BLACKBARN

    Katie and David packed and got up very early to catch the Roissy shuttle bus from Étoile to Charles DeGaulle. They had twenty minutes to wait till the bus arrived, and it was a gorgeous April in Paris day, allowing for a last look at the springtime flowers and budding trees in full view of the Arc de Triomphe. David was sitting with his face towards the sun and his eyes closed, when suddenly the shrill sound of police cars and ambulances jarred him. Within mere seconds more sirens from the east and west of the Arc were blaring.
         Katie looked at David, as if to say, “Not again!”
         A few minutes later the two Americans saw the bus approaching, when Katie’s phone rang. It was Catherine.
         “Katie, they hit another hotel.”
         Katie put Catherine on speaker phone so David could listen.
         “Which one, where?”
         “It’s very close to where you are. Called the Hôtel Victoire near the Parc Marceau. I’m headed there now. Call you when I get there.”
         The bus hissed to a stop in front of the waiting queue. Katie said, “What do we do?”
         “I know what you’re thinking,” said David.
         The bus driver called from the open door, “Madame, Monsieur, venez-vous tous?”
         Katie replied, “Non, merci,” then turned to David and said, “I guess we’re going to the Hôtel Victoire.”
         “I guess we are.”
         They hailed a cab and told the driver where they wanted to go and found they were following a police car with its lights flashing and siren wailing. The hotel, which was stately but not as grand as the three others, was only blocks away, but by the time the Americans got there, streets had already been blocked off.
         Katie and David stood there, feeling encumbered with their baggage. Catherine was not yet on the spot, so Katie tried to speak to a policeman holding a sub-automatic weapon. He responded only that people were coming out of the hotel very sick and were being taken to hospitals. Then, an unmarked police car screeched to a halt and Michel Borel bolted from the front seat and ran to the barricades, asking who was most senior at the scene. Borel spoke to the man, then could be seen telling the officer what he needed to do. He spotted Katie and David, just as Catherine was seen emerging from a taxi.
         “Another virus attack?” asked Katie.
         Borel just nodded his head vigorously and waved his hands in the air. “So,” he said, “this is not over. This has not yet ended. The government is going to have to start shutting down every hotel in the city after this.”
         Catherine, who did not have a crew with her, asked, “Did Bazarov give any indication this might happen again?”
         “No, nothing,” said the detective. “He said the operation was shut down.”
         “Do you believe him?” asked Catherine.
        “I don’t know. He knows what will happen to him if he held back information.”
           “So, what the hell is going on, Marcel?” asked David. “Copycat crime?”
         “I don’t know, David, maybe. Maybe some imbecile thinks he can get himself on CNN by attacking more hotels. But if this keeps going on, Paris is going to be one big disaster area. I can already tell people are going to leave the city and tourists are not going to come here for God knows how long.” He shrugged and said, “But that is not my worry. I just have to find this bastard and hope he’s the only one. Another needle in a big haystack. Last time we had some luck—thanks to you—but I doubt we are going to be so lucky this time unless there’s an easy way to tie this to the other three hotels.”
         “Is the Victoire owned by the Saudis?” asked Katie.
         “No, that’s another piece of the puzzle. It’s been owned forever by an old German family. It even used to be called the Hôtel Allemagne, but after the war no one wanted to have anything to do with a place named the ‛German hotel.’”
         “And that family still owns it?” asked David.
         Catherine answered: “They lost control right after the war, and the new owners re-named it the Victoire, but the family was able to buy it back at some point under that new name.”
         Katie and David were amazed once again at Catherine’s depth of knowledge about Parisian history.
         Borel apologized and dashed off to speak with other plainclothes officers who were arriving by the minute.
         “So what do we do now?” said Katie.
         “Well,” said David, “if we’re not leaving, we’re staying, so let’s see if we can get our rooms back at the Julian.”
         “I doubt that’s going to be a problem after this latest attack.”
         Catherine stayed behind as the Americans went back to the Julian to check in and leave their luggage.
         “At least this time, only one hotel was struck,” said Katie.
         “So far,” said David.
         “I know. I don’t think this is the end of it.”
         “What I’m baffled by is how much of this stolen virus is still out there in someone’s hands? If this is not the Russians’ work, who had access to more of the shit?”
         “I’m thinking that the Russians at the Embassy had extra virus packages on hand, just in case some was lost. They wouldn’t have just three packages.”
         “You’re probably right. So, I’m wondering if Bazarov even knew about the extra supply. He was only told what he had to know and only delivered the one dose to Massot at the Anastasia. If there’s more of it, someone at the Embassy must have known, and finding that out behind those locked doors ain’t gonna be easy.”
         “You don’t think the police can demand to search the Embassy?”
         “Nope,” said David, “An embassy is considered to be sacrosanct foreign soil, no matter where it’s sitting. No one’s getting in there unless there’s a fire.”
         “Maybe somebody needs to start one,” said Katie,
         “Don’t look at me. Hey, shouldn’t you call Alan, tell him what’s going on?”
         Katie agreed but knew it was still the middle of the night in New York. “I’ll let him sleep while we snoop around Paris. I’m pretty sure he’ll want us to stay on.”
         Indeed, when Katie reached him, Alan Dobell agreed with enthusiasm that she and David should stay on at least till this current virus attack was solved. He knew the newspapers would be reporting on it and probably do stories about the possible short- and long-range effects on Paris, Parisians and tourism. Would there be a shut-down of all hotels? Restaurants? Public buildings? Katie would have plenty of time to follow up on all such stories and make it all part of her long-form reporting, depending on just how big the story was. Dobell being Dobell, he asked if Katie and David could find cheaper lodgings than a hotel off the Champs Élysées. Katie promised to do what she could.
         Borel was obviously tied up with the preliminary investigation and did not return David’s phone call until that evening.
         “I imagine you’re under a lot of pressure,” said David.
         “You have no idea,” said the detective. “This thing was shut tight, nice and clean, now the whole city is in a panic. The government officials have been meeting all day to decide what to do, and, of course, they will have to cut through the bureaucracy to get anything done at all.  I’m just hoping we catch the attacker and hope he’s a lone actor, not connected with the Russians.”
         “But somehow he must have gotten the virus from the Russians.”
         “That’s what worries me.”
         “Have you been in touch with Bazarov?” asked David.
         “Through his lawyer, yes. He says that Bazarov swears that he knows nothing about this new event and is as shocked as we are.”
         “Did he say anything about more of a virus supply being stored at the embassy?”
         “He says he had no idea. All he ever handled was the one package, but he assumes there was some back-up. I don’t think Bazarov is going to be of much help.”
         “So, it all begins again. Checking the rosters, looking at the security videos, interviewing the staff.”
         “Well, at least we know what to do based on what we did before,” said Borel, “and there is, perhaps, a slight difference this time. All the people who were sick were able to walk out of the lobby on their own. Only a few required a stretcher.”
         “Meaning it may not be as virulent a virus as the first ones?”
         Borel shrugged and said, “Time will tell. It would be nice to tell the public that this time the virus does not seem to be as serious. I hope your friend Madame Newcombe will report it that way.”
         “I’m sure she will if she can get a quote to that effect from health officials.”
         Borel gave him a name and number for Catherine to call.
        “I’m thinking that perhaps the virus degraded over the past couple of weeks since the first attacks,” said David.                         “Remember, it had to be kept very cold, and if the Russians didn’t need it any more, they might have let precautions lapse.”
         “In which case it would seem like someone in the Embassy took it upon himself to use the virus in a new attack, without any official authorization.”
         “But why attack the Victoire? There’s no Saudi association.”
         “Which is why it sounds like some renegade in the Embassy had a vendetta against the owners of the Victoire,” said Borel. “He might have seized the opportunity to use what was left of the virus—maybe in a degraded form—to settle some score. Which still leaves us locked out of the Embassy. If Bazarov were still inside and worked with us, we might get a lead, but he’s not.”
         “Do you think he may know someone within the building he might be able to contact, somebody who might want to help Bazarov’s case?”
         Borel said, “That is a very long shot, I would think. We will try, but I’m not optimistic. Well, David, it has been a long day and tomorrow will be just as bad. Let us all get a good night’s sleep, or something resembling it, and see what tomorrow brings.”