Alex Archer - Day Of Atonement

“Whoa, there, speedy. I know you want me, but let’s get to the bar in one piece, eh?”

“You wish,” she snapped back, regretting it the moment the words left her mouth. She tightened her grip on the wheel and eased her foot off the accelerator. “Sorry, it’s been a weird day.”

“All the more reason to end it with a friend,” Philippe said, and she realized he was right.

“I need to blow off some steam.”

“I think I can help with that,” the cameraman said with a wry smile.

“I’m sure you can.”

Garin was in the air within the hour.

He leaned back in the seat as soon as he was able to switch to automatic pilot. He wouldn’t normally have taken the stick himself. It was late, he’d been working hard all day, then playing harder, but there was something about being up in the clouds, surrounded on all sides by the stars, the lights blinking on the wings, the city laid out below in a landscape of molded light, that clung to the world. It was one of the most beautiful sights, so completely manmade, unlike many of the other spectacular things he’d seen in his life.

It was a sight he could never grow tired of.

Up here, away from the world, he could think.

His hacker had already come through with the information Roux was looking for, but he wasn’t going to pass it on to the old man yet. Information was as good as currency. And given he wanted something in exchange for it, he wasn’t about to say anything until they were face-to-face. Garin was good at reading people. That particular skill had made him a lot of money. He was also good at exploiting weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He fully intended to make himself indispensable to the old man and, once he was on the inside, pull the strings.

Garin was determined to get his hands on Guillaume Manchon’s papers, but not simply to hand over to his mysterious client. He wanted to know what was in them himself. Knowledge. If it wasn’t money, it was knowledge that greased the wheels in this life. And then he’d decide if they were worth more than the agreed sum, and just how desperately his buyer wanted them. It wasn’t personal. It was purely business. Roux would understand one day.

Garin had been surprised at the ease with which the hacker had traced the source of the call and turned up the information the old man was looking for, but then, a location was worthless in this day and age when you could circumnavigate the globe in twenty-four hours. The caller would have moved. Potentially a long way. Even so, he’d paid the hacker a hefty bonus to keep on digging and see what else he could turn up.

Now he was more interested in his own questions, like what it was that had gotten Roux spooked about the call, and how it was connected to Annja and the medieval town of Carcassonne. Because there was always a connection. Nothing in life was random when it came to trouble—especially the kind of trouble Roux brought to the party.

It had been a while since Garin had last heard from Annja, but that was hardly a surprise, given that he was once again persona non grata thanks to a little greed on his part. He couldn’t exactly remember what it was he was supposed to have done, but obviously it had offended her sensibilities. She didn’t approve of the way he lived his life. He didn’t take it to heart. But it would be best for both of them if she would just learn to shrug things off. Nothing was that important in the grand scheme. And it wasn’t as if he actively set out to piss her off; that was just an unconsidered consequence of his actions. Surely the fact he didn’t mean to do it should count for something?

He glanced at his watch. He was making good time.

The radio burst into life with a request from the airport.

The short hop had taken an hour, and the time had rushed by so quickly that he’d almost missed the twenty-minute descent and wound up bringing the jet down a little more sharply than intended. With no passengers to complain about the steep angle of descent and hitting the runway hard, he wasn’t worried. He’d called ahead, so his car was already waiting for him in the parking lot.

He allowed himself a smug, satisfied smile; it felt good to be him.

Next stop, the chateau.

Once he was inside those doors, in Roux’s inner sanctum, the rest would be child’s play.

Garin lived for this kind of stuff.

Even after all these years, he enjoyed it when the apprentice could get one over on the master.

But then, it was all a game to him, and money was just a way of keeping score.

Roux never seemed surprised to see him.

It was as if he knew Garin wouldn’t do as he was told.

The old man’s expression was utterly unsurprised when he opened the door to find him on the doorstep.

“You have news?” Roux asked as he ushered him inside.

“Carcassonne,” Garin said, pausing just long enough to make sure that he was well inside Roux’s home before he said it. He had to make sure the old man couldn’t just close the door in his face now that he had what he wanted. He wouldn’t have put it past him. They had a peculiar relationship these days. Once upon a time Garin had been the student, Roux his mentor, master. He knew the old man better than anyone alive—better than himself probably. He knew he wasn’t averse to using people to get what he wanted, then discarding them when he had it.

That one word shook the old man.

Without another word he led the way through passageways of priceless oil paintings and previously lost antiquities into his study. The wealth assembled in the house was beyond counting. Roux crossed the room, straight to the old freestanding globe beside his leather-inlaid desk, and opened the world up to get at the drinks inside.

“I take it you are thirsty?” Without waiting for an answer, he uncapped a bottle of brandy aged to the point of musky perfection. He handed a snifter to Garin and sat in the leather armchair beside the guttering coals of the open fireplace. Garin sniffed at the liquid, knowing it dated back to the time of Napoléon.

“All right, now that we’re being all civilized, do you want to tell me what’s so special about Carcassonne?” he asked.

“Annja’s there,” Roux said as though that answered everything.

“So?”

“So, think. I get an anonymous call asking if I’ve heard from her. When I eventually get hold of her, I find that she’s had a near-miss with half a castle wall, and both the phone call and the near-catastrophe originate from Carcassonne.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that—two events, same town. So you think your caller fired a warning shot? But was it meant to kill her, or screw with you?”

“I don’t know. Yet. But we have to work under the impression that option number one is true, and just hope the answer to number two is the reality we’re actually facing.”

“Motive? Why would someone want to kill Annja? Revenge?” There were any number of people she’d crossed in the past who could come looking for some kind of payback. It wasn’t impossible even if it was improbable. But who, then, would tie her to Roux? That changed everything in Garin’s mind. It surely meant the trail ran instead from him to her. They hadn’t exactly broadcasted their relationship. Roux was the kind of man who lived his life in the shadows even if his protégé was one for living in the spotlight.

“Possibly, but I’m inclined to send the questions the other way. Who would want to draw me out by threatening her? Who would have the wherewithal to get hold of my phone number and orchestrate something like this?”

“It’s not that hard to get hold of a telephone number. Telecommunications companies don’t exactly have the most effective security systems in place, even given your special arrangements, so we can assume he bribed someone, or has an element of technological know-how. The thing is, it didn’t take long to source the call, did it? So he can’t be that clever.”