“Boss’s orders.”
Insurance.
“Where’s my daughter?”
The Corsican shrugged.
The team was disappearing one by one into the old water workers’ entrance at the side of the bathhouse. Dervier looked back. “Let’s go, Zacharié.”
“I don’t go in there until I hear from my daughter,” he said to the Corsican. “Call her.”
“You know I can’t. Cell-phone towers will triangulate this location.”
“Like I care? I don’t go in until I talk to her.”
The Corsican hit speed dial on his cell phone. Zacharié grabbed it from his hand.
“Jules? I want my daughter.”
“Soyez calme,” said Jules, “she’s right here. Go ahead, talk to her yourself.”
He heard fumbling, scratching as the phone was handed over.
“Marie-Jo? Are you all right?”
“Papa! Papa, get me out of here.” A gulp. “I’m scared.” Marie-Jo’s voice broke. “Do something, Papa. Zazie’s hurt. Help us.”
Zacharié’s stomach clenched.
Muffled noises, then Jules’s voice. “Finish the job, Zacharié. We’ll meet you afterward, as planned.”
His mind went to the arranged rendezvous spot, the flower stall at the east exit of the Gare de Nord. Originally he’d planned to take the Thalys from there, and he and Marie-Jo would have breakfast in Brussels. A new life.
“I don’t go in and do your job until I see her, Jules.”
“With a rapist on the loose, the area’s crawling with flics. You can’t be too careful.”
Zacharié bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Watch the news, Zacharié.” Jules sighed. “That hot female detective’s face is all over the place, looking for a red-haired girl.”
And then the woman with the big, intense eyes flashed in his mind. That leggy pregnant looker on rue Chaptal searching for Marie-Jo’s redheaded friend. He hadn’t told her that Jules had abducted his daughter and the redheaded girl and was going to use the rapist to hide his tracks, because he hadn’t understood until now.
Zacharié wanted to kick the stone, smash the metal drainpipe.
“You complicated everything by kidnapping Marie-Jo and her friend. Stupid, Jules. Not like you. What about the repercussions?”
A sigh. “Bad planning, I admit.”
Zacharié sensed an element of desperation in Jules’s plan. That was a first. “Someone’s got you by the balls.”
Pause. “I need this, Zacharié.”
And now that other people were searching for the girls, too, Jules was risking everything on this little kidnapping insurance scheme. What about this file Zacharié was supposed to steal was so precious that Jules would go to these lengths to ensure Zacharié saw the job through to the end?
If the woman twigged on the girls’ abduction and got too close … He couldn’t worry about that now.
“Do the job and we’re done, Zacharié. Think of your new passports, new country, a new life.”
A thin red laser beam danced on the worn stones. Dervier’s signal—the team were in their positions along the dry vestiges of the ancient river Grange-Batelière. Zacharié needed to hang up the phone now and finish this job—he had no choice. It was beyond his control.
In one last hopeless attempt, he said into the phone, “You want the job done, you bring those girls. Now.”
A deep sigh came over the line. “In fifteen seconds I’m going to shoot off Marie-Jo’s toes, then work my way up unless you perform the job as planned.”
The phone clicked off.
The Corsican smiled and grabbed the phone. “Satisfied?”
“Get the hell out of here.”
In several long strides, the Corsican crossed the damp pavers and disappeared into the street.
Bile rose in Zacharié’s throat. He wanted to spit the sour taste out of his mouth. He was stuck.
Tuesday, 9:20 P.M.
THE BRIGHT GLARE hurt Aimée’s eyes. Her shoulder stung and throbbed. Her head reverberated with the whines of the ambulance’s siren and the beeping from the machines. Her hand flew to her stomach, and she saw the tube in her arm. She moaned into her oxygen mask.
“Blood pressure a hundred and fifty-five over eighty-six,” said one medic to the other. Both sapeurs-pompiers, firemen, always the first responders. “Pregnant woman, gunshot wound to the shoulder,” he said into his radio. “Alert: Emergency. Possible preterm labor.”
Preterm labor? Fear scorched her. “My baby, you have to save my baby.” She was shouting. Her words, muffled in the oxygen mask, vaporized with her breath.
She wanted to kick herself free, but restraints strapped her ankles to the gurney. The stark ambulance lighting glared whiter than daytime; the medics poked and read from the machines. What was wrong with these idiots? She thrashed her arms, yanked the mask off. Wetness spread over her legs and ankles; her arms were streaked with blood.
“Check my baby,” she said, gasping.
“Calm down, Madame. We know what we’re doing,” said the frowning medic. “First we have to stop the bleeding. We’re about to apply a compression bandage.”
“Then compress, for God’s sake.” Just one year of premed but she knew the signs: jumping heart rate, elevated blood pressure, all putting her and her baby at risk. She panted. Wild-eyed, she looked around. She needed to center, get control. Something beside her was whirring, and she recognized a smaller version of the ultrasound machine her doctor had used.
“You’re listening to my baby’s heart?”
“First things first,” said the red-cheeked one. “You need to calm down. Leave it to us.”
“Don’t talk to me like an idiote,” she said, trying to breathe deep. What if the trauma stimulated uterine contractions? Why were the first-response team always men?
Oh, God … calm down, she had to calm down.