The pale man pushed her inside. The van squealed away, leaving the Nose, who had slowed to a walk. I hadn’t. He saw me coming just before I tackled him and knocked him to the street.
“What is this?” he yelled, and began to struggle beneath me. “Police!”
“You like hitting people with hammers?” I shouted, and was about to pop him low and in the back so he’d stop squirming.
But out of the corner of my eye, I saw something white and brown launch at me from between the parked cars. On instinct, I ducked a second before it landed on me and started viciously biting at my ear and neck.
Surprised by the pain, I rolled off the guy below me, and tried to defend myself. But the dog was in a frenzy, making these satanic throat noises that had me convinced a pit bull or something like it was attacking me.
“Napoleon!” a man shouted. “Napoleon, no!”
As soon as he yelled, the biting stopped, and I sat up, feeling blood drip from my ear and from wounds to my neck. The Nose was gone, and a twenty-two-pound wirehaired Jack Russell terrier sat about two feet from me, tongue hanging from his bloody muzzle as he panted through what looked like a smile.
A tanned man in jeans and a black leather jacket was running across the street, looking mortified. “Napoleon, what have you done?”
The dog was wagging its tail but barked when Louis pulled up, gasping and looking at my wounds in disbelief.
“I am so sorry, monsieur,” the man said. He was in his early forties, carried a leash, and was built robustly for a Parisian. “I’ve never seen him do anything remotely like that! Bad dog, Napoleon! You are a little terrorist!”
The dog cringed and lay flat on the sidewalk.
“Are you all right?” the man asked me.
“Does he look all right?” Louis asked, handing me a handkerchief.
“My God, you’ll need stitches,” the man said.
“And a rabies shot,” Louis said.
“Napoleon is up to date on all his shots,” his owner said.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I just need to see a doctor.”
“Of course,” the man said. “There’s one nearby, I’m sure.”
“We’ll take you to Private Paris’s contracted doctor, Jack,” Louis said.
“Private Paris?” the man said, sounding surprised.
“We both work for the company,” I said, gingerly touching my ear.
“This makes it all the worse, then,” the man said. “Again, I am so sorry for my little terrorist’s activities, and…”
“You have a name, sir?” Louis asked. “Somewhere we can contact you with the bill?”
He hesitated, but then reached into his coat and handed Louis a business card. “My name is Rivier, Phillipe Rivier. I’m just up here from Nice on business.”
Louis glanced at the card as I got up, and the dog came up off its belly and growled. Rivier took a quick step toward the dog and it lay down fast.
“Be quiet now,” he growled. “You’re in big trouble when you get home.”
“How about you put the emperor on his leash?” Louis said.
“Oh,” Rivier said, looking chagrined. “It’s just that he’s usually spot-on with his voice commands and-”
“The leash,” Louis said.
“Right,” Rivier said, and clipped the lead on the little dog’s collar.
Louis’s cell rang, and he turned to answer it.
Rivier smiled weakly at me. “Again, I couldn’t be more sorry. And please, I’m more than happy to pay for all medical expenses-and dinner. Let me buy you dinner, Monsieur…?”
“Morgan. Jack Morgan,” I said.
“Please. We are here for another day or two. Call me if you think of it. You have the number there.”
Louis turned, the cell pressed tight to his ear and his eyes squinting.
“I can’t promise anything,” I said, glancing at the dog, which had not taken its attention from me.
Rivier smiled weakly, and went off, scolding the dog, which skulked along beside him.
My ear was throbbing, and I was berating myself for letting Big Nose get away, when Louis said, “No one else sees it until we get there, Ali. And get the concierge doctor on duty to meet us at the offices. Jack’s suffered a dog bite and requires stitches.”
He hung up, looking shaken.
“That was Farad. AB-16 just sent Private Paris a letter, Jack, and he says the contents are beyond explosive.”
Chapter 54
15th Arrondissement
6:20 p.m.
“WHY YOU, LOUIS?” Sharen Hoskins demanded the second she barged through the doors into the lobby of Private Paris’s offices, which were situated in a newer building near the Porte de Versailles.
“It was not addressed to me, but to our newest associate,” Louis said. “Ali Farad, a recruit from the narcotics bureau in Marseille. The second Farad saw what it was, he acted to protect it, and the envelope, then called me immediately. Then I called you immediately, non?”
“Where is it?” said Juge Fromme, who limped in behind the investigateur. “What does it say?”
“It’s in the lab being analyzed by our best people, and we only just got here,” I said. “We haven’t read it.”
“Stop all tests until we’ve seen it,” Fromme insisted.
“As you wish, juge,” Louis said. “We are on your side here.”
“That remains to be seen,” Fromme replied curtly. “Take us to it.”
Louis went to a bulletproof door below a security camera and put his hand on a fingerprint reader, his eye to a retina scanner. The door whooshed open.
“You expecting terrorists?” Fromme demanded.
“We always prepare for the worst-case scenario,” I said.
Louis led us into a large open area where the agents worked, and then down a staircase to the lab, which was virtually identical to our state-of-the-art facility in Los Angeles. Dr. Seymour Kloppenberg, who ran the L.A. lab and was better known to us as Sci, also oversaw all forensics for Private, and he insisted that every lab be as well equipped as his.
It had cost me a small fortune, but the results were convincing. Outside of the FBI’s labs at Quantico, and Scotland Yard’s facilities in London, Private’s forensics were the finest in the world.
We passed techs working on evidence from the two AB-16 crime scenes on our way to an anteroom, where we were issued clean white paper jumpsuits, latex gloves, and operating room caps and shoe covers. After passing through an air lock, we entered a clean room where Ali Farad was watching Marc Petitjean, Private Paris’s head of forensics. Petitjean was peering through a ten-inch magnifying glass mounted in a frame above a plastic evidence sleeve containing a piece of paper and an envelope.
“Move away from the evidence, please,” Fromme said.
Petitjean, who had a strong French ego, looked insulted and almost started to protest, but Louis and I both made cutting signs across our necks.
“Juge Fromme and Investigateur Hoskins wish to read the letter, Marc,” Louis said.
“There is much here besides the letter,” Petitjean said, openly peeved as he stepped aside so the magistrate could limp to the workbench and pick up the evidence sleeve.
He and Hoskins studied it for several moments, growing graver and paler by the second, which made me wonder what in the hell the letter said.
“Who has seen this?” Fromme demanded.
“Just myself and Marc,” Ali Farad said.
“It will remain that way,” the magistrate said. “This comes with me.”
“Wait. What?” Louis said. “Our lab meets-”
“I don’t care,” the magistrate said. “French national security is at stake, and under our censorship law, I forbid these two from disseminating this message in any way whatsoever. Are we clear?”
Neither Farad nor Petitjean seemed happy about it, but they nodded.
“How did the letter arrive?” Hoskins asked. “There’s no stamp.”