Her legs felt strong. She ran on the wet pavement and turned the next corner. She breathed heavily and leaned against the wall.
Good. No one had seemed to follow. Yet she knew from long experience that there was no substitute for getting as far away as quickly as possible from any place of trouble. She reached into her coat pocket, gripped the cell phone and opened it. She waited. And waited. No answer.
She turned left and ran into the dark Paris night, not yet knowing where to run, just wanting to escape.
Come on, Rizzo! Answer, answer, answer!
Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up.
Then Rizzo did answer.
Her mind scrambled. It rejected Italian. They spoke French.
“C’est moi! Alex!” she blurted out. It’s me, Alex, she said, breathlessly.
“Qu’est-ce qui ne va pas?
” Rizzo asked. What’s wrong?
“Tout!” Everything, she said, continuing to run.
She turned slightly as she moved and saw Kaspar in pursuit.
She turned westward. She stepped out into the busy traffic. Her ankle caught on something, twisted, and she went down. A taxi blared its horn, swerved, and sped by, barely missing her. She pulled herself back up, her ankle throbbing, a knee bleeding. She gathered up her cell phone and stumbled back onto the sidewalk.
She ran hard. She turned toward him and saw he was limping badly too. But Kaspar must have packed another clip into his weapon. The sidewalks and asphalt around her exploded with the pattern of bullets that just missed her on each side.
Her heart was pounding in her throat and she ran for her life as the Ukrainian assassin followed.
EIGHTY-ONE
She flipped open the cell phone. Rizzo was still there.
“Find your way to the Métro,” Rizzo said, referring to the Parisian subway. “Then get to the Odéon station. That was the closest stop to your apartment. We have a team of people there,” he said.
She knew her way around Paris but in her haste to escape had run in exactly the wrong direction to get to the Odéon stop. She now would have to take a circuitous route.
“Or do you want them to abandon their positions and come find you?” Rizzo asked.
“No. They’ll never find me,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll get there.”
She tried to assimilate everything that had happened, but the horror of it acted as a block. She wondered about the men she had shot.
Had she left them dead? Dying?
Who knew, though she was sure she’d be reading about it in the newspapers, if not watching it on the news. A wave of disgust overcame her, quickly followed by an urge to survive.
Her thoughts were punctuated by police sirens. The distinctive European ones, like the ones in the open car of police going to round up “the usual suspects” at the beginning of Casablanca.
The traffic was heavy on the quai. But she darted into it, barely missing a car, then another. She was on the bank of the paved promenade above the river. The floodlit Cathedral of Notre Dame was behind her. One of the great views in the Western world, and she was scared out of her mind. No time to be a tourist.
Heavy drops of rain were falling. A gift from heaven maybe. If Kaspar was trailing her, it would make her more difficult to see. She kept her head down. She couldn’t see the rain but she could feel it on her face. What she could see was her breath against the humid mist of the night, that and the recurring image of Maurice’s body tumbling out of the closet.
She moved as fast as she could on a bad ankle, urging herself to run and resisting the urge at the same time. She broke into a fierce sweat and crossed the river on the Pont du Carrousel. The massive Musée du Louvre loomed on the other side. She came off the bridge and was on the right bank.
Alex looked over her shoulder and thought she saw Kaspar’s dark figure still crossing the bridge, limping badly also, following her.
Suddenly a police car approached, its siren wailing, its blue light flashing, heading in the way she had come. She tried to flag it down, but in the rain the gendarmes didn’t see her. They kept going. So did she.
She limped two blocks eastward, keeping Rizzo on the phone. She could see the lights of the Place de la Concorde up ahead. She knew there was a Métro station there and she figured it would be crowded. From Concorde, there would be a short ride to safety. It was too risky to cross a bridge again on foot. A perfect route? No, but she prayed it would work.
Alex picked up her pace. The rain intensified as she passed the gardens of the Tuileries. She cursed her original decision to run north, not south, when she fled the scene of the shooting.
Her body trembled. Within minutes, she arrived at the busy Place de la Concorde and, looking over her shoulder, still saw Kaspar in pursuit. She darted through the maniacal traffic and accessed an entrance to the Métro.
Alex ran down the old concrete steps to the platform. Her footsteps echoed noisily. She slipped badly on the wet stairs. She skinned her other knee and her ankle wailed in pain. But she struggled up to her feet and continued.
She found the Number 12 line southbound. She had thrown Kaspar, at least for a few moments. Without seeing her, he would have no idea which line and which platform she had fled to. Where was he? She was torn between leading him to the Odéon stop and losing him completely. She wished now she had worn a bulletproof vest. What would protect her if he tried to pick her off?
She went to the far end of the platform. She kept her head down, her eyes on the steps. Then, amidst the crowd on the other side of the platform, waiting for a train in the opposite direction, there stood Kaspar.
From a distance of about fifty feet, directly across the tracks, their eyes met. He had a clear shot now, across the tracks. In the distance, she heard the sound of a train approaching the station.
Kaspar glared at her, reached for his weapon but then realized the train rumbling into the station would take his shot away. So he turned and ran. He was trying to cross over.
A train roared into the station. A crowd flowed off the train and another crowd surged on. It was almost midnight but the subway was moderately busy.
She stepped onto the last car. Just before she boarded, she saw Kaspar descend the distant steps in pursuit. She couldn’t see whether he had gotten on or not. She assumed he had. She turned against the wall of the subway car. She wished she had recovered her gun. The empty holster made her feel naked.
The train rumbled along. Why did these Parisian subways have to zigzag like snakes beneath the city? Stations were often only two hundred yards apart.
One stop. Two. She got off and switched cars, trying to throw her pursuer. The train arrived at the Sèvres Babylone station.
She stepped off, stayed in the crowd, and transferred to the Number 10 line going east to the Gare d’Austerlitz, the ancient train station. The 10 would take her to Odéon within two minutes.
She finally started to catch her breath. Under her clothing, her body was soaked. Sweat rolled off her. This train was crowded too. She kept waiting to see if Kaspar would come through looking for her. The doors between the cars were only for emergency use but were unlocked in case emergency use was required.
She took out her phone again. She found Rizzo on the other end.
“Where are you?” he asked.
She told him.
“Still got Kaspar after you?” he asked.
“Probably. I haven’t seen him for several minutes.”
“We’re ready for you,” he said. “When you arrive at Odéon, get off as quickly as possible. You’ll see some musicians playing. Walk toward them as quickly as possible.”
“Where will you be?” she asked.
“Watching,” he said.
In ninety seconds, the train arrived at Odéon.
She stepped out at the south end of the platform. Her ankle continued to kill her.