Upon their return they’d been sheltered at the Stasi training camps near Berlin, Star I and Star II, where their cadres learned the use of explosives and various weapons: 9mm Heckler & Koch submachine gun, the G-3 automatic rifle, .357 Smith & Wesson, the AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle, and the Soviet RPG-7 antitank rocket weapon. Experts on explosives demonstrated bomb-triggering devices consisting of battery-fed photoelectric beams that could be employed against moving objects—interruption of the beam would detonate the bomb. A technique they used often.
The Stasi later helped the terrorists “retire” in East Germany. But Jutta had been imprisoned in France. Had ex-Stasi members still watched her? Or had she been killed by that rabid
Now Stefan had to escape. He scanned the cemetery. If someone had gotten to Jutta, they could get to him.
Anxiously, he paced under the tree, ignoring the crunch of the grave digger’s shovel. There had been only four of them who knew of this place.
Now there were three. He had to leave, get away. What if the killer was one of them?
Stefan pulled his beret low, edged among the headstones. He surveyed the cemetery. Besides the grave digger, there was only an old lady, bent and black-clad, who swept the path.
He knew who he had to see.
AIMEE WANTED to concentrate on finding the link between Figeac and her mother. Yet when she thought of Christian sitting in a Commissariat cell, she felt guilty.
At least she’d found out from Idrissa that Romain Figeac had made tapes. If she got Christian out he could help her find them.
The other address for Etienne Mabry, besides his apartment, was at the Bourse, the stock market. As she walked through the Sentier the whir of sewing machines escaped from windows above her. On the corner stood a Pakistani man. The jackets draped from his arm caught her eye.
A block away, she entered a deserted courtyard, set down her backpack, and got to work. She stood on the cobbles, reapplying her Chanel-red lipstick in a window. Looking in a tall truck’s side-view mirror, she reapplied mascara. She flattened her spiky hair with gel, then slid into the heels she carried, along with a new cryptography manual, calcium biscuits for Miles Davis, and black silk underwear crushed at the bottom of her bag.
One never knew.
Agence France-Presse loomed beyond the Bourse’s forest of columns. Good thing her Beretta rested in her office drawer, she thought, as she saw the metal sensors of the Greek temple-like Bourse, the former Hotel Bronignart.
Nearby stood an artists’ squat, in a Haussmann-era building, the whole six floors covered with fluorescent graffiti. It was an unexpected bright spot in the middle of the financial district.
Aimee paused in the central enclosure of the Bourse. A speckled gray pigeon had flown inside. Disoriented, it pecked at the
Kind of like now.
Several men passed in formal evening attire. She wished she was wearing something more dressy than the crisp linen jacket over her jeans.
More business and efficiency exuded from the antenna-topped Agence France Presse opposite, she thought, than from the deserted wide marble corridors of the Bourse. Rounding a corner, she strode toward the trading hall.
“Trading has ended for the day, Mademoiselle,” said a plainclothes guard wearing a headset. His massive shoulders barred her way. “No unauthorized visitors. Do you have an appointment?”
“But of course,” she said, trying to scan the trader directory behind him for Mabry’s name. She had to make sure he was listed and where he could be found.
Before she could think of what to say next, the guard smiled broadly.
“Another convert baptized,” he said.
“Baptized?”
His massive hand pointed to the yellow-green splotch on her shoulder. Big and spreading.
“You must be special,” he winked. “Our winged friends don’t bestow this honor on everyone.”
Great. Just what I need, she thought. No way in and bird poop on my suit.
On his desk, a halogen lamp beam focused on the visitors’ log.
Too bad she hadn’t mastered reading upside down.
“Happen to have a tissue?”
He pulled a Wet Wipe from his desk.
“Try this.”
“Be my guest,” he said with a gesture. Quickly, she rubbed at her linen jacket.
“He’s following me,” she said. “Look!”
As the guard turned, Aimee bent over the tenants’ register. She scanned the entries and found the name Etienne Mabry.
“Who?”
She grinned, pointing to the pigeon who’d waddled into view.
“If you don’t watch out, you’re next,” she said. “Please, tell Etienne Mabry I’m en route and I apologize for arriving late.”
SHE DIDN’T know what to expect upstairs. The oddly narrow marble staircase echoed to the click of her heels. But by the time she arrived she’d dug in her bag, looped a silk scarf around her neck, and attached chunky silver earrings.
The placard on the landing read, “Mabry—YI Burobourse
The small room didn’t hold more than fifteeen people. All men. And as much ethnic variety as
“I’m looking for Monsieur Mabry,” she said to one with a flute of champagne in his hand. “Can you point him out to me?”
“
But another man appeared at her elbow. Tanned, with graying hair, he leaned forward conspiratorially. “You and me both.”
She looked up, surprised to be at the receiving end of a major charm offensive. She didn’t mind too much. He wasn’t hard on the eyes. At all. She’d had an affair with an older man in her neighborhood who walked his dog when she did. An aristo with old money and
“Let me know when you find him.”
“And why should I?”
“I’m his uncle,” he said. “Jean Buisson.”
“Aimee Leduc,” she said. As she turned, he clasped her elbow. “But if we don’t find him, come to the
