Without Warning Part 19

"He is not a terrorist..."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did he pinky-promise you that? Cross his heart and hope to die? Well then, I guess that's all right. I'll just go back to bed."

Caitlin spun on her heels and stalked away, heading for the bathroom, where she tugged on the string to power up the one exposed bulb, before bending down to rip back a sheet of moldy linoleum, exposing the wooden boards beneath. She reached one finger through a knothole, gave a tug, and the board came away. Another pull removed the piece of wood beside it. A thick, buff-colored folder came out first. She sensed Monique coming up behind her but said nothing, busying herself with emptying the small a.r.s.enal she had stashed away beneath the floor.

No conversation pa.s.sed between them. The only sound was Caitlin's breathing and the metallic rattle of weaponry and ammunition coming up out of the hiding place. She could feel Monique wanting to say something; the air was almost alive with the tension growing between them. Caitlin didn't trust herself to respond rationally, however, so she decided to short-circuit any confrontation.

"There's a sports bag in the bedroom, would you please get it for me?" she asked, in as reasonable a tone as she could manage.

"Okay," replied Monique in a small, frightened voice.

She returned a few moments later with an old Adidas bag, empty save for a few shopping items from their last trip out. Batteries, a flashlight. Some energy bars. Caitlin began stuffing the guns and ammo into the bag.

"I am sorry, Caitlin ... it's just... I was ..."

"Forget it," she snapped. "It's my fault. I should have checked. I should have taken the phone off you. You were always going to call someone. I should be apologizing. I've lost my edge. This f.u.c.king tumor or whatever. The Disappearance. It's f.u.c.ked me up, and we are going to get killed because of it. Not because you made a mistake. That's just... you. You're not trained. You have no experience. You don't think things through the way you need to now."

She finished topping off the bag with the three pa.s.sports and a stack of currency. After a pause she tossed the greenbacks. They were just deadweight now. The euros, about fifteen grand's worth, still had some residual value. Probably about half the purchasing power they'd had a week back. Caitlin hurried though to the small living area.

"I'm outta here. You can stay or come with me. If you stay, there's a good chance men will be here with guns very soon."

"Because of my call."

"Because of your call. To Bilal." Caitlin turned and looked at her for the first time that morning. "If you come, there'll still be men with guns. At first it'll be like at the hospital. Professionals, playing by the rules. Even if the rules have changed and I don't know what the f.u.c.k they are anymore, there will be rules. But soon, very soon ... no more rules. Just violence like you cannot imagine. You will have to change, Monique. You will have to grow up."

"To be more like you?" Her tone was reproachful, almost sarcastic.

"To be like me. And Bilal."

At that Monique rolled her eyes again, and Caitlin pushed past her, not wanting to be delayed by another tantrum. She retrieved a small backpack from the bedroom and began cramming food into it. Trail food that she'd picked up from a camping store. Freeze-dried meals and energy bars and couple of British surplus MRE packages. It was getting lighter outside; the light of the fires beyond the edge of the old city were throwing less of a dramatic light on the low, scudding toxic clouds that hung over Paris.

That hang over everything, she reminded herself.

"I am sorry ..."

"Would you for Chrissakes stop saying that and pack. We have to get out of here," Caitlin insisted. "Come on."

She led Monique through to the bedroom and pointed at another small backpack.

"Pack clothes and food. More of the latter," she ordered.

"Okay. Okay. But you are wrong about Bilal. I told him what you said ..."

"A week ago that would have gotten you killed, but right now, slow packing is what's threatening to end your life. Come on, move."

Caitlin's ears p.r.i.c.ked up at the distant howl of a siren. Her heart jumped forward a beat but the sound tapered off. As Monique began to fill her pack with more supplies, Caitlin retrieved a pistol from the weapon bag. A Glock 19 for herself and a .38 revolver for Monique, if needed.

"So what did he say, exactly, your boyfriend, that is?"

Monique cinched shut the top flap, and flapped her arms theatrically. "He said you were crazy. He was very understanding. He thought the Disappearance had driven you mad. There have been many instances among the Americans in Germany. Suicides. Breakdowns and such."

"So he's in Germany? At Neukolln, perhaps?"

Monique froze, a suspicious glare fixed on her face.

Caitlin smiled.

"That's right. I know where he lives. With his mom. Be cool. He is so off my to-do list now. Remember, I'm unemployed as of last week."

The other woman eyed her doubtfully but finally swung the pack over her shoulder, ready to go. Caitlin rushed to put on a fresh pair of socks. She slipped into her old boots, donned the leather jacket she'd stolen from the hospital, and loaded up. She wouldn't normally hit the streets loaded down with so much artillery, but any encounter they had with the cops was going to turn nasty anyway. She had no doubt both she and Monique were on watch lists with every agency of the state by now. The only question for her was whether the state would fall apart before it laid hands on them.

She checked her watch.

5:45 a.m.

Fifteen minutes until the curfew was over. Fifteen minutes they probably didn't have.

At least the drizzle had stopped for now. She could see that the pavement and road were still slicked with acidic rain, but for now they could move about without the irritation of burning skin and stinging eyes. Caitlin checked the room for the last time, making sure they weren't leaving some vital piece of gear behind in the rush. The GPS batteries were dead, but the satellite system itself, or at least the link to it, was increasingly patchy, so the unit stayed on the table where she'd dropped it. Between them they knew enough of the city to get away.

There was nothing to identify her. Unless the French security service had her DNA on file somewhere, and anyway, that sort of obsessiveness was no longer necessary. She'd already been blown. Echelon was gone. She was simply looking to save her own skin now, not to maintain operational security. It was liberating in a way. She could play a lot faster and looser because there were no rules. They might just make it.

If her illness didn't finish her off first.

As soon as they hit the street both women were struck by the strength of the contamination still befouling the air. Caitlin had a flashback to her first time in India, when she'd stepped into a small curry house and had to step out again immediately, her eyes streaming and her throat burning from the dense mist of powdered chili dust she'd inhaled. This wasn't quite that bad. It was at least bearable. But the deterioration in the atmosphere was still severe. At ground level the number of dead birds was spectacular. Perhaps the night had claimed more of them. They did not quite carpet the ground, but it was impossible to walk in a straight line for more than few meters without stepping on one.

"Man," said Caitlin. "This sucks. We should have masks. Let's get going. I want to find us a car with good filters."

A week ago Monique would have protested and held them up. Now she nodded somberly and hurried to keep up with her companion. Avoiding the birds, many of which still twitched and flapped feebly with the last sparks of life, slowed them somewhat, and the noxious ether quickly burned their lungs and air pa.s.sages. Caitlin had chosen an apartment in the seventeenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, where the working-cla.s.s tenements of Place de Clichy edged into the red-light district of Pigalle. There was still an abundance of smaller, cheaper rooms to be had in the area, one of the most densely populated in the capital. The brothels and strip clubs, the unlicensed bars and underground gaming halls all helped create an outre environment where the police and other, more dangerous state actors were unwelcome.

"Why are you doing this, Caitlin? Why are you helping? Surely you could move more quickly on your own. You must still have friends left in the city. On the continent. You could disappear."

"My friends have been disappeared already, Monique. My network's been rolled up. Those guys at the first apartment I tried to take us to? They were turning it over. My controller should have been there, to get me out. Maybe he was and they grabbed him, maybe he wasn't. But I haven't been able to contact him or anyone. The numbers I had, the Internet addresses, they're all dead. And the Net's useless anyway. It's falling apart. The people are gone, if they were back home. And missing, if they were here. But mostly they're gone. And I have to a.s.sume all of my contacts have been compromised. I'm on my own, and in case you hadn't noticed, I'm a hospital case, an invalid."

They stopped outside a patisserie. It should have been open by now but the shop front remained closed and the blinds were shut.

"I could sell you some line of bulls.h.i.+t, darlin'. That was a specialty of mine. You might not believe it, but I'm a bit of an empath. I have no trouble putting myself in somebody else's shoes. Just before I kill them, or arrange to have someone else kill them."

Monique blanched and moved on, picking her way through dead birds. Caitlin stepped up beside her, scanning the streets ahead for a vehicle. In this part of town, however, few people drove, and cars were few and far between. The streets were narrow, and there was no garaging available for cars. Everyone rode the Metro or walked. Caitlin went on.

"But there's no point s.h.i.+tting you, is there? You know the deal already. What I am. What I was doing."

"Oui." Monique shrugged.

"Bottom line is, I need you. I'm f.u.c.ked up with this ... tumor, whatever. The effects come and go. I'm cool right now. But I still feel like s.h.i.+t, and I can never tell when I'm gonna lose it. Fall on my a.s.s. Pa.s.s out. Who knows what? So I could give you a line about how I'm responsible for you, how I got you into this mess and honor demands that I get us both out. But the fact is, I'm f.u.c.ked and I need your help. I have n.o.body else in what's left of the world."

They came around a bend in the street and spied a minibus, but a man was loading his family into it, with about a month's worth of supplies by the look of all the boxes and bags of food he was manhandling into the cabin. Monique caught Caitlin scoping them out and was about to object but the a.s.sa.s.sin smiled crookedly.

"Don't worry. I'm not about to wax a bunch of kids and steal their ride. You have to have more faith in me. I know it's hard for you to believe, but people like that, normal, decent folks, in the end they were my mission. Protecting them."

Monique examined her with wry detachment, almost tripping on a dead pigeon from not watching her footing.

"Not them so much, Caitlin. They are French. And you are not. I know enough now about your world to understand what that means. You told me about Noisy-le-Sec, remember. And this Echelon is no secret. There have been books and news stories written. And a French government investigation. I read about it in Le Monde. Not so secret, no? It is a well-doc.u.mented conspiracy of the English-speaking world."

Caitlin smiled.

"There are knowns, and there are unknowns, Monique. But you're right in one sense. Sometimes governments, agencies, whatever, they might set themselves against each other, but I'm talking about the wider picture. People like that..." She nodded at the family now loading the last of their number into the bus. "People like that, who want nothing more than to go about their own business, raising their kids, keeping them safe, giving them whatever chances they can to do better ... the world they want to make is worth fighting for. They are worth defending."

"Against my boyfriend?" asked Monique, giving full vent to her sarcasm.

Caitlin stopped and held Monique's gaze.

"Yes."

"Oh for Chrissakes ..."

They started moving again. Monique's shoulders had hunched forward and she was holding her arms stiffly by her sides. Caitlin recognized the signal. She was furious again.

She sighed.

"Bilal Hans Baumer," she said, and immediately caught Monique's attention.

"You know his name!"

She looked both surprised and wary.

"Of course I know his name, darlin'. He was my target."

She dropped into her best Schwarzenegger: "I haff extensiff files."

The French girl didn't get the reference. Caitlin pushed on regardless.

"Bilal Hans Baumer. Date of birth May 5, 1974. Hamburg, Germany. Parents, separated. A German auto mechanic, Hans Baumer, and Turkish mother, Fabia Shah. His father named him Wilhelm, but he was a drinker and abandoned the family after losing his job in 1978. His mother was a reformist Muslim. Her bother Abu came to act as a surrogate father for the boy after Hans took off. Abu had always called him Bilal instead of Wilhelm. The name stuck. Don't stop walking. Come on, we've got a lot of ground to cover."

Monique had come to a halt just meters from the back of the minibus. The father, who'd been about to climb into the driver's seat, caught her eye. He looked guilty, as though she had caught him doing something shameful. Monique favored him with a shaky smile, and he nodded, taking in their backpacks and the appearance of flight that hung about them.

"Bonjour," said Caitlin as they pa.s.sed. "Bonne chance."

"Bonne chance." He nodded back before climbing in and closing the door with a slam. Caitlin scanned the back of the van, thinking of asking for a lift, but it was crammed full with children, adults, boxes, suitcases, and food.

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Monique as the bus pulled away.

Caitlin kept walking.

"Through Abu, Bilal came to meet other lost boys, most of them the products of failed unions between German men and migrant women. His mother still lives in the council flat where he grew up. She works for the City Council records department. She is inordinately proud of his achievements. He is one of the few young men in the neighborhood to finish school, let alone university. He has a real job, and would have represented Germany in volleyball at the Athens Olympics."

A few people were beginning to show up on the streets now, some of them also dressed for hiking. Another family emerged from an apartment block just across the street. The children were crying, complaining about the way their eyes stung and how it hurt to breathe. A young man rode past on a bicycle, wearing goggles and a painter's disposable mask. He rang his bell as he pa.s.sed them, fluttering his eyebrows. It drew a brief smile from Caitlin, made her feel a little better. But still she continued.

"Bilal is tall and rangy with light olive skin. Thick, wiry hair, colored a dark, almost caramel blond. He has wide shoulders, long well-muscled arms and legs. No fat. Deep brown eyes, so brown they almost appear black from more than a few feet away. A ready smile that seems to spark off a high level of nervous energy. He rarely sits still for more than a moment and is given to little jumps and skips when he is excited. He talks with his hands."

Monique was staring at her now, almost walking into a pole at one point. Her eyes were wide and anxious. Caitlin had never met Bilal, but she had just described him perfectly.

"His uncle Abu encouraged him to remain in school and proceed to university while many of the young men around him had simply gone onto welfare . Abu funded his education and supported his mother. As Bilal Baumer he had studied the German equivalent of sports science and became a qualified personal fitness instructor, first working for a health-insurance company, providing physiotherapy and rehab training for older clients, and later moving to a gym, where he proved very popular with the female clientele. I believe that is how you met, in fact, when he took you for a complimentary training session at a women-only gym in Berlin, when you were in the city eight months ago."

Monique now looked physically ill, but Caitlin gave her no respite.

"Bilal took up beach volleyball after a trip to Sardinia in 1995 and became a German regional champion with his partner Jurgen Muller. Their run to the Olympics was cut short by Muller's acceptance into the Deutsche Marine."

They had stopped walking and now stood on the edge of the gutter while Caitlin quickly checked up and down the street for any signs that they were being followed. It seemed clear. She spoke without emotion, simply recalling the facts from the dossier she had committed to memory as soon as her case controller had handed her the file on the al-Qaeda recruiter known as al-Banna.

"He grew up in the Berlin suburb of Neukolln, where migrants form just under half the total population. Three generations of Turks are mixed in with Eastern Europeans and some North Africans. Most of the Turks don't speak German or even go to school. Unemployment is eighty percent, and the city spends three-quarters of its budget on welfare."

"Stop it, please. Just stop," begged Monique. "What is the point of all this?"

"The point, Monique, is that Bilal Baumer is not your boyfriend. Do you know why he has never agreed to move to be closer to you?"

"His work, he ..."

Caitlin smiled gently.

"His work, or at least the job he uses as a cover, his personal training, could follow him anywhere. He's good at his job. His cover job. He has EU citizens.h.i.+p. The health funds that employ him would do so anywhere. You know all this. You've always known."

Caitlin stepped closer, moving into Monique's personal s.p.a.ce. Her voice, which she had kept flat and free of emotion while reciting from her memory of the target file, now grew softer, more understanding.

"Like a lot of women, you don't have perfect self-esteem. You could not believe that such a good-looking, intelligent, caring man, a good man, would be attracted to you. Part of you always believed you didn't really deserve somebody like Billy and you a.s.sumed, possibly without ever thinking it aloud, that he was keeping his distance until someone better came along."

Monique's eyes had filled with tears and she was shaking her head in jerky little spasms.

"No."

"So you wore all of his bulls.h.i.+t excuses about work and his mother and needing to stay in contact with his community. You were pathetically grateful when he traveled to see you, but you covered most of the miles in that relations.h.i.+p, didn't you, honey? And you had to wonder sometimes, when he was away with a client, or traveling for work, whether there might be some other girl he was stringing along, because he was a catch and a half, wasn't he?"

A nod this time, just the smallest movement but a crucial acknowledgment that Caitlin wasn't entirely wrong. She could have said something about how Monique was also drawn to Bilal because he was simultaneously dangerous and safe. A young man from a Muslim background, politically aware if not active, but fiercely secular in his outlook. Not at all like the bearded wing nuts whose medieval views on women would make it impossible for an enlightened feminist like Monique to have anything to do with them. But of course, to lay it out as brutally as that would break the tenuous connection she had established.

"Monique, you were right. You were not his only one."

A small groan escaped the throat of the distressed young woman. Judging the time to be right, Caitlin reached into her jacket and produced the envelope she'd removed from the folder hidden under the floorboards back at the apartment. She shook out a handful of surveillance shots, good-quality high-def color photos of Baumer entwined with two separate women. The date stamps marked them as having been taken in the last six months.

"He also successfully targeted a Belgian student," said Caitlin as Monique took the photographs with a shaking hand. "Anya Delvaux, a part-time canva.s.ser for Greenpeace in Brussels, and Sofia Calderon, an activist doc.u.mentary maker from Barcelona."

Monique had started to sway on her feet, and her face grew blotchy, with irregular patches of high color fading quickly into bloodlessness.

"An auteur?"

"Well, a would-be auteur. Sofia's posted a few vids on the Net, entered a compet.i.tion or two, but she still pays the bills as a waitress."

The uppermost photograph showed Baumer and the Spaniard, a tall, rather extravagant beauty, dry-humping each other in a park. The tears were flowing freely now, but silently, as Monique attempted to control her free-falling emotions.

"You ... you seem to know them well. These women."