Chapter 8 - Day 5 Part 4

Athos left the interrogation room and immediately spotted the exact person he was looking for.

"I know what Vadim was really planning." He said, forgoing any kind of greeting.

"Tell me in your office, Porthos has found something as well." Treville replied, already leading the way.

Elodie was sitting in Aramis' chair with her laptop open on the desk when the two entered. Her eyes lifted briefly to see who it was but quickly went back to her typing.

Porthos eagerly announced his news to Athos,"I have a name and a place. Vadim hired a scientist called Claude Beaumont to make the poison, he's working out of a warehouse in Aubervilliers. Elodie's searching our system now to see if we can find him."

Athos knew that Porthos was good, but he honestly hadn't expected this information. "How the hell did you get that out of him?"

Porthos shrugged, "Luck? I'm just hoping he's in the system, the name will be no good to us if we don't have an exact location. Aubervilliers isn't exactly small, it's not like we can search the whole area."

"That's not the only bad news. One of Vadim's crew just told me what his actual plan was. Apparently Vadim has bombs planted all over the city ready to be set off and we have no idea where or how many."

"What? How is that possible?!" Treville asked, already pulling his phone out of his pocket to get in contact with the bomb squad.

"Because he's been playing us this whole time. We thought we had finally gotten ten steps ahead of him, but yet again we're a hundred steps behind. Vadim's organisation is so much bigger than we'd ever realised. His men could literally be anywhere right now."

Treville nodded to himself. "Okay, you two focus on finding that antidote, I'll deal with this bomb problem."

Athos nodded in agreement and watched Treville exit the room before turning his attention back to Elodie to see if she had found anything yet. Looking down at the laptop his eye caught an oddly shaped lump sitting on the desk beside it. It took him a moment to realise that it was the blu-tack elephant that Aramis had so lovingly created only a few days ago.

Athos couldn't help but pick up the little blue creature and hold it in his hands. He ran his thumb over the small eye hole that he could only assume had been created by poking the blob with a pencil. A work of art Aramis had joked when he showed it to him. They'd all joked about it, back when his biggest worry was whether he'd finish his report on time.

How had everything changed so quickly?

Thankfully, Elodie's voice broke him out of his thoughts and he returned the elephant to its place on the desk before giving her his full attention.

"Right, there's two Claude Beaumont's in the system. One died three years ago and the other is only 15 years old, arrested last month for pick pocketing. Neither of them have any connection to Aubervilliers or any kind of warehouse."

"So it's a dead end." Athos stated.

"Woah wait, let's not give up just yet, eh? Elodie, try just Beaumont."

"Porthos, that's a really common surname you may not be able to narrow the list down," Elodie replied, already typing the name into her computer.

All three watched as the computer ran the latest search. A few minutes past before it had collected all the data. 167 results.

Porthos ignored how Athos defeatedly turned away from the screen without a word and instead focused on the names in front of him. He asked Elodie to scroll down the list until one name stood out.

"There, that one! Claudius Beaumont, what do we know about him?"

Elodie clicked on the file and quickly scanned the information. "Okay, 37 years old, was arrested two years ago for ABH in the workplace but wasn't charged. Looks like he used to work in a lab and wasn't too happy about being fired for experimenting with lethal chemicals without permission."

She looked up at Porthos and smiled, "Now owns a carpentry workshop in Aubervilliers. Looks to me like we've found our man."

. . . . . .

The drive to the workshop takes about 30 minutes with very little traffic which on any other day would be considered a good journey but today it took about 29 minutes longer than they would have liked.

Porthos took the opportunity to call Aramis and provide an update on what they had found out. He'd told him that the substance that d'Artagnan had been poisoned with was going to be shutting down his major organs before long and that they were hopefully on their way to obtain the antidote right now.

Aramis had not given away too much in return, instead simply informing him that, as expected, d'Artagnan was getting worse.

"What did he say?" Athos asked as soon as Porthos hung up, being sure to keep an eye on the road ahead.

Porthos shook his had. "Not much, just that d'Artagnan's already deteriorating. Doctors are going to try and keep him stable, but he needs the antidote as soon as possible"

"Deteriorating how?"

"I don't know, he didn't say." Porthos shrugged as Athos turned to look at him.

"Well, why didn't you ask?"

"If he wanted us to know, he would have told me. Look, I know Aramis, he's keeping it from us on purpose, he doesn't want us to lose focus."

"We deserve to know!"

"Right and knowing how much he's suffering right now, would that help you?"

Athos opened his mouth but no response came. Maybe it would help, maybe it would quieten all of the horrific scenarios currently going round and round in his head. But then maybe it would make it worse, because despite everything he was picturing there was still a tiny speck of hope that it wasn't actually that bad and hearing the truth said aloud would most likely shatter the hope he was clinging onto.

You have reached your destination the satnav interrupted before the conversation could continue.

Athos pulled into the front drive of the workshop, next to a large sign: Carpentry and Repairs. Please enquire within.

"You ready?" He asked Porthos as they both got out of the car.

. . . . . .

Aramis had been sent out of the room after calling for help which unfortunately meant he had no excuse but to pick up the phone when it started ringing.

The information that Porthos had passed onto him was something that he would make sure to inform the doctor about as soon as possible, but he had no idea what to tell his friend in return. He couldn't give them anything definitive about d'Artagnan's condition and a vague description of how the boy had been literally dying right in front of him was not going to do Porthos or Athos any good, so he stayed quiet and was glad when Porthos didn't push it any further.

When the door opened and the medical team left the room Aramis wasted no time in passing on Porthos' information to the doctor.

"That explains what's happening now then." The doctor looked at him grimly. "D'Artagnan's kidneys have started shutting down which is what caused the seizure.

Aramis swallowed thickly, "Okay, what does that mean?"

The doctor gestured to the nearby seats and continued once they had both sat down.

"Our bodies needs clean blood to function properly and it's the kidneys' job to filter out the waste and keep everything chemically balanced. If they can't do their job the toxins that are in our blood aren't being removed and so they flood the body."

"Can you get them working again?" Aramis asked, knowing what the answer was probably going to be.

"Ordinarily yes, we'd determine what type of kidney failure it was and go from there. But if, like you said, the poison is shutting down his major organs, then my best guess is that we're not going to be able to fix it, instead we'll have to do our best to manage the symptoms, keep him stable and just pray that the antidote will be able to stop the damage going any further."

The doctor paused for a moment, understanding completely that it was a lot to take in.

"We're going to get him set up on something called peritoneal dialysis and see where we go from there. You can go back in and be with him for now though."

Aramis took a breath and thanked the doctor. He waited for the man to walk away before entering the hospital room again.

Nothing had changed, not on the outside at least.

D'Artagnan was still unconscious on the bed, unmoving and pale as anything. The ventilator was still keeping him breathing and the IV tubes were still snaking across his body.

Aramis took his place by d'Artagnan's bedside and had no choice but to wait and see what would happen next.

. . . . . .

Athos and Porthos entered the workshop and were surprised by what they found.

They had expected some secret laboratory with brightly coloured liquids bubbling over bunsen burners being operated by a mad scientist with crazy hair and dirty lab coat.

But really, it should have been pretty obvious that the inside of this very public carpentry workshop was, in fact, a carpentry workshop.

It wasn't a large workshop by any means, but there were several work benches out holding chairs, wardrobes, even what looked like a large selection of very exquisite wooden door handles in various stages of completion.

Towards the back of the workshop, varnishing a chest of draws, was the only member of staff to be seen. A brunette man with messy hair and a medium build. He clearly hadn't heard them enter over the radio plugged in nearby and so was given a bit of a fright when approached by Athos and Porthos.

The man put a hand to his chest and let out a nervous laugh as he recovered, "Sorry fellas, didn't see you there. Can I help you? We actually closed about an hour ago, but if you're here to pick up?"

"We're looking for a Claude Beaumont," Athos took the lead, "we heard he owns this workshop?"

"Aye, that's me," Claude replied, picking up a cloth to wipe his hands, "what can I do for you?"

"You can hand over the antidote to the poison you created for Vadim."

Claude froze and Athos could practically see the cogs whirring in his head before deciding to do what every criminal does. He runs.

Now luckily for Athos, he's been doing this job a long time. It was obvious that Claude was going to run, so obvious in fact that Athos thinks he might have actually started running towards him a second before Claude even took off.

Porthos stayed back and admired Athos' ability to take down a guy with what he always liked to say was the grace of a hippo. Eh, at least it got the job done.

Claude was on his back, arms pinned above his head with Athos practically sitting on top of him. He tried to wriggle out of the other man's grip or kick him off but he struggled to no avail.

"Fine, you can have it, just get off me."

. . . . . .

Claude led them to a modest room in the basement of the workshop.

"Now this is more like it," Porthos said, looking around the room. The main desk held what you would expect to find in an office: a computer, stationary, stacks of paperwork and receipts. But at the back of the room, on another table, was a collection of scientific equipment next to a large cabinet which housed chemical filled flasks and vials. Nowhere near enough to be called a lab, but enough for Claude Beaumont to create a deadly poison it seems.

Athos pushed Claude further into the room and signalled for him to retrieve the antidote.

He watched closely as the man opened the cabinet and carefully picked out a small glass vial filled with a dull blue liquid.

If Porthos was paying a bit more attention, he would have noticed that by also entering the room further he had left the doorway unguarded. Claude unfortunately did notice.

Before passing the vial over, the scientist took a moment to observe that Athos and Porthos were both standing on one side of the main desk leaving the other side a completely unobstructed pathway to the door.

He wasted no time in enacting his escape and threw the antidote in the air towards the men.

For Athos and Porthos it was like everything was suddenly moving in slow motion. One second the vial was in Claude's hand and the next it was flying towards them. They both dived forward, fearing it would reach the ground before they could catch it, fully aware that d'Artagnan's life depended on them not dropping this tiny bottle.

In reality it had landed as smoothly in Athos' grip as quickly as it had left Claude's, but this unexpected distraction meant that neither of them had noticed Claude leave until the door slammed behind them.

Rushing to the exit they watched through the door's small window as Claude entered a code on a small keypad attached to the wall, another of which was actually on their side of the door as well.

"Claude open the door," Athos demanded, feeling the cool glass in his palm as he gripped the antidote tighter.

"I can't do that. I can't let you stop me." Claude whispered as he leant closer to the glass.

"Stop what?"

"Vadim's plan." He grinned.

Athos' brow creased in confusion, "Vadim's plan?"

"There's a bomb out there waiting for me and when I leave here, it's my job, my honour, to light the fuse. Finally bringing me what I've always wanted. To be a part of history." Claude's eyes lit up at the realisation of how close he was to fulfilling his dream.

"What is it with criminals and wanting to go down in history?!" Porthos muttered to himself, still unsure of what the hell was going on.

Athos shook his head as he tried to get through to him, "Vadim's plan is over Claude, there's no bomb for you to set off, just let us out of here."

"But of course there is. That's why you're here."

"We're here because Vadim is locked up and he ratted you out." Porthos bashed his fist against the door, but Claude was unfazed.

"No, you're here because Plan A failed. But I'm Plan B. If things changed and Vadim was unable to give the signal, he was to lead you to me. That way I'd know it was my job to give the order. I set off the first bomb to let the others know to do the same. And what a privilege it will be." Claude started to walk away from the door before turning back to them. "Oh and sorry about your friend."

Athos, confounded, had no option but to watch as Claude ran away.

. . . . . .

Porthos angrily kicked the door, "I knew Vadim gave him up way too easily! I should have seen this coming."

Athos chose not to answer his friend as he continued entering combinations into the keypad, each one replying with a long beep and a flashing red light.

"And of course," Porthos continued with his rant, "we've got no signal down here so we can't warn Treville about the bombs, we can't tell Aramis that the antidote isn't on it's way, we can't even work out how to open the bloody door!"

Athos turned to face him with a sympathetic glare, "Porthos, there is no way we could have expected this, okay? I know you're angry but I swear I'm going to figure out the code to this door even if it kills me, so until then look around the room. Maybe he was stupid enough to write something down that will help us out."

Porthos trudged over to the desk and tapped the mouse. The floating bubbles of the screensaver disappeared to reveal a login box.

Username:

Password:

"Computer needs a password," Porthos sighed.

"Try the paperwork," Athos replied, his focus back on the keypad.

1256 beep

1257 beep

1258 beep

One of these numbers was going to be correct.

Porthos grabbed the closest pile of papers to him and rifled through it. Bank statements, blueprints for wardrobes, the occasional cat photo but no super evil plans.

He did the same with the other stacks before moving over to a filing cabinet that sat towards the back of the room. Inside, files were organised by tab in alphabetical order, A for Adelaide, Adrien, Andre, B for Barrie, Bayard, Benedict…They were client files.

Forgoing the rest of the alphabet, Porthos went straight to the letter V and there, right at the front, was a file labeled 'Vadim'.

"I might have something," Porthos announced, pulling the file out and opening it.

Athos tried one more combination before joining Porthos.

Inside the file was, in fact, everything they needed to know about Claude's part in Vadim's plan.

One page listed a bunch of payments into Claude's account.

One page detailed what seemed to be a breakdown of the chemical components of a certain poison and antidote.

One page was neatly titled bomb locations and listed about ten different addresses.

Porthos looked at it in disbelief, "Rule number one of being a good criminal Claude, you don't write down evidence that can be easily found. Idiot."

"This is exactly what we need, we just need to get this to Treville," Athos stated, flicking through the rest of the pages.

"Yeah a load of good it does us whilst we're still locked in here." Porthos shut the draw and almost walked away until something caught his eye. Down the front of the cabinet was a selection of post-it notes, in a range of colours and sizes, holding different notes and scribbles. He'd dismissed them when he first opened the draw, but looking again there was one post-it stuck to the second draw that simply said: CODE: 4376.

Porthos almost laughed out loud as he pulled it off and held it up to show Athos.

"Surely not," Athos took it from him and walked back over to the keypad and sure enough after typing in the code, the light turned green and the door opened.

"Like I said, idiot."

. . . . . .

It had been almost two hours since Porthos had last called and Aramis was getting worried, he had no doubt that his friends were doing everything in their power to find the antidote, but in the meantime d'Artagnan was getting worse.

The doctor had told Aramis to grab him immediately if there were any changes and for a good forty minutes all d'Artagnan was having to deal with was some breathing difficulties and failing kidneys.

Aramis, in order to distract himself from the room's constant array of noises, started reading aloud a book that he had downloaded onto his phone a while ago.

He'd downloaded it almost two years ago by now and was pretty sure that he'd started the book at least three times already in the past, but he had a terrible habit of reading a chapter then forgetting the book even existed for a good four or five months.

"I've always wanted to be part of a book club, you know," Aramis had said, "I almost even managed to bring Athos round to the idea with promises of wine but he decided my book choices weren't good enough for him."

He had looked over d'Artagnan's still body once more before starting, "Let's see if you agree with him eh?"

The first chapter was only six pages long and in between his occasional glances to check that d'Artagnan's condition was the same, Aramis found himself intrigued by the story's beginning.

It was halfway through the second chapter that he had noticed something was a bit different. D'Artagnan's pale complexion had gained a touch of colour, but instead of returning to its usual olive tone, it was just a bit too yellow.

Acute liver failure, the doctor had told him after they had run more tests following Aramis' observation. "We'll have to watch him carefully," the doctor had said, "obviously we don't know exactly how this poison is effecting his organs, but our concern with a failing liver, in any ordinary case, is that it can't make enough clotting factors which could lead to him bleeding internally. On top of that it can also cause excessive fluid to build up in the brain which, if that happens, we may be able to treat with medication, but if it ends up being serious enough to require an operation I severely doubt his body will be able to take the strain."

So now Aramis was back with d'Artagnan, reading aloud the words on the page, not fully taking them in himself, hoping that any minute now his phone would start ringing. He knew that he was just going to have to be patient, his friends were working hard to get the antidote and they wouldn't waste time calling him if they hadn't found anything yet. That didn't stop his brain from constantly reminding him of what could happen if they didn't come back with it soon.

D'Artagnan was still lying on his back, eyes closed, chest moving mechanically, but Aramis could have sworn that despite his heavily unconscious state there was still small lines of discomfort around his eyes.

He could only imagine the pain d'Artagnan was feeling right now. They had still decided not to administer any pain relief yet for fear of making it worse, but this did mean that, on top of every new complication that was arising, his body was having to fight even harder to survive.

. . . . . .

Porthos was already on the phone to Treville by the time they'd started the car's engine.

"Yes sir. Well from what's written down here it seems that the bombs have been placed in buildings leading up to and surrounding where the festival is taking place. We believe that Claude's responsible for setting off the first one and then they'll all be set off from that."

Athos pulled away and sped down the road as he listened to Porthos respond to whatever Treville had said.

"Yep, okay we'll head straight there, I'll send you a picture of the list now."

Athos had already typed the first bomb's location into the satnav when Porthos hung up the phone and looked at him guiltily.

"Athos, I know d'Artagnan needs the antidote, but we're the closest to the location." He tried to placate his friend as he took a photo of the list, but Athos already understood.

"No, he's right. As much as I hate leaving d'Artagnan to suffer for even a second longer, Claude has to be stopped. Who knows how many people will die if we don't get there in time."

Porthos nodded to his friend, "Besides, d'Artagnan's a strong lad, he'll be able to hold on."

Athos prayed that that was true as he pressed down on the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel just a little bit tighter.