Behind Hansen, Gillespie was munching on French toast, which she said tasted better in the States, and working her laptop’s touch pad, scanning data from Moreau—
There were, however, two other leads to follow: Doucet and the warehouse.
Noboru and Valentina were already out to meet the team’s runner in Reims, from whom they would pick up the gear and be outfitted for their visit to see Doucet, who’d been admitted to the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire at 45 rue Cognacq-Jay, about four kilometers southwest of the team’s hotel.
Ames entered the room, car keys in hand. “You ready, chief?”
Hansen turned from the window. “Hold down the fort, Kim, all right?”
She nodded.
“And, you know, if you want, take a nap. Just leave the channel on in case I need to get you through the subdermal, all right?”
“You got it.”
Hansen walked over to Ames and ripped the car keys out of the man’s hand. “I drive.”
Noboru took the Opel to the parking garage of the Hotel Azur, located just five minutes west. He and Valentina drove to the far end of the garage as instructed. Noboru let the car idle. He glanced over at Valentina, who draped an arm across her eyes and rested her head on the seat. He felt compelled to say something but simply sat there.
“How come you’re so serious, Nathan?” she blurted out.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile.”
“I smiled once. Back in 2007.”
She opened her eyes and smiled. “I like you. You’re one of the first guys I’ve met who doesn’t want to have sex with me.”
“What makes you assume that?”
“Because you don’t look at me that way.”
“It’s impolite.”
“Yes, it is. Your parents raised you right.”
He took a deep breath. “I would still like to have sex with you.”
And then he shocked her… by smiling. “Does that make you feel better?”
She punched him in the arm. Hard. “The smile part does. So… I’m going to try to take just a little nap, just rest my eyes, okay?”
“Okay.”
Within a minute she was out. They were all exhausted, and Noboru repeatedly checked the rearview mirror while blinking his vision back to clarity and stifling a yawn.
He didn’t want to close his eyes, because if he did, he knew he’d begin to hear the car horns and smell the herbs and roasting meat from the restaurants.
The back window of his second-floor apartment in Kao-hsiung was open, and below lay piles of trash surrounding a pair of Dumpsters. Noboru was lying in bed, reading a newspaper, when they kicked in his door.
Horatio moved in first, lifting his pistol with an attached silencer. He was forty, broad shouldered like a linebacker but narrow waisted and light on his feet. He’d been severely burned on his neck and lost part of his right ear. He’d never talked about how or why. He kept his bald pate shaved and glistening, and his right arm was entirely tattooed, probably to disguise more scars.
Behind him came Gothwhiler, the scrawny extraterrestrial, pale as a ghost with hair dyed jet-black. He was older than Horatio, wore diamond earrings, and seemed to own only khaki cargo pants. Noboru had never seen him wear anything else in the ten months he worked for the man. Horatio and Gothwhiler were both Brits, former military men (they would not reveal more about that), and had founded a private military company, or PMC, called Gothos and headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Noboru rolled off the bed, started for the window, but Horatio was already crying out, “Don’t do it, mate.”
He hesitated, glanced back at the hard-eyed Brit.
“Just return the money,” said Gothwhiler, lifting his own pistol.
“I took back what was mine. Nothing more.”
“We don’t care,” snapped Horatio. “You’re a very naive young man. And trust me. I know what it’s like to play with fire… ”
Noboru had completed a two-part assassination job for the company, killing the CEO of a competing PMC headquartered in Hong Kong. Once he’d killed the old man, he’d been instructed to kill the man’s wife and seventeen-year-old daughter, in order to make a “lasting impression” on the firm’s remaining employees, whom Gothos wanted out of the mercenary business.
After assassinating the CEO, Noboru had spent a week studying his targets and realized that he couldn’t bring himself to complete the job. He returned and asked for half of his two-hundred-thousand-dollar payment.
Because he had not “completed” the mission, Gothwhiler had refused to pay him anything. With the help of an old friend in the special forces, Noboru hacked the company’s account and withdrew half his fee — only the half he believed they owed him.
Consequently, Horatio and Gothwhiler had made it their mission in life to find him, get back their money, and then, of course, make Noboru suffer a long and painful death.
Noboru had no intention of ever returning the money. He had already sent it to his parents in Yokohama, and they had already used it to save their house and get ahead on the bills. And if these two Brits were going to kill him, he’d force them to do it quickly, which was why, without a second’s hesitation, he threw himself out the window. Horatio fired and Gothwhiler screamed for him not to, since only Noboru knew where the money was and could return it.
But Horatio was no amateur marksman, and his round had managed to catch Noboru in the right arm just as he’d been passing through the window.
He landed in the garbage below and immediately rolled down the bags and came up, as the first stinging from the gunshot wound took hold. He rose, raced to the brick wall, and glanced down at his bleeding arm.
Then he raced to the main entrance of the building, where he knew Horatio and Gothwhiler would emerge.
They had surprised him in his apartment. He only wanted to return the favor.
Gothwhiler came out first, and Noboru, in one fluid movement, took him from behind, wrapping an arm around his neck and seizing the man’s wrist so he could direct his pistol toward…
Horatio, forcing both men to hold their fire, if only for a few seconds. Noboru drove his knee into Gothwhiler’s spine, and as the man groaned, he shoved him forward, into Horatio, who lost his footing and dropped back onto his rump.
Two old men on the opposite side of the street began shouting, and, in that instant, Noboru made a decision.
He bolted around a row of parked cars, and, using them as a shield, crouched over and reached the next cross street.
Now he was into a full sprint, weaving his way through the throng of pedestrians, stealing glimpses over his shoulder, feeling the blood dripping from his arm.
His heart was drumming in his ears, rapping hard, sounding strangely like a knuckle rapping on glass.
“What the hell is this, Bruce? Open up!”
Noboru shook awake, his arm throbbing as it had back then, and found himself staring directly into Mr. Louis Moreau’s ugly mug and grateful there was a piece of glass between them.
Moreau stepped back from the car and waved him out.
