"It has to be here. They must have been here before," Cassel muttered, staring at the corridor ceiling.
Although the church bells didn't ring at night, through the sound-absorbing panels on the ceiling, he could still faintly hear the fan of the large commercial exhaust system installed on the roof, connecting to the restaurant below.
"Here." Brian pushed open a door and noticed something unusual, snapping his fingers at the two of them.
Unlike the slightly outdated guest rooms on either side of the corridor, this room was completely open, without any partitions or windows, looking like a large shipping container.
The walls were covered with corrugated soundproofing panels. Jack walked into the room and found that the floor had slightly sunken, probably filled with soundproofing foam or something.
He raised his hand and tapped the wall. He was sure that even if a stun grenade was thrown in, as long as this interlayer door was closed, there would be little noise from outside.
The room held two single beds. Castle quickly stepped forward and twirled a long, reddish-blonde hair from the pillow, muttering, "They were held here before."
Jack sniffed. He didn't know if Kim wore perfume, but the scent of floral water was all too familiar to him; Alexis had pestered Hannah for several bottles.
Brian stared at the twin beds, his eyes quizzical.
Suspicions were mounting, and Jack's gaze lingered on a landline telephone resting on the floor in the middle of the room. Its placement seemed odd.
"Is it working?" Castle picked up the receiver, hearing the distinct beeping sound. He was incredulous.
"They knew we'd find this place," Brian said gravely, glancing at Jack.
He whirred his flashlight around the room, his gaze fixed on a slightly raised spot on the wall that stood out against the surrounding soundproofing.
Brian walked to the spot where Jack's light was shining, and used a dagger to cut through a layer of wallpaper on the soundproofing board, revealing the eavesdropping device underneath.
"Why?" Cassel asked silently with slightly exaggerated lip movements.
Jack didn't answer his question. He walked to the eavesdropping device and deliberately imitated Brian's hoarse voice and said, "Hello? Stupid pig? Mahaba?"
After greeting in three languages, he switched back to English, "No matter who is listening on the other end, we just want to make one thing clear, you have already got the money you wanted, and the two girls have lost their value to you.
Since you left a phone here, it means you are waiting for someone to find this place, so please contact us and state your conditions. We are the father of the two girls you kidnapped.
We came to Paris privately. There are no police here, and we don't care about other legal issues. We just want our daughters back."
Before Jack finished speaking, the phone rang in the room. Cassel couldn't wait to answer the phone, "Hello?"
"Tomorrow at 4 pm, in the woods outside the Palace of Fontainebleau, the specific coordinates are as follows: 5 million euros, only two of you are allowed to come, as long as we find a third person, the two girls will be dead."
The other party spoke in English with a heavy Arabic accent and hung up the phone.
Before Castle could say anything, Jack covered his mouth and dragged him out of the room.
——
"This place had long been set up as a detention center, but there were only two beds. This means they likely only intended to kidnap two people. Only one of the three girls was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The three of them returned to the hotel and entered their room. Brian finally spoke, breaking the silence that had lasted all the way.
"They didn't install network surveillance cameras like before, which would easily reveal their location. Instead, they used wiretaps connected to the phone lines. The phones were also wired, making it impossible to track them without advance preparation."
Jack implied that they had been deliberately lured to Paris.
"What the hell is going on?" Cassel sat on the edge of the bed, pulling at his hair in pain. "Wiretaps and anti-tracking devices, so are we actually dealing with a group of intelligence agents?"
"Are you sure you're not involved in any espionage?" Brian asked solemnly, squatting in front of him.
Cassel's eyes widened, not understanding how this guy dared to turn the tables on him, "Of course not, shouldn't you be the only person here who can be related to the spy?"
Brian shook his head and said nothing, but Jack answered for him, "If the other party is going after Brian, there is no need to make so much trouble. His confidentiality level is not that high, and he has been with his family since retirement."
"Think about it with your clever detective writer's mind, if it were you who wanted to deal with Brian, would it be necessary to go through so much trouble?"
"Of course not, even if you want to kidnap Kim and lure him away from the United States to an unfamiliar area for convenience, there is no need to kidnap other people.
The 15 million euros that those guys extorted from Sarah's parents was just a cover, and the same was true for the 5 million euros just now. They just wanted to lure people to Paris to achieve other purposes."
Cassel was suddenly stuck, his eyes getting wider and wider, "So, their real target is neither Sarah nor Kim, but Alexis?"
"Eliminate all impossibilities, and this seems to be the only answer." Jack felt a headache. He swore that the first three seasons of Castle he'd watched hadn't included Alexis's kidnapping.
He'd been catching up on Person of Interest for the fourth season and had mostly skipped through the later seasons. There was a time-travel scene that stuck with him, but he had absolutely no recollection of Alexis's kidnapping.
"But I'm nothing! Alexis is not even a spy, and besides..." Castle's words grew increasingly unsure, a wave of self-doubt swirling around.
A cell phone rang, breaking the somewhat stagnant atmosphere in the room. Castle and Brian looked at Jack. To avoid being followed and exposing their identities, they hadn't brought their phones with them on this trip. Jack alone had two: his own FBI phone and a phone left behind by a mysterious person. It
was Jack's FBI phone that rang. He picked it up, saw it was Beckett, and put it on speakerphone.
The policewoman uncovered two things. She found Roger Hansen's girlfriend, who revealed his address. The FBI seized a computer there, and on the hard drive, they discovered numerous photos taken while tracking Alexis.
She also privately contacted Sierra's mother, who was currently being escorted back to New York. The two of them shared a number of details.
According to Sarah's sobbing account, during the kidnapping, two Arab women, at the kidnappers' request, had examined the three girls' bodies in a deeply intimate manner.
After hanging up the phone, Jack and the two fathers exchanged bewildered glances.
(End of Chapter)