“What a view,” he said, gazing out the window.
“Beautiful,” said Ava Attal. “Like a painting. Who is it that does clouds so well?”
“Monet,” said Mac. “No, Van Gogh. Or is it Cézanne? Turner?”
After a morning at the Musée d’Orsay, he considered himself an expert on impressionism. Well, almost.
From their table at the restaurant Jules Verne, located on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, four hundred feet above the ground, they looked south down the grassy expanse of the Champ de Mars to the École Militaire, and farther still, Les Invalides. It was mid-October. The sky was a pale blue. Fat, billowy clouds drifted over the city. The river Seine cut a moss green swath across the cityscape. A picture-postcard day.
“Autumn in Paris,” said Ava. “I could get used to this.”
“I thought you liked the mountains,” said Mac.
“I love the mountains. I love the Chalet Ponderosa. I love Zinal. It will always be our place.”
Mac considered this. There was something decidedly past tense in her words. “Place” was not the same as “home.” You visited a place, but you lived in a home. “‘And’ or ‘but’?” he asked.
“Pardon me?”
“‘And’ or ‘but’?” Mac repeated. “You said it will always be our place.”
“And,” said Ava. “I will always love it there.”
“Not so fast,” said Mac. “Answer the question.”
“I did.”
Mac smiled, studying her expression. Ava Marie Attal was tall and athletic, somewhere in her forties, dark hair touching her shoulders, with bottle green eyes and a stern countenance. People often mistook her as humorless. A martinet, even. Then she smiled and laughed her loud, unapologetic laugh, and they knew they were mistaken. Not a martinet at all, nor humorless. Just a serious woman and, given her profession, justly so. Ava had spent her adult life in the service of her country, first as a security officer in Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, and then as a covert operative for Mossad, its spy service. Think FBI and CIA.
She wasn’t beautiful. Her nose was long and narrow with a slight crook, her mouth too broad. Not beautiful but something else. Something better, at least to Mac. She was formidable. Smart, accomplished, and confident. He found her almost unbearably attractive.
“Go on,” said Mac. “But ...”
“But,” said Ava. “There’s a whole wide world out there. Look, the Louvre. The Place de la Concorde. So much to see.”
“In Paris?”
“The world,” said Ava, taking his hand. “Oh, Mac. Poor you. You’ve been gone so long, you’ve forgotten.”
Mackenzie “Mac” Dekker was nearly a decade her senior. He was tall enough; “six feet on a good day,” he liked to say. He was lean andbroad shouldered and restless. Even now, he found it hard not to tap his foot. He had blue eyes and a direct gaze—though not as direct as Ava’s—hair as black and thick as ever, even if it was receding at the temples.
He was wearing a dove gray suit for the occasion. They’d purchased it the day before at Harrison, a stylish boutique off the Avenue Victor Hugo. A forty-two long off the rack and it fit like a glove. “The suit fromNorth by Northwest,” the salesman had informed him. “It looks even better on you.” Doubtful, thought Mac, but he thanked him nonetheless. Sometime lies did wonders.
“Ten years, more or less,” said Mac, gazing out the window.The world.It was a concept he would have to get used to again. He smiled, excited by the prospect. “What do kids say now? ‘It’s been a minute.’”
Nine years ago, he’d been forced into exile to save his life and the lives of his family. A longtime field operative with the Central Intelligence Agency, he’d been betrayed by his best friend and made to look like a Russian double agent. Unable to prove his innocence, he’d faked his death and escaped to the village of Zinal in the Swiss Alps. For nearly a decade, he’d lived below the radar, never once contacting his family, his friends, or the woman he loved. And then, just one year ago, his son, Will, was killed while climbing the Matterhorn, and everything changed.
The world.
Mac had spent his professional life traveling to all four corners of the globe. His most frequent stops had included Baghdad, Kabul, Aleppo, and other garden spots not usually found on Tripadvisor’s “Top Ten Most Romantic Destinations.” Sometimes he forgot who he was—or rather, who he’d once been.
A US Marine at the age of twenty. Honor graduate of sniper school. Force Recon, then onto MARSOC (Marines Special Operations Command). Deployments to Bosnia, Colombia, Afghanistan. After 9/11, a lateral move to the CIA. Better pay, longer hair, and he didn’t have to polish his boots. Different title, same job description. He wasstill a scalp hunter—some said the best ... though he wasn’t sure the ability to infiltrate enemy lines and shoot a man dead at a thousand yards was something to be proud of. All told, more than two decades in and out of war zones.
“You’re right,” said Mac. “Time to change how I think. New perspective, right?”
“A new perspective,” said Ava. “I like that. For both of us.”
The waiter approached and handed each of them a sturdy bound menu. Inside the cover was a quote from Jules Verne, the French author after whom the restaurant was named. Mac read it to himself. No, he thought, it couldn’t be. “Tell me you didn’t set this up.”
