The Diaries - 01 (50 page)

“The owner is not,
and never was, missing.
 
We have several reports
of his boarding a ship in the Mediterranean last week, sailing off to God knows
where.
 
He was deeply in debt and had
reason to flee.”

Ellis wrinkled his
nose.
 
“What do you mean
reports
?
 
Hard evidence, or just testimony of people who can be bought off with a
nickel-bag?”

Lloren
exhaled impatiently.
 
“Inspector Ellis, please excuse my mood, but I haven’t the time or the
patience for this today, on my weekend.
 
We
have had an extremely unusual situation occur and all manpower is needed at the
moment.
 
We’re not a very big force, you
know.”
 
Without a smile or handshake,
Lloren
turned and opened the door.

Ellis was considering
what he had just said and, before the door could close, he reached through and
grabbed
Lloren
by the sleeve, somewhat roughly,
spinning him around.
 
“Wait a
minute.
 
Just wait. What is it that
happened?”

Lloren
tried to pull away, his nostrils flaring as he
stared at Ellis.

“Sorry,” Ellis
said softly.
 
“Humor me, please.”

“A fire, Inspector
Ellis, a fire.
 
At first just a simple
tragedy, but after the fire officials went in, it appears to have been a double
homicide,” he answered, glancing down at his captive sleeve.

Ellis could barely
breathe, his heart audibly thumping his eardrums.
 
“Who were the victims?”

“Two men.
 
Small-time criminals, Monsieur Ellis, just
like in the U.S.
 
We have them here,
too.”
 
He tried to leave again, but Ellis
held firm.

“Just one more
thing, Detective
Lloren
.
 
Were these just simple criminals, or part of a
criminal group or gang?” he asked, remembering what Kenny Mars had said about a
French mafia.

Lloren’s
eyes narrowed.
 
“They were low-level members of an organized crime group, and both had lengthy
records.
 
These types are always tough to
pin down, working in their own little world.
 
It appears they may have gotten what was due to them, yes?
 
Now, if you will?”
 
The French policeman disentangled his arm and
sauntered down the hall as Ellis held the door open.
 
After a few seconds of thought, Ellis called
out.

“What is the name
of this organized crime group, Officer
Lloren
?”

“
Glaives du
Peuple
:
The People’s Sword,” he answered without turning, disappearing behind a row of
file cabinets.

Ellis said the
name to himself two times before stepping through the lobby and back onto the
street.
 
He walked to a roadside stand,
ordering a Coke and a hunk of chocolate which he ate on one of Metz’s many
benches overlooking a small park.
 
Chewing
slowly, he sat there, almost catatonic.
 
His mind, however, was moving rapidly.

It was entirely
possible that his suspect, Gage Hartline (as he still thought of him), had
exacted his revenge and was now done and gone.
 
Ellis munched the chocolate and stared at a fountain as he tried to
think like a man seeking revenge.
 
Lloren
said they were small-timers and, if they were the
ones who had come to Germany and killed Monika Brink, they would doubtfully have
been acting on their own.
 
Just to track
someone like they did, especially someone who would likely be as savvy as
Hartline, would take tremendous resources.

Ellis shoved the
rest of the chocolate in his mouth and held down his speed dial.

“Hey, sir, you got
something?”
 
It was Sorgi.

Chewing for a
moment, he was finally able to swallow the delicacy.
 
“I have no idea how you spell this, but I
want you to do some searches for a French crime group named
Les Glaives du
Peuple
.”
 
Ellis spelled it for him as best he could.
 
“Find out all you can, as quickly as you can,
and call me back.”

“Right-o, sir.”

He leaned back on
the bench and swilled his Coke, relaxing a bit since the wheels were in
motion.
 
His mind wandered to Rose, and
how she would have enjoyed this view.
 
Experiencing France on a warmish late fall day, with the promise of a
nice dinner and gentle cuddling on a comfortable bed.
 
To hear her laughter and to feel her touch,
the memories of her welled up inside Damien Ellis, causing tears to run down
his face as he sat there feeling sorry for himself.

And then she would bop me over the head for
getting mixed up in all this mess
, he thought, laughing out loud and
killing the sadness in a way that would have made Rose proud.

His phone vibrated
on his hip.

“
Whatcha
got?” he asked in a tone that told Sorgi not to
chitchat.

“Took me a few
minutes because of the spelling, but finally I was able to get their name
through Google.
 
They’re the second-largest
group in France behind the
Unione
Corse
, and
it looks like they might be the more violent of the two.”

“High points,
Jim,” Ellis said with his eyes closed, trying to summon patience.

“Okay.
 
They mostly control eastern and northern
France, all of Alsace, and some of Paris.
 
Deal in sex trade, drugs, gambling, basically the whole spread of
illicit activities you would expect.”

“Boss?”

Ellis heard Sorgi
punching keys on the computer.
 
“Uh, yeah.
 
He’s rumored as Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Arnaud,
forty-two years old.
 
They’ve got his
picture here with
Gotti
,
Bracco
and all the other mobsters of the world.
 
He looks like a fat little lizard.”
 
Sorgi hummed as he read the screen.
 
“Says here that he is rumored to be responsible for over one thousand
deaths, but remains so insulated that the cops can never pin anything on him.”

The cops can’t
, Ellis thought,
but a motivated special operations killer
sure can
.
 
“Where’s he based out of,
Jim?”

There was a long
pause and more keystrokes.
 
“Hang
on.
 
I need to pull up INTERPOL.”

“Do it,” Ellis
said, and waited silently for ten minutes as he could hear the sounds of Sorgi
typing and searching.

“Found it!” Sorgi
finally yelled.
 
“Arnaud lives in Paris
part-time, but his main residence is in a place called Sur Marne, in Château-Thierry.
 
Says he hunts on the surrounding grounds.”

Ellis was up and walking
to his car.
 
“Where is that?”

Sorgi tapped more
keys on the computer.
 
“Go like you’re
heading to Paris and, halfway between where you are now and Paris, you’ll find
Sur Marne as an area of a larger town called Château-Thierry.
 
What’s going on, sir?”

Ellis was
jogging.
 
“I’ll call you back once I’m
moving, but I think I may have something here.”
 
He hung up the phone and ran as fast as he could.

 
 
***

While Nicky’s
presence sickened him, Marcel had to admit that he was in his finest shooting form
on this day.
 
After having scored
twenty-one on his first evolution, an excellent score for most anyone, he was
now a perfect twenty-two for twenty-two in his second round.
 
All that remained was a high and low shot
from the eighth station, and if he were to go two for two on those, he would
only need to hit one final low shot for a perfect score.
 
Marcel stood behind Nicky, not uttering a
sound, hoping beyond hope that Nicky would hit all three.
 
Knowing Nicky, if he did, he would drink
himself into a stupor and pass out early.
 
Then Marcel could cancel the Paris trip, actually relax, and maybe even visit
his occasional lady friend back in Metz.

Nicky was about to
call for the clays when he stopped and turned.
 
“Perfection, Marcel…it’s within reach.”

“Don’t talk about
it,” Marcel chastised.
 
Nicky had never
scored a twenty-five and, like any sportsman close to a perfect score, the last
thing he should do is discuss it at a critical time.
 

Nicky made a
disapproving face at his advisor, pulled his ear protection back on and resumed
his firing position.
 
“Pull!”

The high throw
spun the clay over Nicky’s head.
 
He
tracked it, nailing it dead center and sending fragments flying.
 
Then from his right came the low throw.
 
Marcel winced as Nicky took too long to pull
the trigger, following the clay as it passed its zenith and began to fall back
to earth at the edge of the shotgun’s range.
 
Nicky fired.
 
The clay didn’t
shatter, but the very edge of it did break off as the highly scattered shot
barely made contact.

Any contact
resulting in breakage is considered a clean hit.

Marcel
exhaled.
 
One shot to go.

Nicky turned,
smiling triumphantly.
 
Marcel nodded,
silently praying that this final shot would be a success.
 
It was to be from the same station, eight,
and a low shot.
 
The same as the previous
one Nicky had barely hit.

As he loaded two
more rounds, Nicky turned, his face taut.
 
“This is a low throw, Marcel.”

Marcel
nodded.
 
“Whenever you’re ready.”

Nicky took a deep
breath and turned, shaking his body as if to loosen himself.
 
He readied.
 
“Pull!”

Marcel pressed the
button, watching as the arm spun the clay into the sky.
 
Just as Nicky acquired the clay and began to
track it, Napoleon erupted into more loud barking, his eyes to the north of the
field.
 
Even with ear protection, the
barking caused Nicky to tense and, in a panic, he took a shot at the clay,
missing it as it as the disc spun into the distant grass untouched.
 
It was not a perfect round, but Marcel was
more than ready to allow a do-over considering the interruption.

Nicky whirled
around, spittle erupting from his lips as he seethed with anger.
 
The dog was still growling at the hill.
 
Nicky yanked the shotgun back up into firing
position.

“No!” Marcel
yelled, dropping the remote and lunging for the barrel.

It was too
late.
 
Nicky pulled the trigger, expending
the second shell and shooting the dog at a range of five meters, sending him tumbling
backward as Marcel watched in horror.

***

Gage watched the
entire scene.
 
He cinched the rifle in
tightly, preparing to put a bullet into Nicky Arnaud’s right eye.
 
The man in the blue suit had lunged at Nicky,
but the bastard had gotten off the shot and nailed the dog at nearly point-blank
range.
 
The crosshairs of the scope were
on Nicky’s head before Gage adjusted them downward.

“How about a groin
shot?” he mused in a whisper.

Confused at
exactly what to do, Gage elevated the aim to Nicky’s midsection and prepared to
fire.
 
He would have to kill the other
man as well...Gage hesitated, taking deep breaths.
 
This
isn’t the way, not from a distance.
 

He swallowed
thickly, watching the commotion.

Pull the trigger,
one side of his mind
said.
 
No!
the other side yelled.
 
Not yet.

The last time
Gage’s intuition kicked in like this, two children had died.
 

Just as he began
to put pressure on the trigger, he paused again, making himself rationalize.
 

An anonymous assassin’s bullet is too good
for that sicko
, Gage thought, rage assaulting his every fiber.
 
A man
needs to look that bastard in his eyes when they kill him.
 
To pronounce judgment against him.
 
To witness his pain and suffering, and to
revel in it.

And I’m that man.

Gage took deep
breaths, watching the man in the blue suit as he yelled.
 
Twice more Gage pulled the rifle to his
face.
 
Twice more he laid it down.

“That bastard,”
Gage muttered over and over.

Finger on the
trigger, he resumed his surveillance.

***

Napoleon took the
shot without a whimper.
 
Gamely, he
struggled back to a standing position, limping across the lawn and laying down
in the high grass on the far side of the shooting area.
 
He began to lick his bloody legs.