by Cole Reid
Georgia needed a break from the cloak and dagger. She left the cards and map on the table and retreated to her bedroom. She sat on her bed. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t the type. But she forgot her posture. That was why she needed the bed. She needed to slouch. It wasn’t the moment where she could maintain her form and think about what the truth meant. She had to bend her body to free her mind. It took a lot of energy to come to the realization that six specific people were gone. It took less energy to realize it wasn’t a coincidence. She knew she had to meet Hagan in Le Havre but she already knew what he was going to tell her. The Peers were being targeted. All but two suits had been eliminated, Diamonds and Spades. Georgia was still living and so was Hagan. The situation forced Georgia to reevaluate her next step and the step after that. She saw the danger in meeting Hagan. If the Peers were being hunted, the best place for the assassin to be was Le Havre, on the next day. The last two targets would be ducks in a row. The death of the other Peers jaded her almost instantly. She began entertaining a thought hard to believe under any other circumstances, Hagan could be the assassin. Being one of two left meant she would have to draw that conclusion at some point. The shock was it came so quick. It wasn’t even an hour after she opened the deck of cards. If she had to travel, she didn’t want to look like Georgia Standing. She made use of the auburn hair dye that she bought in London. She bought the hair dye kit to have plastic gloves to search Owen Spice’s flat. Now, the hair dye itself was more useful than the gloves. Her new auburn look calmed her down. She even cut her hair an inch and a half. If she was being hunted, she didn’t want to look like herself. She decided to wear only clothing she hadn’t worn so far in Paris.
Without training, her instinct told her not to go to Le Havre. It made more sense to stay in Paris. Paris was safer. But the point of training was to counteract instinct. Instinct was restrictive, a limit. But she had overcome so many limits while training. She knew safety was in Paris, but answers were in Le Havre. She was going to Le Havre for answers. But she had a different name for answers, intelligence.
Chapter Ten Intelligence
Her safety didn’t stay in Paris. It traveled with her to Le Havre in the form of her Browning 1955. The Browning was disassembled on her person as she boarded the train from Gare Saint-Lazare traveling premier class. Statistically, premier class passengers had their luggage inspected a third less often than deuxième class. For passengers carrying contraband, it was cheaper to travel first class. With the barrel of her Browning concealed in a Montblanc pen casing and the 7-round magazine hidden in the heel of her left knee-high boot, she was ready for the unlikely inspection. The cartridge case was in her right boot and the handgrip was converted to a working long-body cigarette lighter—trigger operated. The muzzle frame slid exactly into the spine of the book she was reading, Black Sunday. Old books were fodder, for trained eyes to feed on. Reading a classic text meant it had been selected. Reading a new novel meant it was picked up. Black Sunday was published two years earlier by a new author. It was train reading, not disguise reading. Georgia flipped pages at a required pace but she barely read. She kept her eye on her surroundings and her surroundings kept changing. A porter dressed in charcoal grey slacks, French blue shirt, black tie and navy conductor hat made frequent trips through the first-class car. But first class passengers were less active than second class. It gave Georgia a break. She paid attention mostly to the landscape out the window. The train crossed Pont Austreberthe, a 30-meter high viaduct separating the train tracks from the river below. The view of the Upper Normandy countryside was breathtaking. The hills weren’t rolling they were running but the landscape flattened out into green grass for better uses. Grazing cows ate as if aware of the region’s reputation for butter, cheese and cream. Georgia realized she was becoming so jaded she would soon no longer pay attention to such things. She enjoyed the view while it lasted. The train stopped in Rouen. Several passengers disembarked which refocused Georgia’s attention. A few passengers boarded the train. Georgia noticed a moderately tall man board the train. He held her attention but no luggage. His hair wasn’t long or short, like his sideburns. He wasn’t thin or thick. He didn’t stick out to the other passengers, which is why he stuck out to Georgia. His hair was dark brown that contrasted his milky complexion. He wasn’t handsome. He was so-so, an everyman. He was so average-looking her instinct had to flag him. If she saw him again she would know it. Like her, he was continuing to Le Havre. It was the only stop after Rouen, the last stop.
Georgia was formally English but she had a noticeable difference in the form of a habit. Instead of bringing her match to her cigarette to light it, she struck the match to the left side of her head and turned her head sideways to meet the cigarette to the match. Georgia’s eyes went back out the window. She opened the top glass to let her cigarette breathe. The train started to scoot forward. It began to roll as Georgia finished her cigarette. She flicked the burnt out butt through the open window and stood up to close the top glass. She didn’t sit. She grabbed her purse and book and walked back against the direction of the train. She walked steadily toward the WC noticing the average-looking man sitting four rows behind her. He faced the window smoking, like Georgia—top glass open, like Georgia. She was the woman that turned heads. Everything about her was worth a look. But his head didn’t turn, even though the chirp of her heels said she was hungry for attention. He didn’t move. He only lifted his fingers to his mouth and took a long drag off his cigarette. Georgia walked toward the back of the car. The trick was to get in and out of the WC in the usual timeframe. Georgia entered the WC, closed the door and started with her left boot. She unzipped the boot from behind her calf down to her Achilles’ Tendon. She slid the boot over her heel. The inner sole of the boot was a partial false floor, sealed with a Velcro fastener. Georgia only needed to get her fingernail under the sole to pry the Velcro apart. The thick wooden heel was bored out in the middle and lined with Teflon to slide the Browing 1955 magazine in and out. The magazine was only seven-rounds deep making it short enough to stash in the already-high heel. But it meant Georgia was only up to seven-shots lethal. She had no more rounds to spend. If she had to shoot, her shots had to count. She had trained for that. The Peers had an exercise where they were fired upon with rubber ammunition. The shots were meant to come dangerously close. Some were hits to the shin or shoulder. But they were meant to wait until they had a clear shot at their trainers. Only a hit was a passing grade. And they only had one rubber round. The exercise was meant to highlight one of the biggest differences between the CIA and the DoD. CIA operatives worked in the civilian theatre. They weren’t ready to Rock-n-Roll, they were trained to hit their notes. There was no such thing as cover fire. They had to hit their target and stop firing, become a civilian again—hide the weapon. This was no more apparent to Georgia as she stood in the shallow space of the train’s WC and assembled her weapon. Assembling her Browning 1955, let her see its limitations. She put the left boot on and took the right boot off. She took the cartridge case from her right boot and the cigarette lighter from her purse. She took out the butane cartridge and set the trigger to the firing pin. She opened her manicure set and used the scissors to cut the binding on her book. She slid the muzzle casing out of the spine of the book and fit it over the cartridge casing of her 1955. She dropped the gun in her purse along with her book. She put her right boot on and exited the WC. The ride from Paris to Le Havre was a little over two hours. She arrived at Gare du Havre at 12:33pm.
Georgia stepped off the train. Her shoes were noticeably lighter filled with her feet only. She made her way off the platform and out of the train station on to Cours de la République, the city’s busiest street. Early in the decade, the city of Le Havre fell on hard times. The name of the city gave away its inner workings. The name was French for The Harbor. The city was a destination for cruise liner traffic and docking ships carrying sea-weary tourist who surrendered tourist dollars to local merchants and restaurants. But the visi
ts from cruise liners began to decline. The city followed the trajectory of any industrial town with an industry in decline. City-wide unemployment shot up, as a result, population went down. But the city survived for a multitude of reasons. Le Havre was on the opposite side of the country from Marseilles but stood next to it as the second biggest commercial port in France. And Le Havre was first in terms of container cargo. The city still held its own as a seaside town. But its economy was increasingly leaning in a single direction—toward industry. There were still jobs in the city but they were all focused on the container port. The blue collar jobs made Le Havre a blue-collar town. And most of the blue-collar workers lived outside the city center. Although prices fell with the city, rent rates were the last to come down. For most port employees, it was still too expensive to live in the city center. And the reputation of the city center was too bourgeois for blue-collars. As a result, the city center, Le Havre proper, declined more than anything else around it. And it showed.
The main entrance of the Gare du Havre was at Cours de la République, which was in the center of the city of Le Havre. A few blocks to the south were the city’s interlocking canals that gave the harbor the reputation as France’s biggest container port. The MuMa, Le Harve’s glass-laden modern art museum was on the coast facing the water. The city received special treatment. Georgia walked along Cours de la République noticing restaurants with lack of patronage. She thought about what it meant for the city. But she didn’t think long about it. Despite its economic woes, the city didn’t look like hard times. There were noticeably empty storefronts but not on the main streets. Cours de la République was crowded. Boulevard Francois I was busy. Although the city had the largest container port in France, its name wasn’t only a reference to its industrial harbor but also its recreational seafront. The city had hybrid status. Le Havre had 2.2km of public beaches and a marina boasting personalized sailboats. Less than an hour’s drive away was the Lower Norman town of Deauville, home to high society homes and resorts. Le Havre’s love of play masked its need for economic development.
Georgia came for work not play but her business in Le Havre wouldn’t help the economic status of the city. Operating on behalf of the Agency was the same as being an agent of any company, the focus had to be on the task at hand. Thoughts about how good it would be to see Hagan again weren’t placed on the backburner. They were tossed in the incinerator. That was the difference between Georgia and the people she passed on the streets of Le Havre. Thoughts of the future and making plans had reached rigor mortis. Georgia focused on the next two hours and nothing after that. She was being hunted. Staying alive for the next two hours was a victory against whomever was trying to achieve the opposite.
Hagan never mentioned the meeting time. The time was how they toasted. When they touched glasses they said 16:00. It was the Royal Hour. It kept them from ever having to establish a meeting time. Any communication to or from the Peers would always be devoid of the meeting time. The time was always the same.
Georgia began to see Hagan’s reasoning in choosing the city as a meeting spot. With London or Paris, a person could be in the city for any number of reasons. With Le Havre, there were only a few. It would be easier to pick out the person who didn’t fit in. If you weren’t at the beach or on a boat, there was little else you could be upto in Le Havre besides the Museum. Le Havre wasn’t Paris or even Marseilles. One didn’t go there to shop or wander the streets. Anyone who looked out of place was out of place.
As Georgia walked south along Cours de la Republique, she remembered thinking of something that was stuck in her mind since Paris. Her first thought about going to Le Havre was that it was a trap. Being the last living Peers, it made sense not to meet at all. But she realized why each suit had a king and a queen, men and women thought differently. Her idea of staying apart was to make it hard on the assassin to finish his work. Hagan’s idea could be to get together with Georgia and retire the assassin. Instead of being picked off one-by-one, Hagan sought to join forces and draw the assassin out. The rest would depend on how good the assassin and how good were they. If they could manage, they could bury the assassin without anyone else getting hurt or another Peer dying. The city provided a natural safety. In 1977, the city had a population of around 200,000. Most streets weren’t empty or packed. There were people enough to have witnesses but not so many that an assassin could strike and disappear in the crowd. The city wasn’t ideal for an assassin, which meant the opposite was true for his target. Georgia had about three hours to kill before she had to meet Hagan and she didn’t know how long she would have to stay in Le Havre. She didn’t even know how long Hagan planned to stay in the city. With so many unknowns, Georgia was forced back to the beginning, her training. The first thing was to establish a place to operate from. It didn’t have to be comfortable. It just had to be secure. Abandoned buildings were better than five star hotels because they lacked basics like running water and electricity. The thought of it kept people away. But as long as you were ok peeing in a pot and organizing your thoughts around a lit lantern, it was as good as any field office. Hotels were welcoming but they welcomed everyone. There was nothing preventing a gunman from booking a room near or next to his target. Georgia knew that but hadn’t come prepared or dressed for squatting. Le Hotel Normand de la République Française was there, for those prepared to sit and sip not squat. Georgia fit the stereotype. She booked two nights on the hotel’s first floor. Before heading to the hotel’s cocktail lounge it was a quarter passed one, which gave Georgia some time. She walked up to the first floor and found her room at the deep end of a somewhat shallow hall. She stretched her body out on the bed giving her muscles some time off. She lied on the bed and let her plan play out in her mind. Although she booked two nights, she only planned to stay for one. The reason was to keep the person on her tail, off her tail. If her stalker planned to strike on the second day, his target would be long gone. But another thought came on top of that one. It had been in her mind all along but was broken into two parts. With a few minutes to herself, she could go on detox, unravel the harmful string of things in her head. When the string was straightened, she had something. She shocked herself that she hadn’t gotten it before. She and Hagan were the only living Peers. Could it be that her previous thoughts had been wrong? She thought Hagan was proposing the meeting in Le Havre to team up. It was more likely that Hagan wanted to meet in Le Havre to take her out. It would explain more than it left to question. Hagan was still alive and the others weren’t. Hagan knew that Georgia was the only other card in play, the Queen of Spades.
The assassin would know exactly the same. It had to be true. The truth always cut like a knife, so did Occam’s Razor. It was simple and it was right in front of her. She sat up on the bed. She looked over at her puse and remembered her Browning pistol. She grabbed her purse and left the room much like she found it. She headed down to the ground floor, the bar area. The bar was empty except for the barman. The barman was keen for company, so Georgia sat at the bar and ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio. The barman was friendly. Georgia was flirty. She described Hagan to the barman. Medium-height. Swarthy. Deep-toned. The barman said he hadn’t seen anyone like that in a recent timeframe. Georgia went for a long shot. She described the suspicious average-looking man who boarded the train at Rouen, the one who had no hand luggage. She came up empty a second time. There was a black baby grand piano in the back right corner of the bar. Georgia still planned to meet Hagan at 4:00pm. She had her Browning and her suspicion, which made it safe enough to let the situation play out. Georgia had access to the eighty-eight keys for ninety-eight minutes before she had to meet Hagan. She asked the barman for a request. He wanted New York, New York from On the Town. Georgia knew it. She played it. The song earned her a standing ovation from the already standing barman. Georgia rose from the bench, crossed her right leg in front of her left and did a curtsy.
“You’d be surprised how few real ladies come to this establishment,” said th
e barman, “You have broken a long streak.” Georgia did another curtsy. Merci was all she said but it was what she did that would earn her her place within the Agency. Very few female operatives would take the time to charm the aging barman in a hotel piano lounge. Georgia’s attitude was different from a traditional Honey Trap spy. She didn’t necessarily narrow her focus to the high-ranking official who kept state secrets in a locked bureau. She would charm a barman who was an easily over-looked source of information. In reality, Georgia wasn’t a Honey Trap, she was a fly trap. She trapped as many as she could.
Georgia asked the barman if he knew Le Simple, the restaurant where Hagan wanted to meet. The barman knew the restaurant. He said it was seven blocks away. What he didn’t know was that Le Simple was closed; not the doors, the business. The word a louer was posted clean and clear on the bare front window. For rent. The surprise didn’t come from her mouth but from her shoulders, arms and legs. They did what every body did when shocked. They froze for an uncontrollable second. Noticing the immediate lack of control over herself, left her muscles frozen but made the time stretch. The word louer became the only French word she knew. Although frozen, the word burned into her retinas. It burnt them out. She had to close her eyes and reopen them. The sight was the same, an empty store window with a sign on the inside, a louer.
Georgia put her hand in her purse and touched her Browning. She couldn’t have it out on the streets of Le Havre, so she held it in hand and had it in mind. She walked back to the hotel with her purse over her shoulder and her finger on the trigger. The Browning was in her purse aimed forward. She made one transition. She put on her amber Foster Grant sunglasses. The wide wayfarer lenses let her partially disguise herself and let her hide her wandering eyes. She scanned up and down the street as she walked. She even stopped to look in shop windows. Shop windows were a spy’s best friend. The storefront gave her a 360˚ view of the entire street. She could see up and down the street from her periphery and the reflection on the glass let her see behind. Despite all she could see, she didn’t see anything that stood out. She kept walking. She went back to her hotel, her point of operations. She moved quickly through the hotel and avoided the piano lounge. She didn’t want the barman to see her. She went straight up to the second floor by way of the stairs. She did make a mistake. She took her Browning out of her purse before she entered her room. The strike didn’t count against her. No one saw. She took the key out of the inside pocket of her purse and stood to the side as she opened the door. As the lock turned she threw the door open and got a quick look at the room, nothing. The next thing wasn’t expected. She didn’t ease her way slowly into the room checking for movement. She made the movement. With her Browning out, she pushed open the door and went into the room quick. She ran to the back of the room making quick eye movements toward the corners. She ran to the wall and put her back against it. Looking back at the rest of the room she saw it was empty. Her Browning wasn’t sure. The door hung open and she held her Browning toward it. It had to be closed. She decided to leave it open. The bathroom was still dirty. She went to the bathroom with her suspicious Browning. There was enough light that she didn’t have to turn the light on. The shower curtain was open and there was nothing. She closed the door. And lowered her anxious Browning.