Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

And in an instant I felt myself slam against the sidewalk, a crushingly hard blow: I had landed on the bottoms of my feet and vaulted forward, almost sprung upright, my arms outstretched to restore my balance.

I was hurt; that seemed clear; and I was in great pain. But I was alive, thank God, and I could move, and as I heard the bullets whistle by from behind and above, I lurched to one side, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in my feet, ankles, and calves. I ran with a speed I didn’t even know I was capable of, instinctively down the street toward Les Halles. All around me passersby screamed and shouted, some pointing, some cringing as I tore through the crowds, but it was the crowds that would save me, I knew; the crowds would serve as underbrush to hinder the progress of any pursuers. But were there, in fact, any pursuers? Had I eluded them entirely? Were they all upstairs, in the apartment that had belonged to the Russians? Or were—

But they were not all upstairs. No. I glanced back and saw that several men in dark suits, and several more in nondescript dark street clothes, were running after me, their faces set in grimaces of determination. I zigzagged around a mound of bricks, and something about them—

Hurl the goddamn bricks at them, dammit!

— reminded me that I had something more effective than bricks; I had a good, reliable pistol, with probably ten or twelve more rounds left in it, and I whirled around and fired off one shot, aiming as precisely as I could so as not to wound anyone I didn’t intend to, and I saw one of the men in the dark suits go down, and now there was one of them, and I kept running, turning down the rue Pierre-Lescot, past a tabac and a bar, a bakery, weaving through the rush-hour crowds. I was a moving, darting, weaving target; a poor target for my one — was it one? — pursuer. He would face the choice of either stopping to aim with some degree of accuracy or to run as swiftly as he could, and my strategy seemed to be working: he chose to run, to try to overtake me. I could hear him behind me. It was just him and me now, the world had shrunk down to just him and me, life or death, no crowds, no passersby, just the man in the dark suit and fedora and black glasses coming after me, gaining on me, and I ran as I’d never run before. I was ignoring the siren of pain, ignoring the warning signs, and my body was punishing me for it. And now, as I ran, my abdomen and sides were gripped with terrible knifelike cramps. It was all I could do to keep going; my body, out of shape after years of practicing law and not tradecraft, was commanding me to stop, to give myself up: What could they really want from me now? Information? Give it to them! Was I not too valuable to hurt, someone with my ability?

Just up ahead loomed the modernistic forum of Les Halles, and as I ran toward it — why? what was the goal? was I planning to simply run myself into exhaustion, was that it? — my body warred with my mind. My poor body, racked with pain throughout now, tangled and screamed at my steely mental resolve, importuning and pleading, then cajoling silkily, Give yourself up, they won’t harm you, they won’t harm Molly, all they want is your assurance of silence, and yes they might not believe you, but you can stall for time, you can play along with them, give yourself up, save yourself...

The footsteps, accelerating now, thundered behind me, and I found myself now in some sort of ground-level parking garage, at one end of which was a door marked with a red sign: SORTIE DE SECOURS AND PASSAGE INTERDIT, and I pulled it open and shut it behind me. It gave off a rusty metallic groan, and then I was in a small, dimly lit stairwell which stank of garbage. A tall, overflowing trash barrel stood near the door.

It was made of aluminum: too light to serve as a useful obstruction.

Something slammed against the door from the other side. A foot, perhaps, or a shoulder; but the door didn’t give way. Desperately, I tipped the barrel over. Trash, trash, more trash... and a battered half of a pair of scissors. It might do; it was worth a try.

Another thud against the door, and this time it came partway open: a sliver of light winked in the twilit stairwell and then was gone. I reached down, grabbed the slender elbow-shaped steel piece, and slid it into an opening in the door hinge, as far in as it could go.

The door thundered again, but this time no sliver of light: no movement. As long as the scissor would hold, the door was secure.

I vaulted up the stairs, which led directly into a corridor, which soon gave onto a bustling arcade.

Where was it? A station — the Métro station, yes, that was it. Chatelet les Halles. The biggest underground station in the world. A maze. Many directions to go now; many directions to lose him now if — if only my body would stay with me, if only it would permit me to keep on going.

And then I knew what to do.

It is fifteen years earlier, and I am a young man, a younger man, freshly graduated from the CIA’s Camp Peary, newly posted to Paris, “wet behind my ears,” as my boss and friend James Tobias Thompson III liked to jibe me. Laura and I have arrived in Paris that morning, having flown TWA coach from Washington National, and I’m exhausted. Laura’s asleep in our bare apartment on the rue Jacob; I’m half asleep, sitting here in Thompson’s office in the U.S. Consulate on the rue St.-Florentin.

I like the guy; he seems to take to me. It’s a good beginning to a career I have had more than my share of apprehensions about. Most of the young field officers take an instant dislike to their superiors, who treat them as the callow and unreliable young guys they are.

“I’m Toby,” he insists. “Either we’re both on a last-name basis, in which case you’re Ellison and I have to act like some fucking marine drill sergeant, or we’re colleagues.” Then, before I can thank him, he shoves a stack of books at me.

“Memorize them,” he says. “Memorize them all.”

Some of them are guidebooks available to any tourist (Plan de Paris par Arrondissement: Nomenclature des rues avec la station du Métro la plus proche) and some are published by the Agency for internal use only (detailed, classified maps of the Paris Métro, top secret listings of diplomatic and military sites throughout the city, suggested escape routes by train and car).

“I hope you’re joking,” I say.

“Do I look like it?”

“I don’t know your sense of humor.”

“I don’t have one.” Spoken with just enough of a set to his mouth to indicate otherwise. “You’ve got a photographic memory. You can retain a hell of a lot more than the farina I’ve got upstairs.”

We laugh: he’s dark-haired, lanky, youthful in appearance.

He says: “Someday, friend, this information might come in handy.”

Someday, Toby , I now thought, eyes casting about the enormous Métro station to get myself oriented. It had been years since I’d been here. Never thought it would come in handy against you, did you?

Physically, I was a train wreck. My arms, though they hurt much less, were still bandaged; my legs, feet, ankles, all gave off sparks and spirals of fierce jabbing, searing pain like some Fourth of July firecracker.

Chatelet les Halles. At forty thousand square meters, it is the largest underground station in the world. Thanks, Toby. Came in handy, all right. Ah, me and that old photographic memory.

I glanced behind me, saw nothing, but didn’t allow myself to experience that sense of relief that means lassitude. He had doubtless followed me up the stairs, delayed only by a quarter-inch of rusty, distressed steel, which at any second would probably snap or buckle with the application of repeated force.