Chapter Thirty-Four

Thorn

Paris, France

Sunday, Twenty-two Ten Hours

H ands on his knees, Thorn dragged big gulps of air back into his lungs.

Brigitte was on all fours catching her breath, too.

He staggered past, with a pat on her shoulder. Her team had backed them up. They had four goons zip tied and lying on their stomachs. He'd broken one guy's arm before he'd even rounded into the fight. The three he really wanted to chat with, the Omega crew from the airport, were in the wind. Billy had been in the fight. He'd clearly seen Billy doing his famous round house on some poor guy. But he and Norman Colburn must have slipped the noose.

Thorn had snapped pictures of their captives faces and ears, rolled their fingerprints onto to his app and sent them on to Iniquus for identification.

He'd hoped that amongst their prisoners he'd find the two men who had kidnapped Juliette in the first place. There was no guarantee that the kidnappers and Omega were on the same team. There could, very easily, be four sets of players ? Iniquus, Omega, Mossad, and the kidnappers ? going after Juliette now that she wasn't safely tucked away in America.

Thinking that, with each step, Thorn found new energy. He raced over the roof tops, trying to get back to where he'd hidden Juliette.

When he arrived between the chimneys his bag was there, open. Juliette's pink gown, and her medical equipment was strewn about.

His eyes scanned, but he didn't see her.

"Where is she," he panted into his comms.

"She headed north. She went over the first wall, and then she was lost in the shadows. It's been twelve and a half minutes since we saw her."

Thorn turned back toward Brigitte. She was on her feet now and moving his way.

She was one hell of a hand to hand fighter. In that instance, Thorn was glad she was on his side. Glad she did her wicked thing, taking down those Omega crew. Yeah, she was the real deal when it came to soldiering.

Thorn jogged north. When he got over the first wall, he could see shifting debris under his penlight. Juliette left funny side-sliding tracks for a few steps, then it looked like she'd fallen and started to crawl.

That must be why the eyes in the sky didn't pick her up.

With his penlight switched to a green light that would preserve his night vision, Thorn tracked her over two more walls then she rounded east, crawling toward the sky light, propped open in the middle of the roof.

Thorn hoped like hell she hadn't tried to go through that skylight. These buildings had twenty-foot ceilings. It would be a trip to the emergency room, spine and brain injuries, leg fractures…Thorn was preparing a list of possibilities and how he'd handle the situation if he found any of that to be true.

Thorn had come to the same conclusion that their contractor had, a hospital was a no-go for Juliette. It was just too dangerous.

Brigitte's hand laid on his shoulder two seconds after Nutsbe warned Thorn of her approach. "You okay?" she asked.

He looked her way. Then pointed his flashlight to the ground and the crawl pattern in the debris.

They stalked forward.

Brigitte put her hands on the edge of the sky light and looked down.

Thorn rounded the side.

Juliette lay crumpled along the far edge.

"What were you doing?" he asked as he dropped to his knees. He knew of course. She'd dressed the best she could and escaped the best she could. It was what he would have done. He couldn't believe she'd gotten this far. He touched her head and her fever was raging. He mouthed his findings back to Nutsbe.

"What's the plan here?" he asked Nutsbe.

Brigitte was crouching just to the side, the light from the skylight illuminating her form. She must have chosen to let herself be seen.

"We've reached out to the Mossad and asked them to coordinate with us. They've denied any actions in Paris, denied any knowledge of Juliette DuBois or David DuBois or interest in them, and any knowledge of an active operative or a team deployed."

"So she's rogue, or black ops," Thorn mouthed, pulling off his duffle.

"Or the Mossad is disavowing," Nutsbe countered.

Thorn opened the pocket with his medical kit. "Get Jaffrey on the line." He checked her temperature. "Hell of an infrastructure for rogue. Juliette's temperature is a hundred and five, still."

"Agreed. You asked for a plan. Once the two crews clashed, your back up backed off. I'm guessing they thought their intervention might end them up on the front page of the newspaper, so they'd go after Juliette only if the bad guys won. They'd assumed it was you against seven guys, so not a problem." He chuckled.

Thorn ran his hand over his bruised face. He was glad that he'd decided to leave his beard alone, it helped to glide the fists along his jaw and let the punches slide off ineffectually.

"Our client is disavowing, too. FYI. They aren't thrilled that a video of you is going viral on social media," Nutsbe said.

"Is this the video from me and Brigitte at the hotel or me and Juliette on the ladder?"

"Hard to keep track of all the ways you're viral, brother. But in this case, it was your super hero antics. All you lacked was the cape and maybe a sexy little unitard. Dr. Jaffrey is getting on an encrypted line. Give him a minute."

Thorn could hear Brigitte on her phone speaking in Hebrew. He didn't know enough words to understand what they were saying. But Nutsbe was taping ambient noise, so he'd figure it out. "You getting the background here?"

"Brigitte? Yeah, the computer says she's arranging for an exfil team to get Juliette to a private clinic just outside of Paris. I have Honey and Gage deplaning soon. You'll have them with you tonight."

"My team got the information we needed?" Thorn's hand rested on Juliette's shoulder and he stroked his thumb back and forth comforting her.

"I'll catch you up when your danger level isn't on red."

Thorn looked down at Juliette's silhouette. "Are you ordering me to take Juliette to the clinic with Brigitte?"

"Titus says he doesn't see another way off that roof. He thinks that if you stop cooperating, they'll just grab Juliette and take her themselves. You're out numbered. At least they can get her off the roof safely. We'll figure it out as we go along. Play nice with your new friend. If this shit show hits the fan, it's spraying back on Iniquus. We still have background intel support from our client, but no more white vans are going to pull up and snatch you out of the streets."

"That's the plan then, go with Brigitte and hope for the best. Where is Jaffrey ?"

"Patience. He's coming. Look, if Juliette were conscious, we might have been able to make a play for a one on one escort over the border to the 86 th airlift at Chièvres Air Base in Belgium. As it stands, you need to hold hands with Brigitte and hope Gage and Honey get there before this mission goes from bad to worse. We're tracking you via your phone and computer. Good luck."