Mrs. John Doe (12 page)

“Hang on,” Craig said, and he swung the wheel. The car pitched sideways, sliding over into the right lane between a big white truck and a low-slung red Mercedes sports car, with mere inches to spare. The Mercedes's horn blared in protest.

On the side of the truck was a picture of a loaf of bread sporting wings and topped by a halo. Nora dug her fingers into the dashboard, staring at the back of the truck, which was now directly in front of her. The whimsical painting of the bread loaf was repeated there, and beneath it the brand name,
Celeste,
and the legend,
Le Pain des Anges!
She focused on this, concentrating on it with all her might as the car edged ever closer to the guardrail, wondering what sort of bread the angels would eat, assuming they ate bread at all, which she doubted. At the rate the car was going, she could ask them herself, any minute now…

Another sickening lurch, and Craig hit the horn for three short blasts. The bread truck grudgingly sped up a little, but not much. Nora looked into the rearview mirror again, noting that the Citroën was changing lanes as well. As she watched, the car moved over into their lane several cars behind the red Mercedes. Craig looked over toward the right, nodded to himself, and gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands.

Nora looked ahead, past the truck, and saw where he was aiming: a big full-service rest stop, replete with five or six gas islands, a chain restaurant, and France's equivalent of a 7-Eleven. Craig abruptly swung the car into the exit lane and sped up. He swerved around the arced road to the station and sped straight past it and the restaurant to the far end of the lot. He turned on a dime, a full 180 degrees, the tires screeching on the asphalt, until they were facing the ramp with a fence behind them and a clear view of the buildings and all the exits. The car came to a stop with a jarring, teeth-rattling shudder.

Craig reached into his jacket and pulled out a small black revolver, holding it against his leg under the steering wheel. Nora stared and began to say something, but the look on his face changed her mind. He was very still in his seat, watching the ramp. They sat in silence, the engine idling, waiting.

The gray Citroën came down the ramp and into the station, and Nora watched as it pulled up to a vacant pump. A young man ran over to attend it, and the driver got out of the car to speak to him: a plump blond woman, perhaps forty years old. Nora squinted at the passenger window and saw a little girl with braids holding up what looked like a Barbie doll. Nora thought briefly of her own daughter and then turned to her companion.

“Where's the Pakistani guy?” she said. “That woman is no spy. Even if she is, I doubt she'd bring along a child as deep cover, or whatever you call it. They're not following us; they're simply stopping for gas.”

Craig had been studying the ramp and the autoroute, but now he looked over at Nora, confused. “What are you talking about? What woman?”

“Over there, by the gray Citroën.”

He followed her gaze. “Oh. I hadn't even noticed them. I was watching the gray SUV farther back, but it kept on going. If it is tailing us, it'll have to stop and wait for us somewhere up ahead.”

Nora shook her head, clearing it. “I was watching the Citroën. Jacques saw one following us yesterday in Paris, and I assumed…Oh, skip it. I guess I'm never going to be cast as Mata Hari; I don't have the right skills!”

Now Craig relaxed, and he smiled at her. “I think you're doing marvelously. If I didn't have my training, I don't know if I'd be as cool as you about all this.”

“Thank you,” she said, and she managed to smile as well. “But speaking of ‘all this,' what on earth would you have been able to do if the people in the gray SUV confronted us?”

His smile became a sly grin. He held up the revolver.

Now Nora actually laughed. “You're going up against arms dealers with that—that
peashooter
?”

“It gets the job done,” he said.

She laughed again and turned in her seat, reaching back into her shoulder bag. “So does this,” she said, pulling out the SIG Sauer and handing it to him. “Compliments of your French colleague.”

Craig stared at the weapon in his hand. “
Now
we're talking!”

“You keep it,” Nora said. “I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. In case the SUV shows up again. Are they all gray?”

He blinked. “Are
what
all gray?”

“Spy cars. This Volvo, the Citroën in Paris, the SUV. Let me guess; it's the least obtrusive shade in the spectrum, right? Nobody notices gray cars. Something like that?”

Now he too was laughing. He put the SIG Sauer in the holster under his jacket and placed the revolver in the glove compartment. “Something like that. I don't know about you, but I could use a cuppa. And I must make those calls.”

“Okay.” She laughed again, an inane sound, and she knew it was yet another symptom of shock. Bullets flying in a cemetery. That young woman dead on the floor of an apartment in Paris. The near collision just now, getting off the autoroute. Her cavalier attitude as she pulled a deadly weapon from her Coach bag and blithely handed it to a trained killer, knowing full well what he could do with it.

Focus, she told herself. Keep it together.

“I'd like some coffee,” she said. “It's crowded in there, and somebody could recognize me from TV this morning. I'll meet you back here.”

He nodded, and they got out of the car. Craig entered the restaurant, and Nora went in search of the gas station's restrooms. The ladies' room was busy, so she kept her face averted from the women there. Washing at the sink reminded her of the previous afternoon, the girl with the hot-pink Superbouche lip gloss. She'd recalled her daughter's brief tenure as the Long Island North Shore's very own Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, unrecognizable even to her parents.

Unrecognizable…

By the time she rejoined Craig at the gray Volvo, Nora was already making a mental list of items to be bought at the nearest mall. But that would have to wait, at least for a while. Craig was leaning against the hood of the car, speaking quietly into his cellphone, and the expression on his face told her that the conversation wasn't an easy one.

“No, we didn't touch anything except the note in her hand; we took that. Then we left the area. You should send someone in, tell them to wipe everything—she had a laptop and at least two phones that I know of. We're heading north; I'll let you know where as soon as I contact Reynard. I'm sorry, Mr. Howard, I really am. It's a terrible thing, and I can't imagine how you must be…um, yes, she's here.” He extended the phone to Nora. “He wants to talk to you.”

Nora sighed and raised the phone to her ear. She'd been dreading this inevitable conversation.

“I'm so sorry about Solange, Bill,” she heard herself say. And she was, even if she also sympathized with Vivian. But at least his estranged wife was alive, and Solange was not. Nora settled for the conventional formalities.

“Thank you, Nora,” he said. “I don't know what I'm going to do without her.” He didn't sound well, and Nora was aware of the odd reversal in their roles: Three days ago, he had been the one consoling her on the telephone. But now he rallied. “Craig tells me he's explained our situation to you, the illegal arms deal our countries are trying to stop, so you know how important this is. Jeff was obviously closing in on these people when they took him. We must get you back here, to England. I promise you, we're doing everything in our power to find Jeff, but I'll feel better if you're here instead of—”

“I understand,” Nora said. Instead of flapping in the wind, he wanted her to come in from the cold, or whatever the phrase was, so she'd be one less nuisance in this difficult operation.

“You stay close to Craig Elder, Nora. He's a good man, and he has a plan that should work. You do as he tells you, all right?”

“Of course, Bill. We didn't call anyone—I mean, the police—about…about—”

“I'll take care of the apartment in Paris,” he said, and she heard the strain in his voice again. “And we'll find Jeff, don't you worry. Just get back here to us as soon as you can. I'll be waiting.”

Nora handed the phone back to Craig, and he quickly signed off with his employer. Then he punched in another number. Nora reached for the coffee and sweet rolls in the cardboard tray on the hood, listening as he spoke in French to someone named Louis, who must've been the
Reynard
he'd mentioned to Bill. She couldn't follow it all, but she caught the words
Boulogne
and
Calais,
and something about a
bateau
and avoiding
les flics,
and night.
Ce soir
…

She didn't ask any questions when he finished the call and got into the car. She strapped herself into the passenger seat and smiled over at him as he started the engine and drove back onto the autoroute. For the next few miles, she found herself studying the road ahead of them, looking for a gray SUV. She didn't see one, but she wondered where it was now.

Louis Reynard lived up to his name: There was something distinctly vulpine about him. He was about Craig's age, as nearly as she could guess, and he also had brown hair, but there the similarity ended. He was short and slight, with the deep mahogany tan and sinewy muscularity of a sailor, and his long face, shaggy mane, pointy beard, and crafty brown eyes made his name perfect for him. The constant little smile on the thin lips beneath his mustache only added to the fox effect. The moment she met him on the dock in Calais, Nora instinctively disliked him, but she smiled as his long, thin fingers reached out to shake her hand. He was clearly being polite to the old lady, for that was what she now was.

Her original thought had been to dye her hair, but that had seemed somehow inadequate, considering the people who were looking for her. When she'd remembered the young woman in the service station restroom yesterday, the complete transformation from an ordinary girl to someone else entirely, Nora had decided that a more extreme plan was in order.

They'd pulled into a shopping mall just before they reached Calais, and she'd left Craig at the car while she went to find the items she needed, putting on the scarf and sunglasses and keeping her head down in the crowded building. She bought a shapeless gray cloth coat, a gray woolen shawl, gray gloves, pale lipstick, a brown pencil to emphasize the lines on her face, the palest face powder she could find, a brown wig, and a can of something the salesgirl assured her was the French equivalent of Streaks 'N Tips, a spray-on hair color popular with actors. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses with clear lenses completed the illusion.

In the mall's empty ladies' room, she applied the makeup and doused the wig with gray, remembering how many times she'd done this in dressing rooms all over America. This she could do; this she understood. She knew very little about spying and international intrigue, but she could become another person in a matter of minutes. Coat, shawl, gloves, and glasses followed, and she automatically developed a slight stoop and shuffle. The woman who tottered out of the restroom was twenty-five years older than the woman who'd entered it. A girl coming in as she was going out actually held the door for her and smiled in that way young people smile at their grandmothers. Nora thanked her and made her stately way back to the car. A tall man was standing there, leaning against the hood, and it took her a moment to realize that it was Craig.

“Wow!” they said in unison, staring at each other.

His buzz cut was gone: He now had longish brown hair and a mustache, sunglasses, an olive drab fatigue jacket, and a baseball cap. Nora eyed his wig and facial hair critically, admiring the effectiveness of his disguise. She wondered what else he carried in the backpack.

“Excellent,” she said. “So, what do we do now?”

“We wait.” He was studying the busy parking lot, looking for something. There was a franchise near the entrance to the lot, a fast food stand with a tall sign in the shape of a coffee cup, and Craig's attention was soon drawn to it. Trucks and big rigs were constantly stopping there, and the drivers ran inside and emerged with oversize cardboard cups, got back into their vehicles, and headed for the port city.

Craig stuffed Nora's trench coat and the revolver from the glove box into his backpack, slung it over his shoulders, and locked the Volvo. Then they walked over to the coffee place.

“Wait here,” he said, and he went inside. Nora watched through the glass wall as he approached a couple of burly men waiting for their orders at the counter. He spoke to them, pointing to her. One of the men shook his head and jerked a thumb toward Paris, but the other one nodded. Craig paid for that man's coffee, and they came outside together.

“This is Gaston,” Craig told her. He turned to the big, bearded truck driver.
“Ma mère.”

Gaston nodded and led them over to his eighteen-wheeler. Nora paused, staring at the massive truck, but Craig scooped her up and lifted her into the cab before she could protest. She sat between the two men for the twenty-minute ride, terrified by the high perspective of the road and the sheer size and noise of this strange mode of transportation. Gaston drove them all the way into town, and he refused the money Craig offered him. With a friendly wave, he turned around and backtracked down the autoroute toward the toll plaza for the Dover ferry.

Calais was as dismal a port city as Nora had ever seen, all dull gray buildings and dour-looking locals. She knew that most of the city had been destroyed in World War II, and it had never fully recovered from the damage. She stopped to admire the still-intact, ornate city hall and the famous sculpture by her favorite artist in front of it. Rodin's
The Burghers of Calais
had withstood two world wars in this plaza, and it was gorgeous, much more impressive than the other version at the museum in Paris, but it was the city's only highlight, as far as she could tell. Craig tore her away from the monument, and they walked some more.

The waterfront was every bit as sinister as the rest of the landscape around here: shadowy warehouses and hangars, rusting ferries and tankers. The docks for smaller craft were removed from the commercial section, along a crumbling esplanade past more warehouses and ugly convention hotels. By the time they had reached the marina, it had been nearly dusk. But here they were at last, and here was Louis Reynard. He stood, shaking her hand, in front of the berth where his ramshackle fishing trawler, the
Bardot,
had just arrived from Boulogne.

“Any friend of Craig is a friend of mine,” he intoned in heavily accented English. Even his manner was foxlike.

“Thank you, Monsieur Reynard,” she said, smiling her best old-lady smile.

“Louis,” he corrected her, and he made a show of helping her over the transom into the rusty old boat. The stench of fish was powerful, and Nora avoided the big grill in the center of the foredeck, which covered the open hold where the catch was stored. Two scruffy-looking young men in T-shirts and shorts were on the trawler with him, introduced as his nephews, and the family resemblance was clear; they both looked like foxes too. The boys nodded a greeting, but they never spoke, and Nora wondered if they were accustomed to having mysterious strangers aboard. Probably. Uncle Louis was obviously a smooth operator of some sort, and the sidelines that augmented his legitimate fishing trade were unlikely to be legal.

“There's coffee down in the cabin,” Reynard told them, “and I think you should go there now, while we cast off. Something's going on.” He nodded toward the docks.

Two gendarmes were making their way slowly along the wharf, checking out the craft and the people with more than a passing interest. Craig gripped her arm, and they hurried below. One of the nephews was there, setting out mugs for them. The engines underneath their feet roared to life as the young man poured coffee. With a nod to them, he went up on deck, leaving them alone in the cramped space.

“Do you suppose those men are looking for me?” Nora asked.

Craig shrugged. “Who knows? But let's not chance it. Louis runs a smuggling trade out of Boulogne, and he's all kinds of a villain, so he's got an instinct for trouble. We should stay here.”

They watched through an open hatchway as the two policemen arrived at the
Bardot
and hailed Louis Reynard, who replied with a hearty laugh. The cops laughed too, and much rapid-fire French was exchanged, something about a tall, attractive, fortyish woman with light brown hair and a beige trench coat.
Non,
Louis assured them, he hadn't seen such a person, but if he did, he'd invite her aboard. If she refused his invitation, he'd be sure to call the police immediately. More laughter.

“Don't worry, Nora,” Craig told her. “We'll be across the Channel soon.”

The gendarmes were still laughing as they moved away down the dock. Nora exhaled.

“Not soon enough for me,” she said.