The Hostage (Presidential Agent 2)

When he pushed the door open, he could hear music-Bartok, Jean-Paul decided-which suggested Henri was at home.

"Henri," he called. "C'est moi, Jean-Paul!"

There was no answer.

As he walked into the apartment, there was an odor he could not immediately identify. The door from the sitting room to Henri's bedroom was open. The bed was mussed but empty.

Jean-Paul found Henri in the small office, which Henri somewhat vainly called the study.

He was sitting in the leather-upholstered, high-back desk chair. His arms were tied to the arms with leather belts. He was naked. His throat had been cut-cut through almost to the point of decapitation.

His hairy, somewhat flabby chest was blood-soaked, and blood had run down from his mouth over his chin.

There was a bloody kitchen knife on the desk, and a bloody pair of pliers. Jean-Paul was made uncomfortable by the sight, of course, but he was never anywhere close to panic or nausea or anything like that.

He had spent a good deal of time, as he worked his way up in the United Nations, in places like the Congo, and had grown accustomed to the sight and smell of mutilated bodies.

He looked again at the body and at the desk and concluded that before they'd cut his throat, they had torn out two fingernails and then-probably later-half a dozen of his teeth. The torso and upper thighs had also been slashed in many places, probably with the knife.

I knew something like this would probably happen, but not this soon. I thought at the minimum we would have another two weeks or so.

Did anyone see me come in?

No.

I gave the cabdriver the address of a house six up Cobenzlgasse from this one, and made sure that he saw me walking up the walk to it before he drove off.

Is there anything incriminating in the apartment?

Probably after what they did to him, there is nothing of interest or value left.

And it doesn't matter, anyway. It's time for me to go.

The only question seems to be whether they will be waiting for me in Paris.

It is possible this is only a warning to me.

But certainly, I can't operate on that assumption.

Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer walked calmly out of the study, reclaimed his carry-on suitcase where he'd left it when coming in, paused thoughtfully a moment, then took the key to the apartment from his pocket and laid it on the table by the door.

Then he walked out of the apartment and onto Cobenzlgasse, dragging his suitcase behind him. He walked down the hill to the streetcar loop, and when one came, got on it.

When the streetcar reached the Vienna Opera on Karnter Ring, he got off and then boarded a streetcar that carried him to the Vienna West railroad station on Mariahilferstrasse.

He bought a ticket for a private single room on train EN 262, charging it to his United Nations Platinum American Express card.

Then, seeing that he had enough time before the train would leave for Paris's Gare de l'Est at eight thirty-four, he walked out of the station, found a coffeehouse and ordered a double coffee mit Schlagobers and took a copy of the Wiener Kurier from the rack to read while he drank his coffee. [TWO] 7, Rue Monsieur Paris VII, France 1205 13 July 2005 Dr. Jean-Paul Lorimer took a last sad look around his apartment. He knew he was going to miss so many of his things-and not only the exquisite antiques he had been able to afford in recent years-but there was simply nothing that could be done about it.

He also had second thoughts about leaving nearly seven thousand euros in the safe. Seven thousand euros was right at eight thousand U.S. dollars. But leaving just about everything-including money in the safe-would almost certainly confuse, at least for a while, anyone looking for him.

And it wasn't as if he would be going to Shangri-La without adequate financial resources. Spread more or less equally between the Banco Central, the Banco CO-FAC, the Banco de Credito, and the Banco Hipotecario were sixteen million dollars, more money than Jean-Paul could have imagined having ten years before.

And in Shangri-La, there was both a luxury apartment overlooking a white sand beach of the Atlantic Ocean and, a hundred or so miles farther north, in San Jose, an isolated two-thousand-hectare estancia on which cattle were being profitably raised.

All of the property and bank accounts were in the name of Jean-Paul Bertrand, whose Lebanese passport, issued by the Lebanese foreign ministry, carried Jean-Paul Lorimer's photograph and thumbprint. Getting the passport had cost a fortune, but it was now obvious that it was money well spent.