The Prisoner's Wife (7 page)

Outside the restaurant, Shawn had paused in the square's cloister. “You still have not told me what you do.”

“In your trade,” Danielle said, “I thought you would know. You have knowledge about my husband. I'm still not sure how.”

He shook his head. “Don't know about you. Tell me.”

She spread suntanned arms. “Art historian,
moi.
”

“There's a living in that?”

“There is, if you do what I do. I tell rich men whether or not they're buying fakes. Suppose you're a hardware guy from Atlanta about to spend fifty mil on El Greco. Trust me, I'm a cheap date.”

“Are you right? About the artworks?”

Danielle checked the time. “They'll never know, will they? I mean, who can tell?”

“You must think you can.”

“I think I can. Some of the greatest paintings in the Prado are forgeries. We cannot prove it, one way or the other. Will they let me examine the canvas? No way.” She moved toward the restaurant entrance. “Come. Let's meet this friend you say might help.”

*   *   *

Following Danielle into Ma Bourgogne, Shawn held out a hand to his childhood buddy: the man who'd been his partner in three covert actions. For a moment, he recalled heat, intolerable heat; a burning building in Peshawar where both men, locked in a cellar, came close to incineration.

“Mr. Walters,” he said, “looking good.”

“You mean fat,” said Bobby. “I'll tell you something. Thinner than I was when you saw me this morning.” He wasn't looking at Shawn. “You planning introductions here?”

“Danielle Baptiste,” Shawn said. He took a chair. “Robert Hamilton Walters. You don't have a drink.”

“I'm not drinking,” Bobby said. He made hushing signs. “Please. It's not like it's a virgin birth.” He spread his hands. “What's so strange? I'm on a diet, same as this lady.”

Danielle, seated, considered Bobby. He wondered what she saw. “
Non, pas moi, monsieur
. Not I. No
régime.
”

Bobby was still staring. His recall of bodies was better than his memory for faces. “Do we know each other?”

Danielle shook her head.

“Damn,” he said. “I've seen you somewhere.”

She bit a breadstick, smiling, saying nothing.

“TV? Magazines?”

“Underwear,” she said. “You must be one of those people who sign up for catalogs. It's okay. Really. Men do.”

“Bobby,” Shawn said, “shame.”

“I was young,” she said. “Doing my degree. I was persuaded. Three catalogs. Victoria's Secret. I hear they still use the pictures.”

Bobby took two breadsticks and edged the glass away from Danielle. Grissini did nothing for a man's hunger, but right now that was all he could see to eat.

“Knew it wasn't just your face I remembered.”

Danielle slid the half-full breadstick glass right across to Bobby's side of the table. “Mr. Maguire says you are based at the embassy. How is that?”

“How is that, or how is Paris? Paris is full of beautiful thin women who don't fancy overweight Americans. So I'm learning.” To Shawn he said, “Apropos, what do you think of the mustache?”

Shawn considered. “Might look good, on a different face.”

“That's what you get from friends,” Bob said to the woman. “Honesty. Can we please order some food? Something with fries? These days I'm always starving. That's diets for you. Shawn, I need to talk.”

Shawn spread his hands. “This is me.”

There was silence. Danielle beckoned a distant waiter, threading his way between tables.

“Okay,” Bobby said finally. “What I want to know is, how do you deal with it? Being out of work, I mean. Like, retirement.”

Danielle watched the two men.

“Years back,” Bobby told her, “anytime I screwed up, I'd think, damn, it's not that bad. Next time, I'll get it right. Last year or so—” He stopped and waved at the waiter.

“Time runs out,” Shawn told his friend. “You and me, we're getting to a place, there's no next time. Pass five-oh, Bob, that's it, pretty much. No second act. Not in the Agency.”

“My God,” said Danielle, “you two. Whistling past the graveyard—is that American?”

“It is,” Bobby told her. “I'll have steak and fries. You order. You look like you talk French.”

“Here, Bourgogne, they talk English. It is a tourist place.”

“Yeah, right,” Bobby said. “Tell them steak well done. Fizzy water, not Evian. Salty, that stuff. Like drinking brine. Plus, we need salt. Pouring salt, you know? Not that flaky stuff. You notice, they never put salt on the table, these days? What are they doing—they think it's unhealthy or something? Tell them mustard, not French. Ballpark mustard. Big jar of ketchup. Heinz, if it's all they've got.”

“Mr. Walters,” she said, “this is Paris. They will not have Heinz. They will not have ketchup.”

“Get out of here. Everyone has ketchup. Tell them extra fries on the side. Crispy. Extra thin.”

“Alumettes.”

“If you say so. Nothing green.” Bobby turned to Shawn. “Okay, talk to me. Fess up. What's it like on the outside?”

Shawn felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. Sound was off.

“You're thinking of leaving? You'd do that? Quit the Company?”

Bobby glanced at Danielle. She was speaking with a waiter who looked like an art student. He lowered his voice. “Last month, Rockford says to me, ‘Bob, you ever think about leaving the Agency?' I say, ‘Mr. Rockford, that's all I think about.'” He picked two more breadsticks. “When you and me went in, you know? We thought we were doing something that was, like, worth doing—”

“Back in the day.”

Bobby moved his hand toward Danielle's hand. Just touching.

“Shawn, I'm serious. I have a problem here.”

Danielle moved her hand away. Bobby was sweating a little. He saw that the girl, finished ordering, was paying attention. He wondered what it would take to pry her away from Shawn.

“Off the record,” he told her. “You're not hearing this.”

“Or not understanding.”

To Shawn, Bobby said, “You're free and clear. You could say what's happening.”

“With intel?”

“You could tell it. Tell them it's a clusterfuck, excuse my French.”

“Not the right expression,” Danielle said, “when you are in France.”

Bobby ignored her. Sex was sex, business was business. To Shawn he said, “I have access, up to a level. I can give you background. You're out of the heat. You can publish.” He finished the breadsticks. “Make me feel I did something worthwhile.”

Danielle checked through texts on her phone.

Bobby stopped talking while an overelegant waiter set out cutlery, then began again, speaking to Shawn. “Your field, son. Remember? Before Twin Towers—you told me, AfPak, that's the threat. Not goddamn Iraq. You said ISI built the Taliban. Set up 9/11.”

“You mean,” Danielle asked, looking up, “Pakistan? Planned 9/11? Not bin Laden?”

Bobby was startled to hear an underwear model ask a question of this caliber. “I didn't say that. Bin Laden exists.”

“You said—”

“Listen,” Bobby told Danielle, “do the math, girl. No secret—this was a big operation. Twenty, twenty-one guys in place on the U.S. mainland—these are camel jockeys, right? Don't know squat about the place, don't speak the language, don't know New York from New Year. You got to support them, train them to fly, get the timing right, all the planes in the air the same time, heading where they should be heading, God help us.” Bobby glanced around. It seemed no one was listening. “That's an intel operation. Not a trick you do solo. Not if you're some Saudi God-freak sitting in the boonies.”

The waiter brought three steak frites. Absently Bobby started eating Danielle's fries.

“So,” he said to Shawn, “do it. Publish. Let the world know. Maybe we won't lose this war.”

Danielle smacked away Bobby's hand. “Eat your own frites. What war will we not lose?”

“Afghanistan. Where d'you think? Day two, day three, we lost Iraq.”

“They say—”

“Sure. We say. Like we say we won Vietnam. Mission accomplished.” He shrugged and went back to his food.

Shawn looked out to the square, thinking it through. He said, “Bobby, we have a different question. You pick up on Darius Osmani?”

“My husband,” said Danielle.

Bobby was chewing his steak. Steak was one thing America did a whole lot better.

“Tried this morning,” Bobby said to Shawn. “It's an access issue. The level I have gives me Osmani's dead file. It's tagged, by the way, as read by you.” He noticed the woman was paying attention. “A year back, something like that.”

“No indication where the guy is now?”

Again, Bobby registered the quality of Danielle's attention. “Can't tell you. There may be. My access won't let me in.”

“Let's say,” Shawn said, “just hypothetically, let's say folks from the Agency pick up a person on a Paris street. Let's say those same guys don't want to put him on trial, but they do want to question him. Enhanced interrogation. Where would they take him these days?”

Bobby paused, his fork halfway to his open mouth. “Bagram,” he said finally. “Amman, Fes, Rabat, Poland, Syria, or—why the fuck are you asking? You just said, you don't even know we have him.”

Shawn nodded at Danielle. “She has her doubts. I think your boys lifted the guy. I don't want a geography lesson. I just need to know where he might be now.”

Danielle watched Bobby. He was eating again. He shook his head, waiting until he'd finished chewing. “Not in the loop,” he said. “You could ask McCord.”

Shawn grinned, without amusement.

“Okay. Talk to Ashley. She gets copied in on renditions. SCI clearance.” He looked at Danielle. “Sensitive compartmented information. Don't repeat that.”

Danielle asked, “Who exactly is Ashley?”

“Friend of his.” Bobby pointed at Shawn. “Based in London. Wants to marry him.”

He watched the girl react.

“Is this true?”

“It's true she's based in London,” Shawn said. He had history with Ashley. “Plus, it's true she could tell us where a detainee—a particular detainee—gets himself rendered. Least, it's what I hope.”

Danielle pushed her plate aside. She'd eaten very little. “How is she going to tell us?”

“She has access to Main Core,” Bobby said. “Database. Like I told you, she's that grade.” He held up a cell. “Use the phone. Call her.”

“We'll talk to Ash,” Shawn said. “We're going to England.” He was pushing his luck with this woman he hardly knew. “Nothing more for us here.”

Thoughtful, Danielle considered him. “Us?”

“Us. You may not think so, girl, but you want to find your husband, believe me, I'm your best shot.”

“Probably true,” Bobby said, though he wished it were not.

A voice in Shawn's mind asked if it were wise to invite this unknown woman into his life, but the voice was small and quiet, too subdued to hold his attention.

“If your man's been rendered,” he said to Danielle, “I told you, you'll never know where he's gone, not until he turns up at Gitmo. If he's a frequent flyer, that could take, I don't know, years.”

“Frequent flyer, I do not understand. What is that?”

“Detainee gets moved from jail to jail. Country to country,” Bobby told her. “We have jails all over. Off of home base. Can't do enhanced interrogation on the mainland. Against the law.” He snagged Danielle's unfinished meal. Eating what was left of her fries, he recalled the desolation he'd felt in class when—in any sport you like to name—he was last to be picked for a school team. Any goddamn team. Always the last; chubby kid standing by himself, sweating in the southern sun, pretending not to care, trying not to fucking cry. Failing. Now, thirty years later, here was his buddy about to leave the country with this desirable woman, while he, Robert Hamilton Walters, had to pay for female company if he were not to eat alone.

Not for the first time, Bobby felt that someplace he took a wrong fork in the road.

Shawn was standing, ready to leave. He said, “Tell me, Bobby, why not you? Why don't you go public with this stuff?”

Danielle watched Bobby smooth down his hair and mustache.

“Three reasons.” He counted on short pink fingers. “One, mortgage; mortgages, plural. Two, alimony. Also plural. I have wives.”

“More than one?” Danielle asked.

“Three. All ex. Strong, high-maintenance ladies. Cost me a fortune in waxing bills. I ever stop paying, trust me, these chicks'll show more body hair than that Wookie in
Star Wars.
”

Danielle said, “What was the third reason?”

Bobby thought for a minute. “Someone might shoot me,” he said. “Been done before.”

By you, Shawn thought.

Bobby glanced at Danielle and dropped his voice. “Shawn? If anything happens—”

Shawn took the fat man in an embrace, surprising them both. “You're not going to die,” Shawn said. “Not in Paris.”

Bobby freed himself. “Not Paris. They're moving me. Red level posting. Peshawar again.”

“Oh, man,” Shawn said. He had an arm around Bobby's shoulders. “Someone up there don't like you. Listen, if you need me, call. You know I'm living in this little village? In England?” Shawn removed his arm, and passed Bobby a scrap of paper. “Use that cell. It's not traceable to me. Or her.”

Bobby turned toward the door. “Got to go. Have a meeting. How are you guys traveling?”

“Train.”

“You serious? Didn't know those things still ran.”

Bobby shook Shawn's hand, then kissed the girl's mouth before she could turn away. He felt strange, kissing a woman like this, with his new mustache.