by John Lutz
The lawn would have to wake up soon. Winter was ending. Though the fountain was dry and the rows of pollarded trees stood leafless, the daffodils were blooming and the sun felt warm on his face. Another couple of weeks and it’d be April in Paris.
He was in the Place des Vosges, a small park surrounded by row houses in mellow, ruddy brick and gray stone. They were more than four centuries old and none the worse for wear. Nearby stood an equestrian statue of King Louis XIII. It had a post supporting the horse’s belly, so it looked to Laker as if the king were riding a merry-go-round horse.
Spending hour after hour sitting on a park bench, you had to take amusement where you could find it.
He felt confident that he was not conspicuous, because there were plenty of people in the square: children running around and shouting in the playground, lovers strolling arm in arm, old folks walking little dogs. Two soldiers pushed through the gate in the low fence surrounding the square. They were young women with their hair scraped back from grim, watchful faces. Maroon berets, muddy-green camo uniforms, automatic rifles slung from their shoulders. Security had been tightened all over Europe because of the terrorist attacks in Estonia.
As they walked slowly up the path toward him, Laker let his gaze drift back to King Louis. Someone—probably Colonel Antrobus—had leaked his name. Television and newspapers were full of speculation and indignation about Thomas Laker, the shady American operative who’d failed to prevent Mohammed Barsinian, Muslim terrorist in a NATO uniform, from killing six people. Then, instead of facing the consequences, Laker’d disappeared.
At least they didn’t have a good picture of him. Sam Mason worked hard to keep photos of his agents out of circulation. The picture that kept popping up on television and the papers was almost twenty years old, showing Laker in his shoulder pads and Notre Dame football jersey.
Now, sitting on the bench, he was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He hadn’t shaved in several days. His beard had a lot more gray in it than the hair on his head, so that he looked years older than he was. Heavier, too, in a loose fleece pullover.
The soldiers walked by him without a glance.
A few minutes later, the woman he was watching for appeared. Her name was Simone Lascelles, and she had long, dark hair she left to dangle down her back and a bony, angular face. She stepped from the shadows of the gallery that ran around the square and shepherded her charges across the street. They were a boy and girl whose ages Laker estimated at eleven and twelve. Offspring of one of the wealthy families who lived on the Place des Vosges, they were jaded beyond their years. They had their cell phones in their hands and were texting with both thumbs. They looked resentful when Simone confiscated their phones and pushed them into the playground. Sitting on the swings, they planted their feet on the ground and refused to swing.
Simone backed away from them and took out her cigarettes and lighter. She needed a break. Laker got up and approached her unhurriedly. He put his hands in his pockets and bent forward, hunching his shoulders. It was something he did to lessen his height and make himself less intimidating. Ava had told him it didn’t work. When he was a few paces away, he called, “Mademoiselle, un moment, s’il vous plait.”
She looked at him with wariness, even hostility. Maybe she was afraid he was going to bum a cigarette. They were expensive in Europe. He let her wonder while he closed the distance. Then he said softly, in English, “I want to talk to Lina.”
She flinched violently. Lost the cigarette as her mouth fell open. Dropped both kids’ cell phones.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, several seconds too late.
He bent and picked up the phones. She accepted them with stiff, clumsy fingers.
Laker said, “Your friend Lina.”
“She’s dead.”
“No. You’re hiding her.”
Simone fell back a step. She wanted to run away. But then she remembered the children. She looked at them, still slumped motionless on their swings, and back at him.
“I don’t mean you any harm,” he said. “Or Lina, either. But you have to put me in touch with her.”
“You’re not police. I know who you are. Laker.” It came out Lakaire.
He nodded. Didn’t seem there was any point denying it.
“Suppose I run screaming toward them?”
She looked over his shoulder. Laker turned. The two soldiers had reached the far end of the square and were heading slowly back in their direction.
He faced Simone again. “Lina needs to talk to me. For her own good.”
“I knew Lina at university, years ago. But I haven’t seen her in a long time. Haven’t heard from her since the explosion. If she survived, I know nothing about it.”
“I know you’re helping her, Simone.”
She glanced at the children again. They were on their feet, watching. They’d picked up on their governess’s fear of the tall, strange man.
“There’s a passionate debate going on, on the Facebook page of Greenpeace,” Laker said. “People writing in from all corners of NGO-land. Somebody attacked Lina for naïveté. Said she shouldn’t have spoken to that American agent at all. Not trusted him for a minute. You defended your friend. Said she was right to believe the American because he was telling the truth. Mohammed Barsinian wasn’t the Syrian refugee he pretended to be. He was—”
“I remember what I wrote. So what? Everybody knows now what Barsinian was.”
“You wrote, ‘The American said to Lina, “Let’s try being honest,” and he was.’ Those were my exact words.”
“So you knew I’d spoken to Lina.” Simone squeezed her eyes tight shut. “Mon dieu! Comme j’étais bête.”
“Easy mistake to make.”
“We’ve been so careful. We even made the decision not to tell her parents she’s alive. It was so hard to leave them to suffer.”
“It’s worth it. Lina was right. Being thought dead is the only way for her to be safe. People are after her.”
“You know all that?”
“I have to talk to her. Tell me where she’s hiding.”
She shook her head vehemently, causing her long hair to swing from side to side. “No! Why am I even listening to you? You almost got Lina killed.”
She was expecting him to deny it. Argue with her. But he said, “I made a mistake. Please give me a chance to make up for it.”
Simone gave him a long look. Made up her mind. “All right. But I’m not going to tell you where she is. You will go to the Café Bec Rouge tomorrow night, seven o’clock. It’s in the Twentieth. Lina will meet you. Or she won’t.”
Laker knew these were the best terms he was going to get. He said, “Thank you.”
* * *
He arrived on time and sat down at one of the sidewalk tables. The café was located near the top of one of the steepest hills in the Twentieth Arondissement. He could look out across the city’s scattered lights, pick out the floodlit Arc de Triomphe, the glittering needle of the Eiffel Tower. Tourist Paris was a long way from the Twentieth.
This was a wide street, lined with parked cars and featureless modern apartment buildings. Traffic was light, pedestrians few. The only other customers sitting out here in the chilly wind were the smokers, who had no choice. Next to his table was one of those heaters the Parisian cafés used, a steel stanchion with a kerosene fire, topped by a shield to reflect the heat down. He slid his chair closer to it.
Lina Opalski was out there in the darkness somewhere, watching him, making up her mind whether to talk to him. There was nothing he could do but wait and sip espresso. He was finishing his second cup when she dropped into the chair across from him.
Her thin frame was draped in a long, loose raincoat, probably not her own. She looked as if she’d lost weight. The wide, pale eyes and fragile bone structure of her face were more noticeable now. She was tense and tired. She didn’t meet Laker’s eye.
“Simone said you know why I fled.”
“Y
our fears are justified. The people who sent Mohammed Barsinian to kill your friends may have sent others to look for you.”
She took a deep breath and let it out, slumping into the folds of the oversize raincoat. “It’s a relief to hear someone else say it. There’ve been times when I doubted myself. Thought the reason I ran away was that I’m paranoid.”
“You’re not paranoid.”
She said nothing, preoccupied by her own thoughts. Laker didn’t push her. The waiter came out to ask for her order. She only shook her head. He went back inside.
Eventually her head came up and the pale eyes met his. “I’ve been alone too much the last few days. Had too much time to think. Sitting in somebody else’s apartment, watching television. Mostly news programs. What the people back home are saying about us. My dead friends and me. At first we were innocent victims of a terrorist. We were accorded a certain amount of pity and respect. But soon enough it came out that Mohammed had fooled us into giving him shelter. A lot of people hardened their hearts. Even said we got what we deserved.”
“Barsinian was very persuasive, playing his various roles. He fooled me, too.”
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “What depressed me most were the interviews with people on the street in Tallinn. This was the first my fellow countrymen had ever heard of Home Port. And they didn’t think it was doing any good at all. We wouldn’t be missed. Just another NGO, wasting money on the problems of poor people far away.”
“Your work did matter a great deal. To the wrong people, in the wrong way.”
“You mean, we managed to do something that made us worth killing.” Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I suppose that’s a comfort. Who sent Barsinian?”
“The Russians.”
She gave him a startled look. Then her gaze drifted away. She was searching her memory.
“We have only one open case involving Russia,” she said at last. “It’d come into the office recently. We hadn’t done much with it. A routine case.”
“Tell me about it.”
“We were contacted by a Mrs. Lamon in Manila. She said she’d just received a text message telling her that her son had been killed in an accident. He was a sailor working on a cargo ship called Comercio Marinero. The message said the ship’s next port was Vladivostok, Russia. The man who sent it said he was also a Filipino, working on the same ship. The sender’s name meant nothing to her. It was probably a borrowed cell phone. Crewmen typically aren’t allowed their own phones. But the message itself was signed, with the name Ramón Milaflores. “
“And this Mrs. Lamon wanted you to investigate. How much credibility did you give to the message she’d received?”
“We took it very seriously. You have to understand, one-fourth of the sailors on the world’s merchant ships are Filipino.”
“As many as that?”
“They’re willing to work hard for very little money. Manning agencies recruit poor men in Manila, provide them in lots to shipping lines all over the world. That way the shippers avoid dealing with unionized sailors. The Filipinos are far from home, with no one to look out for their rights. So they stick together. If this sailor hadn’t informed Mrs. Lamon, she might not have found out for weeks that her son was dead.”
“Killed in an accident, you said. But you felt that it should be investigated.”
“Yes. The email didn’t give any details. But merchant sailors are often overworked. Kept in bad living conditions. Ordered to ignore safety procedures. When accidents happen, the shipping line is supposed to file a report. But there are ways for them to avoid their obligations.”
“For instance?”
“The Comercio Marinero is owned by Compania Ecuadoriana de Navegación Interoceánica SA of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Abbreviated CENI. A pretentious name for a small, second-rate outfit. Their ships are registered in Liberia, because Liberia has weak laws. Reporting accidents aboard is optional. So we started pressing the authorities for an investigation into the accident.”
“Which authorities?”
“The port authority in Vladivostok, the minister of marine in Moscow.”
“Any replies?”
“No. We’re just an NGO. We have to pester officials with emails, calls, and letters for weeks before we get any response. And in this case we weren’t optimistic. We didn’t have enough information on the accident. Like where the ship was when it happened. We expected the Russians to stall us for weeks, demanding clarifications, denying responsibility.”
“That wasn’t what happened.”
Lina shook her head, slowly and sadly. “What do you think I should do? Go home?”
“No. We have to assume you’re still in danger. Stay in hiding. Don’t contact anyone.”
“Until?”
“Until you hear from me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Moscow doesn’t want anyone to investigate the accident aboard this freighter. So I will.”
“You’re going to Vladivostok.”
“Apparently that’s where the ship is now.”
“You realize that’s on the other side of Russia?”
“I realize.”
“Laker, what do I do . . . if I never hear from you again?”
He smiled bleakly.
“I’m sorry,” she added.
“It’s a fair question. But it’s one of many that I don’t have an answer to.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I can’t understand, coz, why you give up the pleasures of a northern spring—hearing the song of the first robin, seeing the crocuses poking through the snow—for this,” Ava said. “It’s like D.C. in August.”
“Sweating is good for your complexion, coz,” Tilda said. “It cleanses the pores.”
They were sitting in a golf cart parked on a manicured fairway, at the edge of a grove of pine trees. Temperature and humidity were about ninety. The sun blazed down from a milky sky. Tilda had her cell phone to her ear and was waiting for another bulletin from a caddy whom she’d tipped generously to keep them informed about the progress of Rodrigo Morales’s foursome, who were playing the next hole.
This was their second day of pretending to play golf while shadowing Morales around the golf course at his country club, Finca de Palmas, halfway between Miami and Palm Beach. Like all his properties, it reflected his obsession with Cuba. The clubhouse, visible in the distance, was a more sprawling version of Hemingway’s Finca Vigia: pale yellow stucco with rows of tall windows and a columned entry porch.
“When I asked for your help,” Ava said, “I thought you’d just take me along to a party and introduce me to Morales.”
“At parties he gets mobbed. We want him to notice you.”
“But I hadn’t imagined you’d get so deeply involved. I shouldn’t be staying at your house. If I’m doing something reckless, I should be the only one to pay for it.”
Tilda’s Patek Philippe emitted a tone.
“Noon, at last,” she said, pulling from the cupholder a beaded stainless steel container. “Vodka tonic. Care for a sip?”
“Do you have any water?”
“I never did see the point of putting water in bottles and carrying it around. I mean, it’s just water.”
Ava mopped her brow with her sleeve. “Morales spends a lot of time playing golf. I suppose he does it to make contacts, wheel and deal?”
“There’s only one reason Ruy does anything: to win. Only he’s not winning today.” She adjusted the phone at her ear. Another report from her spy was coming in. “The third player has holed his ball. Ruy just got on the green. Let’s move up. This could be our chance.”
Tilda stepped on the pedal, and the cart moved softly over the dense emerald grass. “One of three things happens when Ruy falls behind. The other guys will start playing badly enough for him to catch up or he’ll cheat or he’ll throw a tantrum.”
The cart went up a gentle slope between two sand traps. At the top a little cluster of carts was parked.
Players were standing around, backs to them. Tilda pulled up at the rear.
“What’s with all these people?” Ava asked.
“They’re waiting. Ruy’s foursome has been stuck on this hole for a long time, mostly because Ruy went into the water hazard. Then the trees. Then the rough. But nobody’s going to play through. You don’t try that on Ruy. Here, have a look.”
She handed over a pair of binoculars. Leaning over so she could see through a gap between people, Ava spotted Morales, in white shirt, maroon slacks, and visor. He was alone, the other players having retreated to their cart and the shade of its awning. As he studied the lay of his ball, she studied his face. Only the tight, almost prissy set of his full lips spoiled his handsomeness. He was taking his time plotting the ball’s course to the hole, pacing and smoking a long cigar.
Finally he went over to his caddy and exchanged cigar for putter. He spat on the green and addressed the ball, shifting his feet, waggling his hips. At last he made his stroke. As the ball went on its way he tried to guide it with motions of his head, hands, and hips. Eventually he started jumping up and down.
All apparently in vain. He raised his putter in both hands and bent it in a loop. “Childish, but you have to give him points for strength,” chuckled Tilda, in response to Ava’s report. “That’s a titanium shaft.”
Murmurs and chuckles went the rounds of the spectators in front of them. After their long wait, they felt entitled to some entertainment. Morales threw down the putter. One of the other players got out of the cart and went over to pat his shoulder. Ruy shook off the hand and backed away shouting so loudly Ava could almost hear him.
“I can only see people’s backs,” Tilda said. “What’s going on now?”
“He’s berating one of the other players.”
“Probably for distracting him. People aren’t supposed to breathe when Ruy’s putting.”
Morales took a roundhouse swing at the other player, who ducked it and ran for the cart. He jumped in and the cart sped away. Ruy snatched the bent club away from his caddy, who had picked it up, and threw it after the cart. The crowd in front of Ava guffawed and applauded.