She clicked away on her computer for the rest of the day while Jack napped on the sofa, kicking back his feet, folding arms over his chest, and healing. At times, she peppered him with questions. They would discuss this lede or that slant, arcane details or vague facts, conclusions that could be drawn, where blame could be laid, and which government agencies were likely co-conspirators or enablers.
They broke for a quick lunch and a quicker dinner, scarcely exchanging a word, and went back to work. She had already been in contact with her editor at the Gazette. Other wire services and internet websites agreed to pick up the story. Around midnight, she showed him the first article of an ongoing series. They discussed how their partnership might work. He would release all files and databases to her, removing any influence by him on her work while also protecting her back should Jack be captured, interrogated, or offered a plea deal.
“I appreciate your faith in me,” he said glibly.
“Faith doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s about practicality.” She assured him each article would be thoroughly vetted: expert opinions obtained, authorities contacted, outside sources consulted, and confirmations sought. Everything from a journalistic point of view would be her call. What she released, when she released it, and which conclusions she drew were her decisions to make, and hers alone. “The facts should speak for themselves, but it doesn’t mean I won’t have an opinion. After that, everyone from bastard to bitch is free to conjecture until the cats come home.”
“I don’t think you understand what you’re really in for. Look what they did to me.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said, sounding unconvinced. After some thought, she cocked her head and smiled ruefully. “I’m not naïve. I’ll come under fire from every direction. The hazards of my profession. And a risk I’m willing to take. As a journalist, I’m on safer ground. You, though, wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Your underwhelming confidence in me gives me a tingly feeling all over.” He sat up painfully and massaged his shoulder. His future looked bleak. His well-being looked bleaker. On the cheerful side, the swelling had gone down enough for him to see from both eyes. On the miserable side, he was a physical wreck.
She came over and hugged him against the generous warmth of her succulent body, pushing his head against her shoulder like a mother-wife-girlfriend and stroking him with soothing strength. “It’s not meant as an insult to your character. You have a very fine character. You’ve been through hell. If it means anything to you, anything at all, you’re doing the right thing.” She lifted his chin and left a pleasant kiss on his mouth. Their lips lingered. Their eyes searched. “There’s more to come. Are you up to it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
She shook her head. “None.”
“Now that that’s settled, let me point out the elephant in the room.” He glanced around the office space that had the appearance of a consignment shop, everything secondhand and worn yet homey, comfortable, cozy, and representative of the lady. “I’m just someone you can get something out of. Just one of your sources. Here today. Gone tomorrow.”
She didn’t look terribly pleased. “I would put it differently.”
“Exactly how? I’m not trying to be a prick. I’m trying to be realistic.”
“I believe in you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but it ignores the problem. I could be telling you the truth or I could be lying. How would you know the difference?”
“Your dossier is proof enough.”
“How do you know it isn’t a work of fiction?”
“No one could fabricate something like that,” she said, nodding toward the computer monitor. “Besides, I go by my gut. My gut tells me you’re the real deal.”
“I’m not worth anything except the space filled between two ads or two thirty-second commercials selling washing machines and automobiles.”
“You’re more than that, honey. A hell of a lot more than that. Get used to it.” She patted his cheek as if he were a good little boy who deserved a lollipop. “Now go to bed.”
Jack weakly saluted, stiffly got up, climbed downstairs, woke up late the next morning, and showered but didn’t shave. The thickening beard along with his lengthening hair and the bruises on his face were fair disguises for a man whose public image had become notorious.
“One more thing,” she said as he was getting ready to go. “I heard from a colleague who heard from someone else inside the CIA. Your conjecture about Harrison Tobias has been confirmed. All evidence points to kidnapping and rendition. He was about to turn, blow the whistle, and become another Jack Coyote. It looks like your HID is running scared.”
Jack absorbed the information with a sanguine awareness that couldn’t be expressed in words. Harry didn’t deserve what happened to him any more than Jack did. Or Milly. “I haven’t told you about my plans.”
“Better if you don’t.” She grabbed him by the shoulders, ignoring the pain she was inflicting on his sore body, and planted a big juicy kiss on his lips, saying so many little things with that one kiss, something about him being her hero, her son, and her lover all wrapped up in a sloppy package and tied with a bow.
“Tell your husband thanks. He probably saved my life.”
Her lips curled in consternation while her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Ex-husband.”
30
Paris, France
Wednesday, July 30
WHEN CAT RETURNED from her trip to the market, he was waiting for her.
Even before unlocking the door, she sensed his presence. It had always been like this, being tuned into him like a radio telescope tunes in signals from distant galaxies and picks out that single unique transmission. The recognition was instantaneous, the thrill real, the aphrodisiac dizzying. When he was away from her for any amount of time—hours or days or weeks—she lost touch with herself, surprising since she had never been adrift before meeting him.
From the time she was a little girl running wild on the streets of Montmartre, joining forces with other sprites as grubby and footloose and unkempt as she was, and making mischief everywhere she went, Katerine Cécile Arnaud Madoc had always known who she was, and more importantly, who she was not. She was no angel. What she was, was a thief. A cambrioleuse. A cat burglar.
The scene inside the apartment was just as she imagined, with him sprawled across the leather armchair, legs propped on the matching hassock, and arms slung gracefully over the side supports. Gently she lowered the netted grocery bags onto the floor, silently slipped off her shoes, tiptoed to the chair, and sat on the throw rug, where she lay her head against his thigh. So deep was he in his dreams that he did not stir.
Let him dream, she thought. Time enough for wakefulness.
Anyone encountering Michel Desmarais for the first time would never guess he was the bastard son of a criminal and one of his many prostitutes. He was handsome enough and charming enough and suave enough to fool just about anybody … on first glance. On second glance, a stranger might sense something slightly off, and might even make a wide berth around him without knowing exactly why. Cat knew why. It was the depravity lurking inside him. A psychiatrist might call him a sociopath, a policeman a psychopath, and his victims a fiend. Yet no one would truly understand what lay hidden behind the pleasing façade of this beautiful man. Certainly Cat hadn’t when she first set eyes on him. And still didn’t. Something awful must have happened to him to make him this way, something in his earliest memories, something he could not acknowledge much less express. When he had made the true essence of his darkness known to her, her pull to him only strengthened. So goes the soul of an equally depraved woman. She harbored no illusions about herself … or her lover.
Combing lazy fingers through his hair, Michel slowly came awake. He gazed blearily around himself as if he had never inhabited the spacious surroundings of their lavish apartment located near the Eiffel Tower. For a man who grew up as Cat had grown up, owning nothing but the clothes on his ba
ck, this apartment represented the pinnacle of success. Yet these creature comforts were not enough. He always wanted more. The unreachable. The unattainable. Cat did as well. But his hunger for riches and respect was a ravenous appetite that could not be satisfied.
When eventually he focused on Cat, a smile came to his lips, in many respects the smile of a young boy, endearing and charming, a contradiction of his true nature, which was as black as could be.
“I didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” she said.
“I rid myself of the annoyance earlier than expected.”
Cat never tired of looking at him. He was a gorgeous man, perhaps the most gorgeous man she had ever known. Tall. Graceful. Elegant. His hair nearly black but with mahogany highlights. His brooding eyes similarly colored but with olive undertones. Callousness lingered in those eyes. He came from a long line of gypsies and a longer line of misfits. When asleep, he resembled a babe. When awake, he was the devil incarnate. They were a pair, these two, both orphaned children of dissipated parents, and made for each other.
When she was a young girl, no more than nine or ten, her dear maman lay abed all day, never seeming to care where her young daughter was or what she was up to. Until late in the afternoon. Then she would awaken to see her sweet child playing on the floor with stolen toys, pet rats, and stacks of shiny coins. Upon hearing her name spoken in silky tones, Cat would gaze up at Deserae Abril Arnaud Madoc and smile beatifically at her as all obedient daughters do, even if she was anything but obedient. When Deserae finally managed to drag herself out of bed, she would pat her daughter on the head, tell her what a good girl she was, and shuffle around the apartment like an old lady. To get going, she had to bolster herself with two or more shots of cheap bourbon followed by several cups of black coffee, this while smoking cigarette after cigarette, ashes dusting her robe. Then she would pace herself through the evening rituals. Give herself a sponge bath. Put up her hair. Apply enough makeup to hide the ravages of her misspent youth. Dress in front of a discolored mirror. Add accessories with this silk scarf or that piece of jewelry. Assume a merry expression. And finally step out to make the nightly rounds with her regulars and irregulars.
Michel had drifted off again. She put a cool hand to his moist forehead and let it linger there. His eyes fluttered open. He moved restlessly. Gradually, he came fully awake.
“Hungry?” she asked him.
He grumbled in the affirmative.
“I’ll make you something.” She started to get up.
He tugged her back down. “I did my best.”
“You should have killed him when you had the chance.”
“It would have been ….” He paused to find the right word. “… imprudent.”
“I told you before. I don’t care about the bonus money. We have enough.”
“There is never enough.” He pondered, his forehead compressing. “But it asks a question, does it not, that begs an answer? Of why there will be more if he stays alive and less if he is dead.”
“If he’s dead, there will be no one left to blame but those who wanted him out of the way. Aside from that, we have established a rule, have we not?”
“No witnesses left behind.”
“To identify either of us, oui.”
At twelve—or was it thirteen?—she was brash enough and bold enough to boss her way into the Milieu, the hierarchy of France’s organized crime syndicate. A Maghrebian Jew took an interest in her. He was a grizzled old man marked with a jagged scar the length of his jaw and possessed of a laugh that came straight from an ashtray. He was the iron-fisted godfather—le parrain—of his gang of thieves, conmen, and cutthroats. He needed someone who could move in and out of shadows. Ugly though he was, and feared by many, she knew him only as a kindly man, a gentle man. He never once pawed her or tried to take advantage of her. After teaching her everything he knew, he decided it was time for her to get a formal education. He packed her off to an English boarding school, there to learn her ABCs and 123s, and thence to university. When she came back an educated and sophisticated young lady with refined manners—even if her crude upbringing would never wear off—he made her his righthand man, the one who watched over the profits and whispered in his ear the names of those he should trust and those he should eliminate. When he died in his sleep with his wife and children by his side, Cat was among them.
Michel said, “You are a very clever woman.”
“I have always told you so, n’est-ce pas?”
“But as my father would say―”
“To hell with your father. Let him rot in his grave.”
“Then I promise on the grave of my mother, may she rest in peace …” He raised his hand to make an oath. “… the next time, you will have your wish.”
She shook her head. She had already reconsidered. “He knows you by now. He will be more watchful. And more desperate. Desperate men are unpredictable. No,” she said, working it out in her mind, “I think it is better to play with our Monsieur Coyote. It will be interesting to play with him. Like a cat plays with her pet mouse.”
If not for her daughter, Deserae Madoc would have died that much sooner of loneliness, heartache, poverty, and illness. As it was, she died of a drug overdose at the tender age of thirty-seven, a mere seven days before her thirty-eighth birthday. Cat was seventeen. Eight months to the day after the body of her dear maman was lowered into a grave, Katerine Madoc gave herself a special birthday present. It was the day her mother’s drug supplier was found dead in an alleyway squalid with refuse and rats, a kitchen knife plunged into his belly having dispensed a slow and agonizing death. When neighbors discovered his body in the morning, his mouth was agape with astonishment and his eyes were fixed on a point slightly above and to the right, as if he were staring at the afterimage of his killer.
“Come,” she said, rising to her feet and reaching down. “We have lovemaking to catch up on.”
Michel slipped his hand into hers and obediently followed her into the bedroom.
31
Georgetown, Washington D. C.
Wednesday, July 30
AFTER ALEX DROPPED him off at the bus station, Jack stowed his gear in a locker and called Sam Soderberg.
When he heard Jack’s voice, Sam said, “How’s it going?”
“Still breathing.”
Sam released an expectant breath. “Keep it that way.”
“Doing my best. Listen. I’m looking for someone. Works or worked for Leamas.”
Once, after an enjoyable meal, just the two of them dining at an out of the way restaurant in Berlin, sitting at a quiet table in back, sipping schnapps and smoking cigars, they talked about the perils of working for a government where you didn’t know who was friend or who was foe. They invented a secretive code, having done it on a lark, not realizing they would need it one fine day. Alluding to the John le Carré’s novel in which British agent Alec Leamas poses as a defector in East Germany, Leamas referred to spying in enemy territory.
“A rose seller,” Jack went on. “Specializing in purple roses. Local business. Storefront unknown. I tried to find the guy in the yellow pages, but no dice.”
Jack had narrowed down the hacker who hacked him to a contractor listed in the Firm’s personnel directory as Blanche Chevalier. The name didn’t ring true. It took a while for him to figure it out, but when the answer came, he had to laugh. It was the stuff of spy novels, no less comical than what he and Sam were acting out. Translated from French, Blanche Chevalier meant white knight.
“You did say roses?” Sam asked.
“Purple.”
“Rare.”
‘Roses’ meant a contractor or outsider. Purple meant a cybersecurity expert. Local business referred to the metro area. Storefront meant that Jack wanted to make a personal visit but needed an address. In plain English, Jack was looking for a cybersecurity expert in the D. C. area and needed to find him fast.
“I don’t much like the smell of roses,” Sam said.
“N
either do I, but the wife loves them.”
Sam paused to consult his memory. “One of my wife’s friends once mentioned someone good. Is this for a garden party? Or a dinner party?”
Dinner parties had long been known as a breeding ground for setting someone up or taking someone out, more easily discussed in a noisy crowd. Garden parties, picnics, and barbeques were best suited for exchanging information on an informal basis, out in the open where bugs were unlikely to be planted.
“More like a garden party,” Jack said. “Nothing fancy.”
“Sounds like fun. I’ll ask around and get back to you. Can I reach you at this number?”
“It’s safe.” If anyone were listening in or tracing the call, Jack would be gone long before reinforcements arrived. Once he received the callback, he would toss the burner phone, leaving it for sewer rats to chew into unrecognizable pieces.
While Jack cased the streets for a car to heist, he recalled Janice Brodey and the look on her face when the knife slid across her throat like soft butter. At first, she was stunned. Then she was confused. At length, horrified. She reached her hand toward Jack as if seeking salvation. Then she shrugged, knowing no one could help her, not even the stranger who knocked on her door. Perhaps she glimpsed the afterlife. Or envisioned her husband and little girl in happier times. Did she mouth the words, I’m sorry or I’m dying? If she said anything, were the words meant for Jack? Or for God, who deserted her in her hour of need? She might have said a final prayer before slumping to the floor. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
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