Chapter 69

CHAPTER 69

Brunelle had gone to see the Bois de Boulogne crime scene for herself and had been standing next to Gibert when word came in of another gunfight. This time in the 13th arrondissement.

According to the dispatch officer, there were two dead Russian Embassy employees in a car near the Café Apate and a dozen more inside a medical building across the street.

Having seen enough in the Bois de Boulogne, she hopped in Gibert's car and they rolled, lights and sirens, to the 13th.

The two Russians shot to death in the front seat of their embassy car were shocking to behold. The brazenness of it reminded her of mafia killings in Italy. Barriers, to shield the scene from view, were only just being erected when they arrived.

Inside the building was even worse. Much worse. It looked like a war zone—especially the victims of what appeared to be some sort of homemade, shrapnel-laden bomb. Brunelle couldn't even begin to imagine how painful it would have been to die that way. One of the men had not only absorbed a ton of shrapnel, but also appeared to have been shot multiple times before retreating down the stairs and succumbing to his wounds.

Another man had received neither shrapnel nor bullets but had had his throat cut from ear to ear and had bled out on the floor. The scene was one of pure, unadulterated carnage.

What wasn't obvious, however, was who had done the killing. Similar to the site of the first gun battle, where only the fake police vehicles had been left behind, there was basically no additional evidence that might help identify the other shooters.

None of it made any sense. And it was about to get even weirder.

As the first detective on the scene, Gibert had authority to examine the bodies. He and Brunelle were bent over their third corpse when the cop pulled a stack of passports from the man's pocket. Opening each of them, he showed them to Brunelle.

"My God," she said. "Those are from the dead Russians in the Bois de Boulogne. Why does this guy have them?"

"I have no idea. The deeper this goes, the more bizarre it gets."

"What is going on at that embassy? Some kind of internecine warfare?"

Gibert shook his head. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Two different groups of Russians, both slaughtered, and no sign of who did it."

"What's your gut telling you?" she asked, genuinely meaning it this time, rather than tossing it off as a flippant barb as she had two mornings ago in Jadot's kitchen.

"It looks like these guys have evolved. They sent a lot more personnel this time."

"Doesn't appear to have made any difference."

"No, it doesn't," the cop replied. "Whoever they're up against are good. Very good."

"I agree," said Brunelle. "But who are they? Other Russians? French? Why the gangland-style combat? What the hell are they fighting over? And what does any of this have to do with Jadot's murder?"

Gibert shrugged. They were all good questions. He just didn't have any good answers. He didn't even have any bad answers.

"And why the medical clinic?" she asked, throwing more questions on the pile. "What's the connection with the Bois de Boulogne?"

"That one," the cop replied, "I think I can answer. Or at least I can make a relatively well-informed guess. The Russians came here in search of one, or more, of their enemies who was injured at the last gunfight. They bulked up the size of their force and came in hard, smashing through the lobby door and charging up the elevator and both stairwells."

"But their opponents were waiting for them," Brunelle continued. "They set up IEDs and, along with their guns, were able to take down twelve men and disappear."

Gibert nodded. "We'll want to send a bulletin to every hospital in the city. We'll also want to start pulling CCTV footage. Nobody simply disappears. "

"I'll get MoMo going on the footage right away," she said as her phone started to ring. Pulling it from her pocket, she looked at the caller ID. "Speak of the devil.

"Agent Brunelle," she stated, activating the call and raising the phone to her ear.

She listened for several moments as MoMo filled her in on the startling information he had just learned.

"Are you sure ?" she stressed. "I'm talking, absolute, one hundred percent, watertight certainty. Because if you're wrong, we're worse than fucked. President Mercier is going to bring back the guillotine."

After a few more words back and forth, Brunelle said to MoMo, "Send it to me. I want to see it for myself."

With that, she ended the call.

"What was that all about?" Gibert asked.

"I'll tell you in the car."

"Where are we going?"

Taking out her pistol and making sure a round was chambered, she replied, "To conduct the biggest bust of our careers."