still alive was undoubtedly long gone.
The bodies had been removed, the screenwriters released after giving their statements, and the local police still puzzled as to what had happened. The mainline FBI op who showed up to meet Michaels was a junior man, not the special-agent-in-charge, but he was willing to say what he thought. His name was Dixon.
Michaels and Agent Dixon ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape covering the doors and went into the building.
“Here’s what we know,” Dixon said. “The dead men, all thirteen of them, were shot in the theater proper. We have identification on six so far”—he looked at his palm computer—“Wu, Morrison, a screenwriter named C. B. Shane, and three men with criminal records: two Vietnamese-Americans, Jimmy Nguyen and Phuc Khiev, and a man named Maxim Schell. Nguyen, Khiev, Schell, and Morrison were armed with handguns. Nguyen’s was in his hand, Khiev’s on the floor under his body, Schell’s still tucked into his belt. None of them got a shot off, though some of the other dead men did fire their weapons.
“Morrison’s gun, a little .22, was locked in his right hand in a death grip, and shot empty. Nobody got hit with a .22 that we can tell. We haven’t come up with IDs on the other dead men yet, but all of them had guns, too.”
Michaels said, “So what do you think happened here?”
“No way to tell for sure. The dead guys were mostly shot in the back or back of the head, so what it looks like is some kind of ambush. You have to figure that if you have a dozen armed men, most of whom didn’t do any shooting before they got taken down, there were a lot of other guys in here blasting away, too. Forensics hasn’t gotten the blood all sorted out, but a quick prelim says there were a few who got hit hard enough to bleed, but who didn’t stick around.”
“Jesus.”
“We’d take his help if he offered. You must have some ideas. You got anything for us?”
Michaels thought about it. Toni would tell the director anyway, it was her job now, so it didn’t matter if Dixon knew. He said, “Morrison had some kind of valuable data and he used it against the Chinese. We think maybe they were after him. Maybe they caught up with him.”
“What kind of data?”
“Sorry, that’s need-to-know only.”
Dixon shook his head. “Doesn’t seem right. The dead guys were all sitting down when the shooting started. And according to the interviews with the screenwriters, everything was quiet until somebody yelled ‘Gun!’ At which point, all hell busted loose. It sounds more like a negotiation than a face-off.”
“It must have been an ugly scene in here.”
“Yeah. Though a couple of the screenwriters were more pissed because they didn’t get to see the movie than they were upset about all the corpses. Welcome to L.A.”
Michaels considered what Dixon had said. A negotiation. Yes, it did, didn’t it? Why would the Chinese be negotiating with a man who had wiped out a couple of their villages?
Maybe they wanted him to tell them how. Maybe they were willing to pay for it?
Well, if Wu was the guy negotiating, he hadn’t done too good a job of it, had he? And Morrison wasn’t going to be pedaling anything, either.
Paris, France
Jay sat slouched in a wicker chair at the Cafe Emile, looking out on the Champs Elyseés, not far from the Arc de Triomphe. He sipped black, bitter espresso from a tiny china cup, and smiled at the couples who strolled past. The war was over nearly two years, the Nazi occupation history. Postwar Paris in the spring was a much nicer place than a military surplus store in any season.
Henri, the waiter, approached. He had in his hand a small paper tablet. He gave Jay a nod that was both servile and arrogant and offered him the tablet. “ ’Ere iz ze list you wanted, Monsieur Greedlee.”
“Merci.” Jay took the tablet and waved Henri away. He looked at the list, scanned down the row of names—no ... no ... no ... wait!
Jay sat upright, bumped the table, and sloshed espresso from the cup. Yes! There it was!
He snapped his fingers loudly, caught Henri’s attention. “Garçon! Voulez-vous bien m’indiquer ou se trouve le téléphone? Je desire appelez faire!”
Henri rewarded Jay with a sneer. “Bettair you should work on ze pronunciation and ze grammar first, monsieur!”
The arrogant prick knew he wanted to make a call, but he had to correct