Court raced up the creaky wooden-floored second-story hallway, closing on a right turn that led to the door to the Halabys’ apartment. His right shoulder was sore from the blow he took from the baton in the street, even more so now because his suppressed Glock 19 was in his right hand and out in front of him, causing the muscles in his rear deltoid to flex right where he’d been hit by the weapon. On his left as he ran was a row of windows that looked down on the Passage Dauphine, a cobblestoned pedestrian alley that led back to the east, away from the front of the building. The windows went down the length of the hall—the last one was right there at the turn, and Court knew that just beyond that was a window into the Halabys’ living room, on the other side of the wall ahead of him.

And this gave him an idea.

He continued running forward with his weapon raised in front of him, carefully aimed it high on the wall between the hall and the Halabys’ apartment, and pressed his finger against the trigger.

* * *

? ? ?

Allard and Foss listened to the sound of the approaching runner and kept their pistols trained on the door, but as the footsteps neared the turn in the hallway ahead and to the right on the far side of the wall of the living room, the footsteps were replaced by the snaps of gunfire. Holes appeared high in the wall ahead of them, a framed painting fell to the ground and crashed, and the two men dove to the floor.

“Who’s shooting?” called out the man they knew as Eric on the speakerphone, but neither man was interested in providing a running commentary of what was going on. They heard the crash of broken glass an instant later; they tried to train their weapons on the origin of the sound, somewhere on the other side of the wall, but just as their focus turned back to the door, a much louder explosion of glass on their right grabbed their attention.

A figure came crashing through the living room window, fewer than ten meters from where they knelt. A man fell to the floor and rolled in front of the television, shattered glass still flying through the air all around him.

Both cops swiveled their aim to the movement across the room, but the man rolling up into a crouch by the TV fired first. Foss’s head snapped back before he could sight on the target, and his weapon spilled from his hand. Allard got a shot off, high and off the right shoulder of the figure, and as he made to squeeze his trigger again, he just had slight recognition of a flash of light emanating from the silencer of the man’s pistol before his world went black.

* * *

? ? ?

Court rose to his feet, crossed the living room, and fired an additional round into the heads of both men. Rima Halaby screamed in shock at the sight of even more blood splattering across her living room. He trained his weapon on the Halabys quickly, and Rima covered her eyes.

Now he spun his weapon towards the dead Syrian security man in the doorway to the kitchen, then swiveled it down the hallway to the back of the apartment.

Still covering the unknown space down the hall, Court shouted at the couple. “Anyone else?”

“No,” Tarek said. “No one.”

Court lowered his pistol. “Are you hurt?”

Tarek checked on his wife; she was sobbing in near panic but he felt over her body, and then he checked himself out. Neither of them appeared to be bleeding. “We’re . . . I think we are okay.”

Court jerked his head towards the two dead cops. “They were working for the Syrians.”

“We know,” Tarek replied, staring at the three dead bodies on the floor of his apartment. Next to him, Rima brought her hands from her eyes. She was still sobbing, but Court could see that she’d handled the terror and chaos of the past few moments better than most, be they male or female.

Court holstered his weapon in his waistband, ignored the hot suppressor touching his thigh, then helped the couple up to their feet. “Listen to me carefully.”

“Wait!” Tarek said. He looked down at the phone on the table and pointed to it.

Court looked at it, picked it up, and saw that there was an active call. He put his finger over the microphone. “Who the hell is this?”

“A man’s voice,” Rima said. “He said he is working for someone trying to find Bianca. He sent these men.”

Court still had the mic covered when the voice spoke. “From the sound of things, I might need to hire some new men in Paris.”

Court nodded to Tarek.

The doctor leaned closer to the phone. “Your men are dead. You will never find Bianca now.”

“Your new guest, the American. Is he too shy to talk?”

It was silent in the room for seconds, except for the sound of police sirens coming outside the broken window.

“Who are you?” Court finally said.

The man on the other end of the line replied, “Who are you? Of course I can work out on my own that you are the mystery man who abducted Bianca last night, but beyond that, I admit that I’m at a loss.”

Court studied the man’s voice. Court thought French was probably this man’s native tongue, so he suspected he, too, might be a local police officer, just like the dead men on the floor.

Rima Halaby was still panic stricken, but she was a strong woman, and it was clear to Court she knew the importance of this moment. She shouted into the phone. “You are working for a monster! A man who has ordered the wholesale genocide of my people.”

“He is fighting a rebellion,” the voice replied calmly. “But I’m not going to get into a political discussion with you. It sounds to me like you all need to get out of there before the police arrive. Frankly I hope you make it.”

“You are helping us now?” Tarek asked.

Court answered for the man on the phone. “He can’t get his hands on you if you’re locked up.”

“Smart man,” the voice said. “Mr. American, why don’t you take this phone so you and I can discuss this further when you are somewhere safe from the police?”

Court replied, “Sure, asshole. Why don’t I stick this tracking device in my pocket? Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

There was a short, perfunctory chuckle. “Very well. But know this. Whoever you are, your involvement has ensured that a lot of people are going to die, including the Halabys, including yourself. I have more men in France, and they will be seeing you soon. I have a funny feeling you and I have not heard the last from each other.”

“You can count on that.” Court hung up the phone, then wiped off the keypad.

As soon as he did so, Tarek said, “He claimed his name was Eric, and he didn’t say it, but he is definitely Swiss.”

“How do you know that?” asked Court.

Rima answered. “We were speaking French with him before you arrived. The word for ‘mobile phone’ in France is portable. But he said natal. Only the Swiss call a mobile a natal.”

Court wondered why a Swiss would be involved in this, but he didn’t have time to think it over. He said, “Fifty cops are going to be flooding through this building in a few seconds. But the police downstairs think the detectives were going up to the third floor. You need to leave now, out the side door, and just keep on going.”

Rima nodded. “Okay . . . just let me pack some—”

“No packing! Just go! March right through the cops, they aren’t looking for you.”

“But . . .” Tarek said, “they’ll find the bodies in our flat.”

“At which point the police will start looking for you. You’ll be able to prove these two cops were working for Syrian interests, that this was an assassination attempt, and then you will be in the clear. But for now, you’ll have to run.”

The couple stood and put on their overcoats as they headed for the front door. “Thank you,” Rima muttered, but in her hurry and shock she did not even look Court’s way.

“Wait,” Court said. “You have to do one thing for me now.”

Tarek turned back to him. “What is that?”

Court told him what he needed, Tarek Halaby complied, and then the Halabys left their apartment, heading for the elevator and the side exit. The sounds of sirens echoed off every building in the Left Bank now; the police were already covering the front and back streets, but Court just closed and locked the apartment door, then headed back to the smashed window, leaving all the bodies as they were. Climbing through the window, he looked down towards the Passage Dauphine and saw a pair of cops standing at the side door, almost directly under Court’s position. They weren’t looking up, so Court swung out silently and moved along from window ledge to window ledge. Once he was out of view of their position he descended via a drainpipe and ran off to the east, ducking into a travel agency for a brochure as a cavalcade of police cars rolled by.

CHAPTER 18