Blitzed(131)

"We'll be back," Felix reassured me. "That was a flawless operation."

We got to our getaway vehicle, an old Peugeot that we’d put false license plates on, and drove north towards Calais. It was late at night and the roads were mostly deserted, especially the highway. We got to Calais a few hours before dawn and headed for the ocean. I had to chuckle to myself as we followed the directions from our contact. The Rue du Moscou was within spitting distance of the water, and the name had a certain ironic ring to it. While the last e-mail from my contact hadn't given me exact details as to who would be taking possession of Felix, I had my guesses, and most of them pointed toward the east.

"Over there," I said, pointing out the address. We pulled into the industrial parking lot, shutting off the engine. It was still dark, and we could only see the bare outline of the building against the sky. "They're inside."

Felix nodded. "Ready?"

"Yeah. Sure you don't want to carry a gun?"

“I’m sure. If they don't give us what we want, we don't give them the Quran," he said. "You have the case, right?"

I nodded, holding the metal box. "Safe and sound. Let's go."

Felix led the way, as usual in these sorts of situations. The building was an old, rusty top Quonset hut looking warehouse, probably a relic of the rebuilding of the area sixty years ago during the fifties. Felix walked in, and it was then that the trap sprung.

Felix was barely inside the door when the baton hit him in the back of the head, sending him tumbling to the ground dazed. He was hard headed, and the blow didn't knock him out. Instead, he crawled forward, trying to regain his feet while my contact's man followed him. “Francois . . . help . . .”

"Not this time, brother,” I said, as the baton wielder brought the club down again. Felix dropped like a sack of rocks with that blow, his forehead bonking off of the concrete. "Your time is up. My time begins.”

"You have the rest of our bargain, I assume," a voice in the darkness said. "The book?"

"Of course," I said, turning to see our Spanish agent emerge into the dim light. "Here you go. Where is my money?"

"It’s a remarkable thing, brothers," the Spaniard said as he handed over a backpack. I looked inside and saw a bag full of cash, enough that I didn't want to waste time counting at the moment. "I too had a brother once. The price I sold him out for was remarkably less than you. Congratulations on a good bargain."

"Congratulations at having agents from so many different backgrounds," I returned. "There's no way that anyone could have suspected that you were involved in all of this. Russians, Moroccans, you, Mexicans, you have quite the network. So is he going where I suspect he is going?" I asked. The Spaniard shrugged.

"It’s an age-old tale. The sins of the father are often visited upon the son. You should be grateful that my clients think it is only one son that needs to pay the price.”

I understood the implication. Holding my bag, I left the docks, ditching the Peugeot three blocks from the train station. Sticking to the shadows, I made my way around, hanging out until the sun rose. Going into the station, I bought a ticket for the first train to Paris, and mentally rehearsed how I was going to break the news to Jordan. Felix was dead and I would now be the new King.





Chapter 25





Felix





The first thing I was aware of was a splitting headache. The second was cold. Bone-chilling cold, the type of which we never got in France except in the mountains.

"What the hell . . .?” I asked, blinking my eyes. I could have been blind, but I doubted it. I waited a few minutes, and could see just a single pinprick of light in the upper left corner of my vision, so at least I wasn't blind. I blinked and made sure the light wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't. My sense of gravity came back, and I could tell I was lying on my back, although I couldn't hear anything.

I tried moving my hand, and I found I could block the light in the corner of my vision. Turning my head was painful, so I kept my head where it was. "Francois?" I croaked into the still, chill air.

Only silence greeted me, so I lay still, hoping the pain in my head would diminish enough that I could think clearly. I was obviously inside something, I could sense that. What, I didn't know, but I was lying on a hard, smooth surface. I was still wearing clothes, but they weren't enough for this kind of cold. It was chilly enough that I swore it felt like I was lying down in a meat locker.

At least I was alive. Memories came back to me slowly, and I still felt like there were some holes. I remembered the warehouse in Calais, and walking up to the Quonset hut. I opened the door and went in, and after that, all was blank until just now.

After a while I thought I could at least sit up, but I started slowly, rolling to my side and then pulling my knees underneath me, letting blood pool in my head to keep my thought processes as strong as possible. The pain increased, but not by too much, so I sat up, leaning over in a cross-legged position with my elbows on my splayed knees in order to let some of the dizziness fade away.

I was starting to think about trying to get to my feet when I heard footsteps outside whatever I was in. Instead of moving, I leaned back, trying to give myself the best ability to listen and think. It's an under-appreciated skill and one that was of vital importance for whatever I found myself in at the moment. A door rattled in front of me and opened, slate gray light filtering in. It was still blinding, and I shaded my eyes to try and diminish the dazzle.