he greeted the two with a simple wave of the hand.
“I’ve been waiting for forty minutes,” he said. He grabbed Ben’s hand
in an affectionate, wrestling clasp. “Forty tillable minutes.” He
seemed to be savoring the world as it rolled off his tongue.
“A bit of a holdup at our previous engagement,” Ben said tersely.
“I can imagine.” Oscar nodded at Anna. “Madame,” he said. “Please,
sit.”
Ben and Anna slid onto the banquette on either side of the small
Frenchman.
“Madame,” he said, turning his full attention to her. “You are even
more beautiful than your photograph.”
“Sorry?” Anna replied, puzzled.
“A set of photographs of you was recently wired to my colleagues in la
Surete. Digital image files. I got a set of them myself. Came in
handy.”
“For his work,” Ben explained.
“My artisans,” Oscar said. “So very good and so very expensive.” He
tapped Ben on his forearm.
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Of course, Ben, I can’t say your photograph does justice to you either.
Those paparazzi, they never find the flattering angle, do they?”
Ben’s smile faded. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m very proud of myself for doing the Herald Tribune crossword puzzle.
Not every Frenchman could do it, you’ll grant. I’ve almost finished
this one. All I need now is a fifteen-letter word for an
internationally wanted fugitive from justice.”
He turned the newspaper over.
” “Benjamin Hartman’ would that do it?”
Ben looked at the front page of the Tribune and felt as if he had been
plunged headfirst into ice water. serial killer sought was the
headline. Beside it was a low-resolution photograph of him, apparently
taken from a surveillance camera. His face was shadowed, the image
grainy, but it was unmistakably him.
“Who knew my friend was such a celebrity?” Oscar said, and turned the
paper over again. He laughed loudly, and Ben belatedly joined him,
realizing it was the only way one escaped notice in a bar filled with
drink fueled merriment.
From the next banquette over, he overheard a Frenchman trying to sing
“Danny Boy,” with uncertain pitch and an only rough approximation of the
vowels. Oh, Danny Boy, ze peeps ze peeps are caaalling.
“This is a problem,” Ben said, his urgent tone belying the soapy grin on
his face. His eyes darted back to the newspapers. “This is an Eiffel
Tower–sized problem.”
“You kill me,” Oscar said, slapping Ben on the back as if he had uttered
a hilarious joke. “The only people who say there’s no such thing as bad
publicity,” he said, “have never gotten bad publicity.” Then he tugged a
package from beneath the cushion of his seat. “Take this,” he said.
It was a white plastic bag with gaudy lettering, from a tourist gift
shop somewhere. / love Paris in the Springtime, it said, with a heart
standing in for the word “love.” It had the kind of stiff plastic
handles that snapped shut when pressed together.
“For us?” Anna asked doubtfully.
“No tourist should be without,” Oscar said. His eyes were playful; they
were also intensely serious.
“Teez I’ll be here in sunshine or in shaadow.
Oh, Danny boy, I love you sooo.
The drunken Frenchman at the next banquette was now joined, in various
keys, by his three companions.
Ben sank lower in his seat, as the full weight of his predicament bore
upon him.
Oscar punched him in the arm; it looked jocular, but it stung. “Don’t
slink down in your seat,” he whispered. “Don’t look furtive, don’t
avoid eye contact, and don’t try to look inconspicuous. That’s about as
effective as a movie star putting on sunglasses to shop at Fred Segal,
to comprends?”
“Oui,” Ben said weakly.
“Now,” Oscar said, “what’s that charming American expression you have?
“Get the fuck out of here.” ”
After acquiring a few items at some small side-street stalls, they
returned to the metro, where they were just another couple of moony-eyed
tourists to the casual spectator.
“We’ve got to make plans–plans for what the hell to do next,” Ben said.
“Next? I don’t see what choice we have,” Anna said. “Strasser’s the
one surviving link we know about–a member of Sigma’s board of
incorporators who’s still alive. We’ve got to reach him somehow.”
“Who says he’s still alive?”
“We can’t afford to assume otherwise.”
“You realize they’re going to be watching every airport, every terminal,
every gate.”
“It’s occurred to me, yes,” Anna replied. “You’re beginning to think
like a professional. A real fast learner.”
“I believe they call this the immersion method.”
On a long underground journey to one of the banlieues, the downtrodden
areas that ringed Paris proper, the two conversed in low voices, making
plans like lovebirds, or fugitives.
They got out at the stop at La Courneuve, an old-fashioned working class
neighborhood. It was only a few miles away, but a different world– a
place of two-story houses and unpretentious shops that sold things to
use, not to display. In the windows of the bistros and convenience
stores, posters for Red Star, the second-division soccer team, were
prominent. La Courneuve, due north of Paris, wasn’t far from Charles De
Gaulle airport, but that was not where they’d be heading.
Ben pointed to a bright red Audi across the street. “How about that
one?”
Anna shrugged. “I think we can find something less noticeable.” A few
minutes later, they came across a blue Renault. The car had a light
coating of grime, and on the floor inside there were yellow wrappers
from fast-food meals, and a few cardboard coffee cups.
“I’ll put my money on the owner being home for the night,” Ben said.
Anna set to work with her rocker pick, and a minute later had the car
door unlocked. Disassembling the ignition cylinder on the steering
column took a little more time, but soon the motor roared to life and
the two took off down the street, driving at the legal speed limit.
Ten minutes later, they were on the Al highway, enroute to the
LilleLesquin airport in Nord-Pas de Calais. The trip would take hours,
and involve risks, but they were calculated ones: auto theft was
commonplace in La Courneuve, and the predictable police response would
be to make perfunctory inquiries among the locals known to be involved
in the activity The matter would almost certainly not be referred to
the Police Nationale, which patrolled the major thoroughfares.
They drove in silence for half an hour, lost in their own thoughts.
Finally, Anna spoke. “The whole thing Chardin talked about it’s just
impossible to absorb. Somebody tells you that everything you know about
modern history is wrong, upside down. How can that be?” Her eyes
remained fixed on the road in front of her, and she sounded as utterly
drained as Ben felt.
“I don’t know, Anna. Things stopped making sense for me that day at the
Bahnhofplatz.” Ben tried to stave off a profound sense of enervation.
The rush of their successful escape had long since given way to a larger
sense of dread, of terror.
“A few days ago, I was essentially conducting a homicide investigation,
not examining the foundations of the modern age. Would you believe?”
Ben did not directly reply: what reply could there be? “The homicides,”
he said. He felt a vague unease. “You said it started with Mailhot in
Nova Scotia, the man who worked for Charles Highsmith, one of the Sigma
founders. And then there was Marcel Prosperi, who was himself one of
the principals. Rossignol, likewise.”
“Three points determine a plane,” Anna said. “High-school geometry.”
Something clicked in Ben’s mind. “Rossignol was alive when you flew off
to see him, but dead by the time you arrived, right?”
“Right, but ”
“What’s the name of the man who gave you the assignment?”
She hesitated. “Alan Bartlett.”
“And when you’d located Rossignol, in Zurich, you told him, right?”
“First thing,” Anna said.
Ben’s mouth became dry. “Yes. Of course you did. That’s why he
brought you in, in the first place.”
“What are you talking about?” She craned her neck and looked at him.
“Don’t you see? You were the cat’s-paw, Anna. He was using you.”
“Using me how?”
The sequence of events cascaded in Ben’s mind. “Think, dammit! It’s
just the way you might prepare a bloodhound. Alan Bartlett first gives
you the scent. He knows the way you work. He knew the next thing you’d
demand …”
“He knew I’d ask him for the list,” Anna said, her voice hollow. “Is
this possible? That damned show of reluctance on his part a piece of
theater for my benefit, knowing it would only steel my resolve? The
same with the goddamn car in Halifax: maybe he knew a scare like that
would make me that much keener.”
“And so you get a list of names. Names of people connected with Sigma.
But not just any names: these are people who are in hiding. People whom
Sigma cannot find not without alerting them. Nobody connected with