Strong and fast son of a bitch.
Jack drove his still-raised knee downward. His boot heel slammed into the tile, clipping the inner edge of the man’s foot. The man yelped in pain. Jack repeated the maneuver, this time raking his boot’s knurled edge down the length of the man’s shin before stomping the man’s foot a second time. Now the man collapsed sideways. Jack helped him, palming the side of his head and banging it against the doorjamb. The man dropped his gun. Jack kicked it, sending it twirling across the tile floor, then took a rapid step back and leveled the HK with the man’s head.
“Are you done?” Jack asked, panting.
The man tried to get up, pressing himself off the floor with his left hand. Jack stepped forward and kicked it out from under him. He collapsed and his head banged against the tile.
“I said, Are… you… done?” Jack said.
“J’ai fini,” the man replied. And then he added in lightly accented English, “I am done.”
Jack clicked on his penlight. “Let me see your face.”
“Why?”
“Show me your face,” Jack growled.
Slowly the man lifted his head.
It was René Allemand.
28
We’ve been looking for you,” Jack said.
“Many people have been looking for me,” Allemand replied. He sat upright and began massaging his shin and foot. “Can you stop shining that light in my eyes?”
Jack lowered the beam slightly. He keyed his radio and said, “What’s happening out there? Do we have any more company?”
Effrem replied, “No. What’s happening in there?”
“Everything’s fine. Stand by.”
Allemand asked Jack, “Who are you? Who are you talking to?”
Jack paused to consider his answers. While he tended to agree with Effrem that René Allemand was a victim in all this, there was a chance they were both wrong. “I can tell you who I’m not,” he replied. “I’m not one of Jürgen Rostock’s people.”
This got Allemand’s attention. He looked up at Jack with narrowed eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not the only one who’s pissed off Herr General. Do you know a man named Eric Schrader? Very tall, German…”
“Perhaps.”
“You met with him in Lyon.”
Allemand didn’t reply. Jack decided to go all in. “After you two parted company he flew to the United States and tried to slit my throat.”
Allemand offered a Gallic shrug. “Well. It appears he didn’t succeed.”
“No, but it was close. He’s dead now.”
“You killed him?”
“Not exactly, but the result was the same. Captain Allemand, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re still alive, and you’re not zip-tied in the trunk of a car. If I was with RSG we wouldn’t be talking.”
“What you say makes some sense, but it doesn’t explain why you’re here and why you’ve been looking for me.”
Jack was getting annoyed with their uneven information exchange. Then he reminded himself what René Allemand had been through. In fact, something told Jack he and Effrem probably knew only a fraction of the story.
“I know about Abidjan,” Jack said. “At least part of it. I don’t think you had anything to do with the attacks in Lyon. And I’d bet money there was a lot more to your kidnapping than anyone knows.”
Allemand smiled. “And now this is the part where I unburden myself and we become fast friends, yes?”
“That’s your call. As soon as I get done cloning the hard drive on the computer in that study — the one I believe belongs to Alexander Bossard — I’m leaving. You can either come with me and look at the data or go to ground again and pray you find a way to clear your name and get your life back. You decide.”
Jack was reasonably confident he’d gained a sliver of trust from Allemand, but not so confident he would risk turning his back on the man. After collecting Allemand’s weapon, a Walther P22, Jack returned to the study to find Mitch’s flash drive had nearly finished its task. Jack sat down before the computer and watched the progress bar inch closer to one hundred percent.
Allemand appeared in the study’s doorway. “Can I have my gun back?”
“I’ll leave it beside the wall by the front gate,” Jack replied. “Or you can join us for coffee and I’ll give it back to you then.”
“‘Us’? It’s not just you?”
“No. We come as a package deal, though. If you’re going to trust me, you’ll have to trust him.”
“I do not think we’re quite at trust yet, do you?”
Jack offered Allemand what he hoped was his best “couldn’t care less” shrug. They desperately needed Allemand’s cooperation, but Jack’s gut told him playing hard-to-get was the smart move. “There’s an all-night coffeehouse in Wädenswil, right off the Zugerstrasse and across from the police station. We’ll be there for the next hour.”
Jack removed the flash drive, powered down the computer, and stood up. “And you might want to retrace your steps before you leave.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re not wearing gloves. If you don’t want your fingerprints found here, I’d wipe down everything you touched.”
Jack and Effrem hadn’t gotten through their first cups of coffee when they saw, through their booth’s window, Allemand’s van pull into the parking lot. The electrician’s placard was gone. Jack said to Effrem, “Good call about that, by the way.”
Effrem smiled. “I’m a learner.”
Allemand walked inside and the hostess approached him. He gestured toward Jack and Effrem, then walked over. He grabbed a chair from a nearby table, plopped it down at the end of their booth, and sat.
To Jack he said, “This is your partner?”
“Yes.”
“Do I get my gun back now?”
Jack nodded at the folded newspaper on the table. “In there. It’s not loaded. Leave it that way until you’re back in the van.”
Allemand made no move to touch the newspaper. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
Jack made the introductions, first names only. Allemand shook their hands and said, “René. Jack, you said Eric Schrader is dead. Is that true?”
“Google it. Alexandria, Virginia. Unidentified man walks into oncoming traffic and is killed instantly.”
“That’s unfortunate. I was hoping to catch up to him. We were overdue for a chat.”
Allemand smiled when he said this, but there was none of it in his eyes. Jack suspected that if Schrader hadn’t died in Alexandria, he wouldn’t have survived his run-in with Allemand. Jack assumed their “chat” would have involved power tools and electricity. If so, Jack wondered, had Allemand already had that kind of brutality in him, or had his experiences since Ivory Coast taken him to that dark place?
The waitress appeared and asked if Allemand wanted anything. He waved her off. Once she was out of earshot he said, “So, how do we proceed, the three of us?”
Jack and Effrem had discussed this. They’d decided to lay everything out for René and hope they were bringing something valuable to the table.
Jack said, “Effrem tells you his story, then I tell you mine.”
“And if I do not want to share my own?”
Jack answered with a little steel in his voice: “Then that’s on you. Get in your van and leave, but stay out of our way. Effrem, tell him.”