Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Sixty

Yves Pomeroy watched his own hand zigzagging his badge in front of the Roche Rivard lobby sensor. Many days he was able to master his palsy with a concerted effort, to mentally tunnel into each knuckle's movement and wrist's turn, willing himself through simple tasks.

Many days he could. But not this one.

A female guard rushed to help. "Allow me, Monsieur."

Her two warm hands wrapped his one, persuading the badge toward the sensor, pulling it through the infrared beam.

The contact exhilarated Yves—she was a comely brunette with a chest like Mont Blanc—but he managed to blunt his urges and proceed inside. He felt something upset in the exchange, some pocket or cuff.

Bof, it is nothing, he decided. Sensations could not be trusted when one was aroused.

Yves strode through the lobby with manufactured confidence, mouth puckered and chest out. He well knew anyone could be watching via closed circuit.

Had they been watching twenty minutes ago when he'd been in the First Arrondissement, the very heart of Paris, answering Durwood Oak Jones's questions about this very building, Roche Rivard?

American Dynamics had provided Jones a formidable intelligence cache, but it contained blind spots and was somewhat dated due to the speed at which Fabienne redoubling her defenses. Yves had clued the West Virginian in to the latest identity-protection procedures and told what he knew of recent excavations in the deep, wet limestone.

"This is yours, oui?" a voice called behind.

Yves whipped about, his aged back cracking.

The guard held aloft a scrap of paper. Even five yards out, Yves could discern the diagram he'd sketched of supply tunnels radiating eastward from the building's bowels.

"It is, yes, merci bien." He shuffled to retrieve it.

The woman seemed to hold the scrap overlong, forcing Yves to rip one corner.

He carried the incriminating paper rapidly to the bullet elevators. Fear screamed through his thoughts, for which he hated himself. As a young man—indeed, even as a not-so-young man—he had stood tall with Henri Rivard. They had faced down Somali butchers together. Israeli poisoners. Greenpeace propagandists.

Now he cowered before a woman guard. Under a woman CEO. He'd been thwarted at every turn by a woman—Thérèse Laurent—who should take orders from him, but did not.

Quelle disgrâce.

Yves frowned a line into his forehead. He boarded a waiting elevator car and pressed the button for the Enterprise Software floor.

The doors began closing, but several sets of fingers appeared in between before they could finish.

The doors reopened. Yves looked past the supplicants who'd lunged for the door to see who they'd stopped it for.

Fabienne.

"Ah, Yves." She smiled fiendishly. "My favorite elevator ami. You are heading up?"

"Yes." Yves heard his voice as a squeak, so said, deeper, "Up, that is correct."

She smirked at his attempt to be masculine.

The supplicants stepped hesitantly on, but a look from Fabienne sent them scampering.

The doors closed. The bullet elevator accelerated skyward.

Fabienne said, "Myself, I am going down."

Yves glanced over queerly. "But this car is going up."