Frowning, Gabriel patted his midsection. Keller left a few euros on the table and rose to his feet.
There was a dealership not far away, on the boulevard de la République. After spending a few minutes scrutinizing the inventory, Gabriel selected a Peugeot Satelis 500 premium scooter, which Keller paid for in cash and registered under one of his false Corsican-based identities. While the clerk saw to the paperwork, Gabriel crossed the street to a men’s clothing store where he purchased a leather jacket, black jeans, and a pair of leather boots. He changed in one of the shop’s dressing rooms and put his old clothing in the storage compartment of the scooter. Then, after slipping on a black helmet, he climbed on board the bike and followed Keller down the boulevard to the Place du General de Gaulle.
By then, it was approaching five o’clock. Gabriel left the bike at the base of the rue Espariat and, with the helmet beneath his arm, made his way up the narrow street to the tiny square with a Roman column at the center. The two old men had yet to move from their table at Le Provence. Gabriel took a table at an Irish pub on the opposite side of the street and ordered a lager from the waitress; and for a moment he wondered why anyone would come to an Irish pub in the south of France. His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a powerfully built man coming up the street through the shadows, a metal attaché case dangling from his right hand. The man entered the interior portion of Le Provence and emerged a moment later with a café crème and a shot of something stronger. His eyes swept slowly over the square as he sat down at an empty table, settling briefly on Gabriel before moving on. Gabriel looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past five exactly. He removed his mobile phone from his coat pocket and speed-dialed Keller.
“I told you he’d come,” said the Englishman.
“How did he arrive?”
“Black Mercedes.”
“What kind?”
“E-Class.”
“Registration?”
“Guess.”
“Same car that was waiting at the marina?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
“Who was driving?”
“A woman, mid-twenties, maybe early thirties.”
“French?”
“Could be. I’ll ask her, if you’d like.”
“Where is she now?”
“Driving in circles.”
“Where are you?”
“Two cars behind her.”
Gabriel severed the connection and slipped the phone back into his coat pocket. Then, from the other pocket, he removed one of the phones he had taken from Marcel Lacroix’s boat. It would happen quickly, he thought again, and if they weren’t prepared they would lose him. Twelve operatives, four vehicles—that’s what he needed to do the job properly. Instead, he had only two vehicles, and the only other member of his team was a professional hit man who had once tried to kill him. He drank some of the lager, if only for the sake of his cover. Then he stared at the dead man’s phone and watched the minutes tick slowly past.
15
AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE
At 5:18 time seemed to stumble to a stop. The distant hum of the traffic faded; the figures in the tiny square froze, as though rendered in oil on canvas by the hand of Renoir. Gabriel, the restorer, was able to examine them at his leisure. A quartet of florid Germans examining the menu at the tapas bar. Two sandaled Scandinavian girls staring mystified at the last paper street map in all creation. A pretty woman sitting at the base of the Roman column with a boy of perhaps three on her knees. And a man seated at a café called Le Provence with no company other than a metal attaché case filled with one hundred thousand euros. One hundred thousand euros that had been supplied by a man without a country and with no name other than Paul. Gabriel looked at the woman and the child at the base of the column and in his thoughts saw a flash of fire and blood. Then he glanced again at the man sitting alone at Le Provence. It was now twenty minutes past five o’clock. At the instant Gabriel’s watch ticked over to 5:21, the man rose to his feet, snatched up the attaché, and departed.
“Is there a fallback if either one of you fails to show?”
“Le Cézanne, just up the street.”
“How long will he wait there?”
“Ten minutes.”
“And if you don’t show?”
“The deal’s off.”
But why would a professional criminal fail to appear for a lucrative payday of one hundred thousand euros? Because the criminal was at that very moment lying on the seafloor of the Mediterranean eight miles south-southeast of Marseilles with a bullet in his brain. René Brossard couldn’t be allowed to know that, of course, which was why Gabriel had the dead man’s phone at the ready. He watched Brossard moving swiftly along the shadowed street, attaché case in hand. Then he looked at the florid Germans, and the sandaled Scandinavians, and the mother and child who, somewhere in the darkest recesses of his memory, were still burning. It was 5:22. Eight minutes, he thought, and then the chase would be on. One mistake was all it would take. One mistake, and Madeline Hart would die. He drank more of the beer, but in his current state it tasted of wormwood. He stared at the woman and the child and watched helplessly as the flames consumed their flesh.
At 5:25 he rang Keller again.
“Where is she?”
“Still driving in circles.”
“Maybe she’s leading you on a wild goose chase. Maybe there’s a second car.”
“Are you always so negative?”
“Only when a young woman’s life is at stake.”
Keller said nothing.
“Where is she now?”
“If I had to guess, heading back in your direction.”
Gabriel severed the connection and picked up the other phone. After speed-dialing Brossard’s number, he placed his thumb tightly over the microphone and brought the phone to his ear. Two rings. Then the sound of Brossard’s voice.
“Where the fuck are you?”
Gabriel pressed his thumb tighter against the microphone and said nothing.
“Marcel? Is that you? Where are you?”
Gabriel removed the phone from his ear and pressed the END button. Thirty seconds later he redialed. Once again he covered the microphone with his thumb and said nothing. Brossard picked up on the first ring.
“Marcel? Marcel? I thought I told you no more phones. You have three minutes. Then I’m gone.”
This time it was Brossard who rang off first. Gabriel slipped the phone into his pocket and called Keller again.
“How did it go?” asked the Englishman.
“He thinks Lacroix is alive and well and in a spot with bad cell service.”
“Very bad.”
“Where is she now?”
“Getting close to the Place du General de Gaulle.”
Gabriel killed the connection and checked the time. Three minutes, then Brossard would walk. He would be agitated, wary. It was possible he would notice a man following him on foot, especially if that man had been drinking lager in the Irish pub when Brossard had been at Le Provence. But if Brossard passed by the man on his way to the car, he might be less inclined to regard him with suspicion. It was one of Shamron’s golden rules of physical surveillance. Sometimes, he preached, it was better to follow a man from in front rather than from behind.
Gabriel stared at his watch. Then, at the stroke of 5:28, he left his table at the pub and set out down the rue Espariat with his helmet beneath his arm. Le Cézanne was the last business on the right, at the point where the street emptied into the Place du General de Gaulle. Brossard was at a table outside. As Gabriel passed, he could feel the Frenchman’s eyes boring into his back, but he forced himself not to turn and look. The motorbike was where he had left it, parked next to several others beneath a plane tree that was beginning to shed its leaves. Three had come to rest on the bike’s saddle. Gabriel bru
shed them away. Then he climbed on board and pulled on the helmet.
In the rearview mirror he could see Brossard rising from his table and stepping into the narrow street. A few seconds later the Frenchman passed within a few inches of Gabriel’s right shoulder. Close enough so that Gabriel could smell his cologne. Close enough that, if he were so inclined, he could have plucked the attaché case from his left hand. Earlier Brossard had carried the attaché in his right hand, but now that was not possible; he had a mobile phone in his right hand. And the phone was pressed hard against his ear.
Gabriel started the bike’s engine as Brossard entered the esplanade at the edge of the Place du General de Gaulle, his head swiveling slowly from side to side like the turret of a tank looking for a target to engage and destroy. There were late-afternoon crowds milling about; Gabriel might have lost sight of him were it not for the attaché case, which shone like a newly minted coin in the gathering dusk. By the time Brossard reached the curb of the traffic circle, the mobile phone was back in his pocket and he was reaching for the front passenger door of a black Mercedes E-Class sedan that had pulled to the side. As he lowered himself into the seat, a Renault hatchback swept past and then turned into the boulevard de la République. The Mercedes did the same thing ten seconds later. Watching, Gabriel couldn’t help but smile at their good fortune. Sometimes, he thought, it was better to follow a man from in front rather than from behind. He twisted the throttle of the motorbike and eased into the traffic, his eyes fixed on the taillights of the Mercedes. One mistake, he was thinking. That’s all it would take. One mistake and the girl would die.
They followed the boulevard de la République to the route d’Avignon and then headed north. For a mile or so it was all storefronts and stoplights; but gradually the shops turned to apartment blocks and houses, and before long they were moving at speed along a split four-lane road. After a mile a gas station appeared on their right. Keller slowed and switched on his turn signal, and the Mercedes immediately overtook him. Then, with little warning, the road shrank to two lanes again. Gabriel settled into position about fifty meters behind the Mercedes, with Keller on his tail.
By then, the sun was gone and the autumn night was falling with the quickness of a curtain dropping onto a stage. The cypress pine lining the road turned from dark green to black; then the darkness devoured them. As the gloom settled over the countryside, Gabriel’s world shrank: white headlights, red taillights, the whine of the bike’s engine, the hum of Keller’s Renault a few meters behind. His eyes were focused on the back of René Brossard’s Mercedes, but in his mind he was gazing at a map of France. In this part of Provence the towns and villages were strung tightly together, like pearls on a necklace. But if they continued in this direction, they would cross into the Vaucluse. There, in the Lubéron, the villages would become more sparse and the terrain rugged. That would be the kind of place they would be keeping her, he thought. Somewhere isolated. Somewhere with only a single road in and out. That way they would know whether they were being watched. Or being followed.
They flashed through the edges of a nothing town called Lignane. Just beyond it, the Mercedes pulled into the deserted gravel parking lot of a business that sold ceramic garden pottery, leaving Gabriel and Keller no choice but to continue past. About two hundred meters farther along was a traffic circle. In one direction was Saint-Cannat; in the other, reached by a smaller road, was Rognes. With a hand signal, Gabriel sent Keller toward Saint-Cannat. Then, after switching off his headlamp, he leaned the bike toward Rognes and quickly sought shelter in the shadow of a cinderblock wall. A moment later the Mercedes came purring past, though now Brossard was behind the wheel and the woman, whom Gabriel could see clearly for the first time, was peering intently into the passenger-side mirror. He quickly dialed Keller and told him the news. Then he forced himself to count slowly to ten and eased the bike back onto the road.
On the road to Rognes, time receded. The pavement narrowed, the night darkened, the air turned colder as they rose steadily in elevation toward the base of the Alps. A three-quarter moon was ducking in and out of the clouds, illuminating the landscape one minute, plunging it into darkness the next. On both sides of the road, vineyards marched neatly into the blackening hills like soldiers heading off to war, but otherwise the land seemed empty of human habitation. Scarcely a light burned anywhere, and the road was deserted except for the black E-Class Mercedes. Gabriel hovered in its wake, with Keller trailing far behind where he was invisible to Brossard. Whenever possible, Gabriel navigated without aid of his headlamp. Buffeted by the cold wind, and robbed partially of the ability to see, he had the sensation of traveling at the speed of sound.
As they approached the outskirts of Rognes, a few cars and trucks finally appeared. In the center of the town, the Mercedes stopped a second time, outside a charcuterie and an adjoining boulangerie. Again Keller sped past, but Gabriel managed to conceal himself in the lee of an ancient church. There he watched as the woman climbed out of the car and entered the shops alone, emerging a few minutes later with several plastic sacks filled with food. It was enough to feed a house filled with people, thought Gabriel, with some left over for a hostage. The fact that they had stopped for supplies suggested that Brossard did not suspect he was being followed. It also suggested they were getting close to their destination.
The woman placed the items in the trunk, then, after a glance around the quiet street, lowered herself into the passenger seat. Brossard had the car moving again even before she closed the door. They sped through the streets of the centre ville and then turned onto the D543, a two-lane road that ran from Rognes to the reservoir at Saint-Christophe. Beyond the reservoir was the river Durance. Brossard crossed it at half past six and entered the Vaucluse.
They continued north through the picturesque villages of Cadenet and Lourmarin before finally scaling the southern slopes of the Massif du Lubéron. In the flatlands of the river valley, Gabriel had remained a kilometer or more behind Brossard; but in the winding roads of the mountains he had no choice but to close the gap and keep Brossard constantly in sight. Passing through the hamlet of Buoux, he felt a stab of fear that Brossard had finally become aware of his presence. But when the Mercedes continued apace for another ten kilometers without taking evasive action, his fears receded. He drove on through the night, past stone walls and granite outcroppings that glowed luminous white in the moonlight, his eyes fixed on the red taillights of the Mercedes and his thoughts on a woman he did not know.
Finally, Brossard turned through a gap in the trees lining the road and disappeared. Gabriel didn’t dare follow him right away, so he continued along the road for another kilometer before doubling back. The road Brossard had taken was only partially paved and scarcely wide enough for two vehicles. It brought Gabriel to a tiny valley with a patchwork quilt of cultivated fields, separated by hedgerows and stands of trees. There were three villas in the valley, two at the western end and one standing alone in the east, behind a barrier of cypress pine. The Mercedes was nowhere to be seen; Brossard must have switched off his headlamps as a precaution. Gabriel calculated how long it had taken him to double back to the road, and how long it would take for Brossard to reach each of the villas. Then he stood astride the motionless bike, his eyes sweeping back and forth across the valley, thinking that, eventually, Brossard would have to stop somewhere. And when he did, his brake lights would give away his position. After ten more seconds, Gabriel stopped looking at the villas in the west, which were closer to his position, and focused his gaze on the distant villa in the east. And then he saw it, a burst of red light, like the flaring of a match. For an instant it seemed to float atop one of the cypress pines, like a warning light atop a spire. Then the light was extinguished, and the valley was plunged once more into darkness.
16
THE LUBÉRON, FRANCE
The nearest village had only a dreary bed-and-breakfast, so they drove to Apt and checked into a small hotel on the
perimeter of the ancient center. The dining room was empty of other patrons, and only a single elderly waiter was on duty. They ate at separate tables and then walked through the quiet, dark streets to the old basilica of Sainte-Anne. The domed nave smelled of candle smoke and incense and faintly of mildew. Gabriel studied the main altarpiece, his head tilted slightly to one side, and then sat next to Keller, before a stand of softly flickering votive candles. The Englishman’s head was bowed and he was holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. When he spoke, it was in a repentant whisper.
“It turns out she was right after all.”
“Who?”
“The signadora.”
“Perhaps I’m mistaken,” said Gabriel, lifting his eyes toward the dome, “but I don’t recall the signadora mentioning anything about a villa in an agricultural valley in the Lubéron.”
“But she did mention the sea and the mountains.”
“And?”
“They brought her across the sea, and now they’re hiding her in the mountains.”
“Maybe,” said Gabriel. “Or maybe they’ve already moved her to another location. Or maybe she’s dead already.”
“Jesus,” whispered Keller. “Why are you always so goddamned negative?”
“Remember where you are, Christopher.”
Keller rose, walked over to the votive candles, and lit one. He was about to return to the pew but stopped when he saw Gabriel staring at the donation box. He dug a few coins from his pocket and fingered them one by one through the slot. The sound seemed to echo in the dome long after he had retaken his seat.
“Spend much time in Catholic churches?” he asked.
“More than you might imagine.”
Keller resumed his pose of penitential reflection. The red glass of the votive candles lent a pink cast to his face.
“Let us stipulate,” he said after a moment, “that it is possible the girl is somewhere else. But let us also stipulate that all the evidence suggests that isn’t the case. Otherwise, Brossard wouldn’t be here. He’d be back in Marseilles, working on his next score.”