The 15:17 to Paris

by Anthony Sadler

  UP IN ARRAS, Alek sat watching the flurry of activity. He’d had about enough of this, dozens of different officials in all sorts of uniforms all showing their authority. No one spoke English except for Chris—thank God for Chris—translating for him and Anthony, even letting them use his phone to call their families.

  At least now some other Americans were in the picture. A defense attaché from the embassy in Paris had arrived, having tracked them down by finding Spencer at the hospital and asking the pool of police gathered there where the other two Americans had been taken.

  But that was the other thing. Spencer. Why wouldn’t they let him see Spencer?

  One of the FBI agents came into the office he and Anthony were sitting in. “Boys, you’re going to be receiving a call.”

  “OK—”

  “It’s going to be from the president.”

  They went into an office with a conference table, sat down next to a couple of empty bottles of Coke and a giant stack of bottled water, one of the agents put an iPhone on speaker at the center of the table, and Alek tried to contain a grin. Is this a joke? He looked at Anthony, who was more nervous; he kept pressing the button on a pen. They whispered jokes to each other, waited, whispered more jokes, and then Alek had a frightening thought. What if the president’s actually been listening the whole time? He’s probably thinking, what the fuck are they—and then a voice came over the speaker. “Introducing, President Obama.”

  “Hey, guys!”

  Holy shit! How do you respond to the president? Should Anthony speak first? Should I? After a pause Alek said, “Hello, sir,” but he said it at the exact time Anthony said, “Hello, Mr. President,” so what came out was an inaudible jumble.

  Shit. Bungled that one.

  Obama waited a minute. “Uh, listen, I was just talking to Spencer and I told him, like, when I have a class reunion kind of thing, we just have a beer, we don’t like, tackle terrorists or anything.”

  Anthony laughed. Alek let Anthony take the floor this time, but now Anthony and the president were talking over each other, thrown off by the slight delay on the telephone line. They both waited, then both started speaking at the same time. Then they both waited, and both started speaking at the same time again.

  “Yeah, it was an interesting reunion,” Anthony said, at the exact moment Obama said, “You guys have more exciting get-togethers—” and then Anthony tried to respond anyway.

  “I can say that.”

  Bungled that one too. It was getting embarrassing. This time Anthony and the president both stopped, each out of respect for the other, neither wanting to talk over the other a third time, so now Alek felt the need to break the silence. But what do you say to the president of the United States?

  “Well, yeah, we didn’t plan it. But, uh, maybe next time, we’ll work something out.” What the hell did I just say? What does that even mean? Another awkward silence. This time Anthony tried.

  “It’s gonna be hard to top—” but the president was trying to talk again, then stopped.

  “It’s gonna be hard to top this one.”

  “I think so. But listen. I just want to let you guys know how proud we are of you. I know you’re gonna have a chance to meet President Hollande. I just talked to him and he, on behalf of the French people, was just expressing such gratitude for what you guys did and I just wanted you guys to know . . . Aleksander, you’re representing the army like . . . ” Obama didn’t seem to know exactly how he wanted to phrase it. “Like nobody’s business.”

  And Alek laughed. He laughed at the president’s loss for words, he laughed from a place of pride, he laughed at the fact that they’d just stopped a terrorist attack and perhaps mostly he laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing, of having a stilted conversation with the president of the United States of America over an iPhone speaker.

  29.

  DOWN IN PARIS, at about four thirty in the afternoon, Robinson and the executive team heard from the defense attaché again.

  “You’ve got to get up here. The press is everywhere.” The situation was quickly becoming untenable.

  Robinson, Daniels, and the rest of the team got together with other embassy staff to figure out what to do. No one in Arras was equipped to handle the press, let alone what was quickly becoming the story of the summer, if not the year. The boys had suddenly become the most sought-after news items on the continent. It was a perfect storm, a story happening in a month with nothing else in the news to compete, less than a year after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, and it was on a train that had just passed through two other countries. It seemed like just about every reporter from all three nations was trying to get a piece of the boys.

  Then the photo started making the rounds: Spencer coming out of the hospital, squinting into the sun with his arm in a sling, giving a wave. Robinson was an adult watching young people wander into a situation they could not possibly be prepared for.

  She wanted to get them in front of her and under her own care. She wanted to get them behind Daniels, who could filter the onslaught of media attention and help keep things sane.

  Daniels said, “Let’s get them to Paris.”

  Robinson nodded. “Let’s get them to the residence.”

  The residence wasn’t just the ambassador’s home; it was a huge, luxurious mansion. Robinson wouldn’t have been making a much more extreme offer if she’d suggested the president’s bedroom at the White House. But the residence offered two tactical advantages. Already reporters were beginning to anticipate that the boys would end up in Paris, and news vans were beginning to set up outside the embassy. There was still no press at the residence, because even though it was just a few minutes away, why would press be at the residence? To see an ambassador who wasn’t even in town?

  And critically, the alternative was a hotel. Paris was a city obsessed with celebrity; hotels in Paris were notorious for leaks. At the residence, the boys would be safe and away from reporters. Daniels would be able to control press access.

  “I’ll deal with notifying the ambassador,” Robinson said, “and getting the residence staffed up.”

  Holtzapple nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  There was just one more thing Robinson was worried about. When she saw the picture of Spencer Stone after his operation, the image that flashed across her mind was the crumbled wreckage of a Mercedes-Benz in the Pont de l’Alma, where Princess Diana died with paparazzi in chase.

  “They need a police escort.”

  FROM THE THIRD STORY of the police station in Arras, Alek looked down and saw at least thirty reporters gathered outside. “Anthony, come look at this.”

  “Oh, shit. This is major!”

  Shaw came in to the room. “Okay, guys, it’s time to get going. We’ve got a car waiting for you, and Spencer’s here.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Alek saw a familiar figure walk into the room, and sure enough, there was Spencer, eye still swollen and dark, arm in a cast, but cleaned up and beaming. Alek threw up his hands, next to him Anthony whooped and threw his up too. Spencer raised his good hand, and they all laughed, celebrating like they were back on a basketball court in middle school after hitting a buzzer beater, an emotional reunion after being separated for a day that had felt like a month. “Spence,” Anthony blurted out, without even waiting to say hello, “how’d you get up so fast? How’d you know?” But before Spencer could answer, Shaw came in and took them down to the car, which turned out not to be a car but a whole motorcade, which pulled out of the driveway, filed onto a four-lane highway where—it took Alek a moment to notice—only one of the lanes was open. Only the lane for them. They stopped on the highway to pick up a police escort and then took off again, the highway almost totally deserted. And whenever there was a civilian vehicle up ahead that wasn’t moving, one of the motorcycles peeled off from their flank, caught up to the car, matched speeds, and at over eighty miles an hour reached out, tapped on the driver’s window, gestured for them to roll it down, put a ha
nd into the driver’s cabin right up against the driver’s face, and showed in no uncertain terms that the driver needed to get off the road.

  Alek had never seen anything like it. It was a high-speed high-wire act.

  “Jesus,” Anthony said to the men in the front of the car. “Where do they learn how to do that?”

  “They get sent to America for training.”

  Behind them an SUV trailed, overflowing with men carrying automatic weapons. When an old navy-blue sedan started gaining on them and ignored the outrigger’s hand signals to fall back, the SUV swung out so it was right next to the sedan, the glass came down and one of the men hung halfway out the window with a machine gun pointing right in the driver’s face.

  “Holy shit,” Alek said, “that’s an MP-5!” That gun could fire eight hundred rounds a minute and the man was aiming it at a civilian vehicle, yelling at the driver with words Alek didn’t have to speak French to know were R-rated. All that just to clear a safe passage for him. This was the coolest ride Alek had ever been on; better than shooting at tanks in Afghanistan, better than a roller coaster in Germany. This was like the two combined. Anthony yelped and then laughed when they almost hit a charter bus, but it reminded Alek of one of the near misses on the Black Mamba, everything on rails, everything controlled, even when it didn’t seem to be.

  They raced through the French countryside, watching France’s finest performing all manner of high-speed theatrics, zooming south down the A1 autoroute, which ran right through Saint-Denis—the poor suburb Ayoub lived in (and which would, in several months, be the target of a series of coordinated terror attacks around Paris). Then they veered off into the capital through the other northern suburbs of Paris, toward the residence of the US ambassador.

  ALEK SPRINTED through the hall in a robe, holding a magnum of champagne like a microphone.

  “We get robes!” It was like Home Alone. A huge palace, with a fine dining room, ten hot Pizza Hut boxes stacked and waiting. Who eats ten pizzas? Fridges full of champagne, closets full of luxuriant robes; it was time to go crazy. Alek felt an overwhelming impulse to jump on every single bed.

  “This is the Ben Franklin Room?”

  “That’s where the president sleeps!”

  “Well, shit, gotta jump on it!”

  “They said Charles Lindbergh slept on this.”

  “Fuck it, gotta jump on that one too!”

  Spencer was lying on one, while Alek and Anthony jumped on all the beds like four-year-olds. “Spence!” Alek yelled. “Come on, man, you’re missing out—who you talking to?”

  “I’m FaceTiming. With my sister.”

  “Kelly!” Alek felt a little manic, a little drunk on all the energy and excitement, on talking to the president, on beating up a terrorist, on racing down through France in a motorcade surrounded by machine guns; mostly, on being in a mansion wearing a robe with all the free booze he could drink. He dove onto Spencer’s bed with the champagne in his hand. “Kelly! What’s up!”

  “Hmm,” she said. “So it looks like you’re doing okay.”

  * * *

  ALEK IS STANDING over Spencer, who’s in the aisle fighting the terrorist. Alek can’t remember getting there; he doesn’t remember running down the aisle. He has the feeling he lost connection with his own body and only just now tumbled back into it, jolted awake in time to see his best friend fighting a terrorist. Alek has become a vector, heart rate sky high and blood vessels constricted, jetting chemicals around his body, sugar and oxygen, so that he’s twitchy and wired, hyperalert to some things and oblivious of others. He’s kicking the gunman, trying to soften him for Spencer. He senses Anthony nearby, but he’s concerned only with finding someplace soft on this man to hit. Spencer is moving wildly, trying to get around the man’s back with a forehand over his neck, and then Spencer’s left his feet, the two bodies flying across Alek’s vision toward the window. Alek can hear the pain of it, his best friend’s head slamming the glass and blood staining the train window; his senses are crossed and confused, sounds and sights shading into one another, but through the daze he is acutely aware that Spencer does not have the chokehold he thinks he has.

  Then that the man is pulling a pistol from somewhere, a Luger, raising it behind him so that the barrel is up under Spencer’s chin. A spasm of energy—Alek grabs the man’s hands, wrenches the weapon out and reverses it, holding it against the man’s forehead. A clear signal in Spencer’s eyes—do it.

  Alek slides his finger over the trigger guard and prepares to do the unthinkable, but if this man isn’t stopped he will kill my best friend. Alek holds the pistol to the man’s head and pulls the trigger.

  The gun clicks. It is not loud.

  The man is still alive.

  “Shit.” Alek cocks it again, but when he pulls the slide back his eyes laser into the ejection port, and in the moment the slide moves back on the barrel he can see into the chamber—there is no round there, no magazine even. The gun is empty. He chucks it and lunges for the AK-47, feels its reassuring weight in his hands. This weapon he knows is loaded.

  When he points it at the gunman, the gunman has pulled out a blade and is starting to jab it backward at Spencer, but Spencer doesn’t seem to see it, doesn’t seem to know, or has just lost his senses, because Alek is watching his friend bleed and his friend is not letting go. Then Spencer sees what’s happening.

  “Shoot him,” Spencer says.

  “I’m trying!”

  Alek puts the barrel of the machine gun right on the terrorist’s head, right against his skin. And he knows he has no choice. He must kill this man so that this man does not kill Spencer, and maybe dozens of others. Alek pulls the trigger.

  Nothing happens.

  Alek is now angry, he starts jamming the slant break of the machine gun barrel into the man’s head, jabbing as hard as he can and aiming for the temple, thinking maybe it will break through, channeling his anger, trying to drive it right through the man’s skin and into his brain. But he is frustrated, the man is not still, and Alek isn’t hitting his target, he wants nothing more than to drive the weapon right through the man’s skin and make him stop, every fiber in Alek’s body wants to extinguish this man right now, but the muzzle slips off, misses the temple, and Alek drives it right into Spencer’s eye before he can pull back, but he cannot stop, he is driving the weapon, putting all his weight into it, it is exploding out of his arms into the gunman’s head, and then Alek notices that the man’s eyes are wide open and locked on him. Like he recognizes Alek.

  Alek is trying to destroy him.

  They are staring into each other’s eyes.

  * * *

  30.

  ALEK SAT IN AN expensive room on the second floor of the ambassador’s mansion: a big room with all mahogany everything, even the walls, a big desk in the middle flurried over with printer paper. People rushed in and out of the room with so much urgency it felt like the terrorist attack was underway rather than having just been averted. Everything was moving a million miles an hour. Alek had just stepped into this world of convoys and police escorts and even spies. They’d met with the CIA at the embassy; Alek could have sworn they favored appearance in their recruiting because it seemed like every other member of the division was some young attractive woman.

  “This is some spy shit! We gotta get a picture,” Anthony said.

  “You can post that, but you better not call us CIA.” Alek watched Anthony’s face turn to puzzled, like he wasn’t sure if they were joking or not.

  And now Alek sat in the mahogany office, across from Chief Randy Griffith, watching the American government maneuvered to do things he hadn’t known were possible. Or legal.

  It was Sunday afternoon. Whatever the hell it was that happened on the train—Alek still wasn’t totally sure—had happened just two days ago. They were going to get the Legion of Honor, the highest honor France gave, tomorrow.

  They work fast in France.

  By the way people were whispering around th
e embassy about the award, Alek could tell how meaningful they thought it was. “You guys deserve it,” people said, in serious, subdued tones that added a sense of solemnity to the occasion.

  But while Alek and the boys would receive a nation’s highest honor from its most powerful man tomorrow, their families were about six thousand miles and nine time zones away.

  Anthony’s dad was home in Sacramento, about to fly across the country to New York to do an interview.

  Alek’s mom was in Sacramento too.

  Spencer’s mom was next door to Alek’s mom.

  Not only were they an ocean plus a continent away, but none of their families could possibly understand what was happening yet. Alek had yet to see an accurate news report himself, so he could only imagine what they were saying outside of this room, outside of this embassy, outside of this country.

  Here, the news was still reporting that three marines had stopped a terrorist in France. Alek had been able to talk to his brother briefly, and the others had talked to at least someone in their families too, and everyone was beginning to get a sense of what had just happened, but things were happening so fast it was hard to keep track.

  What was the time difference again?

  What day is it back home?

  What day is it here, for that matter? They’d been moving so much and had been at it so many hours it felt like they hadn’t been in any one place long enough for its time to apply.

  Across from him, Chief Griffith was working himself into a lather. This was the beginning of what would be nearly a year of surreal experiences, maybe a lifetime of them. He was working with Anthony now. “Anthony,” the chief said, “focus. We don’t have much time. Where is your dad?”