The Paris Diversion

by Chris Pavone

  There.

  That man, wearing a windbreaker. He is standing stock-still, arms hanging at his side. Something is not right, but it takes Ibrahim a second to recognize what: his head is at the wrong angle. The man is not scanning the crowd, looking for a friend, a sister. He is not admiring the palace, or staring off at the view. He is facing the sky. And…is it…?

  Ibrahim adjusts the focus, his fingers spinning nervously.

  Yes, the man’s eyes: they are closed.

  “Command,” Ibrahim says into the mic on his headset, “we have a suspicious man in the cour Napoléon.”

  Ibrahim puts down the binoculars. He picks up his rifle, aligns the sight, locates the man in this different lens just in time to see the guy bend over, deposit a briefcase on the ground. A metal briefcase.

  “Position four, precise location of target?”

  This lens has crosshairs.

  “Five meters north of the Louis XIV statue.”

  “Patrol is en route.” This is the four-man paramilitary team that sweeps the courtyard constantly, one circuit after another, watching everyone from ground level, being visible, a deterrent. At this moment they are as far away from the Louis XIV statue as possible. This, Ibrahim realizes, is not a coincidence. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  “Description?”

  “Gray jacket, black jeans. He, uh…” Damn. Ibrahim does not want to say this part. This is what he wakes up every single day hoping not to have to say: “He appears to be North African. Or Middle Eastern.”

  “Copy.” Pause. Crackle. “Position seven, are you seeing this?”

  “One moment…” This is the plainclothes officer standing at the café on the terrace, elevated a few feet above the courtyard level, a good angle to see faces. “Yes, got him. I agree, he does look suspicious. Patrol, approach carefully.”

  “Does anyone see a weapon?”

  “Negative.”

  “Negative.”

  “Anyone?”

  No one says anything.

  Ibrahim is growing increasingly anxious. “Awaiting orders, Command.”

  “Hold.”

  “He is unzipping his jacket,” Ibrahim says.

  “Repeat?”

  “He just opened his jacket. He is now taking it off…Oh merde.”

  “Repeat? Position four, status?”

  Ibrahim adjusts his focus, though the image is already sharp enough.

  “Position four, please clarify.”

  Ibrahim is irrationally hoping that maybe refocusing the lens will transform the contents of the vest into something it is not. Into water bottles, perhaps. Fly-fishing lures. Iron-on ski-mountain badges. Anything else, anything whatsoever.

  “He is wearing—” Ibrahim’s voice catches, and he clears his throat.

  “Repeat, please?”

  “He is wearing a bomb vest.”

  16

  PARIS. 9:30 A.M.

  “Do you know anything that’s not in the newspaper, Dex?”

  He takes a sip of coffee before answering. “Forsyth is buying his largest European competitor.”

  “Wow. That must be a big deal.”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess?” Kate knows that Dexter isn’t guessing any damn thing. He has probably calculated what the deal is worth to a penny. “You participating, Dexter?”

  “Uh…sort of.” He takes another sip. Either buying time or trying to avoid the topic entirely, to wear down his wife with tedious pauses. But he should know better. Kate does not wear down. “I’m shorting it.”

  Shorting. Dexter had explained this before: betting against a company’s performance by borrowing shares, then immediately selling those borrowed shares, then later buying back the same quantity of shares, hopefully at a lower price. Sell first, buy later.

  To Kate, stock-market speculation has always seemed more like a game than a legitimate profession. Especially short-selling, which doesn’t seem terribly different from poker, or sports wagering, I’ll take the Redskins plus points. Is this really the way the world works? Should it be?

  Judgments aside, this betting is how her husband earns his comfortable living, and Kate’s job has never been lucrative. She can’t be sanctimonious about how her good life is provided. Rather: She can’t act sanctimonious. She can be as high-minded as she wants, within her own high mind.

  Hers is not a unique predicament. How many wives volunteer at homeless shelters to atone for their husbands’ predatory professions? But then again, Kate doesn’t volunteer. And her own career has not exactly been a model of moral rectitude.

  * * *

  A phone is ringing, Dexter’s. He glances at the number, hits IGNORE.

  “You’re not going to answer?”

  “It’s a robocall. I get them every day.”

  “Since when?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of weeks?”

  “What are they selling?”

  “Car insurance? Life insurance? Some insurance. I listened for only a few seconds, then I blocked the caller. But they keep finding me. What do you care?”

  “Just curious. Aren’t you?”

  He shrugs. There’s plenty about modern life that’s inconvenient, annoying, offensive. Dexter doesn’t seem bothered by most of it. It’s one of the things Kate admires about her husband.

  “Is this a rational decision?”

  “Ignoring robocalls? Why would it not be?”

  “No, Dexter. The short-sell.” Or maybe he’s lying about this too. That’s the thing about lying: if you’re a liar, when do you not lie? “Is this based on a rational assessment of 4Syte’s prospects? Or is this an emotional choice?”

  Dexter tilts his head, as if genuinely thinking. “Mostly rational.” He obviously doesn’t want to discuss this. But he has reluctantly come to accept that silence is not a viable mode of marital communication. He knows he needs to explain himself, sometimes.

  “The share price has been inching up for weeks.”

  He puts down his paper, giving up the hopeful pretense that they’re not going to talk about this.

  “Immediately after the announcement, I think the share price may rise dramatically. But Hunter is way overextending, and I’m sure the acquisition is going to encounter regulatory resistance. A few days from now, a week maybe, the EU is going to start hemming and hawing. Bankers will grow skittish. Then either the deal will fall apart rapidly, and the stock will tank, or the deal will limp through, but with the price slowly eroding. Either way, I’ll come out ahead.”

  And if you’re wrong? she wants to ask. But that’s a line she shouldn’t cross. “How much?”

  “How much what?”

  She gives him a look, Are you kidding?

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You understand, Dex, that this is a phrase that ensures the opposite?”

  “Not too much.”

  “Dexter.”

  “Two-fifty.”

  “Two-fifty what? Tell me you’re not betting a quarter million dollars on a grudge.”

  “Euros, not dollars.” So it’s more. “And it’s not a grudge. Plus, wrong tense. I already made the deal.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This is an exhaustively researched move that I’m in a privileged position to assess.”

  “What the hell does that mean, privileged position?”

  “You know: my history with Hunter.”

  This is so clearly horseshit.

  Kate’s spirits plummet. For the past couple of years she’s been telling herself that she could trust Dexter again, that she should. That the lies he’d told hadn’t been so bad. That he was, at heart, a good, trustworthy man. That she loved him. She could tell this to him too; indeed she had. But once trust is destroyed, can it ever be en
tirely rebuilt?

  And now look: he’s lying to her again.

  “Obviously it’s possible to lose money, as with any investment,” he continues, but Kate doesn’t even want to listen. “And, yes, the exposure on a short-sell is far greater. No risk, no reward.”

  “Don’t placate me with platitudes.” She’s getting angry. What’s the good in asking questions if she can’t expect truthful answers? “I’m not a moron.”

  “And I’m not reckless.”

  She arches an eyebrow, a reminder, enough said.

  “And I’ve learned some important lessons.” Sounding apologetic, but not overly, he doesn’t want to give an excess of validity to the long-term accusation in that arched eyebrow of hers. “You know that, Kate.”

  She takes a deep breath.

  “Trust me.”

  “Again, Dexter, you’re completely misunderstanding the effect of that phrase.”

  He sighs, clams up, jaw tight. This has always been his response to spats: to shut down. He knows that Kate hates this—all women do—and it’s a tactic that has no hope of accomplishing what he wants to accomplish. But he can’t seem to help himself.

  “Seriously, Dexter: tell me you’re not being irrational.”

  “Seriously: I know what I’m doing here.”

  She wants to tell him—she needs him to know—that now is really not a good time for him to be reckless. Telling him is obviously the responsible thing to do. There are good times to take risks, and bad times.

  But she can’t bring herself to broach the subject. She’d have to admit too many things that she really does not want to admit.

  It’s not just Dexter who’d spent a long time lying to his spouse about fundamental facts. It’s not just Dexter who’d needed to rebuild trust.

  * * *

  Kate is proud of her career. Of her expertise, her experience, her execution. But that doesn’t mean she’s free of regrets, of guilt, about the things she has done to other people in the name of professionalism, of patriotism. Plus a different sort of guilt about her personal decisions—about how she treated her sister, how she lied to Dexter so much for so long, how she betrayed Julia.

  At the time, Kate had been convinced that it was the right thing to do, the legal thing, the ethical thing. But she eventually realized that it was something else: she’d done it because Julia had lied to her, and had enlisted Dexter too to lie to her. Because Kate had been gullible enough to believe them both. She’d done it because she could; she’d done it out of anger and spite. This wasn’t the high road she’d taken. It was low. Petty.

  This guilt isn’t the worst sort. It’s more like the guilt for flying off the handle with the kids. Or for her relationship with Peter. Not a cold-sweat-in-the-middle-of-the-night guilt, just a shiver down her spine in broad daylight, right here, right now, sitting beside her husband in the warm morning sunshine at a famous café in St-Germain-des-Prés.

  * * *

  What she should tell Dexter is this: it could happen any day now. I’ll be summoned to a meet, somewhere open and public—a bench in Parc Monceau, maybe, or the Tuileries. A paunchy officious man will arrive, someone I’ve never met.

  This man won’t say hello. He’ll take a seat and gaze into the mid-distance; he won’t say anything for a few seconds, making me wait, making me anxious, a small display of power, wielded by a small man.

  Then he’ll begin to speak in a slow monotone. The decision has been made—he’ll use a passive construction, as if the decision came from a computer—to terminate the operation. To close down this risky, unorthodox initiative. The Paris Substation had been Hayden Grey’s project, and Mr. Grey, as you know, has been missing for a long time. There’s no reason to think that he will ever reappear. And without Mr. Grey…?

  The Agency thanks you for your service. Best of luck in future endeavors.

  There will be no apology. No talk of references, of assistance finding a new situation. He’ll walk away without saying goodbye. She’ll never even be told his fake name.

  17

  PARIS. 9:38 A.M.

  Out past Gare St-Lazare, where traffic grows heavier, Wyatt pulls the van to a stop at a red light. He reaches over to the canvas bag resting on the passenger seat, another prop that had been foisted upon him, along with the clothes, the glasses, the haircut.

  He plucks a pair of surgical gloves from the bag. The tight rubber isn’t easy to handle, not with his nerves, and he has time to pull on only the left glove before the light changes, and he returns his hands to the wheel. It would be disastrous to crash now, even a fender-bender could be devastating, a rear-end tap, a soft brush against a parked car. He can’t afford to interact with anyone, not while associated with this van. Certainly not police.

  Only a couple more minutes now. The blue P beckons ahead, the final stop of this leg of his journey, thank God—

  But what’s this?

  Fuck.

  Stick to the plan. This is just a street cop, preventing street crime, out on patrol, a leisurely stroll. No reason for any patrolman to pay any attention to some tradesman’s van pulling into a public garage. And Wyatt shouldn’t create one.

  He keeps his eyes trained straight ahead, ignoring the cop’s gaze. The two men pass within a couple of yards of each other, nearly face-to-face, but Wyatt refuses to glance in the cop’s direction. Then he second-guesses himself—maybe he should’ve met the cop’s eye, nodded hello? Would that have been less suspicious?

  Too late.

  Wyatt turns into the garage, keeps the bill of his cap angled low; he knows where the camera is. He reaches with his rubber-gloved left hand to press the button, collect the ticket. The barrier rises, and he rolls the van down the incline, makes a hairpin turn to descend another level, and another. The bottom.

  Down here, most of the parking spaces are available, as expected. His instinct is to pull into the most isolated spot, but he needs light to clean up. He takes a well-illuminated space in the middle, and kills the engine.

  He pulls on the second rubber glove. There’s a thin plastic film that covers the steering wheel, the gear shift, the directional-signal arm, the door handle, the key—everything he’d needed to touch. He peels off all these car condoms, rolls up the garbage, stuffs this plastic ball into the bag.

  It’s important not to rush. Not to panic. Not to forget anything.

  Wyatt reaches into his pocket, extracts a piece of paper. A checklist. Fourteen items. He scans the lines, mentally ticking off the minor milestones. Parking ticket on seat…Key in ignition…Wipe down exterior door handles with disinfecting cloth…

  He reads the checklist one final time, to reassure himself: done. Then he walks away, toward the backlit icon of a man climbing stairs, SORTIE, just thirty yards away, a few seconds’ walk. One foot in front of the other, keep breathing.

  Remember the money.

  Twenty yards.

  Everything is fine, everything is going according to—

  * * *

  Click.

  He spins around, eyes darting around the dim-lit space. What the fuck was that?

  There, on the other side of the low wide room: a guy is getting out of a car, a little black Cooper. That click? That was the door latch disengaging.

  Fuck.

  And now a woman too, she’s emerging from the passenger side. What have these people been doing in that car? They didn’t arrive while he was here, which means they were here before he was. Here the whole time, they saw everything, they watched him wipe down the vehicle, consult his checklist, behavior that’s explicable only in the context of the commission of crime. What they saw was a man behaving like a criminal.

  He feels the weight in his jacket’s pocket, the heaviness, the no-slip grip. It suddenly seems like a hammer, and these people are indistinguishable from nails.

  No, he tells himself: The
y were not watching him. They were not paying attention, they could not have seen much, and what’s more they could not have cared. Who are these people? They’re no one. They’re not police. Not military. Just two randoms, nothing to do with him. Sitting in a car having a marital spat. Or prepping for a meeting. Or fucking—yes, they’re having an affair, stealing a few minutes for desperate but uncomfortable early-morning sports-car sex, the shift stick digging into somebody’s thigh. If you’re planning on using a car for intercourse, a Mini is not the best option. But that’s probably not how anyone chooses a car. Not unless you have a pretty serious fucking-in-cars fetish.

  Wyatt turns back toward the exit, takes another step away.

  That’s when he remembers: the bag. It’s still on the passenger seat.

  Fuck.

  He turns back again. He must look like an idiot, back and forth. But an idiot is okay, he’s willing to look like an idiot. What he doesn’t want to look like is a terrorist.

  If he returns to the van now, he’ll have to walk right past these people, and the man is going to look him in the face, say Bonjour. Not good. Or Wyatt can continue to the stairwell, ascend to a higher level to lurk until these people climb past, then return. Nothing lost except a couple of minutes. No risk, unless he has the bad luck of running into someone else up there, but that’s a solvable problem. The trick is to not be startled. To not be stupid.

  Yes, that’s what he’ll do.

  He turns back again—he’s spinning like a lunatic, isn’t he?—and takes a step, and—

  “Monsieur?”

  Oh fuck. He takes a second step, pretending he didn’t hear. A third.

  “Monsieur!”

  Can he ignore this guy? What would the consequences be?

  He glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t turn all the way around.

  “Vos phares,” the man says.

  At first Wyatt doesn’t understand what this can mean.

  “Ils sont allumés.”