Dead of Night

by Blake Banner

  “We had near zero communication with base and we took instructions from no one. We had our target and we did our job. And that’s the way we are going to do it now. Take it or leave it.”

  Brigadier Byrd knew what I was about. He had commanded the Special Air Service and he knew what worked. He smiled at the colonel and gave a small shrug.

  “It’s how they operate,” he said. “And it works. Old dogs, new tricks.” He turned back to me. “But I want regular updates. I want to know where you are and what you’re doing.”

  I gave a single nod. “Agreed.”

  “Now, take a couple of days, relax, enjoy the amenities while we sort out a few details. You have a pool, tennis court, gym… You’ll be operative in three days tops. Meantime, relax.”

  I spent the next couple of days living in relative luxury. The food and the wine were good, and the amenities were superb. There were no people, other than a few anonymous staff, including maids and a butler, who were immune to any attempts to engage them in conversation. So I trained a lot, swam a lot and worked out a lot. In the evenings I read in the library or watched a movie. I saw nothing of the colonel or the brigadier.

  On the third day they were there for breakfast on the terrace, sitting at a wrought-iron table that had been set with a white linen cloth and napkins, a jug of orange juice, a pot of coffee and another of tea for the brigadier; sausages, eggs (scrambled and fried), bacon, mushrooms, fried tomatoes and abundant toast. The brigadier also had a large manila envelope beside his plate.

  He watched me step out and sit down, smiling but without speaking. The colonel asked, “Sleep well? Good morning, by the way. Are you rested?”

  I nodded and started helping myself to bacon, eggs and toast, and black coffee.

  “Restless more than rested. I feel I’m wasting time.” I glanced at her with a raised eyebrow and asked, ambiguously, “How about you?”

  Her eyebrow arched in response to mine. “I’m neither restless nor wasting time. But you can relax, you’ll be flying out today.”

  I set the plate in front of me and started buttering toast.

  “For Paris?”

  “For Paris.”

  “I told you that’s a mistake.”

  “We have a panel of analysts who say you’re wrong.”

  “Does your panel of analysts work for the CIA?”

  Brigadier Byrd cleared his throat.

  “Either way, Bauer, right or wrong, you are flying to Paris this afternoon.”

  He picked up the manila envelope and dropped it beside my plate.

  “You have a false passport which is indistinguishable from a real one because...,” he shrugged and smiled, “it is essentially a real one. You also have a driving license cleared to drive in Europe, a credit card and three thousand euros in cash. You have a cell phone with a series of numbers on it which all link back here. This is standard procedure. Obviously any call to those numbers will get you one of our operators. They are briefed to confirm your backstory. So if you’re questioned by anyone, for God’s sake keep it brief and simple.”

  I opened the envelope and poured out the contents. In addition to what he had said there was a ticket, business class, to Paris. Byrd kept talking.

  “You are Tex Miller, of Phoenix, Arizona. You have a cattle ranch and you are traveling to Paris for pleasure. You are a widower. You have no children. Your other details—address, social security number and so on—are all there, along with pictures of your house. Before you go you’ll have an hour’s briefing with your operators to get your story straight.”

  I nodded while I examined the documents. They were all genuine.

  “That’s good. Do I get a pen that fires a laser, and an Aston Martin with cannons?”

  He didn’t smile. “You can buy one of those with the money you took from Rusanov. You fly American from JFK to Charles de Gaulle, departing this evening at five twenty-five PM. You arrive five thirty-five AM. You will stay at the Four Seasons on Avenue George V.” He pronounced it the French way, “Avenoo George Canz,” with a soft “G,” like he was drooling. “At noon you will walk north up the Avenue to the Champs-Élysées.” He said it, “Shonz Ely-say.” “Do you know Paris?”

  I shook my head. “Not really.”

  “Step out of your hotel and turn left. Keep going till you come to a large avenue. You’ll see...”

  “I’ve been to the Champs-Élysées. I know what it looks like.”

  “Good. Diagonally left across from the Avenue George V, you will see the George V Café. Sit outside. You’ll have a copy of the New York Times. Read it conspicuously.”

  “How do you read a paper conspicuously?”

  He sighed and smiled at the same time. “Don’t fold it. It’s a broadsheet. Make sure the name, ‘New York Times’ is visible.”

  “What if there’s some other American there reading the New York Times? Shouldn’t I wear a carnation in my lapel too?”

  “You’re being facetious.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. It sounds like a lot of Cold War bullshit to me.”

  “Tried and tested. Live with it. There are lives at stake. Your copy of the Times will be three days out of date. Not four, not two, three. Somebody will approach you. At that time of day the terrace is always crowded. They will ask if they can share your table. They will give you your instructions from there.”

  I had been eating while he was talking. Now I mopped the egg from my plate with a piece of toast and pressed it into my mouth and spoke around it.

  “I’ll need a weapon. At least one.”

  “Your contact will provide you with a Glock 19.”

  “I want the Sig Sauer P226.”

  The colonel snorted. “The SEALs are phasing them out. The Glock is a superior weapon.”

  I drained my coffee, looked at her and took a deep breath. I’m not a male chauvinist, but she was getting on my nerves.

  “Yeah, it’s a nice gun. Small and light, like the Walther PPK, suitable for a girl. Like a lot of men, I have big hands, so I like the fatter butt of the Sig. For you, being a girl, I’d recommend the Glock 19. Me, being a man, I want the Sig Sauer P226, full-sized TacOps, please.”

  The brigadier remained expressionless. When I’d finished he said, “Then that’s what you’ll have. Your contact will provide them.”

  “Thanks. And a Maxim 9. I’ll need a Maxim 9, too.”

  I stood. The colonel watched me and said, “Are you a misogynist, Mr. Bauer?”

  I shook my head. “No. I hate men and women equally. But I am not going to put myself and the lives of those I work with at risk just to kowtow to politically correct pseudo ideologies.”

  Her mouth dropped and her eyes went wide. “Pseudo ideologies?”

  I nodded. “I’m not going to discuss politics—or pseudo politics—with you, Colonel. But I will tell you what a pseudo ideology is. A pseudo ideology is a petulant, infantile demand that you should have the right to put my life at risk because of your gender. Dwarfs don’t make good netball players; six-foot-six guys who weigh eighteen stone are not good for dancing the part of Princess Odette in Swan Lake. They also make crap jockeys. So maybe the lifelong dream of the dwarf was to be a netball player, and maybe the muscle-bound giant always wanted to be a ballet dancer, or a jockey. That’s tough shit. It’s life. It doesn’t make society anti-dwarf or anti-giant, and a campaign to force netball teams to accept a percentage of dwarfs, and ballet companies to accept a percentage of giant men to dance women’s roles, would be stupid. That would be a pseudo ideology.”

  Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes were bright. “You’re saying I should look after the kids and stay in the kitchen, like a good...”

  “No. I think you’re probably a terrible cook and would be a negligent mother. What you do with your life is your business. But what you do with mine is my business. I have seen too many people die and get maimed in the name of equality. War is not about equality. It’s about inequality. The toughest, the strongest an
d the meanest win. The weakest die.”

  By now her face was crimson. I ignored it and turned to the brigadier, who was stirring sugar into his coffee, suppressing a smile.

  “Is there anything else, sir?”

  “No!” he said quickly. “I think that is quite enough for one morning.”

  “Then I’ll go and prepare for Paris.”

  I left, wondering what the hell had got into me. I thought it was stupid to use women in the field in law enforcement and combat, but it wasn’t something I felt strongly about. Yet there was something about the colonel that made me want to rumple her uniform, and mess up her hair. I went down to the gym, smiling to myself.

  Chapter Eight

  The Four Seasons on George V Avenue was a luxury hotel that was very aware that it was art deco and within the Golden Triangle of Paris. It tried hard, too hard, to live up to those standards. Staying in that hotel was like being smothered to death by an exquisitely beautiful Parisian woman wearing the most expensive perfume in the world: you knew you should be enjoying it, but you were panicking all the same.

  I checked in at the front desk at six thirty AM. Outside the sun was already rising and the dawn chorus was in full voice along the avenue. The concierge gave me my key and the buttons showed me to my elaborately luxurious room, by way of an antique elevator. Once he’d opened up the room and pulled back the drapes, I gave him twenty euros to bring me a bottle of single malt. In France it was almost time for breakfast, but my body clock was arguing it was time for a nightcap. My body clock won the argument.

  He delivered a bottle of The Macallan after I had hung up my clothes and, after a second nightcap, I had a shower and a shave and lay down to sleep for four hours. At eleven AM I rose, had a second shower and dressed appropriately for an American in Paris.

  Paris is supposed to be the most beautiful city in the world. Maybe I’m a philistine—I probably am—but I prefer New York. I prefer San Francisco, too, and in Europe there are also cities I prefer: Prague, Cordoba, Copenhagen, Oslo, even Rome. But there is no denying that George V Avenue is easy on the eye and that that part of Paris has a unique, nostalgic charm evocative of an age which, from this point in history, seems saner and more human.

  I strolled among the 19th-century buildings, under the shade of the plane trees, and even thought about buying a pack of Gauloise cigarettes.

  At the north end of George V Avenue is the Champs-Élysées, the Elysian Fields which, as names go, is pretty overblown for what is little more than a pretty avenue. They say the Americans go in for overstatement, but even Austin, Texas settled for the somewhat more sedate Congress Avenue and East and West 15th Street rather than the Elysian Fields or Pathway to Paradise.

  I crossed the avenue at the lights opposite the George V Café and found a table outside. There I sat, ordered a double espresso and two croissants, and unfolded the copy of the New York Times Colonel Jane Harris had given me before I’d departed for the airport. They hadn’t been wrong. The place was packed, mainly with tourists, Brits and Americans in khaki Bermuda shorts and baseball caps. Their dull faces said they knew vaguely they should be ordering croissants and coffee, though they weren’t exactly sure why. They knew it had something to do with La Belle Epoque, which might have been a cabaret where poets and painters got stoned with loose women, it didn’t really matter, because while they were drinking their coffee and eating their croissants, they could look it all up on Google on their iPhones.

  Hell, they didn’t even need to learn about it or remember it. They could store it all on a cloud.

  Welcome to the 21st century, La Moche Epoque.

  I was tearing open my second croissant when a shadow blocked out my sunlight. I looked up and saw a pretty woman in a light summer dress in cream and violet. She had on large sunglasses and a straw hat with a violet band. She smiled and showed me expensively nice teeth.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “it’s very crowded. Do you mind if I share your table?”

  I noted absently that her accent was educated West Coast. I shook my head. “Not at all, but I’m expecting someone.”

  She frowned. “I notice your New York Times is out of date. Three days, no less!” Then she raised an eyebrow. “A lot can happen in three days. Perhaps you’re waiting for me.”

  I felt momentarily stupid and put down the paper. “Who knows, perhaps I’ve been waiting all my life.”

  She sat and leaned across the table. Her smile was naughty and infectious. “Tell the truth. You were expecting a man, weren’t you?”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Unforgivable,” but she didn’t sound like she meant it. “Please, don’t let me interrupt your reading. Let’s at least try to pretend we didn’t mean to meet.”

  I picked up the paper and smiled at it instead of her. “I figure you’re attractive enough to distract a man from his reading. Will you have a coffee? I was about to order some calamari and a white wine.”

  “You shouldn’t drink and flirt. You never know where it might end up. Look what happened to Kourtney Kardashian.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you see on Star Trek. And besides, who says I’m flirting?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I think I’ll join you in that white wine.”

  She signaled the garçon and when he came over she ordered in flawless French. When he went away again I reached my hand across the table and said, “Tex Miller, of Arizona. How do you do?”

  She stared into my face for a moment like I’d just told her I was a flat Earther, gave a small laugh and said, “Mary Brown, how do you do?”

  “I’m not big on the whole John le Carré, Cold War thing. So forgive me if I don’t play along. I’m not a spook and I doubt anybody on this terrace is, or, for that matter, knew that I was coming here. I’m pretty sure if we watch the buzzwords, we can discuss whatever business we have freely right here. Would you agree?”

  She gave another small laugh and shook her head. “No. What is your background, Tex? You’re a soldier, right?”

  “So what?”

  “My background is different.”

  “You came from the Firm?”

  She nodded. “Mm-hm. Recruited out of Harvard.”

  “Do I need to be impressed?”

  “No, you don’t need to be so damned touchy and defensive, either. I’m just telling you, that was ten years ago. I am experienced and I am good at my job. So we talk about this and that, and then we go somewhere else and we talk about the other.”

  The waiter brought our calamari and an ice bucket with a bottle of cold Chablis in it. He poured and went away.

  I said, “You could tell me what part of the city you think I should explore. I am new to Paris. You, I gather from your lack of accent, are not. Where should I visit? Please don’t say the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. They are a given.”

  She sipped her wine and studied me over the rim.

  “I’m beginning to realize you are a pain in the ass.”

  “I figured Jane had already told you that.”

  She nodded as she speared a ring of battered squid. “She did. I thought maybe she was exaggerating. If you are genuinely curious about Paris, and want to get to know it the way the French know it, then I would recommend taking a stroll around the areas where you don’t get a lot of foreigners or tourists.”

  “Such as…”

  She took a deep breath and sighed. “Oh, so many places. The Place de l’Europe is fun, for example, because the entire square is a bridge over the railway lines. Nearby, on the Rue de Madrid you have the European Library, countless gardens and of course every street is an architectural gem.”

  I chewed and spoke around a squid ring. “Any street in particular? How about bars or restaurants I should visit, that are off the tourist routes?”

  “Well, there is Le Coin, on Rue Larribe, which is reliable and very French. But if you felt like taking a girl out for dinner and drinks, then there is the naughty but interesting Au Bois d’Acacia.”


  “What’s naughty about it?”

  “The food is rather exotic and it stays open late. I like it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “On the corner of Rue de Constantinople and Rue de Naples.” She fixed me with dead eyes and said, flatly, “I can’t remember the number.”

  “Guess I’ll have to take you, so you can show me.”

  “Guess you will, cowboy. By the way, shouldn’t you call me ma’am every now and then?”

  “I thought I was a pain in the ass, ma’am?”

  She stuck out her bottom lip and shrugged.

  “That’s OK. I don’t mind being taken out to dinner by a pain in the ass.” She screwed up her nose at me and managed to look cute doing it. “Besides, you might have redeeming features.”

  “I was thinking the same about you. Like, you might be able to get me some of those things I miss so much from back home.”

  “Back home in Arizona?”

  “Yeah, Arizona, Texas, Wyoming…”

  “I get the idea. You’re not talking about bison steak, are you?”

  I shook my head. “No. I have a buddy back in the States…”

  “A buddy?”

  “Yeah, buddy, don’t labor it, you’re the one recruited from Harvard, remember? He said he’d see to it I had the things I needed.”

  She smiled and winked. “Stay cool, Tex, you’re getting sloppy. I read you loud and clear. Hershey Bars, peanut butter and green Tabasco sauce comin’ right up.”

  We looked at each other for a while. I couldn’t decide whether I liked her or if she was getting on my nerves. Finally I said, “Can we do that now?”

  “What, get your Hershey Bars?”

  “Yeah. Get my Hershey Bars.”

  She sighed loudly and signaled the waiter. He came over and she asked for the check. I gave him forty euros, told him to keep the change and stood. She stood too. She was having trouble concealing the fact that she didn’t like my way of doing things, and she was getting mad. We stepped out from under the parasols onto the crowded sidewalk. I said, “Where to?”