“Don’t worry, Coburn,” said Harney. “They’re still on our side.”
“They’re here to keep us honest,” said Hugh. At that moment his telephone rang.
“Yes?” he said. “Where? … All right.” He hung up the phone. “We’re to take one car, drive down the dune road”—he looked around—”right there, then drive out onto the beach toward the water’s edge and park next to another car.” Everyone looked up and down the beach, but there was no car to be seen. “He said we’d see him once we were on the beach.” With Harney’s assistance Hugh got back into the limousine. Harney got in front and Coburn drove.
As they started slowly down the sand track, Harney spoke into his microphone. “Everyone ready? Fire team one? … two? … three? Here we go then. Deploy.” As the car descended, Harney could see his snipers fanning out along the top of the dunes. They carried boxes of ammunition and long-barreled weapons with telescopic sights. Harney recited instructions about rules of engagement, fields of fire, and particular signals they might need. He listened for their acknowledgments.
Hugh gazed out the window. He was not even thinking about Louis. He only marveled at the magnificent grandeur of this beach. He had never liked beaches. The sand was unpleasant and inconvenient. It got into everything. But this beach was different. He could see how you might love this beach. If Hugh had known more about it, he might have felt differently.
XXII
Along most coastlines of the world the tides rise and fall by one or two meters, gently marking the moon’s gravitational pull. But there are a few spots around the planet where, owing to a confluence of deep ocean currents, a favorable rotation of the earth, and other geographical peculiarities, the tides can run to fifteen meters and more, and where they push and pull the water with such force and speed that the event, even for those who have watched it, defies imagination.
As the tide rushes out at the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, which measures the world’s highest tides—above sixteen meters—harbors are left empty and vast tracts of the ocean floor are laid bare. After approximately six and a half hours of rushing out, the tide turns. It moves back in with equal speed: up to eight knots (four meters a second), and the volume and the force of the moving water in some places equals that of all the rivers of the world combined.
Mont-Saint-Michel, the much visited citadel on the northern coast of Brittany, has a very different geography, but again the tides—the largest in Europe—are enormous. They can be nearly fifteen meters high. And here too a vast expanse of the ocean bottom is laid bare when the tide is out. Where there was water a few hours earlier, there are sand and mudflats extending fifteen kilometers out from shore. Because it is such a beguiling and apparently benign landscape, tourists are occasionally tempted, despite notices and warnings, to wander out onto the flats. They do so at their peril. Some drown in the returning water or in quicksand, which is in a different place after every tide. Or the fog arrives suddenly and, thinking they are headed for shore, they walk to the water.
The beach by Pen’noch where Louis and Hugh were set to meet is of course much less known than Mont-Saint-Michel, but its tides are comparable and they are no less treacherous. They run nearly as high, and the beach is vast and flat to the same deceptive effect. The low tide retreats far from shore. And when it returns, the return is sudden and rapid. Emile Zola once visited the beach at Pen’noch and wrote in a letter of the tide coming in “à la vitesse d’un cheval au galop”—at the speed of a galloping horse.
The locals know enough to avoid the tides by Pen’noch. And nowadays there are tide tables and notices posted in every hotel, in shops, in post offices, and on harbor bulletin boards so that visiting boaters may tie up properly and not later find their boats dangling from their moorings. There are signs at every point of beach access to warn of the dangers—the tides, the quicksand, and the fog—so that prudent walkers can travel safely across the beach. Except that Louis had removed the signs from around the parking area where Hugh and his entourage had just arrived.
The sand on the track down the dune was smooth going. The limousine rocked gently as they drove. At the bottom Coburn steered the car onto the beach and headed west. The sand was hard packed here too and gave only slightly under the tires. You could hear it splattering up inside the wheel wells. They drove easily and slowly away from the dunes and toward the water. The French forces who had taken up positions in front of one of the German bunkers watched them pass. The car continued slowly out toward the horizon.
Suddenly a small car appeared from behind a bunker down the beach and began driving on a course parallel to theirs. It drove at the same speed they were driving. It did not try to converge with their course, but continued straight ahead. After a while the car stopped. They had traveled far enough that the bunkers were but small dots on the horizon behind them.
“He’s out of range of the snipers,” said Harney. “And he can see anyone coming for miles. Not stupid.” Coburn swung the limousine in a wide arc and drove toward the parked vehicle. As they approached he slowed down. He could see Louis in the driver’s seat. No one else appeared to be in the car.
“It looks like he’s alone,” said Coburn.
“I doubt it,” said Harney. “The car could be booby-trapped. Or someone could be in back. He’d be nuts to be alone.”
“He’s alone,” said Hugh. And at that moment Louis got out of the car and walked toward them. He stood alone and exposed, twenty meters from any cover.
“He’s nuts,” said Harney. Neither Hugh nor Coburn said anything.
Louis stood and waited. The salt air filled his nostrils. The wind riffled through his hair. The sun hung pale to the south, and Louis turned to face it, all but ignoring the three men. He watched the sailboats darting gaily back and forth in the distance. He even closed his eyes for a moment while he waited for Hugh and his companions to assure themselves that it was safe to get out of their car.
Louis turned as three doors on the limousine opened at the same time. He watched the two younger men step out first. The front passenger stepped to the rear door and reached down to help Hugh. Hugh put his feet down on the sand and, with the passenger’s help and by holding on to the door of the car, pulled himself upright. He steadied himself for a moment. Then all three men began walking toward Louis.
Louis did not know the passenger, but he recognized Coburn. He was not entirely surprised to see him. The three men moved slowly. The sand gave slightly under their feet, and Hugh held Harney’s arm for support. They stopped when they were directly in front of Louis. Louis and the three men looked at one another in silence for a long moment.
“You’ve brought us a long distance, Louis,” said Hugh finally. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble, and you’ve promised a great deal. I hope you intend to keep your promises.”
“I promised to reveal everything I know about the inner workings of al Qaeda,” said Louis. “Here is what I have.” As he reached inside his jacket, both Harney and Coburn moved their hands to their jackets. Louis stopped and pulled his jacket open with two fingers to show that he was reaching for a piece of paper. The two men lowered their hands but kept their eyes on his hands. Louis withdrew the paper slowly and held it toward Hugh.
Hugh took the sheet of paper and looked at it. He turned it over. “There’s nothing on this paper,” he said, holding it toward Harney. “There’s nothing on it,” he said again. He sounded incredulous, then indignant. “It’s blank. It was a trick to get us out here.” He held the paper toward Coburn so that Coburn could see for himself the extent of Louis’s treachery.
Hugh lifted his hand with the paper in it and after a moment threw the paper into the wind. The paper tumbled swiftly across the sand, turning end over end, growing smaller and smaller until it was out of sight.
“You knew, of course,” said Louis finally, “that there wouldn’t be anything on that paper. You knew that, Hugh. You know better than anyone that I have nothing to do with al Qaeda. You fabrica
ted my terrorist history as a way of doing away with me. I simply made use of your fabrication to get you out here. Don’t you feel even some slight obligation to explain to these men how you used and deceived them? Before we finish our business.”
Harney’s eyes narrowed, and he looked hard at Louis for a long second. Then he said to Coburn, “You hold him while I get Secretary Bowes back to shore.”
Coburn was already reaching into his jacket, but Louis was faster. He pulled a large pistol—Coburn’s pistol—from the back of his pants and pointed it at Coburn. “Leave it,” said Louis. But Coburn continued drawing his pistol. Louis waited until he saw it, then he shot Coburn just below the left shoulder. Coburn was dead instantly. The impact of the bullet turned him around and he fell facedown, his eyes wide open, his mouth full of sand.
Harney and Hugh stood transfixed. “Into my car,” Louis said. After a moment’s hesitation the three men moved as one toward the little car. “Not you,” he said to Harney when they got there. He patted Harney down and removed one pistol from inside his jacket and another from his calf. He removed Harney’s earphone and microphone. “Stand right there,” said Louis, “and keep your hands behind your head and your back to me. If you so much as look around, I will shoot you.” Harney stood facing the sea, his fingers locked behind his neck, his elbows stretching up. Louis patted down Hugh, but he had no weapons.
Hugh got into the passenger’s seat of Louis’s car as Louis instructed, and Louis got in on the driver’s side. From the dunes the sharpshooters with their powerful scopes could probably just see the car but not who was in it or where they sat. They would not have heard the shot at that distance, but they could probably make out Harney standing outside and Coburn lying in the sand. Now that Coburn was down and something had happened, the French and American troops would be advancing across the sand. Helicopters would be arriving soon.
“Now what?” said Hugh.
“A short wait,” said Louis.
“For what?”
Louis did not answer. The two men sat in silence.
“You’re finished, you know,” said Hugh.
Louis looked at Hugh. “I know,” he said. “And you’re finished too.”
“You’re going to kill me?” said Hugh.
“Not exactly,” said Louis. He was silent for a while longer. Then he cocked his head to one side and looked to the west. The sailboats were still zipping back and forth, their sails snapping and billowing in the wind. The sloop with the red sails looked like one of Jean Pierre’s.
“Listen,” said Louis. “Roll the window down and listen.” Hugh looked puzzled, but he did as he was told. He heard a roaring sound. Harney too was leaning forward, listening and looking, trying to see what was making that noise.
“That will be the helicopters,” said Hugh.
“Listen again,” said Louis. Hugh cocked his head to the side. “It’s the tide,” said Louis.
Hugh still refused to understand. “Start the car,” he ordered.
“We’re staying,” said Louis. Then they saw the water coming toward them, urgently pushed by lapping waves, advancing second by second, taking steady, relentless bites out of the sand. It was in front of them. It inched up the low rise on which the car sat. Then it was under them. Then it was past them, rushing toward the shore. Harney dropped his arms to his sides. He turned to face them, but Louis did not shoot him.
“Please,” Harney said. “You can’t do this. It’s murder. Let him go. Let me save him. Don’t you realize what you’re doing, who this is?”
“Oh, yes,” said Louis. “I know who this is. And if you make it back to Washington, you will know too. There’s a large packet of evidence on its way there. Everyone will know who this is.” Hugh could only stare in disbelief at the water that was everywhere.
In the end, of course, Louis was wrong. After all, what good purpose would have been served by revealing Hugh Bowes’s crimes to the general public? It would only have undermined the faith of the American people in their government. Instead, Hugh’s death would be announced as a tragic accident, and he would be celebrated as an American hero.
It is not entirely accurate to say that the sand here is flat or that it rises toward the shore. The sand is generally flat and it generally rises. But in the three or more kilometers Harney had to cover if he was going to reach the dunes, the surface undulated. True, the undulations were scarcely noticeable. It was a matter of centimeters here and there. But the water found the undulations like a swift animal instinctively seeking out the low ground. Harney stood on slightly elevated, still dry sand, while the limousine a short distance away stood in water up to its hubcaps. Harney could look toward the shore and see where the water was pooling, where it was forming rivulets and pushing ahead, and where the water had not yet arrived. But even as he watched, the nearest islands of sand collapsed and disappeared into the rising tide.
Harney started running. He lost his shoes almost immediately in a patch of soft sand that sucked first one then the other from his feet. But he was a strong and determined runner. He tried to read the water, to see where the slightly shallower water might be, and at first he was successful. He lifted his legs, getting his feet out of the water in order to run faster. The tide was with him, pushing at the back of his legs, which gave him courage.
Harney shed his jacket and his vest and his holster as he ran. For a while he kept pace with the tide. It did not seem to be getting ahead of him. Then he suddenly found himself in a place where the sand dipped slightly downward. It was only a matter of fifteen centimeters, six inches maybe, but the water was to his knees. Then it got deeper still.
Harney was not running now. He had to fight to move forward, swinging his arms and hurling his body forward. His breath came in gasps. He did not think he could go on, but he kept on anyway. Then he was suddenly in shallower water again, and he ran again for all he was worth. Then it sloped downward again. And so it went for what seemed an eternity. The closer he got to the dunes, the more the sand undulated. He reached a deeper pool. The water was roaring and swirling about.
When Harney was finally met by the French special forces, he was half swimming and half wading. The soldiers caught him up in their arms, and the water surged around them as they pulled him to shore, where he collapsed. They had called for amphibious vehicles, but no one had been prepared for this and so they were still waiting.
After watching the water, transfixed, for he did not know how long, Hugh Bowes opened the car door. Harney was gone. The limousine off a slight distance was sitting at an odd angle, the water halfway up its side. Hugh could see that Louis was not going to stop him. He stepped out into the water. He closed the door. The water was not very deep where he stood, but he was weak and the force and movement of it knocked his feet from under him. He fell, cracking his head on the car’s fender and landing on his back. He lay there stunned for a moment, then rolled onto his side with difficulty and got to his hands and knees. He stood up as best he could and staggered about, trying to find his footing. “The helicopters!” he shouted, but there were no helicopters.
He took a few hesitant steps toward the distant shore and fell again, pulled over again by the currents and the unreliable bottom. He stood up again. He fell again and stood up again, fell and stood up. After Hugh had fallen a few more times, Louis could see that, although he was moving toward shore, he was also moving into deeper water. Each time he fell, he remained down longer before he got up again. Now his face went into the water, and he came up gasping and spitting. The water was too deep where he found himself for him to rest on his hands and knees, and he splashed and flailed about until he somehow managed to stand. Louis could see that Hugh was exhausted.
Louis could not hear Hugh’s sobs above the roar of the water, but he could see his mouth opening and closing, his lips peeled back from his teeth, his wide-open eyes looking about wildly as he struggled to keep his head out of the rising tide, to stand against the powerful surge. Louis had imagined that
he could watch Hugh die without feeling either sorrow or guilt, but in the moment that Coburn had pitched forward onto the sand, everything had changed. Now he saw what he had engineered reflected in Hugh’s desperate fight to remain alive, in the terror on his face.
Louis tried to distract himself so the inevitable would come more quickly. If the water rises ten meters in six hours, that’s, let’s see: one and a half meters an hour. That’s five feet an hour. That’s a foot every twelve minutes. The water’s been here maybe fifteen minutes? Louis looked at his watch. Maybe twenty. In less than half an hour the car will be gone. I will be gone. It will be over. In fact, the water was rising faster than that. But even twenty minutes was a long time to die this way.
The sea was coming into the car through the floorboards. Louis felt the force of the tide pushing against the car, rocking it. He felt the car list to the left as the wheels sank into the softening sand. He remembered standing on the beach once at the water’s edge—where had it been? Florida?—and letting the water cut the sand out from under his bare feet. That was long ago. How old had he been? Twelve maybe. He had tottered unsteadily until he had fallen over, laughing. Red and white umbrellas were flapping along the beach. A skywriter was spelling out something. N … I … V …
When Louis tried to get out of the car he could not open his door. The water swept against it, holding it closed. When he finally got the door open, the water pulled it open the rest of the way, nearly tearing it from its hinges. The water rushed through the car, pushed against his chest, and held him pressed in his seat. Louis managed to get out but was almost immediately swept off his feet. He did not see Hugh. Where is Hugh?
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