As police swarmed the Ukrainians, Rickets swept a jacket over Olivia.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Gerry,” she said.
“Don’t talk. Medic’s coming.”
“Did we get him?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “While you were unconscious, they gave enough clues for us to find the girls, and there was plenty of incriminating evidence. You got him.”
CHAPTER 2
Jake Slate stared at a pastel violet dress that cupped rounded breasts and cast oblong shadows under the setting summer sun. He shifted his gaze and watched the lady’s bare, sleek arm reach to quiet the infant in the cradle by her foot.
As the crying child fell silent, a blur of black whizzed by. Without breaking stride, a man yanked the cradle upward, and the infant was gone.
Jake leapt and knocked wine bottles from a waiter’s hands. Racing after a suited man who balanced the cradle under his arm, he rolled his ankle over a cobblestone, braced himself against a startled tourist, and accelerated.
He sprinted under the awning of a corner restaurant, sidestepped a startled elderly couple, and hurdled their Yorkshire Terrier. Gaining ground on the kidnapper, he followed him around another corner where three oriental men in identical suits blocked his path.
Behind the threesome, the fleeing man shifted the cradle to his other arm and yelled in Mandarin over his shoulder. The threesome converged on Jake.
What the hell is going on? he thought.
Jake lifted his knee and launched his instep at a head. He missed but twisted and drove his heel into a sternum. A suited man staggered back.
One man threw a punch. Jake deflected the arm, shifted to face the third man, but moved late. A kick knocked him to the ground. He couldn’t breathe, and his ribs ached. He looked up as an assailant returned his foot to the street and smirked.
Dizzy, Jake struggled to his feet. The trio closed in but stopped as the man with the stolen child yelled another command, and the suited men retreated and fled.
Jake winced as he stood and darted down an alley. A woman carrying baguettes gasped and pressed her back against a cracking plaster wall as he sprinted by.
The assailants disappeared behind a corner café. Jake pursued them onto a main road and found them encircling a black Mercedes. The kidnapper handed the infant to a thin man in a three-piece suit who placed the cradle on the street and folded back his breast pocket to expose a pistol.
“That’s close enough,” he said.
In his anger, Jake almost blurted his words in English but remembered to employ his southern Provencal French.
“Pardonnez moi,” he said.
“I know who you are, Mr. Slate.”
He knows my name, Jake thought.
“Give me back the child,” he said.
“I am sorry,” the thin man said. “I cannot.”
“If you hurt him,” Jake said, “I will hunt you down.”
“I do not wish to harm this child.”
“What the hell’s this about?”
“Insurance.”
“What?” Jake asked.
The thin man raised his eyebrows.
“Do you really not know why I must do this?” he asked.
Jake shrugged his shoulders.
“Renard is sly,” the man said, “keeping you ignorant, but you can no longer hide from your past. You are both deeply in my debt, and I will only return Renard’s child when he has completed his task. Tell him that our negotiations end here.”
Dumbfounded, Jake watched the oriental entourage duck into the car and abscond with his friend’s son.
After quick coaching from Pierre Renard, Jake had just lied to the police about failing to get a good look at his assailants, and the cops departed with minimal questioning.
Pierre doesn’t own the Avignon police, he thought, but he can rent them when needed.
Standing beside one of the Renard family’s limousines, he felt responsible for the abduction. Seeing the mother’s reaction exacerbated his suffering.
Having lost her child, Marie Renard had cried herself into exhaustion, and she clung to her husband’s shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Renard said. “Get in the car. Henri will take you back to the estate. I will reunite you and little Jacques soon.”
As Marie and the limousine left, Renard lit a Marlboro.
“This is not your fault,” he said.
“Who did this?” Jake asked.
“Young Li. The acting Taiwanese Minister of Defense. I just spoke to him to verify.”
“You just called the guy who kidnapped your only son?”
“He will not harm Jacques,” Renard said. “I would have him killed if he did, even though it would cost me my own life. Li knows this, and I just reminded him.”
“That would explain the tirade,” Jake said. “I’ve never heard you swear so much.”
“Make no mistake, Jake. Li has played his trump card, and I must honor it, but I will make him answer to it.”
Renard stamped out his cigarette.
“In fact,” he said, “I arranged to have my wife join my son as detainees on a Taiwanese military installation. Much as Li has aggravated me, Marie and Jacques will be safer under his guard.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t going to bring you into it,” Renard said.
Jake grabbed and scrunched Renard’s shirt collar.
“He knew my fucking name, Pierre! I’m in it.”
“And he has my fucking son, if you wish to play one-upmanship. Keep your wits about you and let go of me.”
Jake released him.
“He knows everything,” Renard said. “Certain men in Taiwan’s Defense Ministry know our affairs completely.”
“You didn’t say there were people watching us. The whole world is supposed to think we’re dead.”
“Use your head, man,” Renard said. “I risked everything when I failed to bring them the weapons. The Taiwanese knew everything about me — my client list, my recruits, my aliases. Li believes that we have unfinished business.”
“Oh really?” Jake asked. “Just because we promised nuclear weapons and didn’t deliver? Just because we sank the pride of their fleet and made off with a ton of their cash. Why didn’t you tell me they were watching us?”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have looked after myself,” Jake said.
“If you had strayed from my side, the Taiwanese would have killed you. Your knowledge of our failed operation is a risk. You’re alive because they believe I control you.”
“So I’m your puppet?” Jake asked.
“You’re my protégé, although I fear I can no longer protect you. Or my family, for that matter.”
“Why did they take Jacques?”
“To force me to take command of a submarine.”
An array of juxtaposed nightmares passed through Jake’s head as he sensed his past overtaking him.
“You’re kidding,” he said.
“Li wants me to clear out Chinese submarines from the Taiwan Straits, especially the Kilos, to help break the Chinese blockade.”
“That’s it?” Jake asked. “Just take a Taiwanese rust bucket against state of the art Chinese diesels?”
“No, a Pakistani Agosta class. Taiwan purchased the fourth Agosta 90B hull. For speed and secrecy during construction and delivery, they paid quite a premium for it.”
“Agostas are tough,” Jake said.
“I was hesitant to participate, but it seems I now have no choice. I was fooling myself to believe that I could avoid or delay this.”
“Li’s threatening you,” Jake said. “But he also mentioned negotiations. What’s your fee for this one?”
“Nothing. After our failed operation in Taiwan, I am in their debt.”