Without warning

Caitlin pulled over, running the Fuego’s wheels up onto the very narrow footpath. It couldn’t have been more than two feet wide. She was glad she hadn’t had to reverse-park. Her head and neck were aching.

‘They were after me, Monique, and I was with you, so now they’re after you too. You have family? They’re being watched. Your boyfriend? Him too. It’s not you they want, it’s me. Your security service is conducting a hard target search for me, and as of half an hour ago, you are the key. Every phone call you have made for the last five years, every address you’ve lived at, or just stayed at, that can be tracked, is being tracked. Every movement across every border, every purchase with your credit card, every transaction in your bank account, every mailing list your name appears on, every email you’ve ever sent, every chat room or website you’ve ever visited, every net search you’ve ever done, they are all being sifted through and analysed right now, by people way smarter than you, because you are alive, and free, and running from them. With me.’

Monique shook her head, refusing to believe what she was hearing. As she spoke, her words became clipped and fiercer. ‘This is bullshit. You are bullshit. You come to us as a friend. You say you are against the war. But you are part of the war. You are a killer just like Bush and Blair. Those men, if they were from the police or the secret service, it was their duty to arrest you. And you killed them and got Maggie killed as well.’

Monique’s anger overwhelmed her and she emphasised her last point by slapping at Caitlin’s face. The American brushed off the ineffectual blows with one swift hand, not even flinching as Monique cried out with frustration and attempted to rake out her eyes. Caitlin grabbed one of the girl’s hands and turned it sharply back in on the wrist, making her gasp with pain and shock.

‘Knock it off, princess,’ Caitlin warned. ‘I didn’t come here to hurt you or your dumbass friends. I came to protect you.’

‘What?’

At that point, three young men, obviously drunk and in high spirits, came around the corner and past the car, banging on the windows and calling out to the two women to come out and play, to have a drink and celebrate with them. Caitlin glared back, but they just laughed. One held up two fingers in a V and stuck his tongue between them, waggling it obscenely. This was obviously the funniest thing his friends had seen all night and they fell into the cobbled roadway, laughing hysterically.

‘Assholes,’ muttered Caitlin.

‘What did you -’

‘I said, “Assholes”.’

‘Non. What did you say about “protecting” us?’

The drunks helped each other off the cold, damp road surface and continued on their way to the next bar, one of them turning awkwardly to grab his crotch and give it a bit a squeeze for the benefit of the two dykes. Caitlin had no trouble translating the slurred words that followed, but the body language said it all: See what you are missing, ladies?

‘How could you have been protecting us?’ Monique repeated, ignoring her oafish countrymen. ‘From those skinheads at the Tunnel? You couldn’t have known about that.’

Caitlin opened the door and stepped out, taking a handful of banknotes from the handbag. She left the keys in the ignition and the door ajar. The Renault would not be here for long. Monique squeezed out on the other side, the car’s proximity to a brick wall making for a tight fit. The wall was covered with an inch of peeling posters, most of them for awful French rock bands, but the uppermost layer called for a ‘National Day of Action’ to stop the ‘Anglo War’. That was the gig her merry little band had been headed for when set upon by the National Front thugs, who got lucky and put her in hospital. Where I got lucky and caught a fucking brain tumour…

Caitlin had to stop for a moment and lean against the wall as her head reeled. Whether from the illness, her injuries or an adrenalin backwash, she couldn’t tell. She stood still, closed her eyes and sucked in a long draught of air. It was unpleasantly cold now, but the alleyway still reeked of garbage and dog shit – the signature smell of Paris behind the coffee and pain au chocolat.

‘Are you all right?’ Monique asked grudgingly.

‘I’ll be fine. Just give me a second.’

And the dizzy spell did pass quickly. She felt a little lightheaded as they stepped off towards the street again, but nothing too crippling. Monique supported Caitlin at the elbow anyway, a gesture she was happy to accept.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ the Frenchwoman said, a little petulantly. ‘What did you mean before, about protecting us?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me, not yet.’

‘Try me.’

‘No. If we’re still alive in a few days, I’ll tell you – and you will believe me, every word I say. But for now, no. Come with me, or make your own way home, where they’ll be waiting for you. It’s all the same to me.’

They stopped at the intersection, where bright lights and heavy foot traffic created an effect a little like stepping back into the real world from some underground realm. A bus rumbled by, coughing thick gouts of acrid smoke into the air. Shoes scuffed and clicked on wet, grey flagstones, and around them roared hundreds of voices, all discussing the same thing: ‘la Disparition’. The Disappearance.

Caitlin’s heart sank. She had been hoping, irrationally, that the apparent normality of the street scene implied there was some sort of disorder within her, some malady of the brain caused by her illness, and that it had manifested itself as a perverse hallucination of cataclysm. But no, the Parisians were agog with the news. And further confirmation for her that it was real was the sound of so many voices raised in good cheer and even merriment. That is what the three jerks who’d abused them before were drinking to: a world without America.

Fucking assholes.

‘Excuse-moi!’ Monique had stopped in her tracks, affronted enough to revert to her native tongue.

‘Sorry. Didn’t think I was speaking aloud,’ said Caitlin. ‘It’s nothing. We’ve got to get moving. Let’s go.’