AL01 - Murder in the Marais

away.'

'Aimee, I just got to sleep after being up two days with the riots,' Martine said.

'What time do you go to press for the Sunday edition?'

'Er, in a few hours, but I'm off,' Martine said. 'Give it to CNN.'

'So you've been leading me on for years?' Aimee said. 'I thought you wanted to be the boss! This info has your new job description on it as first female editor of Le Figaro.'

Martine sounded awake now. 'I need two sources to confirm. Impeccable ones.'

'You'll have the third within twenty minutes,' Aimee said, glad that Martine couldn't see her cross her fingers.

'This better be good,' she said. 'Gilles's shift is over in half an hour. I'll meet you down there.'

'Does mademoiselle le editeur have a nice sound to it?' Aimee said. 'Hold on to your chair when you read this or you might fall off like I almost did.'

Aimee pulled up the bloody fingerprint from rue des Rosiers, then requested a match search on FRAPOL 1 with Cazaux's name. At the corner of the screen, the progress box blinked 'Searching records.' She drummed her chipped red fingernails on the ME's wood desk.

The alarm bleeped and she sat up, gripping the Beretta inside her leather backpack. Her fingers found the safety and flicked it off. She'd taken the handgun from the man in the police uniform outside Soli Hecht's hospital room. The office lights blacked out; only the red light on the surge protector wavered. Stay calm, she told herself, hugging the bag close to her.

From the hallway, a shadow moved, then a flashlight shone on the walls. The citrus scent gave him away before she heard him speak.

'Maybe you'd like to tell me what you're doing,' he said.

A smoldering Rothmans orange cigarette butt landed on her keyboard, briefly illuminating it.

'I've got a gun,' she said. 'If I get upset I'll use it.'

'Don't play with me, you don't have a permit,' he chuckled. 'This is France.'

The fluorescent lights buzzed then flickered on. She looked straight into the green-gold eyes of Herve Vitold. Behind him in the hallway, Rene hung by his suspenders to a large circuit-breaker panel, plastic gloves stuffed in his mouth.

'Ms. Leduc, we meet again,' Vitold said. He slid next to her in one fluid movement, his eyes never leaving hers.

'I knew you were too good-looking to be internal security,' she said.

He moved so close she could see each hair on his upper lip. Almost intimate. His chest heaved rhythmically, which was the only way she could tell he was laughing. The Luger in his hand didn't move, though; it rested coldly against her temple.

'I've been waiting for you to break into FRAPOL 1 again,' he said as he scanned the screen intently. 'Your technique is good, I'll use it myself next time.'

'You're the tidy-up man, eh?' she said. She knew that as soon as she got a match, he'd erase it, eradicate all traces.

He looked bored. 'Tell me something new.'

'You want to crash the whole system,' she said. 'Destroy all law enforcement files and the internal network of fingerprint and DNA identification, Interpol interfaces,' she said. 'Just to erase his fingerprints. But it won't work.'

'Pity,' he said. 'You've got talent. Wasted talent.'

'Each system has its own safeguard network. You'll never get past them.' She wanted to keep him talking. 'Any break-in attempt trips the system alarms. Freezes all access,' she said. 'You can't do it.'

'But I can,' Herve Vitold said. He smiled. 'I designed the alarm alert for FRAPOL 1 and the defense ministry.' Expertly, he snapped the cartridge in and out of the Luger with one hand. 'Disarming them will be easy.'

'Cazaux is finished,' she said.

'Quit playing games,' he said.

'Untie my partner,' she said, glancing at Rene. 'I'm getting upset.'

Vitold ignored her. Rene flipped uselessly like a caught fish, his feet dangling above the scuffed floor, trying to bang the metal circuit breaker with his shoulders. Vitold backed up and pointed his gun at Rene's head. Rene's eyes blinked nonstop in panic.

'Be still, little man,' Vitold said. With his other hand he opened a cell phone and pressed memory. 'Sir, I've begun,' he said.

'Didn't you hear me?' Aimee said.

Vitold sneered as he cocked the trigger by Rene's ear.

'Now I'm upset,' Aimee shot through her leather bag, drilling him three times in his crotch. Disbelief painted Vitold's face before he doubled over, thrashing wildly. He yelped, dropped his cell phone, and collapsed in a bloody sprawl on the linoleum.

'See what happens when I get upset?' she said. She straddled Herve Vitold, his still surprised eyes focused upward. But his frozen stare told her he'd checked out.

She pulled the gloves out of Rene's mouth, then gently lifted him down.

Rene spit talcum powder out of his mouth and flexed his fingers. 'And I thought Vitold liked you for your looks,' he said.

'They never do,' she said and pointed to the screen.

'Match Verified' had come up. She typed in Martine's E-mail address at Le Figaro and hit 'Send.' She picked up Vitold's Luger and his cell phone and brushed off her shirt. Before she could copy everything on a backup disk, the amplified clanging buzzer alarm sounded. Startled, Rene dropped his laptop. From the hallway, red lights flashed on and off. She picked up the laptop, slipped it inside her backpack, and slung that over her shoulder.

'Hurry!' she said, and canceled the command. She grabbed her backpack. 'Go, Rene.'

Now the only documentation with Cazaux's photo and fingerprint identification awaited downloading on Martine's computer at Le Figaro. But would that be enough?

Right now it would have to be. She'd copy and make a backup disk at Martine's office, but would be nervous until she could download the evidence on Cazaux. Their faces alternately blood red and splashed in blackness, Aimee and Rene jumped over Vitold's lifeless figure and sprinted down the hall.

In the vestibule, she grabbed two paramedics' vests and helmets with red crosses on them that hung from hooks. She threw one to Rene.

'This will get us through the crowd and past police lines,' she said.

'From sewer rat to paramedic all in one day,' he said. 'Who said life wasn't an adventure? Now if I could just get some stilts, we wouldn't stick out so much.'

A wheelchair was parked in the vestibule. 'Get in,' Aimee said.

'You've got it the wrong way round,' he said. 'Paramedics don't ride in these, patients do.'

She pushed him down. 'You're wounded in the line of duty, I'll do the talking.'

Late Saturday Evening

THIERRY'S DAGGER GLINTED IN the sputtering candlelight. Cold air seeped from the ruined catacomb walls.

'You're handsome,' Sarah said shyly. 'I used to kiss your little feet and blow on your toes. You'd laugh and laugh, such dulcet tones.'

'How touching!' he said. 'A madonna and child fresco! We're back in the dirt, too.'

Sarah looked down at worms wiggling blindly in the earth next to them. 'Those who flee the past are doomed to repeat it. Is that what you think?'

Thierry's eyes were far away. 'You abandoned me,' he said in a little-boy voice.