The Expats (56 page)

This was Kate’s fault. It was her failure to plan the mission carefully. This was why she was going to march into her supervisor’s office tomorrow, and resign.

In the next room, the baby cried again. Kate pulled the trigger.

Kate glances down at the sugar container, considers the microphone hidden there. It was barely two hours ago that she was a mile to the north, across the river, plotting out her deal with Hayden. And now here she is, living it.

It isn’t part of her deal to take these two into custody, or even to participate in their arrest. She simply has to get them to admit to everything, which she has nearly accomplished. And tomorrow she has to transfer the twenty-four million euros into a slush fund for covert ops in Europe. Which she herself is going to run.

“Do you need something from Dexter, to access your half of the money?”

Julia nods. But nodding isn’t good enough. “What?” Kate asks.

“I need the account number. I have the user IDs and passwords, but I don’t know the account number.”

Dexter also nods. It’s finally time. He reaches into his jacket pocket, withdraws a piece of paper. But Kate grabs his wrist.

He turns to her quizzically. Everyone is confused, unsure of what’s going on. Even Kate: she’s surprised at the strength of her urge to forgiveness. Impossible to resist. She knows this is because of Julia’s pregnancy, turning a beastly villain into a sympathetic heroine, just like that. Kate is now rooting for Julia, not against her. For the most part.

Kate’s left hand is wrapped around Dexter’s wrist, the small piece of paper folded up in his fist. With her right hand she upends the sugar tray, dumping the contents onto the table. She picks out the transmitter between thumb and forefinger, and holds it up for everyone to see. All eyebrows raise.

Kate drops the transmitter into her wineglass. “You have one minute,” she says, “maybe two.”

Julia darts her eyes between the transmitter in Kate’s glass and the account number in Dexter’s hand. Kate carefully topples her glass, spilling the wine and the frizzled device onto the tablecloth. Creating a reason, an excuse, why the thing suddenly stopped functioning.

“You can’t have the money.” Kate says. The dark red wine has already spread through the cloth, tendrils reaching out through the fibers from the pool. That same pattern, again. “But if you move fast, you can have your freedom.”

Julia and Bill stand quickly but not panicked, not drawing attention.

“Walk through the hotel lobby,” Kate continues, “and downstairs, and out the back entrance to the side street.”

Julia is pulling her bag onto her shoulder. She stares at Kate, a hodgepodge of emotion filling her face. Bill grabs her elbow, already taking his first step away from the table, from the Moores, from the money.

“Good luck,” Kate says.

Julia turns back to Kate and Dexter. She smiles fleetingly, her eyes crinkled at
the corners, her mouth open as if to say something. But she doesn’t. Then she turns again.

Kate watches them merge into the flow of the dense crowd, all the streetlights and lamplights ignited in the Carrefour de l’Odéon, a little red Fiat beeping at a bright green Vespa that’s weaving in the traffic, the policeman oblivious while he continues to flirt with the pretty girl, cigarette smoke wafting from tables filled with wineglasses and tumblers and carafes and bottles, plates of ham and slabs of foie-gras terrine and napkin-lined baskets of crusty sliced baguette, women wearing scarves knotted at the neck and men in plaid sport jackets, peals of laughter and playful smirks, hand-shaking and cheek-kissing, saying hello and waving good-bye, in the thick lively humanity of early night in the City of Light, where a pair of expats is quickly but quietly disappearing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the heroic readers of earlier, crappier versions: Adam Sachs, Amy Scheibe, Jamaica Kincaid, Jane Friesen, and Sonny Mehta.

To agent David Gernert, and his colleagues Rebecca Gardner and Sarah Burnes.

To Crown publishers Molly Stern and Maya Mavjee, editor Zachary Wagman, production editor Terry Deal, and all the other people in New York who helped transform a manuscript into a published book.

To editor Angus Cargill at Faber and Faber in London, as well as publishing director Hannah Griffiths and publisher Stephen Page.

To Michael Rudell and Jeffrey Dupler for legal guidance; to Sylvie Rabineau for film guidance; to Layla Demay for French guidance; and to Amy Williams for writing guidance.

To the ladies of Luxembourg: Becky Neal, Binda Haines, Christina Kampe, Cora Demeneix, Cristina Bjorn, Jules Brown, and Mandip Sumby.

To Kevin Mitnick, author of the fascinating
The Art of Intrusion
, my primary background about hacking. But note that the cyber-theft in
The Expats
is of a completely fictional nature, whose particulars are entirely make-believe. As are the logistics I’ve described of working in and resigning from the Central Intelligence Agency.

To the staffs at Soho House in New York and Coffee Lounge in Luxembourg, who were nice to me while I sat around writing this book.

And to my beautiful wife, Madeline McIntosh, the smartest person I know.