That Time in Paris Read online

  “Sweet, man.” Wolfgang lifted the watch and wrapped it around his left wrist. It felt great. A little heavy, but not unbearable.

  “The true benefit, though,” Lyle said, “is in its detection ability. I call it a sniffer. The watch can detect all kinds of poisonous gasses and chemical agents, and it’ll give you an alert if there’s anything you should be worried about. It even has a built-in Geiger counter.”

  “Like, for nuclear?” Wolfgang raised one eyebrow, and Lyle nodded eagerly.

  “Absolutely. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty reliable. Let me know how it works in the field.”

  Edric’s voice boomed from someplace in the hangar. “Hey, Wolf. Get out here!”

  Wolfgang slapped Lyle on the shoulder, then piled out of the van. The others were gathered around the bikes, Megan already astride hers. She sat with the easy confidence of a woman who was familiar with fast motorcycles, and Wolfgang couldn’t help but stare again.

  “Get your com?” Edric asked.

  He scratched his cast again, and Wolfgang realized Edric was probably nervous. This was his first mission since breaking his arm and his first mission with a new operator . . . and without an old one.

  Wolfgang tapped his ear. “Right here.”

  “Very good. We only use radio tags, for extra security. I’m Charlie Lead. Lyle is Charlie Eye, Megan is Charlie One, Kevin is Charlie Two.”

  Edric paused a moment, and his tone softened. “You’re Charlie Three.”

  Wolfgang saw Megan glance down, and for just a moment, he thought she winced. It was such a small reaction he couldn’t be sure, but he thought it corresponded with Edric’s mention of Charlie Three.

  That was his call sign . . . The guy who died on the last mission.

  Wolfgang didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded.

  “While you’re on the ground, you take operational orders from Megan, unless and until I override them. Is that clear?”

  Wolfgang nodded again.

  “Great. Let’s roll.”

  Edric shuffled to the van, and Wolfgang moved to the bike at the end of the line.

  “Can you ride, dum-dum?” Kevin asked.

  Wolfgang looked down at the bike, taking a moment to trace his finger down the fuel tank’s smooth curve. It was a Triumph Street Triple RS, brand-new, shadow grey with red accidents. Identical to the others. He’d never driven a Triumph before but assumed it operated pretty much the same as his Kawasaki back home. “I can ride,” he said.

  Kevin snorted, then slid his helmet on and flipped up the visor. He turned to Megan. “You good?” His tone was softer but still gruff and condescending.

  Megan slapped her visor down without a word and kicked the starter. The bike roared to life, and a second later, she shot out of the hangar like a bullet.

  Wolfgang hit the starter and gunned the motor as a shot of adrenaline raced into his blood. This was something new. Something different.

  And it was starting right now.

  Charles de Gaulle Airport, better known as Roissy Airport, sat twenty miles northeast of downtown Paris. It took them twenty minutes to get there, roaring amid tightly packed morning commuters as they circled the eastern side of the city and approached the airport.

  Megan was difficult to keep up with. She pushed the Triumph hard, cutting in and out of trucks and taxis as if she were on a racetrack. Wolfgang was surprised—he would have assumed they would want to avoid attention, not attract it. But there were a lot of motorcycles on the road, many more than in America, and they all drove aggressively. He pushed himself to keep up, taking moderate gratification in Kevin’s obvious hesitation to push himself as hard. Apparently, his bark was worse than his bite. At least on a bike.

  After reaching the airport, they deposited the Triumphs in short-term parking, leaving the helmets and venturing into the nearest terminal.

  Megan spoke over the com. “Charlie One, assuming ground control. Com check.”

  “Charlie Lead, roger ground control assumption. Coms clear.”

  “Charlie Eye, I have you on satellite.” Lyle’s voice was squeaky over the earpiece, but at least Wolfgang could hear him clearly.

  “Charlie Two, loud and clear.”

  To Wolfgang’s surprise, the arrogance had left Kevin’s tone. He spoke with calm focus. Wolfgang shot him a look as he radioed in his own confirmation, and Kevin sneered at him.

  “Moving into the terminal now,” Megan said. “Charlie Two, take international arrivals from Europe. Charlie Three, you’ve got North America.”

  “Copy that.” Wolfgang resisted the urge to scratch his ear. Talking made the earpiece move, and it itched now. He feigned a yawn to adjust it, but it only helped a little.

  The airport was nothing short of massive. Tourists and business travelers pressed in on all sides, dragging roll-around suitcases and shouting to each other over their own clamor. There was no dominant nationality. Wolfgang saw Asians, Arabs, South Americans, and Africans as frequently as Europeans. They crushed in on every side, frequently slamming into his shoulders.

  How the hell was he supposed to find a single man in this melting pot? He couldn’t even see Kevin anymore. His fellow operator had faded like a ghost.

  “Dammit, Charlie Three,” Megan said. “You’re sticking out like a clown. Relax and move to North America.”

  Wolfgang cast a glance around him, but he couldn’t see her. She, too, had faded into the crowd and was now lost from view. He drew a deep breath, which morphed naturally into another yawn. He pretended to pop his neck, then shoved his hands into his pockets and followed the signs toward international arrivals from North America. Everything was written in English as well as French, making navigation easier than he expected.

  Dozens of airlines lined up next to each other, pressed together with travelers flooding out of boarding tunnels. Wolfgang assumed a position at the edge of the room, then slid onto a bench and pulled out his phone, retrieving his digital copy of Raven’s image. He stared at it a moment, then scanned the room.

  “Get me out of your pocket, Charlie Three,” Lyle said. “Let me have a look.”

  Wolfgang frowned in confusion, then recalled the wristwatch. His left hand was still jammed in his pocket. He withdrew it and casually rested his hand against the armrest, exposing the undetectable camera lens to the main lobby of the terminal.

  “That’s better,” Lyle said.

  Wolfgang made a mental note to pay specific attention to the position of his left hand next time he went to take a piss, then returned to his surveillance of the lobby. Minutes dragged into half an hour, but he didn’t mind. He was used to operations like this. In three years as a lone operator, he’d spent hundreds of hours simply sitting and watching, waiting for something to happen or somebody to show up. It wasn’t difficult. It just took practice to remain alert for that long.

  The coms remained silent, and Wolfgang twisted his left arm from time to time, panning the watch’s camera around the room and giving Lyle an opportunity to detect anything he might have missed. A flight attendant in a form-fitting skirt walked past, and Wolfgang had the momentary, immature urge to follow her with the camera. He recalled Lyle’s poor reaction to his last joke and decided against it.

  What’s up with that, anyway? Why is he so stiff?

  Maybe Lyle wasn’t stiff. Maybe he was just defensive of Megan. Everybody on the team seemed oddly defensive of Megan. Kevin obviously had a thing for her, which was fine. Wolfgang wasn’t threatened. But deeper than that, it was almost as if . . .

  Wolfgang’s thoughts were interrupted by a new flood of travelers exiting a nearby gate. A tall man walking in the middle of the crowd, dressed in a black suit with a black overcoat and carrying a briefcase, caught his eye. Wolfgang checked the face against the image on his phone, then cleared his throat. “Charlie One, I have a possible match.”

  He twisted his left wrist to give Lyle an unobstructed view. “Charlie Eye, can you confirm?”

  There was a
pause, then Lyle’s excited, nasally tone filled the com. “Positive confirmation. That’s Raven.”

  Wolfgang stood slowly, stretching his back and keeping Raven in his peripheral vision. “Charlie One, I have Raven exiting Delta Flight 7067, direct from New York. Moving to customs.”

  “Copy that, Charlie Three. I have him.”

  Edric broke over the coms. “Charlie Lead assuming operation control. Charlie One, stay on him. Charlie Two, Charlie Three, return to transport and standby.”

  Wolfgang slid his phone back into his pocket and broke away from the crowds, stepping back through the terminal and into the bright sunlight of the French morning. By the time he made it to his bike, Kevin was already there, his helmet on and his visor up as the motor rumbled beneath him. Wolfgang slid the helmet over his head and gunned the motor to life, then yawned to adjust the earpiece again.

  “Raven is through customs,” Megan said. “Staying with him . . .”

  Wolfgang felt his heart rate rise, and he twisted his hand around the accelerator, suddenly wishing he’d thought to bring gloves. Even in June, it was cooler in Paris than he expected, and the biting wind on the highway made it worse.

  “Raven has taken a black Citroën C5 taxicab,” Megan said. “Plate number Lima, Bravo, two, six, five, Lima, Alpha. I’ve affixed a beacon to the car. Breaking contact now.”

  Wolfgang felt a buzz in his pocket and withdrew his phone to see an alert flashing on the screen. The GPS link from the beacon had already connected directly to his navigation app. He clipped the phone into the mount between the handlebars and reached for his visor.

  “Hey, dum-dum,” Kevin said.

  Wolfgang shot him an irritated look and detected no sarcasm—just pure disgust.

  “Don’t screw this up.” Kevin smacked his visor shut and shot out of the garage.

  Wolfgang dropped the bike into first gear and raced to follow.

  5

  Wolfgang couldn’t think of a better way to explore Paris than astride the Triumph. The motor was powerful, if not oversized, providing plenty of juice to launch him between the lines of stalled cars filling the streets along his path to the highway.

  Kevin drove like a brute, apparently deciding to overcompensate for his previous timidity. He gunned the bike at random and charged ahead at every available opening, but still lacked the skill to effectively navigate the traffic. Wolfgang quickly overtook him and was the first to slide down the ramp and onto France’s A1 highway, stretching southwest toward the city.

  Raven’s cab driver was good. He’d already circumvented the bulk of the congested traffic and led Wolfgang by almost a kilometer. Wolfgang gunned the motor and swerved around a line of trucks laden with fresh produce. The food’s fragrant odor mixed with the stench of petrol fumes and tire smog, but it wasn’t an unpleasant smell. It smelled like adventure. Like something new.

  Wolfgang held back a grin and whipped the bike between two cabs, lane splitting and gaining another two hundred meters on Raven’s cab.

  “Charlie Three, ease the hell up!” Edric barked over the radio. “You’re drawing attention.”

  Wolfgang reluctantly relaxed on the throttle and glanced in his mirror. Kevin was a half klick back, riding easily behind the produce trucks with a clear view of Wolfgang.

  He snitched on me. That rat.

  Wolfgang rolled his eyes, then forgot about Kevin as Megan appeared a moment later, gently swerving between cars with the ease and grace of somebody who was accustomed to riding a bike. Her scarlet hair rode the wind over her shoulder blades, snapping against a denim jacket. She leaned close to the handlebars, her legs bent at the knee to mold her body next to the bike.

  “Charlie Three, heads up!” Lyle said.

  Wolfgang snapped his gaze away from the rearview mirror just in time to slam on the brake and swerve around the rear bumper of a bus stopped in the highway. His heart lurched toward his throat, and he hit the clutch, downshifting and twisting the throttle just in time to avoid being flattened by a horn-blaring truck behind him.

  “Dammit, Charlie Three,” Edric said. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Wolfgang panted, feeling suddenly like crawling under a rock.

  “Are you watching me?” he demanded.

  Lyle’s laugh was dry but still the most emotion Wolfgang had witnessed him express. “Why do you think they call me Charlie Eye? I’ve got you on satellite, Charlie Three.”

  Great.

  Wolfgang flipped his visor up and sucked down a breath of smoggy air. He glanced to his left to see Megan riding with one hand on her hip, glaring at him from behind her visor. Then she turned away and rocketed ahead.

  Wolfgang felt a rock in his stomach and smacked his visor shut.

  Raven led them straight into the heart of Paris, circling the north section of downtown before his cab left the highway, and the three operators followed. The traffic began to slow, and Wolfgang looked up to see the sun break over the Arc de Triomphe directly ahead. Napoleon’s Arch rose in majestic glory, dominating the center of a roundabout as the orderly highway became a hurricane of honking cars and squealing tires. At any other time, Wolfgang would have pulled off the road to admire the national landmark, but after almost kissing the backside of a bus, he forced himself to focus on the road and zipped right around it.

  “Raven is two klicks ahead,” Megan reported. “Charlie Two, Charlie Three, close ranks.”

  Wolfgang swerved amongst the slower-moving cars, drawing closer to Megan but still keeping her a few cars away. He was aware of Kevin on his left side, but resisted the urge to look.

  “I have Raven’s cab stopping at the intersection of Saint-Germain and Rue Bonaparte,” Megan said. “Intel, Charlie Eye?”

  Wolfgang ran his tongue over dry lips as he felt the thrill of impending action wash over his mind. Be it Paris or Cleveland, at the end of the day, he was an operator. And he was about to operate.

  “Confirmed, Charlie One,” Lyle said. “I have him on satellite. Raven is exiting the cab and approaching Café Les Deux Magots.”

  “This could be it,” Edric said. “Park the bikes, and move in. Eyes on the street.”

  “Copy that, Charlie Lead. Moving in.”

  The highway rumbled beneath the tires of Wolfgang’s bike as the buildings fell away and the road rose onto a bridge. Sunlight blazed down, warming his back and glistening off the glassy surface of the river Seine, stretching out to either side. Wolfgang stole a glance to his left and caught sight of France’s famed Grand Palais, rising like a football stadium to the left of the highway. The structure’s glass roof reflected the light back toward the water, and everything around him gleamed in pure gold.

  The City of Lights . . . even in broad daylight.

  Megan led the way past Grand Palais and back into the tangle of city streets. Five minutes later, Wolfgang’s bike ground to a halt in a narrow parking space next to Megan’s and Kevin’s. He cut the motor and lifted his helmet. Megan and Kevin were already gone, splitting off in different directions as predetermined by Edric.

  “Charlie Three, hurry it up,” Edric snapped. “Eyes open!”

  Wolfgang ran his hand through his hair to straighten it, then adjusted his jacket and hurried toward the café.

  All around him, bustling Parisians collided with clueless tourists, laughing and shouting, pressing each other to the side and waving for cabs. In that respect, at least, Paris was no different than any big city. Lots of people crammed in a small place, all hurried and animated, and fully consumed by the human experience. Except that today, unbeknownst to the tourists and locals alike, one CIA agent, a team of armed operators, and maybe a couple of Russian assassins, were lost in the mix.

  A police car rolled by, and Wolfgang resisted the urge to look at it. His stomach twisted, and he pressed his arm closer to his side, feeling the gun against his ribcage. What would happen if he were caught in Paris, armed and undocumented? Would Edric bail him out?

  “Charlie Lead, I have
a visual on Raven,” Megan said, jarring Wolfgang back to the job at hand. “He’s taken a seat inside the café, near a window.”

  “Copy that, Charlie One. Any sign of our Russian friends?”

  “Negative. But I’m still fifty yards out.”

  “Move into the café and assume a surveillance position. Charlie Two, move one block down Saint-Germain. Charlie Three, take up surveillance opposite the café.”

  Wolfgang quickened his walk as the café appeared at the next street corner. The building was six stories tall, triangular in shape, and dressed in stunning French scrollwork, with the café built into the bottom floor. Tourists and Parisians crowded around the entrance, and every table visible on the other side of the glass was occupied.

  “Shouldn’t I remain close to the café?” Kevin barked across the com. “Charlie Three can take distance. I need to be closer to the target—”

  “Assume your assigned position, Charlie Two,” Edric said.

  Wolfgang caught sight of Kevin fifty yards, headed away from the café. His posture radiated irritation, and the bigger man cast frequent glances over his shoulder.

  That’s why Edric wants you in the shadows. You’re too obvious.

  Wolfgang stepped onto the sidewalk, opposite the café, and shoved his hands in his pockets, pretending to admire the building’s decorative stonework as he surveyed the block, one angle at a time.

  “Charlie Three in position,” he whispered.

  “Charlie One in position.”

  Wolfgang glanced across the café’s entrance, hoping to catch sight of Megan. He couldn’t see her, and he briefly wondered how the hell she’d gotten inside the café at all. It was packed to the brim.

  “Charlie Two?” Edric asked.