In that unguarded second, neither of them aware that I was watching, I saw them stripped of their social armour. They were no longer in Paris, nowhere near a five-star hotel; I saw in their faces they were exactly where they had been before and after the North Tower fell – in love. They weren’t kids, it certainly wasn’t infatuation, and it was good to know that in a world full of trickery and deceit something like that still existed. Maybe the evening hadn’t been a complete bust after all.
The moment passed, Marcie looked back at me and I said goodbye. I went through the tall doors and paused at the lectern where the courtyard’s maître d’ stood in judgement. He knew me well enough and after I thanked him for his hospitality I asked him to send the trolley over one more time and gave him two hundred euro to cover the bill.
I have no idea why I paid. Just stupid, I guess.
Chapter Twelve
THE AMERICAN AIRLINES flight arrived in new york early in the morning – towers of dark clouds hiding the city, rain and wild winds buffeting us all the way down. Two hours outward bound from Paris, the FASTEN SEATBELT sign had come on and, after that, conditions had deteriorated so rapidly that all in-flight service had been suspended. No food, no booze, no sleep. Things could only get better, I reasoned.
I was travelling on a perfect copy of a Canadian diplomatic book which not only explained my seat in First Class but allowed me to avoid any questions from US Immigration. They processed me without delay, I retrieved my luggage and stepped out into the pouring rain. I was home, but I found less comfort in it than I had anticipated. I’d been away so long, it was a country I barely knew.
Eighteen hours had passed since I had left the Bradleys at the Plaza Athénée. Once I realized my cover had been blown I knew what I had to do: the training was unambiguous – run, take shelter wherever you can, try to regroup and then write your will. Maybe not the last part, but that was the tone in which a blown cover was always discussed.
I figured America was my best chance. Not only would it be harder for an enemy to find me among millions of my own, but I knew if I was ever going to be safe I had to erase the fingerprints I had left behind, making it impossible for others to follow the path Ben and Marcie had pioneered.
I had covered the distance between the Plaza Athénée and my apartment in six minutes and, as soon as I walked in, I started to call the airlines. By luck, there was one seat left in First Class on the earliest flight out.
It is strange how the unconscious mind works, though. In the ensuing chaos of grabbing clothes, settling bills and packing my bags, the two letters from Bill and Grace Murdoch’s lawyer suddenly floated into my thoughts for no apparent reason. I rummaged through a file of old correspondence, threw them into my carry-on and turned to the only issue which remained: the contents of the safe.
It was impossible to take the three handguns, a hundred thousand dollars in different currencies and eight passports with me, not even in my checked luggage. If the metal detectors or X-rays picked it up – even as an alleged diplomat – I would come under intense scrutiny. Once they discovered it was a fake book, as they surely would, I would have weeks of explaining to do – first about my real identity and then about the other items. All guns, false passports and contact books were supposed to have been surrendered when I left The Division.
Instead I slit open a seam of my mattress, removed some of the filling and taped the tools of my trade inside. Once I was in America, I would call François, the snivelling concierge, and have him arrange for a moving company to transport all my furniture back home. With everything secure, I glued the seam closed, refitted the mattress cover and called a cab to take me to Charles de Gaulle.
Ten hours later I was standing in the rain at Kennedy, telling another cab to head for midtown. On the way I called the Four Seasons, one of those hotels where sheer size guarantees anonymity, and booked a room.
After three days of traipsing between realtors I rented a small loft in NoHo. It wasn’t much but it caught the morning light and, on my first day living there, I found the letters from the lawyer and called to make an appointment.
We sat in his expansive office in the late afternoon, looking all the way up Central Park, and what he had described as a small matter concerning Bill’s estate managed to change my life for ever.
For several days afterwards I walked the city late into the night, turning the matter over and over in my head, trying – as a psychologist would say – to internalize it. I let my feet carry me wherever they chose, passing crowded bars and restaurants, skirting the long lines outside the hippest clubs and latest movies. Finally, footsore and painfully aware of how little experience I had of what people call a normal life, I began to accept what the lawyer had told me. Only then did I turn to the problem of fingerprints.