by Mike Bond
Keffiyeh
IT MUST HAVE BEEN LOVELY once, the cool waters of the St. Martin Canal flickering in bright sun, the tree-lined canal and cobblestone paths along its banks, the carved stone buildings on both sides. It made your heart sink, how it is now. Multi-colored graffiti and tags in Arabic in broad swaths along façades of empty storefronts and apartments.
69 Quai de Valmy was a four-story building in front of where Bruno’s body had bumped up against the side of the canal. Just around the corner from the Rue Beaurepaire, a straight line from La République and Les Quatre Vents. On Bruno’s way home.
A cold wind came off the canal. Traffic in the streets, footprints hustling along the sidewalks. Lots of people hurrying somewhere. I thought of Bruno, big and thick-muscled, a red-haired Viking. Who had dared to mess with him?
I walked back up Rue Beaurepaire to Les Quatre Vents and back again to Quai de Valmy. It had been after one-thirty when he’d been killed; his wife had said, after closing the bar.
Had Mustafa shown up at the bar that night?
It started drizzling, people under umbrellas and plastic raingear leaning into the wind. Everyone looking down. I came out on Quai de Valmy in front of the pedestrian bridge where the detectives said he’d probably been killed. In the dark, alone, a quick attack with baseball bats and knives – no one would hear. Just Bruno dying and trying to understand.
But Bruno was far too smart to walk across a bridge at one-thirty in the morning with a bunch of young Arabs coming his way.
Was there a gun, a silencer? Out here under the cover of darkness, who’d know?
Like Mack’s disappearance, this made no sense. You didn’t sneak up on either guy.
Halfway across the bridge, checking for bullet marks, I leaned over the rail and saw a little flutter on the side of the bridge, just below my elbow. Small, maybe two inches square. Cloth, cotton maybe. A checkered white-black pattern.
I thought it was a piece of Bruno’s shirt, torn off when his body was dumped over the rail. But the coroner’s report would’ve mentioned that. Then I noticed a little ledge broad enough for your sideways feet, where one could crouch down and not be seen from the bridge. Just above the ledge the little square of cloth fluttered in the rainy wind, linked by a single thread, ready to cast off on its voyage down the Canal to the Seine and North Sea.
I leaned over and tucked it into a Ziploc. That’s when I saw the smudges on the dirty ledge. As if two pairs of shoes had trampled on each other but pieces of sole pattern still clear. Leaning further over the rail I snapped pix from several angles, the new rain running up my back and turning the footprints to slime.
On the other side of the bridge another little ledge with more rain-smeared prints. They were growing muddy but I shot pix of them anyway. You could still tell there’d been another two pairs.
I stood there trying to imagine it. Bruno coming home at his fast steady pace, exhausted from a long day at the bar, anxious to crawl in bed with his wife.
And two guys hidden on each side of the rail, who leap up and knife and bludgeon him to death.
He must have struck back a few blows before he died. I reminded myself to have ATS check hospital and doctor admissions for broken bones, abrasions, that kind of thing. It was a long shot, but something made it feel right.
It began to rain harder. I tucked my iPhone deep in a pocket alongside the Ziploc with the square of cloth, and grabbed a cab for the ATS Lab. Both the cloth and the footprints were probably nothing. But you could never tell.
I stared through the cab’s rain-streaked windows at the bumping lurching stinking traffic and everything feeling miserable and cold. And I suddenly realized Mustafa probably wasn’t going to shoot me or have me killed like he had Bruno.
Mustafa had other plans for me. He had Mack now and wanted me too. Only then, when he had us both like he’d had us before, would he finish our execution. As promised.
Mustafa was a man of his word.
—
“KEFFIYEH.” Tomàs took the Ziploc of cloth from me. “It’s a piece of keffiyeh.”
“That’s what I thought. But it doesn’t have the frill on the edge –”
“It’s not Afghani ...”
I smiled tiredly, thinking of being with Thierry in those bare cold mountains. “But this guy’s no Palestinian,” Tomàs said. “He’s some minor Paris scumbag wanting to look good ...”
“Unfortunately,” I said, “you seem to have no lack of them.”
The pattern on the cloth was that worn by Yasser Arafat, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for killing lots of people, but that’s another story. The fact that the torn cotton came from a keffiyeh, the square Middle Eastern headscarf, was very informative. Based on an ancient fishnet pattern that may have originated in Mesopotamia, the keffiyeh has been worn for thousands of years for protection from the desert sun. Since the mid-1900s the black and white keffiyeh has also come to symbolize Palestinian terrorism. Most Palestinian keffiyeh were once made in the Middle East; in recent years the Chinese have undercut the market and now nearly all keffiyeh are made in China.
—
LATE AFTERNOON IN PARIS was nearly dawn in Hawaii. That’s when Mitchell called. “Got them.”
“Who?”
“The ones who tagged Thierry.”
“You’re unbelievable!”
“A furniture moving company in Avon.”
“A moving company?”
“Chérif Frères, 60 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt. I checked our sats and it’s a three-story house with a one-bay garage in front.”
I tried to remember where I’d parked the Beast. “Think I’ll head down, have a look.”
“For once in your life, be safe.”
—
FROM DGSE the Beast and I took the Péréphérique to the A6 south to Fontainebleau.
I was wasting my time but couldn’t sit still. It was either this or hang around Les Quatre Vents looking for Mustafa. But Les Quatre Vents was closed, as Mustafa would know. Since he’d probably ordered Bruno’s death.
As I roared along the A6 south in early dusk among multiple lanes of speeding, smoggy traffic I went back through my list of hunches:
•Hunch #1: Mustafa had had Bruno killed for what he might tell me. Or as punishment for speaking to me.
•#2: Mustafa had Mack and then Gisèle kidnapped after Mack contacted me.
•#3: Mustafa must have been behind moving Gisèle to Avon then took her away before we could strike. How did he know we were coming? Was it the mystery caller from the Seventh Arrondissement? Was this the insider Harris had warned me about?
•#4: Yasmina was involved in Mack’s kidnapping. Had she been hit on the head like Mack? Why?
•#5: Since Mustafa seemed tied up in all this, what relation did it have to the jihadis’ stories of his plan to destroy the Eiffel Tower, an Airbus, or Paris with a bomb?
Again I had the sense that no matter where I turned it was the wrong way.
Traffic was heavy going the other way, then lightened after Villejuif. On both sides a dirty sea of concrete ran to the horizon where not long ago had been apple and pear orchards. And I wondered once again how France could survive.
There were fewer cars after Villejuif and by the time when we turned off the A6 at the Fontainebleau exit we were nearly alone, a blue carapace scuttling down a dark asphalt trail, a scimitar moon riding up the east and casting the Forest in an ethereal silver glow, the tall bare trees contorting shadows across the whirring black pavement.
The Beast and I had no sooner entered the Forest when this ridiculous little police car comes gasping up behind us with flashing lights. I turned into the parking lot where the forest hookers service the long-distance truckers.
The cops came up, one on each side, a husky guy and a tough-looking young woman. I gave them my Hawaii driver’s license. Th
ey laughed. The Beast was registered to a used car dealer in Trappes, one of the Lost Territories of France. They laughed about this too. They checked the license plates. The woman wrote up something and handed it through the window. “You’ve got a headlight out,” she said.
I didn’t want to mention that this was from running over a bunch of bicycle racks on a sidewalk in Paris. “I could’ve told you that,” I almost said, but had the good sense not to.
I was now fifteen minutes later than I wanted to be.
—
60 AVENUE FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT was a stucco and red brick building on a side street next to the Forest. As Mitchell had said, it had a one-bay garage with a slide-down steel door, a single front door with a kitchen window beside it, lights on in the two second floor and third floor windows.
There was no name anywhere. Nothing on the front door but the rusty steel street number and a small sticker above the mail slot saying “No publicity mail please.”
I backed off, crossed the street and circled the block, found the Beast a spot where I could see the front door, and called Tomàs. “Going to be here a while.”
“You’re wasting time. The action’s up here.”
“Explain.”
“Like you asked, we screened hospital admissions the night Bruno was killed.”
I barely remembered. “So?”
“A guy named Tariq showed up at three in the morning at Saint-Louis Hospital with a broken jaw and two broken teeth. It’s the closest hospital to where Bruno was killed.”
I thought of Bruno’s brute shoulders, his strength when he slapped the bar with his thick red-haired palms. “That was dumb of them.”
“We’re not dealing with nuclear physicists here.”
“Who is he?”
“You know his brother better – Abdel.”
“He’s Abdel’s brother?”
“That’s what I said.”
“This could be enough to bring him in.”
“Not under French law. And it would blow everything.”
“Everything we can do will blow everything.”
—
ANNE HAD RETURNED from Cousine Claudine’s, and on the phone seemed grouchy and distant. “What’s wrong?” I said.
“Not a damn thing.”
“Miss the kids?”
“Of course.”
I felt guilty, didn’t know why. “Mad at me?”
“Why the fuck would I be mad at you? I’ve hardly seen you.”
“Yeah, I miss you too.”
“Pono, why are we doing this?”
“Doing what, goddamnit?” It made my heart hurt, the sound of her voice.
“Fucking up our lives. This way.”
I sighed, felt empty and hollow. “What else can we do?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Wait! Wait!”
“What?”
“Two guys just stepped out the front door ... What time is it?”
“Nine twenty-seven.”
“Wearing running clothes and shoes, both with backpacks ...”
“Going for a jog? Pono you’re wasting your time.”
I slid out of the Beast. “Gonna follow them.”
“They have guns?”
I locked the Beast and set after the two joggers. “Will keep you posted.”
“Pono,” she was saying as I shut off. “Be safe ...”
—
THEY JOGGED north one block, then swung right into the Forest on a narrow path that glimmered in the moonlight. I kept well enough behind in the shadows where I hoped I couldn’t be seen.
They were fifty feet ahead, moving single file, steady and fast, not slowed by the packs on their backs. My phone was bouncing in my pocket; I buttoned it down as I ran.
The trail gave out and they vanished across a slant of moonlight into dark forest. I closed nearer, but not close enough to spook them for fear they’d shoot me.
A crackle and crash of brush just ahead made me dive to the ground fearing a bullet. With a thud thud-thud of hoofs a deer pounded away. I stood slowly, wincing.
Moving fast behind them in the darkness it was easy to trip on snaking roots, blackberry tendrils and sharp rocks, to skid on wet leaves as branches ripped at my eyes, trying not to gasp for breath and give myself away, hoping to see one of them in the darkness ahead where they appeared and disappeared like spirits. Trying always to make sure they were both still ahead of me, lest one come up behind me.
Something like a baseball bat hit me in the forehead and I fell back cracking my head on a rock and rolled up to fight, but it was only a low oak bough I’d run into. My eyes were full of blood and I leaned over, head spinning, trying to wipe it off.
They were gone.
I had to keep running the way I thought they’d gone. But silently, or one of them might shoot me.
By a great oak at the edge of a bog I halted, gasping, tried to listen. Drip drop of dew from leaves onto damp soil, the sudden ooh-hoo-hoo of an owl, soft wind sifting through the tall trees, thunder of blood in my ears, patter of my blood on the dead leaves. Odors of wet forest, dank soil, rot and new grass on a cool northern breeze.
Snap of brush ten yards to the right. Again I hit the ground expecting a bullet but none came. No other sound: had I spooked him?
A whisper of feet across leaves coming up ten yards behind me. How did he get there so fast? Not possible, where was the other one?
They were going to pin me down between them.
I rolled sideways silently and pulled out my Kabar. Again no bullet.
My knee cracked.
A light flicked on, sharp and bright. A headlamp. It spun right and left, over my head as I clung to the ferns at the edge of the bog.
In the back glow of the headlamp I could see a rifle in his hands.
Where the Hell did that come from?
I wanted desperately to creep away before I got shot. But my cover wasn’t good, and it would be suicidal to run.
The light snapped back to my right, danced among the trees.
One of them was coming my way.
The other was circling behind.
Was this how it was going to end? After all the sorrow and joy?
I didn’t want to die here. Out in the forest. Alone.
Head Shot
I HUGGED THE GROUND expecting to be shot.
Suddenly he turned away from the bog and passed on the other side of the great oak.
I stepped out of his way, a twig snapping under my foot but he didn’t notice. As he passed I smelled the wine, the sour livestock odor, saw his bulky overcoated form against moonlight on a tree. An older guy, drunk, stumbling through the forest with a rifle trying to poach a deer.
Now I’d lost the two joggers with backpacks. Failed at one of the simplest rules of the tradecraft we’d learned so well.
Rule One: Never lose contact with your target.
Rule Two: Always obey Rule One.
With a crackle of brush my poacher wandered on, his headlamp flitting among the trunks. I stood breathing silently, listening to the forest.
“French dickhead,” said a voice ten feet in front of me. “I almost shot him.”
“Aye,” said the other. “Me too.”
The first voice sounded vaguely familiar; I tried to remember when I’d heard it before.
Had they seen me? If they had, why hadn’t they killed me? Had they thought the poacher was me?
Blood kept running into my eyes; I couldn’t see, wasn’t sure where they were. One made a long raucous snuffle and spat, coughed and spat again, and I hoped maybe he was sick.
If they both had guns I was not going to win a fight. So I had to stay unseen till they moved on. But if one of them discovered me I had to kill him fast then the other. Almost impossible
. I couldn’t even tell how far he was behind me, which way he was facing. And I had to keep the knife in my right hand so I could kill him if he shot me, before I died.
Unless it was a head shot. One that drops you right away.
“Sha’ tafh!” the other sighed, in Arabic. This is bullshit.
“Speak French, asshole,” the first said. The voice tantalizing now, nearly familiar. He turned to my left ... I tried to think is he right-handed; then he’d have his pistol in his right hand, on the far side of me.
To take him from behind I had to grab his gun hand with my right hand and stick the knife so deep into his throat he couldn’t scream – though he’d surely try, in those last nanoseconds, and to yank the knife away as the blood spurted out and he writhed around to fire the pistol I’d been unable to grip.
But why kill him, when I didn’t yet know what they were up to?
My heart was beating so hard and fast I was sure he’d hear it. Or feel the heat of my muscles, smell my sweat, anger and fear.
I eased nearer, switched the knife to my left hand, at the level of his larynx, blade inward.
He turned away, as if seeing in the darkness, his soles sucking at the wet ground. “We’re late,” he called. “Hurry!”
I thought I knew that voice now. The one who’d said, eight years ago, You’ll never escape me.
Mustafa?
Fury surged through me. Kill him.
Why was he here? Where was he going?
I followed them, silent as I could. Waiting for a chance to strike.
—
THEY RAN on through the darkness in and out of clearings bathed in moonlight back to darkness again, always in that slow, easy stride.
If it was Mustafa. I kept reminding myself, you can’t kill him.
A horrible stench blinded me, knocked my breath away.
Skunk. Gasping and rubbing my eyes I tumbled backwards, scrambled away, halted, trying not to breathe the choking smell. Why hadn’t it sprayed them?
Through burning eyes I saw the little white and black bastard coming after me, still pissed off. Maybe it was a she and I’d bumped her nest or whatever they have. I stumbled away, fearing I’d be sprayed again or that that Mustafa and his buddy would shoot me.