“Bonjour,” she said cheerily. “Vous êtes nouveau ici?”
“You could say that.” He smiled back.
“Oh, you’re American. Me too. I’m Lexi Peters.”
“Hi, Lexi.”
“I’d be happy to . . .”
The first bullet blew a hole in Lexi’s chest the size of a plum. She staggered backwards. The second and third shots hit her shoulder and neck, and the fourth cleanly bored through her skull.
It had started.
CAMERO
N CREWE WAS ON a business trip in Poland when the news broke. Tracy was his first call.
“Have you seen the reports?”
Tracy’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “I’m watching the news right now. Twenty-six dead, they’re saying. Four teachers, twenty-two kids. I can’t bear it.”
“It’s definitely Group 99?”
“Looks like it. Four gunmen. One shot at the scene, but three still unaccounted for. How is that possible? How did the French police let them get away?”
Cameron said grimly, “I don’t know.”
For a moment both he and Tracy were silent. The senseless slaughter of teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them had revolted the entire world. But Cameron and Tracy felt it more keenly than most.
“I wish you were here,” Tracy heard herself saying.
“Me too. I miss you. Has Walton said anything? About what happened in England?”
“No. Everyone’s focused on Neuilly now.”
“Of course.”
“I’m actually on my way into Langley,” Tracy said. “Most of the kids were American. President Havers is expected to make a statement in the next few minutes.”
“Any leads?”
“Just one.”
Cameron’s ears pricked up.
“According to our sources, guess who popped up in Paris last week?” Tracy said.
“Who?”
“Our old friend Hunter Drexel. Have you noticed how, wherever Drexel is, people start to die?”
Cameron Crewe had noticed.
He put the phone down with a deep sense of foreboding.
ALTHEA WAS AT HOME in her New York apartment when she saw the news flash up on her computer screen ticker.
Tragedy in Paris suburb. Group 99 massacre 26 in school shooting.