The Paris Diversion

by Chris Pavone

  And then: fuck the consequences.

  She releases the safety, aims, and squeezes the trigger, twice, pop-pop.

  * * *

  A pedestrian is screaming as Kate tears around the corner as fast as possible, trying to look like a woman fleeing in sheer terror who pretends to notice the police and comes to a screeching, swerving stop.

  “S’il vous plait!” she yells at the cops, pointing back up the street. “Un homme—”

  She doesn’t want to say more than necessary, doesn’t want her accent to betray her. She’s wearing a VDM shirt and riding a Vespa, she might very well be French, nothing whatsoever to do with any American man the police are questioning here.

  “Restez ici,” one of the cops says to the civilian, who answers immediately, “Bien sûr.”

  Both police jump in the car, and the driver starts reversing before the passenger has closed his door, backs up violently to the end of the block. The car fishtails to a stop, then shifts, and speeds through the intersection—

  “Get on,” Kate says to her husband. Saving him, yet again, from his own stupidity. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  It was such a complex web of dishonesties and betrayals in which Dexter had gotten caught, long-term entanglements with savage criminals and international law enforcement, with stolen Russian fighter jets and ruthless African warlords, cutting-edge electronic intrusions and high-class hookers, bank break-ins and heartless torture, a townhouse in Belgravia and a farmhouse in the Ardennes and fifty million stolen euros divided in half, in two separate numbered accounts for two separate people, both planning to never work again, to never want for anything.

  This was a plot that doesn’t come to a definitive finish, not until everyone involved is dead. Maybe not even then.

  Kate has never stopped looking over her shoulder, never stopped watching, waiting, planning. Never stopped expecting that one day, it would catch up to Dexter. To her too.

  58

  PARIS. 2:40 P.M.

  Chris steps from behind the pillar, makes himself visible. His hands hang at his side, empty. He doesn’t want to look threatening, he wants to put Wyatt at ease, and the guy is obviously in a state of high anxiety, you can see it at a glance, even from a distance: a dangerous armed man with adrenaline coursing through him. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge.

  “Hello?” Wyatt takes another step into the tunnel, straining to see through the darkness. Chris can’t see Wyatt’s gun, but he can tell by the guy’s stance.

  “Yeah. I’m back here.”

  Wyatt takes another slow step, looking around side to side.

  “Everything okay? Any problems?”

  Wyatt continues to approach, but doesn’t answer. Chris instinctively shifts his weight to his right, toward the safety of the concrete pillar.

  “Affirmative,” Wyatt says. He takes another couple of steps, stops. “There actually was a problem. A pretty fucking big one.”

  “And that was?”

  “When I abandoned the van, there were two people…”

  Wyatt looks around again, nervous about…what?

  “They saw you? These people?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “And?”

  “Well…You know.”

  “No, I don’t. It’s just me here, Wyatt. No one’s listening, I’m not recording. So tell me what happened.”

  “I took care of it.”

  “Okay, that’s good. But I need to be one hundred percent sure I understand what it is we’re talking about.”

  “I. Took. Care. Of. It.”

  “You mean you killed them? Two people in the garage?”

  Wyatt nods. He seems to be avoiding saying anything specific aloud, maybe worried about creating recorded evidence. That’s a surprising level of paranoia to adopt at this stage of the game, considering what they’ve already discussed aloud, in circumstances in which a recording would’ve been far easier.

  But that was all before the fact. Plotting is not the same as executing. Plotting can always fail to coalesce, plotting can fall apart, plotting is just words, plotting can turn out to be bullshit.

  In this general type of situation, Wyatt is probably right: paranoia is an asset, a survival mechanism. But in this particular situation, he happens to be paranoid about the wrong thing.

  “Does that, um, event present any further threat to you? To the op?”

  “Negative.”

  “Okay. Any other issues?”

  Wyatt shakes his head.

  “So everything else went as planned?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “You went to the Odéon station to change clothes, swap bags? No problems?”

  “None.”

  “You changed trains and ditched the bag on the Métro? Which line did you end up on?”

  “Does it matter?”

  It doesn’t. Maybe he shouldn’t push too much, should leave well enough alone, end this interaction before anything goes awry.

  Then again: no. He can’t show any weakness. He can’t give Wyatt any idea that he’s a man who can be taken advantage of. Even though this is the final time these two will meet, it’s important to maintain the balance of power. Wyatt needs to understand that he can’t simply decide unilaterally to turn this final encounter into something more adversarial, more profitable. He needs to remember who’s boss, and why. And if he doesn’t remember, he needs to be reminded.

  Which is why Chris says, “It matters because I’m asking.” Quietly, but firmly. “So tell me, what fucking Métro did you leave the bag on?”

  Wyatt seems to wince at this quiet tirade, but it’s hard to tell. “The 8.”

  “Thank you.” The two men stare at each other across the divide of darkness, of wariness. They’d needed to trust each other until today, but now that Wyatt’s job is finished, everything has changed. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “No sir.” Unmistakable hostility in that sir. Ironic obedience, like a petulant teenager addressing a gym teacher.

  “Now I’m going to put my hand into my breast pocket. Get your envelope.”

  “Slowly. If you don’t mind.”

  “You’re the one with the gun.” Chris had been halfway expecting Wyatt to pat him down, had planned for that.

  “Thank you. You’ve done good work.”

  “Uh-huh.” Wyatt takes the envelope, glances inside. A chunk of cash, an RER ticket to Charles de Gaulle, a boarding pass to Miami.

  “So are you gonna tell me now what any of this has been about?”

  “Sorry, that’s not how this works.” He knows Wyatt doesn’t care, at least not much. Doesn’t care whom he killed directly, whom he might kill indirectly, whom he killed in the past. Wyatt is willing to kill anyone for a price, and it’s not even that high of a price.

  Which makes this so much easier.

  The guy actually boasted, in his interview. At least eighteen confirmed kills. In Afghanistan on behalf of the government, that was defensible, though the glee in it was not. But then in Sudan, Kenya, Syria. Not just a mercenary, a murderer; also a human trafficker.

  The world is going to be a better place.

  * * *

  He does feel bad about the guy’s sick kid. When he first heard Wyatt’s story, he thought it was horseshit, exactly the kind of sad-sack fiction that an unimaginative asshole would invent to make himself appear sympathetic, to cloak the selfishness of his motivations. Parental love of a sick child: who can argue with that?

  So Chris checked out the story, and was surprised to discover it was true. That’s one of the reasons you check out stories, even the unlikely ones.

  He was sympathetic. Chris too had his own familial responsibilities to consider, as a husband, as a father. Also as a son, that whole fucked-up fiasco with his mother
. He was completely surprised by it; he’d ignored the signs. He’s forever surprised by people’s ability to surprise him.

  “Okay then.” Wyatt nods once more, this time a final goodbye. He turns away.

  Chris won’t waste a second now. He raises his right hand, back behind the concrete pillar, where his fingers immediately find the pair of bolts that he himself drilled into this wall at waist height. Similar to what some guys have in their garages with pegboards, to hold tools, except this is just the one tool, which he now swings in front of his body, the thing longer and heavier because of the bulky sound suppressor attached to the end.

  He steadies his arm, taking careful aim through the darkness at the silhouette’s center, now five yards away.

  Chris has practiced this countless times, but that was decades ago, back in training. The physical motion is easier than tying your shoe, turning a doorknob. Mentally, though?

  He has spent so much of his life pretending to be hard as nails, but he isn’t, not at all. He has never even meted out a serious beat-down, much less killed anyone. But from an early age he learned to act, as many boys do, then as he grew older he took the acting more seriously—acting for football, for law enforcement, for high-stakes international crime.

  The disguise helps. Looking like a different sort of man while behaving that way, fake it till you make it. Till you become a guy who can do this.

  It’s possible that at the very last instant Wyatt hesitates, slows his step, something of a syncopated beat of a stutter step, maybe suspecting what’s going on, maybe considering his options—should he break into a run, should he fall to the ground, should he leap to the side, should he draw his own weapon while dropping to a knee and spinning, the things you can do to make it harder for someone to shoot you—but in the end he doesn’t have time to do any of those things, or even to come to a decision, before the first bullet hits him square in the middle of his back, an immediate blinding wave of pain, and perhaps he’s aware that he’s beginning to sink to his knees, but he’s unable to will his body into any other movement, any evasion, and it’s just a half-second at most before that thought is obliterated, along with any other thoughts, as the second bullet explodes through the back of his head.

  This is not exactly how Wyatt imagined it would happen. But it’s pretty damn close.

  * * *

  Chris stands over the inert body, gives a kick, an abundance of caution. The dead man’s arm moves against the shoe, but nothing in the lump of flesh responds.

  He drops the bulky gun into his pocket, adjusts the angle so the grip isn’t sticking out. He kneels, reaches into Wyatt’s jacket, extracts the cash and travel paperwork.

  What about Wyatt’s gun? Chris had been planning on leaving the weapon with the dead man. But now this gun has become a ballistics match to a double-murder, bodies with the toxic van in a parking garage, and that’s not something that should be associated with this corpse. He should take it, dispose of it. Which will entail first walking around with it. A gun in each pocket, double-fisted, like the psychopath villain in an action-adventure movie.

  The smell of gunpowder hangs in the air. He glances around, sees nothing. He listens, hears nothing.

  He takes one final look at Wyatt. Ex-Wyatt. A man who long ago seceded from the brotherhood of man, and now has finally been erased as a further threat to humanity.

  Chris starts to walk away, his mind moving onto what’s next, when, where—

  * * *

  “Not so fast.”

  He freezes, staring ahead at a man who has appeared in the tunnel’s entrance, a silhouette backlit by daylight, wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap, holding something in front of him. Chris can’t confirm with absolutely certainty what it is, but he certainly has his goddamned suspicions.

  59

  PARIS. 2:41 P.M.

  “Tell me what the hard parts will be,” Mahmoud said.

  “For one, you would have to send your children away in advance. Back to Egypt. Your kids cannot be here when you do this job.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “Yes.” The bearded American looked grave. “It is.”

  “I will never see my children again?”

  The man did not answer.

  “Because I will not be able to leave France?” Mahmoud realized that he sounded irrationally hopeful.

  “No, that is not it.”

  “My children, they will be okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Mahmoud realized that he had known, even before this meeting. “I will not.” This was the obvious explanation for all the solemnity. But it was not until this moment that he allowed himself to articulate it. “My job will be to die.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Painlessly.”

  Mahmoud let out a short snort of mirthless laughter. “One hopes. What does that mean, in effect?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Yes.” Though was that true? “I think so.”

  “It is your choice.”

  Mahmoud gave it a few seconds’ thought. Wild, disorganized thought, ideas shooting off in every direction. Thought was perhaps not the activity that was going on in his brain.

  He nodded.

  “Okay. It will be—” The man cut himself off. “Are you sure?”

  “Please.”

  “Okay. One possibility is that you will be shot by the French police, or army, using a high-powered sniper’s rifle.”

  “That is horrible.”

  “It will be painless.”

  “And what is the other way?”

  “You will be wearing a vest packed with explosives. That vest will detonate.”

  “A suicide vest?”

  “Either way, the end of your life will be instantaneous.”

  “How will I know which?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Did it?

  “You will not know. I will not know. There will be no warning. No alarm bell will tell you that you have one minute left, or ten seconds, nothing like that. One moment you will be standing on this earth, and the next you will be in paradise.”

  A better world for him, that is the promise. And a better life here in this world, for those he leaves behind. For his children. That was the only conceivable motivation, and that was exactly what was being offered.

  * * *

  He had not thought it was possible, that a moment could be worse than receiving your death sentence, with the doctor’s hand on his shoulder.

  “There is nothing to be done?”

  The doctor shook his head, looking very sympathetic. It must be horrible, telling people they are going to die, there is no hope, you have twelve months, you have four, one.

  “Surgery?”

  “It is too widespread.”

  Mahmoud was about to ask about chemotherapy, radiation; he had been educating himself. But when the moment came, he did not want to make this conversation worse for Dr. Féraud, who was a very nice man. This was not an argument Mahmoud could win by trying harder.

  He nodded his acceptance to the doctor, to himself. I am going to die very soon.

  That had been the worst moment of his life. Until this one: kneeling in the airport, with his children gathered in his arms. The awfulness of it grew and grew, expanding outward like an explosion, a nuclear detonation.

  “I love you,” he said to the boy.

  The infinite awfulness of it, of knowing that he was seeing his son and daughter for the very last time. He tried desperately not to cry—he did not want to make the children cry, he did not want to alarm them—but he failed, it was so far beyond his control.

  “And I love you,” to the girl. “You are in the heart of my heart.” He pressed both fists to his chest. “Here.”

  He h
ad told all of them—his children, his in-laws—that he wanted to save as much money as possible, that he would forward it to them in Egypt, that he would rejoin them soon. He would be working all the time, he said, he would not be able to care for the children properly, he did not want their education to suffer, he did not want to neglect small children who needed attention. It would be only a few months. He would save so much money that when they did reunite, they would live well.

  Today is when his wife’s parents will discover the truth. But hopefully his children will never know every detail. Hopefully the money will help, if they do.

  Mahmoud had already accessed the numbered account. He had changed the password, he had verified that the first payment had been transferred; it was so much money. He had sent the necessary details to his in-laws. He had done everything there was for him to do.

  “I wish I could tell you something different.” Dr. Féraud took Mahmoud’s hands. “But you will be dead within the year. There is no question about it.”

  * * *

  “You can leave your children poor, Mr. Khalil.”

  Mahmoud wishes he could control it, pull the trigger himself, put himself out of today’s version of misery, after many months of living with a different misery, and a year with another. More than his share.

  “Or you can leave them rich.”

  He had not wanted to ask the final question, because he knew he did not want the answer. But it was unacceptable to leave it unasked. He had to know.

  “None,” the man answered.

  Mahmoud was confused. “Excuse me?”

  “You will not kill anyone.”

  How was this possible?

  “Only one person will die.”

  Perhaps this strange American man was lying to him. Mahmoud accepted that he might never know the truth. Not in this life.