The Whole Truth (A. Shaw 1)
“And what is your revolution about?”
“What do you think?” he suddenly snarled, grabbing one of his men’s arms and pushing the swastika right in Shaw’s face. “Unlike Hitler’s phonies who only wore this on their uniform, we have stained it into our skin. It’s our permanent identity. And I have taken the master’s name as my own.”
“So Jews are the root of all evil?
“Jews, Muslims, Christians, they share equal culpability. Benisti’s mother was a Jew, though he tries to hide that fact. You said you have the information and credentials to get us into the hotel where he will be?”
“I do. Not all here. But I brought a sampling to show you I’m serious.” He slowly reached in his pocket and pulled out an official-looking press badge and a ticket to the president’s upcoming speech at a Paris hotel.
Adolph looked at them, impressed. “C’est bon. Bien fait!”
“I have five more of these,” Shaw added. “Plus you will be included on the official VIP list.”
“Weapons?” Adolph asked.
“The French aren’t as paranoid as the Americans. VIPs don’t get run through the detectors.” He looked at the snarling skins. “But you have to look and act like VIPs.”
Adolph laughed. “These are my personal bodyguards. We grew up together on the streets of Paris. Each one of them would gladly give up his life so that I would live. I am the chosen one. They all understand that.”
Shaw looked at the dragon skinhead. Yep, he looks stupid enough to die for this megalomaniac asshole.
“So you’ve got others to do the deed. And look the part?”
Adolph nodded. “When can we have the rest of the documentation?”
“As soon as my price is met.”
“Ah, now we get to that.” Adolph sat back, crossed his legs, and blew a circle of smoke toward the warehouse ceiling thirty meters above them. “I will tell you up front, monsieur, we don’t have much money.”
“I thought I made it clear that I’m not interested in money.”
“Everyone says they’re not interested in money until they ask for it. We are not drug dealers or desert terrorists grown fat on oil. I do not have billions of euros in a Swiss account. I am a poor man with rich ideas.”
“My father died in a French prison last year.”
Adolph sat up straighter and looked at Shaw with some interest now. “Which prison?”
“Santé.”
The man nodded and crushed his cigarette with the heel of his shoe against the cold concrete floor. “That is one of the worst. And French prisons are for shit anyway. Several of our men reside in Santé now, their crime only that of cleansing the streets of filth. And for that, they are locked up like animals? The world is insane.”
Behind Shaw the dragon skinhead let out a grunt.
Shaw turned to look at him and watched as another gob of spit hit near his shoe.
Adolph said, “Victor’s brother was also one of them. He committed suicide at Santé last year. You were very close to your brother, weren’t you, Victor?”
Victor let out another grunt and racked his shotgun.
“I’m sure they were very tight,” said Shaw dryly.
“So your father died in prison. For what crime?”
“My father was an American who immigrated here to start a business, a business that became competitive with several others run by friends of Benisti, too competitive, in fact. So when Benisti was a prosecutor for the government he framed my father for a number of crimes he never committed, just to ruin him. It was all lies and Benisti knew it. My father spent twenty years in that hellhole and on the eve of his release he died of a heart attack. A broken heart. Benisti as good as put the knife through his chest.”
“And if we check your story out, we will find it is true?”
“I speak the truth,” Shaw said emphatically, his gaze leveled on the other man. “Otherwise I would not have walked in here.”