Private Paris (Private 10)

Walking briskly west on Boulevard Haussmann, Sauvage felt jittery, like a junkie in need of a fix. The major had spent most of his career in reconnaissance. For years he had led an elite NATO scout squad that probed the enemy’s front lines. The job was not only to find and document Taliban or Al-Qaeda positions but also to draw fire from their defenses.

It took nerves of titanium and a love of la pagaille, a French military slang word that means “chaos in battle.” Sauvage had both traits, and in spades.

The major had been in thirteen full-on gun battles in Afghanistan. Other officers, lesser officers, had withered when bullets flew or they saw men dying around them. But Sauvage thrived under such pressure, excelled because he had almost instantly become addicted to the sensations of war.

Man against man. Kill or be killed. It was all primal and pure, and he loved it. Especially when the fight was over something that he believed in or opposed.

Like tonight.

Sauvage kept to the shadows thrown by the triangular-shaped Société Générale building to his immediate left and by the massive Galeries Lafayette shopping center on the other side of the boulevard. The sidewalks on both sides of the boulevard were largely empty, save for the lone pedestrian or two. And the few cars that passed all seemed in a rush to be somewhere else.

At the west end of the block, where the boulevard gave way to a traffic roundabout, Captain Mfune was coming in his direction, dressed in civilian clothes. As they walked past each other, the captain said, “They went in twenty minutes ago. I’ll give you three.”

“All I need,” Sauvage said, and kept on.

At the west end of the Société building, Sauvage affected a drunken manner and wove to his left, toward the back of the Palais Garnier, the older and more famous of the two opera houses in Paris. The front of the opera house, which faced the Avenue de l’Opéra, was famously ornate and opulent in the beaux arts style. But the architecture at the rear of the building was drabber, almost plain.

Still, Sauvage took it all in as he crossed the Rue Gluck toward the back gate to the palace. The palace was set well back from the street, and the roof of the main hall dropped away almost six stories to the roof of the backstage area, which had two wings jutting off it, one to each side. On the walls of the wings, long banners promoted upcoming performances of Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Between the wings there was a courtyard protected by a tall curving wall interrupted by three iron gates.

The first gate was closed, as was the middle one, which was the largest of the three. The far gate, however—the one closest to the Rue Scribe—was open. Only a narrow traffic control arm blocked the way.

Sauvage had the hood of his raincoat up and sang a drunken song as he walked past the gate, aware of the security guard sitting in a booth there, but not paying him a bit of attention.

The major had taken five strides past the gate when there was a soft thud somewhere behind him. He slowed, glanced over his shoulder, and saw the first flames rising off the roof of the Galeries Lafayette.

Chapter 12

SAUVAGE PIVOTED AND stood there, watching the flames grow taller and wider. Seconds later, the opera security guard was running across the island in the rotary toward the shopping center, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

The major dodged into the gate and vaulted the traffic control arm. He used a tiny can of hair spray to coat the lens of the security camera mounted on the security booth and kept moving. Sauvage ran toward the rear wall of the opera house’s backstage area.

The major dashed up stairs, hearing the first sirens in the distance, and sprayed the camera above a door. It opened. He slipped inside and softly shut the door behind him. Immediately, the sirens were gone, silenced by the opera house’s thick acoustical walls.

Sauvage heard only the clicking of a woman’s high heels now. He turned and saw Haja Hamid in the security lights. Her hair was dyed red and pinned up. She wore stiletto heels and a tight, black sleeveless dress that showed off the iron worker’s powerful muscles. Haja glanced back over her shoulder at the major, revealing ruby lips and eyes that were no longer ice gray, but as brilliantly blue as tanzanite.

Sauvage got out a folding pocketknife with a razor-sharp blade and nodded to her. Gesturing onward with her chin, she led Sauvage through several turns in dark hallways before halting when a man’s voice echoed from just ahead.

“Mariama?” he called. “Are you there?”

“Coming, Henri,” Haja called.

She held her hand behind her, signaling to Sauvage to creep along, even as she sped up, her heels cracking off the wood floor until he could no longer see her. The major slipped off his shoes, leaving him in a pair of thin neoprene socks. He locked the knife’s blade open, and then went on as a dog might, pausing to listen for sound, sniffing the air, feeling his way forward until he reached the wings off the stage, where only apron lights glowed.

“My God,” Henri said. “Look at you. You’re a goddess.”

Haja laughed and said, “You’re sure we won’t be bothered here?”

“By who?” He chuckled. “The guards? They wouldn’t dare.”

The major eased

up to one of the curtains. His left gloved hand found the ropes that controlled it before he peeked around the curtain. Haja stood about ten feet away at the head of an Egyptian-looking couch. She faced a tall, patrician man coming toward her in an expensive suit, no tie. He carried a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

“Pour me some, chéri,” Haja said.

“With pleasure, my dear,” he replied.

Sauvage took that as his cue. Slipping fully behind the curtain, he reached up and, with the blade, cut the curtain rope just above his hand. Holding that end, he crouched and cut the rope again where it passed through a floor pulley, giving him about three feet in total.