Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [125]
“It was all crazy,” Annie said, shrugging. “She was writing these e-mails, pacing back and forth waiting for answers, drinking coffee. Then her mother called and they talked. Not long after that she was back on the computer. Then she packed and left.”
“For where?” Daryl asked.
“Paris, of course.”
“Why go there?” Jeff said, recalling for an instant that Paris was where Carlton had been murdered.
“She told me she had the address where the men worked. They told her if she brought them the external drive, they could protect her.”
“She believed them?” Jeff said, stunned at the thought.
“No, she didn’t,” Annie said, sitting back in her chair, eyeing them both evenly. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on.”
“Doesn’t she realize this is probably a trap?” Daryl asked incredulously.
“I think she knows that. She’s planning on it. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. She can be very, very determined once she sets her mind on something.” Annie paused. “She took my brother’s gun with her.”
Jeff looked at Daryl, then back to Annie. “We need to see that computer.”
66
PARIS, FRANCE
5ÈME ARRONDISSEMENT
GRAPHISME COURAGEUX
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
1:56 A.M.
It was nearly two in the morning when the airplane from Milan landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris. Jeff and Daryl took a taxi from the stand and gave the driver the address for Graphisme Courageux.
The driver looked at it, then in French said, “This is a business. It will be closed.”
Daryl answered. “We know. Go there anyway.”
The man gave a very Gallic shrug, then put the car into gear.
“Do you think we’re in time?” Jeff asked.
“Annie said she took the TGV train to avoid airport inspection, for obvious reasons. I looked at the schedules, and we’re arriving at about the same time.”
“Do you really think she means to try and do it?” Jeff asked.
Daryl recalled Ivana and tried to see the angry Russian as an avenging angel. “Annie does—and after what they did to her family, I don’t doubt it.”
* * *
Ivana Koskov stepped from the taxi two blocks from the Graphisme Courageux office. She had the driver point the way for her, paid him, then stood watching as he drove off and was well away. She lit a cigarette.
The streets were quiet at this time of the morning. She’d always imagined coming to Paris, but never like this. All she’d brought with her from Milan was a shoulder bag with a change of underwear, some toiletries, the external drive, and, of course, the heavy gun.
On the speeding train locked in the restroom, she’d hefted the weapon several times. It was a revolver so she’d had no difficulty seeing that the gun was loaded. She’d looked but she could find no safety. She was certain all she had to do was point the thing and pull the trigger.
Ivana did not doubt her ability to kill these men. She just wished she could be certain that she’d hit what she aimed at. If she knew she’d killed them, whatever happened to her afterward didn’t matter.
For a fleeting second she thought of the baby growing inside her. If she lived, she hoped the French authorities would let her mother raise the child. If they didn’t, it would grow up in France, and that had to be better than living in what Russia was and was becoming. And if, as she feared, she died? She pushed that thought from her mind.
* * *
Dufour fell asleep about midnight. Labib had joined him in the front office, keeping a silent vigil through the windows. Behind both men, sitting in the hallway in a chair he’d pulled from the back office, sat Fajer, fingering the shafra.
Fajer had considered using a gun, but such a weapon would be loud and the Paris police were notoriously efficient. No, a knife would do. There was no reason to be suspicious of the ease with which they had drawn her to them. She was, after all, only a woman.
A light shower had fallen in Paris shortly after midnight. Couples had scurried from doorstep to doorstep on their way home. Now the streets on the Left Bank were nearly clear of life. The rain had left the cobblestones slick with patches