Chills prickled up Chase’s arms. He hated it when terrorists went dark. Especially when several of them in Paris and Brussels went dark together. Especially after the word ricin had been picked up by the CIA. Especially when one of the men they were tracing on his return from Syria was the cousin of Violette Lenoir’s pastry chef and had been seen on the street of the restaurant, using a phone for a purpose they hadn’t been able to trace. Damn encrypted chat apps.
Fuck, that kitchen was a nightmare. Jesus, they had shelves and shelves of half-prepped desserts sitting there overnight. Someone with a code, which probably covered all the upper levels of staff, could come in early and…
…and the first they’d know about it was when people started to get sick. And there was no cure for ricin.
They had nothing on the head pastry chef, nothing at all except the relationship with that very problematic cousin.
But what if…
That was what a counterterrorist unit had to deal with. That huge, horrible what if.
Who would be on the front line if the crazy bastards did manage to use ricin?
Violette Lenoir and all her staff. Handling all the food. Tasting it before it went out.
“We need to shut it down,” he said abruptly. “Find some excuse that gets the kitchen closed until after the President’s visit or we nail the bastards. Something that doesn’t tip them off. A plumbing problem or something. Rats?” No, shit. Vi would be pissed about rats. He’d seen the way those critics reacted in Ratatouille. Watched it during one fucking cold winter in Kandahar, where even a rat’s vision of Paris had made for an enticing contrast. “An electrical issue. Small fire.”
“That’s your call?” Mark assessed him steadily.
There had never been a successful mass ricin attack. But Chase had seen far more than his share of aftermaths of attacks with bombs and AK-47s, and they crowded up in his brain suddenly, sent ripples of horror down his skin. “Yes,” he said flatly. “It’s too big a risk.”
“The chef can’t know what happened,” Elias said. “She’s got to be left as much in the dark as anyone. We can’t risk tipping them off.”
Chase’s jaw tightened grimly. Yeah. He knew. “Fuck, she’s going to be pissed. She was really excited about the President’s possible visit.”
Elias was watching him. That sardonic look had faded beneath a certain tough sympathy. “Don’t worry. She’s a Michelin two-star chef at the age of twenty-eight. Trust me. She can handle anything.”
Chapter 8
“Salmonella?” Vi stared at the health inspectors blocking her access to her own kitchens with no regard for life or limb. Health inspectors were getting more and more suicidal these days. “In my restaurant? No, there damn well was not!”
“We’re sorry, Mademoiselle Lenoir,” the lead inspector said woodenly. “We have reports from a dozen people whose one point in common seems to be having eaten here last night.”
“That’s not even possible!” Vi said, outraged. “My team’s hygiene is impeccable. I know the source of everything we serve.” Even as she said it, she was running things through her mind: eggs from her brother’s farm, honey from the rooftop rosemary gardens and beehives of their own quarter in Paris, no oysters last night it wasn’t the season… “Let me see this—” She started to push by him.
He stepped to the side to block her, and something flickered through her. That was a very adamant block. A police officer kind of block. Or a military man’s block.
“Pardon, mademoiselle. It’s a public health emergency. Until we track down the source, we need to close the restaurant and run tests.”
She narrowed her eyes up at the health inspector, who certainly seemed to work out a lot in his down time. The set of his shoulders reminded her quite a lot of… “Is this something to do with Chase Smith?”
“Who?” the inspector said blankly.
She folded her arms to keep herself from stabbing someone. A health inspector, for example. “That’s not his real name, is it?”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about, mademoiselle,” the military-mannered inspector said formally.
“Bordel de—” Vi stabbed her finger at him. “These are my kitchens. You tell me what is going on.”
“We’re investigating a salmonella outbreak,” he repeated woodenly. “That seems to have started here.”
“So it’s true then?” a voice said from behind Vi to her right. “You’ve been forcibly shut down for salmonella?”
Vi pivoted to see—with a shock of horror—a television camera pointed her way. Oh, fuck.
“Mademoiselle Lenoir, would you care to comment?” a perfectly coiffed brown-haired man asked, posing beside her before the camera and extending his microphone.
“How could I care to comment? I just found out about it! How do you know about it already?” She tried to see which news station they were from.
“Twitter,” the journalist said.
Bordel de merde. “It’s on Twitter already?” Vi said, her stomach sinking as if she’d swallowed a bucket of rock.