never seen such a display, such an act of love. This team was the most important thing that had ever happened— and possibly ever would happen—to him.
Next came our weapons. First, we all got new .45 caliber 1911 Colts with three-inch barrels. Backup guns to be worn in ankle holsters.
He handed all us men boxes. Sweetness got the biggest. He asked, “Should we take turns, or all open them at the same time?”
Milo didn’t hesitate. “We have to take turns. I’ll go first.” He had bought himself a serious collector’s item, a.45 Colt 1911, manufactured in 1918, with black walnut grips and engraving patterns on the frame and slide.
“How much did that cost?” I asked.
“Five thousand U.S. dollars.”
We had a lot of money, but still. “Isn’t that a little extravagant?”
He took umbrage. “When you asked me to join this team, I told you I wanted certain weapons and you agreed. Additionally, you appointed me armorer, and I did the job as I best saw fit.”
Maybe it was a lapse from brain surgery. “Sorry, but I don’t recall naming you armorer.”
“Before you went to the hospital, you told me to get the stuff we needed. Same difference.”
I couldn’t bring myself to destroy his day in the sun. “You’re right. So I did. But one question. If you actually have to shoot someone with it in a situation that doesn’t conform to law enforcement conditions to justify it, you have to get rid of it. It would be a shame to throw that down a sewer drain.”
He beamed, triumphant. “I bought extra barrels and firing pins by the box. I just replace them and keep the pistol. In fact, I’ve already swapped them out, just in case. Barrels in bulk are sixty bucks apiece. And I got five thousand rounds of two-hundred-and-thirty-grain ammo.”
Again, I conceded.
“Open yours,” he said.
Guns don’t interest me, and I’m a lousy shot. I opened the box. I admitted though, it was a pretty pistol.
Milo said, “It’s a.45 Colt 1911 Gold Cup National Match. A competition-grade target pistol. I hoped it might encourage you to practice.”
It won’t. “Thank you,” I said.
Sweetness opened his without asking. An unblemished walnut presentation case was inside the wrapping. He opened it. It was a two-gun U.S. 82nd Airborne commemorative set, adorned with 82nd Airborne symbols. The slides had never even been pulled. They were something truly special.
“You’re ambidextrous,” Milo said. “So I got you a pair. I’ll teach you to shoot, and you can blaze away with both hands simultaneously.”
Tears shone in the corners of Sweetness’s eyes.
Arvid sat in my armchair with his box in his lap. Milo motioned for him to open it. Inside was the pistol Arvid had used to murder Ivan Filippov, that he had executed so many men with in the Second World War, that his father had carried before him in the Civil War almost a hundred years ago, and the only possession Arvid had that belonged to his father before him. He looked at it with disbelief, dumbstruck.
“I stole it from the evidence room,” Milo said.
Arvid just looked at him, expressionless, for a good two minutes without speaking. Milo began to squirm, afraid he had done something wrong.
“You have my sincere gratitude,” Arvid said.
“Sir,” Milo said, “you are most welcome.”
I saw then that Milo’s motive for all this, the extravagance, the silliness of it, his obsession with our black-ops unit, was one that I doubted he himself was aware of. This wasn’t about fighting crime for him. He wanted to be part of a family. My family. For all of us in this room to be one big happy family. He wanted our love. It was unfortunate. It was something none of us were capable of giving him.
Unbelievably, there was still a big pile of boxes, but Kate couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m dying for a piece of cake,” she said.
21
Kate set the table and went to the kitchen. As if on cue, the door buzzer rang and I let Moreau in. He was forty-five minutes late. I recognized in him a man who was never late, never disorganized, always prepared, always in control. He had indeed been watching us from somewhere and made his entrance when it seemed most appropriate.
Kate came to greet him and, because he was down on one knee removing his boots, her primary view of him was of the large and ornate French Foreign Legion paratrooper wings tattooed on the sides of his head. They startled, even frightened her.
He stood, took her hand and introduced himself, and his pleasant demeanor offset her initial reaction. He went into the living room and introduced himself to everyone by turn, and then we all went to the dining room.
My mother had taught Kate to make a traditional Finnish birthday-type cake—my favorite kind—and she did it well, with layers of fruit-based filling and a simple frosting made of cream and sugar. The kind of frosting many Americans are so fond of, that comes ready-made in a can, is now available in Finland, so at Kate’s insistence I once gave it a try. It’s so sweet that it’s like eating rotten candy, disgusting to me. I also find American coffee useless. They drink it weak, like hot black water.
Moreau gestured toward the pile of gear in the living room. “You are preparing for a paramilitary operation?” he asked.
Milo loved to talk about our group. He looked at me for permission and I nodded yes.
I watched the storm come in as he talked. The sky was first zinc, then black and heavy, and then the rain came, wind-driven into silver diagonals. Kate rocked Anu back and forth in her carriage. Katt reclined on my shoulder.
I waited for an appropriate moment. “Adrien, tell us about yourself.”
“I grew up in Finland, in Iisalmi—a small town in the east,” he said. “This is the first time I have been back in over twenty years.”
Now we spoke English, but yesterday we spoke Finnish. His manner of speaking our mother tongue made me believe him. It carried an odd intonation, unusual word choices and grammatical constructions. I’ve noticed this before about the speech patterns of long-term expats.
“I attended the University of Helsinki and studied philosophy, because I wanted to find out who I was and what I wished to be. By the time I completed my master’s, the answer was clear, and I joined the French Foreign Legion.”
“Why not the Finnish army?”
“I had already served in the Finnish army. It has been said that every young man needs his war, and I needed mine. Finland has not fought in a war for sixty-five years now. Finnish boys must seek their glory elsewhere. I have served in Chad, Rwanda, the Cote d’Ivoire, the Gulf War, Gabon and Zaire, Cambodia and Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Afghanistan and, of late, in Mexico. You would be surprised how many Finns are in the Legion, for just that reason.”
This is true. I’ve met several former Finnish Legionnaires, and several more who tried but washed out in basic training. Only one in seven applicants makes the cut.
“What interest does France have in Mexico?” Kate asked.
Moreau smiled. I looked around the table. His calmness of mien suggested an uncommon gentleness, and it set people at ease, despite his satanic appearance. “France has interest in all things international. The American government requested French assistance in Mexico to help reconcile the violence caused by friction between the drug cartels. That assistance came in the form of me.”
That was quite a teaser for a story, and we waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
Sweetness waited until everyone had their fill of cake and then proceeded to eat the rest of it by himself. And then jammed
