Crane made a fast search of the flat—which belonged to Harold Middleton, the American that the driver of the car outside of Paris had warned him about. He found what looked like a gun safe and scanned through a number of documents and notes on the desk.

“Find anything helpful, Pierre?” said a female voice behind him, one so calm and unflustered it made his blood turn cold, sent his hand dashing for the gun in the holster beneath his jacket.

Something stabbed into his shoulder before his fingers got halfway.

“Don’t be foolish,” she said.

He turned and saw the woman he now knew as Jana. She held a long black handgun with a lengthy silencer. A professional weapon. She looked at him carefully, her gaze reminiscent of what had passed between them on that deserted two-lane road outside of Paris not long before. “We meet again, Pierre.”

Crane gave a faint laugh, though he shivered at the memory of the bullets snapping against the windows of the limo. “You know me?”

“You do your background work as a reporter,” Jana shrugged. “I do the same in my line.”

Which told Crane that she had indeed followed him to the meeting outside of Paris with the man posing as the Scorpion.

“Where’s Middleton?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“The woman he works with? Tesla?”

Crane shook his head. “I don’t know her.”

In the distance, the urgent bray of a police siren grew closer. Had someone reported a disturbance? Seen a weapon? She grimaced, looking at the flat and apparently realized she had no time for a thorough search.

Jana ordered, “Take the girl outside. There’s a van there.” She hesitated. “Go with her. I will join you in a moment.”

“You don’t think I’ll run?”

A smile. “No.”

“Why?” he asked, trying to see some window of attack, realizing, from her careful stance and the steady gaze in her eye, this was impossible. Nor was he sure he wanted to; something—the journalist within him? Or the man?—told him to simply go with what was happening.

“Because you’re after the truth, aren’t you, Pierre?”

Jana reached out and removed the weapon from his jacket. Then she watched as he picked up the unconscious young woman in his arms and walked outside.

There was a Mercedes van with opaque windows by the front door and a driver in a black uniform, gloves and a cap, sliding open the rear door.

As Crane reached the gate with the girl in his arms he heard the sound from behind, and recognized immediately what it was. The low, explosive growl of a silenced weapon, followed by a curt, agonized shriek of pain, one that lasted a second, no more.

4 - JIM FUSILLI

4

JIM FUSILLI