The Diaries - 01 (12 page)

Jean
Jenois
, DGSE agent, intended to take whatever it was Gage
had found.

Gage stared at the
ceiling for a half hour, fidgeting occasionally.
 
Monika opened her eyes and turned to him, her
dusky features cast in a blue glow from the moonlight bleeding between the blinds.

“Can’t sleep?”

He shook his head,
brushing her hair back.

“Tell me about
this,” she said, touching the small black tattoo on his right shoulder.

“Bah,” he
dismissed.
 
“Just a stupid thing I got
when I was younger.”

“Isn’t this what
lawyers use for their symbol?”

“I don’t
know.”
 
Yes I do.

The tattoo was a
variation of Themis, Greek goddess of Justice.
 
In Themis’s left hand were scales, in her right a sword.
 
It was the only common thread between Gage
and the rest of Colonel Hunter’s team.
 
The intelligence “expert” at Bragg, when the team had been disbanded,
recommended the men have their common brand removed.

No one did.

After laying still
for another five minutes, Monika broke the silence.
 
“I can’t sleep either.”
 
She stood, padding into the bathroom.
 
Gage heard the shower turn on again.
 
Monika reappeared.
 

“Well, are you
coming?”

The shower was hot
and blissful, still falling short of the pleasure they enjoyed afterward.
 
An hour later, sated and spent, the two slept
peacefully.

 
***

Monday, November 2

Monika
rolled over, opening her
eyes to dull light and Gage situating a tray topped with a silver urn of coffee
and a basket of flaky croissants.
 
He was
wearing his heavy pea coat and his black stocking cap, and she could feel the
touch of cold air he’d ushered in.
 
His
sunglasses were still on the nightstand, a good sign.
 
Sitting on the dresser was his backpack, its
shape made square by something inside.
 
She watched him as he moved to the ledge by the window, sipping his
coffee, staring out at the ashen sky.

“Good morning,”
she said in English.

Gage turned, his
face cracking into a smile tinged in embarrassment.
 
“Hey, there.
 
I guess I woke you up.
 
Sorry, I
was trying to be quiet.”

“What time is it?”
Monika asked, reaching for the bottle of water on the nightstand.

“Only about
seven.
 
We didn’t get all that much
sleep.”

She rubbed her
thighs over the blanket, yawning.
 
“That’s okay.
 
It was a worthy
trade-off.
 
May I have a coffee?”

He poured a cup,
adding milk the way she liked it.

“Where did you
go?” she asked, sitting up and feeling a slight headache.

Gage handed her
the cup, pulling the chair next to the bed.
 
He rubbed his stubble with his hand, opening and closing his mouth as if
the words were hung up in his throat.
 
Finally he stared at her, just blinking.

“Gage?”

“I’m trying,” was
all he could stammer.

Fear shot through
Monika.
 
Oh God, was he married back in
the States, or something of a similar nature?
 
His look was guilt, sheer guilt.
 
“Gage,
what is it?
 
You’re scaring me.”

His breaths were
ragged, coming in bursts.
 
He steadied
himself on the nightstand with his right hand.
 

“Gage, you aren’t
married, are you?
 
Is that why you’ve
been so hesitant all this time?”
 

That shook
him.
 
His eyes went wide as he moved his
trembling hand to her arm, touching it in a reassuring manner.
 
“No, Monika….no.”
 
He exhaled a long breath, his head shaking as
he forced a smile and a chuckle.
 
“Nothing like that at all…it’s just…well, I decided this morning that…”

“Decided what?”

He squeezed her
arm.
 
“To tell you, Monika.
 
I decided to tell you the truth, all of it.
 
And…” he hesitated, “…it’s shaken me a bit to
consider opening up.”

Monika pulled her
arm away.
 
“And you
haven’t
told me the truth, Gage?”

His face showed
shame and remorse.
 
But it was also as if
a current of resolve had entered his bloodstream.
 
He straightened, looking like a proud and
truthful military man facing an inquisition.
 
“No Monika, I have not.”
 
He held
up a finger.
 
“I haven’t told anyone the
truth, in years, about who I am…and that, unfortunately,
is
the truth.”

Monika placed her
hand over her mouth as she felt tears run down her face.
 
“After all this time, Gage…after all this
time I spent on you, it was all spent on a lie?”

A few moments
passed before Gage responded.
 
“If I can
convince you to just listen, I don’t think you’ll feel nearly as betrayed as
you do right now.”

Monika tightened
her lips together, pulling the sheets and blanket up over her chest.
 
She turned, leaning her head back against the
headboard, her eyes closed.
 
“Okay, so
talk.”

And he did.

After a minute,
she turned to him, her eyes perfectly round, a hand over her open mouth.

The truth kept
coming.

 
***

As he had done the
day before, Jean
Jenois
burst into the DGSE station
house hidden inside the French bottled water company’s warehouse.
 
His head pounded from the previous night’s
ingestions, making him quietly curse himself, knowing that he needed to get
things under control and dry out for a few months.
 
But only after winter.
 
Winter was the ideal time for harvest
consumption.
 
Warm summer months didn’t
invite the reds the way a cold night does, with a busty (and ditzy)
fraulein
by his
side, awaiting the Frankish bodily pleasures he so readily doled out in great
heaps.

Jean dropped the
empty to-go triple macchiato into the garbage.
 
Poured a cup of regular coffee, loading it with milk.
 
He glanced at his Omega;
Fredi
was fifteen minutes late.
 
He waited,
smoking, thinking.
 
Where was Gage?
 
And what had he found?
 
Whatever it was, it was worth him making two
trips and then evading
Fredi
.
 
He knew
he would be tailed
, Jean thought, shaking his head in disgust.
 
That meant, beside the fact that he was a
guilty bastard, that whatever it was he had found,
did
have value.
 
He was
exasperated because had
Fredi
(another fledgling
crétin
Paris seemed
to be churning out with great frequency) …had he not aroused Gage’s suspicion,
Jean would have his hands on whatever it was that the American had taken—from
him—the way Jean saw it.
 
Just as he
finished the cigarette
Fredi
rushed in, shedding his
coat, a scarf and his stocking cap.
 
He
stepped to the radiator under the window, rubbing his hands over the rising
warmth.

“You’re late,”
Jean said dryly. “Did our boy show?”

“It’s freezing out
there.
 
Brutal!”

You pussy
.
 
“Did—Gage—Hartline—show—up?”

“He didn’t.
 
Don’t you check your messages?”

Jean jerked his
phone from the pockets of his Merino wool pants.
 
The battery had gone dead sometime during the
night.
 
He had been too drunk to remember
to charge it and, in his hung-over haste, had neglected to check it during the frenetic
Monday morning.
 
He slammed the phone
onto the table, under his palm.
 
“Fucking
battery!”
 
He gathered himself, collapsing
into a chair.
 
“So he didn’t come home?”

“Nope.
 
Not a peep.”

Jean squeezed the
sides of his skull as if his hands were a vise, closing his eyes and imagining.
 
What in
the world had Gage found?
 
It had to be
significant because he was watching for tails.
 
Running.
 
Hiding.
 
Evading people like James fucking Bond.
 
Jean’s eyes opened as if on springs, his head
snapping around to
Fredi
.
 

“Do a level-two
sweep that sticks for forty-eight hours.
 
Gage Nils Hartline
: spell it
correctly.
 
Wash his name and passport
through the system for aliases, and run them too, if you find any.”
 
Jean settled a bit, moving his eyes around as
he decided on the ruse to utilize.
 
“Tell
the Paris desk officer Hartline did a job for us and didn’t collect his
money…so we fear for his life.”

“But I checked the
dead drop after he shook me.
 
He got the
money.”

Jean breathed a
loud, exasperated breath.
 
“Don’t think,
Fredi
—just fucking do it.”
 
He stepped to the door, lighting another cigarette and pointing it at
the junior agent.
 
“I’ll be in the back
office, charging my phone and mainlining
Tylox
.
 
You get anything at all, you find me.
 
I want him found, today, before sundown.
 
I’m putting every bit of this on you,
Fredi
.”
 
He turned to
go, stopped cold.
 
“And make sure you keep
someone on his flat.”

“We did a switch,”
Fredi
answered with a manner of pride.
 
“It’s still being watched.
 
Do you want to escalate to a three?
 
Get his description out?”

Jean shook his
head as he walked.
 
“No, that will make
someone back on Boulevard
Mortier
suspicious.”
 
Leaving a vortex of blue smoke, he
disappeared down the hall, saying, “Just do as I said.”

Monika faced Gage,
her knees pulled up to her chest, her chin resting on both hands.
 
He’d spoken for the better part of an hour,
holding it together better than he thought he might.
 
There were some hitches as he described the Crete
debacle, but he made it through.
 
After
that, telling the story he’d never before uttered became therapeutic, the tale
coming out of him like stitches from a healing wound.
 
It was a good pain, his body happy to expel
it, ridding it.

“And that’s why,
with nowhere to go, no trade to ply, I came here, doing low-level jobs for the
agencies I’d made contact with over the years.
 
It wasn’t long after that, Monika, that I met you.”
 
He swigged from the water bottle, locking his
eyes on hers.
 
“I’ve wanted to tell you
the truth for so long, but to be frank, it’s been so long that I don’t hardly
know what the truth is any more.”

Monika stared at
him, her brown eyes unblinking, her breathing serene and peaceful.

“Are you angry
with me?” he asked.

She shook her
head.

“Will you say
something, please?”

Monika lifted her
hands from her knees, opening her arms.
 
“Lie with me, Gage.”

They stayed there
for another hour, their bodies pressed together as Monika asked him questions
about his past, things she’d always wondered, and things that seemingly began
to occur to her.
 
When she had no more
questions, Gage raised up, buttoning his shirt.

“Where are you
going?”

He stood, bringing
the backpack to the bed.
 
“This is what I
went to get this morning.”

“What is it?”

He zipped it open,
carefully removing the 1938 diary, handing it to her.

“Where was this?”

“I was storing
this one in a locker at the
bahnhof
.
 
That’s where I went this morning, and I
grabbed another one from a little storage space I own.”

“What is it?”

“Before I say
anything, just take some time and read.”

She opened
it.
 
“A diary?”

“There’s a reason
I don’t want to tell you,” he answered.
 
“Draw your own conclusions…just read, then we’ll talk.”

Monika eyed him
for a moment, finally nodding.
 
She
fluffed the pillows, nestling into a comfortable reading position, the blanket
around her waist.
 
Gage stared at her
form, closing his eyes and giving thanks that he had her, and that he’d had the
courage to tell her the truth.
 
He dug
into the pack, retrieving the other diary, covering half of 1935.
 
He settled in next to her, opening the diary
and reading a passage from late May.