[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.But the driver wasn’t swearing in French; it was some dialect of Arabic full of spitting gutturals.A barked word from the man beside the driver shut him up.“Said bousak, Hmar!”They sped through a traffic circle and Finn saw that they were going up a wide boulevard, an outdoor market set up with dozens of stalls and vendors laid out on the broad, tree-lined sidewalk to their right.They swerved to avoid a car on their left and Hilts slammed against the man beside him.The man gasped and flinched, his face twisting in agony as he lurched against the door.Hilts pushed harder and the door swung open, the photographer’s thrusting shoulder heaving the screaming man hurtling out of the car and into traffic.From behind them came a horrible thumping sound and the screeching of brakes, but almost before anyone could react Hilts’s right hand moved in a blur and four inches of wavy-bladed steel was suddenly jutting from the base of the driver’s neck.He shrieked, both hands flying up from the wheel to flail at the black-handled instrument sticking out of his neck.The car swerved, jolted wildly, and then hit something hard.The car came to a rocking halt.Grabbing Finn’s hand, Hilts threw himself out of the car and into a pile of cabbage.“Come on!” he yelled.They climbed to their feet and staggered away from the wreckage of the car.The man beside the driver was struggling with his air bag.The driver had pulled the blade out of his neck and was desperately trying to stem the squirting fountain of blood with his bare hand.Together Finn and Hilts ran through the market, slamming into shoppers and sending string bags full of groceries flying in all directions.Tradesmen swore as they raced on, and they felt hands reaching out to grab at them.Finn could hear a police whistle and in the distance a siren.Suddenly the flat, cracking sound of an automatic pistol tore through the air.The man from the car was firing at them.The people around them in the market began to panic, dropping to the ground or scurrying away, yelling and screaming.There was a hot breeze half an inch from Finn’s cheek, and then came the sound of the gun again.“The Metro!” Hilts yelled, dragging her to one side.They were at the end of the line of market stalls.The last one was butted up against the rail of the opening that led down into the subway.Hilts vaulted over the railing and Finn followed him, landing on her feet, almost toppling down the stairs, terrifying a woman and her poodle as they came out of the tunnel.Limping after the long drop, they hobbled down the white-tiled tunnel, fumbled with change to buy a carnet of tickets at a machine, and stumbled through the big pneumatic doors just as a train rattled into the station.They waited until the train came to a stop, then pushed their way on as soon as the doors hissed open.They sat down, chests heaving, and Finn saw their pursuer squeezing himself illegally through the rubber bumpers of the pneumatic doors at the platform entrance.The horn sounded and the man was forced to step onto a car six or seven down from the one they were sitting in.“He got on,” she whispered to Hilts.“I saw,” he answered.“What do we do?”“I’m thinking.”“Think faster.”The train banged through the station then headed into the intersecting tunnels that cut beneath the city.The wheels screeched as they rounded each turn, the cars rocking and heaving.They were on the first and oldest of the subway lines in Paris, Number One, and it felt like it.“He’ll move ahead each time we stop, maybe a couple of cars each time.That gives us three stops before he’s on top of us.”“Where’s that?”“Where did we get on?”“Some place called St.-Mandé de something or other.”“Where does that leave us?”Finn checked the map over the door.“Reuilly-Diderot.”“Is it a main stop, a what do you call it, a correspondence stop?”“No.”“What’s the next one of those?”“Nation,” she answered.“Two stops.”“Be ready to get off there.We have to lose him.”“Where did that knife come from?”“Your friend Simpson gave it to me in the car when you were asleep.Nasty little thing, a front-loading switchblade, state of the art.Made in Italy.He said he had two.”“Who were they?”“Not Interpol, that’s for sure.The guy was speaking Arabic and the other guy swore at him.”“I heard.”They came into the next station—Porte de Vincennes.A few people trickled on and off.The horn sounded and the train moved off again.“Head for the doors,” said Hilts.They got to their feet and stood in front of the right-hand doors.“L’autre cote,” instructed an old man in a raincoat and a dark blue beret.He was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette directly under a sign stenciled on the window that read DEFENSE DE FUMEUR.“What?” said Hilts.“Other side,” Finn translated.“I know that much French.I think he means the platform is on the other side.” She smiled at the old man.“Merci,” she said.“Parle a mon cul, ma tete est malade,” the old man answered, making a sour face.“What did he say?” asked Hilts.“Nothing very nice, I don’t think,” Finn answered.The train thundered into the station.It was much more modern than the previous ones and had half a dozen different tunnel exits.They chose the closest, cutting through the throng of arrivals and departures.“Where are we going?”Finn checked the line.“Etoile.”“What’s that?”“The Arc de Triomphe.”“Where we started.”“Approximately.”Hilts looked back over Finn’s shoulder, searching the crowd spilling out onto the platform.“See him?”“Not yet.”The horn sounded as a train came into the station.Behind them the pneumatic doors began to close.The train screeched to a halt and the doors of the cars slid open.Hundreds of people swarmed past them.“There!” Finn spotted the man with the beard and the tinted glasses pushing his way onto the platform.Someone yelled at him, cursing, but he ignored it.Hilts grabbed Finn by the elbow and thrust her forward into the nearest car.He followed, watching over his shoulder.The doors slid closed, leaving the bearded man on the platform.As the train pulled out, leaving him behind, Hilts saw him lift a cell phone to his ear.“He’s making a call.Bringing up reinforcements.Shit!”“We can’t stay on the train for very long,” said Finn.“He could have people waiting for us ahead.” She looked up at the map above the doors
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]