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,
