Chapter 9 - The Safehouse in the Sky
They emerged half-drowned and coated in grime two miles away, near an industrial runoff basin bordering the railway lines outside the Gare Montparnasse. The cold evening air bit into their soaked clothing. Vincent was shivering, every bone in his aging body aching, but the fire inside his mind burned with razor-sharp clarity.
He found an unlocked maintenance storage shed alongside the tracks. Inside, he discarded their ruined, soaked outer garments and found two oversized mechanic coveralls.
""Put this on,"" Vincent told Leo, helping the exhausted boy slide into the heavy canvas suit and rolling up the cuffs.
Vincent did the same. He pulled a battered cap over his silver hair, successfully obscuring his distinguished profile. He needed transportation, weapons, and allies. In a city crawling with Julian's mercenaries and deceived police units, he could trust only one person: Madame Odette Dubois, an eighty-year-old former intelligence courier who ran a private clockmaker's workshop in the shadow of the Sacré-Cœur.
Using small coins found in the shed to purchase transit tickets at an unmonitored suburban commuter kiosk, Vincent and Leo navigated the outermost rail lines, avoiding central hubs entirely. Within an hour, they climbed the steep, rain-slicked staircases of Montmartre.
The sign above the narrow doorway read simply: Dubois Horlogerie.
Vincent knocked on the weathered oak door using a specific rhythm: three slow raps, two fast, then a single heavy strike.
A small brass viewing slot slid open. A pair of sharp, rheumy blue eyes scrutinized Vincent through the rain. The door unlocked with the sound of five separate deadbolts disengaging.
""Vincent,"" Odette said, her voice like crushed velvet as she pulled them inside the warm, ticking sanctuary. ""You look like you've been dragged through the sewers of the Commune. And who is this little ghost?""
""This is Clara's son,"" Vincent said, closing the door behind them. ""And Clara is alive, Odette. Julian has her.""
Odette didn't gasp. She was a woman who had seen the fall of governments and survived the Cold War. She turned her sharp gaze to the digital televisions playing muted news broadcasts on the workbenches, displaying Vincent's mugshot across Paris.
""Julian has bought the prefect of police,"" Odette said calmly, walking to a tea station and pouring two mugs of hot, sweet tea. ""He has frozen all de La Tour accounts under the Pretense of National Security. By tomorrow morning, an emergency board meeting will ratify him as the sole trustee of the conglomerate.""
""Not if we reach Saint-Nazaire first,"" Vincent replied, taking the tea and handing a mug to Leo, whose hands were still trembling.
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Odette set down her porcelain cup, her eyes narrowing with lethal intent. ""Saint-Nazaire is five hundred kilometers away, Vincent. The highways are barricaded. How do you plan to travel across France when the entire nation is looking for your head?""
Vincent looked up toward the skylight of the clock shop, listening to the drumming rain. ""We don't take the roads, Odette. We take the sky.""
