“That the best you can do?”
“Legally.”
“Screw legally,” said Mac. “I’m asking, Harry. Come on. Do me a solid.”
Crooks studied Mac. He smiled softly, shaking his head. “Okay, then. But just once.”
He placed a call. “I need a favor. Check if this number pinged any towers near 27 to 29 Avenue Montaigne during the last eighteen hours. Call me back.”
Crooks hung up. “You know this is illegal,” he said. “I could go to jail. The French authorities are touchy about privacy.”
“Tell them I put a gun to your head.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Mac slid the pistol from his waistband and set it on the table. “Up to you.”
The phone rang. Crooks answered. He shot Mac a glance, then jotted down a number.
“Success?” asked Mac.
“Her phone popped up this morning, dialed one number, then powered off. The duration was six seconds. The call didn’t go through. Maybe you know the number. Country code 41.”
“That’s Switzerland,” said Mac.
“Province code 27.”
“Valais,” said Mac. “A canton.”
“8878 9877.” Crooks read off the numbers slowly. “Know it?”
Mac nodded. “It’s my number. I destroyed the SIM card yesterday in case someone like you was looking for me.”
“Wise move.”
“What time did you say the call was placed again?”
“Six sixteen this morning.”
“It’s her,” said Mac. “She’s alive.”
“How do you know?” asked Crooks.
“June 16,” said Mac. “It’s my birthday.”
Chapter 29
27 Avenue Montaigne
Paris
If this was her jail cell, she should have engineered her capture long ago.
Ava Attal stood at the window of her room on the fifth floor of Tariq al-Sabah’s grand townhome. The windows were locked. She was certain the glass was bulletproof. Even if she could get out, it was a long way down. She didn’t bother about the door. Locked, of course.
The room was the size of her old apartment in Tel Aviv. Walls cardinal red. Gilded moldings. A bed big enough for a family of four. The furniture was traditional French—she didn’t know which king—one of the Louis’s. Chairs, sofas, inlaid tables. The floor was parquet, with Oriental throw rugs positioned here and there. More paintings on the walls than in the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay combined. There was a domed camera in the ceiling, and probably others she couldn’t see. She didn’t know if she was the first “guest” or if others had been imprisoned here as well.
Ava did her best to act as if she were at home on a Saturday morning. If, that is, she didn’t have her phone or laptop and couldn’t call her parents or Mac. Or if she couldn’t go outside for a run in the forest or take Katya into town for apain au chocolatand some stale bread to feed the ducks. Or if, more immediately, her hands weren’t bound by flex-cuffs tightly enough to cut into her flesh if she moved too quickly.
