Page 17 of Skotos
I blinked a few times, trying to get my brain to stop spinning at the implications. Taking out the Swiss leader was one thing, but shooting at the head of the French Republic, one of the key players in the western alliance? I was flooded with calculations, permutations, and more than a few expletives. Only two words slipped free of my lips.
“Well, shit.”
10
Will
The embassy’s wrought-iron gates loomed ahead, their black bars like the ribs of some iron beast guarding a deeper, colder heart. Marines stationed out front wore crisp uniforms and sharp eyes. As our Citroën rolled to a halt, one stepped forward, his left hand on his holstered sidearm, while his right raised in a flat command.
“Identification,” he barked.
Thomas leaned out, flashing our credentials with the ease of a man who’d done it a thousand times.
The Marine gave a brisk nod, his eyes flicking over us again. “Welcome to home soil, gentlemen.”
The gates creaked open with glacial reluctance, and our car nosed forward onto the embassy grounds where the buzz of diplomatic normalcy hummed just below the surface. Another Marine waved us toward a rear lot, a discreet corner near the service entrance—standard for intelligence personnel who didn’t want tobe seen.
As we stepped out and our shoes crunched on gravel, I adjusted my jacket, still feeling the residual unease from the night before, as if it had sewn itself into my collar.
A junior officer met us at the entrance and led us quickly through back corridors, past polished brass railings and floor-to-ceiling French tapestries. We moved without speaking, every clack of our shoes echoing off the marble like a countdown.
When we reached the corridor that housed the intelligence section, the air cooled. Security thickened noticeably with reinforced doors, massive locks, and the hum of modernity. A Marine stood posted outside the final door.
“Two for the chief,” our escort said.
The Marine guarding the door gave our guide a curt nod and buzzed us through with barely a glance. I supposed they were trained not to notice operatives, taught to think of us as invisible ghosts rather than real people.
The door opened onto dimly lit stairs.
The guard finally spoke. “Two floors down. The door marked with one dot.”
A dot?I wondered.
I’d been in the embassy many times but never into the bowels where secure communications took place. Langley had largely left us to execute our mission in Paris without much guidance or interference. We filed regular reports through thestation chief but had little need for more direct communication with Washington. The French were our primary hosts in matters regarding their homeland.
We made our way down the stairs, pausing briefly at the first landing we reached to examine a door with a gilded star the size of my thumb painted at its center. A dozen more stairs brought us before the promised portal, complete with its own thumb-sized circle of gold.
A dot indeed.
Out of some ingrained sense of propriety, I knocked twice.
I could’ve sworn someone yelled in response, though little more than a whisper of inaudible sound escaped the chamber. With a butterfly tickling my ribs, I turned the knob and led us through.
Inside, the room was austere.
A lone telephone sat on the desk like a relic of something sacred. Two uncomfortable-looking metal chairs sat before the desk, while heavy curtains lined walls I knew held no windows. There was little need for soundproofing this far below ground, so I figured the curtains were the intelligence agency’s version of office décor.
The CIA Paris station chief—Leonard “Red” Brody—stood behind the desk, his arms folded, sleeves rolled up enough to show scars crisscrossing brawny, hair-covered forearms.
The phone was already off the cradle.
“Close the door,” Red said, his voice gravel and bourbon.
I pulled the door shut behind us, sealing away the world.
Red looked at us, then at the phone. “Washington’s waiting. You boys ready?”
I glanced around. “No ambassador?”
