Private Paris (Private 10)

“They either jumped or they climbed to the roof,” I said, rubbing my wrists.

“The roof! Come, Jack. With luck we can cut them off!”

“They’ll be long gone,” I said, limping after him.

“Maybe not,” he said. “The footing up there is treacherous when it’s wet.”

Several months before, the Plaza Athénée hired Private Paris to do a complete rethinking of its security system as part of a remodeling of the current hotel and an expansion into three adjoining buildings. Louis had inspected the four structures, cataloging all ways in and out of the future hotel, and in the process developed the new system.

My leg was no longer numb but threatened to charley horse now. But I managed to keep several steps back from Louis as he wound his way through the hallways to a stairwell. He stopped on the landing and looked up at a hatch in the ceiling. It was locked. There was a red plastic tag on the lock hasp.

“That’s my seal,” Louis said. “They didn’t get in this way.”

“How many other ways to the roof are there?”

“One other in the hotel. But six others among the three buildings the hotel bought for the expansion. They’re all empty, ready for interior demolition.”

He started up the ladder, got out his knife, cut the seal, and then dialed in the combination he said was the same on all eight hatches. When he pushed the hatch door open, I heard a whoosh. Wind and light rain blasted down on us.

By the time I got out on the roof, Louis was ahead of me in the low light, moving gingerly across the roof, which was copper, ghostly green, slick, and steeply pitched. To the left, it was an eighty-foot fall to the hotel’s power plant, and to the right, a drop of the same distance into the hotel’s famous courtyard. The windows of the rooms overlooking the courtyard were glowing, giving enough light that when I happened to glance back toward the Avenue Montaigne, I spotted two figures moving around air-conditioning compressors.

“Louis. There they are,” I hissed.

“I know where they’re going,” he said, scrambling over to me. “Back into the hotel through that second hatch.”

We scuttled back to the near hatch, climbed back down the steep ladder, and started to run through the hallways aga

in.

“Call hotel security,” I grunted. The pain in my leg had died to a throb.

“And risk a shoot-out in here?” Louis said. “Excusez-moi, but that’s a bad idea that would probably cost us our lucrative contract with the Plaza. Best thing we can do is let them think they’re home free, and follow them wherever they go.”

It made sense, so I didn’t argue. But by the time we’d reached the second hatch, it was open, and the rain was blowing hard into the stairway. We heard the slap of footsteps several floors below us.

We ran to the elevator. It came up from two floors below. We climbed in and hit the lobby button.

“There are only a few exits and all are on the first floor,” Louis gasped.

The elevator dropped, and then opened, and we spilled out into the loggia, which was even more packed than it had been thirty-five minutes before. I spotted Randall Peaks still at his post. Beyond the Saudi entourage some people moved, revealing Whitey and his companion strolling with their backs to us as if they had not a care in the world.

“They’re going to the crystal bar,” Louis said.

He’d no sooner said that than the two men took a right toward open doors. Just before they disappeared into the bar, Whitey happened to look back and saw us staring right at him from fifty yards away.

Chapter 40

THE NEXT FEW seconds seemed to unfold in slow motion.

Even as Louis and I started to move toward them, Whitey reached under his leather jacket and said something to his comrade, and they both twisted our way, pistols rising amid the happy cocktail hour din.

They each touched off two rounds. I’d expected the sound suppressors to still be on, but they weren’t, and the four loud shots shattered a mirror behind us and a large vase to our left.

Beautiful, rich, and powerful people started screaming and diving for the floor. Whitey and his buddy disappeared into the crystal bar. Louis yanked out his Glock and we started to run forward, jumping over patrons crawling for cover.

Before we could get even close to the bar, Randall Peaks and three other Saudi royal bodyguards blocked the way. They were set up in a defensive semicircle, backs to the terrified princesses. Their guns looked a heck of a lot bigger than Louis’s.

“Drop it or I will shoot,” Peaks roared in French, and then English.