Louis turned, the cell pressed tight to his ear and his eyes squinting.
“I can’t promise anything,” I said, glancing at the dog, which had not taken its attention from me.
Rivier smiled weakly, and went off, scolding the dog, which skulked along beside him.
My ear was throbbing, and I was berating myself for letting Big Nose get away, when Louis said, “No one else sees it until we get there, Ali. And get the concierge doctor on duty to meet us at the offices. Jack’s suffered a dog bite and requires stitches.”
He hung up, looking shaken.
“That was Farad. AB-16 just sent Private Paris a letter, Jack, and he says the contents are beyond explosive.”
Chapter 54
15th Arrondissement
6:20 p.m.
“WHY YOU, LOUIS?” Sharen Hoskins demanded the second she barged through the doors into the lobby of Private Paris’s offices, which were situated in a newer building near the Porte de Versailles.
“It was not addressed to me, but to our newest associate,” Louis said. “Ali Farad, a recruit from the narcotics bureau in Marseille. The second Farad saw what it was, he acted to protect it, and the envelope, then called me immediately. Then I called you immediately, non?”
“Where is it?” said Juge Fromme, who limped in behind the investigateur. “What does it say?”
“It’s in the lab being analyzed by our best people, and we only just got here,” I said. “We haven’t read it.”
“Stop all tests until we’ve seen it,” Fromme insisted.
“As you wish, juge,” Louis said. “We are on your side here.”
“That remains to be seen,” Fromme replied curtly. “Take us to it.”
Louis went to a bulletproof door below a security camera and put his hand on a fingerprint reader, his eye to a retina scanner. The door whooshed open.
“You expecting terrorists?” Fromme demanded.
“We always prepare for the worst-case scenario,” I said.
Louis led us into a large open area where the agents worked, and then down a staircase to the lab, which was virtually identical to our state-of-the-art facility in Los Angeles. Dr. Seymour Kloppenberg, who ran the L.A. lab and was better known to us as Sci, also oversaw all forensics for Private, and he insisted that every lab be as well equipped as his.
It had cost me a small fortune, but the results were convincing. Outside of the FBI’s labs at Quantico, and Scotland Yard’s facilities in London, Private’s forensics were the finest in the world.
We passed techs working on evidence from the two AB-16 crime scenes on our way to an anteroom, where we were issued clean white paper jumpsuits, latex gloves, and operating room caps and shoe covers. After passing through an air lock, we entered a clean room where Ali Farad was watching Marc Petitjean, Private Paris’s head of forensics. Petitjean was peering through a ten-inch magnifying glass mounted in a frame above a plastic evidence sleeve containing a piece of paper and an envelope.
“Move away from the evidence, please,” Fromme said.
Petitjean, who had a strong French ego, looked insulted and almost started to protest, but Louis and I both made cutting signs across our necks.
“Juge Fromme and Investigateur Hoskins wish to read the letter, Marc,” Louis said.
“There is much here besides the letter,” Petitjean said, openly peeved as he stepped aside so the magistrate could limp to the workbench and pick up the evidence sleeve.
He and Hoskins studied it for several moments, growing graver and paler by the second, which made me wonder what in the hell the letter said.
“Who has seen this?” Fromme demanded.
“Just myself and Marc,” Ali Farad said.
“It will remain that way,” the magistrate said. “This comes with me.”