The Paris Diversion

by Chris Pavone

  “Yes, I obviously know who my clients are, I know what services I provide to them, I know what they pay me, and I keep records to document all this.”

  “Records.” Kate could see it dawn on Dexter: she was advancing the same arguments now as he had, back when they’d moved to Luxembourg, when he’d fabricated his own fake career—fake job, fake office, fake clients.

  But unlike Dexter in Luxembourg, Kate in Paris actually generates real reports for real clients—people who could be contacted, files that could be double-checked, verified. The work is not dissimilar to what Kate did as an analyst in Washington, except here she pays anonymous freelancers to do it for her.

  This is the difference between Dexter’s sham job and Kate’s: he’s an amateur, and she’s a pro.

  “Where are these records?”

  “My office.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The sixteenth.”

  “What street?”

  “You can’t remember.”

  “I can’t? Why not?”

  “You don’t really go to that neighborhood, the streets are unfamiliar, I told you but you forgot. The street name begins with M, maybe. Or N.”

  Sooner or later, Kate suspected, her husband would try to find out. Just as she had. Back in Luxembourg, she’d succeeded; here in Paris, he would not.

  She told herself that these lies of hers were for Dexter’s own good. His own safety. The street begins with neither M nor N.

  “So I have to be an idiot.”

  This was an inane simplification, and he knew it. No reason for Kate to counter the argument, which would only lead to a bigger argument.

  “Are all these secrets really any better than lies?”

  He was trying to be reasonable, but he didn’t have the right to be assertive, and they both knew it. Dexter didn’t have the luxury of occupying any moral high ground; the opposite. He was in a low, precarious position, powerless.

  “Yes,” Kate said, though she didn’t have any confidence that this was true, or even if she believed it. But secrets were her métier. She was less comfortable with lies.

  “Why do you want to do this?”

  That was a valid question. She should have a better answer, but all she had was: “I don’t know.”

  “Do you really think that’s good enough?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s…”

  She didn’t want to explain it, not aloud. That she was worried it was too late for any other options. That she was a mid-forties woman who wasn’t educated or trained to do anything else. That she couldn’t bear the idea of starting from scratch, she didn’t have the humility for it. That it was this or nothing, and she’d already tried nothing, and couldn’t handle it.

  “This is all I’ve ever done, Dex. This is what I’m good at.”

  Some people are able to try a few different careers, hopping around interrelated fields. Not Kate. She’d made her choice long ago, and now it was too late. At a certain point in life, you are what you are.

  * * *

  “We could also use something for the kids to drink. Orangina.”

  “Okay.”

  “Maybe you want to make a list?”

  Dexter peers at her over the top of his newspaper. Cocktail napkins and soda. Does he need a fucking list?

  “Fine,” Kate says, and turns back to speed-reading the paper, a skill she’d developed in her old analyst job, when it had occasionally been necessary to consume imposing volumes of information very quickly. Then when she started living in France, she transferred this habit to scanning the French newspaper—key words, general ideas, proper nouns.

  Like this one, right here.

  “Oh my God,” Kate says, angling the newsprint toward Dexter. “Did you see this?” There’s even a picture, a handsome man who’s perhaps too well groomed, too smooth looking.

  “Mm-hmm.” Dexter turns back to his own paper.

  “This is a surprise.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “Dex? Are you surprised about this?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Your old friend—”

  “We were never friends. You know that, Kate.”

  “That was sarcasm. Your old boss is here in Paris, and you don’t care?”

  “I’m not saying I don’t care. I’m saying I’m not surprised. I’ve known for a while that some big announcement was coming from him, and that it would involve Europe. So it makes sense that the press conference would be here.” Dexter shrugs, trying to dismiss the whole subject, an ineptly feigned indifference. Acting isn’t one of Dexter’s core competencies.

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How did you know about this announcement?”

  Dexter screws up his mouth. “It was a while ago. Probably a tech newsletter, or even just the paper…”

  Kate maintains eye contact with her husband, waits it out…

  Waits…

  Dexter breaks his gaze away. He turns back to his newspaper, resumes reading, too studiously.

  He’s lying.

  * * *

  She should drop it.

  But when Dexter lied to her before, it was a whole series of life-defining lies that almost ruined them, ruined everything. Now he’s lying again, she’s sure of it. What she doesn’t know is why, at what magnitude. She really hopes that it’s not his career that Dexter is lying about; the family needs that to be lucrative, and secure.

  Because Kate is lying too. She’s more and more worried for her job every day, but hasn’t mentioned a word of it to her husband. Every day her silence grows harder and harder to defend. Every day she promises to break it, but doesn’t.

  Another police car goes flying by, this one in a different direction, responding to a different emergency. Just because there’s a bomb at a train station doesn’t mean all other problems disappear.

  14

  PARIS. 9:26 A.M.

  Hunter looks at his phone again. Still no reception, no wifi.

  “Colette.”

  “Oui, I will try again.” She heads off to reboot the router.

  He should’ve finished a couple of calls already. He has a list of important staff in Hong Kong, Mumbai, here in Paris; later, after noon, America too. Hunter also has a second call list, this one purely mental, no record of it. People in London, New York, the Bay Area. Two different call lists, using two different phones—

  That’s the solution. He hurries to the kitchen, through it, to the utility room. “Colette?”

  She spins from the electrical panel, startled to find him back here, in the behind-the-scenes mess of wires, meters, fuses, logistics.

  “The other phone? Do you have it?”

  She looks confused, then realizes. “The Belgian?”

  “Yes.”

  Colette gives him that smile of hers that means no, I am sorry, I am disappointed to need to disappoint you, but I simply must. It’s a very expressive smile. “Non Monsieur. It is at the office.”

  Colette had ridden the TGV from Paris to Brussels and back for the express purpose of buying a Belgian burner. Hunter himself has never set foot in Belgium. That was the point.

  He returns to the living room. The guy from State, or the CIA, he’s facing the window, gazing out at the city. After the initial conversation, the Parisian uniformed cop returned to street level. Now one cop is sitting in the car, the other standing in the lobby. This is not the usual arrangement; there’s never an officer inside. This is a change that definitely does not make Hunter feel more secure. But the important thing is not to feel secure; it’s to be it.

  “Your name is Simpson, right?”

  “Please call me Tom.”

  “You still have no cell service?”

  The man looks down at his own phone, presses a button,
another. Shakes his head, holds out his hand. “Mind if I take a look?”

  Hunter hands his device to this American official, then takes a seat on a velvet sofa that Colette picked out, along with nearly everything else in the apartment except his personal things—a few suits, shirts, ties, toiletries, electronic chargers. He has similar supplies in the other apartments, which is why he prefers them to hotels: so he doesn’t need to pack. Doesn’t need to wheel a bag through airports. Doesn’t need to plan. He always carries his passport, and that’s all he needs. At any given moment, he can decide it’s more important for him to be somewhere else, and go there.

  “What are you doing?” Hunter asks.

  He also keeps a couple of Krugerrands in his wallet, always.

  “Seeing if I can connect you to another server. Or to someone else’s wifi, if there’s any other network functioning. Doesn’t look like it.” Simpson continues to stab his pointer finger at the touch-screen, then finally shakes his head, and hands back the device. “Sorry. Do you think I could take a look at your assistant’s phone? Sometimes these problems affect—or don’t—different devices in different ways.”

  “Sure. Colette?”

  She exchanges a look with Simpson, something between them. Hostility? Fear? Distrust? “Oui Monsieur.”

  “Could I ask you to unlock your phone, please?”

  Colette lets a beat pass. “Bien sûr.” She taps at a few buttons, then relinquishes her device, and steps away from the American quickly, as if afraid of catching a communicable disease.

  “What do you think is going on here, Simpson?”

  The guy doesn’t look up from Colette’s phone. “I don’t want to speculate.”

  “Sure,” Hunter says, “I get that. But can you, Simpson? Will you?”

  The guy cuts his eyes up to Hunter, then back to the screen, continues pressing and swiping. Then he shakes his head, and walks over to Colette. “Nothing worked.”

  She doesn’t say anything as she accepts her phone, doesn’t look at the guy. Just nods curtly. An uncharacteristic lapse in manners.

  “Look,” Hunter says, taking a conspiratorial tone. Just one guy to another, what can we do about this. “I’m giving a press conference this afternoon. Big announcement. I should be making calls right now. It’s going to be a huge problem if I can’t get in touch with these people before my announcement.”

  The guy scrunches up his mouth.

  “What does that mean?” Hunter asks. “That face?”

  “Um…I’m not…” The guy trails off, looks away.

  “Come on.”

  “Listen, Mr. Forsyth, you may not be holding any press conference today.”

  “Why? What do you know?”

  “I don’t know much, Mr. Forsyth, not for certain. I’ve related to you what I do know: there’s a widespread attack against Paris. And for the past”—he looks at his watch—“ten minutes, there’s been no mobile service here, no electricity. This situation doesn’t sound promising, does it?”

  No, it certainly doesn’t.

  “And I suspect it’s not a simple problem with a quick solution. Whatever’s going on in Paris, I’d be very surprised if everything was resolved by three o’clock.”

  Hunter doesn’t remember telling this guy anything about three o’clock. But that’s public knowledge, isn’t it? The morning papers. Google.

  “Our goal right now—my goal—is not to facilitate your business, as important as that may seem to you. My goal is to keep an American citizen safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “From getting blown up, Mr. Forsyth. From getting shot. Kidnapped.”

  “What makes you think I’m in danger of any of those things? What are you not telling me?”

  “There’s a lot of chatter.”

  “Chatter? About what? Come on, man. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Specifically targeting Americans. American capitalists is the phrase.”

  “But not specifically me, right?” Hunter had been threatened before, more than once. He has plenty of enemies, personal ones and professional, corporate, international labor, maybe even organized crime, he isn’t completely sure. Hence the bodyguards.

  “We’re aware of a number of prominent American businessmen currently in Paris.”

  “A number. Like two? Or like a hundred?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that, Mr. Forsyth.”

  This conversation has taken a much worse turn than Hunter could’ve anticipated. This whole day. “It’s just two French cops we’ve got downstairs?” That doesn’t seem like sufficient manpower to prevent any professional team intent on—what? On anything.

  “Backup should be arriving soon, Mr. Forsyth. Within two hours. Or three.”

  “Three hours?” A lot of bad things can happen in three hours.

  “You have to understand that this is a very fluid situation, an environment that’s not under any normal level of control. And as you’re well aware, we are not in the United States, we can’t just do whatever we want. But I want to assure you that we have procedures for this category of scenario. Protocols.”

  “Are you armed, Simpson?”

  “I understand your concern, Mr. Forsyth, I really do, but sheltering in place is the best option at the moment.”

  Sheltering in place? What is this, a fucking tornado?

  “What about the embassy?” The oldest American diplomatic mission in the world is just a few blocks away. “The embassy has its own networks, right? And secure landlines?”

  There have been American diplomats in Paris since Benjamin Franklin arrived in 1776, before there was an American constitution. But the more recent representative doesn’t respond.

  “The embassy must have its own generators,” Hunter continues, his argument building up a head of steam, yes, this is the solution. “And backup generators, it—”

  “Mr. Forsyth, let me stop you right there: I cannot take you to rue Gabriel. The embassy is on total lockdown, even I couldn’t get in, and that’s where I work. I certainly couldn’t bring in a civilian.”

  I’m not just any civilian, Hunter wants to say, but even in his mounting frustration he realizes this is a dead end. Don’t-you-know-who-I-am? never gets positive results.

  “Is there somewhere else?”

  The guy looks away again. He sure is one reticent son-of-a-bitch.

  “There is, isn’t there? There must be. A safehouse?”

  “You’ve seen too many movies, Mr. Forsyth.”

  “You’re telling me there’s no such thing? Come on. All I’m asking for is phone service. Or a wifi signal.”

  Hunter is a person who’s used to getting what he wants, has been getting anything he wants his whole life. His power doesn’t derive from his good looks, or his fine clothes, or even his money, it’s everything together—the way he holds his body, the way he walks and talks, the way he maintains eye contact and a firm grip, the way he accepts the ministrations of the servant class, the people who do things for him, not merely because they’re paid to but sometimes just because they understand, innately, that this is how the world works.

  “Mr. Forsyth, I really do want to help you. I’m here to help you.”

  “Then do it.”

  The guy sighs. Purses his lips. He’s really drawing this out.

  “Okay,” he finally says, followed by a phrase that Hunter hears all the time, the phrase that people always use when confronted by men like Hunter Forsyth who are dissatisfied with something, with anything, men who are not in the habit of accepting their own dissatisfaction. How many times has Hunter heard this phrase? Thousands?

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  15

  PARIS. 9:28 A.M.

  The sniper rests his elbows on the parapet atop the Richelieu Wing, and sweeps hi
s binoculars across the far side of the cour Napoléon. Dozens of people are milling around in that quadrant, maybe hundreds, doing all the normal things, nothing unusual except perhaps that pair of blondes who are exploding out of their clothing, both wearing T-shirts and miniskirts that do not leave much to the imagination.

  Ibrahim Abid adjusts the focus, gets a nice sharp image. Oh, goodness.

  He pushes the spyglasses away from this unacceptable distraction, scans back toward the center, where the crowd is denser. It is more difficult to concentrate on one individual at a time, with each person surrounded in close proximity by so many others. But that is what he forces himself to do.

  The sniper’s great-grandparents both emigrated from Morocco right after the First World War. All of his grandparents were born in Nice, both his parents here in Paris. Himself too, his siblings. Ibrahim is more Parisian than most Parisians, a city bursting with people from somewhere else, from Cairo and Dakar, Saigon and Bangkok, New York and San Francisco, from West London and central Stockholm, sent over from corporate headquarters in Bonn, in Moscow, in Rio de Janeiro, migrating here from the crowded slums of Marseille and the sleepy farmland of the Loire, the gritty industrial towns in Lorraine, Dijon, Pas-de-Calais, people flocking from all over France, all over the world.

  Ibrahim is more Parisian than all those carpetbaggers. Though not necessarily as French. But French enough to do six long years of military service, then to join the préfecture de police, to become one of the department’s top snipers.

  He has been assigned to this Louvre posting for only six months. Which is a very long time to do a job in which nothing happens, ever.

  Regulations forbid the use of the rifle’s sights for routine surveillance. This is Paris, after all, not Tikrit, not Kabul, the ten million annual visitors are not accustomed to being monitored from rooftops through the scopes of high-powered rifles. So Ibrahim continues his sweep with binoculars, pushing the lenses up through the courtyard, back toward the far side of the—

  Wait. What was that?

  He aims the binoculars back toward the middle, to a densely occupied area, looking for…