"That guy is absolutely insane! He covered 124 miles with us in under 45 minutes." Castle glanced at the Eiffel Tower in the distance, then clenched his fist and waved it toward the departing taxi.
"In France, we use the metric system. That was 200 kilometers," Jack corrected him while flipping his fingers to slip Daniel's business card into his wallet. He hadn't watched many French movies, yet he had unexpectedly run into a familiar face as soon as he arrived.
Since neither Castle nor Brian spoke French, Jack used an FBI-issued fake ID to book a large suite at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in central Paris—a suite with three bedrooms.
As soon as they landed in France, he turned on the anonymous phone, including its location services. However, no call came through.
While waiting for the call, Jack contacted the FBI back home. Jubal had found some leads and pieced together how the three girls had been transported to France.
According to FAA records, six hours after the girls were kidnapped—on the same afternoon—a Dassault Falcon 7X private jet took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and flew to Brussels, Belgium.
The FBI had a hard time tracing this because the plane didn't fly directly to France.
A Belgian immigration officer, who had been bribed, admitted that he saw three visibly disoriented girls being helped off the plane and placed into an ambulance. The explanation given was "food poisoning," but their whereabouts after that were unknown.
The private jet belonged to a wealthy Brazilian businessman, but according to Jubal, he was unlikely to be directly involved, as the aircraft had originally been scheduled for maintenance.
"This makes no sense," Castle said, his eyes wide. "Just to exchange hostages and ransom in Paris, they stole a private jet?"
It really didn't add up. A Dassault Falcon 7X was worth $45 million, and stealing such a jet just to fly across the Atlantic for a €15 million ransom was beyond excessive.
At the current exchange rate, euros were nearly 1:1 with the dollar. Even at its peak over a decade ago, it had never been more than 1.6:1. This was like deploying an aircraft carrier against a bunch of militants who could barely afford flip-flops.
Then again... when you put it that way, maybe it did make sense.
CSI had also made progress. By analyzing background noises—such as church bells and ventilation sounds—on the kidnappers' calls, they had roughly determined their location. The results matched closely with the IP address Justin had tracked.
Jack was impressed by how extensive their database was. They even had acoustic profiles of different areas in Paris. Stella Bonasera explained that they collaborated with some of Europe's top forensic crime labs.
Meanwhile, NYPD, including Beckett, was digging deeper into Roger Hansen's background. The narcotics division shared intel on him: he had a girlfriend.
By the time Jack finished compiling all the updates, another hour had passed. It was now 10 p.m. in Paris, yet the phone still hadn't rung.
"We can't just keep waiting around," Castle said impatiently.
"Of course not," Jack agreed, then turned his gaze to Brian. "Should we check out that hotel?"
Brian nodded, and then both men simultaneously turned to Castle with a look that made him shudder. Panicking, he held up three fingers.
"No knocking me out this time! I promise I'll stay put in this room!"
Jack sighed. "You're coming with us. But if anything dangerous happens, you must stay put."
Since they were in central Paris, their opponents were unlikely to pull out RPGs or other heavy firepower. Jack was confident he could keep Castle safe. Besides, protagonist luck was a thing—who knew, bringing him along might lead to an unexpected breakthrough.
——
"No lights on. No movement visible from the windows." Disguised as a nighttime jogger, Brian returned with his report.
"They probably moved Alexis and Kim somewhere else after getting the ransom. There are fresh tire tracks in the underground parking lot, but no cars left behind."
Jack nodded and led them into the five-story hotel building, which was supposedly closed for renovations.
The first and second floors were occupied by a still-operating restaurant, but the upper floors were dark, and even the elevators had been shut down.
They avoided the inattentive security guard and used the emergency staircase to reach the third floor. Jack pressed his ear against the fire exit door, listening closely. Then, he pulled a ski mask over his face and attached a suppressor to his Viper handgun.
The Viper SR-1MP was a purebred Russian military pistol, chambered for the 9x21mm specialized rounds widely used by Russian intelligence, special forces, and the presidential guard.
Domestically, this pistol was known as the "Vektor," but export models featured a viper engraving on the slide, earning it the nickname Viper in Western markets.
Jack deliberately chose this gun to muddy the waters—after all, the presence of Russian intelligence agents in Paris would sound perfectly plausible.
Since he didn't know the enemy's level of equipment, he loaded his magazine with a mix of 7N28 (SP-11) lead-core rounds and SP-12 expanding rounds. He also carried two extra magazines loaded with 7N29 (SP-10) armor-piercing rounds.
The standard rounds were self-explanatory. The SP-12 expanding round featured a semi-jacketed hollow point with a white plastic tip covering a lead core. Upon impact, it deformed more dramatically than regular hollow points, creating severe tissue damage.
Some gun enthusiasts had exaggerated hollow points as "war crimes" ammo, calling them "Dum Dum bullets" that would get you sent to a military tribunal. In reality, hollow points were the most common civilian self-defense rounds in the U.S., offering excellent stopping power against unarmored targets.
As for the armor-piercing 7N29 rounds, Jack brought them specifically in case their enemies were wearing body armor.
These bullets had an ingenious design: a semi-jacketed open-tip with a steel core surrounded by a polyethylene liner. Upon impact with light armor, the jacket peeled away, allowing the hardened steel core to continue penetrating, providing excellent armor-piercing capabilities.
According to Russian tests, this AP round could penetrate a 5mm steel plate from 50 meters away—an impressive performance for a handgun round.
However, in close-quarters combat, overpenetration could be a problem, as rounds might pass through unarmored targets and ricochet unpredictably. That's why Jack kept these AP rounds as a backup option.
It took them nearly an hour to search all three floors from bottom to top. As expected, the place was completely deserted.
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