Zac stepped off the gangway and kept walking. He’d be home free if he could get out of the port without being arrested. A small convoy of trucks drove toward a cluster of warehouses on the western edge of the port. He followed on foot, hoping to find a telephone or an exit. The rain fell harder, but it masked his stained and rumpled clothing. He found a hard hat and a fluorescent jacket hanging at the base of an idle crane and put them on.
Past the warehouses and stacks of containers was a large Exit sign with a pedestrian gate behind it. A single guard bade him an inquisitive “Monsieur?” as he passed through, but Zac walked on, muttering in French about the weather.
He passed a group of workmen at a bus stop and set off on foot toward town, visible just a half mile distant. His fluorescent yellow jacket was easy to spot, but it was common enough. It was the same type of jacket worn by highway crews, police officers and, in Marseille, port workers. He dumped the hard hat in a garbage can once he crossed the street.
Low-rise apartment buildings, shops, and restaurants lined the narrow streets of the sixteenth arrondissement. Zac attracted little attention as he walked. His clothing blended in passably and for the first time in weeks he could speak the local language. After having been on the run for so long, the relief of not being a wanted man was invigorating.
Zac found a bureau de change where he exchanged his few remaining Emirati dirhams for euros. He was confident that his boss would come through for him again. There was a pay phone outside the bureau and Zac once again dialed his office number from memory.
“Peter Clements, please. It’s an emergency.”
FORTY-FIVE
THE PHONE AT CIA’s London station rang through to Peter Clements’s assistant. Clements was on the line in under a minute.
“It’s good to hear from you again. I’m sorry we missed each other after the last call. Where are you?”
“I’m at a pay phone in France. It’s an open line. I’m sorry about the missed pickup. Things got a little hectic after we spoke and I had to leave on short notice.”
“That was two weeks ago. What have you been up to?”
“I had to take a last-minute cruise. I’ll fill you in on the details when I see you, but I’m in the South of France now and I need a ride home. Can you send someone to pick me up?”
The line was quiet for a moment.
“Peter?”
“Things have become more complicated since we last spoke . . . The man who arranged your travel plans was very concerned when you missed the last pickup. He spent a lot of time and resources looking for you around the old neighborhood.”
Zac knew Clements was referring to Ted Graves. “Well, tell him that I appreciate it.”
“It’s not that simple. Your missed appointment and the media coverage started him thinking that the two were connected. I tried to calm him down, but he’s seeing shadows and I’m not sure he’s listening.”
“He works for you, doesn’t he? Can’t you just shut him down?”
“He does work for me, but he also works for headquarters, and his theories are gaining some traction with the Seventh Floor no matter how hard I try to reason with them.”
“So what does that mean for me?”
“It means that we can’t use him to get you home. There’s a good chance that your car might have an accident on the way here.”
Zac stared into the distance. Ted Graves had spent nearly a decade in Afghanistan and East Africa perfecting the art of making people disappear without a trace. He was not a man to be trifled with. If Clements was warning Zac over an open line, it had to be serious.
“So what should I do?”
“Call me back in an hour. I can get an SAC team to pick you up.”
Zac nodded absentmindedly. An SAC team would be a group of paramilitary officers from CIA’s Special Activities Center. They were operations staff, but if Clements felt he could trust them, then Zac could too.
“And one more thing . . . Call me from another location, just in case,” said Clements.
“I’ll call you in one hour.”
Zac was dumbfounded as he hung up the phone. Never had he expected his own agency to hang him out to dry. Through all the hell he’d endured, the one constant, the one tenet of his existence, was that the mission came first. It was that important. He’d assumed the Agency would bring him in like a conquering hero, not under a cloud of suspicion or in a body bag.
He walked down the rain-soaked streets, stunned that Graves was doubting his loyalty and circumventing Clements’s authority. Zac knew that there was a long-standing rivalry between the two men from when Clements had edged out Graves for the chief of station job. But it wasn’t only Graves who thought the director had picked the wrong man. Many Agency veterans didn’t like the idea of the job going to someone like Clements, who’d come up through the analyst ranks. Chiefs had almost always come out of operations.
Now an analyst-chief had sent an analyst into the field, and it had gone badly. Very badly. Graves was probably gunning for the chief job again and Zac was his Exhibit A. But as much as he loathed Graves’s paranoia and political maneuvering, Zac had to admit that his predicament was partially his own fault. After all, he had insisted on going to Sirjan over everyone else’s objections.
Zac headed south in the light rain for twenty minutes until he found what he was looking for. The Hôtel Le Nuage, in the heart of Marseille’s first arrondissement, had a baroque facade, but Zac could tell from the chic couple walking down the front steps that it targeted a younger clientele. It would be a good place for him to get off the street and collect his thoughts while he waited to call Clements back. He approached the entrance and noticed a doorman standing under the awning. Tall and blond, he was wearing black leather jackboots and a matching overcoat. He stood next to the doors with his arms folded across his chest.
What a jackass . . .
The doorman scowled as Zac approached. His disheveled appearance and wet and dirty clothes were clearly not the preferred look at the fashionable hotel. Zac scaled the steps but the doorman remained motionless. Zac ignored the petty slight and opened the door himself. Inside the lobby he noticed a sign for the men’s restroom pointing to a back hallway. He borrowed a pair of scissors from the concierge and headed back.
The bathroom was furnished with heavy mirrors and thick wooden cabinetry. Zac glanced at the three stalls. Each of the floor-to-ceiling doors was ajar. He cupped his hand under the faucet to take a long drink and caught his image in the mirror. Once again, he marveled at his appearance. His tan had faded during his time at sea, but his hair and beard had grown shaggy and unkempt. He’d always had an athletic build, but he looked thin now, his jaw and cheekbones more pronounced.
The Emiratis had photographed him when he was arrested. They were looking for the disheveled man in the mirror, and he was still wearing what was left of Assad’s suit. The Iranians probably had his old passport photo, clean-shaven and fifteen pounds heavier. Zac didn’t know what Clements was planning, but it wouldn’t hurt to change his appearance. He raised the scissors to his face and began to trim his beard.
His facial hair was down to little more than a few days’ growth by the time he’d finished. He washed his face and was taking another drink from the tap when a man in a dark suit entered the restroom. Zac noticed the man’s shoes. They were fake leather with thick rubber soles. Nobody in France wore shoes like that with a suit. Nobody except cops.
Zac took a cotton hand towel and dried his face.
“Are you a guest here?” asked the man in French.
It wasn’t the question Zac had been expecting. He noticed a clear plastic earpiece in the man’s ear and a coiled cable running into his suit collar. The guy wasn’t a cop. He was hotel security, and the doorman had probably sent him to check on Zac.
“No. I’m sorry,” Zac explained in French. “I was splashed by a pa
ssing car and just came in to clean up. I’ll leave now.”
“Did the car splash you with a beard too? Is that why you borrowed those?” The man gestured to the scissors next to the sink. “Let me see some identification.”
Zac had thrown Assad’s credentials off the ship. He had nothing to show.
“I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”
Zac took a step toward the door, but the man would not be appeased.
“No, you won’t. I’m sick of you street people coming in here and using this place as your home. The facilities are clearly marked ‘For Hotel Guests Only,’ and you beggars leave this place a filthy mess. I’m calling the police.”
Zac took another step toward the door, his head bowed in supplication, but the hotel security guard grabbed his arm.
“You’re not getting away this time,” he said. The man reached inside his jacket for the push-to-talk switch on his radio.
Zac snapped his upper body to the left and launched his right elbow into the man’s head, catching him squarely in the temple. Zac caught the man as he lost consciousness.
Zac swore quietly to himself and dragged the man into the far stall, closing the door behind them and sliding the lock into place. Zac rolled him onto his side. The guard was out cold. Zac removed the man’s tie to help him breathe, and that gave him an idea.
The hotel security guard was a little heavier and a little shorter than Zac, but almost the same size. Zac stripped him naked and dressed quickly in the unconscious man’s clothes. Zac kept his own shoes though. He’d seen the guard naked and knew the man’s shoes would be a few sizes too small. At least.
Zac checked the guard’s breathing and his pulse. Both seemed normal, so Zac stuffed the guard’s necktie into his open mouth. He used Assad’s belt to hog-tie the man’s wrists and ankles, binding them securely behind his back. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would probably take the guard a few hours to break free, once he regained consciousness.
The guard had a hundred and fifty euros in his wallet and Zac pocketed the cash before bundling everything else into his old shirt. He listened to the radio earpiece for a minute and heard nothing but silence, so he shut it off and picked up the bundle. He stepped out of the stall and stuffed the clothes and the radio deep into a stainless steel trash bin on the wall. He had just finished when the outside door swung open and two more patrons entered the restroom. Zac calmly walked back to the far stall and locked himself inside with the unconscious guard.
Once the two patrons had left, Zac removed one of the laces from the guard’s shoes. He wrapped the shoelace around the sliding lock inside the stall and stepped outside, pulling gently on both ends until the door was shut. He pulled the shoelace harder until the latch slid into place with the guard locked inside. Zac pulled the shoelace out with one hand and dumped it in the trash.
Careful to avoid the doorman, Zac left the hotel and walked to the street corner in the light rain. It was nearly time to call Clements back. As he searched for another phone, he thought about the man in the bathroom; hog-tied, naked, and locked in a stall. Zac was counting on the fact that the guard would be too proud to call for help once he regained consciousness. He’d probably stew in there for hours to avoid being humiliated. Maybe next time he’d be nicer to the homeless . . .
FORTY-SIX
ZAC FOUND A pay phone on the street and dialed CIA’s main number in London again. He asked the operator for Peter Clements, but it was Ted Graves’s gravelly voice that came through the receiver.
“I’m sorry we missed you last time,” Graves said.
“Where is Peter? He’s expecting my call.”
“Peter is indisposed. His assistant said that you need some help coming in and routed the call to me. Where are you now? I’ll send some people to get you.”
Zac’s mind was racing. Had Clements just stepped away from his office or had something happened to him? Zac didn’t know how rough the interoffice politics had become. With Clements’s warning about Graves, Zac had to assume the worst.
“I’m in Antibes, by the train station,” he lied. He chose another city in the South of France in case Graves had somehow learned the details of Zac’s earlier call to London, and every city had a train station.
“Antibes? Living the good life, I see,” Graves said.
Zac could hear him typing on the other end of the phone.
“I can have you picked up in about four hours. Don’t go into the train station though; your face is probably all over the place down there.”
Zac had no idea what Graves was talking about but he wanted to get off the line in case the call was being traced.
“I’ll lay low. I’ll call you back in four hours to coordinate the final pickup. Thanks.”
Zac hung up the phone and started walking toward the waterfront. What the hell was happening? The foundation of Zac’s world was crumbling underneath him. He couldn’t trust Graves to bring him in and now Clements was missing. Zac didn’t think Graves would physically harm Clements—he was CIA’s top man in London—but perhaps the taint of Zac and the mission had become so toxic that Graves had been able to push Clements aside and make himself acting chief of station.
There was only one way for Zac to save himself and save Clements. He needed to return to London on his own. He knew that if he walked into the CIA office and told his story, it could be verified. He and Clements would be in the clear, and the mission would be accomplished. Zac increased his pace as he turned through the narrow city streets. He knew people in France; people who could help him plan his return to England.
Zac stopped at a gas station and dialed the number of his college friend in Paris. Christian should have returned from his business trip by now. He could provide Zac with clothes and money, and maybe help him figure out a way to get across the Channel. He didn’t know that Zac worked for CIA but Zac was prepared to level with him. After a few rings, Zac heard his old friend’s voice.
“Allo.”
“Christian, it’s Zac. Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner. Did you get the note I left for you?”
The phone was quiet for several seconds.
“Christian? It’s Zac Miller. Are you there?”
“I . . . I can’t believe you’re calling me. What the hell happened to you?”
“Something came up and I only stayed at your place for one night. Thanks again. Is everything OK? You sound upset.”
“No, everything is not OK. It is so fucking far from OK that I don’t even know where to start. How about with the police? They haven’t let me back in my apartment for more than an hour since I got back from Shanghai.”
The hairs on the back of Zac’s neck stood up at the mention of the police. The apartment was in a fancy building. Even if it had been burglarized the police wouldn’t have sealed it off.
“Christian, tell me what happened.”
“You’re a very sick person, Zac. I’ve known you almost ten years and I never thought you were capable of something like this. I don’t think I can ever move back there. The police showed me photos. There was blood everywhere.”
Zac’s heart was pounding. “Christian, listen to me. I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”
“Where are you? Are you in jail now?”
“No, I’m not in jail. I’m in Marseille. Christian, focus, dammit! What happened in your apartment?”
“I’m hanging up now and I’m calling the police. Zac, what you did to that poor woman was sick. Don’t ever call me again.”
The line went dead.
Zac’s first thought was of Genevieve. His second thought was of Arzaman. What if the psychopath had decrypted Zac’s phone and discovered that he had been with her in Paris? Zac had transferred all of his personal information to the CIA phone to make it appear more authentic in case it was searched. The woman he’d barely started dating might be dead. He felt a s
pasm in his stomach. Clements and Graves had each made cryptic comments about Zac and the media, but he’d ignored them at the time. He was too focused on his physical safety to care about the press, but it made sense now.
He picked up the phone again. He needed to find out about Genevieve. He dialed directory assistance and hoped that she had a landline. There were four G. Marchands in Paris, and Zac dialed the first number. The call went to voice mail. The second number was answered by a man named Georges. Zac was dialing the third number when a small Citroën police car turned abruptly into the other side of the gas station. Two officers stepped out in a hurry.
Zac dropped the phone and darted around the back of the station. A siren was wailing in the distance, and then another. More police. The rain picked up as he sprinted down a side street and ducked into an alley, but it was a dead end, nothing more than a parking area for the buildings on the main road. He ran to the side and squatted behind a parked car.
The two officers stepped into the alley, weapons drawn. Walking slowly, each one methodically checked his front and side. They hadn’t seen Zac yet, but they would soon. The sirens grew louder. He looked under the car, watching the cops’ feet as they walked. Drops of rain burst on the pavement in front of his face. He moved around the car, keeping it between himself and the police until the cops passed by and walked farther into the alley. Zac rose slowly to his feet, crouched behind the car. When both officers searched the area in front of them at the same time, Zac darted out of the alley and back onto the side street. The rain drowned out the noise of his footsteps.
He’d walked just a few feet when two police cars with their lights and sirens on swung around the corner in front of him.
FORTY-SEVEN
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