The Prometheus Man

by Scott Reardon

  She nodded.

  He pushed the pictures of Tom and Silvana across the counter.

  “Are they in trouble?” she said.

  He smiled. “I hope not. They may be witnesses to an incident in Paris.”

  “You mean the pile of bodies?”

  “You know I can’t comment on that.”

  She nodded, sure that he just had.

  “They checked in last night,” she said. “Asked for a cot.”

  “I’m going to need the key to their room.”

  She opened a drawer under the counter and started fishing through it.

  He picked up a business card off a stack and read it. “Louna Laurent. That you?”

  She nodded as he placed her business card in his breast pocket.

  “You run this place all on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  She held up a set of keys and tried to hand it to him.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to need you to come with me,” he said.

  When Tom came out of the bathroom, Silvana still hadn’t moved. He was about to wake her up, but first he went over and took the phone with the GPS out of her purse. Once he’d pocketed it, he leaned over her and lightly shook her awake. She rolled onto her back and for a moment looked at him and then the room like they ought to have been just a dream.

  “What time is it?” she said.

  “Six.”

  She looked outside. It was still dark. “At night?”

  “In the morning.”

  She moaned a little and kicked the covers down to her ankles. Tom was ready to go, so he grabbed a washcloth and started wiping any surface that would render a fingerprint. When he turned around, Silvana had already packed and was wiping down the table with a tissue.

  “Am I doing it right?” she said.

  “Yeah.” He grinned at her.

  She nodded and offered to do the bathroom while he went outside to put their things in the car. Once he was finished, he stood by the car and watched as she closed the door to their room and then wiped it clean.

  On the way to the car, she paused by a trashcan but didn’t put the tissue in it, which would leave behind evidence. Instead she glanced at him, aware he’d been watching, and winked as she tucked the tissue into her purse.

  As Silvana crossed the parking lot, she stopped abruptly when a car passed between them. While she waited—it was less than a second—she looked at him, and he looked at her. She smiled. He smiled back.

  She stopped at the car and looked at it. “What happened to our car?”

  “I crashed it, left it in the middle of nowhere, and stole another one. Get in. Let’s go.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  And they were over the Italian border in less than an hour.

  The owner of the motel stopped at room 234 and looked at Bogasian. He motioned with the back of his hand for her to proceed.

  She knocked on the door. “Mr. Michel.”

  There was no answer. She turned to him. Again he motioned for her to go on. As she unlocked the door, he put his hand in his jacket and positioned himself behind her.

  The room was empty, but it smelled like people had just slept the night in it. Bogasian went over to the bed. Only the pillows on one side had been wrinkled. He picked a long black hair off one. There were sheets folded neatly on the floor across the room. He knew if he unfolded them he would not find long black hairs but short brown ones.

  He turned to the owner. “What name did you say when you knocked on the door?”

  “Michel. Adrien Michel.”

  “Did you get the woman’s name?”

  “No. Why? Isn’t that the name you have on file?”

  Bogasian moved toward the door.

  “Can I see your ID again?” The woman was watching him like it was him she’d been staring at the whole time, not the room.

  Bogasian stopped and stared at her. “Why would you ask me that?”

  She took a shallow breath and glanced out into the parking lot, but it was empty.

  “I just let you in a guest’s room,” she said.

  He kept staring at her.

  “I should confirm you are who you say you are.”

  “But why would you ask me if you weren’t sure?”

  She hesitated.

  “If I wasn’t an Interpol agent and you asked me that, right here, right now, what do you think would happen?”

  She was shaking her head. Her mouth traced words that weren’t there.

  He walked up to her. When he reached into his pocket, the muscles on her neck flexed, and she got a sad look. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open for her.

  “Next time make an excuse and call the police.”

  She looked up from the ID and nodded.

  “Now if I have any more questions,” he said, “I know where to find you.”

  He patted the business card over his heart.

  CHAPTER 29

  North of Milan, Tom kept looking around for snow-covered peaks and picturesque villages, but it was all flat and bare.

  “I know, it’s like you died and went to New Jersey,” Silvana said.

  The Alps finally came into view as they approached Lake Como. Then they hit Switzerland and were instantly transported to a rolling paradise of gentle hills and tree-lined mountains. Everything looked like it was meant to be hiked or skied on. Little cottages domesticated the landscape, which was so shock green you had to keep looking at it to fully believe it. For the first time in years, Tom was reminded of Montana, his home. It was a lot like his state—but without the wilderness. Without the wildness.

  They passed Zurich and Stuttgart. Outside Heidenheim, they pulled into an autohof, the German equivalent of a truck stop. Tom parked the car in back, and Silvana rushed inside to the bathroom. When he watched her head toward the main door, then stop and take a longer route to a side entrance that didn’t face the A7 highway, he smiled for the third time that day at how careful she was being.

  Before he followed her in, he took out the phone with the GPS. He found the auto on-off feature and set the phone to turn on for five minutes every day, then automatically turn off. Next he disabled every feature he could think of to extend the battery life. Then he switched off the phone and smashed the screen until it wouldn’t light up even when it was on.

  He took files out of a large ziplock Baggie in Sarmad’s black bag and replaced them with the phone. If someone took the briefcase he’d stolen from the embassy, he wanted that person to assume (a) the phone didn’t work and (b) it had been preserved because there was information on it. He put the ziplock bag and Sarmad’s black bag in the briefcase and snapped it shut. Then he went into the autohof to find Silvana.

  It was controlled chaos inside. There was a double line outside both bathrooms, and there were five lines of unnaturally patient-looking people in front of the Wienerwald and the McDonald’s. Everything else had fallen to the children: what could be climbed on was being climbed on. Silvana hadn’t even tried to get to the bathroom. She was just standing by the entrance, taking it all in.

  Without turning, she said, “I’m thinking of just going on the floor at this point.”

  “If you wait in line, we’ll be here for an hour.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Can you hold it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He thought a moment. “Can I ask you something? Is it, you know, number two?”

  She stared at him. “Girls don’t shit. They make flowers.”

  “Um, okay. But so long as we’re not dealing with a flower situation here, you could just go in the woods.”

  “And what, squat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like a dog?”

  “Yes.”

  She was quiet as they crossed the parking lot.

  At the edge of the woods, she started to peel back some branches, then stopped. “This is, like, okay, right?”

  “Well, I don’
t think a SWAT team is sitting in a van, waiting for us to pull our pants down.”

  She went in a few feet, then stopped again. “Do you have to go too?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  That got him thinking about it, and of course whenever you thought about it, you had to go.

  “Thank you for that,” he said, and she grinned.

  “All right,” she said, clapping her hands. “So this is actually happening.”

  He walked twenty feet in and waited as she made her way out of view. Then he unzipped and relieved himself on a tree, enjoying how dark and cool it was under the canopy. For a moment, he felt normal. Nothing else mattered right now except this ridiculous little adventure of theirs.

  He zipped up and headed back to the car. Two minutes later Silvana came out.

  “You hungry?” he said.

  “Ravenous.”

  Shoulder to shoulder, they crossed the parking lot. And it was kind of nice because when he looked around, he noticed everyone there was with family or friends. Everyone had someone. And right now, so did he.

  “Can I tell you something?” Silvana said.

  “Sure.”

  “Have you ever gone on a road trip where you almost didn’t want to get to where you were going?”

  “No, but I know what you mean.”

  “You know how I told you I have kind of a not-good relationship with my dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s in Berlin, or at least that’s where my mom goes to visit him. She’s there right now. I haven’t seen her in six months, and I haven’t seen him in almost three years.”

  She watched him to see what he made of this. He had wanted to find Nast for so long, even before he knew it was Nast he was looking for, that he almost didn’t believe what he was hearing. Now he knew where the man was. His heart beat faster.

  “It’s funny,” she said, “I want to see him so bad, but I’m nervous. I keep thinking of all this stuff I can say so it isn’t weird, but even in my imagination it’s not working.”

  They stopped by the side door to the autohof. They were so close he could have put his arm around her, but then a large family started pushing past them, and he and Silvana spread to opposite sides of the walkway to let them through.

  “He must miss you,” he said.

  “Yeah…”

  Tom remained quiet.

  “Something happened three years ago.”

  Three years ago, around the time Eric disappeared.

  “My dad took a job in Paris. It changed him. He and my brother never really spoke, but I remember they got into these huge arguments. I overheard my dad once. He said, ‘They’re going to kill you too.’ Then my dad…he just never came home, and he said he couldn’t see us for a while. And the years went by.” She shook her head.

  “That’s all you know?”

  She nodded.

  More people walked between them, and Silvana seemed to notice the autohof again.

  “Let’s eat,” she said.

  “Wait, don’t do that.”

  She watched him for a moment and then smiled as she looked down. “I’m not used to people asking me so many questions. I get embarrassed.” When he didn’t say anything, she tipped her head in the direction of the food.

  That didn’t feel right, Tom thought as they walked in. Using her dad like that.

  They found a little diner away from the bulk of the crowd. It seemed like the least-worst option.

  Silvana motioned to a newsstand. “I need to get some Zantac.” She tapped her chest. “Acid reflux.”

  Tom waited for a seat to open up. Other people, also tired and hungry, had the same idea. When someone left a table, he didn’t wait for it to be cleared. He slid into the booth.

  A couple had gone for the same table. Tom didn’t think anything of them standing over him until the woman said something in German. He just looked at them, no idea what to say, but the woman began raising her voice when he didn’t get up.

  Her boyfriend or husband started gesturing at him and saying something to the people around them. Tom wasn’t aware of feeling nervous, but then all of a sudden warmth stung its way across his cheeks, like he’d been slapped. Almost immediately he got the panicky feeling he’d had when he woke up in the motel. His hands were shaking a little. He wasn’t sure what was happening. He looked around, trying to find Silvana. He shouldn’t have done that—

  All eyes were on him.

  People were staring.

  He thought he was going to be sick. Now his hands were flat-out shaking.

  “I didn’t see you waiting near this table,” he said.

  The man grinned and said something that ended with “American.” He reached over and gave Tom’s shirt a little tug. “Thirty minutes waiting. Get up, man.”

  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t see you anywhere near this table.”

  “Stop talking. Do the right thing, man.”

  The man tugged on Tom’s shirt again, a little harder this time.

  “Why don’t we wait for my friend, okay?” Tom said, eyes on the tabletop. He couldn’t even look at the couple anymore.

  “Don’t tell me to wait, man.”

  No table was worth this. But Tom couldn’t get himself to move. The fear he felt was unlike any in his adult life. Nothing about it was specific. It was the terror he’d get as a kid when the house was empty and the wind blew a door shut.

  When he finally forced himself to look up, the man’s face was distorted with hatred. His eyes were black, like two wet marbles had been slipped into his eye sockets. There was a bullet hole in his chest. Same as Sarmad had. Tom couldn’t stop staring at it, even as he bit down on his fist and sank the fingers of his other hand into the heavy metal napkin dispenser. He was picking out a spot to aim for on the man’s temple as he started to raise the dispenser.

  Silvana appeared in a streak, which ended right between the couple, where she planted herself and began scolding them in German. The next thing Tom knew, the couple was walking away, and the boyfriend was looking back and pointing at Silvana, saying, “Bitch, bitch.” And Silvana was pointing back and saying in the same tone, “Eurotard, eurotard.”

  Tom let the napkin dispenser drop underneath the table as Silvana slid next to him. She stopped as close as possible without actually touching him. He felt her hand on his back as she glared at people until they stuck their faces back in their food.

  “Okay, what the hell was that?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Really? It’s all right if you’re not.”

  “I’m good.”

  “I think I should take you to a doctor.” She glanced at the bruises at the bottom of his neck.

  “I’m fine.”

  “My dad says the person who’s sick should never be the one to make the diagnosis.”

  “What did you say to those people?”

  She tried not to smile. “I told them that you were my brother and you were special.”

  Tom looked away.

  “Does that amuse you?” she said.

  “We should leave.”

  He’d never had a woman stand up for him before. As she shimmied out of the booth, he just sat, watching her.

  “I want to call my dad,” she said. “Now that we’re going there, I just want to…make sure it’s okay. I assume that’s all right?”

  “Use a landline.”

  “Okay. Meet me at the car?” She waited until he nodded. “I’m not going to come back here and find you arguing with your hand and drinking your own urine, am I?”

  He shook his head.

  She headed across the atrium, disappearing momentarily behind people until she rocked out of view and never came back into it. He sat there, trying to make the connection between what had just happened and what he’d discovered that morning in the bathroom. He’d had hallucinations before, but what he’d been about to do to tha
t man was real.

  The hallucinations were dangerous. And they were getting worse.

  Feeling the eyes on him again, he got up and made his way through the atrium—then stopped.

  Silvana.

  She was in the middle of the crowd, staring at him through it. Her eyes tilted up to a flat-screen television high on the wall. There were shots of Sarmad’s mansion. Bodies coming out in bags.

  He looked back. There was no blame on her face. She just watched him with shock-wide eyes and began moving backward, slowly putting more people between them until only strips of her were visible, then strips of those strips, then nothing at all.

  Tom ran through the parking lot, toward the car, turning in every direction. He saw the car but not her.

  A woman slipped around the other side of the truck stop. He ran in her direction.

  As he got closer, he could see she was shaking. The wind had whipped her hair into a black nest. When she saw him, she took off for the woods. She ran the way people run when they’re screaming, except she was silent.

  He grabbed her before she could crash full-speed into the branches. But then she fought him so hard that he would have hurt her if he didn’t let go.

  She yanked free, almost toppling over. Then she walked back the way she’d come, toward the car. He caught up to her again as she rounded the corner of the building. As soon as she saw him, she did a 180 and almost walked into an old Coke machine.

  As she reeled back, there was a sound like a quarter plinking against a metal sheet.

  Then he saw the hole in the machine.

  He ran at her and tackled her, flattening her against the concrete.

  Now she started screaming. She hit him with fists and elbows as he rolled them around the corner of the building. He wound up on top of her and pressed his bodyweight into her as she struggled to stand up. She was facedown, and he pinned her arms to her sides, so he could get his mouth against her ear.

  “Someone just tried to shoot you in the head.”

  From the angle, he guessed the shooter was right by their car, at the back of the parking lot. The shooter wouldn’t be able to see them here, but they wouldn’t be able to see him either.