heat.”
“Whatever,” Chavez said as he and his two colleagues rushed down the stairs. That was a problem for sixty seconds from now; he couldn’t worry about it just yet.
All three Americans flew out of the door of the apartment and onto the street. Jack and Sam were there in the maroon Galaxy with the side door open. The three fell insidreeicae just as the first police cars skidded around the corner and into the street from behind them. Driscoll helped Clark into a seat and immediately began assessing his bloody arm.
Even though the police were fifty yards back, Ryan didn’t floor it; he had the presence of mind to drive normally as he headed toward Avenue George V. They passed a language school and a restaurant where the waiters were just setting up bistro tables on the pavement for the lunch service. Several men and women on the sidewalk stared at their car as they passed; perhaps they’d come outside to investigate the origin of the sirens, then heard or saw the ruckus on the roof and then the men pouring out of the apartment. But so far, no one on the street had raised an alarm.
Jack knew he couldn’t drive onto Avenue George V in front of him; it was crawling with police and a roadblock had likely already been set up. Instead he drove slowly toward it, watched his rearview mirror until the police cars behind him began stopping on the street in front of the apartment, and only when he could wait no longer, he jacked the wheel to the left and turned into the one-way traffic pouring off of the Rue Magellan.
Certain that at least some of the parked police cars had seen him, he punched the accelerator now as he leaned toward the windshield to take in as much of the road in front of him as possible. The cars on the street shot toward him; he wove left and then right to avoid the oncoming traffic. Within seconds he made a right on the Rue de Bassano, found himself on a second street traveling in the wrong direction, but he kept going, faster and faster. A last-second reaction to avoid a taxi sent Ryan and the rest of the team up onto the narrow sidewalk; they scraped a pair of parked cars as they shot through passersby diving into doorways or out into the street to avoid the dented minivan. At an intersection Ryan avoided a group of employees standing in front of their Russian restaurant, and he pulled back onto the street, crashed through a neat line of bicycles for rent, then passed the Louis Vuitton flagship store as he pulled out onto the wide Champs-Elysees.
For the first time in a minute and a half he found himself driving in the same direction as traffic. Also, for the first time in several minutes, the men did not hear the shrill squawking of police sirens right behind them.
Jack reached up to wipe sweat from his forehead, but his rubber mask got in the way. His hairline was soaked with perspiration, so he slicked back his dark hair to get it out of his face.
“Where to now?” Ryan asked the men behind him.
Clark’s voice was gravel, broadcasting to the vehicle the pain the ex — Navy SEAL was in at the moment, but his voice remained strong. “Safe house,” he said. “We’re going to need a new ride. Can’t pull into the airport driving the most wanted vehicle in France.”
“Roger that,” said Ryan, and he punched a button on the GPS that would lead him to the safe house. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay,” said Clark.
But Sam Driscoll had been checking Clark. He applied pressure to the wound as he leaned forward into the front seat. “Get there as fast as you can.”
Adara Sherman stood inside the doorway of the Gulfstream with an HK UMP.45-caliber submachine gun held in one hand behind her back. She watched a four-door sedan pull to a stop on the tarmac, saw the five men climb out and approach. Four of them carried backpacks, but John Clark had his arm in a makeshift sling under his blue sport coatlue ta. Even from a distance she could see his face was ashen.
Quickly she’d scanned the airport grounds, determined the coast to be clear, then rushed back inside the aircraft to grab medical supplies.
On board she bandaged Clark quickly, knowing that a customs official would be on his way out to see them off. While she helped him get a clean jacket on, the other men changed into clean suits and ties that had been ready for them in the Gulfstream’s coat closet, but only after stowing their clothing and gear in the stash compartment below an inspection panel in the floor.
Within minutes a female customs agent climbed aboard. She opened two of the businessmen’s briefcases and glanced inside and then asked the bearded gentleman if he wouldn’t mind opening his suitcase. This he did, but she didn’t look past the socks and gym clothes. The older gentleman reclining on the couch in the back was not feeling well, so she did not disturb him other than to see that his face matched the passport handed to her by one of his younger employees.
The female customs official finally checked the pilot’s paperwork, thanked everyone, and was seen out the door by the flight attendant. The door shut behind her, and within seconds the aircraft was taxiing out of the yellow customs square on the ramp.
Captain Reid and First Officer Hicks had the wheels up in five minutes. While they were still on their takeoff climb out of Paris airspace, Sherman had stopped the bleeding from Clark’s arm. Before the aircraft reached ten thousand feet she had an IV line in the top of his hand and an antibiotics drip moving slowly into his bloodstream to stave off any infection.
As soon as Country turned off the seat-belt light in the cabin, Chavez rushed back to check on his friend. “How is he?” Chavez asked, a worried tone in his voice.
Sherman poured antiseptic into the wound now, examining the holes as the clear liquid cleaned the blood away. “He’s lost a fair amount of blood, he needs to lie flat for the flight, but the round went through and through and he’s moving his hand okay.” She looked up at her patient. “You’ll be fine, Mr. Clark.”
John Clark smiled at her. With a weak voice he said, “I had a feeling Gerry didn’t hire you to pass out peanuts.”
Sherman laughed. “Naval corpsman, nine years.”
“That’s a tough job. You were deployed with the Marines?”
“Four years in the sandbox. I saw a lot of wounds worse than yours.”
“I bet you did,” John said with a nod of understanding.
Caruso had headed alone up to the galley. He returned, stood over everyone who was kneeling over Clark. In his hand was a crystal highball of Johnnie Walker Black Label scotch. He addressed Sherman. “What do you think, doc? Can I give him a dose of this?”
She looked Clark over and nodded. “In my professional opinion, Mr. C. looks like he needs a drink.”
The Gulfstream flew over the English Channel, leaving French airspace just after eleven a.m. at a cruising altitude of thirty-six thousand feet.
17
Even though he looked every second of his sixty-nine years, Nigel Embling was no pushover. At six feet, four inches and two hundred fifty pounds, he retainlue ten ed considerable brawn to go with his fertile brain. Still, within one second of opening his eyes, he recognized his predicament and raised his hands to indicate he would put up no fight.
He’d awoken to guns in his face, flashlight beams in his eyes, and shouts in his ears. Though startled and worried, he did not panic. As a resident of Peshawar, Pakistan, he knew well that he lived in a city rife with crime, terrorism, and government and law enforcement thuggery, so even before he’d forced the cobwebs of sleep out of his mind he was already wondering which of these three he was waking up to this morning.
