Tom Savage - Mrs. John Doe

He glanced over at her. “Nora, I’m already breaching protocols here; I’ve told you more than I’m supposed-”

“Then you can damn well tell me the rest!” she said. “Why him? Why me ?”

Now Craig Elder sighed. “I haven’t been told, but I have a guess. I think your husband faked his own death so he’d be free to move about under the radar and stop the deal. And I think the people on the other end of the deal-the South Asians, as you call them-found out he wasn’t really dead. They learned where he was hiding and, um, extracted him.”

Nora leaned back against the headrest and shut her eyes, thinking it through. Craig was switching lanes, aiming for the signs that indicated Paris, when she spoke again.

“I don’t know much about Jeff’s business,” she said, “but I know Jeff. I know how his mind works. He planned the car accident with the fake body- Who is that man in the morgue, by the way?”

Craig shrugged again. “I have no idea.”

“Okay, well-Jeff wanted everyone to think he was dead, and he wanted me to come over and take his ashes back to New York. He’d only get me involved if it was really vital. I don’t think he’s trying to find out who the arms dealer is. I think he must already know who it is. And I think…”

She turned in her seat to look at her Coach bag beside Craig’s backpack.

“What?” Craig asked. “What do you think?”

Instead of answering his question, she asked one. “Who is the girl in Paris, the one you’re so worried about? She gave me the first note from Jeff. Is she American or British?”

“She’s French,” Craig said, “but she works in London. I think Jeff contacted her a couple of days ago, gave her notes with instructions. Apparently, she was to deliver one to you at the Byron Hotel, then she was to go immediately to Paris, to deliver a second message to you the next day. She took the Chunnel train to Paris late that night, and she went to our apartment in the Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne. No one in London has heard from her since. Who gave you the second message?”

Nora told him about the museum, the creepy Frenchman, the odd note all in capital letters, and the trip to Pinède.

He nodded. “I see. It’s pretty obvious that the message wasn’t the real one, the one from Jeff. I came to Paris last night to find our girl, but then I got a call from Mr. Howard telling me to get to you and bring you back to London.”

“How did you find me?” Nora asked.

“That took some doing,” he said. “Bill called the French people here, and they called the agent assigned to you. They got his wife, who told them he’d switched autos; he was now driving his son’s Renault. Once they knew which car they were looking for, they could track it, and they directed me to it. When I saw that it was parked at a guesthouse, I figured it out. We knew the French agent and the other man met up in Pinède, and I’d seen that photo of you fleeing the scene on the telly. So, I stashed my car down the road from Chez Martine and became a stranded hiker, and Bob’s your uncle.”

“Yes, but why?” Nora asked. “I mean, why didn’t the police simply go to Chez Martine and arrest me? They think I was involved in the shootings.”

Craig smiled indulgently. “Nora, the French police don’t know anything about this. The French people Mr. Howard called have nothing to do with the police; they’re on a whole different level-like Jeff is in America, like Mr. Howard is in England. The French police will be informed when the time is right, but not now. Now we have a national emergency-an international emergency. This deal is imminent, and we have to stop it. Two of our people are missing in action, and one of them is your husband. Those are our priorities.”

Nora stared out at the autoroute. They’d be in Paris soon; she recognized the suburbs. She drew in a steadying breath and asked the question foremost in her mind.

“Craig, is-is my husband dead?”

“No,” he said immediately. “I mean, I doubt it. Highly unlikely. We don’t know which group or groups we’re dealing with here, but they’re not official. They’re terrorists, and they don’t want to attract that particular kind of attention. They’d seriously think twice before killing a man like Jeffrey Baron.”

“But not his wife?” she asked. “They sent an assassin to kill me. Why would they do that?”

She could only see his profile, but the right side of his face reddened.

“I think you’ve already figured that out,” he said. “Haven’t you, Nora?”

A chill went through her. She turned around to look at her shoulder bag again.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve figured it out. He knows who the dealer is; he found proof, some sort of concrete evidence. And he’s given it to me, to take back to America.”

“I think so too,” Craig said.

Nora thought about that. “But if that were the case, why Paris? Why change the plan and tell me to come here?”

Craig shook his head. “That I can’t tell you. I’m sure he thought it was a good idea. But now, in light of recent events, getting you out of here is an even better idea.”

“Can’t your people help with that?” Nora asked. “Why can’t we just go to these French agencies, the SDAT or whatever? The CIA has a station in Paris, right? Or the American consulate? If you take me there, they’d certainly be able to-”

“Mrs. Baron-Nora-you don’t understand the position we’re in.” She waited while he switched lanes, following the signs for the upcoming exits to Paris.

“What position are we in?” she asked.

Craig sighed and shook his head. “Your husband and Bill Howard and a French intelligence official, a man named Maurice Dolin, are pretty much the whole operation.”

“Maurice Dolin?” Nora said. “He’s with the SDAT. He was the man on the newscast, warning everyone that I was armed and dangerous.”

This was news to Craig. “Really? Hmm, I’d better tell Mr. Howard about that. Maurice Dolin should be brought up to speed about you as soon as possible. Anyway, they have me and the girl in Paris and two or three others in England and France, including your friend Jacques Lanier. Jeff’s the only American, unless we count you. Bill Howard reports to somebody in London, and Jeff reports to people in Washington, but those agencies’ main concern is keeping this under wraps and out of the news, avoiding a public panic. So, that’s it; that’s the whole show, maybe ten people in all. We don’t officially exist, and we are not officially tracking down a nonexistent dealer selling nonexistent weapons to nonexistent terrorists. That’s how it works. If we were to go to your consulate with this story, they’d cart us off to Bedlam. Nobody will help us. Nobody’s even going to acknowledge us. Besides, we can’t be sure how far this reaches; we don’t know who’s us and who’s them . We’re on our own here.”

Nora was silent, absorbing the information, staring out at the autoroute She was wondering why Maurice Dolin of the SDAT, who was apparently Jacques Lanier’s employer and one of the three principal figures in this operation, didn’t seem to know who she was. That didn’t make any sense to her-but then again, what did?

They passed a billboard for Disneyland Paris, and Nora almost had to laugh at the picture of the fairy-tale castle with a well-scrubbed young family of four grinning in the foreground. The ecstatic little girl clutched a balloon with Mickey Mouse ears on it while her brother and parents embraced her. She thought of Dana, their own trip to Disney World in Orlando years ago, but it was all so far away now. The family on the billboard seemed to be every bit as mythical as the princesses and dwarves and talking animals they’d meet in the theme park. It was a safe bet that these jolly parents didn’t work for the international intelligence community.