The Diaries - 01

by Chuck Driskell

  He turned his head, locking eyes with Monika. “The one good thing to come from that diary, that I’ve seen, is her love for that child, tragic as it may have sounded.”

  Monika’s face trembled. Gage knew she was tired, in shock, and overcome by grief for her cousin. Reading something as heavy as that diary wasn’t helping much.

  “My heart just goes out to this poor woman, Gage. Imagine what she must have gone through.”

  His eyes moved back to the window. “I can’t imagine, and I’m not sure I want to.”

  “We should find the child.”

  Gage twisted, standing. “Say that again.”

  Monika was nodding. “Michel said these diaries are worth millions.”

  “And?”

  “You said you don’t want to sell them, so, if we’re going to go through all of the trouble of running from these people, we should at least find the child.”

  He glanced out the window again, then back at Monika. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  Monika stood, a defiance coming over her, seemingly washing away her grief. “In Frankfurt, over there by all the embassies and consulates, there’s a Holocaust Organization. I bet if we go to them with these diaries, they can find the child, assuming she survived.”

  Gage was silent, standing there blinking.

  “Hitler’s child, Gage!”

  “All the more reason not to find her,” he said firmly. “Talk about ruining someone’s day.”

  Monika’s voice rose to a near yell. “Did she have a choice, Gage? Why should we discriminate against her?”

  He made a tamping motion with his hands, using a soothing tone. “I’m not discriminating against her. All I’m saying is hearing such news might not be good for her.” Gage rubbed his temples. “She’d be an old woman if she were alive, but I doubt she even made it out of that concentration camp. The stumble-stone listed her parents as dead. She was just an infant.”

  Monika cocked her head. “You don’t know her fate any more than I do, Gage.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  She closed the diary and resumed her spot on the bed. Gage sat down, watching down the street again. Monika was breathing steadily, silent for a long time before her eyes closed.

  Two hours later, a girl parked on the curb in front of Monika’s building. Gage rousted Monika from her sleep.

  “It’s just Silvie, from work,” she explained groggily. “She’s probably worried sick about me.” She pulled on her shoes. Their conversation grew heated again as he gently gripped Monika’s arms, patiently explaining that she couldn’t leave, couldn’t call anyone.

  But her apartment was right there, her job only a few blocks away. This is insane!

  No. Too dangerous.

  She cried for ten minutes afterward.

  An hour later, as the sun began to set, Gage sat there, shaking his head. Something would come from the incident in Metz. It had to. Situations like that don’t just go away, do they? But then, after a full day of a whole lot of nothing, he began to second guess himself. Maybe the men from Metz were small timers? Just two punks who got what was coming to them. Maybe the big one cleaned up the one Gage had iced and Michel. He’d sanitize the shop while nursing his aching head and then he would slither back to his hole, humiliated, never telling another soul.

  He thought back to his conversation with Colonel Hunter. No searches were on for a man who looked like Gage. No alerts. No bulletins. Nothing.

  And here Gage was, preventing the one he loved from simply going home. All because he was being overly cautious. Like Crete.

  Motherfucking Crete.

  Again.

  But, he thought, countering his train of thought, his instincts had been correct on that fateful day. Gage turned to look at Monika. She lay in the fetal position, silent, facing away from him. So maybe she misses a week at work. It was a small price to pay to be safe.

  Perhaps his instincts were still sound.

  Other than Silvie, the hair-stylist, no one ever came to Monika’s apartment.

  ***

  Wednesday, November 4 - Frankfurt, Germany

  On Wednesday, the sky was a never-ending sheet of gunmetal gray for the drive back to Frankfurt. Gage entered the city by way of Düsseldorfer Strasse, heading directly to the storage space. He circled the block three times, scanning every face and window. Eventually, he parked a kilometer away, leaving Monika and reconnoitering the area on foot. He used two switch-backs and even observed the entrance to the space for a half-hour, scrutinizing all vantage points.

  There was nothing. No tail. No surveillance.

  Satisfied, he went to his storage unit and retrieved the last of his money, deciding after a moment’s hesitation to leave the other diaries in the safe.

  “I have some money,” Monika insisted when he returned to the car.

  Gage turned to her as the car idled roughly. “You’d have to get it from the bank, which would leave an electronic signature. It may turn out that we’re not being watched at all, but I wouldn’t bet on it, not just yet anyway. We have plenty now.” Combined with the money he had earned from Jean, he now had well over 11,000 euros, in cash.

  Gage drove north; they were both silent. He parked four blocks from his flat and instructed Monika to go into a drug store to buy them toiletries. She took the cash and stormed from the car without a word.

  “No phone calls,” he said over the roof of the small car.

  She stopped and stared at him, pausing, nodding slightly. Lips pursed, she turned and stalked away. He watched her go, witnessing the unmistakable gait of a pissed-off woman.

  For a split second, everything that had transpired disappeared. The only other object in Gage Hartline’s world was Monika Brink, and she was the most beautiful human being he’d ever known. Not in looks, though hers certainly were striking, but it was her soul he loved. She felt for the baby in that diary, the same way she felt for him. For all the bad Gage had wrought in his life, like the tattoo of Themis on his shoulder, Monika was his counterbalance. And he owed it to her to get her out of this predicament. He continued to stare at her, sauntering toward the drug store, her brown hair flipping side to side as she surely wrestled with this maddening state of affairs.

  “There’s a way out of this,” he murmured. “A way out that’s correct, and just, and final.” He just didn’t know what it was. Yet.

  But his instinct told him it was there, at his fingertips.

  Monika disappeared into the apotheke. Gage blinked the thoughts away—he would have to work on the plan later.

  Back to work.

  He pulled his black watch cap down tightly over his head, kneeling to the ground as if tying his shoe. He searched until he was able to find a jagged pebble, sticking it in his right shoe under his heel. Genuinely limping from the rock’s pressure on his heel, hunching over to conceal his stature, Gage made his way toward his flat on Wiesenstrasse. Once his flat was in view, he stepped to the small imbiss attached to a news kiosk at the corner, near the S-bahn station. The owner wasn’t working; the imbiss was being manned by a young girl Gage had never seen before. She appeared Turkish and didn’t give the stubbled, mussed stranger a second look.

  Gage purchased the Frankfurt Allgemeine and two small bottles of water, placing one in the pocket of his pea coat. Leaning on the small table, he glanced through the paper until he found the European news section, all the while keeping a wary eye on his street and flat.

  There was nothing in the paper about a murder in Metz; no big surprise since the paper had likely been printed just after midnight. He lifted the paper to turn the page, using the action of folding the paper around to allow him to scrutinize every building and automobile near his flat.

  There was a white BMW 3-series parked between Gage and his residence, and through the smoke glass rear window he was nearly certain he could see the shadow of someone’s head in the driver’s seat. As he swilled his water, he focused on the car, finally seeing the shadow o
f the head shift, confirming his suspicions. The car was, perhaps, two-hundred meters from his flat, a perfect viewing distance. Finishing his water, Gage wiped his mouth with his sleeve and limped off the way he had come.

  After Gage turned right on Feldstrasse, he removed the rock from his shoe and studied each alleyway as he made his way up the street. In a smooth, well-practiced motion, he donned his sunglasses and eyed the reddish building that shielded him from the BMW. He stepped into the alley and said a silent prayer that no dogs would bark at his presence. The alleyway was tidy, between a row of apartment buildings and a German meat shop known as a Metzgerei. There was a familiar blue dumpster at the end, smelling of meat and sausage, making Gage thankful it wasn’t summer; the smell would be rancid. He peered between the dumpster and the edge of the butcher shop, having to move the dumpster slightly to get a view of the BMW parked twenty meters away. The profile was unmistakable.

  Jean Jenois. Sonofabitch. Sitting there, sucking on heavy French cigarettes, watching Gage’s flat like an owl waiting for a mouse.

  Gage stepped back, leaning against the wall, thinking. He wondered if Jean knew about the diaries specifically, which Gage knew could be a possibility based on the long delay that night, and the noises he’d made as he removed them. But could the thug Gage had killed in Metz have been working for Jean? Would Jean do that to Gage? Gage didn’t think so, but then again—

  A schoolgirl was bounding through the alley in his direction. She stopped five feet from Gage, coming from the far end near the S-bahn stop, no doubt using the narrow throughway as a shortcut. Her pink backpack bounced against her blue and white school uniform as she skipped along, seeming to have not a care in the world. Given the time, if she was headed to school she was late. That thought never occurred to Gage. What did bother him, as she stopped cold ten feet away, was her expression. She stared up at him wide-eyed, her rosebud mouth circled into a small O. It was as if she was looking right through him.

  “What’s wrong?” Gage asked in German.

  She didn’t answer.

  “You shouldn’t be here right now,” Gage said, irritated. He put his sunglasses into his pocket, narrowing his eyes at her as she continued to stare. “What’s your problem?”

  She was probably twelve, but she spoke like a smart-alecky fifteen year old. “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Well why are you standing there?”

  She cocked her head slightly. Adjusted her pack. Gage realized she wasn’t looking at him—she was looking past him. “Because that’s the first gun I’ve ever seen.”

  Gage’s arched eyebrows dropped. “What gun?”

  The girl raised her mittened hand, pointing. “That one.”

  Gage’s thoughts were interrupted by the unmistakable click of a pistol’s hammer being cocked.

  Shit.

  “Bonjour, Gage.” It was Jean—his tone cheery, icy. He turned to the girl and smiled. “Young lady, I’m a policeman; this man is a criminal. Run along now; get to school before I take you in for cutting class.” The girl sprinted to the sidewalk and turned right, disappearing from sight, her footsteps fading away in the light din of the day.

  Gage closed his eyes. He’d forgotten Jean had previously been Legion and a field agent, still able to move as silently as a hungry cat on the prowl.

  Shit indeed.

  ***

  Jean’s moves were tight and focused. He pointed Gage up the alley, shoving him to an open maintenance shed at the bottom of one of the alleyway buildings. Once shoved inside, Gage immediately was awash in the smells of lubricating oil and damp earth. His eyes wandered the racks of tools and implements, looking for something he could possibly use, some way out of this mess with this Frenchman he’d never trusted, but had to work with only out of monetary necessity.

  “No, no, Gage.” Jean waved the revolver, directing him. “Stand right in the middle and lace your hands over your throat. I want to be able to see your hands and all ten of your grubby fingers.” As Gage did as he was told, Jean pulled the door. Vertical strips of dull light bled through large gaps in the heavy wooden door, illuminating the dusty air that jumped with Jean’s every spoken word. “You’re in some deep shit, Gage. Really deep.”

  Gage blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Jean arched his waxed eyebrows, giving him a look of mock surprise. “What am I talking about?” He snorted. “Don’t underestimate me, Gage. I’m like a spider, and my web covers all of Europe. This is my kingdom: Germany, France, England, even Monaco. I could find out the actions of any man, woman, or child in an hour if I wanted to. We French are constantly underestimated, oui?” He narrowed his eyes, locked on Gage’s reaction. “I know exactly what happened.”

  “Look, Jean,” Gage started, hoping Jean didn’t know a damned thing but was simply trying to smoke out information. “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. All I know is I was coming home and saw a white BMW in a likely surveillance position. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when someone is watching my home, and I always check. Always. I have enemies I probably don’t even know about.”

  Jean lifted his chin, his words cutting like a blade. “The man you killed Monday night, he was a powerful mobster.”

  Gage was struck silent for a moment. Finally, unconvincingly, he continued his ruse. “What are you talking about?”

  Jean held the revolver at center mass. “No funny moves, Gage.” In a swift motion, he retrieved his cigarettes with his left hand, getting one into his mouth. He replaced them and dug out his expensive-looking Zippo, lighting it. Jean squinted, the cigarette clamped in his teeth as the smoke shrouded his face. “So you’re denying it?”

  “I don’t even know what you’re referring to.”

  “They identified you, Gage. Your name and identification is out in the underworld. You’re a walking corpse. Now…would you like to deny that you killed a mobster, in a rare bookstore, in Metz, France on Monday night?”

  Gage decided to remain quiet. His pulse was evident everywhere in his body. His mouth was parched. Thankfully the space was dark, because his head was pounding and he would otherwise need his sunglasses.

  “I’ll take your silence as your assent.” Jean pulled on the cigarette. “Well, I have some bad, bad news for you, Gage. The man’s name was Leon Clavier. He’s a crew leader in the central French mob known as Les Glaives du Peuple…The Swords of the People in English. They’re a leftover from the labor wars of the fifties, now just common criminals. They sometimes clash with the Unione Corse, sometimes work with them.” Jean inhaled again on the cigarette, clearly enjoying the moment as the corners of his mouth peaked. “Let me correct myself: common criminals, yes, but uncommonly capable and even more dangerous. For someone like you, sponsorless, they’re a Medusa and will never go away. Highly secretive and with memories far longer than that of even Cosa Nostra, they’re connected inside our judicial system and even—”

  “With the DGSE,” Gage finished with a grim stare. “Or you wouldn’t be here talking to me.”

  Jean’s smirk disappeared as he dipped his head. “Touché, Gage.”

  “If I did kill anyone—you know this—it would be only in self-defense. I don’t do heavy work anymore.”

  “And who said you were working for someone?” Jean asked, laughing.

  Gage knew, right then, that Jean knew about the diaries.

  Jean spoke conspiratorially. “These are not reasonable men, Gage. They live insane, violent lifestyles and swear by even crazier codes. When I was a boy, a man on our block, a father of three, was castrated in front of two of his sons for winking at the wife of a Glaive. They used a dull knife to do it, stuffing his balls in his mouth afterward, sending him home as if nothing happened.”

  “So,” Gage deadpanned.

  “Gage, the man you killed was Nicky Arnaud’s cousin. His childhood friend. Clavier was a fucking idiot and Arnaud has always looked after him. He won’t stop until he has your head, and the heads
of anyone you know.”

  Gage had heard of Nicky Arnaud, talked about with the Gottis and Mikhaylovs of the world. He’d been connected with numerous crimes and murders in the past few years, probably a media darling because he was rumored as an eccentric with a thirst for the bizarre.

  “I do not know Nicky Arnaud, or this Leon you’re talking about.”

  Jean shook his head. “Nicky knows you, Gage.”

  “Why you, Jean? If they think I had something to do with a killing in Metz, why did they call you?”

  Jean pointed the cigarette at Gage. “Because this goes deeper than you realize, and they knew I would find you. I am now the only one who can help you.”

  “If you want to help me, Jean, then let me walk, or maybe just raise that pistol and squeeze off a bullet through my head.”

  Jean cocked his head, pausing for a moment. “You’re blustering, Gage, but I know enough about people to hear a shred of truth in what you just said.”

  Gage cut his eyes away from Jean’s.

  “I’ve heard the stories about what happened.”

  Gage returned his gaze.

  “You were involved in an accident…an incident, rather. One with a grave loss of life.”

  The air rushed in and out of Gage’s nose as he wondered how Jean had heard such a thing. “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I, Matthew?”

  Gage’s head jerked up, staring incredulously at Jean.

  Jean’s lips curled upward, thinking about Henri’s delicious discovery deep in the DGSE’s file system. Tipped by two references to Crete in Gage Hartline’s previous Internet searches, Henri cross-referenced it with the DGSE’s own records. Only one hit showed. The intelligence once used to corner a group of terrorists in Crete three years earlier had been provided in part by French intelligence. In return, long after the accident, they received a full mission brief. The file was sealed, but sealed files can always be viewed if one knows what he or she is doing. Jean read everything, putting two and two together. No names were involved, but he knew Gage had been the one. The lone dissenter, according to the report, was proven correct. He was also the one who threw the deadly concussion grenade.