She looked along the sidewalk, saw three men walking ahead of her and slowed her pace.
Earlier that evening the couturier Charles Fortier had caught her eye as he spun his bright glance round the avenue Montaigne workroom, and before he could say “Bon soir, Roxie,” she’d known he had a special job for her.
One she couldn’t refuse.
And now here she was, outside a six-story apartment building that hadn’t been on her agenda for this evening’s entertainment.
Gathering the upstanding collar of her charcoal-colored coat closer to her ears, she cast a baleful frown up at the persistent drizzle, sniffing air that had long since lost the dusty scent of autumn.
Everyone said winter had come early this year, but what it meant to Roxie was that all the straightening lotion in Paris wasn’t going stop her hair curling.
Standing under the dismal street lamp, she checked the washed-out number painted on pitted plaster as she swayed against a gust of wind that funneled through the narrow streets. This quartier really hadn’t changed much over the years.
She found it hard to imagine her grandmother growing up not a two-minute walk from this very doorway. Grandmère’s neat Dorset cottage, where Roxie grew up, had been a far cry from the dark, sightless windows crowding the narrow cobbled streets.
Though, if Grandmère were alive to see her now, she wouldn’t be delighted to see Roxie visiting her old haunts.
No, Anastasia Perdieu Kincaid hadn’t been the type of woman who minced words or called a spade a shovel.
A quick twist of the wrist and Mac checked the time on the flashy gold watch—Russian—and checked it against the plain clock, the only piece of decor on his apartment walls. The transient feeling of the place was exactly what he’d had in mind.
The Algerian was thirty minutes early, but if he’d thought to surprise Mac…?
As far as he’d discovered, Ahmed Zukah had only lately begun playing out of his league. Until now the worst crimes listed on the Algerian’s rap sheet were shady arms deals.
But this one was bigger, much bigger, a deal deadly enough to be brought to the attention of the IBIS.
Though Zukah acted as front man and had two Frenchmen working for him, none of them had the cojones to put this together, but the IBIS had still to discover who was running the Algerian.
Mac wondered if tonight would bring him any closer to the man he really wanted to lay hands on, the fourth man. These others were small potatoes compared to the brain behind the scheme.
Right on time, a fist hammered on the door of the third-floor apartment. Mac sniffed; they could wait.
The wooden door received three more poundings while he finished pulling his shirt collar over the neck of his jacket.
His dark gold eyes narrowed, fierce lights burning in them, sparked from his resentment of the impatient demand on his door.
It was a look those who knew him had come to dread, but then, the bad guys outside the door didn’t know that.
Yet.
Roxie’s foot hit the first step of the two leading to the dark aperture of the six-story building. Stairs led to the floors above, but she ignored them.
At the end of the hallway she heard the courtyard gate clang shut and decided it would be wisest to let the men she’d seen get well in front of her.
She’d just mimicked Grandmère, saying, “Better safe than sorry,” when her eyes caught a movement in the darkness ahead that was hardly more than a shift in the dank air.
An uncanny flicker crept up the nape of her neck, and she dragged in a deep calming breath as her pulse fluttered.
The lighting was so poor, the electric globe sticking out from the wall sconce had to be as low wattage as they could buy and still have it give off light.
“So it’s dark, get over it,” she muttered. “It’s not that bad.” She’d heard some Parisians broke their necks trying to find an apartment round here so close to the heart of French culture that the Louvre was a mere ten-minute walk away.
With a couple of twists of the leather strap of her purse, she pulled its weight securely against her knuckles in case she needed a weapon.
She laughed unapologetically under her breath, fanciful maybe, but her instincts never let her down. Setting a brisk pace, she directed her toes toward the silhouette of an iron gate breaking up the gray light pooling in the courtyard.
Clamping her lips shut so the stale smell wouldn’t taint her mouth, Roxie took the last few steps at a run before her lungs exploded.
Almost there, she desperately gulped down air only to be swamped by a miasma of cheap wine and garlic fumes.
With the courtyard less than a yard away, a figure lurched out of the shadows under the stairs. Roxie’s heart leapt up to her throat, reducing her scream of fear to a squeal.
Unfortunately, the sound wasn’t loud enough to drown out the man’s slurred words, or the suggestions she read in them.
He wanted to intimidate her, but he didn’t succeed.
Wine sloshed wildly as she dodged the bottle waved in her face. She batted it out of her way with a forehand swipe of her purse before swooping low to avoid retaliation.
“Missed me,” she taunted under her breath, more for her than for him, and dove into the courtyard like a runner crossing the winning line.
With any luck the drunk would have gone by the time she’d completed her task, and if not, she’d be ready for him.
Without due haste, Mac flicked his black shirt collar up ’til it brushed the curled ends of his longer-than-usual hair, framing the planes and angles of his hawkish features.
Just as casually, he removed the Makarov from its snug place under his arm, then strode across the sparsely furnished living space of the apartment.
Even in boots his footsteps were soft, silent, those of a hunter. And, as if someone stage left called out, “Lights, cameras, action,” his expression took on the appearance of fierce determination before he wrenched open the door to an enemy who hadn’t heard him coming.
Butt of his pistol held high to knock, Zukah took a couple of involuntary backward steps, landing up against the men with him.
With his forearm resting on top of the door frame, McBride let his broad shoulders fill the doorway. He kept the hand gripping the Makarov hidden alongside his thigh, then slipped it behind a door that wasn’t built to stop a bullet.
Mac eyed the pistol in the Algerian’s red-knuckled fist with a lift of an unimpressed eyebrow, before his gaze dropped to Zukah.
A slovenly dresser, the man always looked as if he’d just stepped off the boat at Marseille, but Mac’s eyes saw beyond the front Zukah put on public view. Zukah was a hell of a lot shrewder than he wanted generally known.
Almost as quickly as he dropped his hand, a peevish frown drew the Algerian’s bushy eyebrows into a saturnine line. Looking foolish obviously wasn’t part of the act he cultivated.
That performance seemed confined to his beige crumpled suit straining over a creased shirt and protruding gut.
Sticking with French so there could be no misunderstanding, Mac said, “I see you brought your calling card, Monsieur Zukah, and some compagnie. There was no need for such diligent precautions. I’m quite aware who I’m dealing with.”
Zukah’s tar-colored mustache quivered above a smirk. “As I do, Makj…pah, your name is unpronounceable.”
“Stick