He finished his drink and hit the bell to call the cabin steward to make another. The steward was a slender young chap with the most beautiful eyes. Toys was the only passenger aboard the jet and liked seeing the way the steward moved. Like a dancer. Very tasty. But, alas, there was no time for recreation. It was a short flight, and once he was on the ground, there would be no time for anything but work.

He gave the lad his very best smile as he accepted the new Bloody Mary, then forced himself to go back to the screen. To the horrors. And to doors Toys was very sure he could open if he applied just the right leverage.

CHAPTER 51

CHAMBLEY-BUSSIÈRES AIR BASE

NEAR METZ, FRANCE

FOUR WEEKS AGO

There are few jobs as deeply tedious as patrol shifts on a military base.

Marcel Chaufour was convinced of that. He’d thought it through over many a long night as he paced along the geometry of his prescribed route. Sometimes he was with another airman, often the lout Anton, who seldom used two words when one would serve, and who smelled of bean farts and cigarettes. Marcel preferred his particular friend, Gerard, who was chatty and funny and actually read, which allowed the two mates to have long, involved conversations about politics—they were both centrists, Marcel leaning left and Gerard tilting right; and books—Gerard preferred contemporary crime writers like Antonin Varenne and Pierre Lemaitre, while Marcel liked the nineteenth-century horror authors such as Petrus Borel, Théophile Gautier, and Guy de Maupassant. They liked the same music—mid-twentieth-century American jazz—but could never agree on poetry, which allowed for some truly satisfying arguments.

Tonight, though, Marcel was walking alone, patrolling in the new captain’s staggered pattern. That meant the sentries were spaced out so that, while there was always someone in line of sight, fewer men could walk a larger grid. More cost-cutting. Which meant hours trapped in his own thoughts. Well-formed opinions are a burden when there is no one to share them with.

The base was a large one and had once been used by the United States Air Force and as a front-line installation during the Cold War. But the Soviets had never tried to march into France, and the Americans left in 1967, the year Marcel’s father was born. Since then, it had been the sole property of the Armée de l’Air, and more recently, much of the base had been redeveloped as a commercial business park. Military staff were reduced constantly, though the place was still technically a military airfield. Sort of. The most exciting thing that happened on the base was the Lorraine Mondial Air Ballons, Europe’s grandest hot air balloon festival. That was only every other year, though, and this wasn’t the year.

And so, Marcel Chaufour was profoundly bored.