"Don Juan never died, did he?”
“No…he went to hell.”
This is a story about a spy who fell in love with a girl who didn't love him back. Or did she?
In one final act of devotion, the spy will cross a continent, wrestle his memories, and discover the truth.
Out Where the Sun Always Shines
by Danielle Williams
Published 2011
Copyright © 2011 Danielle Williams
All rights reserved.
Published by Pixelvania Publishing
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to convey a sense of realism. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
She had been in love with the doctor the entire time, and now it was too late for him to say anything; she was dead.
The Frenchman toyed with his butterfly knife, flicking it open, flicking it shut, flicking it open again.
( was just a civilian, hired to take care of the cell’s mundane, workaday tasks—a receptionist for a foreign operation she knew nothing about.
He didn’t know who had interviewed her. This felt wrong to him. As a spy, he had acquired and discarded hundreds of identities over the years, but the rule he lived by was simple: know your quarry. Once you knew who it was you were pursuing, everything else fell into place—how to blend in, where to move, when to strike.
With her, he’d done none of that. If he had, would anything have changed.
* * *
The Frenchman first saw her a year and a half ago. He was walking into the office with the doctor, grousing about the League’s coffee like they did every morning—and there she was.
Scott, their runner from America, stood in front of her. His narrow chest jutted out like a proud, scrawny dog while he talked at her. Despite their closeness in age, the girl’s gaze kept moving from the boy’s ballcap to the office floor, and back again.
The Frenchman thought he knew why: the boy’s mouth had no off switch or volume control.
“—Yeah, so if you want I can take you on el grando touroof this dump. C’mon, let’s go.” The boy made to take her elbow.
The door shut, making a loud click. She raised her gaze and looked at the men who had just entered.
* * *
Those eyes.
The Frenchman paused, his knife closed.
In his trade he had seen every type of woman—from Hausfrau (wife of a crime lord; successful mission) to minor royalty (also successful)—and he had seduced them, though only for the duration of the given mission. Seduction was part of the game. The thought did not trouble him.
But that he should have been so taken with this modest girl, that was a thought that had kept him awake nights, even when she was alive.
In the distance, a train whistled. The Frenchman looked down the tracks, but saw nothing. The hot dry wind blew. He put his knife away and got out his cigarette case, careful not to jostle the precious cargo in his bag.
* * *
“Hello,” she said. Her accent was American, but nothing at all like the boy’s. She walked over to them and offered her hand. “I’m Cat.&rdquo.
The doctor took it. “Freut mich. I am Dr. Riedermann, and this is my associate…”
* * *
Even now, the memory of her hand made him break into a sweat, one entirely independent of the desert heat. Would that he had kept his wits about him! In situations inches away from death—or discovery—they had never failed him. But in that moment…
* * *
She held her hand out to him, and all the genteel manners he had amassed over the years—minute rituals which never failed to capture exotic women—fled from him like birds from the sound of gunshot.
He looked at her hand like it was an alien thing, then up at her eyes, then back to the hand. At last, his brain took a breath.
Do something. Anything!
In a panic, he took her hand an.
—shook it.
* * *
Buffoon!
* * *
“Very pleased,” he said. After he shut his mouth, the protocol landed in his head with a thud. Bow, kiss her hand, give her the smile, say “Enchanté.”The Frenchman never mutteredupon meeting a woman!
Even as he released her hand, he wished to take back the last thirty seconds of his life.
“You have not taken the tour yet?” said the doctor.
“Nein, Herr Doktor.”
“Oh!” The doctor straightened up and smiled with all of his perfect flat teeth. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“Ja—I studied some at the university. I’m not as good as I’d like to be, though.” She said this in slow but capable German, the whole time smiling like a light was turned on inside her. They spoke a few moments longer, then left the room.
Scott and the Frenchman looked at each other. The Frenchman scowled. Him, reduced to competing with the boy! At least he still had some advantages. She didn’t like Scott, that was one. The doctor hadn’t offered her his arm, that was another.
“Hey—what the hell was that? Sounded like the doc was gargling a cement mixer!”
Advantage three. “He said he would be happy to help her improve her German and asked if she could understand him. Then he offered to take her on that ‘grando touro’ of yours.”
Scott glowered.
Odd, the Frenchman thought. His aggravation brings me no satisfaction.
He turned back to the door. He needed a smoke.
“Hey,” said Scott to his back.
“What?”
“German’s hard, right? So she’s gotta be real brainy to speak gargle-talk with him, right?”
“He was speaking slowly,” said the Frenchman, and went outside to smoke.
* * *
But not so very slowly.
The Frenchman checked his watch. The train was late.
* * *
After his smoke, he went upstairs to the second-floor office and bent over his desk.
It was a rolltop so old that it looked like it belonged in some Edwardian museum. He found its old-fashioned craftsmanship a relief, however, since the desks at his previous assignments had all needed some kind of prop to keep them from wobbling.
He unlocked it, slid back the cover, and began reviewing his files. At the moment, there wasn’t much else to do; his work came with the papers, and those weren’t due to arrive until next week.
The doctor occupied the executive desk next to the Frenchman’s, but his primary job was to sew up injured League drop-ins; this he did downstairs in the first-floor infirmary. The Frenchman found the arrangement invaluable. Most injured members came straight from the front lines; a quick chat with the doctor often provided the Frenchman with just enough clues to piece together the general state of League affairs. But it was almost half past lunch before the doctor came in that day.
Until he saw the doctor’s beaming smile, the Frenchman had managed to keep busy enough to forget about the girl. He looked up from the drawer he was cleaning out.
“Have our enemies attacked again, Doctor? You are usually in before now.”
“I gave the Fräuleinsome money and sent her out for our lunch. Zigeunerschnitzel, oder?”
“Yes, that’s acceptable.” The Frenchman thought about it. “You think she can be trusted?”
* * *
The Frenchman winced
at the memory. The question had made sense at the time—months before Cat’s arrival, the Frenchman and the doctor had discovered Scott pocketing the change from lunch as a “delivery charge”—but looking back, he couldn’t see it as anything other than an insult to her character.
* * *
“Absolutely,” said the doctor. “She is religious.” This he pronounced as though declaring her immune from some terrible disease.
* * *
The train pulled up. The Frenchman extinguished his cigarette with an automatic drop, toe, twist. Soon he would be relieved of his burden.
* * *
“Religious, you say? Catholic?” The Frenchman had killed a lot of Catholics in his time.
“She didn’t say. She doesn’t wear a cross, but she does not wear a star, either.”
The Frenchman shook his head. “I hope she doesn’t have plans for—” the Frenchman waved his hand in the air, encompassing all the things a religious zealot might do to the established order. “I have a very nice Merlot here and no one so small is going to make me to abstain.”
“I don’t get that feeling from her, to tell you the truth.” The doctor took off his glasses and cleaned them.
“Hm,” said the Frenchman.
* * *
And that should have been it. Why should a scoundrel like him subject himself to some self-righteous teetotaler?
The Frenchman recalled setting the Merlot down on the lunch table that first day. She’d glanced at it, then continued talking with the boy.
That was the first night he’d lost sleep over her.
* * *
On Friday, things were normal. She sat at her desk on the ground floor, and he went straight up to the office with the doctor. The Frenchman caught up on his newspapers. Save for a brief break in the afternoon to catch up with a visiting Russian colleague, the doctor was at his desk all day. The Frenchman left early, the back way, because he had tickets to the opera.
Friday night, she was not there.
Saturday, he stationed himself at one of the palace parks. He sat on a bench by the sphinx statues that lined the courtyard, smoked, and watched young couples pass by. A girl or two looked like her.
Saturday night, she was not there.
Sunday, he trained, ran errands.
Sunday night, she was not there.
It wasn’t until Monday arrived that his charade fell apart.
* * *
He found a seat alone and apart on the train and looked out over the landscape, beige under the brilliant blue. The train would not be departing for some time.
Looking out over the desolation, he wondered how it could have ever evoked any music.
* * *
Monday.
The Frenchman had been engrossed in a book of poetry when she was suddenly there in front of him. He hadn’t heard her come in. Tucked in her slender arms were the documents for his next assignment.
“Mail for you.” She offered him the manila envelope. Her voice was soft, and she stood back a ways from him.
He shook himself out of examining her (Indigo sweater. Black skirt. Nice legs. Lovely.) and took the envelope.
“Merci beaucoup,” he said, but she had already turned away to the doctor’s desk.
“Herr Doktor isn’t in yet,” he said.
“Do you think it’d be okay if I leave his on his desk?” She held up another envelope.
“I think it would be better if you kept it with you until he returns,” said the Frenchman. The League’s rivals were prone to leaving their important documents unattended (the Frenchman’s camera knew this firsthand), but that was no excuse to let it happen on his watch. “There should be a locked drawer in your desk below.”
“Oh, I saw it, but I don’t have the key,” she said, ending with a look that wondered if she should have said that. He stood—he would have stood when she entered the room, except he hadn’t heard her—and touched her back lightly.
“I’ll show you,” he said, and guided her down the stairs. She clutched the doctor’s envelope in lieu of the banister. It was narrow going down the iron spiral staircase. He could feel her warmth close to him.
* * *
More men came aboard the train. Workers in dusty overalls, excavators of the wrecked city. The Frenchman lowered his head to block them out, to retreat to happier times.
* * *
The last few steps were wobbly, and a nervous smile broke out on her face. She glanced back at him with this smile and he knew at that moment that somehow, this girl (at least it wasn’t May-December attraction…May-September, at the latest.
had his heart. And worst of all, she didn’t even know it.
She jumped the last two steps, light as her namesake, and looked back. For a second, he stood there with his arm in the air, feeling foolish until he followed with his own leap.
She gave a little grin that turned into a laugh of delight, and he smiled back at her. The ease of it lightened his heart.
The Frenchman used the doctor’s lack of thoroughness as an excuse to show her every nook and cranny of the storage room. A plastic package of pens discovered in a drawer delighted her. She collected them along with two legal tablets. He walked her back to her desk.
“I’m in the middle of writing something—a story.” She ducked her head and risked a glance at him.
“Go on,” he said. She relaxed.
“These pens, I really like them. They let me write quick enough to catch all my thoughts,” she said. “I haven’t been able to buy them for a while now, so I’m glad we have them here.&rdquo.
When he was satisfied that she could lock and unlock the desk without any trouble, the Frenchman climbed back up the spiral stair, thinking of how he could charm her back.
* * *
I had some good ideas about that. Solid plans.
One of his poetry books for the little writer. A real ink pen, presented in a box lined in velvet, notwrapped in plastic—with a ream of fine sepia paper. Or an Italian leather journal. Or earrings. Fine, bright jewelry to sparkle against her dark hair.
* * *
But she already wore simple gold studs. Perhaps a play. It seemed she could follow along well enough, with her German. Was she too young for the opera?
He pondered these things while he flicked open his knife and slit the seal of the envelope.
* * *
The upholstery on the seat-back in front of him had lines that went up and down and sideways like the lines in a labyrinth.
He had lived through situations that switched from serenity to fatality in the time it took for him to open his knife, but until the moment he opened those orders, he hadn’t realized the same could happen with joy and despair.
* * *
Prague. He was being sent to Prague for three months.
A shaft of light illuminated the office window behind the doctor’s desk. Dust motes glimmered in and out of the light. If justice existed (which it didn’t; if one could have found any of his victims, they would have attested to that), the doctor would be sent to Prague with him. Or just be sent away—what did it matter where? Just as long as he was away from the girl…
He reread his orders, hoping he had been mistaken about the date.
No. Less than a month here, then gone, and her alone with the doctor, and THAT would be a May-December romance, no doubt.
* * *
Looking back, he realized that he’d had very little proof that the doctor had been interested in Cat as a lover. But at the time, all he’d seen was her charm, and he simply assumed that everyone else would be after it, the charm of his Cat.
The Frenchman clutched his pack and shut his eyes.
* * *
He wasn’t even the main player in the game. The Frenchman was to serve only as a distraction. The Australian would make the kill. Which meant the Frenchman could not use his discretion to end the mission early.
He heard the doctor’s shoes ring on the staircase well before the man himself appeare
d in the doorway. After he had settled at his desk, the doctor’s eyes went to the envelope in the Frenchman’s hands.
“Orders?” he asked.
“Oui.“ The Frenchman was frowning.
The doctor caught the look. “Something wrong?&rdquo.
The Frenchman shook his head. “No, yours are—I can get them for you.” He stood up from his chair. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” He was at the doorway. “I’ll be right—oh, Cat.”
She had the doctor’s envelope with her. She gave him a quick smile, but ducked past to go to the doctor, color high in her cheeks. The Frenchman watched them, watched her give the orders over, watched the doctor return her smile. The sunlight behind them was brilliant and blinding, and for the first time—the only time, Dieu merci—the Frenchman thought about planting his knife deep in the doctor’s back.
* * *
Knowing now what he hadn’t known then, the Frenchman felt ashamed. He rested his forehead against the seat in front of him.
* * *
“A new person is coming to the office?” Cat asked the doctor in German the next day.
Somehow—probably through Scott, that loudmouth—Cat had learned that the Australian was due in tomorrow. From his chair, the Frenchman watched them over his newspaper. She stood at polite attention in front of the doctor’s desk. The window was cracked open, allowing in the muted drone of road traffic.
“He’s…not…new,” said the doctor. “And he is not staying long. Fräulein, he’s more of a visitor. He will be here, then gone again. Like our Russian friend.”
“Oh,” she said. “But he’s still with our company, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
“So…do you think, maybe, we could do something for him?”
The doctor turned his head, peered at her.
“Like what?”
Her ears turned a startling red. “I thought the office—all of us, the new man, even Scott—could go to the café for lunch.”
The Frenchman lowered his newspaper with a crackle. She began to back out of the room. “We have the…the…” she stopped backing away. “How do you say ‘petty cash’?&rdquo.
“Portokasse,” said the Frenchman.
“Der, die, oder das?“ she asked.
“Die,” said the doctor. “There is enough for us all?”
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