Echo of War

by Grant Blackwood

  “And the prints?”

  “Eight point match on each,” the Latent man replied. “Same person handled both slips.”

  Oliver slapped his palm on the table and whooped. “Hot damn! Did you—”

  “Already fed it into IAFIS,” the Latent tech replied, referring to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, pronounced “ay-fis.” The Latent Print Unit and IAFIS—which contains over 38 million individual fingerprints—form the FBI’s Disaster Squad, which responds to both man-made and natural disasters to help local and federal authorities identify victims. “If he’s in the database, we should have a hit by mid-morning.”

  “Thanks, guys, you’ve made our day.”

  They talked for a few more minutes and then everyone left except for Oliver and McBride.

  Joe glanced over at his adopted partner. “So, what’s your denomination?”

  Oliver laughed. “You name it, I’m joining it.”

  9

  St Malo, France

  Founded in the seventh century by a vagabond Welsh monk named Maclow, the city of St. Malo has been sitting astride the Ranee Estuary on France’s Emerald Coast for over fourteen hundred years, during which time it has been a nexus for war, rebellion, and independent spirit, a history which Malouins and the people of Brittany proudly guard to this day.

  During the League Wars of the late 1500s the people of St. Malo rejected the local governor, a protestant, then stormed the castle, routed the local garrison, and declared their independence as a sovereign nation. In the seventeenth century St. Malo grew into one of the richest ports in Britanny, a haven for merchants, pirates, and corsairs plying the trade routes of India, China, and Africa. In the late 1600s Britain’s William of Orange, hoping to break the city’s economical hold on the Emerald Coast, let loose his fleet on the port, but St. Malo escaped nearly unscathed behind its ramparts and thick stone walls.

  Finally, after weathering centuries of conflict, St. Malo felt its first defeat as in August 1944, when the German Wehrmacht, unwilling to abandon this critical part of the Adantic Wall to the Allied invasion force, razed it to the ground. The twelve thousand troops garrisoned in St. Malo destroyed the quays, locks, breakwaters, and harbor machinery, then set fire to the town center before retreating to Citadel at St. Servan.

  After the war the independent spirit of Malouins reasserted itself as they chose to salvage what remained of the demolished city center. Bricks and cobblestones and timbers were picked from the wreckage and used to lay the foundations for a new St. Malo. Today the skyline is virtually indistinguishable from its medieval self, with narrow, canyonlike cobblestone streets, mansions of sloping granite slate roofs and peaked dormer windows, and castle-like ramparts and baritzans that sit perched atop the 1.5 miles of wall that encloses the intra muros, or “old walled city.”

  Though he didn’t yet know the reason behind her flight, Tanner felt certain it was to St. Malo that Susanna Vetsch had come after leaving Paris, and it was toward St. Malo that Tanner and Cahil headed in the early morning hours after leaving the Pigalle, a trip inspired, according to Cahil, by “a cartoon goat and a teenager’s secret code.”

  The cryptic graffiti Tanner had found scribbled on the inside of Susanna’s kitchen cupboard was not only a clue to where she’d gone, but also he hoped, a sign that the Susanna he’d once known hadn’t completely lost herself in France’s underworld.

  As do most toddlers, when Susanna was a child she’d mangled her share of unpronounceable words and phrases, but the one that found its way into the Vetsch family lexicon was her smushed-together version of the words “go” and “to.” “I want goat the zoo,” she would announce, or “I want goat the park.” The abbreviation stuck and eventually mutated into a simple drawing of a goat. From then on, it became their shorthand for any destination or trip.

  As a teenager, the rebellious and inventive Susanna, certain her overprotective parents were spying on her, had developed a code she’d once revealed to Tanner on one of their “uncle/niece” outings. Boys’ phone numbers, rendezvous times with her girlfriends, and party addresses were all veiled from prying eyes by subtracting from them her favorite number, four. Like “goat,” the practice became second nature for her, a fond attachment to her childhood.

  If Tanner was correct—if he wasn’t groping for something that wasn’t there—the twelve digits on Susanna’s cupboard—translated as 330299554783. Following his hunch, Tanner regrouped them: 33 0 2 99 55 47 83—the twelve-digit arrangement of a French phone number.

  Once back at the St. Beuve, Tanner called Oaken and brought him up to speed. “Was Slavin any help?” Oaken asked.

  “As little as possible.”

  “I was afraid of that. He’s coming up on retirement. The last thing he’s going to do is put himself out on a limb. Sorry, Briggs.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We paid a visit to her apartment. We might have something.” Tanner recited the decyphered number and explained his theory. In addition to the code, they’d also gotten a lead from Trixie’s questioning of Rene the Gatekeeper, who’d also seen Susanna’s mysterious German. Rene was certain the man’s name was Stephan. It wasn’t much, Tanner realized, but perhaps enough to shake the tree.

  “I’ll see if I can get Susanna’s cell-phone LUDs,” Oaken said, then hung up. He called back twenty minutes later. “You might be on to something. That phone number belongs to a tavern in St. Malo called the Sanglier Noir.”

  “The Black Boar?” Tanner translated.

  “Downright medieval, isn’t it? Susanna’s cell-phone dump shows five calls there in the last month. I’ve got an address.”

  Tanner copied it down, then said, “One more question: Could you tell whether there’d been any other requests for her cell-phone dump?”

  “I thought of that. There weren’t, not in the last six months, anyway. You’d think that’d be one of the first things the DEA would have checked—if they were trying to find her, that is.”

  Oaken’s information told Tanner something. Whether Slavin knew it or not, the DEA was in fact not looking for Susanna, a fact which probably had little to do with apathy, and everything to do with hope. In the shadowy world of special operations, undercover work is the grayest; there are few rules and fewer still were unbreakable. Susanna’s controllers were probably hoping her disappearance was simply her way of burrowing deeper into France’s drug culture and that she’d soon resurface and make contact

  Maybe yes, maybe no, Tanner thought. Either way, it was no way to run an operation. He’d worked both as an undercover operative and as a controller. Of the two, the controller is in a better position to play devil’s advocate, to recognize pitfalls to which the operative may be blind. Chances were, Susanna’s disappearance had been foreshadowed by her own behavior: vague reports, missed check-ins, impulsive behavior. Seeing the signs, her controller should have either pulled her in, or put a tighter leash on her.

  “I’m hoping they haven’t written her off,” Oaken said.

  “Me, too,” Briggs replied. He thanked Oaken, hung up, and turned to Cahil. “St. Malo.”

  Bear checked his watch. “It’s after ten; let’s hope we can find an all-night Avis,” he said and reached for the phone book.

  As it happened, they found no rental agencies open, but a better arrangement presented itself with the train a grande vitesse, or TGV, France’s high-speed train. They checked out of the St. Beuve, boarded the 11:10 train at the Montparnasse station, changed trains at Rennes, then continued north to St. Malo, arriving two hours and ten minutes after leaving Paris.

  From habit, Tanner had kept peripheral tabs on their fellow passengers. Of those that boarded at Montparnasse, nine changed trains with them at Rennes for the final leg to St. Malo. Of these, two boarded their car: a blond-haired man in his middle thirties and a teenage girl with magenta hair, a black leather jacket, and square-tipped biker boots. Twenty minutes into the ride, the girl ambled o
ver to the blond-haired man, exchanged a few words, then accepted a franc note from him and walked down to them. “Aide une fille hors?” she said. Help a girl out?

  Tanner handed her a few notes. She flashed a dingy smile, then returned to her seat.

  As they disembarked at St. Malo, the teenager started walking in the opposite direction, and the man hailed a taxi that took him around the corner to Quai Des Corsaires. Tanner and Cahil rented a locker, stuffed their duffel bags inside, then started walking.

  The Black Boar was inside the walled city on Place Vauban, so they walked across Avenue Louis Martin, which spanned the three-hundred-meter canal separating the intra- and extra-muros. Across the canal they could see the lighted ramparts and watchtowers perched atop the ancient wall, which was lit from below by amber spotlights, lending the battlements a Disneyland-like appearance. Tanner suspected the lighting had been installed in anticipation of the upcoming tourist season. By this time next week, St. Malo’s population would swell to five times its normal size as visitors from Great Britain and urban France descended on the “City of the Corsairs.”

  As they reached Grande Porte, the city’s main gate, Tanner caught a glimpse of a taxi pulling away from Porte St. Louise down the quai. A lone figure disappeared through the gate.

  “Blondie from the train?” Cahil asked.

  “Couldn’t tell.”

  It was nearly one-thirty, but Tanner was hoping the Black Boar would still be open. The deserted cobblestone streets glistened under the glow of gaslights long ago converted to electricity. It took little for Tanner to imagine them hissing and sputtering with the flow of natural gas. Houses crowded the street, dormer windows looming over them. Hanging from every dark balcony were flower boxes and hanging pots, tiny blooms of color in the darkness.

  “Talk about lost in time,” Cahil murmured. “I feel like we’re heading to a meeting of the resistance, listening for jackboots on the cobblestones.”

  Tanner nodded. “It’s eerie.” Of course, it was precisely this atmosphere that drew hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. On its face, St Malo was frozen in the 1930s.

  They followed the winding streets for another twenty minutes until they reached a cul-de-sac at the end of Place Vauban. There, tucked between a pair of alleys, was the Black Boar. Hanging from a rusty chain above the oaken door was a neon sign: “Sanglier Noir.” Light flickered through the tarnished windows. Tanner could hear raucous laughter coming from inside.

  “Something tells me we’re not going to be able to slip in unnoticed,” Cahil said.

  “Maybe that’s good.”

  “Gonna shake the tree?”

  “I was thinking about it It’s hard to tell what kind of reaction we’ll get though.”

  “One way to find out”

  Tanner grabbed the door latch and pushed. In keeping with its appearance, the door let out a rusty shriek. They stepped through and were hit by a wave a cigarette smoke. The tavern’s interior went quiet. Two dozen faces turned to them and stared.

  “Thank god there wasn’t a piano to stop playing,” Bear murmured.

  “Amen.” Tanner nodded at the patrons and raised a hand. “Bonjour.”

  No one replied. After a few seconds’ silence the patrons returned to their drinks and conversations. The Black Boar’s furnishings were nearly as medieval as its name, with trestle tables, long benches, and a horseshoe bar whose front had seen more than its fair share of kicks and gouges—as had most of the patrons, all of whom Tanner assumed were locals, an assortment of sun- and wind-burned fisherman and oyster bed workers. There were no women to be seen.

  Incongruously, the bartender was dressed smartly, in a royal blue, tab-collar shirt with a red tie.

  “Bonjour,” Tanner repeated.

  “Bonjour, messieurs.”

  “Deux bières, s’il vous plaît.”

  The bartender brought them a pair of draft beers, then moved on to other customers. Tanner could feel eyes on his back, but he fought the urge to turn around. Probably just curious, he thought. His French was passable in Paris, but too urban for Brittany. The patrons were probably cursing them as early tourists invading their favorite night-spot.

  Amid the babble Briggs thought he heard snippets of German. He focused on the voices and tried to filter out the rest until certain of what he was hearing. He turned around, hiked his foot on the kick rail, and began scanning the room, trying to pinpoint the voices.

  Four men, huddled around their mugs at a table in the corner, seemed to be arguing.

  Long shot, Tanner thought. But, as Bear had said, there was only one way to find out. He turned to Cahil and explained. “In the corner by the window, four men.”

  “I see ‘em. What’re you thinking?”

  “We don’t dare mention Susanna’s name; if she’s still under, it could burn her.”

  “Stephan it is, then.”

  “Find a table within earshot of them. I’ll be back.”

  Tanner found the bathroom, killed three minutes, then walked back out. He strode to the center of the room and called, “M’excuser … M’excuser!” He waited until the voices died away and all eyes were on him. “Je cherche un ami, un homme a nommé Stephan.” I’m looking for a friend, a man named Stephan.

  There were five seconds of silence and then, as though he hadn’t spoken, the patrons returned to their drinking. In the corner, the German group put their heads together and began muttering between one another. Tanner glanced at Cahil, who gave an imperceptible nod: Reaction.

  After a few minutes, the Germans finished their beers, stood up, and headed out the door. Cahil rejoined Tanner at the bar. “You got their attention,” Bear said. “I only caught bits of their conversation, but the gist of it was they wanted to know who the hell you were and how you found this place.”

  “Good enough for me,” Tanner said. “Let’s go.”

  They stepped out the door and onto the street. It was dark, deserted. A wind had come up; mist swirled in the air. Beyond the stone wall Tanner could hear the roar of waves. He tasted salt.

  “Either they ran or they’re still around,” Cahil murmured.

  “I vote for the latter. We’ll know soon enough.”

  They started walking. They’d traveled less than a block when they heard footsteps clicking on the cobblestones behind them. Tanner glanced back. “Two,” he said. Ahead lay the mouth of an alley. As they neared it, the second pair of Germans stepped from the darkness to block their path. Briggs wasn’t surprised by this, but still he felt his heart pound a little harder. He and Cahil stopped and took a few circling steps into the street, now shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “Looks like something fell out of the tree,” Cahil murmured.

  “Hope it’s worth it,” Tanner replied. “I’d hate to get mugged for nothing.”

  The Germans joined ranks before them. “How do you know Stephan?” one of them said in heavily accented English. He wore a black, waist-length leather coat and a green turtleneck. His compatriots stood with their hands deep in their coat pockets.

  Probably not guns, Tanner thought. Knives, then.

  “Pardon?” Tanner replied in French.

  “Your French is like shit. Who are you? How do you know Stephan?”

  Tanner switched to English. “I should ask you the same question.”

  “No, you shouldn’t. Answer me.” The man took a step forward. His hands, clenched into fists, hung at his sides. His knuckles were crisscrossed with scars. Streetftghter, Tanner thought.

  The other Germans were spreading out, flanking them.

  “I said, who are you?” the man repeated.

  Tanner smiled at him, shook his head. “Go to hell.”

  The fist came up startlingly fast, arcing toward Tanner’s head in a roundhouse punch. Tanner ducked it and stepped forward, snapping a short jab into the man’s solar plexus. The man let out a gasp, but closed in and clamped a hand on the back of Tanner’s neck,
drawing him in. To his left, Briggs saw a pair of the men rushing toward Cahil.

  Tanner’s assailant drew back his head, snapped it forward. Tanner turned his face, took the butt on his cheekbone, and felt the skin split. Warm blood gushed down his face. The butt had been delivered with expertise; had it found its mark, Tanner’s teeth would’ve been sheared off at the gumline.

  Tanner stomped down, driving his heel into the man’s foot, then swung a tight uppercut that caught the man on the point of the chin. As he stumbled backward, Tanner shoved him into the next man. They collapsed together in a heap. A few feet away, Cahil had one of his men on the ground as another German rushed him from behind. Tanner saw the man’s hand arcing down, saw a glint of steel in the light.

  “Knife!” Tanner called. Cahil glanced up, started moving to meet the assault.

  Tanner’s attackers had recovered and were closing again. The one in the leather jacket held a knife in his fist, the blade angled low. His partner circled left. As though exhausted, Tanner let his arms droop. The first man rushed in, knife slashing up and across. Briggs straightened, let the blade sweep past, then grasped the man’s fist in both of his and twisted hard. The wrist bones snapped, sounding like walnut shells crushed under a boot. The man cried out. The knife clattered on the cobblestones. Tanner kicked it away and kept twisting the wrist, walking the man around and blocking his partner’s advance.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a shadow rushing toward him. He turned, instantly realized the German was too close, and readied himself for the blow.

  “Hey!” came a voice. The German paused, looked over his shoulder.

  As though levitating, a steel garbage can rose into the air above the man’s head, stopped for a moment, then slammed down. Even as the man fell, the can-wielding figure barreled through him and charged Cahil’s second assailant. Cahil backpedaled as the can crashed down onto the man’s head, knocking him to his knees, where he teetered for a moment before toppling over.

  Chest heaving, the mystery man dropped the mangled can and turned to face them. It was their blond-haired companion from the TGV. He grinned at them. “Hope you don’t mind the interruption, but it looked like you could use some help. No offense, of course.” His English was American.