Without warning

The two women ate in silence, enjoying the luxury of being warm, dry and well fed in a world that had turned inexplicably hostile, just a few inches away, on the other side of a windowpane.

The recipe wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to her dad’s to be both comforting and upsetting to Caitlin. She had accepted the fact of her family’s death. They were gone and the shock of it was doubly unsettling because she had never expected to outlive them. The familiar scent and taste of the dish brought home a flood of memories and threatened an even greater flood of tears. She would allow herself to grieve later. She knew that such feelings couldn’t be bottled up without doing damage. But likewise, she was not ready to let her guard down in front of Monique, no matter how much closer they had become under the stresses of the last week. In the end, she told herself, the French girl was just a contact on a job that had gone wrong.

‘We can’t stay here, you know, Monique. We will have to get going, and soon.’

‘But where? And how? Travel is so difficult for everyone right now. And for you it is worse. Where would you even go?’

Caitlin nodded. Three men ran through the intersection below, all of them young and white. Two had shaved heads while the third wore his lank, dark hair in a ponytail. They seemed to be laughing, but running as fast as they could. Whether towards or away from something, she could not tell. She waited for some further development but the cobbled street, wet with acidic rain and glowing a sick, jaundiced yellow under the street lamps, remained deserted.

‘Things are better in England,’ said Caitlin. The government seems to have a stronger grip.’

‘Social fascists,’ replied Monique with a shrug. ‘And racist too. Putting the army on the streets like that. And only in the Muslim districts, of course.’

Caitlin didn’t rise to the bait. There was no passion in the delivery. It was almost as though her companion was reciting a lesson by rote. A few days ago Caitlin would have argued with her, pointed out that the army had gone where the violence was worst. But she stayed silent and Monique abandoned her polemic, switching to a practical protest.

‘How would you get there, to England?’ she asked. ‘The border is closed.’

‘I’m not a tourist, baby.’

‘No. I suppose not. But you are still hunted, non?’

‘We are still being hunted,’ Caitlin reminded her.

‘Do you think? Really? Don’t you think they have bigger problems? After all, you are no longer working on your mission, are you?’

For the first time in many days, an accusing tone crept back into Monique’s voice, but unlike the first twenty- four hours after their escape from the hospital, it was unaccompanied by any whining or hectoring. If Caitlin wasn’t mistaken, Monique was almost gently mocking her.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘The mission’s been scrubbed. By me, by circumstance, or whatever. My priority now is getting the hell out, and I will take you with me, if you still want to come. But if you believe you’re safe here, I’ll go alone.’

Monique held her gaze for a long moment, lifting her chin in an almost defiant gesture. ‘What was your mission, Caitlin? Why did you lie to us? And why did those men kill Maggie and the others?’

Caitlin shook her head as she put down the empty bowl. ‘I don’t know why they were killed, Monique. I’ve told you that. It was probably just a fuck-up. I don’t think it had anything to do with my mission, although it obviously had something to do with me, since I’m the one they were trying to grab.’

‘But we were your mission. Your target.’ She said the word with more venom than Caitlin was expecting.

‘No, you weren’t,’ the American replied, trying to sound soothing without being patronising. She paused then, on the verge of a significant departure. To go on would be to acknowledge that not just the mission, but her whole world, had been scrubbed. She stared out of the window, looking at but not really seeing the bleak scene below. She missed Wales, missed the security of knowing he was out there somewhere, watching her back, keeping her safe.

She felt guilty at being unable to help him, but of course there was no way of knowing whether he was even in the country when the Disappearance went down. He may well have been out of Paris or out of France altogether, especially with her laid up at the hospital for so long. He may have been in Washington.

Her training reasserted itself. Putting aside pointless speculation, she had to go with what she knew, addressing the situation right in front of her. ‘You were going to lead me to my target,’ she explained. ‘To a man, a blind recruiter, called al Banna.’

Monique looked confused. ‘But I don’t know any blind men.’

Caitlin shook her head. ‘Sorry – jargon. Al Banna’s not blind. You are. He had targeted your group as mules, carriers. You were going to take something back to the UK for him.’

‘What bullshit.’ And in an instant, the old Monique was back, her face an angry mask of disbelief. ‘I’ve never heard of this al Banna. None of the others mentioned such a name. Do you take us for fools?’

Caitlin kept her face professionally blank at that question, but Monique seemed not to notice. A switch had flipped over somewhere and a torrent of impacted rage was released.

‘We are not idiots, you know, Caitlin. We are not blind or even one-eyed, like some. We saw oppression and violence on all sides, not just from you and your masters. I have worked as a volunteer in a women’s shelter; I have seen what happens under the burqa, non? The broken arms, the smashed ribs and bruises everywhere. Do not imagine that just because we opposed your stupid oil war, we did not understand the nature of your enemies. You were as bad as each other. They may even have been worse, possibly, but they lacked your means. So please, this stupid conspiracy of yours, don’t imagine that -’

‘Monique,’ Caitlin sighed, tired from a bone-deep weariness. The inertia and fatigue in her voice seemed to trip the other girl up.

‘What?’