Suspects(53)
Chapter 13
The search for the three remaining kidnappers was intense. One of them, the injured one, was picked up three days after the incident, on the Belgian border. He said he was going to visit a friend, and had been injured in a hunting accident. His fingerprints were a match and the DGSE brought him back to Paris for interrogation, which was carried on day and night until he broke down out of sheer exhaustion and confessed. As the murderer of two victims a year before, they had no inclination to go easy on him, especially since one of the victims had been a child. All he was willing to divulge was that they had been hired by a businessman in Moscow who had a score to settle. He didn’t know what it was or the man’s name. They were hired through an intermediary whose identity he claimed not to know either. They had been promised ten thousand dollars each to do the job, only received five thousand of it last time and were being paid another five thousand now to finish it. The ransom for Theo was going to be fifty million. It all matched up to the facts the DGSE had from their informants. Guy Thomas knew that the French government would never be able to touch the angry billionaire who had hired them. He was safely in Moscow, and too well connected with crooked friends in government who were protecting him, and who were probably getting a cut of the ransom too, if there had been one.
They didn’t allow the two men in custody to speak to each other and the search for the two other men continued. They contacted every source they had who might know something about the plan, and their whereabouts now. The trail went cold for two days and then Robert Richmond heard a whisper of information in London. It wasn’t much but led them to believe that the trail wasn’t entirely cold. There was a rumor that one of the kidnappers was at a safehouse just outside London. Agents from MI6 raided it within hours of the tip, and there was evidence that someone had been there, but he was gone when they arrived. But now that they knew one of them was in England, Robert continued to shake the trees as hard as he could, and hoped something would fall out.
Mike hadn’t been in contact with him since the day of the attempted kidnapping. He had his own problems to deal with, although he called Theo whenever he could to see how she was.
She was trying to repair the damage that had been done at the chateau when they tried to kidnap her. The Persian carpet in the living room was damaged beyond repair, drenched with blood, and she replaced it with one of her own. She found the fabric to re-cover the blood-spattered upholstery, so it wouldn’t look like a butcher shop when the new owners arrived. She told the realtor there had been a security problem there with some damage that was being repaired, and all would be in good order shortly. The new owner did not ask for further details, nor did Theo offer them. He knew about the abduction of Axel and Matthieu and it hadn’t stopped him. And he was bringing a security team of his own. His realtor had already urged him to have maximum security on the grounds, and the new owner was confident that his own people would do a better job than Theo’s.
She got her upholsterer to agree to re-cover the damaged chairs over the weekend before Christmas, for double the price. Daniel delivered them to the chateau as soon as they were done, and said everything looked fine. All she had to do now was replace her own, but that could wait. She wasn’t going out more than she had to, and had gone to her office with four armed guards.
The pop-up store on the Avenue Montaigne was doing an amazing business, as was the one in London in the rented townhouse. Business was excellent, for Matthieu’s brands too. But the tension of waiting for them to find the kidnappers was extreme, and there was no further news of the remaining two.
The Christmas decorations were up all over Paris, and the city was in a festive mood. Most of the damage from the recent riots had been repaired and ordinary business was picking up again, although not quite as briskly as the year before. But luxury brands like Theo’s, particularly with her online business, were extraordinary.
Mike hadn’t been able to call her as often as he would have liked. She could tell that he must have been working on something big, and he sounded distracted when they talked.
When he arrived from New York to spend the holiday with her, she could see the strain in his eyes. He had been worried about her, and there had been a delay in the Colombian drug shipment coming from Bolivia, so they didn’t know when it would arrive now, but they were trying to keep all the bases covered while they waited. They were no longer sure if it was still coming by ship, or being flown in. He was worried it would all happen while he was in Paris. His men were prepared, but he liked to be there for an operation as large as this one.
He and Theo had both been through the wars since they’d last seen each other, and it took him a few hours to calm down. But the warmth and pleasure of being with her eventually relaxed him and allowed him to put distance between himself and the complex operations he was responsible for. On her side, there had been no news of the kidnappers for several days.
They went to church together on Christmas Eve, and had dinner at the Ritz before that. Her four plainclothes DGSE agents were at a nearby table. Knowing the possibilities and risks for her in Paris, Mike had made arrangements and filled out the appropriate paperwork to travel with his own guns this time. He wanted to be prepared if anything happened like at the chateau. She was surprised when she hugged him when he arrived and discovered that he was wearing two guns, one at his waist and the other in a holster under his arm. He wore them every day in New York.