On Fire

by Thomas Anderson

“So we’re going to the Lyon train garage?” asks Gilly.

  Zak is quiet.

  “I think they prefer to call it the Gare de Lyon.”

  He looks out the window of the taxi, watching Paris streets roll quickly by, wondering when he’ll ever see them again.

  “This is Paris’ East train station?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we’re going to the South coast of France, the French Riviera?”

  “The Cote d’Azur,” Zak adds.

  “The Cote what?”

  “Azur. Blue.”

  “The Blue Coast?” asks Gilly. “You know, I just got to Paris and here you are hauling me off to somewhere else.”

  Zak pulls his eyes away from the crush of bikers, cars and pedestrians on the Boulevard Diderot.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Zak says.

  The car comes to an abrupt halt at a traffic signal and an opening between a permanent steel fence and a string of bollards that line this side of Louis Amand Square. A bunch of bikes are tied up against the other side of the cross hatched steel fencing. The car to their rear gets momentarily stuck behind them in traffic as they stop, but the traffic clears enough as the signal turns that the car can lurch its way around and avoid getting trapped. Zak pays, they grab their stuff, and depart for the busy Square.

  The bulky Gare de Lyon looms on the opposite side of the open area of the Square, just ahead of them, as they make their way through a full parking lot for motorcycles and scooters. The sky has turned grey and cold and a dark cloud shelf is on the horizon, as if an artist had drawn a line in the ether to separate it from the sky above.

  “So what do they call these trains?” asks Gilly, hiking his pack strap to his shoulder.

  “TGVs.”

  “Oh yeah? What does that mean?” Gilly really has no idea.

  “Train a Grande Vitesse. High speed train. But look for LGV Mediterranee. LGV is Ligne a Grande Vitesse, or high speed,” Zak replies.

  The Gare is a block long and sits astride a broad concrete plaza. It has a giant domed clock tower that stands twice the height of the structure on the building’s South end next to the Mercure Hotel. The Gare rises four stories to a tall grey mansard filled with large and small dormer windows. The heavily ornamented façade has seven great arching windows. Zak and Gilly head to the entrance, which is under the window next to the clock tower. They step under a flat glass awning like that at the Musee d’Orsay.

  The station is filled with people, colorful shops and restaurants. People sit in rows of seating waiting patiently. Ahead of them is the elevated schedule board and under it is a billboard with fashion advertising. Zak and Gilly stand in the middle of the milling crowd looking for the track that their train is supposed to be on.

  “Got it,” says Gilly.

  “Ahead Jeeves.”

  Gilly takes him to the track where a bullet train stands in dashing grey and blue, waiting their arrival. There are four bullet trains in dock and a large crowd has gathered to board each particular train. The doors are open, so they enter and quickly find a place amid the blue oversized lounge seating. An overhead screen confirms that they are on the LGV Mediterranee and it also indicates their departure time.

  As soon as he sits down Zak checks for any sign that Kim’s trace is working. Gilly cannot help but notice.

  “Dude,” he says, “she’ll be up before you know it. ET always phones home.”

  Zak nods without saying anything. Soon, Gilly sacks out, tired from his flight to Paris. The train departs and Zak spends his time staring out the big train window as the French countryside flashes by under an overcast sky, worried about Kim and caught up in his own saudade.

  A couple hours later, midway through their trip to the South of France, Zak’s patience is rewarded. Zak calls the girls back in Paris. Kina, Rashida, Megan and Sophie are all quick to appear on the screen.

  “We see it!” Rashida cries over the cheers of the others. In the background Kina is high fiving Sophie.

  Kim’s trace is up and they’re all watching it on their screens,

  “Great! But I’m not sure where she’s located,” says Zak.

  “It looks like they’re nearing the Paris airport. I think it’s, yeah, it’s CDG,” she says.

  “Crap, that’s not good,” Zak responds, disappointed.

  “No, it’s not,” agrees Rashida.

  Zak takes it as a sign that Kim is about to be taken to another destination.

  “Check for information on charters. There’s no way they could take her on a commercial flight,” he remarks.

  “Got it,” replies Rashida.

  “Have you been able to get anything from Bog, Artie, Ethan or Asobi?”

  “Only Asobi. She was attacked in Osaka outside a shopping center but apparently she beat the snot out of them.”

  Zak thinks about this for a second. He knew that petite Asobi could be a formidably dangerous person to take on. They had worked out together.

  “I almost feel sorry for them,” he says.

  “Who?”

  “Her attackers.”

  “Screw them,” she remarks.

  “Sophie thought we should go to the Police about Kim,” she adds.

  He can see Sophie approaching the screen.

  “Yeah. But there would be an investigation. The consulate, everybody,” Kina adds.

  “We would be held?” asks Sophie, hair falling in her eyes.

  “No doubt about it. Every one of you,” Zak answers.

  “Which would hardly help Kim,” Rashida concludes.

  “But find out what you can. Let me know if anything important happens. Let’s not lose track of her,” Zak tells them.

  Gilly stirs, his eyes opening to look at Zak and his screen.

  “Oh, hey Rash,” he says groggily.

  Rashida catches sight of Gilly and his eternal tan.

  “Hey dude. We got everything worked out. You can go back to sleep now.”

  “Thank goodness,” Gilly replies, leaning back and closing his eyes.

  “Wake me when it’s over.”

  Chapter 62