Paris Match(99)

            Stone sat up in bed. The image was of a Gulfstream jet, the one that Yuri Majorov, Yevgeny’s brother, had later died in. There was something unusual about it, something that made it different from other Gulfstreams, but he couldn’t get it straight in his mind. It was a symbol something like the old USSR crossed hammer and sickle, but not quite; something was different about it. He swung his feet onto the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to re-create the scene in his mind. He was standing by the open hangar door when the Gulfstream taxied past him, headed for the terminal building. The symbol was painted on the engine nacelle, so it was directly in his line of sight as the airplane passed him. It was in red paint. What was more, he had seen it somewhere recently.

            “What’s wrong?” Holly asked from the other side of the bed.

            “I just remembered something,” Stone replied. “Lance said that his people couldn’t prevent Majorov from leaving the country.”

            “That’s right, there aren’t enough of our personnel in Paris to cover the airports and the train stations.”

            “If Majorov wants to leave the country, he won’t go by train—he’ll fly in his own jet.”

            “There are an awful lot of those,” Holly said, “and I happen to possess the useless knowledge that there are fourteen airports in and around Paris.”

            “He’ll be leaving on a Gulfstream 450.”

            “There are a lot of those, too, and we don’t have a tail number. And they all seem to have a similar paint job.”

            “Not this one,” Stone said. “It has a sort of takeoff on the Soviet hammer and sickle on the engine nacelle, but instead of a sickle crossed by a hammer, it’s a sickle crossed by a Kalashnikov assault rifle. I saw it at Santa Monica Airport, and again at Le Bourget when we arrived here. I had forgotten about it.”

            Holly sat up. “We’ve got to call the Paris police,” she said.

            “Bad idea,” Stone replied. “First of all, why would they listen to us? We’re Americans, and we can’t explain ourselves in French.”

            “Lance can call Michel Chance, the prefect. His jurisdiction is the Île-de-France, which includes all fourteen airports.”

            “He won’t be leaving from thirteen of those—he’ll be leaving from Le Bourget, where Charles Lindbergh landed after his flight across the Atlantic.”

            “Why do you think that?”

            “Because when Charles de Gaulle Airport opened, Le Bourget became the airport of choice for corporate jets like the Gulfstreams. I just told you, I saw the Majorov jet when we landed there.”

            “That’s right, we did. Let’s wake up Lance.”

            “I’ve got a better idea—wake up Rick LaRose and tell him we’ll meet him at Le Bourget.”

            “It’s a big airport, where are we going to look for the airplane?”

            “At Landmark Aviation, where we landed. It was being hangared there.”

            “Lance will kill me if I don’t wake him up,” Holly said.

            “All right, get dressed and wake him. And when you call Rick, remember to tell him we’re leaving here for Le Bourget and to let his people outside the house know not to fire on us.”

            “I’ll certainly remember that,” Holly said, getting into some jeans.

            —

            LANCE CAME downstairs dressed, but unshaven. “All right, Stone, tell me about this.”