“Ha, ha, ha.” I opened the door. “Follow the limo. I’ll call you on your cell if she grabs a cab.”
I got out and headed for a vantage point across the street, where I could keep an eye on the front door of the prefecture. Knowing Marisa, I didn’t think there was a chance on earth she would use a side or back door. Found an empty bench in front of Notre Dame, inspected it for pigeon doo and parked my fanny.
Gusty wind, temp in the fifties, gray clouds scudding overhead… fortunately I was dressed for the weather. I turned my coat collar up and pulled my hat down tight. Tried to keep the eyes moving and the brain in neutral, which was difficult.
I could see about a thousand possible permutations on how this thing would play out, one of which was that we actually managed to kill Abu Qasim and get him stuffed for display in the CIA museum. One out of a thousand. About six hundred of the possibilities had Grafton winding up in a federal prison. Of course, if that happened, I was probably going to get tossed in an adjacent cell, because I knew all about this vast criminal conspiracy lodged in the rotten heart of the American government and didn’t blow the whistle.
The photographer on the sidewalk across the street made call after call on his cell phone. Before long another photographer arrived. A half hour later a television crew, complete with supporting truck, arrived. After they were set up, the reporter — a woman — talked into a camera for a while, then they waited. Ten minutes later another guy showed up carrying two camera bags, one on each shoulder. They formed a gauntlet that everyone leaving the building had to pass through. Several people did, and the media let them pass unmolested.
Marisa was in there for an hour and a half. The limo appeared at the curb, and the driver got out. Diem in our rental was a hundred feet behind. I walked over and climbed in just as Marisa came out the door and the photographers sprang into action. Inquiring minds want to know. One would think she specialized in hot love scenes for the cinema. She marched determinedly through the crowd, didn’t say boo to the lady with the microphone — which she stuck in Marisa’s face — and climbed aboard the limo. Away we crept, off through traffic, back to the chateau Petrou out in the country.
“What was that all about?” Diem wanted to know. “Why the star treatment?”
“We’ll buy a paper this evening.”
When we did, we discovered that Marisa was the prime suspect in her husband’s murder. Of course, the police didn’t state in so many words that she was it, but she was answering questions before the examining magistrate. Again. She had access to the poison that did him in, opportunity and lots of motive. The dirty laundry of Jean and Marisa’s marriage was smeared all over the paper for the world to read. And she was young, beautiful, rich and slightly exotic. If she managed to beat the rap, she could probably get a movie contract.
I studied the photo in the paper, which was a full-face close-up. I saw a lovely woman with her emotions under tight control. I looked for a hint of guilt or innocence, and didn’t see a trace of either one.
The holy warriors came in late afternoon, when the canyon was deep in shadow. The temperature had dropped to about twenty degrees, and the breeze was off the Hindu Kush. One man was on the point. He stayed on their trail, such as it was — a few scuff marks, here and there a partial footprint — wary as a nervous deer. He passed completely in front of Longworth and disappeared to the left, up-canyon.
He and Brown waited. Longworth’s watch seemed to stop. He breathed shallowly so his breath vapor would dissipate without rising as a cloud.
When they came there were four of them and two dogs on leashes. They walked well spread out. Harry Longworth studied them through binoculars. They were carrying AK-47s.
He ran the binoculars over the far ridge, looking for any sign of movement. Seeing none, he laid down the glasses and picked up the sniper rifle.
The line of searchers passed directly in front of him, the nearest man about eighty yards away, and continued on up the canyon. Fifty yards farther on they began crossing a flat place almost devoid of rocks.
That’s when he shot the man on the left. He heard the high-pitched crack of Gat Brown’s M-16, again and again.
All four men and the two dogs were down when Harry Longworth saw a flash of movement on the far side of the canyon and heard a burst of three shots.
The point man! He had doubled back.
The wind blew and the evening got darker in the canyon.
Finally, when Longworth was convinced the point man wouldn’t move, he did. Harry’s bullet caught him and he slid down a steep, naked slope and came to rest against a small stone.
It was full dark and bitterly cold, with the wind working up to a gale, when Harry Longworth found Gat Brown. He piled some stones on him as he said a little prayer. Brown always pretended to be an atheist — and perhaps he was — but now, Harry Longworth thought, he was with Jesus. Maybe.
The problem with religion is that you don’t really know.
Longworth took Gat’s weapon and rucksack and left him there in that rocky canyon in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.
The next day Marisa didn’t come out. I wondered if our bugs were working. The CIA had someone at Ft. Meade listening to the household drivel on a real-time basis. Grafton had insisted upon it. I called Grafton’s assistant, Robin Cloyd, the lady of the jeans and sweatshirts and big hair, on an encrypted satellite phone. “Hey. This is Tommy.”
“Well, hello there, world traveler. Where are you today?”
“France. What are the spooks hearing from the Petrou chateau?”
“Oh, lots and lots of stuff. Should I send you a summary on your Black Berry?”
“Yeah.” We spies were really into twenty-first-century gadgets. “But let’s cut to the chase. Is there anything there that I should know about?” “Well … I am scrolling through this stuff… The agency uses a program that reduces speech to text, so we get it untouched by human hands.” She hummed a little bit, then said, “It all looks very benign. When are you coming home?”
“My birthday. For sure.” I was lying, of course; I had no idea where I would be tomorrow. “Let me know when Marisa sounds as if she might go out.”
“Of course.”
“Great.”
“Thanks for calling, Tommy.”
Robin Cloyd was a strange woman. As I repacked the satellite phone in its little case, I wondered about her.
The third day of our vigil, Marisa set forth again in the limo. We were forewarned by a call from Robin, and were waiting in our rental when the limo appeared. I checked with the binoculars. She seemed to be alone.
“How do you stand all this excitement?” Diem asked as we rolled along.
“Too lazy to work and too stupid to steal. You know that old song.”
“Yeah,” he admitted.
I kept waiting for Diem’s personality to grow on me, but so far it hadn’t germinated.
It was raining that day in Paris, a steady rain from a dreary sky, matching my mood. Marisa’s chauffeur didn’t try to lose us, which was good, because he would have succeeded. He dropped Marisa at one of the big department stores on the right bank of the Seine. She was just disappearing through the doors of the retailing temple when I bailed out of the rental and charged off after her. I was hoping she was here to meet someone, and I figured Jake Grafton might like to know who it was. For that matter, so would I.
It was warmer and drier inside, with women huddled over the scent and makeup counters and talking in low tones. Marisa was waiting on the elevator, facing the door.
I waited until the door opened and she entered, then jumped on the escalator.
She went up to the eighth floor and into the restaurant. I found a vantage point outside that allowed me to see her through the plate glass windows. She took a seat at a small table in the corner, all alone, studied the menu and ordered when the waitress came around. If she was supposed to meet someone, she wasn’t waiting. Hmmm.
There were three other couples dining there and several single ladies. Two ladies went in and were seated while I dawdled. Half the tables were empty.
I waited ten minutes, just in case, then went inside. The maftre d’ smiled at me, and I pointed at Marisa in the corner.
I walked over and joined her.
