A plumbing van waited on the curb, a yellow sign PLOMBERIE 24/24 painted on the side panels.
“And you looked like a nice girl,” said the Russian rubbing his red eyes as he shoved Aimée and Gassot down the hall. “Nice legs, that waif-look, half-wild and free. I like.”
“You’re not my type.”
“You never know until you try,” he said, feeling her up under her sweater.
“Later, Sergei,” Blondel said, opening the back doors.
“Keep your hands off! Help!” She screamed and kicked, hoping someone on the street would hear them. But then Jacky blocked the view in the three seconds it took to bundle her and Gassot into the van.
She and Gassot were thrown onto the van floor, the door locked. The engine gunned and the van took off, throwing them against the metal racks of supplies. No side windows. Just a small back window.
Jumbled thoughts came to her. Linh’s father had known about the jade! What a world class liar Julien de Lussigny was, acting as if he’d never heard of the jade! He’d said his father would turn in his grave if he knew of its existance. Liar! When his godfather Dinard had put it up for auction, De Lussigny had probably helped him.
The van swerved and she rammed into the wall.
“Gassot, you ok?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Think!” she said.
But he shook his head, defeated.
Maybe not this time.
She scanned the dim interior of the van. The divider between the driver’s compartment and the rear of the van, where a window had been, was blocked by a metal panel now. Had Blondel used this van to kidnap René? She didn’t think they were going far, otherwise they’d have tied them and taped them up. A whiff of pepper spray wafted from the front so she knew the Russian was up there. Jacky? Where were Regnier and Blondel?
White plastic pipe, hoses, and plumbing equipment were scattered over the van floor.
“The pipe’s not strong enough to break the rear window safety glass,” she said, rooting through the equipment. “We need a wrench, a pair of pliers, something made of metal to shatter it.”
Nothing.
She noticed Gassot’s old-fashioned flesh colored wooden leg.
“How much does that weigh?”
“Enough.”
“If you took it off, would it be strong enough to smash the glass?”
“Then how would I run away?”
Good point.
The van careened around a corner, throwing him against her.
“You jump first, then I follow,” she said, “I will pick you up.” If neither of them broke any limbs, it might work.
He shook his head.
“Got any other ideas?”
“No wonder our plan backfired,” Gassot said, his eyes faraway. “The jade was not meant for us. It’s sacred.”
Perhaps. But she had to get him back to earth. They didn’t have much time.
“The old Cao Dai priest was right,” Gassot said. “Remember the old saying, Ngoc linh phai . . .”
“Don’t go mystic on me, Gassot. That lock’s rusted,” she said. “Lean on the side and try kicking it. You need a new artificial leg anyway.”
The van slowed down. She had to galvanize him to action.
“Quick, Gassot. Brace yourself against me. Now! Kick!”
And he started kicking.
He missed the lock. Pounding came from the driver’s compartment.
“Try again.”
Gassot kicked. Again and again. Only a small bulge where the doors joined. But a thin lick of streetlight showed through.
“Keep kicking.” She grabbed several white plastic pipes from the floor and wedged them into the opening he had created.
“Harder, Gassot!”
She braced him and worked the pipes back and forth. One cracked and splintered and she shoved another in. At each corner, the van slowed, then shot ahead, to throw them off balance.
The door buckled. But the lock wouldn’t give. She felt the gears downshift, heard the brakes screech. Then a sickening crunch of metal and a crash that sent them sprawling. They’d run into another vehicle. The van shuddered to a halt.
“Get up, try again, Gassot.” Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. “Give it all you’ve got.”
He strained, hammering the lock with quick jabs of his foot. She twisted the pipes back and forth and the door burst open.
“Now,” she said, pulling Gassot up and dashing out the door.
They landed on the surprised Russian, his eyes still red and tearing, in a crosswalk on rue Legendre. Smoke billowed from the mangled van now enmeshed with a small truck. The angry red-faced truck’s driver had Jacky in an armlock on the pavement.
“Run, Gassot,” she said, kicking the Russian in the head.
No passersby. Only a shuttered violin shop and a boucherie. An old woman peered out from the boucherie in the dim evening dusk.
“Call the police,” she yelled.
But the old woman shut the door.
The rumble and clack of a train below reminded her that rue Legendre bridged the rail lines. A black Peugeot screeched to a halt behind them. Regnier and Blondel loomed on the pavement.
Blocked in both directions. And a prime shooting target. Gassot stood immobile, like a frightened deer in the car headlights. They had to take advantage of the confusion.
“I hope you can climb, Gassot,” she said. She grabbed him by the shoulder.
“What do you mean?”
“Hurry. Metal criss-cross beams support these railway bridges.” At least they did under the Pont Neuf outside her window. She prayed this bridge had them, too.
Chunks of concrete flew as bullets hit the ledge. She moved her hands, her toes reaching for footholds on the metal struts, trying not to look down and see the huge drop beneath them.
Gray-green criss-cross beams ran below. Dizzied, she held tight to the faded green steel span. Electric freight trains with yellow lighted windows clattered below on the dark, glistening metal tracks. A narrow gray-ribbed walkway for workmen ran parallel underneath, spanning the rail lines.
“Now, Gassot . . . here!” she said, reaching with her legs and finding solid metal.
And somehow he did it. Landed next to her on the narrow walkway.
“Keep moving, Gassot, we can make it. It’s not far.” She pointed to a ladder built into the stone side wall. At least they could climb it instead of getting picked off like flies.
Grit flaked off the steel girders as bullets peppered the steel, pinging and sparking.
Bad idea.
“Get down, Gassot.”
And then her feet slid and she tripped on metal rebar scraps. Airborne, she grabbed the rusted railing and fell against it. Rebar pieces sailed past her. She grabbed one before it fell and crouched down, pulling out her cell phone, and punched in the number.
“Allô. Pleyet! We’re under the rail bridge on rue Legendre,” she shouted, hunching down.
“Sightseeing?”
“Regnier’s men are shooting at us. Isn’t Interpol interested in the jade?”
More shots pinged on steel and Gassot fell, knocking her phone into the air. Merde!
The snub nose of a pistol edged around a metal girder. And then she saw a blue-sleeved arm. She lifted the sharp, cold rebar piece and swung with all her might. Only air. She tried again, this time hitting something solid. Heard a yell muffled by the sound of clacking train wheels. She pulled it back. Swung again.
A hand with a pistol appeared in front of her face. She banged the rebar into the knuckles. Heard a clanging and the crunch of flesh.
And then Blondel whipped past her, flapping his arms like a bird. The wind took his scream. She fell back against the girder. When she looked down, the blue of his jacket lay sprawled on the roof of a freight car rumbling into the night.
She grabbed Gassot, pulled him toward the ladder in the stone wall a few steps away. Sweat ran down between her shoulders.