Quick by Steve Worland Read Free Book Online Page B

Lotus Elise. They’re the only international calls he ever seems to receive. ‘Hello?’
     
    ‘Is this Billy Hotchkiss?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    ‘Hello, this is Marcellus Jaspernik.’
     
    Another bloody sales call, though at least this one isn’t automated.
     
    ‘Hello, Marcellus. And who are you when you’re at home?’
     
    ‘I don’t—what? I—I run the Criminal Investigation Department at Interpol and I would like to speak to you about a job.’
     
    So it’s not a sales call but a prank from one of his work mates who, by now, have heard about his forced resignation.
     
    ‘Yeah yeah, ha ha, rack off mate. I’m not in the mood.’
     
    ‘This call isn’t getting off to the best start, Mr Hotchkiss.’
     
    There’s something about the tone of the guy’s voice, or maybe it’s his clipped Euro accent that makes the Australian pause. ‘This a joke, right?’
     
    ‘Not at all. I need you on a plane. To France. Tonight. For a formal interview. Are you available?’
     
    ‘You’re seriously calling about a job?’
     
    ‘I’m certain I’ve already said that.’
     
    ‘And the job is with who?’
     
    ‘With whom , and it is Interpol. I’m certain I said that too. Now, are you available?’
     
    Billy’s starting to think this might be for real. ‘If you’re fair dinkum.’
     
    ‘Does that mean “yes”?’
     
    ‘Bloody oath.’
     
    ‘I don’t know what that means either.’
     
    ‘It means when does the flight leave?’
     
    ~ * ~
     
    Claude presses the button on the vending machine and a bottle drops into the receptacle. He now has to buy his own sparkling water. He remembers a time when there was a fridge full of Diet Coke and Perrier on every floor. Not anymore. Interpol’s budget is tight, barely seventy million euros a year, and they’re always looking for something to cut so complimentary beverages were bound to go. He just hopes they don’t start axing anything important, like support for agents in the field. Maybe if he can win Marcellus’s job he’ll have some meaningful influence over the budget. That’s certainly motivation to take up the old German’s offer. Since Marcellus dropped the bomb yesterday, Claude’s warmed to the idea of being in the field again. He even went for an hour-long run yesterday afternoon then powered through half an hour of calisthenics.
     
    No, the forty-eight-year-old’s fitness is not a concern. What he’s worried about, what kept him awake last night, is whether or not he still has ‘it’, that special something where, in the heat of the moment, his instincts take over and he makes the right call. Those instincts served him well during his years in the French Foreign Legion, then as a gendarme in Paris, then as an investigator with Interpol.
     
    How rusty will they be now?
     
    He turns from the vending machine and glances over a banister at the Interpol headquarters lobby one floor below, all glass and steel and polished marble floors. The place is a hive of activity. He notices a guy with a slight limp move through the crowd of people. Claude doesn’t trust anyone with a limp. It’s like they’re trying to hide something, and doing a terrible job. Worse, the guy is wearing a hoodie. Claude is more than happy to profile him ‘on the fly’ and a limp plus a hoodie immediately throws a red flag. His instincts tell him he needs to check this guy out. He puts the drink down on the banister and descends the wide stairway to the lobby.
     
    The Frenchman circles around like a big cat—not an overweight house cat, but a jungle cat—stalking its prey through the undergrowth, which, in this case, is a crowd of people. He feels a tingle in his chest as he remembers how much he loves the hunt. It’s better than wine, or cheese, or his beloved Gitanes, which he’d recently been forced to give up by his doctor, or even women, whether it be Bridgette, his first ex-wife, or his ex-mistress who became his second ex-wife, also named