A whistle blew. Sauvage slowed to a stop well shy of the try line and went back to help the big guy to his feet. “You didn’t roll that ankle, did you, Mfune?”
Mfune smiled, shook his head, and said in the clipped French of West Africa, “Nice move, though.”
“Keep them guessing, embrace the chaos,” he said. “It’s the only way to survive and win a battle. Any battle.”
“Best tactic,” Mfune agreed.
The other players were drinking water and gathering their gear. Practice was over.
Sauvage said, “I think we have time for a few rounds before the lecture, don’t you?”
“If we’re quick about it.”
They grabbed their bags and water bottles and hurried off the field, crossing an equestrian track and parking area to get to a three-story, tan-colored building. They passed through double doors, went to a locker room, stored their cleats and practice jerseys, and retrieved their pistol cases.
After signing into the fifty-meter range in the basement, they received 9-millimeter ammunition, ear protection, and shooting glasses.
They set human assailant silhouette targets at thirty-five meters, loaded their MAC 50 pistols, and fired in five quick, two-round bursts until their weapons were empty. When they called back the targets, they saw that four of Mfune’s shots were to the forehead, and six clustered over the heart.
All ten of Sauvage’s bullets, however, had patterned tight between the eyes. They cased their pistols, turned in their protective gear, and returned to the locker room. Drying off after a shower and shave, Sauvage moved to his locker, already forcing his complex mind to compartmentalize.
The uniform helped as it always did.
In short order, he was dressed in French Army-issued khaki shirt and trousers, a black tie, and a green commando sweater with epaulets. Polished black shoes and a green garrison cap completed the transformation.
He shut his locker door. Mfune was dressed and ready as well.
Mfune gave him a crisp salute and said, “Major Sauvage.”
“Captain Mfune,” Sauvage replied.
“I don’t know why these guest lectures always occur at night,” Mfune complained softly. “And tonight of all nights.”
“At ease, Captain,” Sauvage said. “We’ve got a few hours before AB-16 is launched.”
The French Army officers left the locker room and walked outside across a cobblestone courtyard. Other men and women in uniform were already hurrying into a two-story buff-colored building through light-blue doors in need of paint. Next to the door, a brass plaque read, “École de Guerre.”
War School.
Chapter 5
5:15 p.m.
LOUIS WAS RIGHT about plumber being the perfect disguise.
We passed four or five small groups of menacing-looking types, and as soon as they’d had a hard stare at our plumber’s logo, they relaxed and looked away. The last group was out in front of the entrance to the address we’d been given, a building at the rear of Les Bosquets.
I remembered enough from high school French class to understand when one of the guys asked where we were going. Louis never broke stride, just went past him saying something I couldn’t follow. It seemed to do the trick, however, because no one trailed us into the lobby, which featured poor lighting; a wall of mailboxes, many broken; and a cement floor that was cracked and offset in several places.
“What did you tell those guys?” I asked.
“I said that the toilet in 412 was backed up and there’s shit all over the place. It shuts down their curiosity every time.”
We didn’t have to use a buzzer, because there was no buzzer or security of any kind. A young Muslim woman in black robes and head scarf came down the stairs and glanced at us with enormous brown eyes that showed suspicion until they focused on the logos on our jumpsuits. She nodded and went on. Two Asian teenagers came bouncing down the stairs as we climbed, and never gave us a second glance. Nor did the African woman carrying a load of laundry.
“I’ve got to remember this,” I muttered to Louis as I followed him toward a cement staircase.
“Plumbing is a beautiful thing,” he replied.
When we reached the fourth floor of the tenement we opened the door into an empty hallway with a rug frayed down to the floorboards. The smells of the place hit me all at once: lamb cooking in garlic and onions, cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke, and the odor of too many people living in tight quarters.
The apartment walls and doors could not have been very thick or insulated, because a general din filled the passage: babies crying, pots banging, men shouting, women shouting back, televisions and music blaring in Arabic and other languages I couldn’t identify. It all felt depressing-suffocating, even-and I’d been in the building less than three minutes. Louis said there were people who’d lived in Les Bosquets their entire lives, and I began to understand some of the pressures that contributed to the riots.
But why had Wilkerson’s granddaughter come here of all places?
Louis knocked on the door to 412. Several moments later, a woman’s voice asked who we were, and Louis replied that we were from Private and had been sent by Kim’s grandfather.
A minute passed before a dead bolt was thrown. The door opened on a chain, and a wary woman who looked Polynesian and was wearing a blue skirt and floral blouse looked out at us, and asked to see our identification. We showed it to her, and she shut the door.
Nothing happened for several minutes, and Louis was about to knock again when we heard the chain slide, and the door opened. Louis stepped inside a dimly lit, narrow hallway, and I followed.
The door shut behind us, and I turned to find myself face-to-face with Kimberly Kopchinski. In her late twenties now, wearing jeans, a black blouse, and a rectangular silver thing on a chain around her neck, she was undeniably beautiful in person. But I could tell by the color of her skin and the way she held herself that she’d been through some terrible physical ordeal recently, and that she was very, very frightened.
We introduced ourselves and showed her the badges and identifications.
“How do I know my grandfather sent you?” she asked.
I showed her Sherman’s text and the picture of her. Kim stared at the picture for several moments as if she barely remembered the girl in it.
“He says you’re in danger,” I said.
“I am in danger,” she said.
“He said something about drug dealers?”
“I just need somewhere to go, to disappear for a while,” she said in a strained whisper. “Can you help me do that?”
“We can,” I replied. “But it helps if we know who we’re hiding you from, Kimberly.”
Her face twisted with inner pain, and she said, “Call me Kim. And can we have this conversation later? Once I’m somewhere safe? I can’t stay here anymore. My friend’s husband is coming home from Lyons in a few hours. He doesn’t know I’m here, and if he did I’d be…”
Her lower lip quivered.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Kopchinski,” Louis said. “You are under the care and protection of Private Paris now. Already you could not be safer. We’ll take you to the same hotel where Jack is staying.”
“A hotel?” Kim said, alarmed. “No, that’s too public.”
Louis said soothingly, “This hotel is the most discreet in Paris. Already I have you registered there under an alias.”
The Polynesian woman emerged from a doorway at the other end of the hall carrying a canvas bag. She set it down and tapped on her watch.
Kim appeared to be torn, but nodded, and went to the woman. She talked quietly to her for several moments before hugging her. Both women looked distraught when they parted.
Grabbing the bag, Kim said, “Let’s go.”
We got more scrutiny leaving with her than we had when entering, and plenty of hostile glances, but no one challenged us directly. With Kim in the backseat and Louis starting the Mia, I thought we were home free. Thirty minutes from now we’d have her safely in a suite at the Plaza Athénée and I’d be talking to Sherman Wilkerson, trying to figure out a way to get her quickly to L.A.