L'Assassin

by Peter Steiner

  “As best I can gather, he and Pierre fled Algeria on an oil tanker,” said Renard. “They were in Marseille for a few days. His father gave him a list of people he could look up if he needed help, and your name was on the list. Pierre was killed in the hotel where they were staying.”

  “Do you have any idea who killed him?” Louis wondered.

  “I think the boy saw them do it. He won’t say so, but I’m guessing from some things he’s said that the police were involved.”

  “He can’t stay there,” said Louis.

  “There’s more,” said Renard. “He stole a police car in Lyon. They tried to arrest him, and he drove off in their car.”

  “He’s a good driver,” said Louis. “I remember that about him.”

  “He gave the police your name; he said you were his uncle and that he was coming to stay with you. They put your name in the computer, and guess what they found.”

  “How do you know all this?” Louis asked.

  “I called Pénichon,” said Renard. “He already knew about the boy. I told him the boy was here. Pénichon wanted him arrested, but I suggested he be left alone. That way he might lead us to you. Pénichon told me to leave the anti-terrorist tactics to the professionals, but I think he liked the idea. Listen, it could be a stroke of luck. If Pénichon and his higher-ups go for it, it could guarantee that security forces get involved.”

  Louis met Michael and Jennifer in Quimper in the park that ran along the river by the pottery works. They walked along the gravel paths under the plane trees. Leaves blew about in front of them, making odd scraping sounds. Up ahead a couple of gardeners tore dead plants from the flower beds and tossed them into a wooden cart.

  “How have you been, Jennifer?” said Louis.

  “I’m the same as I was, Dad. How should I be?”

  “I want to ask a favor,” said Louis, as though he had not heard her angry response.

  “The answer is no,” said Jennifer.

  “Without hearing what it is?” said Louis.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” said Louis. “I’ll accept that you won’t do it. But I want to tell you what it is anyway.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” said Jennifer.

  “Listen to me, Jennifer,” said Louis. His voice took on an edge that caused her to stop walking and turn to face him. “Be as angry as you want, Jennifer. See me as your enemy if that helps. But don’t let your anger get in the way of your own wellbeing. Whatever harm I have done you, don’t forget that I do not mean you harm. But there are those that do.”

  “Who was it that said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?”

  “Many people. And they were right about hell. But this is life, which is far more complicated and far less clear.”

  “You have all the answers, don’t you, Dad?”

  “All I’ve got is questions, Jennifer. But just listen to what I have to say.”

  “You think you can persuade me?” Jennifer said, as though she were daring him to try.

  “No,” said Louis. “I’m fairly sure I can’t persuade you of anything. I don’t know if you can even listen to facts right now. But I want you to hear them anyway. I want you to know where you stand. I want you to know what is going on and to what extent the outcome depends on you. Whatever wrong has been done you and whoever is to blame, it doesn’t change reality one bit, it doesn’t change what is.”

  “I’m all ears,” said Jennifer. She stood with her eyes flashing and her arms folded across her chest. In that moment she reminded Louis of himself.

  Louis told her about the boy Zaharia hiding out in his house in Saint Leon. “Some of the same people who are trying to kill me killed this boy’s father. He saw them do it. He turned up at my house. He found his way there from Marseille. By himself. He’s a plucky kid and a bright kid. And, from all appearances, a good kid. But he can’t stay there, for his safety and for ours. He’s an important witness to important and terrible crimes. I think he would be safest here in Quimper.”

  “And the favor is?”

  “You keep him with you until this is all over.”

  “You must be crazy.”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so,” said Louis.

  “Why don’t you keep him? He’s your orphan. Why should I keep him?”

  “He won’t be safe with me. He will be safer with you. And you will be safer with him.”

  “And why not Michael?” She pointed her thumb in her brother’s direction.

  “Here is the ugly truth, Jennifer. You’ll be decoys, you and the boy. His name is Zaharia.”

  “You make it sound more attractive all the time.”

  “Your apartment is larger than Michael’s, isn’t it? and better situated for escaping, if it comes to that.”

  “Escaping? From whom?”

  “He is likely to be followed here by French special operations troops searching for me. They will see the two of you—you and Zaharia—as less dangerous than Michael or I would be.”

  “When will this all be over?” Jennifer said, suddenly sounding very tired. Her shoulders sagged, and she stared at the dead flowers heaped in the cart. “When, Dad?”

  “Soon, I think. I can’t promise anything, but I think it will be over soon.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, and turned and walked away.

  “Thank you, Jennifer,” said Louis, but she was already out of earshot.

  XX

  The garden at Louis’s house was in disarray. The grass had not been cut in weeks, the hedges and shrubs had not been trimmed, and the vegetable garden was an overgrown jumble of dying vines, weeds, and collapsed, rotting greens. The tomato plants had pulled their stakes over, and the fruits had rotted on the ground. Only their dried-up, blackened skins were left. The melons had split open, and their flesh had been eaten away by insects and rodents. The rose by the front door—Pierre de Ronsard—had lost most of its leaves, and those few left on the vine were black.

  Renard tried not to look at the mess as he knocked on the door. Zaharia peered through the window and then opened the door. “Zaharia,” Renard said, “Monsieur Morgon is not coming back here, at least not yet. He can’t come back right now. There are men waiting to hurt him. They say he is a terrorist. Do you know what a terrorist is? They say Monsieur Morgon is a terrorist.”

  “Is he a terrorist?” Zaharia wanted to know.

  “No. No, he is not,” said Renard. “He’s in danger from the men who say he is a terrorist. Just as your father was. Your father knew something that it was dangerous for him to know. And Monsieur Morgon also knows something about these people that he should not know, something dangerous for him to know. Monsieur Morgon and I have made a plan to stop these men. But to make the plan work we need your help.”

  Zaharia’s eyes widened, but he did not say anything.

  “I am going to take you to see Monsieur Morgon …”

  “You know where he is?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because if I had told you, you would have tried to go there, and that would have placed your life in danger and Monsieur Morgon’s life too. You see, they could have followed you …”

  “The police in Lyon tried to follow me, and they couldn’t,” said Zaharia.

  “I know. But that’s because you knew they were following you, and you could hide. This time you wouldn’t have known that they were following you.”

  Zaharia considered this. “What is your plan?” he said.

  “We’re going to go see Monsieur Morgon. We’ll be staying there for a while.”

  “Is it far?”

  “It’s not as far as Marseille,” said Renard, “but it’s not close by either. We’ll drive there in my car.”

  “Is it a police car?”

  “No, it’s not. Listen, Zaharia: Monsieur Morgon and I need your help, but you have to trust me,” said Renard. “Will you trust me?”

 
“Yes,” said the boy.

  “Good. Very good. Now, I want you to get all your things together. I’ll come back for you in an hour, and we will drive to Monsieur Morgon. We’ll be followed by some men in a car, but this time we want to be followed. The people following us will be on our side, but they don’t know they are on our side, so we shouldn’t let them know that we know we’re being followed. I know it’s a little confusing, but do you understand?”

  “Yes, monsieur. I think so.”

  “Are you frightened, Zaharia?”

  “Are the men following us police?”

  “Yes, they are,” said Renard. “But don’t worry, Zaharia, they’re good police. It will be fine.”

  “I’m not frightened,” said Zaharia.

  When Renard returned in an hour, he found the boy waiting on Louis’s doorstep. The house was closed up. The shutters were latched shut and the door was fastened as well as it could be. Zaharia handed Renard the key. “You keep it,” said Renard.

  “In a few hours you can give it to Monsieur Morgon yourself.”

  They drove down to the village, and Renard parked in front of his office. He went inside and called Pénichon. “We’re about to leave,” he said.

  “Our people are in place,” said Pénichon.

  Renard stepped to the window. “Yes, I know,” he said. “I see them.”

  “Really?” said Pénichon, sounding disappointed.

  “It doesn’t matter at this point, does it?” said Renard. “I just hope their skills will be up to the matter at hand.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Pénichon.

  And, in fact, once they had left the village, the car shadowing them disappeared from view and did not reappear until they pulled up in Quimper in front of a tall yellow apartment building. The two men sitting inside the car pretended to look at a map as Renard walked the boy into the building. Zaharia looked at them and then at Renard. “That’s them,” Renard said under his breath. “Don’t look at them again.”

  Renard walked Zaharia through the lobby and out the service entrance at the back of the building. He opened the heavy steel service door to the building across the alley, and they walked through the lobby of that building and out the front. “Why are we going through all these buildings?” Zaharia wanted to know.

  “That way the men who followed us won’t know which building we’re actually in. They will think we’re in the first building, which they will keep watching. But we’ll actually be in a different building.”

  “Was that your plan?” Zaharia asked, his eyes wide.

  “It was Monsieur Morgon’s plan,” said Renard. They waited until the traffic had passed, then crossed the street, and entered a stone apartment building with a bright blue door. They climbed three flights of stairs, walked to the end of the hall, and knocked.

  Jennifer opened the door. “Hello, Zaharia,” she said. “I’m Jennifer. Come in.”

  The boy looked from Jennifer to Renard and back again. “Jennifer is Monsieur Morgon’s daughter,” Renard explained. “You’re going to stay with her for a while. And this is Monsieur Morgon. Do you remember him?” Jennifer stepped aside so Zaharia could see Louis standing in the center of the room.

  “Hello, Zaharia,” said Louis. “How are you? Do you remember me?”

  “Yes,” said Zaharia. Then he was silent.

  For many days now this boy had been living a nightmare. While it was certainly true that Pierre had been a thief and a rogue, he had loved the boy and had cared for him as best he knew how. Despite long absences, he had been the only father the boy had ever known.

  When Louis had showed up in Algeria and Pierre had realized that his own life was in danger, his instinct, however misguided, had been to keep the boy with him and under his protection, and he had done so at a terrible risk to himself. The two had arrived in Marseille, where the boy had witnessed his father’s assassination. He had been interviewed by the policeman who had killed his father. Then he had fled and had found his way alone across the entire country in search of a man he had seen only once. Louis Morgon—a name on a slip of paper. The man who was now standing in front of him.

  The boy dropped his small bundle of clothes, stepped up to Louis, and threw his arms around the startled stranger. Zaharia buried his face in Louis’s chest and wept. He wept for his lost father, he wept for his home in the Algerian desert, he wept for his mother and grandmother and for all the other people and places he imagined he would never see again. He wept from sadness for all that he had been through and from relief at having finally found his way to Monsieur Morgon.

  Louis was startled by this sudden explosion of emotion and took a half step back, but the boy clung to him. Louis placed one hand on the back of the boy’s head and patted it lightly. He thought he understood the boy’s unhappiness. But a child’s unhappiness has a way of turning into everybody else’s unhappiness, and Louis quite unexpectedly found himself reliving his own misery and loss. He suddenly saw Solesme’s face in front of him and folded the boy into his arms and held him tightly against his chest.

  Startled and confused by this emotional scene, Renard stooped down, picked up the boy’s small bundle, and put it on the couch. He cleared his throat. “You will sleep here, I think, Zaharia,” he said. “Is that right, Jennifer? I think that is right.” He cleared his throat again.

  “Yes,” said Jennifer. “I hope that is all right, Zaharia.” She stepped toward the boy and put her hand lightly on his shoulder. “Are you hungry or thirsty?” she asked.

  The boy released his hold on Louis. He wiped his eyes and looked down. “Oui, madame,” he said.

  “I had better go,” said Renard. “I don’t want them”—he gestured with his head toward the door—”to get suspicious.” Renard left the apartment and crossed back through the adjacent buildings. The two policemen were sitting where he had left them. They continued watching the entrance to the tall yellow building as Renard drove away. Two hours later they were replaced by two other policemen.

  The building was watched twenty-four hours a day. When Jennifer and the boy went out, they left by way of the yellow building. They shopped for groceries; they went to the bakery or the pastry shop; they took walks in the park. Sometimes they walked hand in hand. They were always followed. Michael came for a visit, and when he left, the policemen followed him. But he only led them back to his apartment.

  Soon a new advertisement appeared in the Herald Tribune employment wanted section, and Louis responded. He wrote that Hugh Bowes was to come to Quimper and stay at the Grand Hôtel de Bretagne. He was to be unaccompanied. He should carry a cell phone with a particular number. Once Louis had assured himself that the situation was to his liking, he would send instructions as to exactly when and where they would meet.

  Not surprisingly, Hugh declined to even consider coming to Quimper without at least four companions, two of whom would stay with him throughout the entire meeting, and all of whom would be armed. Hugh’s reaction was relayed to Louis by way of another advertisement, and Louis agreed to Hugh’s amendment. Hugh could have four armed men, as he specified.

  “What is he thinking?” the national security man, Phil, wondered. He stood with his hands deep in his pockets, peering down at the street from his window in the Old Executive Office Building.

  “I would love to know,” said Hugh.

  “Sir,” said Phil, “whatever he is thinking, I am thinking that the mouse has just let the cat through the door.”

  Hugh raised his eyebrows and looked at Phil. “Are you?”

  “Mr. Secretary, you will have top men with you.”

  “I am certain of that,” said Hugh.

  “Do you have any idea how he got your cell phone number?”

  “I cannot imagine,” said Hugh. “You are sending snipers?”

  “Absolutely. Three teams of two. They’re arriving in Paris as we speak.”

  “Sanctioned by the French?”

  Phil removed his glasses and polished th
em with his handkerchief.

  “Good,” said Hugh. “That is as it should be.”

  The Grand Hôtel de Bretagne is in a nineteenth-century chateau set in a walled park in the very center of Quimper. Originally built as the home of a wealthy industrialist, the building is not especially large as chateaux go. But it has a gorgeous aspect, and its symmetry is perfect. It is punctuated on its four corners by tall, slim towers, and three stories of windows run across its front and back.

  The Bretagne’s thirty-five sumptuous guest rooms are attended to by a highly trained staff of 150. There is an excellent kitchen, serving the finest haute cuisine. The dining room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, looks out on a potager and an elaborate rose garden and is reserved, as the Bretagne’s brochure notes, “for the exclusive use of the Hotel’s cherished clients and their valued guests.”

  It was the first of November. The potager had been cleared and covered with straw except for a few last rows of winter greens. The tree roses had been pruned and wrapped for the winter in protective bundles of straw and burlap. A few late climbing roses remained in bloom beside the front entry.

  Two black Mercedes limousines swept up the driveway, scattering gravel as they came. They crunched to a stop in front of the broad flagstone terrace. Footmen wearing black breeches and red jackets opened the doors of the first limousine and helped Hugh Bowes from the car and onto the waiting wheelchair. A footman pushed Hugh up the ramp, across the terrace, and through the lobby to the elevator. Accompanied by the desk manager, he was taken straight to his suite, which he pronounced more than satisfactory. “We’re not here for a vacation,” he said.

  “No, sir,” said the manager.

  The occupants of the second limousine waved the footmen away. They gathered their own luggage, an assortment of strangely shaped bags and valises, and loaded them on the carts standing by for that purpose. They pushed the carts into the hotel and waited while one of their number retrieved their room keys.