Then she scrolled up the screen and did it again.
And again.
And some more.
In her head, the numbers sorted into patterns and colors, even notes of music, and they all stuck in her memory.
She handed the phone back to him. “Destroy it.”
Dieter asked, “What’s the phone number for Aiden Grier?”
She told him the number, from the country code to the last digit, and explained, “It’s just a trick. It’s just a silly thing to memorize strings of numbers.”
“Did Wulfram teach you this trick?” he asked.
Flicka bit her lip. “Yeah,” she admitted.
Dieter looked her straight in the eyes. “I see.”
She had a feeling he saw everything. “It’s just a stupid mental trick.”
When she had been in grade school and living with Wulfie as her guardian, he had asked her for her help in memorizing Russian vocabulary words. He had known almost immediately that she could do the trick, too, and had warned her about flaunting it. Other people didn’t understand. Within a few days, she’d realized he could do it, too. They played at Russian vocabulary, pretending to get words wrong, to practice how to not get caught.
Dieter dropped the phone on the tile floor and drove his heel through it again and again, smashing it to bits until the battery was lying separately from the broken glass of the screen and the soldered circuit board, which was cracked and bent.
Flicka said, “You could have just pulled the battery and SIM card.”
He shrugged. “Didn’t have one of those little screwdrivers.”
“That’s effective, anyway.”
“Sure is.”
“I guess we could go to a library or somewhere that has public computers to buy the airline tickets.”
“I’ve tasked someone else to purchase our tickets. They’ll call when they’ve nailed down the departure time.”
She gestured to the smashed phone on the floor. “Call us on what?”
Dieter pointed to an actual, landline telephone sitting on the nightstand by the phone. “All of our safe houses have one of those.”
“Wow. I knew they still existed, but I never thought I’d see one in real life.” She walked over and cautiously poked it as if it might jump at her. She wished she had a stick to poke it with, just for comedic effect.
Dieter chuckled. “A lot of flights to the States leave in the late morning or early afternoon because you’re traveling with the sun. The plane arrives on the East Coast about three hours of clock time after it leaves here, even though the flights take nine hours or so. We’ve probably missed most of the flights for today. I suppose we’ll have to hole up here for the afternoon and tonight.”
Flicka said, “We could go shopping.”
Dieter raised one dark blond eyebrow in real horror. “You want to goshopping?”
She risked an experimental sniff inside the shirt that he had bought for her in Montreux the previous morning. Yeah, not good. “You know, if we’re going to be on a plane with a bunch of other people, we might want something fresh to wear. Maybe we should check in some luggage, anyway, to blend in. I can do my makeup before we go out. And we can wear the hats and sunglasses. There aren’t a lot of police in this section of Paris. They’ll be watching the airports and train stations the most. Do you think Pierre tracked the car?”
“Aaron doubled-back and did some other maneuvers to throw them off on the way here, if they had a tail on us.” He sighed. “I would bet that Quentin Sault had all their men attack the van, and no one was in a chase vehicle in case we got away. Sault’s operational planning is terrible. We could go out. Indeed, if they tracked the phone here, we should leave for a few hours to see if anyone tries to get in.”
Flicka fretted. “Money.”
Dieter smiled and patted his wallet. “Operational procedure. I have a selection of small, unmarked bills. Aaron passed them to me last night.”
Relief crept up Flicka’s neck, and she smiled. Her world had been falling apart for two days, and she couldn’t save herself or do anything to help. Shopping, she had some control and knowledge about. “Okay. Let’s go shopping.”
Dieter smiled at her. “Not too expensive. No designer boutiques.”
“Oh, honey, just because I know all the designers doesn’t mean that I’m a snob. I can shop anywhere. Let’s go!”
