Ancient Echoes

CHAPTER 15



Paris

WHEN THE GUNMAN fired into the crowd at the Cluny, complete pandemonium broke out.

Charlotte half-crawled, half-ran, her arm bleeding, to a side street. From there she found the Boulevard Saint Germain, hailed a taxi, opened the door, and jumped in.

The driver looked startled by her appearance. He began to say something about it, but she slid her hand into her purse, staring hard at him, letting him worry about what might be hidden in there as she gave him an address. He paled. His expression stark, he nodded, turned his back to her, and headed straight for the location she named.

She sank back against the seat as her thoughts swirled.

The Agency had done everything it could to comfort and take care of her after Dennis died. Dazed and grief-stricken, she hadn’t questioned anything they told her or paid attention to areas he investigated when he died. Over the years, whenever questions niggled at her subconscious about his death, she pushed them aside. It hurt too much to do otherwise.

Al-Dajani had gone back to look at what Dennis had been investigating. Now, he and Bonnetieu were dead. And their killers traveled internationally with ease, brutally shot bystanders, and organized cold-blooded murders in two secure facilities.

She knew of only one person who might help her. Years ago, Dennis introduced her to Laurence Esterbridge as an old friend and owner of an art gallery. Before long, she realized their true association.

Dennis’s position was originally to work with Israeli intelligence, but it soon became apparent to her that he was receiving orders and assignments from Esterbridge. She had the impression Dennis told him everything he was doing.

She went with Dennis to Paris a few times. He met with Esterbridge alone while she toured museums and other attractions. On a couple of occasions, they dined together in an expensive restaurant, and once at his beautiful apartment on the top floor of a stately building on the rue Clement Marot.

She went to that apartment now and rang the bell. There was no answer. She waited, and as someone walked out the main door to the building, she slipped inside before the door shut and locked again.

She took the elevator to the top floor, and there, knocked on Esterbridge’s door. When no one answered, she tried the doorknob. The door was unlocked.

She went on alert and pushed the door open without stepping inside. The living room was directly in front of her and on the sofa she saw Esterbridge. He wore a stylish brocade smoking jacket. His impeccable hair was white now, with a carefully constructed wave over his brow held in place by a good amount of hairspray. An apparently forgotten pair of reading glasses perched low on his nose.

And a bullet hole marred his high forehead. Blood had soaked through the back of the sofa.

She spun around, leaning against the wall in the hallway as she tried to catch her breath.

She wanted to tell herself his murder had nothing to do with her or Dennis…but she couldn’t.

She looked at the elevator, then opted for the stairs, her head spinning and feeling faint from shock and pain from the gash the bullet had torn in her arm.

She went down to the parking area in the basement and waited, hiding, until she saw a woman drive in alone. She stepped in front of her and when the driver stopped, she pointed her gun and told the woman to get out of the car.

Charlotte took her coat, then hit the back of her head with the butt of the gun. The woman fell, unconscious.

Charlotte put on the coat and drove out of the garage. She soon abandoned the car after wiping her fingerprints from the door handle and steering wheel.

She went to a pharmacy and bought bandages, alcohol and antibiotic ointment. In a department store, she stopped in a women’s room to clean and bandage her wound, then bought and changed into a non-descript outfit. She tossed the coat into an outdoor dumpster, and then took the Thalys train from Paris to Amsterdam where she caught a flight to Washington D.C. People would be watching the Paris airport; people looking for her. She did all she could to be sure no one followed her; all she could to stay alive.