'Okay,' said Carver, ignoring Colclough's pleas. 'One on the door. Max. His boss. Who else?'
'I told you, I don't know. Not many. I was told to wait downstairs in some kind of pantry. There was food and coffee there. A couple of other blokes came in and out.'
'Armed?'
'Could've been. In fact, yeah, there was two of them outside the room Max was in, like guards. They had guns, definitely. Anyway, I drank coffee and did the crossword till about eleven. Then I got orders to take up my position. The rest you know.'
'Not quite,' said Carver. 'Where's the pantry, relative to this dining room Max was in? How did you get there?'
'There was more stairs that went down the back way. You know, like for servants.'
Carver thought. Call it four people to mount proper surveillance of the targets in the hours leading up to the hit. You'd need a couple of them to stay by the accident, monitor what happened, and follow the ambulance. That left two, plus the doorman, Max, his guards, and his mysterious boss. Seven against one. Not great odds.
He turned around to face Alix again. He'd disarmed her pretty easily at the bus stop. It wasn't a great sign.
'How much armed combat training have you actually had?'
She shrugged and pouted. 'Some. Basic self-defense, shooting, nothing special.'
'And knife work,' said Carver.
'No. That I taught myself. Every girl needs a way to scare off creeps.'
'Bit extreme, isn't it?'
'So were the creeps.'
Colclough spoke. 'Can I ask a question?'
Carver only looked at him in response.
'Why don't you just get out of here? Trust me, I'll stay schtum. I swear to God, on my girl's life, not a word. Take this car. Head for the nearest airport. Fly as far away as possible.'
Alix nodded. 'Or we could fly to different places. Separately.'
'Yeah, we could,' said Carver, 'if you wanted a pain in the neck from looking over your shoulder for the rest of your short life and an itch in your back, waiting for the first bullet. The people who sent us wanted us dead. They're not going to change their minds on that. So we've got an hour, tops, before the police discover there was no one in that flat and that body gets fished out of the sewers. We've got to assume that Max and his boss are either monitoring police communications or have people inside the force. They'll soon know we're still alive. We've got to hit them before then. And we've got to find out about their organization. I take it Max had some kind of IT/communications setup?'
'I s'pose so. There was computer screens on the table, but he wasn't letting me anywhere near 'em, so don't ask me what they did.'
'I don't have to. They ran the show. And the computer that ran them has everything we need to know. If we can't get it out of Max, we'll get it from the computer. You got that, Alix?'
A shrug. 'I guess. But you should know, I'm not a soldier. Attacking a house? I did not get trained to do that.'
'Then just follow me, do exactly what I say, and watch my back. And look on the bright side. Those bastards wanted to kill us. We're going to return the compliment.'
12
Colclough brought the car to a halt. They were in the Marais, directly across the river from the Ile Saint-Louis. Once, aristocrats and courtiers built their mansions here, to be as close as possible to the kings of France in their palace at the Louvre. They filled their homes with paintings, sculptures, and furniture of exquisite taste. They dressed in silk and lace. Yet behind the impeccable facades and courtly etiquette raged an unrelenting war for influence, wealth, and access to the throne.
When the old order vanished in the revolutionary frenzy of 1789, the Marais went with it. The area was neglected for almost two centuries, only to be revived in recent decades as a Parisian equivalent to New York's SoHo or London's Notting Hill. Now the rich and fashionable rubbed shoulders with the ethnic and exotic: exclusive boutiques next to Jewish delis, gay bars alongside Algerian restaurants. But many of the mansions remained, and one, at least, was still home to conspiracy and intrigue.
'It's just there,' he said, pointing with his free right hand to a gateway about fifty meters ahead of them, on the far side of the road. Then he slumped in his seat and muttered, 'I don't know why I bothered. You're gonna kill me anyway.'
Carver reached across, grabbed the shoulder of Colclough's sweat-sodden shirt, and shook him. 'No, I'm not. Not if you do exactly what you're told. If we live, so do you.'
'Aren't you scared I'll talk?'
'Who to? I don't see you going to the police in a hurry. If we're alive, then Max won't be, so you won't be talking to him. And you've already told us you have no more idea who his boss is than we do. So don't worry. I believed you when you swore you wouldn't blab. But this little chat just wasted thirty seconds. So drive up to the gate, nice and easy. Let the guard open up. And keep your mouth shut.'
Carver pulled a third plastic cuff from his pocket as Colclough started the car again. 'Last in the packet,' he said with a wry smile, handing it to Alix. 'That's for the man at the gate. I'll tell you when.'
The car pulled up in front of the gate. Colclough flashed the headlights. The gates swung open and a man on the far side waved them through. He was holding a gun, another Uzi by the look of it, straight down by his leg, making a token attempt at keeping it out of sight of passersby.
The man stepped up to the car and motioned to Colclough to open the window. Carver was counting on him doing what all gatekeepers do-bend down and look inside the car. When he did, he'd see Carver's gun pointing at him. Alix would then get out and cuff the guard. Simple-just so long as Colclough kept his mouth shut.
But the copper lost his nerve. As the metal gates swung shut behind the car and the man leaned down toward the open window, he shouted, 'Watch out! He's got a gun!'
The guard stepped back and tried to bring his Uzi to bear. Carver was faster. He raised his pistol and shot twice through the half-open driver's window. He put two bullets neatly grouped in the guard's chest, the force of them slamming him up against the brickwork at the side of the entrance arch.
'Big mistake,' Carver muttered, almost to himself.
Colclough was moaning, 'Oh Jesus, I'm sorry, please don't kill me…'
Carver ignored him. He threw Alix's gun into her hands. 'Follow me!' he shouted. 'Fast!'
The key principles of close-range urban combat are surprise, speed, and controlled violence. Any hope of surprise had just been shattered. That left speed and violence. Carver started running.
Across the cobblestones, the main body of the house rose in a block of gray white stone. As he reloaded his pistol, Carver glanced to the right, where the black hood of a BMW 7 Series limousine glinted in the recesses of the old coach house. Max traveled in style. If Carver got out alive, that would be his getaway vehicle. By the front door he stopped for a second and gestured to Alix to stand on the far side. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, counted to three, and kicked the door open, moving in fast, his gun held straight out in front of him. He caught a glimpse of Alix following just behind.
The hallway was floored with white marble tiles, and a massive glass lantern, lit by electric candles, hung down the center of the stairwell. The staircase curved back on itself as it rose up to the first floor. Carver heard a sudden high pitched warning shout from behind him, saw a door open to the right of the stairs and a man run out.
Carver's reaction was subconscious, automatic. He fired at the man and the backup who came after him. They both went down. Carver needed to get upstairs, fast. But he never turned his back on a wounded man. He strode ten paces across the marble floor and finished the job: two point-blank head shots that spattered blood, bone, and brain matter across the marble floor.
Alix whimpered in horror.
'Come on!' Carver shouted as he turned and ran towards the stairs.
