It was raining steadily now, and the rain cooled Louis’s head and washed the blood from his face. His right eye was swollen shut, and he tried to follow in Renard’s steps.
Renard could not tell how far they had climbed, but it seemed like a long way. He hoped they might go on forever. If they did not stop, then nothing bad would happen. But Coburn finally said, “All right. That’s far enough.” There was a deep hole in front of where they stopped. A large grave had been dug in the earth. It was meant for one, but it would do for three.
Louis turned slowly to face Coburn. “Coburn,” he said, “do you know how telephone messaging works?” His split and swollen lip got in the way of his words.
“What?!” said Coburn, not quite believing what he was hearing.
Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out another cell phone. He held it toward Coburn. “Telephone messaging.” He pronounced the words as clearly as he could manage. “When it is on, the phone records everything you say. Long or short. And the message is always there in someone’s mailbox. It can be retrieved at any time. And it’s accessible to anyone with the access code. It is amazing, isn’t it? This phone has been recording a message since I walked into your cabin. Everything that we say is being recorded,” said Louis, and held the phone directly in front of Coburn’s face.
This time Coburn hit Louis with the pistol. Louis’s head whipped to the side, his legs buckled, and he collapsed and rolled into the muddy grave. Jennifer began moaning. It was a low, piercing, animal sound, a sustained note of agony, and it went on and on. Coburn grabbed her tighter, but she did not stop.
“Kneel down,” Coburn said to Renard.
Renard looked puzzled. “Nil?” he said. He did not understand.
“Down!” said Coburn, pointing toward the grave with the pistol. Renard understood this time. He got on his knees at the edge of the grave. He closed his eyes and prepared, as best he could, to be shot. He tried to picture Isabelle and everything he loved, but all he could see was the grave in front of him with Louis lying on the muddy bottom, his body twisted crazily and blood seeping from the gash in his head.
When the shot came, it rang like a great brass gong beside Renard’s ear. It echoed in his head and through the woods, and died out slowly. Renard knew he had not been hit. And in front of him he saw Louis struggling to climb out of the grave, so he had not been hit either. He was clawing at the dirt, a look of wild determination and horror on his face. Jennifer had stopped shrieking.
Renard was afraid to turn around and see what he knew he would see. But when he turned, Jennifer was still standing, her head buried in her hands, and it was Coburn who was lying on the ground. His face was white, his eyes had rolled back in his head, and his mouth opened and closed soundlessly like the mouth of a fish. His hands clutched at his middle, opening and closing and opening again, grasping at air, not knowing what to do, as though they had forgotten how to be hands. He rocked back and forth on the ground. He might have been rocking himself to sleep, except that his back was arched grotesquely.
Michael stood over Coburn, holding the iron shovel above his head, ready to hit Coburn again and break the rest of his ribs if he even threatened to get up. But Coburn just moaned. His breath came in short, jagged gasps. Then he fainted. A small trickle of blood seeped from his nose and from one corner of his mouth. His hands dropped to his sides and turned skyward like two dead birds. His gun lay in the leaves beside him, still smoking. It had fired into the trees when the shovel had slammed into his ribs.
Renard climbed down into the hole and lifted Louis out. Louis knelt on all fours for a while with his head hanging down before rising unsteadily to his feet. He picked up Coburn’s pistol and, without a word, handed it to Michael. Michael looked at his father in horror.
“No, no,” said Louis. “Don’t shoot him. Just keep the gun.”
With Renard and Michael supporting Louis and Jennifer, the four made their way slowly down the hill. When they reached the cabin, they stopped long enough for Michael to tear out the telephone connections and to take the two cell phones he found. He let the air out of the SUV’s tires and ripped out some wires under the hood. Halfway down the mountain, he hurled Coburn’s car keys into the woods. Finally, they reached their car.
Michael sat in the backseat and held Jennifer in his arms while she sobbed. “It’s okay, Jenny,” he said over and over. “It’s okay.”
Renard drove and Louis sat beside him, gazing straight ahead. He held a towel against the side of his head. Every part of him hurt. He leaned back against the headrest with a groan. “Should we find a doctor,” asked Renard.
“No,” said Louis.
They drove back through Perryville. People stood about chatting in front of the church. A man wearing a baseball cap and a puffy red vest crossed in front of them, his hands stuck into his vest pockets. Renard wondered whether that might be Mr. Price.
They drove back to Washington in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. When they were on the Beltway on their way to Baltimore, Louis fished Coburn’s two phones from his pocket and examined them. Each had quite a few local Washington numbers stored in its directory. Many were identified with names, and one was listed as HB. Louis selected that number and pressed the call button. After a few rings, Hugh Bowes answered.
Louis was silent.
“Coburn? Is that you?” said Hugh. “Hello? … Coburn?”
Louis hung up the phone.
XV
For hours Coburn lay on his back in the mud beside the empty grave. It was raining steadily. His clothes were soaked through, and after a while he began to shiver, occasionally at first, but then continually. This slight, involuntary motion caused his broken ribs to saw back and forth inside his body, stabbing at his lungs and other organs, and sending him into paroxysms of agony. He cried and moaned without knowing he was doing so.
As night began to fall Coburn groped about gingerly until his hand found the shovel. He pulled it to him and, using it as a prop, managed, with great effort, to pull himself to his knees and then, after a while, to his feet. He stood there for a long time, swaying back and forth. Then, using the shovel as a kind of crutch, he began staggering down the hill. It was growing dark, and the ground was treacherous. Coburn slipped and slid in the mud until his feet went out from under him. He collapsed with a cry onto a clump of brush.
He lay there without moving, his moans being the only indication that he was still alive. Finally he got on his knees and back on his feet. He took a few unsteady steps and fell again. Each time he fell, he remained where he fell for a long time, thinking he would die there. But each time, he managed to pull himself upright and make it a bit further, only to fall again. After two hours of this terrible journey, Coburn crawled up the front stairs of the cabin and collapsed on a bench on the porch.
The next morning Ed Price, who worked at the cabin as a handyman and caretaker, and who had given Louis directions up the mountain the night before, tried to call Coburn on his cell phone. There was no answer. Ed and his wife, Merleen, who did occasional housekeeping at the cabin, had received strict instructions not to call or go up to the cabin when Coburn was in town. But now, after some discussion, they agreed that, in light of the fact that Lou’s father had said there was a family emergency, it might be a good idea if Ed were to drive up and make sure everything was all right.
Ed Price found the man he knew as Lou Coburn lying on the porch floor beside the bench. His face was pale and swollen, his lips were peeled back from his teeth, his eyes were rolled back in his head. His body was grotesquely twisted, and his hands were knit into tight fists. At first Ed thought he was dead. Coburn was, as Ed later told Merleen, “a right pitiful sight.”
He tried to help Coburn into his truck to drive him to the hospital, but even just touching Coburn’s arm caused him to scream out in agony. Ed didn’t have a cell phone, so he drove back down the mountain to town and called 911. Then he drove back up to sit with Coburn until the ambulance came. It
seemed to take forever, but finally he could hear the siren down below. Mountain Road was a muddy mess from all the rain, and it took the ambulance a good ten minutes to work its way up to where they were.
Two emergency medical technicians covered Coburn with thermal blankets and gave him injections to ease the pain. They put an oxygen mask over his face and carefully slid him onto a stretcher, which they then loaded into the ambulance. One of the men described his condition over the radio as the other drove back down the mountain. They took Coburn to the hospital in nearby Warrenton. But by the time Ed and Merleen Price tried to visit him there, Coburn had already been airlifted to Washington. Nobody could tell them which hospital.
Ed and Merleen Price learned later that Coburn did not die, although he had been suffering from severe hypothermia and his injuries were grievous. One day a man in a dark suit appeared at their door. Ed and Merleen were thanked for their work and told, regretfully, that their services would no longer be needed. The man gave them both generous severance bonuses in cash. The Prices never saw or heard from Lou Coburn again.
When Ed went back up Mountain Road to collect some tools he had left there, the cabin had been cleaned out, including his tools. Not a stick of furniture was left, and the electricity was off. Even the curtains and curtain rods had been removed. The cabin, which it turned out had been owned by a corporation in Maryland, was eventually sold.
Coburn stayed in Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, for three weeks. Early in his convalescence he was visited by two Agency officials, who inquired after his injuries but did not ask about the events that had brought them about. The next day the phone by his bedside rang. He struggled to lift the receiver. “Yes,” he said, his voice a raspy whisper. When he recognized Hugh Bowes on the other end of the line, he hoisted himself up into a half-sitting position, even though it hurt him to do so. “Yes sir,” said Coburn.
“How are you doing, Coburn? How are you recovering from your injuries?”
“I’m getting better, sir,” said Coburn. “The doctors say it could take months to recover completely.” Then he gave Hugh an honest and unsparing description of events as he remembered them. He could not remember what had happened at the end, how he had been knocked down, or by whom, although he assumed he had been struck with the shovel and that it was the son, Michael, who had hit him. “Jennifer is still alive,” he said. “They all are.”
“The main thing is that you are still alive,” said Hugh. “These are very dangerous people, Coburn. We have issued a countrywide alert. All airport and railroad personnel have been notified, and police and border crossing agents have been alerted. They will undoubtedly try to leave the country, but an all-points bulletin has been issued. Morgon and the others have been described in detail, and photos have been supplied. They have been described as armed and dangerous, and their capture and arrest has been given the absolute highest priority. We will get them. They will find it absolutely impossible to escape. The war on terror has been brought home to American soil. These terrorists will be apprehended.
“I am grateful for your work and sacrifice, Coburn.” Hugh continued. “The president has asked that I express the country’s gratitude on his behalf. I have recommended that you be given the distinguished service medal and a promotion. The United States of America cannot thank you enough. The war against terror is long and difficult and will exact many sacrifices.”
Coburn listened to this peculiar speech in puzzled silence. It was not until Hugh Bowes mentioned the war on terror’s many sacrifices that Coburn realized Hugh was speaking for someone else’s benefit, someone who was there with him, and that he, Coburn, was being hung out to dry.
After they left Washington, Louis, Jennifer, Michael, and Renard proceeded past Philadelphia and New York, and headed north on the New York State Thruway. They stopped at a shopping mall near Albany, where Jennifer and Michael bought clothes, toiletries, and suitcases.
Louis got out of the car in Plattsburgh, just below Montreal, and Renard, Jennifer, and Michael continued across the border into Canada. The all-points bulletin had, of course, not been issued. They showed their passports—Louis had gotten Jennifer’s from her apartment—and were waved through by the Americans and by the Canadians. They abandoned their rental car in a fast-food parking lot on the outskirts of Montreal and continued by taxi to the Hotel Terminus, a small establishment adjacent to the train station.
The three were having dinner in the hotel restaurant when Louis came through the door. He had a plastic bandage on his forehead, and his lip and right eye were still bruised and swollen. It hurt to do so, but he smiled broadly when he saw them.
Later, in his room, Louis described for them how he had crossed the border on a bus filled with elderly Americans on their way to Canada to buy prescription drugs. He had signed up for their excursion in Plattsburgh. At the border, American and Canadian border guards entered the bus, looked at all the gray heads, and got off.
Louis opened his knapsack and took out Coburn’s pistol. He gave it to Renard who, as a policeman, was permitted to carry a pistol in his checked baggage. “But why?” Renard wondered.
“Coburn’s prints will be all over it,” Louis said. “It is one more piece of evidence.” The next day they purchased separate tickets on separate flights, Renard filled out the appropriate papers to transport a firearm, and by the end of the following afternoon they had all four cleared customs at Charles de Gaulle Airport. They caught a train for Quimper. Renard left them in Le Mans. “A bientôt,” he said, and then added in English, “I will see you soon.”
When Louis and his children arrived by taxi in Pen’noch, people in the square, including the women he had seen on the day of his first arrival, greeted him by name. “Bonjour, Monsieur Bertrand.”
Louis introduced Michael and Jennifer to his neighbors. “They have come to stay with me for a while,” he said. The fact that he had children, there in the flesh, had the effect of erasing any remaining doubts the people of Pen’noch may have harbored about Louis Bertrand, the Irish painter. A few congenitally suspicious souls struggled to keep their suspicions alive, but to little avail.
Monsieur Bertrand’s daughter seemed very sad. She had obviously suffered some terrible loss, which disposed people kindly toward her. Despite their natural curiosity, the villagers were discreet and protective toward Louis and his family and did not inquire too closely about whatever tragedy might have befallen Jennifer. After all, tragedy and unhappiness were not strangers in the Finistère.
“If there is something we can do …,” they offered, but Louis graciously declined their help, as everyone knew he would. Of course people speculated among themselves. Perhaps her husband had been killed. Perhaps she had lost a child. But each speculation only increased their sympathy for her.
Louis invited Jean Pierre Lamarche for dinner. Louis steamed a large pot of mussels in white wine and roasted Brussels sprouts and tossed them in vinaigrette. Jean Pierre arrived with a bottle of Chinon and a bouquet of violets, but Michael and Jennifer stayed away.
“I apologize for Michael and Jennifer,” said Louis. “The cottage is small for three people, and they feel they need time to themselves.”
Jean Pierre shrugged. “These are for you then,” he said with a smile, handing the violets to Louis. “There is no need to apologize.”
Jennifer left the cottage each morning and took long, solitary walks along the cliffs and the beach while Michael disappeared with his drawing kit. The days grew shorter and the fog drifted ashore earlier in the day.
Louis went to Quimper each week to pick up the mail, and Jennifer and Michael went along just to get away. In Quimper they went their separate ways, walking through the city, or visiting a museum, or shopping, or just sitting in a café and watching people leading their ordinary lives. What could possibly be more wonderful than leading an ordinary life?
“I can’t stay here,” said Jennifer one afternoon. They had just returned to Pen’noch, and she took of
f her jacket and shook the rain from it. Louis put the mail on the table. “I just can’t live like this,” said Jennifer.
“Like what?” said Louis.
“Like this,” said Michael. “Jenny’s right. We’re stuck here. I can’t stand it either.”
“We have no choice,” said Louis. “It won’t go on …”
“Yes, we do,” said Michael. “We have a choice. And yes, it will go on. What’s going to change? Nothing. Nothing will change. It could go on forever.”
“Is it really that hard on you?” Louis wondered. “It has only been—”
“What?! You’re kidding, aren’t you? Or you have no idea,” said Jennifer. “No idea at all.” She stepped toward him and made him look at her. “Spies, assassination, murder, that’s what you know. That’s your life. But it’s not mine. I never wanted it to be mine.”
“That’s not fair …,” Louis began.
“What the hell does fair have to do with it?!” Michael was suddenly on his feet and shouting. “We’re hiding out in this godforsaken corner of the world because of the life YOU chose to live. YOU put us in danger. We were safe when you were gone from our lives.”
“You know what, Dad?” said Jennifer. “Your whole life is about deceit and betrayal. You betrayed Mom. You betrayed us when we were little. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with … Jesus, I don’t even know what to call him. Who is he? I don’t even know. Maybe I fell in love with him because he was treacherous like you. Who are you? I don’t even know that either. Are you Louis Bertrand? Is Louis Morgon even your real name? Who are you? You are the master of betrayal. That’s who.
“I’ve lost my clinic. It was my life, and now it’s gone. And Michael has a wife he can only talk to by telephone and write letters to through a mail drop. She doesn’t even know where he is. And why is that?”
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