The Case Officer (31 page)

Chapter Seventy-Eight

L
im burst from Wei-wei’s building. Once
outside, he fought to regain his composure, slowing from a run to a trot to a
walk. He noticed people staring at him, so he struggled harder to bring himself
down. He took deep breaths and attempted to control his breathing. He dried his
sweaty face and neck with a handkerchief and tucked his shirt back in.

After several blocks, he began to feel and look normal again. He began
planning his next move. He had lost this battle, but he would not lose the war.
He would find the sonofabitch and recover the money.

The surveillance team had lost
François Leverrier on the
autoroute
, but Lim suspected he, too, was
heading for Bern.

That was where Pol Giroud had
gone. The team had had no trouble following him. One of the team simply got on
the overnight train with him at Paris’
Gare de l’Est
and then got off
with him the next morning in Bern. Unfortunately, the lone team member that had
accompanied Le Belge to Bern subsequently lost him in the crowds of the city
after observing him enter the Credit Suisse Bank with a large suitcase and exit
without it.

When the news reached him about
Pol Giroud making the obvious deposit, Lim knew it was too late to recover any
of the money. The only thing on his mind now was revenge. MacMurphy and his two
cohorts had made a fool of him and Huang, and now it was his turn to get even.
And get even he would. He vowed it with a vengeance.

But he had to find them first…

He had failed to learn
MacMurphy’s whereabouts from that whore girlfriend of his, so that was a dead
end. He would worry about MacMurphy later. Now he would concentrate on finding
Pol Giroud and François Leverrier. He knew Giroud had last been seen in Bern,
and that Leverrier was headed in that direction when the team lost him. But
Bern was a big city....

Then it came to him. He
remembered that he had both of their Paris addresses. Family or neighbors might
know where they were staying. That was as good as any place to start.

He entered a café and walked
directly to the telephone booths in the rear and phoned the chief of his
surveillance team, instructing him to go immediately to the apartment belonging
to François Leverrier. “Talk to his family, his neighbors, anyone who might
know where he is. Someone must! Don’t fail in this. I want to know where that stink-bug
is!” His voice rose steadily until he was screaming into the phone. He would
find out where LeVerrier had gone…and then he would deal with him.

Chapter Seventy-Nine

A
fter Le Belge deposited the money
in the Credit Suisse Bank, he stepped out into a bright, sunny day in Bern. He
decided to go for a walk around the downtown area and maybe pick up a little
something for Marie and the girls. He meandered through the streets and shops
and chose pretty multi-colored scarves for the girls and a powder blue,
sequined sweater for his wife.

He stopped in a sidewalk café and
enjoyed a leisurely lunch and two refreshing draft beers. Afterward, he
strolled across town to his favorite part of the city, the Casino Platz. There
he checked into the familiar little
Hotel Arc-en-Ciel,
on one of the
tiny side streets, and indulged himself in a long afternoon nap.

W
hile Le Belge was napping, Lim found
his way to the Giroud apartment in Paris.

The apartment was located just
off the Place des Vosges in an area of Paris in the third
arrondissement
called Le Marais. It had once been a run-down working-class neighborhood but
was now being restored and refurbished. Consequently, chic new modern
apartments were located behind newly sandblasted, restored façades.

Le Belge’s apartment was in a
building that had not yet been restored. The sandstone façade was black from a
century’s accumulation of soot and was nestled in the middle of a row of
bright, new-looking buildings of similar architecture. The building belonged to
Le Belge’s brother-in-law, who was patiently waiting for property values to go
up just a tad more before he would agree to sell.

Lim pushed open the heavy front
door and scanned the mailboxes in the foyer, looking for the Giroud name. Lim
found the name on the mailbox labeled “3B.” The elevator was slow and creaky
and cramped, but it got him up to the third floor faithfully. He exited and
knocked on the door of 3B.

He was greeted by a skinny little
tow-headed girl of about twelve years old. “
Bonjour petite
, is your
mommy home?” he said with a broad, friendly, disarming smile.

“
Un moment, monsieur
.” She
left the door open and ran to the rear of the apartment. “
Maman, Maman
,”
she called. “Someone here to see you.”

Marie Giroud was round and pretty, with fair skin and pale blue eyes.
She wore a checkered apron, and her flaxen blonde hair was pulled back into a
bun. Her smile was trusting and wide, displaying clean white teeth and rosy
cheeks.

This is going to be easy,
he thought.

“
Pardonnez moi, Madame
,”
he said in halting French, “I must reach Monsieur Giroud about a matter of
extreme urgency. He told me he would be in Bern, but I misplaced the address he
gave me and....”

“Pol gave you his address in Bern?
That is very strange. He told me not to tell anyone.” Marie’s voice and face
expressed surprise but not alarm.

Lim put on his most ingenuous
mask and replied quietly and sincerely: “Your husband is in Bern on a very
confidential matter that I am helping him with. But I have been very stupid and
lost his address. Now I must talk to him and.... Please help me.”

“Well...” She paused and
reflected on her husband’s instructions. He had said he was on a secret mission
to Bern and she was not to tell anyone where he was.
But this nice man
already knows Pol is in Bern.

“He told you he was going to
Bern?” she asked.

“Yes, and I must reach him
immediately. Please help me or I will look very stupid, and our business deal
will most certainly fall through.”

“You have business with Pol? You
are working with him on this? Why didn’t he tell me?”

“He wasn’t supposed to tell you
about it. It’s confidential.”

Yes. He told me it was
confidential. What is your name, please?”

“I’m Peter Chen. I am close
associate of your husband. Now, please tell me where he can be reached.” Lim
was more forceful now. Close to the point of intimidation.

“I...I guess it’s all right, but
I should check with Pol first to be sure. He will call me in the morning and I
will ask him. If he says it’s all right, I will tell you where he is staying in
Bern.
Ça va
?” She was beginning to have her doubts about this forceful
stranger.

“No, Madame,” he replied, “It is
not all right. I must reach him tonight. Tomorrow will be too late.”

“Oh dear,” she said, wringing her
hands. “I do not know what to do.”  
What if Pol’s deal falls through because
I refuse to help this man? It would all be my fault.
She didn’t want
whatever her husband was working on to come to a bad end, and she most
certainly didn’t want to be the cause of that failure.

Lim placed a hand on her shoulder
and gave her his most comforting smile. “Do right thing. Everything gonna be
fine. For sure. I need reach him right away. Please help. Monsieur Giroud will
thank you.”

She paused a moment and then made
up her mind. He was a nice man, and what could the harm be in giving him Pol’s
hotel? None. “He is staying at the
Hotel Arc-en-Ciel
at the Casino
Platz. Do you know where that is?”

“No Madam, but I will find it.
Thank you so much.” Lim turned to leave.

“Do you want the phone number of
the hotel?” she called after him.

He shouted back over his shoulder
as he hurried down the stairs, “That not necessary. Thank you again.” He
skipped the elevator and bolted down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Chapter Eighty

L
e Belge stretched and rubbed the sleep from
his eyes. The late-afternoon sun penetrated the tightly drawn curtains of his
small hotel room. He rolled his pudgy frame out of the bed and pulled open the
curtains. The blast of sunlight forced him to squint until his eyes adjusted.

He looked down at the street and then craned his neck to check out the
Casino Platz, just over the Kirchenfeld Bridge at the north end of the street.
He could see that the square was filling with after-work strollers and the
cocktail-and-aperitif crowd.

Refreshed from his nap, he
shaved, showered, put on a clean shirt and left the hotel. He walked casually down
through the now-bustling square. He meandered around a bit, enjoying the cool
evening air, enjoying being part of the milling crowd, enjoying the
satisfaction of knowing he had completed his mission successfully.

All was well. Nothing had gone
wrong. Now he had only to wait for the all-clear signal from Mac, so that he
could return to his home and family. He missed them already, but he was
enjoying himself here, too. He ambled around the square aimlessly for a while
before deciding upon one of the sidewalk cafés in which to have his first cool beer
of the evening.

He would drink several more beers
before enjoying a dinner of couscous and a bottle of dark red Algerian wine at
a cozy little Middle Eastern restaurant on one of the quaint side streets.

At around ten-thirty, he weaved
back to the Casino Platz for an after-dinner cognac or two to settle his
bursting stomach.

L
im’s SwissAir flight from Paris
touched down at Bern airport at ten-seventeen. He stepped out of a cab in front
of the
Hotel Arc-en-Ciel
fifty-three minutes later. A check at the hotel
reception revealed that Monsieur Giroud had not yet returned for the evening.

Lim went looking for him…

Chapter Eighty-One

I
t was after midnight when Pol
Giroud stumbled out of the Casino Stube Pub. A blast of German oom-pah-pah
music and heavy cigarette smoke swirled around him as he stepped out into the
street.

He stood in front of the pub for
a moment, swaying drunkenly and trying to get his bearings. He located the
Kirchenfeld Bridge at the far end of the Casino Platz and knew his hotel was
just on the other side of the bridge. He weaved off in that direction,
pleasantly drunk, full and happy. He hummed as he walked unsteadily across the
darkened square back toward his hotel and a good night’s rest.

He thought he would call Marie in
the morning to see how she and the girls were doing. He missed them terribly.

L
im had positioned himself near
the center of the square so that he could observe the entrance of Le Belge’s
hotel. He had reckoned quite correctly that his target would emerge sooner or
later from one of the many bars and restaurants surrounding the Platz and head
home.

The square was now quiet, with
only a few people strolling along the bordering sidewalks, moving from one bar
to another or heading home for the evening. His eye caught movement at the door
of the Casino Stube Pub, and he observed the gust of smoke and sound as a
rotund little man stumbled out of the pub onto the sidewalk. Lim stared. From
the descriptions and photographs he had been given by his surveillance team, he
was almost certain he had found Pol Giroud, but it was not until he observed Le
Belge for a little longer, weaving his way up toward the Kirchenfeld Bridge,
that he was absolutely positive.

Lim moved like a hunter stalking
a deer, staying in the shadows well behind and off to the side of his prey,
moving slowly, observing, following Le Belge’s every move, calculating the
risks, planning his attack.

Le Belge appeared oblivious to
his surroundings. Certainly he was not in surveillance detection mode. Why be
concerned with that—no one knew he was here except for Mac and Marie. He was a
man with no worries, a man who was pleasantly drunk and enjoying that
particular state of inebriation. Now he only wanted to get back to the comfort
of the bed in his hotel.

He was an easy prey for a hunter
of Lim’s talents. Lim turned his attention to his surroundings. A taxi
illuminated Le Belge as it passed by and crossed over the bridge, in turn
bathing it in light for a moment. The Kirchenfeld Bridge was dark again,
outlined only by the moonlight reflecting off the swift surface of the Aare
river swirling below.

Le Belge stopped under the dim
light of a lamppost at the entrance to the bridge and clumsily lit a Gitanes
cigarette with a less-than-steady hand. He stood there for a moment, puffing on
it, enjoying that first hit of nicotine, the tobacco flavor, the whole
experience. Then, spitting out a stray bit of tobacco, he resumed his unsteady
walk back toward his hotel.

Lim closed to within fifty feet
of his prey and calculated an approach vector that would bring him up behind Le
Belge at the crest of the bridge.

Another car drove by, forcing Lim
back into the shadows for a moment. He briefly squeezed his eyes shut to retain
his night vision. When he opened them again, Le Belge was about 10 feet from
the crest of the bridge, diagonally across the road in front of him. Lim took
another last look around and, finding the bridge deserted with no cars
approaching, decided to make his move.

He darted across the street
behind the still-oblivious Pol Giroud and withdrew the stiletto from his pocket.
He flicked the long, thin blade open and concealed it behind his leg as he
closed the distance between him and his prey. He was ready to pounce when Le
Belge unexpectedly stopped and turned to look over the railing of the bridge.
Lim froze.

Pol Giroud gazed thoughtfully out
at the water, rippling under the bridge as it flowed on its way. He slowly
turned from the water and gazed at his surroundings. Lim did not think that Le
Belge at all suspected his presence or the danger that awaited him.

But still the stocky Chinese man
with the murderous thoughts stepped back into the shadows, lest Le Belge see
him and feel the need to be on guard to danger. Better to catch him unaware.

Le Belge took a long, final drag
from his cigarette, the glow illuminating his contented, cherubic face. He
flicked the last cigarette he would ever smoke out over the railing and watched
it tumble slowly down to the waters below. The moon glinted on the flowing
water, and Pol noticed how the ripples formed patterns in the moonlight. His
last thought was of Marie and the girls, and how happy they would be when he
got home with gifts from his trip. He visualized the happy reunion in his
mind’s eye.

When Lim saw the cigarette arch
out over the railing and noticed Le Belge’s attention focused on the falling
ember and the river below, he took the opportunity to move in for the kill. He
closed the remaining distance in a low crouch, coming up directly behind and to
the left of Le Belge.

The thin stiletto was held
loosely in his right hand at waist level, the blade pointing out with the
cutting edge up. With his left hand, he reached out across his body and grasped
Le Belge on the right shoulder, turning the pudgy little man around until he
faced his murderer.

Lim saw Pol Giroud’s eyes open
wide with surprise and shock as Lim brought the blade of the knife up and out
and plunged the long, thin blade deep into Giroud’s solar plexus, just below
the last rib. The tip of the blade sliced into the bottom of Le Belge’s heart,
causing blood to gush out into his chest cavity.

Lim lifted up on the knife handle
and pushed Le Belge out and over the railing. The stiletto slipped easily from
the fat man’s belly as Lim tipped him back and over the rail, and the now near
lifeless body plunged to the waters below. There was a loud splash and then the
body began its long, dead journey out toward the sea.

Chapter Eighty-Two

L
ate the next afternoon Lim
crested the hill overlooking the provincial resort town of
Villefranche-sur-Mer. He jerked the rented Peugeot off onto the shoulder of the
road, spewing loose gravel and skidding to a halt. He was bone weary.

He had been up most of the night
after killing Le Belge. The combination of physical and mental exertion and the
eight-hour drive from Bern was taking its toll. He knew he had to rest before
continuing his mission or risk making grievous errors in judgment. He needed to
be sharp before developing and executing the next step in his plan—the
elimination of François Leverrier.

He stepped out of the car and stretched.
The town of Villefranche spread out in a horseshoe below him. To the north was
Cap Ferrat, which divided the bay between Monaco and Villefranche. To the south
was the road leading to Nice and the rest of “
Le Midi
,” as the French
called it – the Riviera.

The barrel tile roofs of the
villas and shops of the little town were nestled between the mountains and the
sea directly below him, and the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean sparkled
and twinkled and danced from the harbor to the sea beyond.