“I rejected your offer,” Stone said. “Any insult is your inference.”
Majorov stood, knocking over a glass at his table setting. His two companions swiftly moved to either side of him.
Stone was eyeing a sharp-looking knife on the table.
“I should tell you, Mr. Barrington,” Majorov said, “that the conflict in my organization has not entirely ended, and that there are still those who would regard your absence from the scene as beneficial.”
“I should tell you, Mr. Majorov,” Stone replied, “that I will hold you entirely responsible for any further attempt on the persons of M’sieur duBois or myself or any of our associates or properties. And you may regard that as personal, not business.”
Majorov threw his napkin onto the table and stalked from the room, accompanied by his two bodyguards.
“Whew!” Marcel said. “That man appeared in my bedroom this morning and frightened me half to death. I thought you dealt with him brilliantly.”
“I don’t think either of us is through dealing with him,” Stone said.
43
Stone had a cup of coffee with Marcel and tried to calm him down. When he went downstairs there were no guards present outside the building. He went back inside and looked around the ground floor, then he heard a banging noise and traced it to a closed door. He opened it and found a supply closet containing half a dozen people, bound and gagged, sitting on the floor.
Stone freed one of them and told him to free the others. “Then I suggest you resume your posts and do your work with more care.” He left the building and found a cab in the street. Strangely, he found comfort in being in an ordinary taxi rather than an armored van. “Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” he said to the driver in his best French, which he knew made him sound like an American schoolboy working on his pronunciation.
He wanted a day off from all this. He got out of the cab in front of the old church and began to walk, window-shopping in galleries as he went. He entered a small shop and bought a small sculpture he had seen in the window and asked that it be shipped to his home in New York. He walked for another two hours, then had a good lunch in a small restaurant. His cell phone rang several times, but he ignored it.
He passed a cinema and, on a whim, bought a ticket and saw a film in French with English subtitles, no doubt a nod to the tourists. He lost himself in the film, and when he came outside the November day was beginning to lose its light.
He stopped in another gallery and bought a picture, then he resolved to walk back to the Arrington. He was crossing a bridge over the Seine, and he stopped to have a good look at the Eiffel Tower, watching its light show. Then he looked around and found that he was alone on the bridge. Each end was blocked by black SUVs, and from both sides, men in dark clothes were approaching him. He caught a glimpse of an assault rifle and realized he had no place to go.
Then the men walking toward him began to run, and Stone took the only escape available to him. He placed his hands on the bridge’s railing and vaulted over it. The dark water rushed up at him, and he managed to enter it feet first, having no idea how far he had fallen. He grabbed a breath as the icy Seine closed over him, and he resolved to stay under as long as he could. He experienced a detailed flashback of the experience of the night before with Holly in bed, which seemed to last several minutes. He must be dying, he thought, even though it was not his life flashing before him, but visions of Holly’s body.
He broke the surface, gasping for breath. He could not have been underwater for more than half a minute, he guessed, but the bridge seemed far away. Men were running in both directions, and some were looking down into the water. He had not realized how swift was the Seine’s current, nor how cold it was. His strength was being sapped by the chill and his trench coat seemed to be pulling him down. Still, he didn’t shrug it off; it might contain a little body heat. A barge was bearing down on him, and he swam a few strokes to get out of its way. He had not got far enough, though, and he found himself being bumped along the length of its hull. He saw a tire coming toward him, suspended from the barge’s deck by a short rope, and he managed to get an arm through it.