“In a little while, traitor, you won’t have to worry about your transgressions. You will be transformed into a heroine of the revolution despite yourself. God, I hate you!”
Le Coq’s twisted face, scarred by the long, livid streak of the knife that had cut through his eye and disfigured him, spoke more eloquently than his words.
“Are you so pathetic, Le Coq, that you taunt me?” Her voice was controlled and even. “I’m not afraid of you—”
“Be quiet!” he shouted, slapping her again. Her eyes were both blackened, her face was bruised.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she finished the sentence. “Any of you, cowards.”
There was a single light in the room at the far end, near the door. Le Coq had been one of the four terrorists who had raided the apartment building on rue Mazarine.
Devereaux had not spoken at all. Twice Le Coq had questioned him, along with the big Algerian named Bourgaine. They had shouted at him and danced around him like threatening African warriors, full of curses and dire predictions. But he had not spoken, and when Bourgaine had worked him over with quiet efficiency, he had not even cried out. Le Coq had stopped the beating after Devereaux lost consciousness.
“We can’t mark him, we’re going to need him later,” Le Coq had warned Bourgaine.
“I could kill him,” Bourgaine said simply, as though he were describing a skill.
“No. We’ll kill Jeanne, but Three warned us—”
“Who is Three?”
“Never ask,” Le Coq responded.
Now the Algerian had gone for food and Le Coq was alone with the two of them. He had concentrated his hatred on Jeanne Clermont for the past hour. A river of vile threats and black images had flown in his words to her, but she would not be affected by them. She sat upright, her hands behind her back pressing against the corners of the wooden chair.
Devereaux had watched the little drama in silence. It was as though they had both forgotten him, the unseen audience in the dark shadows at the edge of the room.
He had listened to Le Coq, to Jeanne Clermont, to the Algerian, and he had begun to understand it all in the past few hours. There was a terror cell and she had penetrated it and betrayed it for her government, but somehow they had discovered the penetration before she could be taken to safety.
And the events planned by the terrorists would still take place; only the details of the plan had been altered.
One detail was her death.
One detail was keeping him alive.
The manacle was tight around his wrist and the chain was short, less than four inches. The pipe was cold. He had known what he would do from the moment they had chained him, from the moment they had left him alone. He had known but waited because he wanted them to reveal themselves.
So Jeanne Clermont had been used again, beaten by the terrorists, screamed at, all for time, all for information.
“Do you know how we’re going to kill you? We’re going to blow your face off. That’s all. You wonder why I kept hitting you in the face? Because it doesn’t matter about your face, it doesn’t matter how bad you look, when the American kills you your face will be destroyed.”
Le Coq looked across at Devereaux for the first time in half an hour. Devereaux remained motionless, squatting on the bare floor, his arm down to the pipe. He could sit on the floor or lie down, but he could not stand upright; the pipe he was chained to was scarcely five inches from the wooden flooring.
“How do you like that, Mr. Devereaux?” Le Coq spoke English with a heavy German accent. “Do you like the plan?”
“And then what?”
“Then we will arrange to have you taken to the police, just like that.”
“It doesn’t sound very interesting.”
“An American agent, hunted by the CID, and then you kill a member of the government? Why doesn’t that sound interesting?”
“Because it can’t be all of the plan,” Devereaux said.
Le Coq laughed. “You’ll see, you’ll see.”
Yes, Devereaux thought with utter calmness. It was just as well to do it now. At least Le Coq knew enough of the plan to make it worthwhile.
“More than you’ll see, you one-eyed baboon,” Devereaux said.
Le Coq made a little sound that was half rage, half a scream. He rose and crossed the room to Devereaux and kicked him.
Devereaux reached behind the ankle and pulled Le Coq down suddenly, his head striking the floor. In a moment, Devereaux had the copper wire weapon from his wrist wound around Le Coq’s neck. Blood seeped at the point where the wire bit into the flesh.
Devereaux’s knee pressed against Le Coq’s back, forcing his neck into the wire.
“You see,” Devereaux said. “Now the keys.”
Le Coq reached behind him and pushed the key chain to him.
Devereaux held the garroting wire wrapped in the manacled hand. His legs ached in the awkward position. Le Coq made gagging noises.
He unlocked the manacles after two tries with wrong keys. He suddenly rose, dumping Le Coq’s body heavily on the floor in front of him.
Le Coq, relieved of pressure, turned, snarling like a trapped animal, his teeth bared, hissing.
Devereaux stepped inside his arms and crushed his nose with a single downward stroke of his half-clenched fist. Le Coq fell to the floor again, his face covered with blood.
Devereaux picked up the Uzi submachine gun next to the chair and checked the clip. He unsnapped the safety and then turned to Jeanne Clermont. He walked to her, knelt, opened her manacles.
She pulled her arms in front of her and rubbed her wrists until the blood began to tingle. Her cheeks were bruised, the blood swelling hideously beneath her pale skin. Her eyes were blackened, and one eye was nearly shut. She gazed at him for a moment.
He thought her face, despite the beating, gave him a sense of sad calm. He thought she was beautiful; for a moment, he understood everything that Manning must have felt for her.
“I don’t know what I can do,” she said slowly. Her voice was soft but still firm. “I don’t even think I can get up. I’m dizzy.”
He waited beside her.
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “If you will give me your arm.”
She rose, and he led her to the window. She looked down at the darkened street.
“Do you know where we are?” Devereaux asked.
She smiled then. “Absurd.”
He waited.
“Versailles. Can you imagine the irony of this?”
“It has possibilities.”
She looked at him. “I was to be protected,” she said. “I was to be taken to a safe house.”
“Never trust a government.”
He smiled then, a smile that matched the cool irony in his words.
“I suppose you’re right. I always thought that.” She looked down the darkened street. “Terrorists at Versailles.”
“Just terrorists without a government,” Devereaux said. “Versailles was never the symbol of orderly democracy, was it?”
“Louis the Fourteenth moved the court here and invited the Revolution a hundred years later,” she said. “Why would the terrorists have this place?”
“Maybe it was the only place for rent,” Devereaux said. “Let me take you to the couch. We have to wait for the Algerian.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not finished with Le Coq,” Devereaux said.
“You can leave this to the police, to—”
“No. Not now.”
She tottered to the chair on unsteady feet; he felt the weight of her body next to him. He moved the couch to the far side of the room, away from the door. He went back to Le Coq, groaning on the floor, and pulled his frail body up. He put Le Coq in the chair and fastened him to the manacles that had bound Jeanne a moment before.
He picked up the remains of the tape roll on the floor and carried it over to Le Coq.