Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) by Valerie Plame, Sarah Lovett Read Free Book Online

colloquial English was just fine.
    She felt the bore of his gaze. She found him repellent in many ways, but his confidence was so powerful and politic, she had to admitshe felt some respect and a hint of admiration for him, too. Her self-confidence still vied too often with self-doubt.
    “Just so you know,” he said, speaking deliberately, “I handpick my team—
et je pense que
—your value to me is the fact you’ve been working for the CIA pursuing Bhoot. You think we don’t know about your operations? We want him, too. After today, maybe more than your government.”
    “Not more than me,” she said through clenched teeth.
    “What do Americans say, you have true grit? But what’s bothering me most at this moment is the question of why Bhoot—or whoever these terrorists are—wanted you in the middle of
le tas de merde
.”
    A pile of shit
—Vanessa scowled—but she couldn’t dismiss Fournier’s question. She shared it.
    Their shoulders pressed together as the driver guided the Mercedes into a second sharp turn, accelerating markedly. She contracted away from him again.
    But he leaned even closer, his breath warm against her ear as he said,
“Les ennuis vous suivent partout.”
    As Vanessa watched the bridge and Seine below blurring together, she said nothing. At this moment she thought Fournier might be right—
trouble did seem to follow her around.

11
     
    Once again Vanessa stood in the courtyard of the Louvre, surrounded by devastation in the aftermath of the bombing; the museum and the Glass Pyramid seemed diminished to mere human scale, left vulnerable in a way they had not been hours earlier. The deepening gloom of winter’s early dusk did nothing to dispel her dark mood, and neither did Fournier’s questions. She’d answered a dozen during the walk-through inside the museum, where she shared a chronology of her actions preceding the bombing.
    “Why plan a meeting in such a public place?” Fournier made no effort to mask his censure. “
Our
people would never do that.”
    “I was concerned about it,” she said sharply; she hated being quizzed and she knew it showed on her face. “But Farid had a narrow window for the meet and he was taking a huge risk to get his information to us, so when he named this spot, we felt his information was of such value, and time was of the essence, so, ultimately, we felt we had no choice but to agree.”
    Fournier’s response was a grunt as he strode directly beyond barriers and into the restricted area.
    Vanessa followed, ducking beneath thick yellow tape to where investigators and dozens of emergency personnel sifted through debris. Only a few wore yellow hazmat suits. Except for a large zone cordoned off in the Tuileries—where the bomb squad under the cover of tents was dealing with the dud RDD—surrounding areas had been tested for radiation contamination and declared clean.
    Fournier jabbed a finger her way. “Show me exactly where you were standing when the bomb exploded.”
    She walked toward the spot, stopping approximately ten meters from the northwest corner of the pyramid. Most of the evidence had been collected, but blood still stained the courtyard. She went still, remembering the injured girl; she was so young . . .
    Vanessa hated that she had been a part of bringing on this destruction, that she couldn’t stop the suffering. She clung to the knowledge that Hays had checked the list of the dead—an elderly couple, and a male tourist in his thirties from Germany. As tragic as those losses were, at least the girl was not among them.
    The shriek of a siren filled the heavy air and then died away abruptly.
    Vanessa shook off disturbing thoughts and looked around for Fournier, who had momentarily disappeared. Almost immediately she spotted him. About fifteen meters away, and he’d singled out one person, male or female, impossible to tell because he was blocking her view. But then he took a step back and Vanessa saw that he was talking with