At Claudia’s behest, Gage drove Karl Vogel’s 2011 Audi. Until now, he’d only seen it sparkling in the garage. Thomas drove it around the estate once a week just to keep everything moving. Once he was behind the wheel, Gage had learned the car only had 11,000 kilometers on it. The Ingolstadt product was virtually brand new. This exact model was an Audi A8L W12. The car sported a V-12 engine that created 500 horsepower, along with a robust 460 foot-pounds of torque. In other words, it had gobs of power. The big Audi glided over the autobahn, silky smooth at any speed. And while he didn’t know the exact horsepower, he quickly discovered the car’s willingness to run. At one point, with no traffic and dry roads, Gage put the car in the left lane and kept his foot on the floor until he reached a speed of 250 kilometers per hour—roughly 155 miles per hour. A glance at the tachometer told Gage the car probably had another 30 miles per hour to gain.
No, thanks—155 miles per hour was plenty fast. Too fast, in fact.
Gage eased to the center lane and lifted his right foot, settling into a gentle pace of approximately 100 miles per hour. The speed had been a nice distraction, along with the loud music from the Sirius-XM satellite radio. Anything to keep his mind off of Monika.
On Gage rolled, through the southwest of Germany, past Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken—places he’d spent time before—and over the French border. The road was a wide strip of gray, bordered by blankets of white on both sides. From the east, the fleeting sun cast brilliant light on the winter landscape. The traffic was moderate in France when Gage saw the sign: Metz – 71 KM.
Circumventing the remembrances of Monika, Gage allowed himself a brief recollection of the violent interrogation he’d performed in the ramshackle house outside of Metz on the two rapist cretins. He remembered using the drill and the wire cutters. He recalled the smell of the big oaf’s vomit.
Then he recalled why he’d interrogated the man.
Don’t go there…
Rather than allow himself to be dragged down, Gage rehearsed everything he would do and say on this day. The man he hoped to meet was someone he’d kept quiet tabs on. He’d not spoken to him in quite some time, and Gage wasn’t confident he’d be well received. But given his limited time and resources, Gage felt that starting with him was his best option—especially since the Die Wahrheit article connected Karl Vogel to organized crime.
On Gage drove, rehearsing, preparing…
Avoiding.
* * *
Le Cône de Pin was rather quiet this late winter morning. Perhaps the early snow had kept many of the regulars at home. Marcel Cherbourg sat at his customary table, having just flung today’s copy of Les Échos aside. He was irritated over the performance of a number of his personal investments. Several of his confidants had shown him how he could track them via an app on his phone. Marcel was old fashioned and preferred the newspaper. He saw no sense in being pissed off all day, instead of just once.
The proprietor arrived with Marcel’s third coffee, containing only a dab of fresh cream. She fawned over him as she always did. He lit a cigarette and dutifully thanked her, the smoke billowing with each syllable.
Although smoking was banned in French restaurants, the proprietor of Le Cône de Pin had been awarded with a special dispensation for smoking, provided she met several strict conditions, none of which were nearly as important to the city as the exorbitant license fee. Given the amount of money her top customer spent with her each month, the conditions were well worth it. Besides, with so many smokers in France, the ability to accommodate their population had greatly helped her business.
The café was situated in the heart of Metz, one block off the Moselle, in the Université de Lorraine area. There was additional seating upstairs, although Marcel preferred to be downstairs with his back to the wall of books no one ever dared touch while he was seated. He sat alone, with three of his men seated several tables away, scattered strategically. While Marcel regularly conducted morning meetings here, none were scheduled for this important day.
Important, because today was settlement day for Marcel’s four division chiefs. During the previous night, despite the snow, four couriers descended upon Metz, coming from Paris, Lyon, Marseilles and Toulouse. Each arrived heavily armed, carrying briefcases full of cash and topped by hand-written, coded sheets. The sheets provided Marcel with the figures for how the tributes had been calculated. Marcel was well aware that there was a bit of spillage as the money filtered up the ranks, but his organization, Les Glaives du Peuple, was thriving and currently encountering little headwind from the government. Therefore, Marcel Cherbourg, unlike his predecessor, knew better than to create a problem where one didn’t exist.
As a cloud of leisurely ascending smoke enveloped his head, he spread the four yellow sheets before him, quickly tabulating the figures. There had been a modest increase month-over-month, but far more important to Marcel, the figure was nearly ten percent more than the same month last year. It was a trend that had been repeating for several years now. Provided such growth continued to occur, a little spillage could be overlooked—along with the poor performance of Marcel’s personal investissements de merde.
When considering the net income from the business, Marcel acknowledged he was dealing with a pack of criminals. Make things too hard for them and they would violently exchange
