by Tom Savage
Whoever he was, the man continued to follow them into the Marais arrondissement, along boulevard Beaumarchais to Hotel Lisette. It was a smallish four-story building on a corner, not much bigger than a guesthouse, and there was no doorman. Ben stopped in front of the awning and jumped out to assist her. When Nora got out of the car to enter the hotel, the blue-and-green cab glided slowly by them, gained speed, and vanished in the evening traffic.
So, Nora thought, now we all know where “Rose” is staying in Paris. With a shrug and a smile for the callow young agent who followed with her bag, she went inside to register.
Chapter 5
There were flowers in her hotel room, a dozen red roses. The vase on the dresser was the first thing Nora noticed when Ben Dysart preceded her inside with her bag and switched on the lights. Roses for “Rose,” she thought, smiling, wondering whose little joke it was. She noticed an enclosure card and resisted the urge to snatch it up at once and tear it open. First, she’d get rid of this young man.
“Thank you, Ben,” she said as he placed her suitcase on the rack at the foot of the bed. She glanced around at the small but tastefully decorated room. A bed, a dresser and chair, closet, bathroom, beige carpeting, two watercolor prints of Paris streets, and a big, curtained side window onto the fire escape with a view of the quiet side street. The other windows looked out on the boulevard at the front of the building. This corner room had been carefully chosen—it was on the second floor, next to the stairs to the lobby, with easy access to the fire escape so that she could leave through the window, if necessary, and go up or down; she’d have multiple options. It was fine for a few days.
Ben was all smiles, and he seemed reluctant to leave. “Do you have everything you need? Have you had dinner? I can go out for some—”
“No, thank you, I’m fine,” Nora assured him with her best theatrical smile. “I’ve been traveling all day, and I’m really rather tired; I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep. I’ll be meeting people in your office tomorrow. How far is it from here?”
This confused him, and Nora realized her mistake as soon as she saw his expression. The address was on her itinerary, but she’d neglected to memorize it.
“I thought you’d been here before,” he said, watching her. “Several times. I mean, that was my understanding…”
“Of course,” Nora said quickly. “But I’ve never been in the Paris station; there wasn’t any need until now.”
“Oh,” he said, and he smiled again. “I see. It’s west of here, on the Champs-Élysées, not far from the American embassy. I’ll come here tomorrow to drive you there. What time should I pick you up?”
Nora thought of her printed instructions. “I’m to be there at one o’clock, so shall we say twelve-thirty?”
“Fine,” he said. To her relief, he headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Ms. Waverly.”
“Good night.” Nora closed the door after him and leaned back against it, exhaling slowly. Dumb! she thought. That was dumb. I’m supposed to be the world’s greatest agent, and I don’t know where the Paris office of the CIA is located? He must think I’m demented.
She would have to be more careful. If she couldn’t fool her own people, how on earth would she fool anyone else? She was an actor, and a good one; she must get into character and remain that way until this exercise was over. She was tired from the plane, and she hoped that sleep would clear her mind and help her to focus on the work at hand.
She’d never been in this position before. It was Nora’s third job for the CIA, and only her second official one. Her first adventure, in England and France two years ago, had been a spur-of-the-moment accident: She’d stumbled into the middle of her husband’s operation and been forced to see it through to its deadly conclusion. Even so, she’d been aided by professional agents from several countries for that international case. On her first official assignment, the Russian defection in Venice three months ago, she’d been sent in with a whole team of people, and they’d been supervised from New York by the wonderful Ham Green.
This new assignment was different. She didn’t know Mr. Cole and the people she’d be meeting in Paris. She knew one French agent who lived a few blocks north of here, her friend who’d helped her—and saved her life—during her first case, but Jacques Lanier was an old man who’d since retired from the business, so he had no official standing. Jeff had joined her team for the Venice op, but he wasn’t available this time; he was handling other cases from his office in New York. Ham Green was in charge of those cases, so he’d be difficult to reach as well. Besides, they thought Chris Waverly was a real person, so how could Nora explain to them what she was doing?
She removed her trench coat, dropped it on a chair, and went over to the dresser. The enclosure turned out to be a greeting card with a whimsical pen-and-ink sketch of the Eiffel Tower on the cover and a handwritten note inside.
Julie,
Welcome to Paris. I’m looking forward to our lunch. Ben will take you to the office, and we’ll walk from there. You have my number, so please let me know if you need anything to make your stay more comfortable. See you tomorrow!
Amanda
Nora felt like kicking herself again. If she’d simply read the note when she’d entered the room, she wouldn’t have made that clumsy mistake with Ben Dysart. These people hadn’t given her a reason to second-guess them. Not yet, anyway…
She noted the name, Julie. So, Amanda Morris was using the false name, as opposed to the real false name, Chris Waverly. Ben Dysart, on the other hand, had been instructed to call Nora Ms. Waverly. Nora thought she understood all this: The Paris CIA people were covering all the bases, making sure whoever was following Nora would have no doubts as to her identity.
She peeled off her suit and went into the bathroom. A hot shower, and then she brushed her teeth, put on the old T-shirt and running shorts she liked to sleep in, and hung her suit in the closet. She was turning down the bedspread when she heard a sound outside her door: a single, faint click.
Nora paused, looking over at the door, wondering if Ben Dysart had found some reason to return. If so, she’d have to get rid of him. She was sure he meant well, but his enthusiasm verged on the annoying. She waited, holding her breath, but there was no subsequent sound from outside. She went over to the door and pressed her ear against it. Nothing.
Bracing herself, she quickly swung the door open. She stepped out of the room, looking up and down the hallway. The stairs were at the front end, next to her room, and the elevator was at the back. Eight doors, four on each side. Nora scanned everything, listening intently. Nothing, anywhere.
She returned to the room, checking to be sure the door locked behind her. The cellphone in her shoulder bag was unfamiliar, but she figured it out and called Jeff. No answer; his phone was turned off. She left a message: “Hi. I’m here at Hotel Lisette, and everything’s fine. I’ll talk to you soon. Good night, darling.”
She lay down and switched off the lamp, thinking that now she’d never be able to sleep. The click had sounded like her door closing. She’d been in the shower, and then she’d brushed her teeth. Ten minutes, all in all. Had someone been inside her room?
She switched on the lamp, got out of bed, and quickly searched the room, the closet, and the fire escape. Everything was as it had been; she was certain of it. It was too late in the evening for chambermaids or room service, so she doubted it was anyone from the hotel. If she were to make an educated guess, she’d bet it was the man from the airport.
Her shoulder bag. She went over to the chair where she’d left it and looked inside. Her brand-new wallet—her “Julie Campbell” wallet—lay at the top of the heap, with the usual contents beneath it: makeup bag, medicine bag, Totes umbrella, two scarves, and the big, floppy black beret Dana had given her one long-ago Christmas. Nora didn’t care who she was supposed to be—she never went anywhere without that beret. The bag also had her usual odds and ends: breath mints, cough drops, perf
ume atomizer, nail maintenance kit, travel toothbrush kit, travel packs of Kleenex, a notepad, a pen, and two paperback mystery novels. Everything was there, but it was different in one crucial detail: She’d carefully buried the wallet at the bottom of the bag, not the top.
Now she inspected the wallet. Julie Campbell’s driver’s license, credit cards, and nursing creds; Julie’s New York Public Library card and Profiles Health Club membership card; customer cards and discount coupons for D’Agostino’s supermarket and CVS—a nice touch on some CIA prop manager’s part; and nearly a thousand euros. She counted the money to be sure it was all there, then returned the wallet to the bottom of the bag. Her Julie Campbell passport and Social Security card were under the wallet, concealed by a false bottom her husband had installed there.
Back in bed, Nora thought about the mystery man. If he’d been in here, he’d waited until he could sneak in and out without being detected. If he’d wanted to harm her, he could easily have done so, but he hadn’t. This fact served to back up Mr. Cole’s assertion that she wasn’t TSB’s primary focus. It was all about the money.
If this man was TSB—and there was a good argument for that—he was trying to find out who “Julie Campbell” really was. He’d naturally use the earliest opportunity to gain access to her room and search her belongings. He knew the woman was a fake, a CIA plant whose job was to make TSB believe she was Chris Waverly, and he’d need proof to the contrary if he expected to cash in on his blackmail scheme.
This was the part of Edgar Cole’s plan that Nora found troubling. Mr. Cole knew that he couldn’t fool TSB, and it was clear to Nora that Mr. Cole had another plan entirely, one that would end in the capture or elimination of TSB. Edgar Cole was using her as bait: Here, kitty, kitty. Now Nora was in Paris with TSB, and the two of them were playing an elaborate game of I-know-you-know-and-you-know-I-know, and Nora wondered what would happen next in their little charade.
She was thinking about the man from the airport, committing his face to memory, when sleep overtook her.
Chapter 6
She had a new tail today.
Nora spotted the pretty, dark-haired young woman sitting in the hotel lobby as she was crossing it to go outside. She paused when she saw the familiar face, but the young woman frowned and buried her face in the magazine she was reading. Nora took her cue, ignoring the woman and continuing to the front entrance. She arrived at the curb at precisely twelve-thirty.
“Bonjour!” Ben Dysart said in his flat American accent, grinning as he held open the back door of the limousine. He handed her in, ran around to the driver’s side, and pulled away from the hotel. Nora turned her head to note that the woman from the lobby had followed her outside and entered the passenger side of a car waiting behind the limousine. She didn’t point this out to the young agent in the front seat.
Ben had a lot to learn about his profession, but he was an excellent driver, and he’d clearly memorized the often confusing streets of Paris. The car headed west through the thick midday traffic, arriving at the office building near the American embassy in mere minutes. He dropped her off at the curb, then drove away toward the entrance to the parking garage under the building. Following the instructions Ben had given her in the car, Nora went inside and announced herself to the receptionist as Ms. Campbell. She expected to be directed to an elevator bank, but instead the smiling young woman asked her to wait. Nora took a seat on a long couch along one wall, taking note of the people in the cavernous, marble-floored lobby.
Two middle-aged businessmen stood near the entrance, a young woman sat farther down the couch from her, and a wiry young man with red hair leaned against the far wall. The older men were conversing in French, something about the stock market; the woman texted, laughing as she read her cellphone screen; and the young man held a newspaper in front of him, but his gaze never rested on the pages. He was glancing around the lobby, frequently looking at Nora, who pegged him as a possible new member of Chris Waverly’s ever-growing fan club.
After a few minutes, the blond woman from the airport last night emerged from an elevator and came across the lobby toward Nora, holding out her arms. She wore a dark burgundy suit almost identical to the light blue one she’d worn last night, and Nora wondered if she had the same suit in several colors. Nora rose to greet her.
“Julie! Welcome to Paris!” Amanda Morris sang, folding Nora in a warm embrace. Nora, ever the actor, went along with it and hugged this complete stranger as though they were old friends.
“Hello, Amanda!” she said. “I’m so glad to be back.”
Now the woman took Nora’s arm and led her toward the front door of the building. “It’s a lovely walk to the café, and we couldn’t have better weather for it. Isn’t this a beautiful day?”
Nora murmured her agreement as they went out into the sunny afternoon. She smiled at her new best friend as they walked, but all the while she monitored the activity in the lobby behind them. Sure enough, the wiry young man with red hair ambled outside and proceeded to follow them across avenue Gabriel to the northeast corner of the Jardins des Champs-Élysées. They continued south along the eastern edge of the park and across the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, toward the river. Nora looked west down the wide avenue, marveling at the distant Arc de Triomphe in Place Charles de Gaulle.
“I’m sorry to have brought you out of your way,” Amanda said. “We could have just met up at the restaurant. When I asked you to meet me here at the office, I was planning to introduce you to everyone in the Paris station and, um, give you something. I thought you might like to have a gun.”
Nora shook her head. “No, I don’t think I’d want—”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Amanda went on. “My suggestion was nixed by our employers. You aren’t registered to carry a weapon, and they decided it was a bad idea in any case, so there wasn’t really any point in parading you around the office. But at least we’re putting on a good show for the people following you.” She looked over at the beautiful gardens beside them. “You’ve seen all this before, yes?”
“Many times,” Nora said. “But I can never get enough of it. Paris is one of my favorite places. And you?”
Amanda shrugged, looking around her. “I’ve lived here for five years, on and off. I shuttle back and forth between here and Washington, wherever the Company needs me at any given time. I love it, too.”
“Where’s your home?” Nora asked.
Amanda Morris shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t have a home. Not yet, anyway.”
Nora remained silent, but she thought, Career CIA. She’d met a couple of Jeff’s colleagues over the years, men who’d devoted their lives to America’s protective agencies, at the expense of partners, children, or even close friends. Jeff referred to them as “the loners” in the secret world, but this was the first female loner Nora had encountered.
On the south side of the avenue, Amanda steered them east across Place de la Concorde. Nora glanced over at the Obelisk of Luxor, which she always thought of as “Cleopatra’s Needle,” before looking back through the trees toward the Grand Palais and Petit Palais in the park, straining her eyes to keep track of the young man who still followed them. She was about to mention him when her companion beat her to it.
“That’s Chuck,” Amanda said. “He’s with us, and he’s watching out for anyone taking more than a passing interest in you. Ed—Mr. Cole was most adamant on that point. You spotted me at the airport last night, didn’t you? I figured you would. Mr. Cole says you’re an actress, and you’re very good at this. Chuck and I will keep an eye on you while you’re in Paris.”
Nora smiled. “And how about the charming Ben Dysart?”
Amanda shook her head. “No, he just does the driving. Ben means well, I suppose,
but…”
“Yes, he’s awfully green,” Nora said.
This made Amanda laugh, a surprisingly light sound from the serious young woman. “Straight out of the garden! He’s so enthusiastic,
like a puppy dog—a great big puppy dog. It’s almost refreshing to meet someone as naïve as he is.”
“And the man at the airport?” Nora nodded. “Have you identified him?”
“Not yet. I got a couple of shots of him with my phone, and they’re running them through the system, but nothing so far. Ah, here we are.”
They’d crossed the square and entered a cobbled street that ran parallel to the river. Now they arrived at the awning of an open-fronted restaurant with sidewalk tables. Nora looked up at the awning: MA MAISON.
“My favorite bistro,” Amanda said. “And I’ve reserved my favorite table in the back. Let’s not make it too easy for them to spy on us, whoever ‘they’ are. But they’re here somewhere; I’m sure of it. That’s the whole point of this exercise.” She leaned toward Nora and whispered, “Let’s do this, Mrs. Baron.”
Nora smiled and whispered, “Nora.”
Amanda whispered, “Hello, Nora.” Then, in a loud voice, she said, “Come along, Julie! You’re going to love this place!” With that, she walked into the restaurant, where a smiling hostess waited for them.
Nora paused in the doorway, glancing back at the young man, Chuck, as he made his way toward a vacant sidewalk table. Beyond him, in the distance, the dark-haired young woman from the hotel lobby was approaching the restaurant as well. Then Julie Campbell, aka Chris Waverly, code name “Rose,” went inside and followed Amanda to their table.
Chapter 7
“Allow me to order for you,” Amanda said, “and then I’ll tell you all about yourself.”
Nora smiled and nodded, relaxing back in her seat in the dark, quiet corner of the restaurant. Amanda had strategically placed Nora on the banquette along the back wall, facing the open front and the street, while she sat in a chair facing the wall. Okay, Nora thought, I’m suitably on display.