Chapter 75: “France let him die. Now France dies in return.”

Words : 1346 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Chapter 75: “France let him die. Now France dies in return.”The morning after the royal funeral was supposed to bring calm. Instead, Belgrade dived in silence not the peace of mourning, but the kind of breathless quiet before a detonation. Moreau stood at the tall embassy window, arms folded, eyes tracking a horse-drawn cart rumbling past. The driver didn’t even glance toward the French flag hanging still above the gates. He’d never seen a people so deliberately avert their gaze. It was like he wasn’t even there. Behind him, the door creaked open. Renaud entered with two cups. "Black. Hot. Bitter as the rumors I heard from the Yugoslav staff this morning. Matches the mood." "Lay them on me." Renaud handed the coffee over. "Talk of an attack. Unconfirmed. Something about ’making a statement’ before the French leave." Moreau didn’t say anything. He stared at his reflection in the glass. "We need to find out who’s talking." Before another word, a sharp knock came. A Yugoslav embassy attaché, barely twenty, stepped in with an envelope. "For Capitaine Moreau. They said urgent." Moreau nodded, opened it carefully. Inside, in rough French, scrawled with urgency: "There is no peace. They will strike soon. The ambassador bleeds next. 2 days. Ministry Transport. Basement. West Wing. No uniforms." He read it twice. Then a third time. Renaud leaned in. "Bad news?" "Depends on whether you think a threat and a warning mean the same thing." Renaud his face hardening. "Christ. Someone’s planning a hit on Dufort?" "Or they’ve already set it in motion," Moreau said. He handed it over. "If this is real, someone just gave us a head start." Renaud’s brows furrowed. "Ministry of Transport? That’s old government turf." "And no guards there anymore." Renaud tossed the note on the desk. "We need a plan." Soon they left for embassy and found Ambassador Dufort was away. In hurry they catch up with him and sat in his car. They then gave him the note and after reading it. He was furious. "This... this is madness," he muttered, clutching the note. "Are we certain this isn’t a bluff?" "If it is," Moreau said, "someone broke into a high-level office, planted fake intel, and wired up an abandoned ministry basement just to scare us. That’s a lot of trouble for nothing." Dufort didn’t argue. His fingers trembled slightly. "And you’re sure they knew our route?" "Too many vehicle references," Renaud said grimly. "Diplomatic tags. Routes we used during the funeral." They soon arrived at the old Ministry of Transport building near the rail district after diverting the car to scout. The place was dead. The group descended into the western basement damp. Yugoslav Intelligence had sent one of their field officers, a sharp-eyed man in civilian clothes named Captain Marko Jelić. He met them at the stairwell, his face unreadable. "You found the note too?" Jelić asked without preamble. Moreau nodded. "Yours was anonymous too?" Jelić grimaced. "No. Ours came with a dead pigeon in a Ministry envelope. They wanted it noticed." They moved through the basement carefully, flashlights sweeping across rusted pipes and piles of old ledgers. Near the far corner, Renaud crouched and pointed. "Communications relay," he said. "Hooked into a military line. They’ve been listening." Jelić swore softly. "Internal?" "Maybe. Could be someone with serious reach." Near the comms setup, Moreau spotted scattered papers route manifests, fake embassy IDs, a list of coded vehicle names half burned, but legible enough. He turned to Jelić. "Who’s supposed to have access to this building?" "Technically?" Jelić replied. "No one. It was decommissioned last year. But some ministry staff still keep keys... or sell them." "That narrows it to half the government," Renaud muttered After that they left for the embassy. Ambassador Dufort’s office now suddenly became a war room. "I don’t want panic," Dufort said. "If this tip is false, we can’t stir up a diplomatic shitstorm." "But if it’s real, you won’t make it past Thursday morning," Moreau snapped back. Amother Yugoslav liaison joined them. Colonel Nedević, gruff, clean-shaven, with a nose that had seen too many bar fights stood in the corner, arms crossed. "We’ll provide surveillance. But no uniforms. No weapons," Nedević said firmly. "If our own people see us aiding the French, it could blow back hard." Dufort raised a brow. "You think they’d target their own?" Nedević gave a grim smile. "You think the factions here care who wears the coat, as long as it carries foreign scent?" Moreau leaned over the map. "We set up a trap. One real car, one decoy. You place your best agents with us. If they fire, we record it." "Where do you want the decoy to go?" Nedević asked. "Same route as the original museum visit," Moreau said. "No deviation. Let them think we’re stupid." After that Renaud, Moreau, and two trusted Yugoslav agents gathered to hammer out the route. "We put the decoy car out first. Fifteen minutes ahead. Let them think they’ve spotted us," Moreau explained. "Meanwhile, Dufort stays inside. I’ll be in the second car, marked subtly." The Yugoslav agent, a woman named Mira, nodded. "I’ll be the second French diplomat." "You sure?" "I’ve been wearing this face since the Croat rebellion. I can act pompous," she smirked. Moreau smirked back. "That’s a rare skill." Renaud passed around a bundle of dossiers. "Photos, maps, and known extremist hangouts. We give them all the bait they want." The decoy Citroën glided out of the embassy, two suited "diplomats" inside Mira and another agent named Stojan. Moreau and Renaud watched from a rooftop two blocks away, both wearing civilian trench coats. Renaud exhaled slowly. "You think they’ll bite?" "They’ll chew." Ten minutes later, a flash. A bloom of flame erupted on the corner of Kneza Miloša Street. Glass blew out. Fire licked at the streetlamp as screams followed. Moreau’s expression didn’t flinch. "That’s our answer." That evening, information came fast. A Yugoslav military analyst entered the operations room. "One license plate fragment. Matched to a black Zastava vehicle. Rented out two days ago. Eastern registry." Moreau leaned in. "Budapest?" Sёarch* The nôvelFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "Closer. Novi Sad. But Hungarian border." Another officer entered. "Anonymous tip. Location in Zemun. Warehouse off Danube street." "Let’s move." The building was long abandoned, paint peeling, windows shuttered. A communications antenna jutted from its rooftop, thin wires trailing like veins. Moreau, flanked by two agents and Renaud, approached from the side. Inside, light flickered. The four men burst in. Two startled men scrambled for pistols too late. Renaud tackled one while Mira’s silenced pistol pointed at the other’s throat. "Told you," she hissed in Serbian. "No sudden moves." In the corner: documents. Stacks of printed leaflets. Diagrams. Embassy schedules. A radio transmitter, still warm. They dragged both suspects to the back of a Yugoslav truck and drove them out into the rainy Belgrade night. Inside a windowless room near the Danube barracks, Moreau stepped into the dim light. The man before him was young. Bloodied but conscious. Terrified. "I want one name," Moreau said. "I... I only drove the car." "You also watched the embassy. You recorded movements. Who gave you the order?" Silence. Renaud stepped forward. "You’ve got two ways out of this. One’s with your legs. The other’s in a sack." The man broke. Names. Military. Political. Not fringe radicals, connected officials. "I was told it would be symbolic," he sobbed. "France let him die. Now France dies in return." Moreau’s knuckles clenched. Ambassador Dufort stared out into the dark garden. "If what they said is true... it’s not just radicals anymore." "They had uniforms. Keys to restricted zones," Moreau said. "That’s not street rabble." "You think it’s high-level?" "Maybe not ordered. But tolerated." Dufort looked exhausted. "This country’s unravelling." Moreau looked toward the city, toward the Parliament dome. "Then we better start stitching before the seams burst." Dufort raised his glass. "To the stitches." Moreau clinked it. "To the ghosts that made us sew."

Chapter 75: “France let him die. Now France dies in return.”

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