by Chris Pavone
The director of communications is standing a few feet away, hand held up to her aghast mouth; the receptionist too is frozen. Kate doesn’t want to hit either of these women. But there is a specific woman Kate suddenly wants to punch in the face.
“Désolée,” she mutters at the guard, then rushes to the elevator, hits the call button, thinking that if the elevator isn’t waiting here she’ll take the stairs, but the door does open immediately, because the guard arrived only thirty seconds ago.
Life would be a lot easier if the things that felt good were also the right things. But Kate is pretty sure that the truth is closer to the contrary.
45
PARIS. 1:25 P.M.
Hunter’s stomach sinks with a whoosh, as if in a roller coaster’s front car that has crested the apex and is now free-falling, and you’re wondering if the descent is going to continue to accelerate forever, or if you’ll discover some alternative explanation, backing up from terminal velocity, some other answer to this question, an answer that doesn’t mean that something horrible is going on here.
Simpson should not have the keys to this apartment. If this guy really is from State, or CIA, the only reason he’d already be in possession of these keys—on their own key ring—is if he knew he’d be using this safehouse today. Yet it was supposedly only after Hunter’s pressure that he reluctantly agreed to come here. Which meant he’d been dishonest to Hunter. Which in the abstract is fine with Hunter, he’s not anti-lie, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for dishonesty. He himself lies often. But always for a clear purpose. What purpose did Simpson’s misrepresentation serve? Why did he pretend to need to search for a safehouse, when he was already carrying the keys to one?
If it were just the keys, or just the Chinese-manufactured phone, Hunter could discount it. One misgiving could be a fluke, paranoia, misunderstanding. Two is a legitimate suspicion. Three pieces of corroborating evidence? That’s not a coincidence; that’s a conspiracy. That’s what he needs to test, right now.
* * *
He runs through it again, his rationale, the rebuttal, the counterargument for one or another of Simpson’s responses, the credibility of Hunter’s replies, the viability of the whole plan. It’s like a logic problem, a chess match.
He certainly hopes he’s wrong, he has never in his life hoped so fervently to be so wrong.
Hunter’s phone is still useless as a communication device to the outside world. Is it really possible that there’s no cell service anywhere in Paris? All carriers? For hours on end?
Maybe. All the towers could be somehow compromised. Or all the networks breached, disabled. Or all the signals scrambled by some EMP. Hunter is looking for reasons, he wants to believe in them. Because if not? What are the other possibilities?
One: there is no Paris-wide telecom outage, but just something specific to him—to his phone, or to his physical environment. What? An exterior signal-jamming device could have been used at the apartment, and another here in the safehouse.
Two: his phone has been disabled from within. Simpson did take possession of Hunter’s device, back at the apartment, supposedly trying to help. But he could have been installing malware, disabling cellular, he could have done so many things that would render the phone inoperable in ways that Hunter wouldn’t be able to observe.
And yes, the guy did something with Colette’s phone too.
And yes, of course—of course—the wifi service here would not work. Nor would this landline, this piece of consumer electronics manufactured in China, of all the unlikely origins for telecommunications equipment procured by an American intelligence service.
So, okay, let’s say that this is what did happen: it’s specifically Hunter and Colette whose communications have been cut off. With no way to find out what’s going on in the world. No way to tell anyone where he is. No way to reassure anyone. Why?
Is there more than the one obvious explanation?
Hunter’s chest grows tight again, this panicky feeling, this unfamiliar sensation. Hunter is not a panicky person, never has been. That’s the essence of him: not panicky. Ask anyone, that’s what they’ll tell you: Hunter Forsyth, dude has balls of brass.
He tries to take a deep breath, but it doesn’t work, he’s not getting enough oxygen.
“Monsieur?” Colette is standing over him, concerned. She puts a hand on his shoulder, a soft touch.
“I’m okay,” he says, even though he isn’t, and she didn’t ask. “How are you doing?”
“Pas mal,” she says. That’s the worst that Colette would ever admit: not bad. And when the French say “not bad,” what they usually mean is: pretty damn good. Colette is not a complainer. She’s a pillar of strength, Colette is.
Christ, he loves her so much.
He wonders what she thinks is going on here, if she’s imagining the same scenarios he is. Maybe she got there long ago, even before Hunter. Maybe she has known all along, and has somehow remained poised, placid, unpanicked—
Wait a second—
No. There’s no way. That’s a ridiculous thought.
But is it? Is it really impossible?
No.
Okay, what if she is? What if Colette is in on this whole thing? And he tries to enlist her in this plan to escape? Then what?
Then, obviously, Hunter will be fucked. But will he be any more fucked than he is already?
No, he literally shakes his head at himself: she can’t be, not Colette.
Get your shit together. This is your company that’s in danger, your future. Maybe even your life, and the woman you love. Everything is at stake. Now is not the time to start being a wimp, not the time to devolve into stress-induced paranoia. Now is the time to man up, as Forsyth men have always done.
Hunter’s grandfather went to law school after Korea, then joined the same firm where his own father had worked, then moved to in-house counsel at a multinational, where he eventually rose to CEO. Albert Forsyth had chosen the right path in the 1950s and ’60s.
Hunter’s dad Thatcher embarked on his career in the early ’70s in the fledgling investment-banking sector, a wave he rode through the obscene ’80s to its residential apogee in Greenwich, Connecticut, where his cohort of robber barons headquartered their hedge funds, built their trophy houses where trophy wives raised trophy children, trophy cars in the driveway, trophy everything.
Trophy son Hunter Forsyth was vaguely aware of the tech boom even before it existed. After Yale he went West to business school and then one startup after another until pay-dirt. Just a matter of time. Not a question of if, but simply when.
All the Forsyth men had been in the right places for their times. They’d all made their own fortunes in their own ways, and though none would deny that they were helped by the successes of their forebears, they’d all deem that help to be incremental, incidental.
They all learned, as boys, to box. Hunter remembers his first lessons at Grandpa’s greenhouse, which had been transformed into a gymnasium, with a rowing tank and a lap pool, a weight room and a basketball half-court and the leather-scented boxing corner with a speed bag, a heavy bag, a canvas ring, pairs of red-and-white gloves in various sizes hanging from wooden pegs.
How old was he? Six? Seven? He remembers not being able to reach the speed bag, Grandma helping get the gloves on and off. He remembers it was fun.
As a teenager, Hunter boxed in a gym out in White Plains; boxing was no longer something that went on in the types of schools he attended, no longer a gentleman’s sport. Everyone else he met at Power Boxing was a minority or poor, mostly both. These guys were—still are—Hunter’s main exposure to ethnic and economic diversity.
When he was a teenager, Hunter used to have fantasies that boxing would one day be real-world useful. That he’d find himself cornered by bullies at school—never happened—or confronted by muggers in a dark alleyway—ditt
o—or he’d be a senator, or maybe even president, and they’d kidnap him—the Soviets, the Colombian cartels—and they’d never suspect that he possessed this secret lethal skill, which is what he would use to save himself, and the beautiful woman too.
In this fantasy, there was always a beautiful woman. In every fantasy.
* * *
“Colette?”
“Oui Monsieur?”
“May I borrow your phone? I’d like to give you some notes on calls for you to make, when we’re finally finished here. We’re going to have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Calls?” This is not really what Colette does.
Hunter meets her eye, trying to communicate that this isn’t a debate, she just needs to obey. “That’s right.” His gaze is level and unwavering, and he hopes she understands what he’s communicating.
“Très bien.”
He sees her cut her eyes to Simpson, then back. She unlocks her phone, hands it over.
“Merci,” he says, with a gentle nod, trying to soften the exchange.
He tells himself again that this is a smart thing to do. He starts to type, using more words than normal, being less economical. He needs to be clear more than he needs to be quick.
“Here.” He extends the device. “Why don’t you look this over now? Let me know if you have any questions.”
At the very bottom, he’d typed, DO NOT ask any questions. If you have not understood something, type your question, then hand back to me.
Hunter stands above Colette. After she has read the opening lines, she’s going to look at him with a question in her eyes, and he’s going to nod in confirmation.
Do not panic, his note begins. I think we may have been kidnapped.
46
PARIS. 1:27 P.M.
They tried, using a bullhorn, first in French, then English, then Arabic and Farsi and maybe Urdu, he stopped paying full attention. It could not matter, anything they were saying. Later, they tried Arabic again. He never responded to any of it.
There is no way to be ready for this, Mahmoud knows that. He might have told himself that he would be prepared, convinced himself that he knew what it would eventually feel like. But he always understood, on some level, that he had been deceiving himself.
He has now been standing here for four hours. He has taken thousands of breaths in this courtyard, with so many weapons pointing at him, the long-range rifles on the rooftops, the assault weapons, the automatic handguns. He is just a split-second from being blown to smithereens by the twitch of some stranger’s finger. Then again, so is everyone.
Any of these breaths may have been his last, but turned out to not be. Maybe the next will be.
Or the next.
Or the next.
He tries again to focus on the good that will come. On the bad that will be avoided. Both sides helped make his decision, that late afternoon, sitting in the quiet room alone with the bearded American.
“A boy and a girl,” Mahmoud said. “As I indicated on your questionnaire.”
The man nodded, looking sympathetic, saying nothing, as usual. This was their fifth meeting.
The paperwork was something Mahmoud had been handed in front of the hospital, where an attractive woman stood near the entrance that was used by his ward’s patients. She was offering fifty euros for nothing really, just an initial survey, it would take only a few minutes. Then another five hundred—five hundred euros!—for participating in the full study, long-term.
Or as long-term as possible. Given the obvious limitations.
The survey was highly personal: physical questions, medical history, even religious beliefs, philosophical, sexual. It was being conducted by an American institute, an organization that Mahmoud researched for a few minutes to satisfy himself that it was not an identity-theft scam. Mahmoud could not imagine why anyone would want to steal his identity, or what such a theft would entail. But this had become a subject people discussed, without knowing what they were talking about. As with many things.
The institute was headquartered in Boston; the European outpost was in Geneva.
“How old?”
“Four and six.”
“So, after…what is going to happen to your children?”
“My wife’s family, in Egypt. We have already made the arrangements.”
“Do your in-laws have money?”
Mahmoud was sure that this man already knew the answer. He did not like this type of question, this conversational game. He did not answer.
“No, I do not suppose they do.” The man sighed, as if disappointed in the answer that he himself provided. “But they could, Mahmoud.”
“They could what?”
“They could have money, your in-laws. Plenty of money. Enough to ensure that they will be comfortable. That your children will be educated, have opportunities.”
Their previous meetings had focused on Mahmoud’s illness, his prospects. But the conversations had also veered into politics, into religion. It was an unusual relationship they had been developing for a few weeks.
Then one day the man had a proposition. Something Mahmoud could do, before he died, that would benefit his family immensely, after he was gone. The man had not explained immediately, had left Mahmoud wondering for a week. Dreaming. Wanting. Trying to guess what this man could possibly want that Mahmoud might be able to provide. There were not many explanations.
“Could my children live in America?”
“Perhaps. But that is not something we can arrange. We cannot offer papers. What we can offer is money.”
Mahmoud was becoming increasingly convinced that this man was going to propose something illegal, something immoral, something horrible. But Mahmoud was reluctant to confront that obstacle head-on.
“How much?”
“Well, that depends. How much do you think you need?”
Mahmoud did not want to commit to anything—he did not even want to frame the negotiation—until he had a better idea of what was going on. “What is it that I would have to do?”
“As I have said, it will be only one day’s work. Some training beforehand, but that will be incidental.” The man made a dismissive face. “It is not a complicated job, physically. There is nothing you need to know how to do. Nothing you need to learn.”
That was when Mahmoud began to understand. The most obvious answer is usually correct. Occam’s razor, he had learned about it in school.
“You will not suffer a long, painful decline. Your children will not watch you wither away. You will not spend all your family’s money buying yourself tortured extra days. You will not lose control of your body. You will not endure one sleepless night after another. You will not spend months in and out of hospitals, and hospice. You will not leave behind a mountain of debt.”
Those were very compelling points.
“Instead what you will leave behind, Mahmoud, is a fortune.”
“That sounds too easy. Too good to be true.”
“Well, yes. It is not all going to be easy.”
They sat in silence for a moment. This man was comfortable with silence.
“I am not a violent person,” Mahmoud said, eventually.
The American nodded.
“I do not believe in violence.”
The American remained silent.
“How many?” Mahmoud asked.
“How many what?”
“How many people would I need to kill?”
47
VENICE. 1:28 P.M.
At the foot of a bridge she comes to a sudden stop, and spins around, starts walking back quickly in the other direction, as if she’d just realized something urgent, she left the stove on, the door open.
Susanna scans the faces in front of her, but doesn’t see him. He’s gone, the man she thought might be following her.
She’s relieved, but also a bit frustrated. If someone were following her, she could elude him, solve the problem. But if there’s no one there, the problem is simply her nerves, her mind. Less easy to solve.
She has no one to blame but herself, not even her husband, and she has come to understand that being able to easily assign blame is one of the chief advantages of having a husband. But she knows that all this is her own doing. She’s the one who desperately wanted to have a child; he was ambivalent about parenthood. She’s the one who thought they should settle here, live this life. She’s the one who came up with the new complicated plan, not to mention the old complicated plan. She’s the one who put everything at risk, again.
For a while it looked as if childbearing was going to pass her by. That too was her own fault. She hadn’t taken any of her relationships seriously, hadn’t been attuned to the ticking of her clock. It turns out that if you wait until your career is fully established, your window is small, and it was nearly shut by the time she found the right man, almost by mistake.
And, being completely honest: he isn’t necessarily the right man. Plus: they didn’t find each other so much as they were thrust together by happenstance. Theirs was a professional partnership, arranged by management. They lived together, they shared a home, meals, vacations, sometimes they even shared a bed, though not conjugally; they both knew that sex would be a mistake. All the while, he was more than happy to find his outlets elsewhere—other men’s wives, or young women in bars, one-night stands that didn’t even last a whole night, stumbling home at two A.M., smelling like women who weren’t her. But what did she care.
Except she did, a little bit.
She couldn’t bring herself to behave the same way. She told herself that it could compromise her cover, jeopardize her mission, but that was only partially true, and became less true over time, until the night when she crept into his bed in the middle of the night, when their mission was near its end, at its most exciting, and she just couldn’t help herself anymore. She knew he’d be good in bed; she didn’t know how much she’d enjoy it.