To The Lions - 02 (17 page)

“You
coming alone, or accompanied?”

“Not
sure about that, either.”

“Bring
her along,” Hunter said.
 
“You’ve got the
shed out back and three squares.
 
She’s
not one of them frou-frou’s, is she?
 
Can
she handle the shed?”

“She’s
not frou-frou,” Gage laughed.
 
“And your
shed’ll look like the Ritz after what she’s been through.”

“Just
give me a heads up before you fly.”

“Roger,
sir.”

Once
they hung up, Gage stepped from the phone booth, crossing the busy street, back
to the Tuileries Garden.
 
The sun shone
brightly overhead, warming Paris as many people sunbathed and lounged in the
expansive park.

Though
Gage knew he needed to put up a façade of confidence for Justina, he at least wanted
to settle on a plan of action.
 
Gage
hated being without a plan.
 
He found a
spot on the edge of a marble fountain and calculated his remaining money, determining
that they could easily stay in Paris another five days and leave Gage
sufficient cushion to travel back to the States with.

And
Gage definitely wanted Justina to come back with him.

As
discussed on the call, they could stay in Hunter’s “shed”, which was a
converted shipping container on the backside of his land.
 
It didn’t sound appealing, but it was
actually quite nice, even equipped with an enclosed toilet and running
water.
 
Gage and the colonel had
converted it a year earlier, cutting in dual windows and adding a proper door
to the front of the container.
 
In
essence, it was now not too dissimilar to a mobile home.
 
And mobile homes were quite common around
Fort Bragg.

Once
stateside, Justina would have a few months to find work and, as part of that
process, Gage was certain Hunter could help her with a Visa.
 
In the meantime, Gage could partake in some
training as he waited on a job.
 
If
things broke right, he and Justina could have their own apartment inside of a
few months.

But
one thing was certain, after this week, Gage’s vacation was over.
 
Being this close to summer, Gage knew
Justina’s transatlantic airfare would be upwards of $1,200.
 
Gage’s round-trip ticket was open, and in
business class.
 
He hoped, with some
luck, that the airline would allow him two coach seats in exchange for his one
expensive ticket.
 
That would be a huge
boon to his rapidly decreasing nest egg.

Wanting
to let Justina sleep as long as she desired, Gage wandered to the north,
turning west at the majestic Paris Opera House.
 
He walked all the way to the Parc Monceau, sitting on a bench as the
pigeons swarmed him only long enough to find he had no food.
 
When he’d decided to wait a few more days
before proposing his plan to Justina, he ambled back to their hotel, taking the
striking, tree-lined Boulevard Malesherbes to Rue Royale.

By
the time he keyed the door, he’d been gone nearly two hours.
 
But he hadn’t expected to find Justina sitting
on the edge of the bed, wiping tears from her face.

“Are
you okay?” he asked.

Managing
a smile, she nodded, pulling him to her.

“What’s
wrong, Justina?”

They
laid on the bed together before she answered him.
 
“Nothing is wrong.
 
In fact, I’m so happy to be with you.”

“Why
were you crying?”

“It
was nothing.”

Gage
didn’t push for an answer.

After
a while, he asked if she slept.

“Not
a wink.”

“Why
not?”

“Because
I couldn’t sleep for thinking of you,” she said, turning and locking her arms
around him.

Though
Gage would have loved to have known why she was crying, Justina deftly moved
his mind in a completely different direction.
 

Thank
goodness.

Chapter Ten

The
following three days were glorious.
 
Gage
and Justina spent nearly every waking minute together, discovering exactly how
compatible they really were.
 
While there
were many things to like about Justina, Gage found himself being most affected
by her sense of humor.
 
She had a way of
imagining things about other people, total strangers, that would sometimes have
Gage bent double in laughter.
 
One
afternoon, when they’d wandered into an expensive store just for the fun of
looking, Justina had grasped Gage’s arm and deftly gestured to a man who was
being fitted for a suit.
 
It was obvious
the overly-tan gentleman had endured a facelift.

“I
think that man’s doctor stapled his face a little tightly, yes?”

Gage
had pretended to view a tie while taking a good look.
 
She was correct.
 
The man’s face was so severely tightened it
looked comical, pulled into a permanent smile like the Joker from Batman.

“My
goodness, do you think he can even talk?” Justina breathed.
 
“And how does he open his mouth to eat?”

“Stop,”
Gage whispered, trying not to laugh.

“I
bet dogs bark at him when he walks past.
 
Children drop their lollipops.”

“Quit
it.”

“But
some women would be attracted to him.
 
They know he has the money for a facelift and, no matter what they do,
he always smiles about it.”

“Justina…”

“He
looks like a doll I had as a child—a plastic doll.”
 
She mimed popping a pill.
 
“It looks like someone gave his face a
Viagra.”

Gage
had pulled her from the store before bellowing laughter on the street.
 
There was something about Justina’s accent
which made such observations even funnier.
 
Her remarks didn’t come off as cruel in the least.
 
She was just an observant young lady with a sense
of humor, and being with her warmed Gage’s heart.

On
their fourth day in Paris, after a long walk to the Eiffel Tower, Gage and
Justina had a simple meal outside a small café in the 7
^th
Arrondissement.
 
The temperature was much warmer this evening,
the air thick with summerlike humidity.
 
The setting sun lingered, beaming through the adjacent buildings and splashing
the couple with flattering honey light.
 
Justina ordered a small carafe of wine and, after she’d had two glasses,
Gage felt it was a good time to finally suggest her coming with him to the
United States.
 
Though he’d have to spend
a half-hour on the phone, Gage wanted to make the arrangements tonight so they
could depart on one of tomorrow’s morning flights.

Just
as he’d opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Justina’s eyes overflowing with
tears.
 
She’d turned, staring up at the
Eiffel Tower through the buildings across the avenue.

This
was the third time he’d seen her crying since initially finding her crying in
their hotel room.
 
Though he hadn’t
allowed himself to dwell on it, there had been a pit of dread in Gage’s
stomach, worrying that something might have happened to her at the hands of her
Russian “employers.”

“What’s
wrong?” he asked, touching her hand.

She
sniffed, shaking her head as her lips trembled.

“Justina,
what is it?”

“I’m
okay.”

Gage
steeled himself.
 
“Does this have
something to do with the Russians?”

“No,
Gage, not at all.”

“You
can tell me.”

“I
promise.
 
It’s not that.”

“Did
someone abuse you?”

She
wiped her tears with her napkin, smiling reassuringly.
 
“I have never been abused, Gage.
 
Ever.”

He
wiped his sweaty palms on his pants leg.

“But
when I told you about my family back in Poland, I didn’t tell you everything.”

“Okay,”
he said with caution.

“As
I said, my father died many years back.”
 
She took a few steadying breaths.
 
“My mother struggles to make money just for herself.
 
And my older brother can barely pay to keep
his wife and kids in food and shoes, so he can’t help her.”
 
She dabbed her eyes.
 
“All that’s true.”

“I
remember you telling me all that.”

“But
what I didn’t tell you is about my younger brother, Teodor.”

“You
mentioned him.”

“Well,
what I didn’t say is that he’s sick.
 
Very sick.”

Gage
leaned forward.
 
“Sick, how?”

“He
has a condition called
Mukowiscydoza
.
 
I don’t know how you say it in English, but
it affects his lungs.
 
He cannot breathe well
much of the time.”
 
She snapped her
fingers as if trying to recall something.
 
“The international letters for this disease are C.F.”

“Cystic
Fibrosis,” Gage said.
 
“I’m somewhat familiar
with it.”

“He
does okay sometimes, but when he has bad times it puts a strain on my
mother.
 
The government pays for his basic
care, but she has to
be
there with
him.
 
So when his condition is bad, she
cannot work her job and then cannot buy what she needs.”
 
She twirled her hand.
 
“You get the picture, yes?”

“Yes,”
Gage said.
 
“I do.”

She
pointed to the Eiffel Tower, managing a weak smile.
 
“Teodor has an Eiffel Tower poster in his
room.
 
It’s tacky…showing the tower and
two women with painted faces.
 
But, he is
a teenage boy.”
 
Her smile was weak and
distant.
 
“Teodor always says he wants to
come here someday and meet a beautiful French girl.
 
Sitting here, seeing the tower in this pretty
light, it made me think of him.”
 
Her
smile faded as her cheek began to twitch.
 
“And the other night, when you came back to the hotel room, I’d just
called my mama.
 
They were at the
hospital.
 
He’s not doing well at all.”

“Is
being in the hospital normal for him?”

She
made a so-so motion with her hand.
 
“He’s
been in the hospital more than usual.”

“And
that’s what made you cry?”

Fresh
tears sprung from her eyes as she pinched her lips together and nodded.
 
Gage felt like he was missing something.

“Justina,
is that all?”

She
wiped her eyes.

“Justina.”

“My
mama lost her job.
 
She’s been gone too
many days.”

“Isn’t
it against the law for her employer to do that?”

“She
didn’t fill out some form or another.
 
I
don’t know.
 
She’s just a janitor.
 
No one will help her and she’s having to
spend every moment with Teodor.”
 
Justina
cried into her napkin.

Gage
leaned back in his chair, taking an expansive breath, eyeing this beautiful
creature across from him.
 
This was not
some manipulation—she had no clue about the possibility of the money he might
make.
 
He watched as she pulled her hair
back with both hands, wiping both eyes with her hands as she again forced a
smile.
 
Then, with trembling hands, she
lit a cigarette and said, “Enough about me.
 
We change the subject, okay?”

“Okay,”
Gage answered.
 
And they might as well change
the subject because, in the span of only five minutes, he’d just about changed
his mind about Navarro’s offer.
 
Although
he’d termed the job as a Bolivian Army Ending to Hunter—a phrase the Special
Forces had adopted from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, meaning an
unwinnable suicide mission—Gage was confident enough in himself that he could
get through the initial month and be flush with cash.

Thirty days
,
he told himself.
 
Thirty days for a hundred grand
.

Gage
froze, an idea coming to him.

Does it have to be just thirty
days?

“Are
you okay?” she asked.
 
“Gage?”

What’s two years?

“Your
face is white,” Justina said.

“I’m
fine,” he murmured, realizing that the idea he was considering was a good one.
 
One that he would deal with in the
morning.
 
He reached his hand across the
table, holding Justina’s. “Don’t worry, okay?
 
You’ll be able to help your mother and brother.”

“How?”

“We
change the subject, okay?” he said with a wink, mimicking her accent.

* * *

Unable
to manage much sleep, Gage finally stood from the bed just before six the next
morning.
 
He dressed himself and went
downstairs, having a cup of black coffee before taking a walk in the cool
Parisian morning.
 
This time, wandering
aimlessly, he crossed the Seine, finding himself in the Place des Invalides as
the sun rose in the east.
 
Viewing the
striking monuments, Gage ran everything through his mind one final time.

Are you sure you want to do this?

Thinking
about Justina with tears in her eyes, wanting to care for her mother and
brother, was truly all the motivation Gage needed.
 
Though he’d not rationalized it in his mind,
Gage Hartline had fallen in love.

But,
just to be sure about his decision, he stripped the proposition down to what he
felt lay ahead.

Two years of your life…two years
naked as the day you were born, with no armament, no spec-ops buddies to call
on, no night vision scopes, no exotic high-explosives.
 
It’ll just be you and Cesar, the “scumbag” drug
trafficker, against nine-hundred-seventy-nine hard-boiled prisoners, many of
them well acquainted with the ancient skill of killing.

A
shiny plate-glass window on Rue Fabert displayed Gage’s reflection: six-foot-one
and two-hundred pounds, still well-built but with a few facial lines of age.
 
Gage wasn’t surprised when he heard a corner
of his mind screaming for the challenge, telling the rest of his psyche that
opportunities like this only come along once in a lifetime.

Then,
that dueling other corner of his brain started in, the corner every man hates,
bringing up all sorts of incarceration unpleasantness—things like shankings,
gang rape, riots and, his worst fear, the chance that something could go critically
wrong and Gage could wind up in Berga prison for good.

He
allowed the two barristers in his brain to make their final arguments as Paris awoke.
 
Once his decision had been finalized, Gage
headed back to the north, to the anachronistic phone booth he’d come to know.

As
a few clouds arrived from the southwest, Gage stepped into the phone booth and
flirted with the notion of calling Colonel Hunter.
 
It was after midnight at Bragg, but he’d
woken the colonel up before.
 
And the
colonel was so damned good at stripping away the excess of a mission and
getting right down to its core.

But
Gage was fearful that Hunter would talk him out of it.
 
He’d remind Gage of what a scumbag Cesar was,
and would rail on Gage about Cortez Redon’s reputation.
 
He would insist that Gage bring Justina back to
the States, and together they could make enough scraps to send back to Poland
to help her mother and brother.

Scraps
…

“Screw
it,” Gage breathed.
 
He dialed the
operator, then gave her the new number Navarro had given him, making a collect
call in the name of Gregory Harris.
 
There were a few murmurs before the operator clicked off, followed by a
clipped greeting from whomever was speaking into the voice modulator.

Gage
shifted the phone to his other ear and asked for the boss.
 
There was a delay before Navarro came on the
phone, also using the modulator.

“I
will accept the job if you’re willing to change several key parameters
involving my fee,” Gage said.

“And
those changes are?”

“The
money you offered is not sufficient,” Gage said.
 
“And, in exchange for you upping my fee, I
will go ahead and commit to the full-term, up to two years.”