And it was true that he’d known or suspected for three years that this would happen, but the betrayal stung all the more in this moment of confirmation. After all that he’d given, and all that he’d lost, still they wanted to take what little he had left.
Eight
Dupont dealt with a couple of formalities, then shook Wes’s hand. A guard came in to escort them out, but before they left, Pine reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a small bundle, holding it out for Wes to take.
“Nearly forgot. This is your passport, bank and credit cards—we’ve set everything up so that you can get back to normal as soon as possible.”
Wes looked at the packet, and took it even though he knew what was going on here. They’d kill him before he got anywhere he might use those cards, but someone would use them in the coming weeks before destroying them, creating the impression that Wes had simply gone off the grid.
“Thanks, Zach. Good to know I haven’t been abandoned.”
“That’s not how we work. You know that.”
Dupont was looking on, mesmerized, but when he caught Wes’s eye he said, “Bye, Wes. I hope not to see you again.” The joke was well worn but he laughed as though he’d only just thought of it.
Wes shook his hand again, conscious it might be the last friendly interaction he experienced, and then he and Pine followed the guard out of the office.
As they walked, Wes said, “What happened to my son?” Pine looked at him, uncomprehending. “The terrorist attack in Granada? My ex-wife was killed. My son . . .”
“Oh, sorry, of course. I get you. I’m not really in the loop on that, but I’m sure someone else will give you more information later. The last I heard, they think he’s with friends.”
“But they don’t know for sure?”
Pine shrugged, reinforcing his claim that he was out of the loop on this subject. The more Wes looked at him, the more familiar he seemed.
“You used to work with Peterson, didn’t you, Zach?”
“I’ve worked with a lot of different people.” The charm was fading now as they got closer to the external doors.
“You never worked with me. Until now.”
Pine looked at the guard walking along the corridor in front of them and lowered his voice as he said, “We’re just transport. We’re taking you to a rendezvous point to meet George Frater. He’ll take you back to Paris.”
George Frater had been Associate Deputy Director at Langley, and Wes’s direct superior.
“Why didn’t he come and meet me himself?”
“I would’ve thought that was obvious. This whole case has been radioactive.” Pine turned briefly and tried a sympathetic smile, not quite pulling it off. “We didn’t abandon you, but we had to make it look that way.”
“I know.”
What Pine couldn’t know was that George Frater had been one of the very few people from the outside world to contact Wes during his time in prison. Six months into his stay, Wes had received a handwritten note from George, sent via Director Dupont, in which he’d apologized and told Wes about his early (and most likely forced) retirement. So it was extremely doubtful that George Frater was sitting twiddling his thumbs anywhere nearby.
There was a black car waiting outside for them. Wes could see a driver, but as the trunk popped open, another guy climbed out of the passenger side and opened the rear door.
Pine took Wes’s bag from him, and as he put it in the trunk he said to the waiting man, “Pat him down.”
Wes looked at him. “Seriously?”
“Protocol. You know, in case you went nuts while you were in there.” He tried what Wes assumed was meant to be a charming smile, but then turned back to the other guy. “Pat him down, Skip.”
Wes wasn’t sure if Skip was the guy’s name or a familiar term that Pine used for everyone, like “pal” or “buddy.” Skip was sandy-haired and thick-necked and a good three inches taller than Wes. He also avoided looking him in the eye as Wes held his arms out.
Once he was done he took the bible from Wes’s outstretched hand and flicked through the pages. And as he handed it back he finally looked at him and gave a curt but respectful nod toward the book. A believer, thought Wes, and he wondered how Skip would justify to himself what they were planning to do.
Pine got in behind the driver, Wes behind Skip, and they set off along the quiet road through the forest that bordered the prison on two sides. When he’d been brought here three years earlier, the guard had told him it was the northern edge of a large national park, as if he’d be spending his weekends hiking the forest paths.
Wes couldn’t tell what the driver was carrying. Skip was right-handed and wearing a shoulder rig. Pine was right-handed too, but wearing his gun at the waist at three o’clock—not the best choice for easy access sitting in the back of a car. None of them seemed inclined to speak.
After a minute or two, Wes said, “Where’s the meet?”
“Not far.”
“I’m surprised Sam Garvey didn’t come to meet me.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.” Wes noticed the driver glance at him in the rearview before quickly looking away again, the tiniest tell that seemed to inadvertently acknowledge Pine’s lie. All three of them were nervous—Wes sensed that now.
“Sam was my second-in-command. But I guess George didn’t want him here.”
“I guess not.”
They’d probably only driven a mile or so when the driver slowed and turned right onto a track that headed deeper into the forest. Wes noticed some subtle movement in Skip’s broad shoulders, then heard the faint but unmistakable sound of metal on metal as he attached a silencer to his gun. Wes had to wonder how necessary that was out here, but he didn’t have time to ponder.
The track had become rough in places, bumping them about, but the driver was still doing a decent speed, as if he, too, was eager to get on and get this done. Wes used the rocking motion to mask his own movement as he tugged on the bookmark and eased the T-bar free of the bible’s spine.
He wrapped his fingers around the T-bar either side of the stiletto blade, readied himself, then used his other hand to release his seatbelt. An alarm sounded on the dash, alerting the driver to the unfastened seatbelt, but Wes was already moving, swift, determined, striking before anyone had registered the alarm or who’d caused it.
Wes threw a hard swiping punch into Pine’s throat with the side of his left hand, and simultaneously rammed the knife into the side of Skip’s neck, jabbing it down violently, three or four times in quick succession. Skip screamed, the driver shouted something, panicked. A punch smashed into the side of Wes’s head and as he turned he could see Pine was dazed but still fighting, reaching for his badly placed firearm—a second punch would have been smarter.
Wes let go of the blade, leaving it deep, and latched on to Pine’s gun as he pulled it clear of its holster. Pine still had his seatbelt on, so Wes lunged, head-butting him, pushing the gun aside and wedging Pine’s finger against the trigger. Three deafening shots tore into the back of the driver’s seat.
The car immediately accelerated and Wes could feel and vaguely see that they’d veered off the track, but there was hardly time to brace himself before the collision. He was hurled into the back of the passenger seat, airbags exploded, glass shattered, an oddly musical sound in the midst of all that noise.
Pine was restrained by his seatbelt, protected from the jolting shock of the impact, but Wes’s grip had been the more determined, and he was the one now holding Pine’s gun. Pine started to say something, but Wes shot him in the chest and threw a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the others were dead, before turning back to see Pine shutting down, his eyes locked in some final confusion.
Wes looked down at his own right hand, cut and bleeding from gripping the blade. He turned gingerly in the confined space of the seat and pulled the knife from Skip’s neck, the exit finding a gristly resistance he hadn’t noticed as he’d stabbed it in.
> He wiped the blade clean on Pine’s jacket, then found the bible where it had fallen into the well between the seats and carefully slipped the blade back into its hiding place inside the spine. And in that moment his heart was more full of gratitude for Patrice than it had ever been for anyone.
Nine
It wasn’t until he got out of the car that he realized what a bad state he was in—his chest and shoulders felt crushed, his arms and legs ached, the cuts on his hand burned. Looking at the car, though, he felt like he’d gotten off pretty lightly: it was a crumpled mess of metal and airbags, suggesting the impact speed had been higher than Wes had realized.
He set to work, fighting past the airbags to get to the bodies. The driver had been unarmed, but Wes found a clean handkerchief in his inside pocket, so he wiped the blood from his hand as best he could, then tied the handkerchief around it. He took their phones and IDs, retrieved the two guns and two spare magazines.
The trunk had popped on its own, his bag the only thing in there. He opened it and put the guns and magazines in. He was about to put the phones in, too, but he wasn’t sure what use that would be, other than providing them with a way of tracing his movements. He tossed the phones and the IDs, and set off back along the track, his bag in one hand, the bible in the other.
Within a few steps he was already in trouble. He’d twisted his ankle in the crash, probably as he’d been thrown into the back of the passenger seat. He didn’t think he’d broken it, but it hurt to put weight on it. He swapped the bag and the bible over to lessen the weight on the side of the bad ankle, but the straps made the cut hand scream in pain.
He wouldn’t be able to walk far, he knew that much, and he didn’t know how long it would be before someone called to check in with Pine. They’d planned to kill him somewhere within this forest, which meant Pine’s superior, whether Sam Garvey or someone else, would be expecting confirmation any time now. How long before they guessed something was wrong? How long before they sent backup?
Wes stopped walking. Listened. A bird made a strange menacing call from somewhere deep beyond the crash site behind him, but Wes could hear something else, too—a car, out on the road. It couldn’t be backup, not this soon, which meant it had to be a civilian, a passerby, and he didn’t know how long it would be before another came by on such a remote road.
He picked up his pace, into a hobbled limping run, his breath catching inside his bruised chest, darts of pain coming alternately from his ankle and his hand. Each step made him want to stop, to collapse and curl up by the side of the track, but he kept running. He ran because he knew that remaining alive could most likely depend on whether he got to the road in time.
He kept running even as he staggered from the track onto the smoother road surface, and felt a surge of relief as he turned and saw the vehicle still approaching. He dropped the bag to the ground, flexing the hand inside his makeshift bandage, relishing the pain of it in some way.
The car was close enough now for him to see that it was a dark blue Mercedes G-Class, the kind that looked like a utilitarian off-roader but came with a six-figure price tag. Wes had seen plenty of them in the past, usually driven by the wives or girlfriends of gangsters and soccer players.
He could see that the driver was alone, a woman, fair-haired. But then the car stopped, fifty yards short of where he was standing. Wes waved with the hand that held the bible, then bent down and picked up his bag before setting off toward her.
He waved again, fearing she might reverse and drive away. But, instead, the door opened and she got out. Wes recognized her instantly: Pavić’s daughter, the one Patrice had called the demon girl.
And, once again, Wes could see Patrice’s reason for thinking of her in that way. She was wearing a skinny white long-sleeved top and skinny black jeans—“skinny” being the operative word because she was incredibly thin. But it was the almost-total absence of color in her face and hair that made her look so otherworldly. Her eyes were dark, but that looked even stranger set within those alabaster features, tipping her androgynous looks into something almost alien. He guessed she was about thirty, and that Pavić had been well into middle age when she was born.
“Hi! Hello, can you help? I’ve been in an accident.”
Even as he said it, he knew it was the kind of thing he’d have warned a daughter about—strange men on desolate roads claiming to have been in an accident.
She was standing behind the open door, as if using it for protection, and he could see now that she looked afraid, so afraid that he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t just driven around him, why she didn’t get back in now and drive off.
He waved again, the bible feeling heavy suddenly, his energy falling away. “Hello. You speak English? I just need a ride, into Bordeaux, or any place nearby.” She shook her head and backed away a couple of paces. “I won’t hurt you. I don’t mean any harm. I just need a ride.”
She was taking another step backward now for every hobbled step he took toward her.
She called out, “Take it. I’ve left the key in there.”
“What? No, I’m not stealing your car! I need a ride, that’s all. I couldn’t drive it if I wanted to—I’ve hurt my ankle, cut my hand. I was in an accident, back there in the forest.” She stopped moving, but maybe only because he’d reached the SUV and stopped moving himself. “I’ve seen you in the prison. You’re General Pavić’s daughter.” She remained silent, her chalk features impossible to read. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
She stared back, glanced at the trees, back to him, and he thought he detected suspicion in her voice when she said, “You were in a taxi?”
“No.” He didn’t know why, except perhaps that he knew her father had been a soldier serving time as a war criminal, but he decided to gamble on the truth. “The three men who collected me from the prison, they tried to kill me, so I killed them. The car ran into a tree.” There was no response, the same blank stare. “I had to kill them. They would’ve killed me otherwise.”
“Are you a soldier?”
“Kind of.”
At first he thought she might not respond again, but then she started talking and looked in danger of not stopping. “Sometimes soldiers have to kill other soldiers. It’s sad but it must be. And they get hurt. I have a first-aid kit in the car. But you can’t put your bag in the trunk space; it’s too full already. It can only go in the back seat.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say, and feared he might easily say the wrong thing if he did add anything.
She appeared to weigh up his thanks, then started walking toward the back of the SUV, veering slightly to maintain some small distance between herself and Wes, as if he were a chained dog that couldn’t be trusted.
Wes opened the rear passenger door before she could change her mind, and dropped his bag and the bible onto the seat. He moved around to the back then, where she’d opened the tailgate, and he saw what she meant, because the trunk space was full, a couple of large suitcases, various bags and boxes—he guessed she’d been more or less living near the prison and now that her father was dead, she had no reason to remain.
She stepped back toward the edge of the road, so he smiled and said again, “Thank you.” He held out his bandaged hand. “I’m Wes.”
She stared down at it, and as his own eyes followed her gaze he could see the white handkerchief was already soaked through with blood, but it wasn’t horror at the wound that apparently disturbed her.
When she looked up again, she said, “I don’t like to touch people.”
“Okay. That’s okay. So . . .” He lowered his hand, but then lifted it in a wave. “I’m Wes. Hello.”
She looked shyly amused by that and said, “Hello.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mia Pavić. I’m getting the first-aid kit now. Your hand is hurt.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He took a step back, giving her enough space that she wouldn’t feel threatened. She started
moving things about, lifting one bag out and placing it on the road, throwing cautious glances in his direction as if she feared he might still try something.
She picked up a box and looked ready to place it on the ground too, but hesitated and then held it out to Wes.
“Hold this, please.” He took it from her, being careful to avoid making contact. “It’s my father.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that one, but he didn’t need to. She went back to rummaging in the back of the SUV as he stood there holding the cremated remains of General Pavić. A moment later she held out the first-aid kit and they swapped the two boxes.
She closed the tailgate again and they got into the car.
Wes opened the first-aid box on his lap as he said, “I really appreciate this.”
“It’s important to wear a seatbelt.” He looked at her, trying to read her expression, her tone, trying to work out what it was that was a little off—she was like a highly advanced android that was still one percent short of being convincing. “We might be in an accident.”
“Of course.”
He put the belt on, even though, ironically, he alone hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt in the accident that had just happened. But then, it hadn’t been the impact with the tree that had killed the other three.
She drove on as he cleaned his hand again and bandaged it properly, wincing all the time with the shallow stinging of the cuts.
He’d almost finished when Mia said, “You want to go to Bordeaux.”
“That’s right. I should be able to get a train there, head south.”
“You’re the black man’s friend.”
The change of subject threw him momentarily, but then he said, “I am. His name’s Patrice.”
“I don’t like black people.”
“Wow. Okay.”
He could see that she was frowning, and then she hit the brakes, so abruptly that the first-aid kit nearly flew off his lap and the seatbelt dug across his chest, a crushing reminder of how bruised he was from the crash.
The Names of the Dead Page 4
