The Names of the Dead

by Wignall, Kevin

  Finally he stopped walking and turned to look at Wes. “But your colleagues, if they did the things you said, and now you’ll be released . . . will they try to kill you?”

  “I think so. If I’m honest, it’s probably what I’d do in the same situation.”

  “Are you concerned? You don’t appear concerned.”

  “What’s the point of being concerned? I either stay alive or I don’t, I find him or I don’t.” He thought of Rachel—or rather, of the way she thought—and saw a more glaring truth. “Only trouble is, what good am I to Ethan anyway, if people are still trying to kill me? Probably no use at all.”

  They started walking again, the first few steps in silence, and then Patrice said, “I’ve never told you this story before, Wes, but perhaps I need to tell you now. When I was nine years old, I was with my friend Emmanuel. We were playing at the river not far from our village. There was a waterfall. We weren’t meant to play there—it was dangerous, with the waterfall and so many wild animals. Emmanuel thought he heard gunfire. I didn’t hear it, but after a time he got so worried, we started toward home. That’s when God’s Own Army took us. We walked right into them.”

  “You never got back to the village?”

  Wes was imagining their parents as dusk approached, starting to worry about the missing boys, but Patrice said, “No, but that was lucky for us, because God’s Own Army had been there already and killed everyone. Our parents, our brothers and sisters, friends, all killed. We were the lucky ones. Because they decided we would make good recruits, and maybe they were right. A few days later, we came to another village. Two men they captured there, they made them kneel, then our captain gave me and Emmanuel each a gun—you know, like an assault rifle.” He laughed, his voice booming. “It was so heavy. He told us to shoot the men, in the face. Emmanuel, he had to go first. But the man was crying, Emmanuel too, the captain was shouting, other men laughing, and at the last, Emmanuel, he couldn’t do it. He lowered the gun as he fired.” Patrice gave a Gallic shrug. “The bullet hit the man’s stomach and he screamed and fell, and he died anyway, but a long death, and the captain, he hit Emmanuel so hard I thought he’d killed him too. So, when it was my turn, the man started to cry and plead with me, begging for his life, but I didn’t listen and I didn’t hesitate—I held up that gun, so heavy, and I shot him right in the face. Yes, I shot him in the face, and the captain, he patted me on the head and told me I was a good soldier and God would be proud. It made me want to try harder, and in the years after that, I killed and butchered and raped. Yes I did.” He looked at Wes, gave another shrug, weaker this time in some way. “And five years later, I shot that captain in the face too, even as he pleaded and cried and begged for his life.”

  “Wow. That’s something else, Patrice.”

  Wes had known a little of the crimes Patrice was in here for, but it was difficult to connect this story, with its intimations of what was to follow, with the man who’d become Wes’s friend these last three years.

  “What happened to Emmanuel?”

  Patrice smiled, a little wistfully. “He didn’t end up in prison.”

  Wes nodded, not sure he needed or wanted to hear the details.

  “But this is why I told you this story. We were just boys, children. And that is why you must find your son. A child is an innocent thing, Wes, but soft like clay, and in the wrong hands . . . You have to find him, that is all. Because of what happened to me.”

  Wes knew it, too, and felt it at some primal level he’d never felt before. By the time he was released, maybe Ethan would have been found anyway and placed in safety—Rachel’s father was dead and she’d had a fractious relationship with her mother, but she had a brother, Adam, with his own young family. And yet Wes knew that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him. Patrice was right: Wes needed to find him. He needed to stay alive, as tough as he knew that would be, and he needed to find his son.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will, and if you allow it, may the Lord help and guide you.”

  Wes smiled. “Is he helping us here?”

  “But of course! He helps us every day.”

  Wes nodded, accepting Patrice’s remarkable faith, and wishing right now that he had some of it himself.

  Six

  In the days that followed, Wes felt the presence of the fence more than ever. There was no more information, and the void filled with frustration and anger and self-recrimination.

  In two more brief meetings with Dupont, the Director shared some of that frustration, explaining to Wes that each subsequent request for an update on the boy’s whereabouts had been put into a holding pattern, which was where it had stayed. The news on the TV and internet was just as problematic, nothing more than a couple of reports claiming Ethan was now accounted for and hadn’t been with his mother after all.

  That apparent resolution had clearly been enough for the media, and the news cycle had moved on. Only a handful of conspiracy sites continued to run with the story, one saying he’d died in the explosion, another that he’d been kidnapped in the aftermath, all of them suggesting the truth had been hushed up for various implausible reasons.

  In the end, Wes stopped looking at the news sites altogether, and spent more time on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, turning over in his mind the things he needed to do, the obstacles that might be put in his way, turning over the events that had put him here. Now that he was close to getting out he started to feel the stirrings of resentment, which might have made Dr. Leclerc happy but only made Wes uneasy—this was no time to be thinking about himself.

  A week after hearing the news he was lying on his bed when someone knocked on the open door. He looked up and saw Fabien, a young guard who always had the air about him of being stoned.

  Languidly, Fabien said, “Hey. You have a visitor. So . . . you need to come?”

  Wes jumped up. “Okay, let’s go.”

  He guessed it would be someone from the embassy, come to talk him through his release and what would happen, maybe even update him on his son. A part of him even hoped it might be the kind of visitor he’d been waiting for these last three years—someone who’d apologize for his treatment, welcome him back into the fold, offer assistance.

  Fabien led him to a part of the prison Wes didn’t know, and as he opened a door onto a long quiet corridor, he said, “This is the visitor suite, for private visits—you know, like with your lawyer, or . . .”

  He paused, looking for the end of his own sentence, and Wes said, “I’ve never been here before.”

  Fabien smiled goofily as if Wes had cracked a joke. “You never had a visitor before.” He walked him to a door halfway along the corridor and pointed to it. “In there. I’ll be out here.”

  Wes nodded and pushed open the door. Maybe the room was on the same side of the prison as the Director’s office because the windows looked out onto what appeared to be the same stretch of forest. There were a few low chairs, and a coffee table with a box of Kleenex on it.

  The suited man who’d come to see him was looking out of the window, but he turned now and Wes took a moment to place him, then another to overcome his immediate and visible disappointment. They’d only met once before, so the confusion was understandable, and the disappointment maybe even more so, because this clearly wasn’t a welcome back into his previous life.

  “Hey, Wes.”

  “Adam.”

  Rachel had worked at keeping fit and had been curvy in a healthy way. Her brother had about forty pounds in all the wrong places, thinning hair, a sheen of sweat on his brow. He was two years younger than Rachel and looked ten years older, or had done until a week ago, when age had stopped meaning anything at all.

  They shook hands and Wes said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Adam nodded his acceptance, clearly feeling no need to reciprocate the sentiment, then gestured to the chairs as if this were his office and Wes his guest.

  Once they were sitting, Adam said, “I had
to come over to Europe to . . . well, to arrange things. I thought it was the least I could do while I was here to come and pay my respects, even though you weren’t together anymore.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Adam appeared not to hear him. “I thought I might have to identify the body, but apparently they had to use her dental records. She was caught pretty bad.” He choked on the final word and sat for a moment, his jaw clenched. “Anyway, the State Department’s been really helpful, the Agency too, considering she didn’t work for them anymore.”

  “What do you mean, she didn’t work for them anymore?”

  Adam looked at him, lost, his face glistening, and Wes couldn’t tell if it was just sweat or if he’d shed a few tears.

  “I only found out myself two days ago. She went part-time when she had the baby, but she quit completely six months ago.”

  “So you haven’t been in touch with her?” Adam looked embarrassed, or hurt. “You knew she had a baby?”

  “Yeah. It was difficult, you know. She was so close to Dad, so after he died, then the whole business of . . . well, of marrying you, and living in the Middle East and all.”

  Wes smiled, because he and Rachel had laughed about it, how their respective families had frowned upon the match despite knowing very little about it, maybe even because they’d known so little—neither had been able to tell their relatives what their new partner really did for a living.

  But right now, Wes didn’t care about the internal tensions of the Richards family.

  “Where’s the boy, Adam?”

  Adam shook his head, the grief washed with confusion now. “We don’t know. No one knows. She was visiting someone in Madrid, I don’t know who, some former colleague. Ethan was with her. When she left, Ethan was with her. But somewhere between there and Granada, he disappeared. Why would she do that? She didn’t know she was gonna die. She was on vacation. The State Department thinks she left him with friends, but we don’t know who or where.”

  “If she left him with friends, why haven’t they come forward?”

  “We don’t know that either. The State Department’s assured us they’re doing everything they can, and they’re managing to keep a lid on it, but . . . it’s a desperate situation, just . . .” He shook his head by way of ending the sentence.

  “Is he mine?”

  “Of course. I mean, I’m pretty sure. I haven’t seen Rachel since he was born. Only spoke to her a few times. You know we . . .” He looked in danger of breaking down, but managed to regroup and looked up again. “They told me you’re listed on the birth certificate.”

  “She would have needed my approval for that. For a passport, too.” But even as he spoke, and as Adam looked lost in response, Wes knew that Rachel would have known ways around those rules. The only thing he still didn’t know was why. “You have any pictures?”

  “Yes.” Adam reached into his jacket but stopped short. “Not on my phone. I have two on my computer at home. She sent one when he was born, another on his first birthday. I could email them to you.”

  “Does he look like me?”

  “Mom thought so, from the pictures anyway. She said he looked just like you.” Implicit in Adam’s tone was the suggestion that Rachel’s mother hadn’t considered that a good thing. “I couldn’t tell who he looked like. But he was a cute kid.”

  Wes fought an urge to correct Adam for using the past tense, and said simply, “Well, I appreciate you coming.”

  “Like I said, I felt I owed you that much. Um . . . the funeral service, it’ll be next week. I know the warden said you might be out—”

  “No, I won’t be there. It wouldn’t be right even if I could.” Wes stood up and Adam took that as his cue to do the same. “Whatever happens . . . Well, nothing, I guess. But thanks for coming, Adam.”

  Adam nodded and they shook hands and he left. Wes turned and looked out over the forest. Now that he considered it properly, he was certain Dupont’s office was above this one—the same view, but a floor higher. The realization felt like a small mystery solved, which seemed important in some way, maybe only because nothing else was any clearer.

  But Ethan was alive—that was the key thing, above Wes’s own fate, even above his hopes of finding him. Their son was alive, so that would have to be Wes’s starting point.

  Seven

  In the end it was another full week before Wes’s early release came through. He assumed he’d missed Rachel’s funeral in that time. He didn’t miss any more news about their son, because there wasn’t any. As far as the wider world was concerned, Ethan Richards was no longer news. It was as if he’d ceased to exist. And given that Wes had received no more visitors, he became more convinced than ever that the same fate was planned for him.

  Patrice came to see him in his room just before Wes left. He stood, filling the doorway, and looked down at the packed bag with a satisfied smile, maybe picturing those future meetings over drinks that he imagined in the outside world.

  “What will you do?”

  “If I stay alive long enough?” Patrice shook his head, dismissing the question, and Wes continued. “I’ll look at Raphael’s list, then I guess I’ll head to Madrid. I don’t know much, but I know Ethan didn’t die in that attack, so he has to be somewhere, right? I mean, someone must know.”

  He wondered if Adam had heard any more, but Adam hadn’t been in touch since his visit, not even to send the pictures he’d promised. Wes doubted he’d hear from him again, and as frustrated as he was that he still didn’t know what his own son looked like, he didn’t much want to be part of Rachel’s family anyway.

  “You’ll find him.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Patrice stepped into the room and held out an envelope. Wes took it and looked at the address on the front.

  “I have friends in Lisbon. If you need anything—weapons, money, anything at all—go to this address and ask for this man. The letter inside is from me to him. He’ll help.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  He slipped the letter into the side pouch of his bag.

  “There’s something else. I know you’re not a religious man, but I want you to take this.” Patrice often had a bible in his hand as he walked around the prison, and so Wes only noticed now that the leather-bound volume in Patrice’s hands wasn’t the book he normally carried. “When I was sent to the prison at home, then Paris, then The Hague, always I carried this to defend myself, in the body and in the soul, but I never needed it. Now it’s more use to you, I think.”

  “Okay.”

  “It doesn’t matter that you don’t believe. There’s still so much for you to find inside.” He pointed to the two yellow ribbon bookmarks that were attached to the spine and which nestled among the pages. “Here is your guide. And here is your sword of truth. Be sure to look at both before you leave this prison, and God will help you find a way, Wes.”

  This was no time for a theological debate, and he was touched that his friend had so much belief on his behalf. He took the book and shook Patrice’s hand.

  “I don’t care what the world says: you’re a good man, Patrice. If I do live, we’ll have that drink one day.”

  “We will, I have faith.”

  Enzo appeared in the doorway behind them, and said, “Wes, your car is on its way, so we have to go now.”

  He nodded, said goodbye to Patrice, and then found himself for the last time in Dupont’s office. Dupont wasn’t there, so Wes sat and looked at the bible Patrice had given him.

  He pulled at the first yellow bookmark, which opened onto a page near the back of the book, the New Testament. It was the parable of the lost sheep, the symbolism a little heavy for Wes’s tastes, but then he noticed that Patrice had used a pencil to mark out a line of text lower down the page—I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

  He didn’t think the underlining was for his benefit. It was more or less the same sentiment Patrice had expressed
to Leclerc. Flicking through the pages, he noticed other favorite passages underlined here and there, and smiled at the thought of his friend taking comfort from these ancient words.

  Wes pulled the second bookmark then, but it opened onto the blank pages inside the back cover. There was nothing to see there. And yet Patrice had clearly pointed to both of them—this is your guide, this is your sword of truth.

  Then he noticed that this bookmark wasn’t attached to the binding but to something hidden inside the spine of the book. He tugged at it, and it came away from the bible, pulling a piece of metal with it. It was a T-bar across the top where the yellow bookmark was tied off, with the vertical forming a single spike the full length of the spine.

  Wes smiled as he slipped it back carefully into its hiding place. That was his sword of truth. Patrice had carried his armed bible through several prisons, always ready to pull that blade, and yet he’d never been required to use it. Wes’s moment would undoubtedly come, sooner rather than later, and knowing the nature of the threat he’d face, he’d have preferred a gun, but he was still grateful to have any weapon at all.

  He heard the sound of approaching voices; or rather, one voice—Dupont’s. Wes stood as the Director came into the room with another suited man behind him. He was around thirty, maybe, short dark hair, a pallid face that made him look like a sickly child.

  “Wes, this is Mr. Pine from the US embassy in Paris.”

  “Zach Pine,” he said, holding out his hand with a geniality that didn’t extend to his eyes. It was a show, for Dupont’s sake, and Wes could see exactly what Zach Pine thought of him.

  He looked familiar—that pale and spectral face had somehow lodged in Wes’s mind—but Wes didn’t know him and had definitely never worked with him. What Wes did know, what he could feel in his gut, was that Zach Pine had been sent here to kill him.