The Diaries - 01 (55 page)

The door was but a
meter away.
 
The Frenchman flattened
himself against the left wall, keeping the pistol outstretched.
 
He wanted to catch him in the storage unit,
but he knew Gage could exit at any time.
 
With one final, silent shuffling of his feet, he was there.

Jean reminded
himself to breathe.

Tactical entry.
 
Clear the room, left to right, low to
high.
 
The target will be low, finalizing
preparations to mobilize.
 
Two shots…kill-zone,
concrete enclosed.
 
No chance of the
rounds penetrating walls and killing an innocent.
 

Time to die Gage Hartline, or Matthew
,
Jean thought whimsically as he knew he was about to get his payment—his just
due—for a life of paycheck-to-paycheck public service.
 
He said a quick prayer to the God he didn’t
believe in, gripped the Sig with both hands, and spun into the room.

Jean’s eyes went
wide and his mouth went dry.
 
He saw the bulky
suitcase; he saw the open safe.

But Gage wasn’t
there.

 
***

It felt like
someone had split Gage open with a rusty knife.
 
He was on the small, cinderblock ledge above
the door.
 
It was only twelve inches wide
and he knew, if Jean was thinking properly, that the second he realized Gage
was hidden he should pull back and flush Gage out.
 
But Gage knew why Jean had come, knew he had
been watching the place for many days.
 
His
mind would be clouded with fatigue and greed and he might make a bad choice.

Gage heard a
shuffling, ever so slightly.
 
Someone was
right outside the door.
 
His heart was
beating so hard, Gage worried Jean might hear it.
 
There was a long pause, making Gage’s mind
scream for air as he held his breath while his side seared with pain.

The inky black
pistol appeared three feet below, and Gage saw the long, bony fingers of Jean
Jenois
wrapped around it.
 
If Jean was alone, Gage knew he had a chance.
 
If Jean had a partner, Gage was as good as
dead.
 
Steeling himself for a fight, Gage
gripped the ledge and spun his right foot downward, kicking Jean’s arms to the
left.
 
He rolled off the wall, using his hands
like claws to grip any piece of the stunned Frenchman that he could.
 
One hand wound up with a collar-grip, the
other pulled the DGSE agent’s long, greasy hair.
 
Gage allowed his weight to keep falling, not
lowering his legs to catch himself, and the two professionals went down in a
heap, scrabbling like wild cats fighting for their lives.

As he felt his
ribs cracking and popping, Gage found himself on top of Jean, struggling to get
the pistol.
 
He was using his arms to
hold both of Jean’s to the concrete, and several times quickly removed his left
arm to hit Jean with a hammer fist to his big nose, replacing the arm quickly
so as not to lose the grip.
 
The two men
grunted and ground their teeth and, as the seconds turned past a minute, Gage
realized he was going to have to do something—Jean was beginning to get the
upper hand.
 
The pain of the wound, and
the loss of blood, had weakened Gage.
 
He
could only hold out for another few seconds.

Going against
instinct, Gage released the Frenchman’s arms and watched as they came up to
unleash the kill shot.
 
When they were
almost there, Gage stunned Jean by leaping off of him and bolting out the small
door.
 
He passed the threshold as he felt
the bullet impact the wooden doorframe inches to his left, sending splinters
into Gage’s face like quills from an irate porcupine.
 

This time Gage was
ready.

From his jacket
pocket, he jerked the MK3A2 concussion grenade—the exact same make and model
that had killed the children in Crete—ripping the pin and tossing it inside
with a clatter as the thin metal spoon left the body, starting the three-second
fuse and making Gage wish he’d had more time to cook it off.

He spun violently,
flattening himself in the shallow recess of the adjacent storage unit,
listening as Jean screamed for his life.
 
Knowing exactly what was coming, training took over for Gage as he
covered his ears and opened his mouth, preparing for the blast and radical
change in air pressure.
 
The Frenchman
was halfway out when the grenade exploded, filling the cramped space with
world-ending sound and light.

It was almost as
if Jean had cables attached to him, top and bottom, as the grenade vaulted him
into a half-forward flip directly against the opposing wall.
 
The blast held him on the wall for a fraction
of a second before he fell onto his head, remarkably conscious.
 
Gage leapt from the recess, grabbing Jean’s
Sig and straddling the moaning man.
 
He
took advantage of Jean’s open mouth, ramming the Sig inside and finishing off
four teeth that had cracked in the impact.

“Did you give
Nicky Arnaud my location when Monika died?” Gage yelled.

Jean’s eyes, both trickling
blood from underneath their orbs, went wide as he began to choke.

“Did you?” Gage
screamed, pressing the Sig into the back of Jean’s throat, making him begin to
convulse.

“Gage!
 
Gage!
”
 

His own ears
ringing, even after covering them with his hands, Gage could hear the other
voice calling him.
 
He glanced down the
short hallway, seeing a black man with tired eyes and a bad suit, a pistol at
his side, holding his large left hand out in a stopping motion.
 
Not knowing who he was, Gage twisted the Sig in
Jean’s throat and gritted his own teeth.

“He can’t hear
you,” the man said loudly for Gage’s benefit.
 
“His eardrums are busted.
 
Look at
his ears.”

Gage tilted his
head to see the yellowish fluid oozing from Jean’s ear.
 
He backed the pistol out, leaning all his
weight on Jean’s stomach as the Frenchman began moaning, his mouth a rictus of
shock and broken teeth.

The man stepped to
Gage, gingerly touching his shoulder, urging him to stand.
 
Gage complied.
 
This man was a friend.
 
Not knowing how or why, Gage’s judge of
character was usually spot on.
 
He was
tall, slightly hunched, with deep set, thinker’s eyes.
 
Someone you want on your side.
 
Gage exhaled, feeling the tightness of the
mission fall away from him as if washed away by a powerful shower.

The smell of the
explosion hung heavy in the hallway.
 
Sulfurous.
 
Currents of air were trying to take the white
haze from the space.
 
His ears still
ringing, Gage was confused, not only about what to do with Jean, but who this man
was and if he was here to arrest him.

“Who are you?”
Gage asked warily, the Sig still trained on Jean
Jenois’s
face.

“I’m on your side,”
the man said with a kind smile.
 
“And as
dirty as he is, you don’t want to kill a DGSE agent.
 
A mobster you can get away with, but not this
one.
 
Let
me
handle this.”
 
The man
cocked his pistol, a revolver, and pointed it at Jean.
 
He looked at Gage.

“Do you mind
disarming?”

Gage breathed air
in through his nose, considering his options.
 
His face was bleeding from the splinters, his ribs were now completely
out of kilter after fighting with Jean.
 
But more than anything, he was thoroughly drained.
 

Gage thumbed the
cartridge of the Sig, allowing it to clatter to the floor.
 
Without looking, he raked the slide, catching
the hollow point nine-millimeter round as it twirled from the weapon.
 
He tossed the round, hitting Jean in the eye,
making him flinch and screw-up his face in what looked like sheer defeat.

And then Gage
Hartline staggered down the hall and collapsed in a heap on the stairs.

 
***

Jim Sorgi, fluent
in German, spent fifteen minutes calming the residents of the building who had felt
the blast.
 
Fortunately, the basement was
enclosed and thickly walled, thereby muffling a great deal of the sound.
 
But the concussion grenade’s blast was
powerful, shaking the building at its foundation.
 
After removing his coat and outer shirt,
Sorgi stood at the base of the stairs by the elevator in his undershirt like a
repairman might, telling the residents that a water heater had exploded and
there was nothing to worry about.
 
“Should be back up and running in an hour,” he told each tenant in his
precise Hessian diction.
 
One by one,
each concerned resident went back to their apartment.

After a few brief
comments, Captain Ellis gave Gage three Tylenol and had him sit in the front of
the Army van to collect himself.
 
Gage borrowed
the mirror and tweezers from Ellis’s first-aid kit and began removing the
splinters from his bearded face and neck.
 

Using the same first-aid
kit, Ellis cleaned Jean’s face, applying triple-antibiotic to his abrasions and
rubbing a Novocain-based gel on the man’s bleeding gums.
 
After allowing Jean several sips from a
bottle of water, he led the DGSE agent—in cuffs—outside to the van and placed
him inside the rear, leaving the door open.
 
Ellis asked Gage to step from the front seat as he rubbed his own head
and eyes.

“I need some
coffee, been up all night driving.
 
Could
you drink some?” he asked Gage.

Gage’s eyes went
wide at the out of place question.
 
He
shrugged.
 
“Yeah, I could drink a cup.”

“How about you,
Frenchie
?”

Even with his
eardrums shattered, it appeared Jean understood the question.
 
He did not answer but his lower lip did
quiver.

Ellis radioed
Sorgi.
 
They secured the storage unit and
left after placing Gage’s items in the back of the van.
 
Ellis drove the Opel; Sorgi drove the van
with Gage and a handcuffed Jean
Jenois
in the
back.
 
Jean stared out the window; he
never made a sound.

They parked a few
blocks away, in another alley.
 
Ellis stepped
to the window of the van, speaking to Sorgi about Jean and pointing to
Sorgi’s
sidearm.
 
“If
he gives you any trouble, shoot him in the head.”
 

Ellis led Gage around
the corner to a small coffee shop, buying them both a cup—strong and dark—and
then he claimed a bench on the cold street.
 
As Ellis gulped at his coffee, Gage stared at his new friend.
 
Puzzled, several times Gage’s mouth opened
but no words escaped.
 
Finally, after
settling on a question, he asked Ellis who he was.

“My name’s Damien Ellis,
I’m a soon-to-be-put-out-to-pasture captain with the Army’s C.I.D,” he
answered, looking into the gray sky between the buildings, reading the clouds like
a farmer pondering the coming day’s weather.

Gage took the
information in without a reaction.
 
“Are
you going to arrest me?”

Ellis took a noisy
sip.
 
“How ‘bout we talk a bit first?”

 
“Jean
Jenois
,” Gage
stated flatly.
 
“He was going to kill
me.”

Ellis turned to
him, nodding.
 
“Yes, he was.”
 

“But how did you
know?” Gage asked.

“Well, that’s a pretty
long story.”

Gage raised his
coffee, displaying the first measure of goodwill.
 
“This coffee feels pretty hot.
 
And I have the time.”
 
Ellis nodded with a grin and began to speak.

As Gage listened,
stupefied, Captain Damien Ellis spoke nonstop for fifteen minutes, first quickly
telling Gage about himself and Sorgi and then explaining the background, in
great detail, about how he had come to know Gage/Matthew through good detective
work and an incredible stroke of luck from a curious platoon sergeant with a
sharp eye.

When Ellis
finished, before Gage addressed what exactly would happen to him, he was extremely
curious about something Ellis hadn’t mentioned.
 
A key point.
 
“Your story is all
well and good, Captain Ellis…but how did you find me here?
 
I was clean all the way from France—no tails
whatsoever.
 
I now know Jean had this
area staked out.
 
I understand that.”
 
He narrowed his eyes. “But how did
you
find me?
 
Were you watching him?”

Ellis took Gage’s
untouched coffee and poured half into his own empty cup.
 
“Well, when I learned about the little fire
you created in Metz, their police were able to link the dead to a French mob
called
Les Glaives du
Peuple
,
which I subsequently learned was headed by a diminutive psychopath named Nicholas
Arnaud.
 
He was rumored to be involved in
a whole mess of murders, so me and Sorgi looked into his background and got an
address from INTERPOL.
 
Seems I got to
his house near Château-Thierry just a few minutes after you left.
 
Heck, I stayed there almost too long.”