LACKING VIRTUES

by Thomas Kirkwood

  His back was killing him. An anxious, bone-weary fatigue replaced the nervous energy generated by the search. It wouldn’t be a bad idea, he thought, to get some rest.

  He sat on the concrete floor with his back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was a light sleeper. The first sound of a car engine would jolt him into wakefulness, so he knew that he could doze without risking a missed photo op.

  He had drifted off when approaching footsteps ended his rest. “It’s me,” Steven whispered, sitting on the floor beside him. “Our luck seems to be holding. Michelet and Haussmann will be on their way shortly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A telephone call. Delors took it in the library. Michelet was at Orly waiting. Haussmann’s plane just landed.”

  “In this weather?”

  “It’s raining. The fog has lifted. How long since you’ve looked out?”

  Warner glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes. That’s welcome news.”

  “It sure is. Listen, I brought you something to eat and the dregs of the coffee. This will probably be your last chance to fuel up.”

  The coffee was cold, the pâté had made the baguette soggy. They tasted great. “Thanks,” Warner said. “How long from Orly to here by car?”

  “About three quarters of an hour. Now the bad news.”

  Warner stood and peeked out the vent. The yellow light on the gate post, which had been softened by fog, now shone brightly. “What is it, Steven?”

  “The house must have gotten cold in spite of the fires in the fireplaces. The furnace has started to kick on. When the goddamn thing’s running, I can’t hear anything through the duct but a big whoosh of air. If we don’t figure something out, your tape will sound like a jet taking off.”

  Warner said, “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I was thinking,” Steven said. “Maybe we could disconnect the wires that come into the furnace from the thermostat. That’ll keep it from coming on.”

  “That’s a good start, but we can’t leave the heat off for too long. Someone might come down here to see what the problem is.”

  “All true. But if we don’t shut the thing up, we might as well leave now.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. Let’s say I camp out beside the furnace where I can activate the thermostat manually. All I would need would be a signal from your listening post in the wine cellar whenever the conversation turns irrelevant. I’d let the furnace run for a few minutes, then turn it off and wait for you to signal me again.”

  “So how am I going to do that?”

  “I was considering the light switch in the wine cellar. If we loosen all the bulbs in the basement except the one near the furnace, we’ll have our system up and running in no time.”

  “I don’t get it. If I turn on the switch in the wine cellar, the wine cellar light comes on, not the basement lights.”

  “That’s because I haven’t worked on it yet. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the wiring down here is all external. It’s no big deal to tie that switch into the other circuit.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Let’s get on it. You loosen the light bulbs, I’ll work on the switch. Don’t miss any. We don’t want the entire basement lighting up every time you signal me. All we want is a quick flash from the bulb by the furnace. It won’t be noticeable to anyone who happens to be strolling by outside.”

  “Hey, Frank – ”

  “What?”

  “If you can really do this it’s a brilliant idea, right up there with the rats.”

  ***

  Warner returned to his vigil shortly after one o’clock in the morning, confident the jerry-rigged system they had just finished testing would not let them down. The rain had moved off toward Germany, the sky was trying to clear. The moon appeared briefly through ragged heaps of cloud. A condensation trail from a high-flying jet cut across its face. Warner doubted it was a Boeing. He used the minutes until the men’s expected arrival to review in his mind the photographs Sophie had shown him.

  He was conjuring up an image of Haussmann when the sounds of a car drifted in across the dark countryside.

  As the car drew near, he thought he heard a second car off in the distance. He listened carefully. There could be no doubt about it. Two cars were approaching the manor from opposite directions.

  Minutes later a gray Mercedes sedan, coming from Warner’s left, pulled up to the front gate. Footsteps cracked above as someone walked to the entrance to greet the new arrival. Before the car’s doors opened, headlights appeared at the crest of the hill to Warner’s right.

  Pant legs momentarily obscured his view as the man who had been inside the house stepped into the night. A hand out the window of the car at the gate motioned him back inside. The man retreated to the foyer directly above Warner’s head.

  The Mercedes window closed, the car backed up without lights and stopped a few yards down the road. Headlights from the second car swept across wet forests and muddy fields, coming close enough to the vent to cause Warner to duck from view. He waited until he heard the car’s engine drop to idle, then looked out again.

  The second car was also a Mercedes sedan, burgundy in color and a few years older than the first. The driver’s door opened, a man whose face was lost in the shadows got out and stood staring at the parked car. He was of average build and height, dressed in a nondescript gray overcoat. His hair, which was combed straight back, shone in the yellow light from the gate post.

  Warner held off taking the first photograph: he was sure this was Claussen, but there was nothing visible by which the man could be conclusively identified.

  The seconds passed, nothing happened. Then the headlights of the first car came on. A large man in a dark business suit stepped out of the driver’s side and stood motionless, staring at the other man.

  It seemed to be a strange face-off until Warner remembered what Sophie had told him. Michelet and Claussen were never supposed to meet. Claussen was never supposed to know who his boss was. But Claussen knew and he was here. That explained a lot.

  Michelet reached back into his car and said something to the other man. The iron gate with the spikes on top opened. Michelet pointed to Claussen, then to the gate.

  As Claussen walked to his car, Michelet waved in the direction of the house. Delors must have been watching. He stepped out the front entrance again, accompanied by an old man.

  Claussen drove through the gate. Henri walked out to meet the car and guided it to a parking spot that faced the wall surrounding the manor. Michelet wasted no time pulling up behind him, blocking any unwanted departure.

  Engines died, doors opened. The moon flickered through ragged fast-moving clouds as three men got out into the night.

  While Claussen initiated a handshake with Michelet, the third man – short, compact and energetic – walked briskly to the rear of Michelet’s car and took out a leather valise. Henri offered to carry it, but Haussmann waved him off with a jovial backhand. He was in a damn good mood, thought Warner, for someone about to part with a quarter of a billion dollars.

  The three men walked toward the house in silence. Delors came down the steps and strode out to the gravel driveway to meet them. He shook hands with each, using their first names.

  Then, suddenly, all four conspirators were facing him, coming toward him, coming closer with each step. It would have been easy to take out all four of them with his automatic pistol. He hoped he would not regret having passed up the opportunity.

  He focused his camera and took three photographs. When the men reached the stone walkway, he put the camera down. The shutter made a tiny clicking sound, the gravel no longer crunched underfoot – and the night was utterly still.

  The clouds opened, moonlight poured through the vent. He had seen enough. He melted back into the darkness and waited for the trample of footsteps to cross the foyer. Then he went to alert his partner that their hour had struck.

  ***

  Steven h
adn’t returned until three in the morning last time, thought Sophie. This was why she had sworn not to let herself get nervous a second before 3:01.

  So much for mastery of the emotions. It was barely one a.m. and already her mind had taken on a will of its own, spinning out one tragic fantasy after another: Warner assassinated and stuffed down a country well; Steven castrated with a dull rusty knife and buried – howling, bleeding and alive. The visions kept on growing more hideous, more vivid and more realistic.

  She opened the bottle of Armagnac she had been saving for her heroes’ arrival. She had to do something. At this rate she would be in a nut house before they came home.

  If they came home.

  It was the guns, she knew it had to be the guns. When you slipped as silent as dust, as defenseless as lambs, into the lair of evil men, they did not detect you. Their world view failed to include a category for people who were kind, gentle and good, yet able to muster courage greater than their own.

  But once you strapped on their weapons and resorted to their tactics, you were singing their song and playing by their rules. When that happened, you appeared on their mental radar no matter how meticulous your planning.

  She had made a big mistake procuring those automatic pistols.

  She took a sip of Armagnac and walked to the window. Clouds charged across the moon. Bach was on the CD player. She suddenly wished she had chosen Débussy.

  This was silly, she thought, trying to get hold of herself. She was being self-indulgent and not a little ridiculous. Steven and Warner would have managed to get their own guns without her help. Their minds had been made up. Therefore she had not been the one who determined how they would approach the mission. Her help procuring the weapons had done nothing more than undermine her own arguments, which they weren’t going to listen to anyway.

  At least she had remained true to her beliefs in one respect. When Chabrol had offered to arm her and teach her how to take care of herself properly in what he called this hostile, violent, high-tech world, she had told him to take a hike.

  To hell with it, she couldn’t handle Bach anymore. She made herself walk to the CD player. While she was trying to locate the Débussy disc, she heard footsteps running up the marble staircase.

  She gasped. A pulse of terror shot through her breast. She had a flashback to Chabrol, a smile on his smooth, fine-featured face as he imitated her using the gun he wanted her to have. A little silver thing, so elegant, so simple. Bang, bang, the job was done, the Algerian gorilla who had come to brutalize her fell to the floor, dead; and Sophie Marx lived to write another series of articles on the immorality of the arms trade.

  She had laughed, yes she had laughed. Chabrol was a charming, exotic young man with brass balls and the features of a movie star. But she had not been close to taking him up on his offer. Now, however, as she crept in stockinged feet toward the door, her heart pounding like an air hammer, she almost wished she had . . .

  The footsteps stopped. She opened her door a tiny crack and heard a voice sweet as bird song calling Steven’s name.

  She stepped out on the cold marble, leaned over the railing and peered down at the source of the song. In front of Steven’s door stood Nicole Michelet, disheveled but radiant, begging him to be there and wake up and let her in.

  Sophie had a sudden powerful urge to be with this young girl. Another woman was what she needed right now – not a firearm but a woman who would spill her own fears and understand Sophie’s, who would speak the same language and ache with the same emotions.

  “Nicole, is that you?” she called down.

  The girl looked up, baffled. “Who are you, Madame?”

  “A neighbor, dear. Don’t worry. Steven asked me to be on the lookout for you. He had a feeling you might drop by tonight, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss you. He asked me to let you in if you arrived while he was away. He also asked me to bring you up to date on a few things. Let me get my keys. I’ll be right down. And don’t worry. He’ll be home soon.”

  Sophie went back inside her flat, wondering what had caused her to unleash a gusher of spontaneous lies. The answers came to her as she gathered up her purse and the Armagnac: she had lied because she hadn’t wanted Nicole to leave; she had lied because on this horrible night she wanted company . . .

  And there was something else. Ever since she had gotten Steven involved in his terrible dilemma, she had longed for the opportunity to get him out of it in a way that would leave his relationship with this lovely girl intact. If she succeeded in doing that – and if Steven and Warner made it back safe and sound – tonight might turn out differently from the way she had imagined it.

  ***

  This was beautiful, beautiful, thought Steven. They were doing it all in the dining room where his duct connection was as good as the one to the library.

  They were saying the most incriminating things, talking about the number of crashes commissioned, Operation Litvyak, the consequences that the discovery of the parts in Seattle would have, and how none of it would matter after the United States vented its fury on Iraq.

  It would, Claussen said, be like a mighty orgasm that would leave the country lying in a blind satisfied stupor for months.

  Haussmann laughed. Yes, yes, that’s how America was, long stupors interrupted by short paroxysms of insight and action. And their Iraq fixation. How fortunate!

  Oh, God, the things they were saying . . . and the things they were not saying each time Henri or Isabelle came out to serve them. It was in those moments that the conversation turned to wine and sauces, meats and herbs, nothing of interest to crash investigators. And that was then that he hit the light switch. The wine cellar remained dark, but the furnace awoke with a whoosh. It was perfect, utterly perfect! As soon as he had their discussion of payment on tape, he would have documented their entire plot in a way that incriminated them beyond any possible doubt. He and Warner could pack their bags and beat a fast retreat to warmer climes.

  The whooshing of the furnace stopped. He pressed his ear to the duct, sharing the small opening with the microphone. Haussmann was speaking. He was sniffing around the subject of the money. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The hand on Henri’s shoulder while he was preparing to fire the crême brulée made him jump and knock his wine glass off the table. He spun around and gave Isabelle a piece of his mind for startling him.

  He immediately felt bad for his outburst. This had been a long evening for both of them, not knowing if dinner would happen and having to get it ready in record time when it did. At this late hour – and at their age!

  He apologized profusely for his harsh words; she apologized for startling him. Isabelle didn’t seem upset, for which he was grateful. She dutifully cleaned up the broken glass and spilled wine, then poured him a fresh goblet. “Henri, may I say something now?” she asked.

  “Yes, but quickly. The oven’s just right.”

  “Monsieur would like you to bring up his father’s cognac from 1913.”

  “The cognac he wasn’t going to drink before the new century? He must only wait a few months.”

  “I only know what he told me, Henri.”

  “Well, I can’t fetch it until I have finished preparing the dessert.”

  “That’s another thing, Henri. The guests do not want dessert. Monsieur has asked us to return to our quarters for the night as soon as you have brought the cognac. And he wants it right away.”

  “How can they pass up a proper crême brulée after a meal like that?”

  “I don’t know, Henri, but you’d best hurry. Monsieur had an impatient look on his face.”

  “Very well. They were otherwise pleased with the dinner, you think?”

  “Of course, chéri.”

  “No crême brulée,” he grumbled as he picked up his heavy metal flashlight. He’d made a habit of taking it with him to the cellar ever since a power outage had caught him down there and thoroughly disoriented him.
He’d felt like he was in a tomb. At one point he actually believed he had died. It was an experience he didn’t plan to repeat until the real angel of death came for him.

  The night was cold. His breath steamed in the warm light from the kitchen windows as he circled the house. Fog still lay in the low areas, but most of the clouds had broken up and moved off to the east. The stars had even come out to join the moon. Wouldn’t be long until winter, he thought, wouldn’t be long until the rains fell as snow. It was good his grapes were protected from the elements, fermenting in their old oak casks.