“I have to go,” Claudia said as she reached him. “They called a task force meeting and they said I could be there. Duty calls.”
He stood and dipped into his pocket for money to pay for their drinks. As he counted out change on the table the motorcycle drifted closer, out of the center of the road toward them. The passenger had his hand inside his leather coat and seemed to be adjusting his position.
Hugo realized too late what was happening.
Claudia had moved close to the curb to let him out, and was wrestling with the zipper on her bag as she tried to put her phone away. Hugo shouted her name and she looked up, eyes wide, at the sound of his voice.
He sprang forward as the motorcycle passenger pulled a small, dark object from inside his coat. He flung himself at Claudia and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, using the weight of his body to pull her to the pavement. People behind him screamed and he heard the crash of cups and plates as the café’s patrons scattered. As he hit the sidewalk, Hugo heard the distinctive crack of a pistol and he felt Claudia's body lurch. He tried to roll on top of her but she cried out, pushing herself up as if trying to run.
Two more shots split the air. Claudia cried out again and fell.
Hugo looked up as the driver twisted the throttle, and he saw the rear wheel smoke as it fought for traction. He reached for his own gun, but with a roar of exhaust and squeal of rubber, the tire gripped the road and the bike leapt away from the curb. The passenger clung on as the machine fish-tailed past two parked cars and into traffic, and Hugo dared not shoot.
He tucked his gun away and crawled toward Claudia. His knees and one elbow throbbed from the fall, but he felt no other surges of pain. Claudia lay face down on the sidewalk, a ribbon of blood spreading from her body to the curb.
He slipped her scarf from around her neck and rolled her gently onto her back to see how badly she was hit. He saw two wounds, a graze to the outside of her left shoulder and a more severe wound to her left forearm. He ran a hand over her scalp and felt a significant bump, which explained her unconsciousness. He pressed the scarf against the gash in her lower arm to stem the flow of blood.
“Claudia, can you hear me?” His voice was urgent.
She groaned and tried to move, her mouth twisting in pain, her voice a whisper. “Hugo…”
“Hang in there, you're going to be fine, OK?” He meant it, the wounds did seem relatively superficial, but inside he was boiling with anger at whoever had done this. He put his head by hers. “I promise, Claudia, you'll be just fine.”
He heard the wail of sirens in the distance, and behind him several people started to edge out of the café, moving fearfully toward them.
A woman pushed her way through and knelt beside Hugo. She said something he couldn't understand and when he just stared, she pointed to herself and said in English, “Doctor.”
Hugo nodded and held still as the woman checked Claudia's vital signs. She took off her own white scarf and pressed it onto the bleeding shoulder, and it turned red almost instantly. Hugo looked at Claudia's face. Where she'd seemed pale to him before, she now looked like a ghost, her skin translucent and her lips gray. The doctor held her pulse at the wrist, and she caught Hugo looking at her. She frowned.
The sirens were louder now and Hugo looked down the street. Car by car, the traffic on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré nosed into the curb to make way for a police car and, right behind it, an ambulance.
The emergency vehicles pulled up where the motorcycle had been just minutes before and a baby-faced medic leapt out of the ambulance and ran to them. Hugo moved out of the way as the medic began to cut Claudia's shirt sleeve off. That done, he swiftly taped a large gauze pad onto her shoulder wound.
The bleeding seemed to have slowed, but Hugo knew that if he was wrong about it being a graze, and the bullet was still in there, an artery could rupture and kill her in minutes. The young man double-checked her dressings and, satisfied, nodded to his colleague, who had inserted an IV line and was finishing up with a neck brace. Claudia moaned when, on a silent count, they eased her onto a stretcher, raised it up, and rolled her swiftly to the back of their vehicle. Hugo moved to climb in with her but a uniformed gendarme stepped away from a bystander and stopped him.
“You are family, monsieur?”
“No, a friend.”
“And are you hurt?”
“No.”
“I'm sorry, we need you to stay here and tell us what happened.”
Hugo gestured vaguely to the crowd. “Let them tell you, they saw everything.”
“We will take all their statements, monsieur,” the gendarme said.
“And I'll give you mine later.”
“Non. That is not how it works.”
Hugo briefly contemplated pulling out his embassy credentials but resisted. Every police contact like this had to be logged and explained, and the ambassador wouldn't want too many more explanations from him. “Look,” said Hugo, pointing to the café. “They know as much as I do.”
“I don't think so, monsieur. From what I have heard so far, you were the intended target.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tom laid a hand on his friend's shoulder, then stooped and put a steaming mug on the low coffee table in front of Hugo. “Here, this always works.”
“Is that tea?”
“I know, the Brits can't cook for shit, but they do know their magic potions. Trust me, tea is a magic potion.” He sat down in the chair beside Hugo and grimaced. “Just promise me we won't be watching any of that cricket crap.”
“You could learn from that game, you know. Politeness, civility, that kind of thing.”
“I do just fine without.” He looked at Hugo for a moment. “You sure you're OK?”
“I am, yes.” Hugo sat back and stared into the fireplace. “I just hope she is.”
“Not every day you get shot at and save someone's life, so you worry about her and I'll worry about you.”
“Thanks.” Hugo smiled. “But don't, I'm fine. What the hell were you doing all day?”
“Souvenir shopping,” Tom said.
“All day?”
“No, not all day,” said Tom. “I'll admit that I did go nose around the offices of the SBP, but I didn't talk to anyone.”
“Or upset anyone?”
“No, nothing like that.” Tom sipped his tea and looked at his friend over the rim. “Unlike you, apparently.”
“Apparently.” Hugo's phone rang. “Ah, Monsieur de Roussillon. How is she?”
“Tired. But doing well.” Roussillon sounded rattled, the first time Hugo had witnessed a dent in the façade. “She's lost some blood but she wasn't too badly hurt. The police told me what happened, that you saved her life.”
“I'm sorry I didn't do a better job. They told me I was the target.”
“I don't understand. Why would someone want to kill you?”
“It's complicated.”
“Well, it makes no sense to me.”
“None of it makes sense, Monsieur de Roussillon. Don't worry about that end of things, just take care of Claudia.”
“I just wanted to thank you for trying to help her. After her husband was killed by those people…” The old man sighed. “And please, you saved my daughter's life, you should call me Gérard.”
“Very well.” Hugo looked up and saw Tom scribbling a note. It read: the book. “Can I ask a favor of you, Gérard? Two of them, actually.”
“Mais oui. Anything.”
“First, call the hospital and tell them I can visit Claudia. I tried and they wouldn't let me in, I guess she's under police guard.”