The Paris Diversion

by Chris Pavone

  There.

  She kneels, and dabs her finger into the ovoid splat. Nearly dry, but not quite. Blood.

  The front door is recessed in a shallow alcove. The doctor’s buzzer is at the very top, number 1, it must be the ground floor, front of the building.

  Kate steps backward, into the street, trying to get an angle to see through the windows. But the shades are all drawn, she can’t even tell if lights are on.

  She checks her phone: still no message from Inez. No flight plan. No further information.

  Kate senses movement, it’s the door opening, someone is exiting, and she returns to the alcove just in time to catch the door before it closes—

  The lobby is very small. The door to the doctor’s office just steps from the front.

  Kate has known a good number of policemen. American cops, Mexican, Colombian, Italian, German. All of them somehow able to subsume the completely rational fear of dying, to subjugate that fear to the will of their professional responsibilities, enabling themselves to do this supremely terrifying thing: go through the door.

  It has never really been Kate’s job to burst through doors, but she has nevertheless done it a handful of times. And even in this very finite sample size, she has managed to confront, more than once, the thing that no one wants to confront, ever: an enemy with a gun.

  She draws her own. Puts her other hand on the doorknob, and exerts just the tiniest pressure, testing to see if the door is unlocked, if the knob turns—

  It does.

  70

  PARIS. 5:41 P.M.

  “Your phone, please.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You ask that question way too fucking much.” The police officer extends his hand, the one that’s not holding an automatic weapon. “Just give me your goddamn phone.”

  Hunter complies.

  “Yours too,” the guy says to Colette. He no longer seems to have a French accent. How long has that been going on?

  “Please,” Hunter pleads. He’s not sure exactly what he’s pleading for, but he doesn’t like the look of this junkyard. “What are you going to do to us?” He knows he sounds like he’s about to cry, it’s definitely not an attractive sound, but he’s finished trying to be attractive. Now his focus is staying alive.

  “The State Department will deny any involvement,” the man continues. It’s now clear that he’s neither French nor a cop. “The CIA too will decline to comment one way or the other. No one will answer any questions posed by anyone, including you. So it would be better if you didn’t bother asking.”

  “Why?”

  “There you go again, with that fucking question. Can’t you just accept anything?”

  Hunter obviously doesn’t want to argue with this guy, who’s pointedly holding a gun.

  “You’ll look like a self-important, delusional, conspiracy-theory lunatic. And you see how easy we got to you today? We can do it again tomorrow. Keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  “Understood.”

  “So what are you waiting for? Go.”

  “What? Where?”

  “There’s a Métro station five minutes in that direction.”

  “And?”

  “And? And you’ll probably want to get on it.”

  “I mean: and that’s the end of it?”

  “Of what?”

  “Of…” Of what? That’s a damn good question.

  “You should just be grateful that you’re alive. There were other possible outcomes, you know?”

  Hunter nods.

  “In fact”—the guy raises the gun—“there still are.”

  71

  SWISS AIRSPACE. 5:43 P.M.

  The whole transfer could not have been easier—apartment to speedboat to airport to private jet, gangplank raised and wheels up, all in less than a half-hour. It’s amazing, the conveniences that can be bought with immense amounts of money. The appeal of this whole operation. One of the appeals.

  Susanna can’t decide what she’s looking forward to most: the riches or the revenge.

  Kate Moore had taken their liberty. Kate Moore had taken their identities, their families, friends, homes. Kate Moore had taken their twenty-five million euros.

  In the end, Kate in her ostentatious largesse had allowed them to avoid arrest, had let them loose to flee Paris, a sinuous trip of local trains that lurched from one station to the next, snack-bar fast food, increasingly disgusting bathrooms, saggy beds in the sorts of hotels that don’t maintain records, and finally a third-class ferry across the Mediterranean on their way to erasing their trail in the undocumented anarchy of North Africa, a grueling twenty-hour crossing in rough weather.

  That’s where it happened: on the ferry. In an iron-walled windowless bathroom off the main lounge, three toilet stalls, only one of whose doors had a fully functioning lock.

  She was barely showing. Almost no one knew. There were few people to tell; she didn’t have many friends, not that much of a life, her career had come to an abrupt end. All she had was this new husband and this new human growing in her, and the promise of a large fortune on the immediate horizon.

  When that fortune was yanked away at the last minute, she fell into a tailspin of anxiety and furor, exacerbated by frantic uncomfortable travel, and finally that rolling, groaning ferry.

  She banged into that middle stall clutching her spasming stomach, bent over double, one hand bracing herself against the door while she fumbled with the lock.

  That middle stall. That was where she lost her baby.

  * * *

  Just a few minutes after the plane levels off, Richie mutters, “Jesus.”

  She looks up. Richie is sitting across from her in a quartet of big soft leather seats that are the exact same color and visual texture of tiramisu. He’s staring at the computer in his lap. “It happened.”

  “Che?” asks Gianna, who clearly serves double-duty as girl Friday and concubine. She also adores Matteo. It seems to be universal, the way Italian women love babies. That might be useful later. Soon.

  Richie doesn’t answer Gianna. He leans forward, extends the laptop to Susanna.

  Even though she knew this was coming, still she recoils when it happens. The sequence ends, and she can’t help herself, she hits REPLAY.

  What does she see? The footage is blurry, grainy. A man is standing in a vast courtyard, all alone. He shifts his weight. She imagines that his feet are aching, his lower back too. Maybe he’s thirsty. He needs to pee, or he already has, relieving himself inside the rubber liner he’s wearing for this exact purpose. He has been standing in this position for nine hours. You can see the fatigue in his posture.

  With no warning there’s a sharp crack, and a spray explodes from the side of his head, and he slumps to the ground.

  The camera angle changes slightly, and the image blurs while the lens refocuses on the body—the corpse—in this new prone position.

  A sizable portion of his head is, simply, gone. Blood is gushing from the crater. The image is horrifying, the undeniable reality of a life ended violently.

  The vest: intact, undetonated.

  The silver briefcase: just sitting there.

  And everyone in Paris wondering: what happens next?

  * * *

  This was built into the plan, it was preordained, to be followed inevitably by outrage, protests, unrest, reprisals. Markets will continue to stagnate and suffer for days, for weeks, stocks will be falling everywhere, short positions will be immensely lucrative.

  “What if they never decide to shoot him? What if they take him into custody?”

  “He’ll resist. Then he’ll be shot.”

  “Why will he resist?”

  “Because that’s what we’re paying him to do.”

  “You’re actually paying a guy to get killed? That’s sorta fuck
ed-up.”

  “Is it?”

  “Isn’t it?” Richie seemed amazed that she was willing to be so brazenly inhumane. This was at their follow-up meeting, she was providing some of the details that she’d withheld at first. Now she had Richie’s money.

  “Not necessarily. Listen, Richie, this is the same principle as a high-value assassination. All it takes is one person willing to sacrifice his life, and you can kill any other person in the world. That has always been the case, and probably always will be.”

  “The trick is still the same: finding the one person willing to die.”

  “Exactly. But everybody dies. In ten years, or twenty, sixty. It’s hard to find a willing participant if he thinks he has sixty great years ahead. But what if he knows for certain that he doesn’t?”

  Richie nodded, then moved on. “So what’s the big secret in that scary briefcase?”

  “It will appear to be a dirty bomb. Probably nuclear.”

  “What? Are you out of your fuckin’ mind? You’re gonna detonate a nuke? In Paris?”

  “Please. I’m not even going to procure one. But that’s what it’ll look like.”

  “What, just because it’s a metal briefcase? Won’t the police or army—whoever—won’t they have a, whatchamacallit, one of those things that measures radiation?”

  “The police will call military experts, scientists. They will procure a device that can measure ionization-induced fluorescence—”

  “The what?”

  “—and they will indeed detect alpha-particle radiation—”

  “The fuck is an alpha particle?”

  “—but the device will not be a bomb, Richie. Just a piece of hard luggage with some radioactive material packed in, surrounded by explosives. But the triggering mechanism will not work. Literally impossible to detonate.”

  “And where in the name of Christ Almighty will you get radioactive waste?”

  “Asia.” As if that explained it all. It ended up being a strange transaction, a surprisingly modest sum of cash.

  “You understand that this can’t be used for a weapon, yes?” the man asked. He didn’t want her coming back, demanding a refund.

  “I do.”

  He glanced down at her pregnant stomach. “It’s just really bad for you.”

  “Yup.” She had done her research, as always. “Got it.”

  “The nuclear bomb is a hoax, Richie. With the very specific goal of preventing the military or police from acting too aggressively, too early. They wouldn’t risk an escalation to a nuclear detonation, or a conventional explosion that releases lethal agents.”

  “Lethal agents, huh?”

  “Although the case’s contents won’t be known for certain, the possibilities are too terrifying, especially at the Louvre.”

  “You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know that?”

  “Richie,” she said, “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Susanna and Chris were back out on the calle, walking away from the hotel with a bagful of cash.

  “How can you trust that guy?” her husband asked. “He’s complete slime. He’s not only a career criminal, but also a snitch. He’s not even an honorable crook.”

  “You’re completely right. I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him. Those are two of the main reasons why I want to use him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you? For the same reason we’re using that sociopath to drive the van in Paris.”

  Chris continued to not understand.

  For a long time, she’d hoped that one day her husband would eventually prove himself to be smarter than all previous experience had suggested. But he kept disappointing her, again and again. Luckily, he had other useful qualities.

  “We’re going to need to destroy the evidence, every last shred. Every link to us.”

  That’s when he finally figured it out; she could see the recognition cross his face. “Who?” he asked. “Me?”

  “No, you’ll be taking care of that piece of shit in Paris. Me, I’ll handle Benedetti. I’ve been waiting a long time for it.”

  * * *

  Susanna looks down at the Alps, bathed in the last of the rosy late-afternoon light. She can see the Matterhorn, its shape easily distinguishable even from up here. Some things are unmistakable, no way to be wrong no matter how you look at them.

  They must be flying above Switzerland.

  Huh.

  It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that the pilot would need to file an international flight plan, but of course he did. All rules may not apply when flying private, but some do.

  This is a nice plane, less opulent than she expected from Richie, but then again he bought it used from a distressed seller, so he didn’t get to make any choices about the décor. The pilot is polite, the hostess obsequious. There was no waiting to take off, there will be no long taxi at the other end; the travel time is minimal.

  There are many undeniable benefits to flying private, but for this flight the most operative one to her is this: no one cares if you bring a gun.

  72

  PARIS. 6:02 P.M.

  The door bangs open, Kate pushed it too hard, not calmly, not in control, expecting that on the far side will be a gun pointed at her—

  There isn’t.

  What’s in the waiting room is a doctor wearing a white coat, her sleeves dabbed with blood and a large stain on the front. Beside her is an old man, naked from the waist up, next to a messy pile of clothes exuding the stench of vodka.

  “You are here for an American with a gunshot wound?” the doctor asks, in English. She seems completely unsurprised by the appearance of a woman with a gun. “He left. Two minutes ago? Perhaps three. He too has a gun. I should tell you that I have already called the police.”

  Kate glances at the old man, who looks furious, his mouth working up to something, eyes burning into her.

  “That man,” he finally sputters. “He stole my clothes!”

  * * *

  Kate can feel the Vespa’s tires on the verge of slipping as she tears around the corner, onto a broader street with at least ten pedestrians in her sightline, but none is a man wearing a tweed jacket or a pink shirt.

  She continues to accelerate, then has to slow to turn another corner onto an even busier street, a commercial thoroughfare, there are dozens of people visible, near and far, and her eye is drawn down the hill, where a gaggle is gathered under the glass édicule of a Métro entrance, a large group emerging from the subway, trying to get their bearings—which way is the Moulin Rouge, Picasso’s studio, Sacré-Cœur—and dispersing just in time for Kate to see a grayish jacket, and just the sliver of pink collar, disappear down the stairs.

  * * *

  She lunges for the elevator doors—

  Too late.

  Stairs, then. This platform is the deepest in Paris, more than a hundred feet underground, signs tell you how many more steps before the top, encouraging you, pep talks. The two hundred stairs are divided into sets of ten, to make the climb up seem more manageable.

  But Kate is going down, down, racing around the circular stairwell, the murals whizzing by.

  She bounds onto the platform. A train is already in the station, and all the disembarked passengers are moving away, others are now boarding, she doesn’t see the gray jacket anywhere, and she’s sprinting toward the train, sprinting, the doors are beginning to close, she has just a few more steps but she can see that she’s not going to make it, but she keeps trying anyway, another step, another—

  Fuck.

  She doesn’t make it. The doors are closed.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  She is grateful for two things. One is that a man is holding open the next set of doors for her. Two is that he’s a good-looking yo
ung man who just mistook her for a mademoiselle.

  * * *

  She can’t waste time. If he’s even on this train, he might exit at the next station, he might change directions, he might depart the system.

  She pushes her way through the crowd. It’s rush hour now, the subway is packed. Luckily there are no doors between the cars, no barriers of any sort, so she can see a long distance.

  He’s relatively tall, the man she’s looking for. She suspects that his face won’t be recognizable, not from afar. Maybe he’s wearing facial hair, or eyeglasses, or he has an unusual hairstyle, or he’s cue-ball bald. She knows what he looked like a couple of years ago; she spent no small amount of time examining his face.

  She can still remember his frank open stare, his unabashed invitation to adultery, propositioning her right there on the Grand Rue. She wishes her memory is that she never even considered it, but that’s not what happened.

  He wouldn’t look the same now, not here, doing what he’s doing. He’d be disguised. As she is, but more so. Much more.

  The train is already slowing for the next station and she’s only halfway through, and hasn’t seen him yet.

  Kate’s phone dings an incoming text: Destination Le Bourget. Paris’s general-aviation airport. That woman is on a private plane en route to Paris.

  Of course.

  There’s a pair of very tall, very skinny African men standing in her path, and Kate can’t see much beyond them. “Excusez-moi,” she says, and when they part she can see all the way to the rear of the train, she can see everything clearly.

  73

  PARIS. 6:26 P.M.

  The Métro is nearly empty when they board. They take seats in a corner, ride in uneasy silence. The train sits for long stretches, delays that are explained by PA announcements that neither listens to. Colette and Hunter are not concerned with service delays, not after what they have been through.