Girl Stalks the Ruins

by Jacques Antoine

  “No point standing here,” Emily said, and headed in that direction.

  “At least there’s no cameras.”

  Emily fished out the bag she’d used to rescue breakfast from their room, and handed Perry a banana, and laid the rest out on a bench. “We don’t need to go hungry. It may be awhile.”

  “Is there something special they do to food here?” Perry asked. “I mean, that was just a hardboiled egg, but it was delicious… and the croissant…”

  “I think stuff is just fresher. They don’t truck everything a thousand miles in refrigerated tractor-trailers.”

  They whiled away more than a few hours, it seemed, throwing rocks at trees. He could throw a lot further than she could, though it required a big windup, and her accuracy at shorter distances was formidable.

  “You’ve had some practice,” he said, after she hit the same trunk three times in a row at fifty paces.

  “Backwoods skills were always a preoccupation with my dad. Rocks, slings, building fires… you know the drill.”

  Actually, he did know that particular drill, having spent many weekends camping with his own father. His mind drifted into the pathways that had become almost habitual of late, and the next words had left his mouth before caution might have inhibited them. “Is this what’s in store for our kids?”

  The look in Emily’s eyes froze him, not happiness or surprise, or anger, or even resentment at his presumption. It was more like perplexity, as if she couldn’t quite grasp what he’d meant. He may not quite have known what his words meant himself. They’d slipped out, as if by their own accord. Perhaps they hadn’t meant anything at all.

  “I should hope so.” Her eyes glistened in the late afternoon sun, and her smile wavered slightly. “Isn’t that what you would want, too?”

  She turned away to launch one more stone at a nearby tree. There was always one more stone, in her hand, or in a coat pocket… or so it seemed. Perry admired the simplicity of the motion, her arm cocked by an ear, and then a sudden forward sweep, with the release at the furthest point, three fingers pointing at the target. Her hips swiveled and her weight shifted slightly. He couldn’t have improved on it if he’d tried.

  He was reminded of the events of the morning, how she’d pushed open the bedroom door, the bang of the knob against the wall. The noise brought Rémy’s heavies to their feet just in time to meet Emily’s hands. She’d settled with them almost before he’d entered – this was the suddenness of her ferocity that had so fascinated him from the beginning – but when he prepared to finish off the first man, while she choked off the second with two fingers, she’d had the presence of mind to issue a caution: “Don’t hurt him.”

  Quick, simple movements, nothing extravagant other than the intensity with which she’d been able to rouse her fury, and then to pull it back within the limits of compassion for a vanquished foe. How odd, this mother he’d imagined for his children. No fiercer protector could be conceived, but she sang lullabies in her sleep, and displayed a startling capacity to sympathize with… almost anyone.

  “Yeah, it’s exactly what I’d want.”

  When she turned back to him, he expected to see a softer look in her eyes, but her shoulder dipped, and she glanced past him and hefted the backpack. “I think our ride is here.”

  “How can we be sure it’s them?”

  “The short one looks familiar… don’t you think?”

  In fact, Perry couldn’t quite tell who they were, the two men standing by a sedan some hundred yards away or so. A taller, bearded one stood by the driver’s side door, and a shorter man waved them over. It took a moment to sort through the possibilities. Was there any reason to be suspicious? Would the French police bother with such a subterfuge, when they could simply swarm them from all sides? There was nothing to gain from luring them into a trap, not out here in a deserted forest park.

  “That must be them. Let’s go,” he said. As it turned out, Nassim and another man awaited them.

  “You have arrived, my friends,” he said, and made some cursory introductions. His nephew’s friend, Karim, the young man at the hotel, had called to signal that they’d gotten away safely. But the driver, Alaeddine, had been unnerved by all the official attention their escape had occasioned, and decided not to return directly to anything he might call home. “This is my cousin, Akram. We are going to his apartment in Saint-Denis. I think you will be safe there… for now.”

  “Why?” Perry asked. “Because the police are afraid to patrol there?”

  Emily elbowed him in the ribs, but Akram laughed at the suggestion. “Non, monsieur. They patrol regularly enough. But my neighbors will not report us to them.”

  Nassim arranged a scarf over Emily’s hair and handed her a pair of large, fashion sunglasses. “Eh, voila. You are easy to conceal, mademoiselle.”

  “My friends call me Em.”

  “Yes… Em. Thank you.”

  “… and this is my fiancé, Perry.”

  “All I know is that you are my saviors, and I am happy to call you my friends, and to take a risk to return the favor.” Then turning to Perry, he frowned for a moment. “Concealing you will be more difficult, monsieur. Your face is more distinctive… and your hair…”

  “I have just the thing,” Akram said, and opened the trunk of his sedan. He rummaged around for a few seconds, and found a black, wool beret. “Try this. It will give you the right air.”

  “Mais oui,” Nassim said, and pulled another pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his jacket. “This will complete the picture of an ordinary Parisian.”

  From the backseat of Akram’s car, through tinted windows, more of Paris opened up to them. Boulevards and roundabouts, a couple of swooping, serpentine, high speed tunnels that sent them under the metropolis, a glimpse of Sacre-Coeur, the white cathedral on a hill overlooking a red-light district. A few minutes later, they passed through a gritty, industrial district, and then found themselves on the crowded Avenue Henri Barbusse, passing streets bearing suggestive names, like Rue Robespierre and Place Paul Verlaine, until they turned into an enormous complex of apartment blocs on a spur of the Avenue de la Republique.

  Nassim turned around in his seat to remark on one of the ironies of the neighborhood. “We are not so rich here, but at least they name our streets after the great landmarks of liberty.”

  “It’s the same everywhere,” Emily said. “The rich prefer less important street names, and the poor get to remember the revolutionary heroes.”

  Chapter 10

  The Gendarme

  Little faces peeked out of doorways and from park benches, and women in scarves brushed past, arms heavy with groceries. Those men fortunate enough to have jobs milled about, smoking a last cigarette, perhaps, or chewing over another day’s drudgery with a friend, before completing the evening’s return home. A thousand windows looked down on them from several apartment towers, as they stood next to Akram’s car.

  “We are on the seventh floor,” he said, indicating a building on the edge of the complex. “Fortunately, the ascenseur is working this week.”

  “Could we stand out any more?” Perry whispered.

  “Maybe you couldn’t, but I’m blending in just fine,” Emily purred in reply.

  The elevator creaked its displeasure at being called into service yet again, and Perry contemplated a card that appeared to announce the maintenance schedule, though graffiti obscured some of the information. He began to think the stairs might have been preferable. The doors slid apart, and a long corridor beckoned. No graffiti here, only clean, white walls, interrupted by doorways, some of which bore decorations that might have been family insignias of one kind or another. Once they were safely inside the apartment, and the door had clicked shut, Akram introduced his sister, Yasmine, a pretty girl of seventeen or eighteen, and a brother, Bilal, who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old.

  The apartment entryway led into the main sitting room, but not before passing by one of the doors to
the kitchen. Little more than a passageway, with counters on either side, ovens and a stove facing a sink and small refrigerator, and cabinets looking down from above. The narrow kitchen opened at the opposite end onto a dining area that led in to the sitting room from another direction. Akram pressed Yasmine and Bilal into the kitchen, and the three spoke in hushed tones, alternately using Arabic or French – while Emily and Perry waited awkwardly by the front entrance.

  “Akram is the head of his family,” Nassim whispered.

  “His parents…” Emily began to ask.

  “His father was killed in a car accident a few years ago, and his mother died in childbirth. Nos grandparents sont décédés il y a longtemps… our grandparents are no more.”

  Once some activity involving pots and pans had been set in motion, Akram returned to attend to his guests.

  “Come,” he said, gesturing to some upholstered furniture in the next room. “Sit, please. Make yourselves comfortable in my humble home.”

  Emily examined a battery of photographs along a mantelpiece, and Perry found a seat on a low couch. Ornate, woven pillowcases caught his eye, with their bright, geometric patterns. A red carpet echoed the patterns of the pillows, and the overall effect was of intensely saturated colors. A few tapestries would have completed the effect – a tent on the edge of an oasis: the kitchen.

  Another passageway, next to the mantel where Emily stood, led into further reaches of the apartment, and probably a few bedrooms. Although it was dark, Perry could glimpse an open door and enough light to suggest a bed and a chest of drawers. He assumed the bathroom would be found back there as well.

  “Now, tell me, my friends, how we can be of service to you?” Nassim began.

  “I think we need to make a phone call,” Emily said.

  “Please,” Akram said, and held out his phone. “Use mine.”

  “Thank you, but I’m afraid if the call is traced back to your phone, it might put your family in danger. Perhaps we should get a burner.”

  “Jabari will have phones,” Nassim said. “He sells them from a kiosk in Les Halles. He lives in the next building.” He gestured toward the door, and Emily turned to indicate that Perry should stay behind.

  Of course, his SEAL training would require Perry to observe their progress from a window outside the kitchen, and Yasmine tried to pay him no mind. Nassim and Emily emerged almost directly below his vantage, from the front of the building, turned left and crossed over what might once have been a pretty garden, though a lack of attention had allowed it to take on a barren, weedy appearance. No suspicious vehicles could be seen from his present vantage, no operatives glancing suspiciously from what cover an urban landscape typically provides.

  A tug on his sleeve revealed the significance of some hushed words he’d not turned his attention to a moment earlier. Bilal reached a tall, slender mug up to him – tea it turned out to be, with an aroma of mint. Akram followed a moment later, carrying a mug of his own.

  “It is our traditional tea.” He gestured to the sitting room. “Please.” Bilal sat down on the couch next to Perry.

  “Are you really a soldier?” he asked, in better English than either Nassim or Akram were capable of.

  “Pay him no mind,” Yasmine called from the kitchen door.

  “No, it’s fine. Yes, I am a soldier.”

  “Do you shoot people?” Bilal pressed on.

  Yasmine frowned, and Perry glanced at Akram.

  “Don’t bother our guest.”

  “I mainly try to keep other people from being shot,” he offered, seeking some diplomatic middle ground between the brothers.

  “Yes, Bilal,” Akram said. “He kept your uncle from being shot the other day.”

  “I knew you were a hero,” the boy cried out, his eyes wide. “You saved uncle Nassim.”

  Yasmine shook her head and tut-tutted from her position at the edge of the conversation, where she seemed most comfortable. There was no satisfying everyone in this crowd, Perry realized, and Emily was taking a long time to return.

  “My uncle is a hero, too,” Bilal continued. “He shoots bad people.”

  “Tais toi, petit fou,” Yasmine said, and shooed Bilal back into the kitchen. “We have work to do.”

  The aroma of cinnamon and cumin drifted out of the kitchen, the sound of pots and pans clattering in the background, until Yasmine called to Akram. After conferring briefly, Akram stuck his head out with an anxious glance.

  “A thousand apologies. I must step out for a moment… to borrow some khlia and a lemon from Mrs. Khasmi downstairs.”

  Akram was out the door in a flash, and Perry returned to his earlier concern about security. Bilal went in search of something in one of the far rooms of the apartment, more chairs perhaps, and Perry took up his overwatch post by the dining room window. But the activity in the kitchen caught his attention, and he decided to investigate whatever it was that smelled so inviting. Bilal had returned from the backrooms, and been pressed back into culinary service by his sister, and Perry’s visage provided a welcome excuse for a respite from scraping a couple of pans. Perry crossed through the kitchen to see what was in preparation.

  “Couscous,” Bilal said, with a merry grin. The heat of the oven door suggested a few other things that might also be warming within.

  “… and lamb tagine,” Yasmine added. “It’s almost ready. Bilal, prepare the table, please.”

  Finally, an opportunity to make himself useful – Perry retreated to the other end, by the entryway, to make room for Bilal to collect plates and glasses into the dining room. A voice in the corridor and a noise outside the front door no longer merited his instinctive caution in the midst of the domestic bustle Yasmine had gathered around herself. He even let his mind consider the likelihood that she would probably marry soon, and congratulated himself in advance on how clever Emily was sure to find his speculation on this subject.

  When the front door swung open, Perry turned his head in time to register the presence of a large, swarthy man in a charcoal gray suit. A moment of recognition or, more precisely, unrecognition, and the expression in this intruder’s eye turned from surprise to resolution, as if he hadn’t expected to find an American here. But before Perry could weigh the significance of this observation, the man swung a hand up, brandishing a stun gun. Perry deflected it with a wooden serving tray, and barked at the boy to stay behind him. A second thrust, and Yasmine shrieked something in French just as Perry managed to seize the man’s wrist and force him to drop the weapon. A quick twist and a kick to the midsection drove his attacker back into the door.

  “Ne lui fais pas de mal,” Bilal cried out, just as Perry lunged for the man.

  “Arrêtez,” the man growled, and managed to deflect Perry’s arms and throw him over one hip into the sitting room. “Restez là.”

  Perry hardly had time to consider the significance of an armed assailant having tracked them here before he crashed into the wall, or that this man’s training in hand-to-hand combat rivaled that of a SEAL. A few of the photos on the mantelpiece fell to the floor. In the instant it took him to right himself, his attacker had closed the gap and swung a tactical baton at his head. The follow-through on the miss allowed Perry to step under the extended arm and strike the man twice on the ribs, before he managed to respond with a backhand baton stroke. A second assailant, in a similar gray suit, entered just as Perry rolled out of range.

  “Ne lui fais pas de mal,” Bilal shrieked again from the kitchen.

  “Stay there,” Perry shouted.

  The second assailant ignored the children in the kitchen and made straight for Perry, reaching under his jacket to retrieve a handgun. Perry’s mind had already identified the weapon, cycling through his encyclopedic weapons training – a Sig Sauer 9mm, single action model with a fifteen round magazine – but he couldn’t adjust to it before subduing the first man.

  “Arrête,” the second man brayed at him as he brought his sidearm up.

  All Perry could think
of was how to prevent him from firing, for fear that a ricochet or a stray shot might hit the children. His best option was to twist the first man into the path of the gun barrel, if only he could gain the advantage over an opponent who seemed to be his equal.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Bilal cried out once more, crouching by the kitchen door.

  Perry glanced at him, and waited helplessly for a hot round to burn through his flesh. But no noise came from the barrel of the Sig – Emily had arrived. What had taken her so long? A short strike under the second man’s arm with one hand, and with the other she’d seized the gun hand. Somehow, she ejected the magazine, which fell to the floor, and pulled the slide away, effectively dismantling the gun in his hand. He turned in surprise, already wincing from the blow to his ribs, and she caught him under the chin with a second strike, before seizing his windpipe and driving him to the ground.

  Like professional talent scouts, Perry and his assailant stared in a sort of shared admiration of her movements, so efficient, so direct. Perhaps Perry gaped a trifle longer, because the man twisted free of his grasp and managed to upend him with a low stroke from the baton. Perry hit the floor hard and tried to roll away, but the second strike never came.

  “Please don’t hurt my uncle,” Bilal cried out, again, and Yasmine let out a little shriek behind him.

  More voices joined this chorus, when the front door opened, Akram and Nassim. “No, no, no, please, Mademoiselle,” Nassim said. “Don’t hurt him.”

  Emily paused and turned to look at her hosts, and then at the two men she’d incapacitated, one semi-conscious, gasping for breath, the other whose face she’d forced into the brightly colored carpet, one arm twisted behind his shoulder her fist ready to deliver a strike to the back of his neck.

  “Laissez-moi.”

  Nassim rushed over to help his uncle up, and Emily turned her attention to the other man, rubbing both sides of his neck to help him breathe.