WHEN WE CLIMBED from the Uber car, there were black vans parked in front of our building and plainclothesmen wearing body armor and carrying submachine guns standing guard.
“Shit,” Louis said. “They’re carrying MP5Ks. Those guys are anti-terror.”
This was bad—very bad for Private Paris, and for me. The suggestion that Private was tied to terrorism was probably the worst thing that could ever happen. Clients would flee us like rats off a sinking ship.
Louis walked up to the nearest officer, his identification out.
“May I inspect the warrant?” he asked.
The officer played it professional and retrieved the document. While Louis studied it, Marc Petitjean and Claudia Vans were shown out the door by two more anti-terrorists.
Petitjean was enraged. “Thrown out of my own lab!”
Vans said, “You act like we’re criminals.”
“Maybe you are,” one of the officers said laconically. “That’s what we’re here to find out. If so, you will most definitely be hearing from us.”
“This is slanderous,” the scientist said.
“But legal,” Louis said with a sigh, handing back the warrant. “When can we reenter?”
“Couple of hours?”
“Please lock it when you leave,” he said, and turned to me. “We should go, Jack. The press will get word of this, and it does not help us to be photographed in connection with a terrorism investigation.”
The four of us walked away.
When we were well down the street, Petitjean said, “Given the letter and the initial reports we sent to La Crim yesterday, it didn’t surprise me that we were raided.”
“What reports?” Louis asked.
Vans frowned and said, “We ran DNA on the cigarette butts left at Chez Pincus and the pubic hairs we found at the sex club, and got enough to know that we are dealing with seven different people: five male, two female, and all of Middle Eastern or North African descent.”
“Farad?” I asked. “Is he a match?”
“He’s from the same general gene pool,” Petitjean said. “I could know more definitively in a couple of days, but they took the samples.”
Vans said, “We did get a match on the newsprint used to compose the letter. They were all cut from Algerian and Tunisian newspapers.”
“You can tell something like that?” Louis asked.
“It’s technical,” Petitjean said. “But yes.”
We rounded the corner, and I realized something else and groaned.
“What is it?” Louis asked.
“Kim’s lighter was in the lab. My passport and my money too.”
“No,” Vans said. “I’ve got your passport and cash.”
“And I have the lighter here with my cigarettes,” the scientist said, patting his breast pocket and smiling. “By the way, I know what it really is.”
After making sure we weren’t under surveillance, we found a café, went inside, and ordered double espressos and croissants that were good, but they didn’t splinter like the Plaza’s.
“So, what is it?” Louis said after the waitress had left. “The lighter?”
Private Paris’s head scientist dug in his breast pocket and came up with a blue box of Gitanes cigarettes and the stainless steel lighter that had caused havoc all over the city in the past few days. He held the lighter, admiring it.