“His message said Rue Veon, do you know it?” Hugo said.
“Non. I'll call my office.” He dialed and, Hugo guessed from his tone, spoke to a subordinate. “Oui, Veon. V-E-O-N. What do you mean it doesn't exist? Look again.”
“Wait,” Claudia said, sitting forward. “Maybe he meant Rue Véron. With an r. He was texting, right? And in a hurry. Maybe he dropped the r.”
“Where is Rue Véron?” Hugo asked.
“Montmartre,” she said. “I had a friend who lives up there.”
“What kind of street is it?”
“Small, narrow. Residential only. You know, the typical Paris street with five- or six-story buildings. All apartments, I'd guess.”
“On my way,” Garcia said. He revved the car and peeled away from the curb before she'd finished giving directions. He handled the car well, sliding past slower traffic without using his siren, using the accelerator to get him out of trouble more often than the brake. In minutes they were at Pont de le Concorde and speeding past the US Embassy. The thought flashed through Hugo's mind to drop Claudia there. But Chabot had said “vite,” so time was against them.
Just past the embassy they hit traffic on Rue Royale, and Garcia swore under his breath. He then said what Hugo had been thinking. “This could be a trap.”
“No shit.” Tom sat forward. “Do you have backup available?”
“With about five minutes’ notice,” Garcia said.
“Don't call them in yet,” Hugo said. “If Chabot was right about Gravois having someone in your office we don't want them to know where we're going. Not until we get there. We can call in the cavalry just before we go in.”
The traffic broke up and Garcia stamped on the gas pedal. The car surged into a gap, then swerved across two lanes into a larger one. As they raced down Rue Royale, Garcia flipped his rear blue light on. “Don't want to get pulled over,” he said grimly. “Don't worry, I'll kill it when we get there.”
It took less than ten minutes and, as they approached Rue Véron, Garcia turned off the blue light and slowed. They turned onto Rue Lepic, everyone silent, eyes watching the street as if danger lurked behind the cars parked along the curb. Where Rue Lepic met Rue Véron, at its east end, Garcia stopped. He picked up the handset for the car's police radio and looked at Hugo.
“Time to call it in?”
“I don't think so.” Hugo undid his seatbelt. “There's a chance that no one will be there. If that's the case and we call it in, we've tipped our hand.”
“How about, if you're leaving me here,” Claudia said, “I call after five minutes or something?”
“Bon idée,” Garcia said.
“Yeah, good thinking,” Hugo said. “And there's one other thing we can do.” He took out his phone and dialed Emma. After reassuring her that Claudia's escape wasn't her fault, he asked for a favor. “Can you check number 21 Rue Véron? Find out who it belongs to.”
“Sure, it'll take me—”
“We're there right now, Emma, it needs to take no time at all.”
“Hold.”
Silence settled over the car as they waited. Claudia fiddled with her handbag, taking out her phone and making sure it was turned on. Garcia stared out of the windshield, muttering and checking his watch every few seconds. Tom sat next to Claudia, his eyes closed and head back, impervious to them all. After a minute, he sat up and reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a small pistol. Garcia watched.
“You have a license to carry that here?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“But you know how to use it?”
Tom just smiled.
Hugo saw Garcia open his mouth, so he spoke for Tom. “He's former CIA. I've seen him shoot the wings off a fly, drunk.”
Tom dropped the magazine out of the gun's handle and checked it. “To be fair, the fly was drunk too.”
Garcia hurrumphed and turned to look out of the front of the car.
“Hugo?” Emma's voice.
“Here. What do you have?”
“A lot of nothing. The house is like most, divided into apartments. It's five stories and the top one is empty. Fourth and third are owned by families, all clean, nothing of interest there.”
“French?”
“French names is all I can tell you. Both families have young kids, so they're probably not operating criminal dynasties.”
“OK,” said Hugo. “And the first two floors?”
“Owned by a foreign company called Tepes Properties. I tried to figure out who the directors or principals are, but this company is tucked three or four deep inside corporations and partnerships. No luck getting through those layers, that would take a while. And no idea who's living there now. Sorry.”
“That's what I expected,” Hugo said. “Although, you said the company was foreign. Romanian by any chance?”
“That's right,” Emma said. “I looked up the word and Tepes was the last name of Vlad the Impaler. A Romanian. But how did you know?”
“Lucky guess. Do you have a floor plan?”
“Yes, want me to fax it somewhere?”
“E-mail it, I can see it on my phone.”
A moment's silence. Then, “Done. Hugo, are you doing something dangerous?”
“A little, but don't worry.”
“Right, OK, if you're doing something dangerous but say not to worry, then I'll just make myself an egg sandwich and see if I can get a rerun of Oprah online.”
“Emma, stop. I'm not doing this by myself, I have the French police here.” One of them, anyway.
“What about the ambassador, does he know?”
“Most of it. I'll fill you in when we're done, OK? And when I said not to worry, I meant it. We'll be fine.”
Tom frowned and tapped his watch.
“I gotta go,” Hugo said. “Thanks for the help.” He hung up, cutting off more admonitions to be careful. “No clean link from the house to Dobrescu. Sounds like we'll need a team of lawyers to figure out who owns the place, but that itself tells us plenty.” He looked at Capitaine Garcia. “I've done this before, so has Tom. Do you mind if we take point? You'll get the credit if it works out, we'll take the heat if it doesn't.”
“Fuck that,” Tom muttered. “This thing goes bad, you're on your own.”
Garcia gave a wry smile. “Yes, that's probably best,” he said. “We don't do this cowboy stuff too much in Paris.”
“Thanks,” Hugo said. “And I'm hoping to avoid any shootouts. We go fast enough, we'll surprise them. Tom, we'll go in the front. Capitaine, cover the rear of the house and one of us will let you in that way. When we open the back door, capitaine, we'll bang on it three times so you know it's one of us. You hear three knocks, no shooting, d'accord?”
“D'accord.”
Hugo turned to Claudia and pointed down Rue Véron. “See where that street intersects? Our house is the one on the corner, on the right. Watch us when we go in. Tom will be behind me. If he waves his arm like a windmill, call in the cavalry. And Tom, you see one bad guy with a gun or any other type of weapon, even a butter knife, wave. OK? We don't want to take any chances.”
“Fine by me,” Tom said.
“One more thing, Claudia,” Hugo said. “If we go in without waving and you hear firecrackers, or see even one person you don't recognize running from the house, make the call.”
“So the only time I'm not calling for help is if the house is empty?” she asked. She was pale and her eyes flicked from face to face.
“Pretty much,” said Tom. “Unless granny opens the door and offers us a slice of cake and a cup of coffee.”
“Right. Now let's see where we're going,” Hugo said, opening his phone. “Here's the floor plan.”
The house was on the corner of Rue Véron and Rue Audran, and according to the plans Emma had sent, it had an old-fashioned, closed layout. The front door faced where the two streets met, opening into a foyer that serviced the whole building, including a staircase that led to the upper levels.