by Cole Reid
It was 6:15pm when she got back to her apartment. She wasn’t sure but she was thought the hospital would close to outside personnel around 8:00pm. She made a stencil of the TV station logo from the photograph and put it over the aluminum foil. She used the markers to color the foil, matching the logo colors as best she could. She took the craft knife and cut out the foil logo and glued it to the bottom of a paper card. She cut out her best photo of the four she had taken into a square headshot and glued it to the middle of the card. She printed two labels: Louise Caron and Journaliste. She labelled herself as journalist, Louise Caron and cut off the edges to make the card look like a typical ID. Laminate wasn’t available in French stores and had to be specially ordered. She had to use pastic wrap and an iron. She ironed over the plastic wrap two times cold and one time hot.
The ID looked good, considering the manufacturing process was under an hour. Georgia went to her bedroom and swapped her blue blouse for a green one. She matched the blouse with a dark navy skirt and wore the same faux-leather boots that had been delivered in the suitcase from Gare du Nord, the ones that hid her Browning. She threw a navy jacket on over her blouse and fastened her ID to the outside of her jacket. She buttoned her blouse to the top and buttoned her jacket. The conservative look would get her less attention. Georgia arrived at the hospital at 7:38pm. There were policemen and reporters. Some reporters were inside and some were outside. Georgia looked at the number of policemen and thought she would have done better disguised as one of them. She followed a group of reporters who were rushed inside. She rushed with them. The two policemen, leading the pack of reporters, didn’t so much check ID badges as they checked to see if each person had one. Georgia took her SX-70 camera out of her coat pocket and unfolded it. It wasn’t a traditional camera for a reporter but nothing was really traditional for field journalism. It was a process. She had an ID, else didn’t matter. She had a camera, else didn’t matter. The journalists were given an audience with a high-ranking police Sargeant and a doctor. Georgia took a picture of both in case she was being watched. She had a pen and stack of paper cards. She took legitimate notes of what was said in French. If anyone wanted to see her notes, they wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. Georgia stood with the other reporters for nearly fifteen minutes, when the police official opened for questions. Georgia turned to the officer standing against the wall and asked a single-worded question, Les toilettes? The officer pointed down the hall and around the corner. Georgia found the ladies’ room and found what she was looking for, a stall to herself at the end of the row. She wrote a note, hors service, on a paper card and attached it to the the door with glue. She wanted to make it look like the janitor had written the note in quick fashion after discovering the toilet wasn’t working. She put the seat cover down and sat on top of the toilet with her legs folded up. She couldn’t be seen from the side or from below so she waited.
People came in and out of the restroom but most of the police outside were men, they would have to go to the men’s room. She waited for several hours until visiting hours were over and most reporters were gone. It was 11:00pm on Georgia’s watch and the restroom was empty. She walked out of the restroom at 11:03pm and went straight down the hall toward the stairs. She took off her ID badge and walked upstairs from the ground floor to the first floor. When she got to the first floor she was stung. It was empty, no police. Georgia thought at least one officer would be waiting to protect the floor from the press. But there were none. Georgia went back to the stairs and went up to the second floor. The second floor looked more mundane than the first. The shooting was all over the news but aside from the ground floor, there was next to no notoriety. Georgia thought there should have been some police guard because the second floor was intensive care. And the circumstance would required someone to keep order, especially in the intensive care unit. It was odd because a shooting in France wasn’t as common as a shooting in the US. The average French citizen couldn’t get access to a gun in France. Georgia’s Browning was hidden back at her apartment. Getting caught with it wouldn’t just bring charges, it would raise questions. Georgia started down the hall, trying to find the room with Hagan. She peered into room after room, finding mostly seniors watching TV or sleeping with it on. She looked at the names on doors and didn’t see Hagan’s name. If he was operating under a cover name she had no idea what it would be. She went to the far wing of the hospital looking into an empty hospital room. She stared at the hospital room trying to think of how she could find Hagan in such a large hospital. She decided to leave. She knew the Director had more resources than she had but she hadn’t spoken to him in days. And she still hadn’t been briefed. She figured it was time to talk, whether he was ready for her or not. The Director could find out where Hagan was, quicker and easier than she could. Running around the hospital looking in different rooms was inefficient and borderline unprofessional. Georgia felt a hand go into her back pushing her into the empty room. She could see a large man behind her from the reflection in the window. His hand went around her mouth and she could see and feel him stick something into her right arm. Her hands instinctively grabbed his arm. She looked at the image of herself with the man’s hand around her mouth. She tried to remember the image of the man’s face for intelligence purposes. As he stood behind her, she could approximate his height, about 6’3”. She stared into the window looking at the reflection of the man’s face. Her eyes grew heavy as did her body but she continued staring at the reflection of the man’s face. She thought she had it. But she grew sleepy—heavy. She didn’t try to fight the sleepiness. She tried to fight the fuzzy feeling in her brain. She had the man’s face but she couldn’t find a box in her brain to store it. There was some chemical blockage. He had injected her with something. Her eyes closed. Without anywhere in her brain to store the image, she just replayed it for her eyes, as if watching a film on loop. She kept looping the image of the man’s face in front of her closed eyes. She tried to stay active even as she fell asleep. Being able to identify the man would be an important piece of intel, if she made it back home.
Chapter Eleven Home
Georgia woke up. She knew she was awake because she felt gravity. Her ears were ringing but she could hear her direction, everything was telling her down. Her head sunk into her chest. Her wrists couldn’t support the weight of her hands so they dropped. Her deep auburn hair hung down shielding her sight. She could feel the shadow of her own hair blocking her vision. Her eyes were still closed. But her ears were open. She heard mumbling in French. She isolated the voices and began to count. There were three voices, all male. The sounds weren’t good. They kept repeating the word Madame. Hearing no female voices, Georgia imagined they were referring to her. The voices were far away putting her in a separate room, alone. She still hadn’t opened her eyes but she noticed something that she hadn’t picked up on before. She knew she was sitting down, her feet could feel the floor and her butt could feel the chair. But it was the first time she noticed the restraints. Her ankles were shackled to the legs of the chair and her wrists were chained to the arms of the chair. She realized why she hadn’t noticed the restraints before. They didn’t feel like any other restraints she had on before. It was known as a pothole, a situation that was trained for with unknown details. Georgia had been strapped to a chair before, many times during training. It was part of interrogation training. All agents had to do. The Peers had to do more of it. In all, the Peers had to go through thirty-four interrogation protocols. That meant Georgia had been tied to a chair and a table. She had been tied with chains and even twined rope. The protocols were designed to keep an agent’s mind focused, not to learn escape techniques. Being tied up lost its shock value, if it wasn’t the first time. An agent could keep going, keep thinking, remembering any details. In the chance the agent came home alive, those details might be important.
Georgia had been tied to a chair before but the restraints weren’t familiar. They were metallic but smooth. They weren’t standard handcuffs.
They didn’t cut into her skin. She couldn’t see them but she knew there were no marks from the metal, only from the pressure. They were tight. She rolled her wrists in the restraints trying to see what they were. She couldn’t decide, the metal cuffs were unidentified. She raised her head feeling the weight of her head shift against gravity. Her head felt heavy, even her hair. She didn’t have a free hand to pass her hair from front to back. She had to do it with the motion of her head. It was uncomfortable. Her head felt so heavy. It didn’t want to move around. She could feel most of her hair and most of it wasn’t in her way. She decided to take in whatever there was to take in. She opened her eyes. There was a surprise, surprises. The most obvious was the woman sitting in the chair six meters in front of her. The woman sat in a chair that, at first glance, seemed identical to the same chair Georgia sat in minus the medieval shackles around Georgia’s wrists and ankles. There was a round circular mahogany table, to the right of the chair. A gold-plated S.T. Dupont cigarette case lay on the table next to its matching lighter. The woman was mid-to-late forties. It wasn’t her skin or hair texture that gave her away. It was her hairdo, a Chignon. The hairstyle had been popular in the 1940s with female factory workers as a way to keep long hair out of a day’s work. It was also popular in the Golden Age of Hollywood. To wear the Chignon, was to be familiar with the time when it was popular. Georgia was too young to see herself wearing one, but the woman sitting in front of her was some twenty years older. Her olive skin had few wrinkles, surprising given her habit. She wedged an S.T. Dupont cigarette between her lips and brought the lighter to the end. She asked the question before she lit the end.
“Do you know why I’m sitting so far away from you?” asked the woman.
“To be kind,” said Georgia, “To provide me with fresh air.”
“It would be one way of thinking of it,” said the woman, “But I smoke only two more cigarettes a day than you, Georgia. You’ll no doubt surpass me when you’re my age.” Georgia’s thought process paused. The woman knew her name and that she smoked. The woman also knew how much she smoked. That was intelligence. No. It was counter-intelligence. Georgia was staring across at a seasoned professional, a spy. She wasn’t just tied up; she was cornered. Georgia’s name and smoking habits were the tip of the iceberg. The only thing Georgia had going for her was that she was alive. So they wanted her alive, usually a good start.
“Why are you sitting so far away from me?” asked Georgia.
“5.5 meters away,” said the woman, “Do you know the significance of that?”
“I don’t,” said Georgia.
“5.19 meters is the actual distance beyond which normal human breathing is in audible,” said the woman, “I’m a little bit further away than that. Which means I’ve been here the whole time.” The woman stopped talking and took time to let Georgia think whatever she wanted.
“I’m surprised the CIA didn’t teach you that,” said the woman.
“Maybe that’s why I’m tied to this chair,” said Georgia.
“Maybe,” said the woman, lighting her cigarette.
“Who are you?” asked Georgia.
“Simone Gagnon,” said the woman.
“That’s not your real name,” said Georgia.
“You’ll never know my real name,” said Simone, “I’m not even sure what it should be.”
“How’s that possible?” asked Georgia.
“I’ve lived a life,” said Simone.
“Tell me a story,” said Georgia.
“You expect to get intelligence like that?” asked Simone.
“I expect to stave off boredom like that,” said Georgia.
“You’ve been tied to that chair some time,” said Simone, “I could imagine you getting bored.”
Georgia looked around the room. Nothing but the woman in the chair was from the twentieth century. Everything from the floor to the furniture looked, at least, a hundred years back in time.
“Where are we?” asked Georgia, the question was obvious.
“Wine country, the Loire Valley,” said Simone, “You came to France of your own accord, but you’ll sample some of our culture at my behest.”
“This is no interrogation chamber,” said Georgia, “I can see out the window.”
“You’ll do more than that,” said Simone, “You’ll walk in the vineyard. Cedric.” One of the voices Georgia heard came into the room. He was tall with broad shoulders. He had to work for the French government. Georgia remembered something her mother used to say. The biggest men in France work for the State. Cedric had the key to the iron-made shackles binding her hands and legs to the chair. Cedric undid the shackles around Georgia’s ankles first. He was surprisingly quick and gentle. He unfastened her shackled hands and Georgia was free in a manner of speaking. Cedric took a step back from Georgia and neatly looped the four pairs of shackles over his forearm like a trained butler. Cedric obviously had an unusual skill. He was experienced at shackling people. Surely he worked for the French Government. Surely it was off the record. Georgia took a look at him when he stood up. She recognized him. He was the man from the hospital, whose face she could see in the window. Cedric left the room, shackles in hand.
•••
Simone was fashionable. She began to pay more attention to her cigarette than to Georgia, as she turned her back and tugged on a thick rope. The green wall-length drapes retreated to their corners as Simone opened the wood panel French doors behind them. Georgia could see the rest of what she got a glimpse of, from the long slender window. The rest was fresh air, sun and French grapevines. The vineyard swallowed the countryside. The grapevines growing on aged wood racks ran so far, you could get tired walking the length. Simone stepped out on the back patio. Georgia followed her.
“Is this all one estate?” asked Georgia, stepping out into the sun.
“All the same,” said Simone, walking and talking.
“You’re French Intelligence,” said Georgia.
“Exactement,” said Simone taking a puff of her cigarette.
“Do you always take your captive foreign agents to such locations?” asked Georgia.
“Like all things,” said Simone, “It depends on what we want them for. But we’re French. We haven’t fought with the Americans this century, that gives us reasons to trust each other doesn’t it?”
“Reason enough,” said Georgia, “This house isn’t owned by the State is it?”
“No it’s not,” said Simone, “Only a private individual would or could do all this. Governments govern, there’s no governing nature. You have to let it do.” Simone walked over to inspect a bunch of grapes on the vine.
“Come here, Georgia,” said Simone, “You see these. What do you think?”
“The color doesn’t look deep enough,” said Georgia.
“My father always said to wait till the color on the grapes is the same as the earth,” said Simone, “So we wait. The most useful strategy of all.”
“For women,” said Georgia, “Not for men.
“That’s true,” said Simone, “Men are always charging in and crossing the finish line too early. That’s why I brought you out here. I wanted to talk, woman to woman. Don’t worry, the bushes aren’t bugged.”
“I was checking,” said Georgia.
“CIA,” said Simone.
“You live here,” said Georgia. Simone stopped in her tracks. She pivoted to the left and looked straight at Georgia.
“I grew up here,” said Simone, “Back when I was allowed to be a child.”
“What is this place?” asked Georgia.
“My family’s house,” said Simone, “It’s called Chateau Constance.”
“Like you, that’s a name that’s been modified,” said Georgia.
“You know, but do you know your history?” asked Simone.
“It depends on what history,” said Georgia.
“The history of this continent,” said Simone, “You were raised across the pond but your parents were here during the
War. You must have learned something.”
“Everything I learned was second-hand,” said Georgia, “I haven’t even seen many of the places they talked about.”
“I saw that war,” said Simone, “And I am its consequence.”
“I want to know what happened to you,” said Georgia.
“So do I,” said Simone, “This property belonged to my father back before the chaos; back when he was heavily favored.”