“Where the hell does he think he’s going?”
“Paris?” Marie-Lure suggested.
“He wouldn’t get far in that jeep.”
“Maybe it wasn’t him.”
“Who else?” Bellus asked. He leaned forward and shouted to their pilot. “Cross the field … I want to get to the front of the terminal… the jeep is in the tunnel.”
The pilot nodded and they peeled off to the north as he contacted the tower and told them his intentions. Nothing commercial was taking off or landing at Orly, but other helicopters were streaming toward the crash site from city hospitals and morgues.
The tower was directing their movements to avoid any further tragedies.
“Lieutenant Bellus, are you there?”
Bellus wore a headset connected to the police frequency radio. He keyed the mike.
“Here.”
“They’re dead, Jacques. All three of them.” It was Queneau. The man sounded shook up.
“Where are you?”
“We’re at the end of zero-eight. They’re all in the back of the Air Service Van.
They’ve been shot to death.”
“Who are you talking about?” Bellus shouted, although he knew exactly who was in the back of that van.
“Capretz and Gallimard… and Christian. Merde. He was shot in the back of the head.”
Bellus forced himself to calm down. “Is there anything else there, Phillipe? Anything we can use?”
Queneau didn’t answer.
“Phillipe!”
“The missile launcher is in the back of the truck as well. The American Stinger.”
“Secure the area,” Bellus ordered. “No one is to touch anything. Anything at all, until the evidence team gets there. Do you understand?”
“Oui,” Queneau said.
“Don’t worry, Phillipe, we’ll get the bastard!” Bellus said, and he pulled off the headset. Marie-Lure was watching out the windows, but her complexion had paled.
“We’re taking no chances,” Bellus told her.
She looked up.
“He is a killer. So we will shoot to kill if necessary.”
She nodded, and looked back out the windows as they came over the top of the big terminal building just above where the N7 emerged from the tunnel. She stiffened.
“There!”
Bellus followed her gaze. The jeep, its blue lights still flashing, was pulled up in front of the departing passenger entrances into the terminal. So far as he could tell it had been abandoned. The terrorist was either inside the terminal or someone had picked him up in front.
“Down there,” he ordered the pilot, and as they descended he got back on the radio.
“Security Central, Bellus.”
“Security Central,” his dispatcher answered.
“The bastard may be inside the terminal. I want it sealed. Now!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Marc, did you hear Queneau?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Spread the word.”
A Citroen taxicab pulled up behind the jeep, and a man jumped out, glanced up at their helicopter, and then raced across the sidewalk and entered the terminal.
“Who the hell was that?” Bellus swore.
Boorsch knew that he was being followed, so he’d decided at the last moment to lose himself in the confusion in the terminal instead of trying to make his rendezvous outside Paris.
It was the taxicab in the tunnel, in the wrong lane. The cabbie had made a U-turn and had come after him. So far as he’d been able to tell, there’d been just the driver, no passenger in the back seat. But he couldn’t be sure.
He’d peeled off his coveralls. He was dressed in tan slacks and a light sweater, but he was conspicuous in the terminal for his lack of luggage, even a briefcase or small bag. And the big Sig-Sauer stuffed in the waistband of his trousers made a telltale bulge beneath his sweater, which he had to cover with one hand.
Steeling himself to act normally, as if he was not on the run, as if he belonged here, Boorsch calmly made his way across the main passenger hall, past the ticket and checkin counters to the escalators leading up to the mezzanine level where the shops, restaurants, lounges and money changing booths were located. There were a lot of people in the terminal, and there seemed to be a general movement toward the windows that faced south, where the Airbus had gone down. The paging system was abnormally silent, and there was a muted hum of tense, and in some cases nearly hysterical conversations.
On the escalator Boorsch watched the front doors. A well-built man dressed in dark slacks and a tweed sportcoat entered the terminal, stepped to one side and waited, apparently studying the crowded arrivals hall.
The same one from the taxi? Boorsch hadn’t got a clear look, but whoever this one was he was a professional, and he had cop written all over him. Boorsch could almost smell it from here.
Just before Boorsch stepped off the escalator, the man looked his way, hesitated for just a moment, and then started forward.
Boorsch knew he’d been made. The bastard was definitely a cop. Either that or CIA.
He hurried left, along the broad concourse, immediately losing himself in the crowds.
When he was certain that he was out of sight of anyone down on the main floor, or coming up on the escalator, he sprinted around the corner down a corridor to the public restrooms and a bank of coin-operated storage lockers.
The blond hair and light blue sweater were unmistakable. McGarvey had got only one brief glimpse of the man’s shoulders and head as he’d started to take off his white coveralls in the tunnel, but it was enough.
But the bastard had been sharp enough to put himself in a position to spot anyone coming after him.
He was armed, no doubt, while McGarvey was weaponless. The balance of power here had definitely shifted. If the terrorist had the presence of mind to stage an ambush somewhere above, or if he had help, McGarvey wouldn’t have one chance in ten of surviving the encounter.
But Mati had been on the flight that the son of a bitch had shot down. There was little doubt she was dead. All of them were probably dead. It wasn’t likely anyone could have survived the kind of fire that had produced that much smoke.
The bastard’s target had been the CIA. But he’d been too much of a coward to face them one-on-one. Instead he’d opted for the methods of the terrorists. Mindless violence against mostly innocent people. McGarvey’s jaws tightened with the thought of it.
He reached the escalator, and raced up the moving stairs, taking them two at a time, shoving people out of the way. At the top he darted across the broad concourse, out of any possible line of fire.
Pulling up just within a nearly empty cocktail lounge he scanned both ways, but there was no sign of the man nor any indication which way he had gone.
The bartender had come out from behind the bar. “What is it? What is happening?”
“Did you see the blond man wearing the blue sweater get off the escalator just a moment ago?” McGarvey demanded.
The bartender, an older man with long handlebar moustaches, shrugged. “Who are you?
What is going on?”
“I’m an American policeman. There has been a plane crash, and the blond man may have had something to do with it. Did you see which way he went?”
“Mon Dieu,” the barkeep shouted throwing up his hands. “He was holding his stomach, as if he were about to be ill.”
“Which way did he go?”
“A droite. To the right, with everyone else.”
“Merci,” McGarvey said, then stepped back out onto the concourse and headed toward the right.
A large crowd had gathered along the broad expanse of windows about one hundred feet farther down the corridor. The windows looked south, toward where the Airbus had gone down.
It was possible the terrorist had merged with that crowd, or was trying to do so now. All he needed was a little time. To do what? Go where?