Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion Read online

  With that Jean-Louis Severin broke the tension in the room. Half the paramilitary guys understood English well enough to chuckle. Responding quickly, McGill took advantage of the moment to return Colonel Millard to two of his men. He got some hard looks, but nobody tried to grab him.

  Pruet told Severin, “M’sieur le Président, your instincts are flawless. You averted a very serious situation, for everyone in this room and for two great nations.” The magistrate went on in French to detail the scene in Paris.

  Then Severin spoke in French, using a tone of absolute command. Gabbi provided McGill with whispered simultaneous translation.

  “M’sieur le Président is offering the troops over there a choice. Years in prison or a month’s paid leave in any French possession in the world.”

  McGill knew which choice he’d take.

  Gabbi continued, “The colonel, if he plays ball, will find himself promoted, otherwise things won’t go so well for him, either.”

  Even through his severe pain, Millard was able to make the right choice. His men followed his lead. Odo took everyone’s name, and then they left.

  “Laissez-moi parler avec le partisan de la présidente, en privé,” Severin told Pruet.

  The magistrate took his mobile off speaker and extended it to McGill.

  “He would like to speak with you confidentially.”

  McGill accepted the phone and moved to a corner of the room.

  “Thank you, sir,” he told Severin. “You prevented a very bad situation.”

  “I am only too happy to do so, and please call me Jean-Louis.”

  “My pleasure, Jean-Louis. My friends call me Jim.”

  “I hope I will be able to meet you soon, Jim. Patti has told me she would like to spend a week in Paris with you. A private visit. I said I would do everything I could to help.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Jean-Louis.”

  “You have no … no misconception of my relationship with your wife?”

  “None at all,” McGill said.

  “Bon. May I ask you a favor?”

  “Sure. I owe you one.”

  “Please be very careful with what you and Pruet are about to attempt tonight. There is only so much I can do to help you, and I would hate to see Patti’s heart broken again, as it was with Andy Grant.”

  “Me, too.”

  The two men said their au revoirs. McGill turned to the others.

  “M’sieur le Président says we’re good to go.”

  Krung Thep restaurant, Arlington, VA

  45

  Ricky was so focused on sating his hunger he didn’t see the unmarked police car following him. The cops were so intent on following Ricky they didn’t see Sweetie tailing them. To her credit, Sweetie had a gift for following a car through traffic. She had excellent vision so she could hang back a good distance; she was alert to intervening vehicles and pedestrians; most of all, she an intuitive sense of what the target driver was likely to do: turn left or right, pull into a parking space or jackrabbit if he somehow sensed the tail.

  Occasionally, she lost someone. She wouldn’t endanger the lives of innocents to keep the target vehicle in sight. But for the most part she got the job done. Tonight was easy, a series of long straightaways and gentle curves. There were just two turns and long green lights made sure everyone got through the intersections legally.

  Deke had told her where to find Ricky’s car and to take up her observation post well back as there would be cops watching the car, too. The only way Deke could know all that was if he had set up his own sting in collusion with friendly local cops. The Secret Service agent might simply have known where Ricky usually parked his ride, but Sweetie had seen the surprise in Ricky’s body language when he spotted his car. He hadn’t known it would be where he found it.

  That told Sweetie someone else had parked the car where Ricky found it, and who could that person be except Deke? Circumstances would incline a former cop to think the federal agent had stolen a bad guy’s car — then left it where he would find it. After planting two dicks in an unmarked car on the bad guy’s tail.

  In the course of tailing both cars, Sweetie saw how Deke had rigged the game to allow the cops to make a legitimate traffic stop. The right brake light on Ricky’s car didn’t work. More than one serious felon had been apprehended due to trivial traffic violations.

  Sweetie had the distinct feeling that when the cops pulled Ricky over they were going to find something in Ricky’s car he had no idea was there. Say, drugs or guns. Something that possessing would put him in front of a judge for a lengthy sentence.

  It was a setup, start to finish. As a former cop, Sweetie could admire the craft that went into contriving the trap. As a former novice in a convent, she was clear on the immorality of it. Two wrongs, as every parochial school child learned, didn’t make a right. But if you shot a fed, you couldn’t expect a lot of Christian charity from him in return. And she was in no position to judge Deke.

  It wouldn’t be long before she took Bishop O’Menehy into her safekeeping, knowing that she had stage-managed the circumstances to have Horatio Bao or one of his minions seek to do the man harm. If all worked according to her plan, she would have to defend the bishop, even at the cost of putting a bullet into a bad guy.

  What was the moral jeopardy for her in planning something like that? Sweetie didn’t have a precise reckoning, but she intended to confess her actions as sins.

  She saw Ricky’s car turn into the parking lot of the Krung Thep restaurant, and a moment later the unmarked cop car swooped in for the … traffic violation.

  The whole thing was going down in full view of the people enjoying their Thai dinners, including Welborn Yates and Callie Bao. Ms. Bao, Sweetie thought, already should have seen the bishop and Father Francis Nguyen engaging in a spirited public debate of matters theological. Add Ricky getting busted in front of her eyes, and things should start popping soon.

  The smart thing for both Baos to do was run.

  But, Sweetie knew, bad guys rarely did the smart thing when the net was closing.

  46

  “You prick,” Callie Bao said, glaring at Welborn.

  The picture of innocence, Welborn asked, “Who, me?”

  Callie looked out the window adjacent to their table. The cops who had stopped Ricky had him out of the Nissan now. His hands were on the roof of the car. One cop had his gun on Ricky while the other cop was looking through the car’s trunk. The second cop soon held up a large plastic bag filled with a white substance. Ricky got very agitated.

  “Oh, fuck no!” Everyone in the restaurant heard Ricky’s shout.

  Ricky pushed off the car and spun around with a knife in his hand. He might have actually lunged at the cop holding the gun on him, provoking a justifiable shooting, except Ricky froze when he saw Callie Bao staring out at him from the restaurant. He dropped the knife and extended an accusatory finger at Callie.

  “She did it!” Ricky yelled at the top of his voice. “That bitch set me up!”

  The cop holding the bag tased Ricky. His erratic behavior lay outside the cop’s comfort zone. The cop’s partner gave him a thumb’s up as Ricky writhed on the ground.

  Callie Bao turned to Welborn. Turned her face away from the cops. Who just might be curious to see who their prisoner was accusing of a setup.

  “You were saying?” Welborn asked.

  “Meeting you was happenstance. Seeing them here,” Callie nodded her head in the direction of Father Nguyen and Bishop O’Menehy, “that was coincidence.”

  Welborn knew where she was going; he’d read Ian Fleming, too.

  “And the guy getting busted out there, that was enemy action?” Welborn said. “But he pointed the finger at you, not me. Why would he do that? And what’s he going to tell those cops when they get him back to the station?”

  Callie took a knife in hand now, not a switchblade, a piece from the table setting, but it had a pointed tip and a serrated edge. It could do damage. As mad a
s Callie was, she might have made the attempt in front of a roomful of witnesses. Only she saw that Welborn had taken something off the table, too. His linen napkin. He’d twisted it for strength. A thrust from Callie might be intercepted, her wrist encircled, pressure applied until bones fractured if necessary.

  She put the knife down and stood up.

  Glaring some more at Welborn she said, “We’re not done, you and me.”

  “You’re still up for dance lessons?”

  Callie looked at the knife again, but thought better of it. She headed for the door. Didn’t look back when Welborn asked if she wanted him to call a cab for her. Didn’t look at Father Nguyen, Bishop O’Menehy, or any of the other diners who were staring openly at her.

  Welborn saw her take off her pumps when she got outside; she put them in her handbag. She walked barefoot past the cop car with Ricky now ensconced in the back seat. Seeing her pass by, Ricky began to vocalize with great animation. He even began to bang his head against the window. Both cops turned to look at him, but neither seemed to notice Callie.

  She moved off into the night with the rhythmic stride of the dancer she was.

  Welborn thought Kira would approve of his behavior with Callie.

  But he sure hoped some cop somewhere arrested her soon.

  His mother had warned him about women scorned.

  Under the Pont d’Iéna, Paris

  47

  Not that it was unpleasant, especially when the weather was mild and clear, but few tourist guides advised spending the night under a Paris bridge. The flics of the Metropolitan Police actually discouraged it, verifying Anatole France’s famous observation: “The law in its majesty makes no distinction between rich and poor; both are forbidden to sleep under the bridges of Paris.”

  Despite that longstanding policy, no one tried to shoo McGill and his pack of attack dogs from the shadows under the Pont d’Iéna, adjacent to M’sieur Eiffel’s tower. One member of the pack, Gabbi, paced the walkway just east of the bridge’s protective cover, sans mask, doing her best impression of Diana Martel. Gabbi wore a cloth coat over her black unitard. The coat belonged to Ms. Martel. It had been packed in a bag the gypsies had returned with the woman. Pruet had thought to have Gabbi put it on.

  “The proper costume for the proper occasion,” he’d said.

  McGill had thought: How French. And: How right on the money.

  In the lamplight coming from the nearby empty BatoBus depot, the others saw Gabbi’s blonde hair drape over the coat’s upturned collar. Her general resemblance to the stripper, helped along by the sunglasses she wore, was really quite good. At least, they all hoped so.

  “Maybe I should have worn my wonderbra,” Gabbi whispered as her pacing brought her close to her lurking companions.

  Odo and Harbin had no idea of what she was talking about.

  McGill understood the reference, and that Gabbi had cracked wise to keep her nerves settled. He said, “Don’t worry about your bust-line. Remember, the guy has only one good eye.”

  Gabbi laughed softly. McGill smiled. The two Frenchmen looked at each other and shrugged.

  They’d arrived two hours early, not wanting to let The Undertaker arrive first and deprive them of the advantage of surprise. They had considered two hours to be a sufficient precaution; maybe the bad guy might come one hour early if he was feeling enterprising; no way would he be there two hours early.

  He wasn’t. Nor one hour early. In fact, he was now ten minutes late.

  Odo whispered, “I’m very glad I gave up smoking … but right now I could do with a cigarette.”

  “Pruet talked you into giving up the smokes?” McGill asked quietly.

  “Oui. At the time when he gave up his pipe.”

  Nobody spoke for the next ten minutes. The men just watched Gabbi pace. She kept any further thoughts to herself. The city slept all around them. McGill hadn’t heard a pedestrian pass by overhead for half an hour.

  He wondered if Pruet had fallen asleep in his car parked over on the Rive Droite.

  He also wondered if, despite M’sieur le Président’s intervention, someone in the enemy camp had tipped off The Undertaker. Or put him down. Maybe the sun would rise and they’d all fall in their beds, sore from crouching and pacing and being thwarted.

  Not that McGill would be able to sleep.

  He had to find his way across La Manche — the English Channel to Anglophiles — and get fitted for his eveningwear and the fancy dinner with the Queen. Try not to fall asleep in his soup at Her Majesty’s table.

  Thoughts of what he might be doing in the future ended when McGill saw Gabbi stop pacing as she came their way. There was a look of concentration on her face. After a moment, she glanced at her companions.

  “He’s coming,” she said. “From the east. Alone. He’s a kilometer out.”

  All that intel had come from the mobile phone in her pocket. It had been set to vibrate and her hand had been on it. The number of buzzes provided by gypsy observers told her everything she needed to know.

  Now, Gabbi would speed dial Pruet and relay the information.

  The curtain was about to go up.

  Horatio Bao’s house, Arlington, VA

  48

  Horatio Bao was in his home office, his wall safe open, packing his last bag when Callie returned. He was filling the suitcase with banded stacks of hundred dollar bills. It was a carryon bag, so it held only a half-million dollars. He could have stuffed more in, but he didn’t want any hassles about the bag being too big to bring on board.

  So when he saw his daughter arrive he had another reason to be glad to see her; she could bring another bag filled with cash. They’d both have to declare the money since they would be taking more than ten thousand dollars in cash out of the country. If anyone asked what they intended to do with the money, a one-word answer would suffice: gamble.

  Asian and Latin American high rollers were known to travel with huge amounts of money because, after all, nothing earned a warmer welcome from a casino than cold cash. Lavish suites, limos, and any form of entertainment imaginable were all comped for the gambler who arrived with seven figures of legal tender to risk. Happily for Bao, the credibility of posing as a gambler was helped by the fact that a number of Viet-Kieu had moved to the front rank of poker players in the past ten years.

  So he had the right appearance. He had the money. He had a tailor made smokescreen. He could even pass off his daughter as his young trophy wife.

  To complete the illusion, he really should have chartered his own jet. But Horatio Bao had entered the world desperately poor, and no matter how much money he’d made, banked, and invested since, he couldn’t escape his fear of losing it all. Which left him a penny-pincher. Flying first class was as far as he could go to indulge himself.

  “Where have you been?” he asked his daughter.

  Callie had put her shoes back on and called a cab once she’d been out of sight of the restaurant. But her feet still hurt and her bruised pride was even more painful. She heard the anger in her father’s voice and her first impulse was to lash back, but she knew he was right to be displeased with her. She’d have been far better off if she’d been a dutiful daughter.

  Using her dark mood to suit her own purposes, Callie let tears well up in her eyes.

  “I’ve been made a fool, father,” she said, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Bao interpreted his daughter’s words and tone flawlessly.

  A man had misused her. For a moment, he doubted that was possible. But looking at his only child’s face he saw that it was true. His ill temper vanished.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said quietly.

  She did, in reverse order. Ricky had been arrested; Father Nguyen and Bishop O’Menehy were arguing in public; she had been deceived by a danh tu. Not only that, the young woman embroidered, the American had had his way with her.

  Horatio Bao took his daughter in his arms.

  “He forced you?” Bao asked.
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br />   Aside from her abraded feet, there wasn’t a mark on Callie, and she knew her father would never believe a man could take her by force without battering her.

  “He took me by guile,” she replied.

  Bao found that notion hard to accept, too, but when he felt Calanthe tremble in his embrace, he allowed for the possibility.

  “This American,” he asked, “he has yellow hair?”

  Callie stiffened now. She pulled her head back to look at her father.

  “How did you know?”

  “Ricky saw him. He said the danh tu let himself into your dance studio.”

  Those pricks, Callie thought. Ricky for ratting her out, Welborn, for never saying a word to her about Ricky.

  To her father, she said, “He told me he needed dance lessons for his wedding.”

  “Hardly your usual client,” Bao said.

  Callie lowered her eyes. “He is handsome … he has a very nice car.”

  Bao stepped back from his daughter.

  “And perhaps you sought to disillusion him with his fiancée?”

  Callie gave her father a chilly smile.

  “Only for my amusement, nothing more.”

  “But then he outwitted you.”

  Callie’s anger returned, but it was leavened by shame.

  “Yes.”

  Bao moved on to another topic.

  “You said the police stopped Ricky in his car, and found drugs in it.”

  Callie nodded.

  Bao told her. “This afternoon, Ricky told me his car had been stolen outside your studio, stolen by an Asian man. Then he has the car back, only now it has drugs in it.”

  The lawyer held his hands out, indicating Callie should tell him what had happened. She knew her father had nothing to do with illegal drugs, would never allow anyone to work for him who was a user much less a dealer. As for Ricky, he got off on being Ricky. If an Asian man had stolen Ricky’s car and set him up for a drug bust, it could only be…

  “Donald Ky,” Callie said.