David Hagberg - End Game

Alex walked out of the hotel and headed down to the Jardin des Tuileries, the morning pleasantly cool after Washington’s humidity. She didn’t bother with her tradecraft for the moment. If McGarvey had traced her this far already, she wanted to see if he could be induced to approach her. Away from people, away from any danger of collateral damage.

She was betting, however, that if he had followed her to Paris and had not tried to stop her from leaving the campus or getting on the flight, it was because he figured she was on her way to meet George.

Two possibilities, she thought. Either he would try to arrest her, in which case her best immediate defense was to always surround herself with innocent civilians. Or he wanted her to lead him to George, in which case he might show himself but would leave her alone.

Coming here to the deserted park at this hour of the morning would test the second possibility. That, and she was feeling irascible again, and she wanted someone to try something with her.

The Jardin was one of the more highly structured parks in the city, with rows of flowers and trees and a couple of ponds. From just about anywhere inside the park, Paris was highly visible, unlike much of Central Park, which in many places hid from the city. And yet Alex felt a sense of isolation here, as she had even in times past when the place was busy with old couples resting on benches, or young fathers pushing baby carriages, or children running and playing — almost too quiet, as French children often were.

Maybe if her life had been different as a child, if she’d had a normal upbringing, a normal father, she might have turned out differently. Maybe she would have gotten married — a lot of NOCs did. They had their careers and their partners.

A half dozen kids — two of them girls, all of them in their early teens — suddenly appeared on the path to her left. They had wild haircuts, Mohawks and the like, tattoos, piercings in their ears and noses and lips and eyebrows, and they were either drunk or high.

One of the boys pulled out a knife and, holding it low, swooped in toward her, swinging the blade at her midsection.

At the last moment she stepped aside, took his wrist and, using his momentum, yanked his arm up and sharply backward, dislocating his shoulder and tearing his rotator cuff.

He skipped out of the way, howling in pain.

The others, all of them with knives in hand, circled her. No one except the kid with the screwed-up arm said a word, and he only muttered something dark Alex couldn’t quite catch.

Coming to the Jardin against the advice of the night manager and getting into the middle of something like this was exactly what she had wanted in some perverse way. Maybe to prove that after too many years of sitting behind a desk, she still had some moves left.

One of the girls came in from the right, while at the same moment a tall-drink-of-water boy who might have been sixteen or seventeen ran at her from her left.

Alex turned, grabbed the boy’s wrist and elbow, and spun him around so his knife rammed into the shoulder of the girl, directly above her right breast.

The others moved in at the same time.

McGarvey and Pete sat in the back of a Police Nationale Citroën parked on the Rue de Rivoli, watching images on a laptop computer. A nearly silent camera-equipped drone had been circling overhead ever since Alex had left the InterContinental and strolled into the Jardin as if she were a woman without a care in the world.

Bete, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, watched the images from the drone on another laptop. “She is an impressive woman, hein ?”

“That she is,” McGarvey agreed.

“Shall we send someone to help her?”

“Not unless you want to save the kids from themselves. She knows I’ve followed her, and she’s staged this thing, figuring I would get involved.”

“To save the children.”

“Something like that. But she won’t kill them.”

All of it, the stealth helicopter that had followed her cab from de Gaulle, the use of Sûreté officers and the air force drone, had been put into play within minutes after the colonel had signed on. But only after McGarvey had explained what he thought was going on.

“Your government might not be so pleased if you uncover their little secret,” Bete had said on the Gulfstream.

“The reaction of my government is not my concern right now. I’m trying to solve a murder mystery. I know the likely why of it now, but not the who.”

“Not her?” Bete asked.

“No. She’s here to try to avoid being the next victim.”

Two more kids went down with dislocated kneecaps, and the last two boys stood in front of her, panting because of their exertions, and pissed off but obviously wary. Alex was a slightly built woman. An ancient in their minds. An obviously easy mark for a little fun — a rape for sure, and maybe even a few euros if she had any on her, or jewelry. Maybe a watch. But all of it for fun plus a little drug money.

The angle of the camera was wrong, so the expression on her face wasn’t clear on the monitors, but the way she held herself, nonchalant, just about hipshot, arms at her sides, waiting for the boys to come in at her, was of a woman without concern for her safety.

After what seemed like a very long time, she turned and walked away, not bothering to look over her shoulder.

The boys stood there for a while but then pocketed their knives and helped the others. Within a few minutes they were gone, in the opposite direction of Alex.

“Formidable,” Bete said.

“If you want to arrest her, you’ll have to give your people plenty of room,” McGarvey said.

“What now, Colonel?” asked the young Sûreté officer behind the wheel.

“We’re finished here. You may recall the drone, and give my thanks to Major Lucien.”

“Where may I drop you, sir?”

“That’s up to Monsieur McGarvey,” Bete said.

Alex was heading up toward the Champs-Élysées.

“Looks like she’s going for a walk,” McGarvey said. “Get back to the InterContinental and toss her room. I doubt if she’ll have left anything important behind, maybe a passport or two and some cash and credit cards.”

“How delicate shall I be?”

“Use a soft touch, but let her know someone was snooping around.”

“What about me?” Pete asked.

“Check us in, and try for the same floor,” McGarvey said. “I won’t be long.”

“She’s looking for trouble,” Pete warned.

“She knows I’m here, and she’s sent me a message.”

“Which is?” Bete asked.

“That she can handle herself, but that unless she’s seriously provoked, she won’t kill anyone. She’s here to meet someone, or at least get word to him.”

“George,” Pete said, but not as a question.

McGarvey took a last glance at the monitor, then got out of the car and started walking fast back toward the Pont de la Concorde, figuring that if Alex were intending for the Champs-Élysées, he would be in time to tuck in behind her.

The Place de la Concorde, with its slender obelisk, was at the foot of the Champs-Élysées, and it was alive with traffic, including pedestrians on their way to sidewalk cafés on the avenue or even the McDonald’s for their morning coffees and croissants.

McGarvey crossed the Rue Boissy d’Anglas, dodging traffic and heading along the upper side of the avenue, paying attention to who was coming up behind him or shadowing him from the other side. Alex was the only one left from Alpha Seven, and since she hadn’t killed Schermerhorn, nor almost certainly the others, it meant she was the last target.