by Tom Savage
“Chris Waverly—that would be me this time—tracked them down just before last Christmas and confronted Carla. Bernard was in Africa on business; she and I were alone in their villa near Avignon. I was holding a gun on her, trying to scare her into a recorded confession, and she was sitting on a fancy couch with all these pillows on it. Pretty woman, about my age. She had a dog in her lap, some kind of terrier that kept growling at me. There was a Christmas tree in the corner behind her.
“She seemed like such a wimp; I honestly thought I’d broken her down. Well, she threw the dog at me—I kid you not—and reached under a pillow and pulled out one of those sleek little pearl-handled, five-round jobs. I blew her away. Bernard found the body when he returned home, and he vowed to hunt down Chris Waverly and kill her.”
“Wait a minute,” Nora said. “I sent you the photos of the man in the alley, and you told me you didn’t know who he was. Now you say you tracked him and his wife down months ago. Why didn’t you simply tell me all this yesterday?”
“Mr. Cole told me not to; he was hoping to resolve the issue immediately, without scaring you any more than you already were. The minute he saw your photos, he alerted the French police, and they’re watching Bernard Clement’s homes in Paris and Avignon. Clement will be arrested the minute he shows up.”
Nora sighed. Clement had already shown up, this morning, but she wouldn’t tell Amanda about it right now. “Okay. I congratulate you and the lady in Russia, but what does the international slave trade have to do with the CIA? Why would American agents be involved with that in the first place?”
Amanda looked off into the distance. “There’s the Eiffel Tower; our cruise is almost over.” She turned to face Nora. “American agents are involved because America is one of the biggest destinations for those businesses. How do you think they talk people into leaving their homelands? They all want to go to America. The Russian gangsters and Monsieur and Madame Clement were just making their dreams come true. We stopped them before they dumped a lot of those victims in our country. But there are more businesses out there, many more. Some of our most affluent fellow Americans are on secret waiting lists for girls and cheap servants from Africa, Russia, China, wherever. Supply and demand.”
Nora felt ill, but she couldn’t pretend she’d never heard of this; she had. Even so, she was heartened to know that her husband’s associates—now her associates as well—were doing something about it. She would shed no tears for Carla Clement or her despicable husband. Nora wished she’d kicked him a few more times in the alley yesterday, and harder.
When she felt she could speak again, Nora said, “Tell me about TSB. You think you’ve found them? Who are they?”
“It’s not a they, it’s a he,” Amanda said, “a retired British agent named Daniel Fenwick. Mr. Cole knows him; they worked together a few times. Well, retired is a polite term for his departure from MI6. He left in disgrace, suspected of being paid off by foreign agents to look the other way while they set up shop in London. That was the story, anyway. He was cut off without a pension, and he lost everything—his home in Mayfair, his day job with a major British company, his club memberships, his friends and associates. Now he’s an old drunk, living in a room in Soho, and Mr. Cole thinks he’s hard up for booze money.” She extended her phone to Nora. “This is Fenwick.”
Nora stared at the picture. It was the elegant older man from the club last night, the one she’d seen standing at the bar near the bachelor party. In fact, that was where he was in the photo; Amanda had snapped the shot from the couch beside Nora.
“You saw him, too,” Nora whispered.
“Only after you said you wanted to leave—I looked where you were looking and saw that man watching you. I took his picture just as that neighbor of yours arrived to nearly blow your cover. I sent the picture to Mr. Cole later, after we dropped you off at the hotel, and he told me who the man was.”
“Well, he did seem to be watching me,” Nora conceded, “but what makes Mr. Cole think he’s TSB?”
Amanda shrugged. “Because Mr. Cole once told Mr. Fenwick all about Chris Waverly. In fact, Mr. Fenwick helped him set up the ruse. They were friends back then, but Mr. Cole distanced himself from Fenwick after the scandal. So we have a disgraced former agent, now an old drunk with no income, who has knowledge of sensitive, valuable information, who’s apparently following you in Paris. Mr. Cole wants to talk to him, so we’re setting a trap.”
Nora leaned forward. “What sort of trap?”
Amanda smiled as the boat glided over to the dock. “We’re going to catch him at the theater tonight!”
Chapter 17
Nora learned about the murder just before the car arrived to take her to the Palais-Royal. She was already worried by that point, and the news made it worse.
The taxi had dropped her off at Hotel Lisette at three o’clock, and Amanda told her that Ben would have the limousine there at seven to drive them to the theater. Nora promised to be ready and waiting, then watched as the cab whisked Amanda off to wherever she lived. Nora wondered where that might be for a moment before going inside the hotel and up to her room.
She showered and put on her black velvet gown. She’d worn it only twice before, in Venice three months ago, and it was the only formal dress she’d brought to Paris as Julie Campbell. The red-and-black print cocktail dress she’d worn to Rêve last night was her only other choice for the theater; otherwise, she’d brought business suits, sweaters, slacks, blouses, and jeans. Nora wasn’t sure what an international femme fatale would wear, but she knew the clothes that made her feel the most comfortable—clothes she could run in, if necessary—so she’d gone with them.
She put up her hair, put on her earrings, and slipped into her black pumps, her only footwear beside her trusty black boots and a pair of sneakers. The sparkling black shawl that went with the gown and her beaded black clutch purse would be sufficient for the evening, so she’d leave her trench coat and shoulder bag here. She made up her face, arranged the only two chairs in the room together at the table, and went over to the door just on the stroke of four o’clock. Ben Dysart was the prompt type; he wouldn’t keep her waiting.
She waited.
At four-ten, she sat in one of the chairs and stared at the door. At four-fifteen she called the lobby desk to see if they had any messages for her. They didn’t. At four twenty-five, she picked up the new black phone and called the number from Ben’s call last night, the next-door neighbor. A woman answered, and Nora explained in slow, careful high school French that she was trying to reach Ben Dysart next door, and could the woman please see if he was home? The woman told Nora to wait and went to knock on Ben’s door. She was back in a few minutes, telling Nora that no one was there. Nora thanked her and ended the call.
She waited another fifteen minutes.
At four forty-five, she called Ben directly on the gray CIA phone. He thought his phone might be bugged, and hers could be as well, so she’d keep the conversation neutral, not revealing their plan to meet this afternoon. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t answering. Nora got his prerecorded message with the offer of voicemail, but she didn’t leave a message.
At five-fifteen, she picked up the black phone and called Jacques Lanier. He asked for Ben’s address, which she didn’t have; she had his cellphone number and the phone number of the next-door neighbor. Jacques called back in ten minutes, telling her he’d gotten Ben Dysart’s address from the neighbor’s phone number and was sending someone to the apartment building.
She waited one hour.
At six twenty-five, Jacques called on the black phone. His son Pierre had gone to Ben’s apartment and searched it—Nora didn’t ask how he’d gotten in—but there was no sign of Ben or any clue as to his whereabouts. Also, Cecile Lanier had called the Paris station of the CIA from a pay phone and asked for Ben Dysart. She’d been told that no one by that name was employed there. Jacques and his sons were now monitoring every network they knew for any mention of the missing
man, including airports, train and bus stations, taxi dispatchers, police bands, and hospitals. He promised to call Nora the moment they found anything.
Nora waited until she couldn’t wait any more. At six-fifty, she grabbed her shawl and went down to the lobby. At the front desk, she was given a message that had just arrived from Jeff: Hey, Pal—Got your VM yesterday. Call me when you can. Love you. —Coop. She’d explained to her husband that he couldn’t use her CIA phone unless it was a dire emergency, and the best thing was for him to leave messages for room 201 at the hotel desk. “Pal” and “Coop”—for Gary Cooper, a private joke—were proof of the message’s authenticity without the use of actual names. It helped that her husband was a former field agent; he didn’t ask questions but merely obeyed her instructions.
The concierge was watching a news broadcast on a laptop on his desk. He assured Nora that there were no other messages for her. He’d been here for three hours, and no one had arrived asking for her. She gave him the number of the black phone and asked him to call her if anyone got in touch. He told her that he would, and she turned to go outside.
She froze, listening. Her French wasn’t much, but she recognized the name the newscaster had just announced. She turned back to the concierge.
“May I see that newscast?” she asked, unable to keep the urgency from her voice. He picked up the laptop and set it down on the counter facing her. She stared at the image of the man she’d seen on the street near the hotel this morning, the man from the alley yesterday.
Between her rudimentary French and the concierge’s polite translations, she got the story. Bernard Clement, fifty-two, a business executive of Avignon and Paris, had just been found dead in an alley near a main boulevard in the Marais. His neck had been broken, and his body had been deposited in a trash bin. A reporter at the scene stood near the bin while police and scene-of-crime personnel milled around behind her. A vagrant searching for food had discovered the body. No arrests, no suspects. The reporter promised further developments as they occurred.
When Nora could move again, she wandered outside and waited under the awning in the cool evening air. Her mind raced, trying to make a connection between the dead would-be assassin and her missing young CIA friend, and she fervently hoped Ben would be driving the car that was coming for her.
At seven-ten, the familiar limousine rolled to a stop in front of her, and her hope soared. It was dashed when the driver’s door opened and a complete stranger, a muscular young man with curly black hair, emerged to open the back door.
“Who are you?” Nora blurted before thinking how rude she probably sounded. She tried to mask her stridency with a smile, and she also checked to be sure Amanda was in the backseat.
“I am Lucan, mademoiselle,” he said in French-accented English. “Luc.” He held the door as she got in.
“Where’s Ben?” Nora asked Amanda, attempting to make her desperation sound like idle curiosity.
Amanda sighed, then shrugged. “In bed with the flu. But there’s good news—Chuck is feeling better. He’ll be at the theater tonight, and Luc is local talent. He’s a private security guard who doubles as a chauffeur, so there should be enough of us to detain Mr. Fenwick, assuming he shows up there, and I think he will.”
“Why not just get more agents from the Paris station?”
“I tried, but I couldn’t find any,” Amanda said. “They’re all busy on other cases, if you can believe that.”
Nora didn’t believe that, but she pretended to. “Oh well, I’m sure we’ll be fine.” She wasn’t sure about that, either, and Ben Dysart wasn’t home with the flu. Nora was beginning to expect all the lies she was being told. This op was so secret that even the CIA didn’t seem to be in on it.
She was about to mention the dead body in the alley when Amanda’s phone buzzed. She watched as Amanda answered.
“Yes, Mr. Cole?” Pause. “What?” A long pause. “I see. Okay, I’ll call you as soon as there’s news from the theater.” She ended the call and turned to Nora. “Bernard Clement’s been murdered.”
“I know,” Nora said. “It was on the news in the lobby.”
They rode for a while in silence, and then Amanda began to speak, outlining the plan for the night. Nora listened carefully. Luc pulled up to the entrance of Salle Richelieu, the main theater of the Comédie-Française in Place Colette, and the two women got out and headed inside. Nora braced herself for whatever was going to happen next.
Chapter 18
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is generally regarded as one of the funniest plays ever written. The world’s oldest national theater company had mounted a splendid new staging with opulent period scenery and costumes, a large and boisterous cast, and a small orchestra playing the actual musical score composed for the original production almost 350 years ago.
The Comédie-Française had been adding bold new productions of cutting-edge plays to their repertoire for half a century, but this revival of their greatest playwright was a careful, historically accurate simulation of the style of his era. The cast was led by a grand old star of the resident company, and his performance was a triumph of manic, slapstick campiness. The supporting players were every bit as brilliant as the lead. The audience howled with laughter from start to finish, and Nora knew this was one of the best presentations of Molière she’d probably ever see.
Even so, she barely made it through the evening.
For one thing, she didn’t understand most of it. She was familiar with the story of the idiotic social climber who tries to give himself a noble makeover and refuses to let his daughter marry her middle-class suitor, but the pace was so frantic that she didn’t have time to translate the lines. Fortunately, the comedy was so broad that much of the dialogue was hardly necessary; the constant pratfalls and funny walks were self-explanatory, and there were several dance sequences.
Of course, the language barrier wasn’t the real reason for her distress. Nora had already been on edge before arriving here this evening, and now she was worried about Amanda’s plan to catch the man they suspected of being TSB.
She and Amanda were seated near the proscenium arch on one side of the wraparound grand tier—it would be called the dress circle in Britain and America—with an excellent view of the main floor below and most of the three balconies above them. The 860-seat auditorium was surprisingly intimate. Throughout the performance, Nora scanned the faces of the audience, looking for Daniel Fenwick, but she didn’t see him anywhere. Unless he was seated in a section of a balcony directly above her head, he apparently wasn’t in the theater.
Amanda had explained her plan in the car on the way here. Their presence at Salle Richelieu had been leaked to every covert channel of the international spy community. Fenwick would definitely know where Nora was tonight, and Amanda was betting that he’d show up. Nora was going to place herself, alone, in the middle of the lobby during the intermission and after the performance. Amanda would be somewhere nearby, waiting to see if Fenwick would approach Nora, and Chuck and Luc would be just outside the entrance. The two men couldn’t enter the theater because they were armed, and they also had Tasers and plastic handcuffs. Amanda was hoping for a quick, discreet arrest.
Nora wondered if they had the proper authorization. She knew the CIA had extraordinary leeway in certain countries, including France, but she suspected that there were rules when it came to arrests on French soil; she assumed the formalities had to be executed by actual French agents. When she’d asked about this, Amanda shook her head and said that Luc had all the necessary local credentials, but Nora still wasn’t sure.
The intermission arrived at the end of act three of the five-act play, and Nora dutifully descended the grand escalier to the gilded lobby and stood in the center of the milling crowd of well-dressed theatergoers. Amanda passed by her a few minutes later, discreetly handing her a glass of white wine before stationing herself near the main doors. Nora sipped the wine and pretended to read her program. She didn’t think Fenwick would c
hance showing himself in such a throng, so she was beginning to relax when a hand suddenly touched her arm and a deep male voice spoke from behind her.
“Pardon, mademoiselle, êtes-vous seul ce soir?”
Nora turned around. He was tall, handsome, gray-haired, and distinguished-looking, and he was wearing beautiful evening clothes—but he wasn’t Daniel Fenwick. The gleam in his eyes immediately told her what he wanted.
“Non, monsieur,” she replied with a knowing smile. “Je suis ici avec mon homme.”
The man gave her a rueful French shrug, bowed, and moved on. Nora nearly laughed aloud at the exchange, an attempted pickup in a theater lobby. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to her. In her experience, theater lobbies were second only to weddings as potential dating grounds. She inspected her bare left hand, regretting the need to leave her wedding ring at home. The would-be Casanova’s timing couldn’t have been worse; if Fenwick was here, this might have scared him off.
She glanced over at Amanda, who shook her head and rolled her eyes. Amanda was obviously thinking the same thing. Nora finished her wine and headed back upstairs when the chimes sounded and the chandeliers flickered. Amanda resumed the seat next to her as the
houselights dimmed and the orchestra began playing the entr’acte.
“Flattering, but inconvenient,” Amanda whispered.
Nora groaned. “That’s why I don’t like to hang around theater lobbies alone. Maybe we’ll have better luck after the show.”
“I hope so,” Amanda said. “We really need to get this guy.”
Nora glanced over at her companion as the curtain rose for the fourth act. Amanda was clearly anxious, and her anxiety was contagious. Nora tried to focus on the hilarious plot of the play, but she found herself constantly looking at the audience below and around her, wading through a virtual sea of laughing faces. She inspected every older, gray-haired man, looking for the one she remembered from the previous night. It’s pointless, she told herself; he isn’t here. He’s figured it out; he’s been tipped off; he’s—
