Page 48 of Double Shot

“Four people were able to crack their perimeter security, overwhelm their detail, and then escape, while also forcing their VIPs to bail out in a EuroCopter,” he finished. “They were arrogant, but they won’t make that mistake a second time. I am willing to bet that that place looks like Charlemagne himself was in charge of defense.”

“We don’t go back there, no,” I agreed. “That’s probably where they’re staging everything from, and God knows who and how many are there.”

“What about the others on the list?” Sadie asked.

“Each of their top people have their own estate, and theGenerale, he moves around like a third world dictator, there’s no way we could get to him, we’d have to bring him to us. Like setting a snare,” Roan said. “Mont Saint Chauvignon is apparently where Kaijin lived when not hustling smack and killing people with her poisonous…” he turned and looked at Sadie and stopped.

“Poisonous what?” she asked.

“We don’t know, we only suspect she’s a poisoner. My guess is that the way she plays the dominatrix vamp card, it’s something like a vaginal insert, or weaponized anti-rape tool,” I said. Sadie recoiled in horror. I gave her a solemn nod.

“The woman is made of poison, that’s enough,” Roan said.

“What about the other lieutenants?” I asked.

“Tracking them isn’t easy, but it seems like Ajahi spends most of him time either in South Africa, or attending theGenerale. Malmaison, the little Aryan fart, has a WWII art gallery in Oberhausen, Germany.”

“An art gallery?” Sadie sounded surprised.

“Germany has laws about Nazi paraphernalia. You aren’t legally allowed to own it, but it can be kept in a museum. I’m guessing he lives above the museum, gallery, whatever, and he keeps his trophy collection downstairs.”

“Can we get a viewing?” I laughed.

“Invitation only, it’s a private gallery.” Roan gave a small knowing laugh. “Probably Malmaison’s inner circle of wannabe Nazi circle-jerkers.”

“Gross.” She grimaced.

“Very, and an odd person to have in the Escadrille considering they seem to be mostly French and have a lot of ties to the French Foreign Legion,” he said, clacking out a few notes, or searches, or whatever, in his new computer rig.

“What’s his angle, and how can we use it?” I asked. Roan went to work on his keyboard, and Sadie stood and walked over behind him. She put her hands on his shoulders while his fingers relentlessly pounded the keys. There was an angle here, something we could use as a wedge. There was always a way to break through, to break out. The key was finding the weakest point and hitting it as hard as possible.

Kaijin was certainly strong, maybe the second after the old French guy.

Ajahi sweated the pure confidence and arrogance of a man who kept hyenas on chains, and collected skulls and AKs like most people had tchotchkes on their mantles, or forks in their silverware drawers.

Then there was Malmaison, the sweaty little bastard, looking nervous sitting with his own elite. A wannabe Nazi sitting between a half-Asian mock mademoiselle and an African warlord. How awkward was that for his master race fantasies?

“From what I’ve got, he’s not at Mont Saint Chauvignon, he’s in Oberhausen. Looks like he wasn’t called in,” he said after a few minutes. “But maybe his angle is that he is a fence for weapons coming through the Netherlands and Belgium and supplies angry young men for the Escadrille to use as boots on the ground.”

“What is the best way to get there?” I asked.

“Airplane; it’s almost a straight shot,” Roan said. “But way too obvious.”

“What’s the worst way?” Sadie asked. “Besides walking, or I don’t know, fucking swimming.”

“There is a bus, but it’s more than twenty-five hours,” he said.

“Diversion – book a flight, get a ride share to the airport, and after checking in at the counter, we go grab a rental car, and drive out,” I said. “What’s the drive time?”

“About eleven hours, give or take,” he replied.

“We’ll take it. Can we use the autobahn?” I asked, with a hint of excitement in my voice.

“Of course, it’s not a single road.” Roan snorted at me.

“Let’s see about discretely renting something stupid fast, and we drive, while theGeneralewatches the airport waiting for us to fly… to where?” I was suddenly drawn to a halt.

“Mexico?” Sadie suggested. “That’s where everyone runs to, isn’t it?”

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