah said. “We’re behind on the old information curve here.”
“’Information curve’?”
Hannah stared at Neeley. "Do you have a problem with me? I’m doing the best I can.”
Neeley backtracked. "I'm sorry. Let's not get into anything right now or right here.”
"No, Neeley, I've listened to your story and while parts of it horrify and even anger me, it is not what I see in front of me now. And I don’t know for sure what you see in me but I don’t think you know enough. Everything in your past put you in a place where you chose to save my life. So it couldn’t have been all bad."
Neeley put her napkin on the table. "We need to go."
"No." The retort was harsh enough that Neeley dropped obediently back onto her chair.
Hannah's voice was cold. "I have a story to tell, too. One I've never told before because my first foster parents warned me that no good could come from anyone knowing my past. They were simple, ignorant people who didn't know any better, but I was an obedient child who became an obedient adult.
"In the past few days I've realized my entire life has been dominated by only one desire: I wanted no shit in my life. That was important to me because as a young child, shit was all there was. Well, given the fact that we just killed some man over a piece of paper, I would say I now have plenty of shit in my life, so the old rules don't apply anymore."