Mrs. John Doe

by Tom Savage

  “Craig, is—is my husband dead?”

  “No,” he said immediately. “I mean, I doubt it. Highly unlikely. We don’t know which group or groups we’re dealing with here, but they’re not official. They’re terrorists, and they don’t want to attract that particular kind of attention. They’d seriously think twice before killing a man like Jeffrey Baron.”

  “But not his wife?” she asked. “They sent an assassin to kill me. Why would they do that?”

  She could only see his profile, but the right side of his face reddened.

  “I think you’ve already figured that out,” he said. “Haven’t you, Nora?”

  A chill went through her. She turned around to look at her shoulder bag again.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve figured it out. He knows who the dealer is; he found proof, some sort of concrete evidence. And he’s given it to me, to take back to America.”

  “I think so too,” Craig said.

  Nora thought about that. “But if that were the case, why Paris? Why change the plan and tell me to come here?”

  Craig shook his head. “That I can’t tell you. I’m sure he thought it was a good idea. But now, in light of recent events, getting you out of here is an even better idea.”

  “Can’t your people help with that?” Nora asked. “Why can’t we just go to these French agencies, the SDAT or whatever? The CIA has a station in Paris, right? Or the American consulate? If you take me there, they’d certainly be able to—”

  “Mrs. Baron—Nora—you don’t understand the position we’re in.” She waited while he switched lanes, following the signs for the upcoming exits to Paris.

  “What position are we in?” she asked.

  Craig sighed and shook his head. “Your husband and Bill Howard and a French intelligence official, a man named Maurice Dolin, are pretty much the whole operation.”

  “Maurice Dolin?” Nora said. “He’s with the SDAT. He was the man on the newscast, warning everyone that I was armed and dangerous.”

  This was news to Craig. “Really? Hmm, I’d better tell Mr. Howard about that. Maurice Dolin should be brought up to speed about you as soon as possible. Anyway, they have me and the girl in Paris and two or three others in England and France, including your friend Jacques Lanier. Jeff’s the only American, unless we count you. Bill Howard reports to somebody in London, and Jeff reports to people in Washington, but those agencies’ main concern is keeping this under wraps and out of the news, avoiding a public panic. So, that’s it; that’s the whole show, maybe ten people in all. We don’t officially exist, and we are not officially tracking down a nonexistent dealer selling nonexistent weapons to nonexistent terrorists. That’s how it works. If we were to go to your consulate with this story, they’d cart us off to Bedlam. Nobody will help us. Nobody’s even going to acknowledge us. Besides, we can’t be sure how far this reaches; we don’t know who’s us and who’s them. We’re on our own here.”

  Nora was silent, absorbing the information, staring out at the autoroute She was wondering why Maurice Dolin of the SDAT, who was apparently Jacques Lanier’s employer and one of the three principal figures in this operation, didn’t seem to know who she was. That didn’t make any sense to her—but then again, what did?

  They passed a billboard for Disneyland Paris, and Nora almost had to laugh at the picture of the fairy-tale castle with a well-scrubbed young family of four grinning in the foreground. The ecstatic little girl clutched a balloon with Mickey Mouse ears on it while her brother and parents embraced her. She thought of Dana, their own trip to Disney World in Orlando years ago, but it was all so far away now. The family on the billboard seemed to be every bit as mythical as the princesses and dwarves and talking animals they’d meet in the theme park. It was a safe bet that these jolly parents didn’t work for the international intelligence community.

  “Mission: Impossible,” she said at last. “That’s what you just described. I never knew it was so realistic. Now I see what Bill Howard’s driver meant.”

  Craig glanced over at her. “His driver? You mean Andy Gilbert?”

  Nora shrugged. “I guess. Big man, lots of muscles. When he helped me out of the car the other day, he said, ‘Be careful, Pal.’ He called me Pal, Jeff’s secret name for me, so Jeff obviously trusts him. Oh well, let’s just get to Paris and see what—”

  At that moment, they heard the distant sound of a police siren, growing louder. Nora watched as a blue-and-white squad car sped toward them on the other side of the autoroute, heading east. The car flew by, its lights flashing, and Nora cringed, holding her breath, thinking of Martine’s daughter and the two women back at the guesthouse. She fully expected the cruiser to pull a sudden U-turn and come up behind them. But the siren abruptly died, and she watched in the rearview mirror as the police pulled over a speeding sports car. She didn’t exhale until the two cars actually stopped and the cop got out to issue a ticket.

  So, the authorities hadn’t found them. Not yet, anyway…

  Chapter 20

  Later, if Nora were asked to return to the apartment house in Paris, she wouldn’t have been able to find it. They entered the city from the east at noon, and Craig drove down Boulevard Henry IV and across the Pont de Sully into the Latin Quarter. They passed the university and entered into an intricate grid of smaller streets crowded with summer-term students and lined with shops and cafés, all looking very much alike. Two or three turns down various streets and finally Craig pulled over and parked across from a medium-size limestone apartment house.

  He took his cellphone from his pocket and punched the keypad. He held the instrument to his ear for a long moment, frowning. Then he broke the connection, looking over at the building across the street. He opened his door.

  “She’s still not answering,” he said. “Wait here.”

  “No,” Nora replied. “I’m coming with you.”

  He turned to confront her. “Nora, if anyone recognizes you from that shot on the telly—”

  “They won’t,” she said. “I’m wearing a scarf and sunglasses, and I’m not wearing the coat from the picture. Besides, there are two of us; everyone’s looking for a lone woman, not one half of a couple. Is there a doorman?”

  “No.”

  “Security cameras?”

  “One in the lobby and one in the elevator, but our company apartment is on the first floor, so I always take the stairs.”

  Nora began to question this before she remembered that he was European; he meant the second floor in American English. “Right—I’ll keep my head down in the lobby, but I’m coming with you. I’ll feel safer in there than here on the street.”

  “She’s obviously not there,” Craig said, “but I’m hoping she’s left a message, some indication of where she is…”

  “Let’s find out,” Nora said, and she got out of the car before he could change his mind and leave her there. They crossed the road and entered the main door to a tiny foyer lined with mailboxes and a row of buttons. He pressed the fourth one from the top and waited. Nora noted that the name beside the button was NOONE. “Is that her name? Noone?”

  “No,” he said, pressing the buzzer again.

  “So, who’s Noone?”

  “No one,” he said.

  Nora opened her mouth to ask another question and then shut it again. Noone: no one. The wonderful world of spies…

  When it was clear there would be no response, he produced a key ring and opened the inner door to the lobby. This was a dingy space with brown walls and a brown tiled floor. A tiny lift was just ahead, and the staircase was on the right. She clung to Craig’s arm, keeping her head down, and allowed him to lead her up the stairs. The narrow, dimly lit hallway here had four doors, and they went to the second one on the right.

  Before he unlocked the door, Craig turned to her and whispered, “Wait here. I’ll go in first.”

  She nodded, noting the odd expression on his face. He was worried, and now she was worried too. It occurred to her that the
girl had come here two nights ago, and she hadn’t answered her phone since then. The possible import of that fact finally got through to Nora. She waited while he unlocked the door and stepped inside, disabled the alarm, and switched on a light.

  She could see from the hallway, so his sharp curse was superfluous. She took off her sunglasses and followed him inside, quickly shutting the door behind her. They stood in an attractive, carpeted living room, staring over at the figure that lay very still on the far side of it, beyond a couch and an armchair and an overturned coffee table, near the curtained windows. Nora saw a spill of blond hair, an outflung arm, a blouse and skirt, a beautiful leg in a high-heeled shoe. She smelled the faint stench of recent death. She smelled something else, also faint but unmistakable: Shalimar.

  Dear God, she thought. That beautiful girl…

  “Solange!” Craig said, and he hurried over to kneel beside the body.

  Nora stared from the entryway. The shock of that word was almost greater than the shock of seeing death. She watched as he knelt there, looking down at the still form, remembering Vivian Howard’s words from the hotel two nights ago.

  Solange—how’s that for a name? She works for him, a secretary or whatever. I understand she’s very pretty. He’s bought a big house in the country for them to live in. They’re getting married as soon as—as soon as…

  “She was strangled,” Craig murmured. He stood up, looking around the room, his gaze locking on the closed curtains of the left window, which were moving slightly, billowing inward. He strode to that window and threw the curtains open. Bright sunlight poured into the apartment. Nora saw the perfectly round hole cut into the glass just above the window’s latch and the fire escape beyond it. She joined him at the window, looking down one story to the alley behind the building. Across the alley was a commercial structure of some kind with industrial windows; it would probably be empty at night. No one would see anyone on the fire escape. It would have been so easy.

  “Why wasn’t there an alarm on the windows?” she asked.

  Craig shook his head in disgust. “We requested it, but they haven’t complied yet. At least they installed the door alarm and the cameras— Wait a sec!” He ran into the bedroom, and Nora could hear him rummaging around in there. Then he returned to the main room, an angry scowl on his face.

  “The video file is gone, the feed from those two cameras.” He pointed toward the front door, then to a bookcase in a corner. Nora squinted, but she couldn’t see a camera in either place. They must be very small, she thought, fiber-optic whatever. She knew nothing about cameras. Craig sank to his knees beside Solange’s body again.

  “Damn it to hell!” he cried, staring down.

  Nora looked at the ugly purple bruises that mottled the girl’s slender neck. Then she noticed something else. “What’s that, under her hand?”

  Craig gently lifted the lifeless fingers and picked up a crumpled ball of white paper. He opened it, and Nora knew what it was even before she saw the handwriting. Craig read it before reaching up to give it to her. Nora stared.

  Pal—

  Sorry for cloak-and-dagger. Change of plan, had to get you out of GB ASAP. This is Solange; give her the envelope. Meet me CdeG, Air France, 3 p.m. Jacques will take you—he works for us. Trust no one else, and don’t use your phone. We’re going home. Always keep me close to your heart.

  —Coop

  “The real second message,” Craig muttered. He rose to his feet. “He was on his way to London to come here, to De Gaulle Airport. Solange was supposed to deliver this note to you at the museum. They took him, and they killed her. And if I ever get my hands on that Paki bastard, there won’t be enough left of him to bury!”

  Nora looked down at the girl. “We have to call the police.”

  “We can’t,” he said. “We were never here. Besides, they’d arrest us, and it could be days before Mr. Howard straightened it out. And De Gaulle is no good; they’ll be looking for you there. I’m getting you out of France and putting you on the next plane from Heathrow to New York, and then I’m—”

  “No,” she said.

  He stared at her. “What?”

  “No,” she said again. “I’m not going back to New York. Not now, not while Jeff is—wherever he is. Besides, what makes you think I’d be any safer there than I am here? You and I are going back to London, to Bill Howard, and we’re going to find my husband. That’s what’s going to happen now.”

  The authority in her voice surprised both of them. More than that, more than her conviction, Nora was surprised by the anger she felt. As in the hotel room this morning, she was furious, and now she gave herself over to it.

  “Who are these people, these terrorists?” she cried. “By what right do they invade our lives? And who in their right mind would help them do it? Look at this girl; she’s not much older than my daughter. Jeff is trying to keep the world safe, he’s working to protect everyone, he and Bill Howard. And you, Craig. I’m not going home until we find him!”

  They stood in the silent apartment, regarding each other over the body of the pretty young woman. A shaft of brilliant afternoon sunshine slanted in through a gap in the curtains, spotlighting the lifeless form. It was horrible, obscene, yet oddly beautiful, almost as though this were not a real victim but a young actress in a play or film, and some award-winning auteur had carefully positioned her and lit her body for full cinematic effect. This eerily lovely tableau belonged in the work of Spielberg or Hitchcock, not here on this dusty floor.

  The hot tears stung Nora’s eyes, but she didn’t even try to wipe them away. She tore her gaze from the sight and watched Craig Elder, waiting for his decision. After a moment, he nodded.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  “We have to tell Mr. Howard,” Craig said when they were back in the car.

  Nora nodded, but she was thinking of something else as she buckled her seatbelt. “Where are we going?”

  “North.” He pulled out of the parking space, and after several intricate turns, they were crossing the Seine. “We have to get back into England, and I’d say public transportation is out, wouldn’t you? I need to make some calls—Mr. Howard, then a contact in Boulogne. But let’s get out of Paris first. See if you can get any news on the radio.”

  Nora fiddled with the controls on the dashboard. Snippets of various kinds of music and talk radio programs came and went while she searched.

  “Whose car is this?” she asked.

  “Ours,” he said. “It isn’t trackable, and it sure as hell isn’t bugged if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about. What about your phone?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Prepaid disposables, always.”

  She glanced down at the car phone between the seats.

  “Inactive,” he told her.

  A deep male voice came from the speakers, and Nora tried to keep up with his rapid French. It was the top of the hour, two o’clock, and the headlines were just coming on. The lead story was about a government scandal of some kind, graft and kickbacks among politicians, five arrested. Then a homicide in Brittany. A hiking accident in the Dordogne, three injured. The Estivade festival in Dijon was officially open for business. By the time he started on a charity ball attended by Marion Cotillard and Ludivine Sagnier, Nora was beginning to wonder.

  “What happened to Pinède?” she said. “It was all over the news this morning—”

  Craig gave a low whistle. “Cor, that was fast!”

  Nora turned to look at him. “What was fast?”

  “The intervention,” he said. “The word must have been spread to the media by certain, um, agencies. Total news blackout.”

  Nora switched off the radio. “Does this mean they’re not looking for me anymore?”

  “No, it just means they’re not announcing it. They’re probably looking even harder now.”

  There was nothing to say to that, so Nora said nothin
g. She knew that her photo could still be online; even a deliberate blackout couldn’t get rid of all the images everywhere. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were passing through Montmartre on their way to the northern autoroute. She studied her companion as he drove. He handled the car with skill, and he kept his eyes on the road, with brief glances in the rearview mirror. She remembered Jacques doing the same thing yesterday, scanning the terrain to be sure they were not followed. After a while, curiosity got the better of her.

  “Who are you?” she said. “And don’t give me that jazz about being a student in Dublin. You’ve never been to Dublin in your life, and you’re not a student. Where are you from, really? And how did you get into this—this line of work?”

  At first, she didn’t think he was going to answer. He continued to drive in his silent, efficient way; he might not have even heard her. Then she realized that he was thinking, forming a reply. As the northern reaches of the city melted away into suburbs and small towns and the long road ahead he began to talk.

  He was originally from Ireland, as he’d claimed, but not Dublin. He was born in Belfast. His father, Craig Elder the elder, owned a thriving auto business. This was in the seventies, the days of the rallies and the skirmishes and Bernadette Devlin. By the time Craig the younger was born, his father had had enough of IRA bombings and threats. He reluctantly sold the business for much less than it was worth and moved the family to London. A relative there helped him open a new auto shop, but it was never as successful as the one back home. For the first time in generations, the family was poor.

  Craig grew up on a council estate, with a rough group of kids for neighbors, many of them refugees from the Middle East and South Asia. He saw poverty and crime and drugs and the beginnings of homegrown terrorism all around him, and he hated it. His mother died, and his father married a woman Craig couldn’t stand. When he finished school, he got out of the house by enlisting in the army. A year in Wiltshire, rising from private to lance corporal, then a tour in Afghanistan. Back in England, he reenlisted for want of anything better to do. He nearly married a girl he was dating, but it didn’t work out. She wanted children and stability; he wanted action. Then he met Bill Howard, who was searching the armed forces for recruits to his team.