It screeched to a stop. The side door cracked open, and at least four men came rushing out like a black tide. There was a lot of yelling in French and heavy boots on the ground and the sound of gear moving. Also the sound of weaponry-metal against metal. When the assault rifles came out, I dropped my backpack and threw my hands in the air. Someone came up from behind and grabbed my arms. Someone else grabbed my feet, and then I was flat on my belly on the wet ground with my hands behind me, wrists cuffed, and a boot on my neck.
From my vantage point, I could see the end of the street. There was a lot going on and a lot of people racing around. I looked for the woman in the light raincoat. She was gone.
23
A POLICE LIEUTENANT IN BOSTON, WHO HATED ME ANYWAY, once threw me in a holding cell, basically because I ticked him off. My first time behind bars had been a pretty frightening experience, mainly because I wasn’t in there alone. The second was in California, where the highway patrol picked me up on a warrant for check kiting, a charge that turned out to be totally false and a complete misunderstanding. The West Coast lockup was nicer, as were the officers. In neither case was I locked up for more than twenty-four hours, but it made being in jail not an entirely new experience for me. What was new was being tossed into a French jail.
The guys who had grabbed me were some kind of flying SWAT team. Once they had pulled me up from the wet ground, I had seen Gendarmerie written across their backs. Someone had heard the shots in the hotel and called the police. They’d spotted me running away, and they’d caught me with Frank’s gun in my pocket. I didn’t know much French, but I knew that was going to be a big problem.
At the station house, I had asked a lot of questions, but my jailers kept telling me they had to find a translator before anyone could speak to me, which was bullshit. It wasn’t as if I were a code talker.
I sat on the cot in my cell, isolated and waiting and trying to remember to breathe through my mouth. This jail had something in common with the other two I’d visited. It was my guess that jails all over the world had the same thing in common: the pungent smell of mold, greasy skin, body odor, and every variety of human discharge.
After several hours, an officer came and opened my cage. He took me through a series of gates and doors and elevators until we arrived at an open office area, not unlike the bullpens I’ve seen in the many different police departments I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. He handcuffed me to a chair next to an empty desk and told me to wait. That’s what he said. One word in English: “Wait.”
There was a lot of shouting going on behind the closed door of an office along one of the walls. It was muffled French that I couldn’t understand. What was easy to understand was the level of vitriol. When the arguing stopped, the door opened, and a man in a black raincoat came out. Right behind him was another man, somewhat younger, in shirtsleeves and tie. They stood in the bullpen speaking loudly and gesturing. When it was all over, the man in the black raincoat stalked out. The shirtsleeved man yelled at a uniform, pointed in my general direction, then retreated to his office and slammed the door. The officer came over and uncuffed me, then guided me through the procedure for release, talking to me the whole time in perfect English. He answered no questions about why I’d been released. I asked what would happen if I demanded an explanation. He advised against it.
On the way out, they returned my personal belongings. I went out to catch a cab, thinking how nice it would be to take it straight to Orly. I could still catch the evening flight to Boston if I hurried. But I had to go back to the Hyatt and get my things.
As it turned out, I didn’t need a cab. The man in the black raincoat was sitting in a car at the curb. He leaned over and popped open the passenger-side door.
“Get in.”
There was enough room between the car and the curb for me to step down. With one hand on the open door and one on the roof, I poked my head in so I could see his face. “Who are you?”
“Cyrus Thorne.”
Nothing screamed success like a private jet. Blackthorne’s looked rich without being ostentatious. The seats were big club chairs covered in glove-soft caramel-colored leather. There was carpet, subdued lighting, tables with polished wood-grain surfaces, and individual flip-up television monitors at every seat.
Thorne had taken a right turn into the cockpit after we’d boarded. I was trying to figure out which seat to flop into when a flight attendant approached and asked if I wanted anything.
“Water, please.”
I took a big swiveling chair that gave me a good view out one of the porthole windows. Apparently, we were the only passengers expected, because the stairs were up, the door was closed, and we were starting to taxi.
The flight attendant was back with a tall glass of ice, lime, and a bottle of San Pellegrino. She set the glass in front of me and poured. “I’m Tatiana. I’ll get you whatever you need.”
“Thank you.”
The pilot came on and asked everyone to strap in for takeoff. I looked out and saw we were at the end of the runway, about to blast off. He said our flying time to Boston’s Logan Airport would be approximately eight hours. At least I was going home.
I drank deeply from the glass, not realizing until I had consumed almost the whole thing how thirsty I had been and not caring much that gulping sparkling water would give me hiccups. I drained the glass, and Tatiana came over to pour the rest of the bottle. That’s when I looked at her closely for the first time and recognized her.
“I know you,” I said. “I saw you. You were at…you were…” She was the woman in the light raincoat from the ballroom and the sidewalk just before the cops had taken me down. “Who are you?”
“Cyrus will explain everything when he comes back.”
“Where is he?”
“Flying the plane.”
Of course. He not only owned the plane, he flew it. I watched Tatiana move around the cabin. She looked strong and toned, and something told me she was more than a flight attendant. A ninja flight attendant, perhaps, the kind of person we could have used more of back in my Majestic days.
“Put your seat belt on,” she said. She could have used a little brushing up on her customer-service skills.
As I buckled in, she threw a lever on the side of my chair and locked it so it wouldn’t swivel, which I assumed was required to keep the passengers from spinning like tops on liftoff. Then she strapped into the seat behind me.
The aircraft started to roll. I felt the g-forces climbing. The wheels left the ground, and we were flying. After about ten minutes, we were level and cruising. I heard Tatiana unhook herself. I needed a couple of moments alone to think, so I did what I always did when the seat-belt sign went off.
“Is the lav forward or aft?”
“It’s in the back.”
To get to it, I had to go through an office area and a small stateroom. The office had a TV, an exercise bike, a lot of stereo equipment, and a lit trophy case of some kind.
The bathroom was small but more than serviceable. I checked the mirror. Running for my life had generated a lot of sweat, which hadn’t been kind to the cut on my forehead. It was throbbing and ugly, but it hadn’t split open. I was going to have a nice scab for a while. I washed it and the rest of my face. The towels on the rack were all top quality. Each one had a small BT embroidered in the corner, and I had the absurd urge to steal one for Max Kraft, though it wasn’t likely I’d ever see him again. I hoped he was safely on his way to wherever he went to hide.