Because that’s what you have, Pete. A gift. I don’t know how you got it, but use it and treat it like gold. I know you’ve suffered because of it, but I also know it can do a lot of good. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll pull the lottery numbers out of the air, and it won’t seem so bad. . . . The fact is no one could have stopped this except you. You were right all along. But we lied to you, Peter. We had to. Or rather, we avoided telling you the truth.
I suppose you hate us for having been so stubborn. You knew from the beginning this was going to happen and because we didn’t believe you, we put your family at risk. I’m sorry, Peter, deeply sorry. But they don’t teach you in school to believe in ghosts and visions . . . especially when they’re predicting your own worst nightmare come true. I guess we just didn’t want to believe it.
I was so close to telling you the whole story that afternoon. The day you asked about Daniel and the painting you’d found . . . I almost ran after you to tell you the truth. I’ve felt close to you since the day we met, Peter, like you were the first true friend I’d had in a long time. You have a good heart. You can see it from a mile away. That’s why I nearly broke my vow of secrecy. I just couldn’t will myself to do it. My stupid, old distrustful mind told me it was better not to say anything. “What if you’re wrong?” I told myself. “What if you can’t trust him?” But Marie never doubted you, of course. She thought maybe you’d picked up something subconsciously, some detail we’d let slip because we confided so much in you. But I was skeptical. That first night when you showed up at our door, I spent the night awake thinking. Was this all part of some ploy? Is he trying to wheedle information out of us? I guess it’s the residue of being suspicious for a living, always looking out for someone trying to conceal who they really are. Especially when you know someone is trying to find and kill you.
I looked into you. I made some calls to find out who you were, and all I can say now is I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I did the same thing with the guy who rented the house before you. He must have had his suspicions because he ended up leaving a month later.
By this point, you must already have figured it out. We are Leo and Marie Blanchard. Or at least we were. I never really cared much for the last name Kogan. I like the new one they just assigned us much better. Actually, we have new first names, too, for added security. As you can probably guess, I can’t tell you what they are, but rest assured they’re good names. They fit our faces.
This is one of the few outright lies I told you. I promise there aren’t many more. Almost everything else I told you is true: that I worked in hotel security, that Marie painted and traveled with me. And it’s true that I was thinking of retiring in 2004. Like I told you, I’d been traveling for work for twenty-five years, I’d lived in a dozen cities and I was tired. Tired of that nomadic life. Tired of always moving on before we could ever make any friends.
Marie and I had planned to buy some land on the island of Phi Phi in Thailand, build a bed and breakfast, and spend the rest of our days there, tanning and sailing. I resigned from the hotel where I was working, determined to start my new life. But that very month, out of the blue, I got an offer from a six star resort in Hong Kong.
It was supposed to be a one-year contract as a consultant to design the hotel’s security and build the security team. Six stars. It was almost four times my previous salary. Looking back, that should have been a red flag. At a time when hotels were cutting back on their own private security and outsourcing, where were they getting all this money? But I was blinded by the prospect. That money could help fill all the gaps in our retirement plan for Thailand. I accepted the job, and we moved that summer. I’d pay a heavy price for my mistake.
I started in May, and it didn’t take long to realize something was fishy. After all those years in the business, you start picking up on things, especially when something doesn’t quite fit. And there were a lot of things that didn’t smell right to me. My new boss, the director, who was a total newcomer to the business, gave me this weird “welcome speech” with all kinds of hidden meanings. “We have a very special and distinguished clientele. Discretion is our number one priority here at the resort, Mr. Blanchard. I hope that’s clear. Loyalty and discretion.” The amount of money being thrown around compared to how few people actually came to the resort just didn’t add up. I’m telling you, the whole thing stunk. I should have resigned that very first day. But I didn’t. I guess I figured, “Just mind your own business, stick out the year, and get out.”
I could tell you all kinds of stories, things that should have made me run. The clients, first of all, were dirty. That much was clear. You only had to look at their faces. Big limos lining the entrance, hookers and orgies in every suite. The things I saw in those private rooms when I personally had to be called in to carry out some drunk prostitute or troublemaker. After years of trying to do honest work, I’d suddenly walked into a snake pit. And I was in up to my neck. Well, mostly as I was only a consultant. It was my job to set up cameras, install procedures, but they put their own people at the computers and monitoring stations. I paid attention in case I needed an exit strategy.
And, of course, they knew how to deliver a message. With money and gifts. On my six-month anniversary, they bought me a Porsche, to “celebrate a job well done, with dedication and loyalty.” Loyalty was the keyword, Pete. They feted Marie with jewelry, almost every month. Gifts she never wanted to accept, but which I told her she couldn’t refuse. More mistakes. We were already halfway through my contract, and I realized it would be dangerous to quit at this point. Then, about eight months into my contract, the director of that cesspool called me into his office to offer me a job “in house.” They had been pleased with work and wanted to make me “part of the family.” You have to hear how those words sound coming out of the mouth of a criminal. And you should have seen the look on his face when I said thank you, but I have plans to retire. “Retirement? But you’re so young, Mr. Blanchard. It would be disappointing to see you leave us so soon. It would be . . . upsetting to our investors.”
Everything changed after that. I noticed right away. There was less work for me to do. Fewer visits with the director. They started restricting my access, and at first, I was happy about it. I’d sent a message, and they’d gotten the point. Then one night, on my drive home, two cars flanked me on the highway. They steered me toward a detour and down to a secluded area near the port. Waiting for me was a strange contingent of men in blue suits, led by a white-haired guy named Howard, who said he was the head of INTERPOL in China.
“Earlier tonight, in Hong Kong, we detained a suspect who was carrying this,” he said, handing me a folder. In it were pictures of Marie and me, the address to our house, and the license plate of our car. “They are going to get rid of you at the end of the year. A car accident or a gas explosion at home. That’s how they do it, to make it look like an accident, for those who don’t ‘take the oath.’ You can never go back to your old life, Mr. Blanchard. But you can help yourselves, right now. INTERPOL can put you into witness protection and give you a new life. You need to cooperate with us.”
The old Leo and Marie were as good as dead, but INTERPOL could offer to resurrect us into a new life. It was the only option we had left. They’d give us new names, new passports, and some money to start over someplace else. In exchange, they needed something from us. And that “something” was information from the resort’s computers. Names, telephone numbers, dates to which I had access.
We didn’t have much time to think it over. I went home and told Marie everything. We left the car and went for a walk into town. We tried to stay in a public place, and we talked for hours, until everything started to close down. Then we slept in a hotel rather than risk going home. At four in the morning, I called Howard and told him we accepted his offer. He sent his agents over to the hotel, and we went over the plan for the following day. One of them spent the night standing guard, drinking coffee, and sitting with his revolver in his lap.
Another one watched the door. They told us to stay away from the windows. We’d sleep maybe an hour or two.
I still had access to certain areas of the resort. I had to do it all in one day, before anyone noticed. I showed up at work that day with my stomach in knots, but I tried to act normal. I’d spent my career chasing thieves, and now, I was going to become one of them. I picked out one of the dumber staff at the resort. I told him I had to use the company computers to run some names and needed to get into the surveillance room for a few minutes. I went to work. I downloaded nearly a thousand files onto a tiny drive the size of thumbnail. I hid it under my tongue to get past the security pat down, a procedure I’d initiated. I told them I was going out for lunch—and never came back.
And that’s how our lives in witness protection began. More agents arrived at the hotel that day, eight total in a pair of cars with bulletproof windows. They told us they’d take us to a safe house near Dashen Bay, but that turned out to be a lie. We were too valuable to INTERPOL for them to trust even us with the truth. We weren’t allowed to go back home. They’d buy us new clothes, whatever we needed, but we couldn’t expose ourselves. We left behind our home, our neighbors, our books, our clothes, all of Marie’s paintings. . . . It was terrible. We were in shock. Marie asked if we could water the plants before we left. Could we at least leave the cat for the neighbor to watch? No, they told us. Too risky.
Wearing baseball caps and dark sunglasses, we arrived at a safe house on the Chinese border, an old military barracks outfitted with cameras, bars on the windows, and round-the-clock security. They told me to call the resort and tell them I’d had a family member fall ill; I’d be gone for a few days and would call them later with an update.
We spent two weeks locked up there, like criminals. It was terrible. They treated us like livestock. I lost it when they told us not to stand near the windows. Marie couldn’t stop crying. It was the one time in my life I was relieved our son, Daniel, hadn’t lived long enough to go through that.
Our second week there, they sat us down for some news. First, the “organization” had figured out our play and had sent our names and pictures out to their network. They put a bounty of $100,000 on my head. Not bad, huh? Second, INTERPOL had managed to get a trial date set so we could testify. Only two more months of this. In the meantime, we’d meet once in secret with the judge and the state’s attorney handling the case at some other undisclosed location. We’d be transferred to another location, in Laos, while we waited those two months to testify.
We had to sign power of attorney over to an INTERPOL lawyer so he could handle all the details of our disappearance: the sale of our house, transferring our funds to a Swiss bank. We signed away our old lives, all the documents that erased who we had been. Leo and Marie Blanchard were no more.
We lived in the mountains in Laos during those two months, with four INTERPOL agents. The date to testify finally arrived. I flew on a private plane to a Chinese naval airbase in Sai Kung. From there, we took a camouflaged armored van to the courthouse. They brought me in the back door, wearing a ski mask and a bulletproof vest. I sat in a booth, behind bulletproof glass, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. I testified to a small group about my one-year contract at the resort and how I’d accessed the information I gave INTERPOL. The questioning lasted close to two hours before they were done with me. “Thank you, and good luck,” the judge told me.
Leo and Marie Blanchard died on a beautiful, starry night. The sea was flat and a breeze blew in from the south. The moment we switched vessels, when we stepped off the Fury and onto that military powerboat, we left our old lives behind. Our friends and family could never suspect we were still alive. Assassins looking to make good on the bounty had to believe someone else had gotten to us first. We switched boats several miles off the coast of Macau. From there, to a private airplane on the island of Phen-Hou. And from there, to Singapore. Then Europe. And England. Far, far away, to the other side of the globe.
We lived in a house in London for eight months until the final arrangements were made. We got a new last name: Kogan. I even remembered snickering when I read it out loud. We got new passports, birth certificates (we were now born in Salt Lake City, Utah), a pair of Visa credit cards, and the Swiss bank account number that contained the proceeds of the sale of our house, cars, sailboat, and life savings. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? It’s not, believe me. Imagine everyone you’ve ever known thinking you’re dead. You’ll never be able to call to wish them a Merry Christmas. You’ll never know anything about their lives, ever again. It’s like actually being dead. You’re a ghost. The relocation program director impressed on us how important it was to never try to contact any family or friends, not even sending a postcard without a return address. Simply knowing we were alive would be enough for the organization to resume their search.
“Your car exploded in Hong Kong yesterday when a tow truck tried to move it from the spot where it had been parked for four months. The driver was injured, but he’ll recover,” one agent told me.
In Chelsea, where we lived in London, there was a little newsstand that sold newspapers from around the world, and we’d read them every day, looking for traces of our old lives. There was nothing, except for a small article in a Hong Kong daily about the Fury’s disappearance.
Still, it was hard to adapt to this new life. We lived a cloistered existence, without much contact with anyone else. We were scared any little detail would filter out and reach the wrong set of ears. I’m sure our neighbors in Chelsea thought of us as the nice but reclusive old couple of expats. We’d do our groceries, smile at our neighbors, but we always kept our distance. If anyone got too close, we would start to avoid them. We never accepted a single dinner invitation. We were always too busy.
It started to grate on us. It wasn’t in our nature to be recluses. We talked it over with the relocation program director, and he was the one who suggested moving to a more isolated area, a rural community. It had worked for others in the past. The chances of our identities coming to light in a small town were much more remote. “Why not try Ireland or Scotland? There’s some beautiful countryside there. Cold, but safe. Not too many people around.”
And that’s how we got to Clenhburran, Peter. From the moment we set foot there, I knew we would put down roots. It wasn’t my dream beach in Thailand, but it was a beach nonetheless, a sanctuary, a place we could retire to. For the first time since we escaped from Hong Kong, I felt free. Marie started to make friends again, and I finally felt at liberty to start sharing my own life, always careful not to mention that “minor episode,” but never outright lying about my past. That’s no way to make real friends.
And that was my plan, more or less. To grow old here with my wife, a warm fireplace and my cup of hot tea. To live out my years here and die in peace, but not before writing one final letter to tell all the people I left behind what really happened—the way I’m writing to you today.
But somehow, the organization found us. INTERPOL still has no idea how. They said we must have broken some kind of security protocol, but I insisted that we’d followed all the rules to the letter. We’d been the most perfect dead couple in history. We had never called or written to anyone from our past. And only God knows how much we’d suffered because of it. The church-going women in town think Marie is a saint, the most devout of them all, but in fact the reason she goes to church to light a candle every day is in memory of some friend or family member she knows we’ll never see again.
Maybe, quite simply, our story traveled by word of mouth—farther than anyone thought possible—until that information ended up in the wrong hands. Maybe the international mafia’s reach is greater than we ever imagined. Or maybe someone just recognized us on the street. Who knows? The important part is that our friend Peter Harper saved our lives, and that we know for sure.
So now we’re on the move again. I’m not sure where we’ll end up, but hopefully somewhere warmer, near the
ocean, where I can buy another sailboat. You know what? Maybe I’ll pool my money and buy myself that dream boat, after all. Marie and I can live on it and maybe I can convince her to go on one last adventure and sail around the world. We’ll disappear again on the big blue sea once and for all. One way or another, I’m going to fulfill our dream. I’ll keep you posted. You’re easy to find, what with being famous and all.
Speaking of which, I’ve reached the advice portion of this letter. First, the most practical. Now that you know who we were up against, you might be wondering if you have anything to worry about from the organization. My friends at INTERPOL worked with the police to clear your name on the official report. Now, it says only that you killed Tom and Manon in self-defense. That I killed Randy, and that Frank bled out on our rug as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. I doubt anyone will miss four evil bastards in the world. The guys at INTERPOL tell me they were mercenaries, and it’s probably better that none of them survived. Otherwise, the organization would have killed the survivors for failing so spectacularly against a little old man and a family man with his two kids. Then again, they never counted on Peter Harper and his sixth sense, did they? Either way, you probably have nothing to worry about, but it never hurts to keep an eye out. Then again, with your natural instincts, you probably won’t have to. Just listen to that inner voice.
The Last Night at Tremore Beach Page 26
