No Fortunate Son (24 page)

A
fter four solid hours of staring at the Bulgari store, I began to relax, wondering if we’d spooked them off the target because of our shenanigans in Brussels. Honestly, I felt a little relieved. Sort of wishing I were with Knuckles, getting some on a hit that had sanction instead of sitting here half praying nobody showed up. After Knuckles’s call I knew I was hanging way out over the ledge without any support.

Jennifer said, “How long do you want to stay?”

“Well, at least until they close. We know they’re after some special necklace, and they said it would be on display in the day, then locked up at night. The Pink Panthers aren’t sneaky safecrackers. They’re brazen daylight guys. The store closes, and we’re done for the day.”

“And after that?”

I thought about Kurt, and the fact that he’d ignored my call. I wasn’t sure what it meant. He wanted Kylie back more than life itself, but he’d hung me out to dry on a serious lead. And now wouldn’t talk to me. I didn’t know how to read those tea leaves.

I said, “I don’t know. We’ll get back to the hotel and reassess.”

She saw what I was thinking and said, “Kurt didn’t do that on purpose. Don’t wonder about his motives. There’s much more going on than our little hunt.”

“Yeah, inside I know that, but it’s still a little scary. Maybe something’s happened and he’s been forced to abandon us. I’m worried that we’re out here doing shit on our own now. No sanction whatsoever.”

She smiled and said, “Does that ever matter to you?”

“Well, yeah, it matters.”

“You mean like the sanction you got to bring in Nung?”

I hadn’t yet told Kurt about flying him over—or that he had to be paid—and she was gently reminding me that operations were fluid. I was doing what I did for the good of the mission, and so was Kurt. I said, “Point taken,” and returned to staring at the boring facade of the Bulgari store.

Located where two roads came together at an angle, it was situated on the point, with a door to the west and a door to the east. We’d found a café on the east side and had been watching for the better part of the day, drinking coffee.

The store was two stories tall and had some serious security, with a man just inside each door who actually unlocked them for patrons he deemed worthy to enter. Don’t look like you’re going to drop a quarter mil on jewelry? He’d just nod at you, indicating that you could head on down to another store to window-shop. The doors remained locked otherwise, with cameras everywhere, and two other roaming guards inside.

I looked at my watch and saw it was 4:58. I said, “Let’s call Nung. Head on back to the hotel. Figure out our next steps.”

Nung was currently driving our rental, parking at various locations until told to move but remaining close enough to engage when called.

“What are you thinking?”

“Honestly? I’m thinking about what I’m going to tell Nung. I can’t pay him for flying out here for nothing.”

She smiled and said, “Let me talk to him,” then, “Holy shit, Pike, take a look.”

I glanced at the store and saw a smoking-hot female being escorted by an older male. They stood outside the door, smiling, and were let in. Two minutes before closing.

One minute later, two other couples approached, the females dressed to the nines, and the males in suits. They were let in as well.

“Shit. This is it. Call Nung. Get him staged on this road.”

She started dialing, saying, “We don’t have the police. What’s the mission?”

“Catch that fuck Braden.”

Looking through plate glass, I saw the first couple start browsing the displays on the western side. Next to the guard at that door. The other two couples split, one headed to the interior of the store, and the other focusing on the displays near the eastern door. Near the guard.

I said, “Get him on the phone. It’s going to happen quick.”

And it did. I saw the eastern man pull something from his coat, and the guard at my door dropped like he’d been hit in the head with an axe handle. Looking through the glass, I saw the western door was empty. Two seconds later, the men were replaced by the two suits, both shoving in the earpieces of the door guards and looking as if they belonged. I couldn’t see the two roving security guys but knew they were down as well. The females took off their high heels and started racing through the store, smashing the glass in the displays and shoving gold into their bags.

I said, “Jesus Christ, they’re fast. This is about to be over. Where’s Nung?”

She held a finger up, speaking into the phone. “No, don’t pull up yet. Get where you can arrive in five seconds. No earlier.”

I saw a man on a motorcycle coming toward us on the eastern side, driving at an unhurried pace, keeping with the traffic. He had on a helmet, but I knew who it was.

I said, “Braden’s coming. Get Nung moving. We’re about to lose him.”

Jennifer relayed, and I watched impatiently as the bike pulled up to the eastern entrance. It sat there puttering, then one couple burst out of the exit. The man shoved a bulging canvas sack into the bike rider’s arms. I watched them run into an alley, seeing the woman toss her hat to the ground and whip off a wig.

They were gone.

I looked through the store, trying to find the others, but could see nothing. I knew they’d exited through the west door. And that they’d also gone through the profile change, altering their appearance with wigs and jackets.

I saw the bike hammer the throttle, headed to the Champs-Élysées, and shouted, “Where the hell is Nung?”

A Fiat slammed to a stop in front of us, and Jennifer said, “Here. Let’s go.”

We raced out of the café, the owner behind the bar screaming at us. I had no time to pay our bill and simply ignored him, piling into the back, Jennifer taking the passenger seat.

N
ung started driving, not saying a word, making me wonder what he thought he was doing. It was like Thailand all over again. The Terminator robot walking relentlessly forward with his last orders, calm and immune to chaos.

A tall man with a shock of crew-cut black hair, he looked vaguely Thai, but with a mix of something else. Exotic, he’d probably get more ass than a toilet seat if he weren’t so damn straightforward. I was pretty sure any woman who approached him would say one coy thing, and he’d answer with something honest, like, “I don’t seek females with small breasts.”

We approached the Champs-Élysées and he asked, “Destination?”

I said, “See that bike? The one headed away from the Arc de Triomphe? That’s the target. Stay on him.”

He took the turn, and I started thinking of options. From the front, Jennifer said, “We need to get him clean. We can’t take him down on the streets of Paris. We’ll all get locked up by the police.”

I cursed Kurt under my breath and said, “I know. We’ll follow to a bed-down site. Nung, don’t lose him, but don’t spike either.”

He said, “That may be a command I cannot accomplish. If forced, which is it? Don’t spike or don’t lose?”

I said, “Don’t lose. Whatever it takes, don’t let that fucker get away.”

We traveled down the thoroughfare, passing all the high-end stores and entering Franklin Roosevelt circle. We continued on, the stores falling away for tree-lined promenades, with palaces left and right. Jennifer said, “The Louvre is ahead. Is he doing something else?”

“No. No way.”

We hit a dead end at a large oval, and he turned south, crossing the Seine. I said, “He’s going home.”

He took a left on boulevard Saint-Germain and started weaving in and out of traffic, picking up the pace. I said, “Stick with him.”

Nung floored the accelerator, driving me into my seat. I shouted, “Jesus Christ, just keep him in sight.”

Nung said, “You need to be more clear.”

I looked at Jennifer, and she rolled her eyes, silently telling me,
He’s your crazy team member.

I said, “Nung, stay with him, but don’t kill us.”

He said, “You never specified anything about harm to us. Sorry.”

My mouth fell open, and he smiled. He said, “American joke.” Showing me for the first time he was at least human enough to have sarcasm.

We went through multiple roundabouts, the bike weaving in and out of traffic with us barely keeping up. I saw the helmet flick back to us and knew we were about to be burned.

“Okay, he’s starting to check. We keep this up, he’s going to try to lose us.”

Nung said, “What do you want me to do? Back off?”

“Yeah. Stay within the same light-block, though. Keep as far back as you can, but stay in his lane. I don’t want to lose him if he turns.”

We went another mile, and his helmet flicked back twice more. He split through a light, gave one more glance back, then took off.

I slapped the seat. “Christ. That’s it.”

Jennifer put her hand on Nung’s arm and said, “Catch him. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

Nung goosed the accelerator, and we began weaving through the traffic, like a lumbering hippo to his panther. He kept glancing back, going in and out, and we managed to maintain our inside-the-light distance. We both paused at a red, our vehicle two cars back, and he turned around and glared. For the first time, through the face shield, I saw he was a Caucasian with blue eyes. I said, “That’s him. That’s Braden.”

I opened the door, saying, “I’m taking him now. Pull up when I get him on the ground.”

Jennifer said, “Pike, we can’t get through the traffic if—”

Nung said, “He’s running the light.”

I slammed the door closed, saying, “Do the same. Get close. Take him down.”

Nung started driving like a maniac, scraping the chassis of the car as he ran by the traffic with two wheels over the curb. He punched through the light, honking his horn, then closed the distance, throwing Jennifer and me back and forth. To my front I saw a traffic circle with a statue of a giant lion, the cars leisurely going around.

Braden glanced back once, and his eyes went wide at how close we’d gotten. He hit the throttle, leaning over into the curve of the circle as if he were racing a superbike at Laguna Seca. He got halfway around and his left peg hit the ground, his foot scraping the asphalt. He lost control, the bike skittering into the roadway, sliding forward with a massive pile of sparks, him following behind on his back, skipping across the pavement.

We fought our way through the stop-and-go traffic, hampered by the cars ahead slamming on their brakes from the wreck. I saw Braden stand up, weave in a small circle like a drunk, then focus on us. He ripped the helmet from his head, his mouth open and panting. He shouted something I couldn’t hear, snatched the knapsack of jewels off the ground, and took off running through the traffic, cars skidding aside and horns blaring.

To Jennifer, Nung said, “Take the wheel,” and opened the door.

I did the same and saw Nung ahead of me, sprinting. Braden ran straight toward a line of people waiting to get into some tourist attraction. He knocked them out of the way and disappeared into a portal. I paused, turning back to Jennifer, knowing she’d identify where we were. What the line of people meant.

Sliding over to the wheel, she said, “It’s the Catacombs. A mile of tunnels full of skeletons. You follow, and you’ll flush him to the other side. There’s only one way to go. I’ll meet you there.”

I heard a horn honk and said, “Skeletons? What do you mean?”

She said, “Go. You’ll figure it out.”

I turned away and saw Nung disappear through the entrance. I took off sprinting, reaching the front in seconds.

By the time I arrived, everyone was shouting and yelling, with an old man out front waving a radio. I slipped behind him and reached a turnstile, an obese woman behind it blocking my way. I said, “I’m following that man. Police.”

She looked at me in confusion, and I hopped the turnstile. She smacked me in the back with her radio and I raced down the hall, hitting a spiral stone stairwell that was claustrophobic. I started down as fast as I could, going around and around and hearing nothing below me. I went so fast I started to get dizzy, wondering how far I had to descend before I reached the bottom.

A light flared below, and I hit a tunnel, smelling of wet stone. I shouted, “Nung!”

I heard nothing. The tunnel went in only one direction, so I figured they both had to be ahead of me. I took off running, eating up the ground. I reached a patch of tourists next to a closed gate blocking access to another tunnel. Mine continued on, but the gate had no lock. In between breaths, I asked, “Which way?”

A man pointed away from the door, saying, “Right ahead.”

I started running flat-out, trusting my feet to find purchase in the gloom, my brain telling me to slow down. I rounded a corner, almost smacking my head into the roof of stone, and caught a glimpse of someone disappear. I redoubled my efforts.

Somewhere during my run the limestone walls gave way to bones. Millions and millions of bones. I was sprinting through death, with skulls arranged in symmetrical patterns and femurs used as cradles for the design. Literally walls made of bones.

My feet splashed in water, and the man ahead turned at the sound. In the dim light, I recognized Nung. He said, “Just ahead,” then disappeared.

The tunnel expanded into a small room with a column made of bones in the middle. In the light splayed out from a single lamp, I saw Nung squaring off against Braden, both circling each other. Braden snatched a skull from the wall and tossed it, causing Nung to flinch.

Braden darted forward, and I entered the light, grabbing a leg bone. He saw me and pulled up short just as I hurled it. He ducked, and it
clipped his scalp, probably setting loose some disease from the fourteenth century. He snarled at me, put a hand to his head, then turned and began running again.

Nung took up the chase, me right behind. We passed several groups of tourists, all frightened at the turmoil, but none doing anything to stop us. The tunnel wound forward endlessly, and I began to wonder just how long it was. Surely they couldn’t expect tourists to walk miles. Could they?

I broke out of the bone district, entering back into the limestone, and the light increased. I picked up my pace, gaining on Nung and hearing the footfalls of Braden in front of me. I reached an open cavern, seeing a stone stairwell on the side with a modern illuminated
EXIT
sign. Nung was blocking it, hands held high, and I knew it was the endgame.

Braden had a knife out, waving it back and forth, a cell phone in his other hand. He shouted into it but was getting no signal from underneath the ground. I advanced into the cavern, and he saw me. He gave a war cry and attacked Nung, the single thing blocking his exit out.

He stabbed forward with the knife, and Nung danced, blocking the downward blow and twisting Braden’s arm in a circle. Braden flung the cell phone from his other hand and clawed at Nung’s face, screaming in pain. Nung leveraged the elbow downward, bringing Braden to his knees. I jumped forward to assist, but not fast enough.

Braden scrambled at his ankle with his free hand, and like magic, a small stiletto appeared. He jabbed it over his head, trying to connect with the flesh of the man holding him. Nung saw it coming, ducked under the blade, then snapped the elbow forward, the crack ricocheting in the cavern. Braden shrieked in pain, and Nung circled his arms around Braden’s neck. A meter away, I screamed, “No!” and saw the life leave Braden’s eyes as his spine popped.

I reached them and said, “Nung, damn it, he’s no good to us dead.”

He stood up, saying, “He was calling his friend. Telling him to kill the hostages. Whoever is on the other end of that phone has them.”