49
Luke followed part of the fleeing mass of people and ran to the Champ de Mars Metro station across the street from the Tower, hurried down into the tunnel. The lines to buy a ticket were long and he jumped the turnstile, apologizing to the man in front of him. No one seemed to care about his lack of a ticket in the rush to get away from the shooting. It was a big station, different colored signs pointing to different lines, and then he caught an edge of what looked like Mouser’s burr haircut making a turn. He followed, cutting through the crowd.
Mouser. For sure. He headed for a station with a yellow line, an RER station with the large trains that traveled the lines running parallel to the Seine. The crowd – dozens thick – pressed forward as a large double- decker train pulled into the station. Children cried, people talked in a hubbub. Panic steamed the air. No one looked at Luke, even glanced at him. He was the cause of it all and he felt as small and anonymous as an ant.
He lost sight of Mouser. He pressed the earpiece Mouser had put in his ear but heard nothing. Mouser had killed the connection. Luke threw it on the floor. He didn’t want Mouser reactivating it and hearing him.
Luke went on tiptoe and surveyed the dozens of faces stretching away from him in a jostling human quilt. Damn it. Then he saw Mouser. Thirty feet away and to his left, scanning the crowd himself, his head slowly turning toward Luke’s position.
The sunglasses that helped camouflage Luke on the plane were gone, lost in the scuffles. Luke ducked, crowding a young woman who spat a volley of outraged French that questioned Luke’s basic intelligence. Her hair was a spike of black dye; her boyfriend next to her had shaved off his hair. A pair of sunglasses sat on his head.
The roar of an approaching train sounded. The crowd eased forward bare centimeters.
‘Are you trying to kiss asses?’ Luke thought he heard the boyfriend say. Luke ignored the comment and stayed kneeling on the floor.
The double-decker train stopped and the doors slid open.
The human tide surged forward. Luke grabbed a fistful of Drummond’s dollars from his pocket, handed them to the boyfriend, and said in bad French, ‘I would like to buy,’ then continued in English, ‘your sunglasses’, pantomiming the shades.
‘What is wrong with you?’ the boyfriend said. ‘No. I don’t want your dollars.’
But the girlfriend laughed and pulled the shades from his head, stuck them on Luke’s face. She grabbed the money. ‘There you go. I bought them cheap for him on the street. Now I can buy a dozen more in ugly matching colors.’ Her English was good. She gave Luke a thoughtful, measuring stare, as though trying to guess his motives for the bizarre offer.
From behind the dark lenses, Luke watched Mouser moving toward a seat on the ground car. Luke knew if he stayed on the ground car Mouser would see him, sunglasses or not. So he went up the steps, following the girlfriend and the boyfriend, his heart a piston in his throat. Mouser could get off at any station and he would lose him; he couldn’t easily monitor who got off and on the ground car. He stood near the stairs; it was his only hope. If Mouser came to the stairs and glanced up, he’d see Luke. Then Luke was dead.
If I lose him, how will I ever find Aubrey and my dad?
My dad. The words were like two muffled explosions in his chest. The entire past ten years of his life had been a charade. His father was alive.
Now that he had time to think, a hard bite of anger closed on his heart. Why? Why would his father pretend to leave his wife and child – why would he abandon them to a man like Henry Shawcross? Why would he let his wife and child suffer through a devastating grief? Why would he hide behind the deaths of his friends?
Luke had thought he didn’t know the real Henry; he clearly didn’t know his father, either. The realization felt like a punch in the stomach. He shook his head, as though physically clearing the thoughts from his mind. No. If he pondered this now emotion would drown him. Grief and bewilderment could wait.
The train jolted forward, people crowding on the stairs.
‘Are you still enjoying my sunglasses, crazy man?’ the boyfriend said, in serviceable English. He had apparently decided to indulge his girlfriend’s whim. ‘You want to buy a shirt next? Nice pants?’
The girlfriend giggled.
‘No. But I need help,’ Luke said. ‘You heard the shooting?’
The boyfriend rolled his eyes. ‘We walk out of the station, everyone running this way, we head back inside.’ He shrugged. ‘Crazy. The Tower will be there tomorrow for us to see.’
‘How do you need help?’ the girlfriend said. Luke saw she was the power in the relationship.
‘My girlfriend, she is a student here. She’s seeing a guy. Who’s not me.’ The train jostled them slightly as it picked up speed.
‘Ah.’ The girlfriend said. The boyfriend frowned.
‘He was going to meet her at the Tower today. She didn’t show and now I’m following him.’
‘Ah, the shooting was you shooting at him,’ the boyfriend joked. ‘Revenge is sweet, yes.’
‘Ah, no.’
‘And this man knows your face.’ The girlfriend guessed.
‘She had a picture of us on the bedside table. I’m sure he’s seen me.’ The lying was easy, because a real sense of betrayal swelled in his chest. His father had been the greatest liar of them all. ‘But he’s dangerous. A little crazy. I want to find out where he lives. But he’s below, on the ground car, and I don’t want him to see me.’
The girlfriend raised an eyebrow in amusement. ‘And he will be convinced by a disguise of cheap sunglasses.’ She muttered in French, unzipped the boyfriend’s backpack, pulled out a knit cap. ‘Cover your hair with this.’
‘That’s not, what you say, hygienic,’ the boyfriend complained. He spoke in a flood of French.
‘Your head is clean.’ She yanked the cap onto Luke’s head, tucked his light hair under its rainbow folds. Then she pulled out a scarf to match. Both were pink and green. ‘I make these for him, he never wears them.’
‘He will not wear them either,’ the boyfriend said.
‘I will,’ Luke said. He pushed some more cash into her hand. Her kindness overwhelmed him.
The girlfriend’s finger lingered against his palm, but she made a point of putting the hand she’d touched Luke with firmly against her boyfriend’s cheek. ‘And you, my sweet, you will get a new hat.’
‘A cowboy hat,’ the boyfriend said. The girlfriend laughed.
‘Where is the next stop?’ Luke asked, rubbing his arms. He couldn’t keep still.
‘Pont de l’Alma,’ the boyfriend said. ‘Les Invalides, the next one, is more of a hub for more lines.’
People around them were chattering, mostly in French and English, about the shootings. The girlfriend kept a look locked on Luke and he thought she saw the deception beneath the surface of his smile.
‘You must love this girl a lot to forgive her,’ she said.
‘Her I love,’ Luke said. ‘Him I don’t.’ The boyfriend laughed.
The train slowed as it approached the station. People pushed past them, eager to get down the few steps to the exit.
‘Are you getting off here?’ he asked them.
They shook their heads after a shared glance.
Luke risked a few steps down to the ground car, inching for position. He had wanted to ask them to see if they could spot if Mouser had got off the train, but too many people jammed the car. He couldn’t take the risk that they would miss him. He peered down, scanned the crowd. He could see the back of Mouser’s head. It looked like he was text-messaging on a phone, furiously. But not rising to leave.
The train stopped and the doors hissed open. A number of people left but many stayed put. Few climbed on.
Mouser remained in his seat, his back to Luke. The gun hidden along his side, covered by his jacket, pressed like an iron weight. The RER train pulled out of Pont de l’Alma. Mouser stood, began to move past the other seated passengers. He had a smile on his face.
Luke retreated up the stairs. ‘He’s getting off at the next station. Thank you for your help.’
‘You’re welcome, thanks for the money.’ The boyfriend shook Luke’s hand, and then Luke saw that the girlfriend had noticed his gun. Her mouth narrowed and her eyes widened. They knew there had been shots fired at
