Interruption on a rainy day in Paris

Kitty Cheshire heard the pounding rain and the occasional echoes of thunder, but she was warm and dry.

Considering that she was in Paris, the City of Lights, but had spent the last six hours in a Citroen in an underground car park, Kitty would much rather have been soaking wet at this point in time. If not outside seeing the sights, luxuriating in a bubble bath in her hotel room would have been quite nice, too.

Surveillance was no picnic. Well, maybe it was one, a little bit, since she’d brought a Thermos of coffee and a basket of ham sandwiches and fresh fruit. The transistor radio, playing a Sylvie Vartan song at the moment, also brought to mind a picnic at the beach. Come to think of it, the rain pounding on a nearby opening to the street along the exit ramp sounded a little like waves.

Kitty didn’t wear her trenchcoat to the beach, though. She also didn’t spend hours on end watching the elevator for her quarry.

Kitty might not have looked attentive to anyone watching her–thanks to a lot of effort–but she reacted to the first glint of the light indicating that the elevator had reached the car park. Without a glance, she clicked off the dial on the radio and grabbed the compact that was laying on the dashboard.

As the elevator doors opened, an unnecessary puff of powder tapped Kitty’s nose. Self-inflicted, but that was a hazard of looking inconspicuous. As she thought about it, Kitty grinned a trademark grin.

A woman stepped out of the elevator. She was a couple of inches shorter than Kitty, with stringy black hair. The woman had left her apartment without an overcoat and was clutching a worn briefcase a little too tightly, but what drew Kitty’s attention was a thin trickle of blood from a cut on her cheek. She’d likely been grazed with a knife, Kitty thought.

Kitty’s grin disappeared, replaced with a wince as she remembered a similar wound from a recent mission. An intentness crept over her face. She dropped the compact onto the passenger seat.

The woman looked dazed. She glanced around. She was looking for her car, but there was obviously more to it than that. Kitty knew. The woman was looking to make sure…

Kitty noticed the stairwell door opening. Her Citroen door was already open just a crack, and she had a firm grip on the handle. A man emerged. He was wearing a damp overcoat; he’d come in from the outside on this rainy day. He looked slightly disheveled, as from a fight. Kitty noticed the switchblade in his hand. She guessed it had blood on it.

The woman had moved in between two parked cars, hoping to escape the man’s notice. Probably not a good move, Kitty thought. She opened her Citroen door and stepped out.

“Hi, handsome!”

Kitty grinned that trademark grin. She knew she looked genuinely glad to see him, just as she knew she was anything but.

The man looked toward Kitty. The woman crouched down against one of the cars. A little better, Kitty thought. There weren’t many cars, so it wouldn’t take too long for the villain to suss it out, but she had at least some cover. She was taking in the whole scene, even if she didn’t acknowledge it.

Kitty walked toward the man.

“What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?” she purred.

“Pardon?” the man spoke with a Russian accent.

Kitty was inches away from him now.

“I said, what’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this? Especially with a knife like this.”

As she spoke those words, Kitty grabbed his wrist and wrenched the knife from his hand. She waved the knife blade, with the blood on it starting to dry, in front of his face. There may have been blood on the knife, but whatever blood was in his face drained away. He was suddenly ashen.

The man stepped backward. Kitty stepped forward to keep the pressure on, but her foot barely touched the ground again before he lunged at her. The knife fell from Kitty’s hand as she lost her balance, falling backward. As she did, Kitty put her palms out behind her to break her fall, feeling a quick sting as her hands hit the ground. The man leaped over her and kept running.

Kitty spun her body, moving into the crouch of a runner at the starting line, and then took off after the attacker. She followed his path up the exit ramp into the street.

“Ah, Paris!” she said to herself as raindrops fell on her head and looked around, taking in the scene. “Must be more umbrellas than Cherbourg.”

Kitty looked around the street. The crowd had slowed down her mouse, so she could still catch him.

Kitty grabbed an umbrella out of the hands of a surprised businessman, who shouted after her in French. Kitty wasn’t listening, so she couldn’t make out what he said, but she doubted it was flattering. While still moving, she flicked the button to shut the umbrella into a state that most people saw as resting, but Kitty saw as a pointed weapon.

The attacker was still trying to run, but kept getting jostled by the crowd. Kitty didn’t run, but moved briskly, weaving in between the umbrella-bearing Parisians.

As she caught up to her mouse, Kitty grabbed the umbrella’s point. She lunged forward and downward with the umbrella, using its handle as a hook. It caught the mouse’s leg, sending him tumbling forward. He bumped two or three pedestrians as he fell, flailing wildly.

She grinned. John Steed on TV would be proud, she thought as she considered her umbrella swordplay.

Kitty now had an audience; she wasn’t thrilled with that, but it couldn’t be helped. The mouse’s fall could be helped along, so she gave him one last shove to the wet sidewalk.

 

“Now what was that all about?” Kitty snapped at the man. He didn’t answer. The man whose umbrella she was using had caught up to them and was asking the same question of her in French, with a bit more uncontrolled anger in his voice, but she ignored him and the other spectators as she stood on top of her quarry to block his escape.

Within moments, policemen arrived, their truncheons waving.

“You got him,” one of them shouted in French. Kitty was relieved. The woman she’d been helping had been the one to call the police. That would save Kitty a few awkward questions.

It turned that Kitty’s mouse was a Soviet agent, who’d followed the woman, a junior member of the diplomatic corps, home from her office at the foreign ministry. She was studying top-secret documents, and he’d thought that it would be easier to steal them at her apartment. Actually, it almost was, Kitty thought.

Kitty scooped up some bubbles from her bath and blew at her hand, watching them float in the air as she thought about her adventure.

Kitty’s cover may have been blown, but there was compensation. She had to stay by the phone to brief the relief agent on her original mouse. All it took was a quick trip to an electrician’s shop for some extra cord and she could take a long, luxurious bath at the same time.

The phone rang. Kitty answered within two rings.

“Yes, I’m absolutely bored and miserable,” she told the relief agent. “C’est la vie.”