A Dark Perfection

by James, Mark

  He could feel his adrenaline rise.

  Would this be his last assignment?

  He reflected that such thoughts were coming to him more and more these days. Would he wake up tomorrow and know that this had all ended, that he would need to find a new life, a life that would be in search of its final identity? When the time came, could he walk away? “Beware,” his mentor had said, “of the subtle addiction – the addiction to the danger. We plan everything to avoid any fault, any mishap, but underneath there is always the danger. Maybe it’s what brought us to this life? Antonio, have you ever thought of that?”

  He looked down at Garneau again, milling about on the street corner. Suddenly, an intuition came over him – something was wrong. The man was fidgety, looking at his watch, but not looking around. There was a break in the flow.

  The man appeared to be waiting, yet, strangely, not for anyone in particular. He was counting time, but not looking out for the targets. Why?

  The Spaniard set the rifle down and exited the hostel, proceeding down the stairs to the building’s side exit. He jauntily walked across the street, his head lowered, as if he were a person who knew where they were going, only another person easy and casual on a Sunday morning, maybe a young man walking home after a night out, or walking to meet some friends for breakfast, no cares in the world. The Spaniard relished these roles; he considered it an aspect of his art.

  He continued towards Inspector Demais, whose twenty minutes of waiting were almost over. The inspector could see the Spaniard coming and noted his Bohemian clothes, consonant with this artsy area of Paris, his black hair pulled into a ponytail. Another artist, he surmised, another gypsy for Paris.

  “Excuse me,” the Spaniard said, slowing as he approached, removing the unlit cigarette from his mouth. “Would you have a light?” he asked, disarming with his smile.

  “Sure,” Demais said, looking down and fumbling for the lighter at the bottom of his pocket, underneath the wadded napkin from the café that morning, beneath the crumpled receipt with the note from his wife scribbled on the back, beneath the change he always seemed to collect.

  The Spaniard noted from his prior research: Garneau uses a vintage silver lighter.

  Another incongruency…

  He watched as Demais moved his hand up with the lighter, his head leaning down. The Spaniard bent over, lighting the cigarette and looking up, seeing the man’s face under his hat.

  It was not Garneau.

  Contrary to what one might expect, the Spaniard was not upset. In his world, it was one’s ability to rest on the glacier’s edge – blood running cool – that ultimately returned success. Chaos was to be befriended. It was why he was recognized as the best at his craft.

  “Merci,” the Spaniard said in his most charming French and walked on. He reached the end of the block and turned left, re-crossed the street and disappeared behind a building. He circled the block and stopped short of the park. Looking back, he saw that the man was gone, along with the Citroen, as he’d expected.

  He returned to the room and disassembled the gun and tripod and carefully placed them into their dedicated aluminum case.

  Once in the car, he glanced down at his notes:

  26 Rue de Saint-Germain. Wife:

  Elise, home days. Animal: dog,

  small, old.

  †

  Mac walked from his second White House meeting that morning. He was trying to avoid Dr. Harrington’s third message from the Virginia medical facility, telling him that Aisha had been asking for him again. He didn’t have the time for her games. He was still waiting for the ‘all-clear’ signal from the Germans on the Berlin safe house and Jack and Lani were his top priorities. Aisha had become a distraction. He’d even started to consider using the drugs. What did someone once tell him, we all pass through shadows to get to the light?

  Inexplicably, he now found himself back in his limousine driving south to the Virginia facility, to confront her, perhaps a final time. He’d told his aides to contact him immediately if they were re-contacted by the Germans. He also needed to email Jack about the plans within the next half hour. The problem was that he still hadn’t firmed up their transit across the French border. Guilland had agreed to intervene against the Paris sweep, but said it would take time for the rest. How much time, he couldn’t say. Mac glanced down expectantly at his phone and the laptop on the seat.

  Aisha had never asked to see him before. Something was now telling him to go, even though he was beginning to despise her, to hate what her people had brought upon the country, upon Walker, upon his friends. It had been slowly building inside of him.

  He remembered his last words, Blood on your hands…

  When he entered her cell, she was already sitting at the table with her hands stretched out and that insipid, vacuous look on her face.

  “What do you want?” he said, his voice low, scratchy.

  She seemed to look directly into him, through him. She put her hand over the stack of papers to her right. He hadn’t noticed them.

  “These are for you. For both of you.”

  It was odd to hear her voice. It had been so long.

  “And?”

  “I don’t know the account numbers for Croatia – they created them after…after the bombings. However, I do know where the Croatian cell is located – the exact coordinates, longitude and latitude.”

  She explained that the Croatian accounts would already be closed and others opened in their place, or perhaps reshuffled – pursuant to the cell’s protocol – but that the cell leader, Anouar Khaled, would still have access to the older account information, the same information that could prove that the Croatian cell had never transferred any monies to Jack or Lani.

  “But, remember: they are the only ones who can go and they must say these words exactly. If they deviate in any way, Anouar will kill them – instantly.”

  Mac wasn’t sure if he believed anything that came out of Aisha’s mouth anymore.

  He squinted, “Why does this Khaled care about what you think?”

  Aisha remembered her trips to Yemen while in college and her innocent time with Anouar before he became recognized by Sheik Amahdi, when they were both nobodies in this world, when they said angry words at others without truly knowing what they meant, what harm such words could do, before they had….blood on their hands.

  “He will give it to you,” she said quietly, her mind starting to move somewhere else.

  “How do you know I won’t simply walk out of here and have missiles rain down on their heads and blow them to bloody hell? Have you thought of that?”

  “There will be no more killings,” she said, even softer.

  He stood and leaned across the table. “Why are you doing this?” he yelled, rage in his voice.

  “Remember, say the words, only the words…” she whispered, her voice trailing off.

  And then she was back in that place – above the mountains and in the sky, within the ether of the Earth.

  †

  The Renault that Garneau had requisitioned from Inspector Andrepont was suffering from a grossly underinflated front tire and it shuddered as they banked through the intersection.

  “Not too far from here. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  Jack and Lani heard Garneau, but were drawn to the spectacle outside.

  “Look at that,” Jack said as they watched a line of policemen exit a house and enter another, the neighbors standing on the front lawns, some looking concerned, others pointing.

  “I don’t know,” Garneau said. “When I called, the station said some type of sweep – assumedly, searching for you. My home will be safest for the next hour. At least until your friend can get back to you.”

  “Did you see that?” Lani said as they sped past another building. “They look like SWAT teams.”

  Ahead in the next intersection, a couple was almost struck down, horns blaring in front of them. The couple had been crossing against the light and became distracted a
s they stared at the police cordoning off a house with yellow tape, the inhabitants escorted outside.

  The blue light lit up on the laptop. They looked at each other. “Maybe it’s Mac with the German plans,” Lani said.

  Overhearing, Garneau realized that Mac must be Mackenzie Osborne, Jack’s “D.C. friend.”

  Jack opened the email account and read the message. When he reached the part on Aisha and the Croatian accounts he almost froze. It ended, “I’m working on a Croatian border entry plan. Can’t do it via Germany. Get out of Paris, hole up and wait. Will apprise of location then. Don’t worry, we’re working this end hard, Mac.”

  “What are you smiling about?” Lani asked, wondering how he could smile when the city was constricting around them.

  Jack turned the computer so she could view the message.

  She smiled, “Is that possible? Croatia?”

  Jack looked up to see Garneau in the rearview mirror looking back, wondering what was happening with his suddenly happy fugitives.

  “A change of plans, Henri. Do you know anyone who can get us into Croatia, in one piece?”

  Jack didn’t expect an answer and said it half-jokingly.

  “Ah,” Garneau nodded, smiling in the mirror, “now that you mention it…”

  32

  The Spaniard had been sitting in his car for the past two hours, passing time scanning through his music journals, moving the car from one spot to another and monitoring the neighbors’ movements.

  Garneau never showed.

  This old cop ran his life like a precision watch, yet he’d been gone, unexplained, for the past two hours. Why? The first hour, the assassin had watched as the man’s wife took their dog to the park. An hour later, she walked to the street to retrieve the mail. Earlier, as she’d crossed to the park, she’d paused and looked down the street, as if expecting someone. Later, though, when she went for the mail, she didn’t.

  As if she were expecting someone earlier, but not later. Why?

  He sat for another hour – far past the time that Garneau should have arrived home from work, past when he would have sat down for dinner in that perfect, silly little brownstone. His wife never came out again and the tracking bug on the Citroen still showed it located at the police station. He sensed a ripple in the flow.

  He exited the car and approached the home.

  As the woman opened the door, he observed a pretty, older face, silver grey hair and an easy smile. He could see that she had always been pretty; she held herself that way. He noted the dog in her shadow.

  Looking out, she observed a tall man with a black ponytail, half-shaven with dark eyes and a perfect smile. Was this Marcel’s writer friend? Henri had mentioned another of Marcel’s friends coming into town. But why would he be here, at their home, unannounced?

  “Yes, can I help you?” she asked from behind the door. At her feet, Millie sniffed past her.

  “I’m sorry, I’m looking for the Allaire home. Maybe I have it wrong,” he said, looking down at a fragment of paper that contained nothing. His prior research indicated the family two houses down had the surname of Allaire. They were an elderly couple that he’d assumed the Garneaus wouldn’t know well.

  He glanced to his right. It was becoming dusk. A woman looked out her front door and frowned, retrieved a newspaper and closed the door. He already knew that she was Adeline Heon, a widow living alone and working at a local hospital.

  “Oh, yes,” Elise said, “Gaetan and Clarita Allaire, they’re two houses down. You have the wrong house. They’re so nice. How do you know them?”

  She leaned out and motioned down the block. “Yes, right there, two over.”

  He rescanned the neighborhood, observing no movement to his left or right and no cars in the street. He turned towards the direction she was pointing and sharply pitched his shoulder into the door, pushing her through. She fell on her back, the dog barking wildly. He kicked out and the dog slid across the floor, striking the far wall. He was suddenly upon her, putting his weight into her. She curled up as he reached for her mouth. With his back foot, he pushed the door closed.

  “Be still,” he whispered, close to her ear. “You won’t be hurt. Only do as I say.”

  In the past twenty years, he recalled saying these same words to twenty different women, feeling their fear. Each time it had been the same – as a subtle spike of adrenaline. Here, he felt nothing. It quietly startled him.

  “What do you want…who are…?” she stuttered, the fear infusing her.

  He cooed again, “Be still.”

  She could feel his breath across her ear. She hadn’t been this close to another man in thirty years, only her Henri. She hated this man for it.

  He removed duct tape from his pocket and applied it to her wrists and ankles. He carried her up to the second floor master bedroom and rolled her onto the bed. She began to say something and he put his finger to her lips. He was close to her again. “No more,” he whispered, “a final warning.”

  Elise stared, seeing the blackness in his eyes. It seemed to grow with each of his words. She looked towards the door, judging the distance. She pulled against the tape, testing it.

  She glared back at him, like a mother at a lying child. “He’s not here,” she said, matching his hissing whisper.

  The assassin stood and smiled, “I never said anything about your husband.”

  He put tape over her mouth and she curled into a ball, away from him.

  The assassin knew the ways to extract information from people, particularly women, to induce them to say what they sought to hide. But he wasn’t interested in that from her. He turned towards the third floor and looked up the stairs. If she’d been one of the weak ones, the ones who always cried, he would’ve asked her if there was anyone on this floor or further upstairs. Instead, he said nothing.

  Once up the third flight of stairs, he saw a guest bedroom, perfectly kept, as if no one had ever stayed there. Farther down, he saw another bedroom, the bedding pulled up and the sheets mussed beneath the blankets, waiting to be cleaned.

  Through the ceiling, she could hear his steps. Elise had started the process of memorizing his face, accent, height and gait. During a police investigation, Henri told her that everything became important – smells, colors, sounds, anything out of place. The man’s smell, the scent around him, during the time when he had been close to her…yes, she’d smelled African spices, coriander and anise.

  This smell, did it come from something he’d eaten – as if he’d been traveling through Africa, Tunisia, Morocco – the smell coming out of him, holding to him like a barnacle? She could hear the stairs creaking, his heels against the floor. Earlier, what had he been wearing? Leather boots? She’d been too afraid to remember. “The ones who survive,” Henri had told her, “are the ones who stay centered. These men – these predators with small souls – are always afraid of the women they can’t frighten. The women who survived, the ones I’ve met, survived by finding their center.”

  Back down in the living room, the Spaniard drew the drapes and set up the tracking screen, so he could readily observe the image from Garneau’s favorite chair, so that he’d know when Garneau turned his last corner home.

  He reached over and turned the radio dial, finessing it, finding his favorite station. He left the volume low.

  He was fortunate; he’d caught something in midstream – a 1961 session recorded on Riverside Records, of Milt Jackson and Wes Montgomery and their jazzy blues, the melodic invention, the interplay, an historic gig.

  He softly tapped his foot, the music flowing past like clouds.

  †

  The Spaniard heard a tone ring from somewhere, breaking him from his musical trance. The discordant sound was coming from an area near the front door, by her purse still on the floor, as if she’d dropped it by the door. He fished out the cell phone.

  From the return number he knew it would ring again and began walking up the stairs. She was still wrapped into a ball, tighter
as she heard the sounds move up the stairs. He leaned over and pulled the tape from her mouth. She refused to move, tucked away. He gripped her arm and squeezed it to the bone, letting her know how he could hurt her. The phone rang again and he looked at her. He had something dark in his eyes, something that she’d never seen before.

  “Tell him to call back on the house phone,” he instructed her. “Say that you have a bad connection.”

  He opened the cell phone on the third ring and held it up, the silencer resting atop at her temple.

  “Elise?” Garneau said when she didn’t immediately answer. She then parroted the words – I can’t hear you. Call back on the house phone – and the assassin pulled the phone away, ran his nail across the receiver to mimic a scratching sound and closed it. From his pocket, he pulled out two of the house phones, one that he’d carried up the stairs and another he’d retrieved from the bedside table. He handed her one.

  “Remember, say nothing that could mean anything. Nothing about the dog, no names, nothing about the weather. No signs to him, only short questions – What? When will you be home? Where are you going? Okay, honey, I’ll see you then…Do you understand? If not, I will hear it and will kill you. It’s quite simple. The silencer will sound like another bad connection.”

  She didn’t need to be convinced – having Henri hear something in her voice and rush home was the last thing she wanted. If this man had wanted to kill her, he would’ve done so already. He must still need her. If Henri came home, perhaps he then wouldn’t need either of them – whatever he was after. No, she desperately needed to keep Henri away. It was strange how we could all become such effective liars when the time came, even to those we love.

  “I understand,” she said.

  What the assassin didn’t know was that Henri had texted Elise earlier, when she’d been in the park with Millie, telling her that he would be home late. Hopefully, he was now calling to say he would be home even later. Perhaps, it would give her the time to think of something. The tape at her ankles was becoming looser each time she moved against it.