by Mike Bond
“Fucking for secrets?”
“You would put it that way. He knew all along, I'm sure, and fed me tidbits just to keep me. Then one Sunday morning at 6:30 I was called and told to be on the eleven a.m. plane to Delhi. At each stop I had to call Brussels, and when I got to Teheran I was met by a man who spoke German with a South American accent – Raoul was the only name I got – who gave me a ticket back on your flight and a file on you.”
“What was in it?”
“A passport photo, your college transcript, handwritten notes on your whereabouts since graduation. It told about the football in Canada, your injury, and about the deaths of your parents and fiancée. I never could say how sorry I feel.”
“Keep going.”
“You doubt I love you. That's one of the reasons I do, that you never mentioned the pain you've suffered, but only paid attention to mine.”
“What was your job?”
“You were an American-born Russian agent gathering information on the Chinese and acting as an American climber. You'd been trained in North Africa and Paris, and were suspected of having traveled in and out of Russia via Odessa and Vladivostok. You'd just finished an assignment in Nepal that resulted in a worsening of U.S.-Chinese relations, and had killed three Americans there in cold blood.”
“Three? I only killed Stihl.”
“According to the scenario you also killed Alex and the other American – what's his name?”
“Eliott?”
“Yes. If Interpol or the CIA ever get you, that's what the story will be. That you killed those three, and a bunch of Nepalis. And you'll be killed trying to escape.”
“Go on.”
“I was to get involved with you, on the plane if I could, try to keep you on the back burner in Greece; if not there, then in Paris or New York.”
“Why?”
“Till we could track down your partner. I was to try to get his whereabouts from you, stay close to you, find out if you planned to meet him. Raoul also gave me a file on Paul, a known anti-American and presumed saboteur of American bases in Europe.”
“Like Alex he was in Vietnam. It made them both dislike a lot about the States but they'd never hurt another American.” Cohen brought his hand quickly down on hers. “I need to know who these people are.”
“I'll help you where I can. But it's not my choice.”
“Why?”
“I know where it'll take us. Dead. With no good to come of it.”
“I'm going to get them back for Alex. And for Maria and Kim and Phu Dorje and his wife and daughter and son, for…”
“Who's Phu whatever you said?”
“A Sherpa whose brother was killed by your friends on the Kali Gandaki trail. And whose crime was to be told about it. You should've seen the children, lying beneath their mother with their throats gaping, flies swimming in their blood…”
“Don't prey on me.”
“These orders – to go to Calcutta, Nairobi, and such. Where did they come from?”
“I was attached, rather loosely, to a press bureau in Brussels. I'm sure they didn't have the faintest idea what was going on, though they may have wondered about my schedule. I worked hard at my persona. I never met the man who called.”
“Called?”
“Every Monday evening I had to be at my apartment. It was one of those new yecchy buildings in the suburbs. Sometimes he'd call, give me some information, ask me questions, have me pick something up in a locker for which he'd mail me the key. Occasionally he'd call at other times, too. For all the wiretapping they did they never seemed to worry about my phone. The first ones I met face to face were Raoul, then Max and Emil on Crete.”
“Where are they?”
“Heaven knows. They were backup. When I drove off that last day in Vye I went to their hut, to pull them off you long enough for you to disappear. Later, Emil was very angry and kept muttering in his lousy English that I'd ruined him, that he was finished.”
“He was German?”
“Argentine. I could tell it when he spoke German, as with Max, who also said he was German. So I stayed at their hut until they came back swearing and sweating and started calling on their car radio. Emil took the Peugeot and put me on the next bus from Sitea to Heraklion, where I was told to take the first flight to Athens, and then to Brussels. I thought a lot about breaking free and trying to find you in Crete, but doubted I could and knew I might lead them to you. Also, you'd probably have killed me before I could open my mouth, and I knew I was in danger with them too. So I decided to tough it out for the present and disappear when a good chance presented itself. I never expected to see you again, dead or alive.” She took his hand. “Let's walk – we're honeymooners; it's April in Paris. In a few days we head back to a lifetime in Des Moines, you to your bank, me to my PTA.”
“Honeymooners aren't in the PTA. What happened back in Brussels?”
“The voice called and said they were considering firing me. I knew that ‘firing’ meant an execution somewhere – car crashes seem to be their favorite. So I told him how angry I was that Max and Emil had blundered and revealed themselves, almost getting me killed, that I had had you wrapped up until they blew it, and that I hated you and would do anything for another chance. The same line I used with Mort.”
“And the guy under the truck?”
“In Athens? Maybe he was one of them, what they call an insurance rider, whom I would not know about, on purpose. Or maybe he was from some other group, checking up on you.”
“He was following you to the airport, not me.”
“Maybe to get my destination, call it in, go back to you. Or maybe he was just a poor schmuck who got crushed by the world.”
“Were you really leaving?”
“I was going to run, run, run. From them and you. I was so confused. I thought you'd be safe without me, that I was endangering you – yet I couldn't go back to them if I left you. I tried to think of a way we could disappear together, but knew you wouldn't go for it. Then when I called in I found they wanted to drop me and move in on you and so I pushed you toward going to Crete, telling them you insisted on our going there. God, it was a strain – it's all been such a strain, let's enjoy these moments.”
She took his arm as they stepped from the restaurant into the lamplit penumbra. As they crossed la rue Mermoz a black-uniformed policeman halted them with an upraised submachine gun. “Your identification?”
Cohen stared into the mean dark hole in the barrel. She grasped his arm. “Pourquoi, Monsieur?” she said.
The policeman leaned forward to look into her face. “Arab, aren't you?”
“Certainly not. Why do you ask? Why point a gun at us? It's the custom now in France to harass tourists in the street?”
“You know where you are?” The policeman swung a black-gloved hand toward the side street opposite them. “Isn't that the Israeli embassy? Am I not here to guard it?”
A blue and white flag drooped before a long yellow building half way down rue Rabelais. “We didn't know,” she said. “We're even Jewish.”
“From where?”
“England.”
“Your friend?”
“He doesn't speak French. He's also English.”
“Your passports, please.”
“We're Common Market…”
“Your identification?”
“It's in our room. Shall we get it?”
“Where?”
“In this street, at our hotel.”
“I'll go with you.” He crossed the street, bent to talk with another policeman who also carried a submachine gun.
“Whose fucking idea was it to be Lebanese?” Cohen whispered. “The Eighth, so quiet and unsensational – right around the corner from the Israeli fucking embassy.” He bit his lip. “It's the goddamn CRS, too.”
She smiled up at him. “Calm down. We'll think of something.”
The policeman crossed back to them. “On y va?”
They reached the hotel under th
e curious glances of passersby. The policeman clumped up the stairs behind them, gun at the ready. Outside their room Cohen bent to insert the key. The policeman stood on the stairs, front boot on the landing.
They entered the room. “Entrez,” she called.
“I'll stay here,” the policeman said.
She stood behind the door pulling off her sweater and bra, snatched a brochure from the dresser. “Give him this. When I follow, hit him.”
Cohen advanced toward the black muzzle. “Voici, Monsieur,” he said in flat French, proffering the brochure. The policeman leaned forward, his eyes widening as Claire came through the door. Cohen grabbed the gun, the policeman tumbling off balance, swearing, the sling catching his neck. Cohen slammed the gun butt down on him. “Careful,” she hissed. Hand over his mouth they shoved him into the room, lashing his wrists with the bra and stuffing an undershirt in his mouth. Claire pulled on her sweater and coat. “We've got two minutes.”
“No we don't.” Cohen ducked from the window. “Here comes L'Ecole Militaire.” He shoved her into the hall and up the stairs to the fifth floor and then the roof, hobbling fast across sticky tar through warm cindery smells of the chimneys and jumped a half floor down to the next roof. Its door was locked; they leaped to the next building. Its door hook snapped. Whistles screamed in the street.
21
THEY DASHED down the stairs past an astonished woman holding a pail of water on the third floor landing. On the main floor a courtyard opened to the rear, beyond it a wall then the back of another building. He boosted her on the wall and she pulled him up; the top of the wall was inset with broken glass. “Salauds,” she swore, sucking her bleeding hands.
They ran through a lobby past a man reading a paper by an elevator door, halted breathless on the sidewalk. Whistles and sirens at the corner. “Miromesnil's closest!” she yelled, bolting down the street.
“The Alfa!”
“Later.”
The métro was jammed with people who stared at them openly. He faced the floor gritting his teeth against the pain in his knee and trying to breathe easily. She sat with bloody hands tucked in her sweater, under the “Reserved for Mutilated War Veterans” sign. “If I sit here,” she grinned, “everyone will think I'm French.”
“I feel sorry for that flic. His head's gonna hurt.”
“It's his job.”
“No, this wasn't his fight.”
At Trocadéro they switched to the Nation line. “Gotta get off this thing. They'll be watching every exit.”
She stood as the train slowed. “I'll get off here; you go one further to La Motte Picquet. Meet you at 143 Emile Zola, on the roof.” She ducked out the door.
The train picked up speed. Cohen stared away from a young man in army fatigues and a painter's cap who smiled inquisitively. I must look weird, hobbling about. Christ, already's after nine. Late for the Serpent. What if I made it all this way only to get nabbed the day I'm to meet Paul?
Wincing, he stood and crossed the aisle to inspect the métro map on the wall, the train knocking him off balance and into the man in the painter's cap as it slowed for the elevated station at La Motte Picquet. “Pardon,” he said, grabbing the center pole. La Motte Picquet flashed into view – a tanned naked woman's back on a suntan billboard, another ad of a boy smiling as he brushed his teeth. The métro map showed a different line from La Motte Picquet to Odéon. Can I risk it? Nothing else's any safer. Here I come, Paul.
He stepped through the train's hissing doors. Three policemen in black uniforms with Sterling submachine guns watched the turnstile. He turned and walked quickly back toward the train. “Attends!” yelled a policeman. “Toi!” The doors shut in his face; he drove his fingers into the rubber seam between them and tore them open. A policeman hurdled the turnstile running for the train. The doors reclosed.
The train jerked; the doors shuddered as the policeman battered against them; he ran alongside the train smashing his gun stock through the glass. “Arretez-le! Arretez-le!” he screamed at the passengers, “Stop the train!”
A tall man with spectacles stood and yanked the emergency stop; Cohen shouldered past him into the next car and through people scrambling and stumbling as the train squealed to a halt. He dashed to the front car, the engineer opening his door, surprise on his face as Cohen slammed through a window and dropped to the tracks. Watching the electrified rail he sprinted along the ties, glimpses of city streets shuttering between his feet, the policeman behind, gun in hand. Jumping over the rail he dropped down a girder into the shadowy substructure, the policeman's gun clanking against metal as he aimed over the side.
Away now and running. Running hard and free, no pain, faster than they, round a corner and no touching me now, free in wind-floating face-tightening hair-tugging fleetness. Down the sidewalk and over the street, cars screeching, blue lights flashing, no stopping now. This alley, through a garage where cars sit feeding from gas pumps, my feet spinning on oil stains, here another street, pounding through a churchyard into a bar, panting, quickly to Hommes in the back, stand before mirror, face red, chest heaving, sirens wailing in the street.
Cop car outside. Two-way voices. Hop out of Men's Room – corridor leads nowhere but to the bar, policeman coming through the door as I back into the Women's: two stalls, one shut. Step into empty stall and lock door. Sound of heavy feet in the corridor, a voice: “Vous avez vu quelqu'un?”
The floor of cracked concrete rivuleted with leaks from the john, a brush and a basket of used toilet paper to one side. At least they can't see under the door. Odor of fresh excrement from the next stall, tearing of paper. Clatter of doors from the Men's, zip of a zipper in the next stall, sucking roaring of its toilet, click of high heels, banging of the stall door, spatter of faucet into the sink. If she tells them someone else came in…
Ripping sound of long hair being combed, a young woman's voice – “Vache!” – snap of pocketbook, squeal of door opening, voices drifting out onto sidewalk, sear of tires as a car pulls away.
He dropped his head, took a breath. For this moment safe. But hunted the second I leave. Get to Odéon, but how? They're watching the subways, buses, taxis, sidewalks…
Above the stall a window. He pried it open, diving through it as a woman entering the Women's shrieked into the bar. Landing in an alley of dog shit and trash cans he sprinted to the corner where he walked steadily but relaxedly along Avenue de Suffren, past UNESCO.
Restaurants were closing; flaneurs ambled hand in hand before darkened shop windows. At a kiosk on rue Perignon a blue Lancia idled while its owner rummaged through magazines. Cohen jumped into it, the owner running for him as he peeled round Place de Breteuil down rue de Sèvres. He ditched the Lancia in a dead end off St. Sulpice and strolled casually toward Place Odéon.
Le Serpent d'Etoiles was a scruffy unpresentable bar with a long, battered zinc counter, shabby chairs, and a sticky floor. The tables outside were empty; several people sat inside with espressos or drinks. Paul was not one of them.
“Has a tall black guy been here?” Cohen asked the woman behind the counter.
“Not that I've seen, Monsieur.”
“Perhaps earlier?”
“I've been here since two, Monsieur.”
HE LINGERED with an armagnac till the bar closed at midnight but Paul did not come. Now I'm alone. He's dead. All this horror, Paul. All this misery and death had a reason: to see you alive again. So they wouldn't win everything. But they have. They've killed you, and everyone else who knows. Except me. And they'll run over me like a truck. They've got the power to see that no one listens, no one believes. It wasn't worth it, Paul. All this death, your death. But we never chose it, did we? That's how totally I've been defeated – I sometimes forget even how innocent we were.
It's not over till it's over. I almost didn't make it here on time – maybe you've had troubles too. Tomorrow you could be here. He glanced up from the table. Unsafe here. Unsafe on the streets. Claire's waiting, worried, at 143 Emile
Zola. Do I trust her? He paid for his armagnac and wandered into the night.
Give Paul another day. No rush. The CIA'll be looking for me in Colorado soon, thinking Paul's there to meet me. Cohen stopped dead on the sidewalk. If Mort swallowed that story I gave him in Neuenweg about my meeting Paul in Colorado, that means Claire didn't tell him the real meeting was set for Paris. So she's not lying. Should go to see her, see she's okay.
On rue Vaugirard he snagged a taxi to Place du Commerce, and descended empty and silent rue Violet to 143 Emile Zola. It was a tall narrow building set back from the street. No one waited outside or in the unlit foyer, or in the dark corners of the damp and windswept roof. Where are you now, Claire? Do they have you, too? I've failed again?
DAWN SMEARED the eastern sky. The horizon was a maze of cranes, tiled roofs, steeples, and hotels backlit by a smoggy mustard preglow of the sun. He shook himself from a dream in which someone was always near death. His back ached; he wriggled tighter into the cold concrete corner of the roof but could not sleep. From the apartments below rose the smell of coffee and the drowsy voices of men and women.
He combed his hair with his fingers, rubbed his face, and descended the stairs of 143 Emile Zola, stopping once more to watch the entrance in which she had never appeared. A little girl came in carrying a baguette, jumped with surprise as she saw him. “Ca va?” he said.
She ran past him into the building. He crossed the street, wandered toward the Seine, ate without hunger in a nameless café, bought a razor, scissors, and a woman's blonde wig in a Monoprix. In another café restroom he shaved, trimmed the blonde wig with the scissors and put it on. I look like Doris Day. Like Doris Day in drag. He threw the wig in the trash and walked out into the sun.
In the Bois de Boulogne he sat on a bench watching a mother Rouen duck shepherd her children through muddy rushes into the discolored water. The ducklings cheeped and paddled round her, splashing their backs, diving under, and coming up sparkling with droplets.
A BREEZE stippled the water. The duck and ducklings had left; on an island in the center of the lake waiters were setting out tables and chairs before a fake Tudor inn. He stretched, rubbing his chest, patted suddenly at his coat, removed it, feeling the lining.