“I didn’t,” said Crooks. “You saved my life.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“You saved all of our lives.” Crooks lifted his cup high. “Cheers, then, mate. To resurrection.”
Mac lifted his cup. “Live to fight another day.”
They drank their tea. Crooks regarded Mac and smiled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can tell you’re in a bad way. It’s just ... just—”
“Harry, you don’t know the half of it. I’m in the shit.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Crooks. “Truly I am. It’s just that I know good and well this is going to end badly, but by God, I don’t give a damn. I’m with Mac Dekker, and we’re going to open up a bloody big can of worms. I can’t wait.”
Chapter 27
US embassy
Paris
It was Eliza Porter Elkins’s first visit to Paris. She’d traveled to England, Spain, and throughout Scandinavia. Somehow her European itineraries, both personal and professional, had never included France.
The drive into the city was unimpressive. The sky was gray and overcast. The buildings grayer, damp, drab, and all too similar. The sidewalks carpeted with fallen leaves. Well, she thought, gazing out the window, maybe she really hadn’t missed that much.
Then the car crossed a bridge. Her first glance of the Seine. Pea green, roiling, crowding its banks. The buildings fell away. As if by command, the traffic disappeared. Alone, they sped across the Place de la Concorde, broad and sweeping, tires rattling over cobblestones. There was the Obelisk, Napoleon’s hard-won trophy from his Egyptian campaign. How old was it? A thousand years? Two thousand? To her left, the Champs-Élysées, eight lanes flanked by poplars, climbing over a mile to the Arc de Triomphe. Her heart soared. For a few moments, her anxieties vanished. She was mistaken. She had missed that much.
France.
America’s oldest diplomatic mission, founded in 1778 by Benjamin Franklin. France, without whose help a fledgling republic would never have won its independence. In a sense, then, America’s oldest friend.And so, the reason why Elkins had jumped onto a plane at the last minute, driven by her sworn duty and a secret fear. She could not allow an American—a former agent, to wit, and declared dead these past nine years—to interfere with the most important diplomatic conference of the new millennium. Not on her watch.
The US embassy to France was located in an elegant four-story building called the Chancery, facing the Champs-Élysées gardens. They parked in back, where a tall fence and a wall guaranteed their anonymity. Fields led them past the marine guards and into the building. An elevator whisked them to the third floor.
“Record time,” said Sam McGee, showing them into his office. “Welcome in.”
“Hope you didn’t have to cancel your tennis match,” said Elkins pointedly, remarking on his casual attire. Khakis, polo shirt, and a crew neck sweater.
McGee was tall and strapping, ten years in Special Activities, the paramilitary branch of the Agency, and not one to take shit from anyone, including his superiors. “No indoor courts, I’m afraid,” he said. “With the leg I prefer pickleball.”
“The leg?”
McGee hiked up his trousers, revealing a titanium prosthesis. “It’s a little easier for me—and for people your age, I understand.”
“Touché, Mr. McGee,” said Elkins. “We should get along just fine.”
“Doubtful, but let’s give it a shot.”
The office was spacious and well appointed, with furniture more suited to a country home than a government office. She made a note to ask her father, the senator, if she might borrow some of the furniture from the house in Potomac to redecorate her own office. She might work for the government. It didn’t mean she had to worklikethem.
“You didn’t mention the leg,” she said, buttonholing Don Baker as they sat down.
“You didn’t ask,” he replied, sotto voce. “IED. Fallujah. Mac Dekker was with him.”
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“Broken leg, knee, jaw,” said Baker. “He was laid up six months. You can ask him about his tennis game when we find him.”
Elkins gave him a look—Watch it!—and sat down in a comfortable armchair. Sam McGee sat opposite her. He was rather handsome, trim beard, high forehead, intelligent eyes. He asked how the flight was and if she wanted coffee. She said, “fine,” and “yes, with three sugars and cream.”
“Anything more on Dekker’s whereabouts?” she inquired, now that they were on the safe side of small talk.
