An Accidental American: A Novel (2 page)

I
SPENT THE REST
of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on a copy of the new Angolan passport I’d been working on. The geeks at Solomon, the document security firm for which I freelanced, had come up with a new kind of multilayer infilling system that was a bitch to beat, but I’d cracked it in the end, and my final result was about as close to perfect as possible, a far better match than what would be needed to fool the immigration officers in Luanda. Bad news for my employers, but that’s what I was paid to deliver. If I could beat their security, there were others out there who could get around it just as well.

It was close to five by the time the FedEx truck came to collect my package for Solomon.

“Running late,” the driver, Isham, offered breathlessly as he fished in his pocket and pulled out a biscuit for Lucifer. “Sorry.”

I smiled. “Did Madame Lelu need your services?”

Isham nodded. “The lightbulb in her bedroom was out again.”

“Of course,” I remarked. “And you’re so tall.”

My neighbor down the hill and her less-than-subtle attempts to lure the young man inside were a running joke between us.

Isham patted Lucifer on the head and grinned up at me. “You know how it is with these lonely older women,” he countered playfully.

Isham was a nice kid, a first-generation Frenchman with a good Arab name and manners to match. He took my ribbing in good humor and gave as good as he got, but I could tell by the way his face colored that Madame Lelu’s attentions made him slightly uncomfortable.

“You’ll take some eggs, won’t you?” I asked, handing him my package.

Isham nodded, too polite to refuse, though the courtesy would make him later still. Then his eyes shifted to the shotgun propped up against the front hall table, and he stepped back slightly.

“
Le renard,
” I explained, my eyes following Isham’s.

“
Oui,
madame. Of course, the fox.”

“I’ve lost two hens already this week. I just want to scare him a little. And you know how Lucifer is, a softie at heart.” I smiled easily, nothing more to it than that, then turned for the kitchen.

“They’ve been laying like crazy all week,” I called as I grabbed the basket of eggs I’d reserved for Isham off the counter, then padded back into the foyer. “It must be the warm weather.”

“Yes,” he agreed, one foot already out the door as he took the basket. “Or it could be the fox. I’ve heard fear will make them do that.

“
Bonne nuit,
” he added. Then he jogged across the gravel drive and swung himself up into his truck.

I watched the FedEx truck pull out into the lane, then loaded Lucifer into the back of the Renault and headed to town for dinner provisions. There was no sign of my visitor on the darkening road, but I was thinking about him. His disappearing act had made me nervous, as I was sure it had been meant to do.

I made several stops, and it was late when I got back to the house, well past dark. The Twingo was there again, though this time Valsamis had pulled right into the driveway. When I swung in off the road, my lights flashed across his back window, and I could see his head inside, his shoulders low in the bucket seat.

I cut the engine and sat for a moment, trying to decide how to play things. I’ve seen people run when they didn’t have to and get into a lot of trouble because of it. On the other hand, I’ve always thought it best never to volunteer anything.

In the end, Valsamis made the first move. The dome light snapped on as he climbed out, momentarily revealing his trim frame. He had the body of a featherweight, compact and muscular, but he was dressed more like a salesman or a lost member of some middle-agers tour group: loafers, pleated chinos, a blue button-down shirt. In his right hand, he held a brown leather briefcase.

I opened my car door, and Lucifer leaped across me, paws scrabbling on the drive’s loose gravel as he darted toward the stranger, teeth bared in an unfriendly greeting.

The man didn’t flinch. He snapped his fingers once, and the dog quieted.

“Luce!” I called, patting my leg. The dog gave Valsamis one last look, then stalked back toward me, his shoulders rippling beneath his black coat.

Valsamis closed his door and the light switched off, leaving him in darkness again. “Hello, Nicole,” he said, coming toward me.

“Did Ed send you?” I asked, bringing my right hand to rest on Lucifer’s broad head. If the man was another con, I figured he must be a friend of my father’s, that Ed had run out of money and sent one of his rummy pals to track me down.

But Valsamis shook his head, all teeth and eyes swaying slowly from side to side. “Why don’t we go inside?” he proposed.

“You’ve got a nice life here,” Valsamis observed as I closed the door and switched on a light. Lucifer squeezed past us, giving me a protective glance before heading for the kitchen.

“I don’t have any money,” I told him, struggling momentarily to make the transition from French. Like everyone else in my business, I spoke English out of necessity. I’d spent several years in the States, but French was what I’d grown up with.

Valsamis didn’t say anything. There’s a certain lazy arrogance that comes with being a native English speaker, a self-assuredness born of the knowledge that yours will always be the common language and that you will have a distinct advantage because of it. I could sense this conceit in Valsamis. He stood with his arms stiff at his sides and glanced around the old farmhouse. It was by no means a mansion, but it was nicer than what a lot of people have, nicer than anything I’d ever had in the past. It was a place I took pride in, each inch of centuries-old stone and wood restored by my own hands.

I moved back toward the kitchen, letting Valsamis get a good look at the twelve-gauge. I’d already decided I wasn’t playing the guessing game with him. I had a talent for waiting people out, and sooner or later, I figured, he’d have to tell me what he’d come for.

He lingered a moment, then trailed after me, leaning in the kitchen doorway while I set down my groceries on the counter. He looked even smaller inside than he had in the drive, dwarfed by the doorway that had been built to accommodate a much larger frame. In the harsh light of the kitchen, I could see the coarseness in him, the way a flaw in a gem might be revealed under a jeweler’s loupe.

I guessed him to be around sixty, though it was impossible to tell for sure. His age could have swung ten years in either direction. An affectation born of the system, I thought, the way it hardened and softened you at the same time. There were women like this at the Maison des Baumettes, ageless lifers, bodies slackened by too much starch, minds wound by fear. And Valsamis? Not prison, surely, but a captive nonetheless.

“Yes,” Valsamis remarked. “It certainly is nice. Though it must be lonely up here, and quiet. You don’t miss the old days? Lisbon? Marseille? Dinner at midnight on La Rambla?”

“What do you want?” I asked.

Valsamis was silent, watching me. “It was a shame,” he said, “that business in Marseille.”

There was menace in his voice. He reminded me of the floor guards at the prison, dough-faced bullies with sticks and keys. Pussy-whipped, my cell mate, Celine, used to say of the cruelest. Though with Valsamis, there was a sense that the power was real.

“They don’t know you’re here, do they?” he continued. “The French, I mean?”

I looked up at him, at his predator’s face. “I’m not hurting anyone by being here,” I said. “My paycheck comes from England, after all, from Solomon.”

“No…” Valsamis said, the remark part question and part answer. “But I seem to recall that there were some conditions on your release. Something about leaving the country, wasn’t it?”

I felt my face tighten, and my gut went with it.

Valsamis looked around the kitchen one last time and out the double doors toward the dark garden beyond. “It would be a shame to lose it.”

“I already told you,” I said. “I don’t have any money.”

Valsamis shook his head and opened his briefcase, then pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Go on,” he urged, holding it toward me. The knuckles of his right hand were mottled with old scars.

I took the paper and unfolded it. It was a computer printout, a black-and-white image and text. At the top of the page, in bold block letters, were the words RED NOTICE. An Interpol term, I thought, words reserved for only a lucky few, a growing cadre of men and a scant handful of women deemed serious terrorist threats by the international police organization.

Below the words was a picture of a man’s face, a head shot taken, it seemed, for some official purpose, driver’s license or passport. The man was looking directly into the camera, his delicate features expressionless, his hair cropped close to his scalp. It was a face I knew well, even after so many years, and the sight of it in such a context made me flinch. RAHIM ALI, large text above the picture read. Beneath it, under the heading ALIASES, were some half-dozen other names: Ahmed Ali, Nassar Ali, Hassan Abdallah, Nassar Abdallah, Harun al-Nassar. Beneath the names was a long list of biographical information.
Place of birth: Morocco. Dates of birth used: January 15, 1959; April 2, 1961; March 19, 1962. Height: 6’2”. Weight: 180. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. Complexion: dark. Scars and marks: none. Languages: Arabic, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese. Citizenship: Moroccan.

Whoever had compiled the information had done a sloppy job. The inventory of aliases was woefully incomplete, as was the list of languages. When I’d known Rahim, he’d spoken fairly good Dutch and German, as well as a smattering of some of the Slavic tongues. He had a gift for languages, and it seemed unlikely that he wouldn’t have added a few more to his résumé since I’d known him.

There was one other glaring error in Rahim’s profile, four words that kept catching my eye. It was a small thing, really, one I shouldn’t have been surprised to have seen omitted, but for some reason it bothered me more than any of the other errors.
Scars and marks: none,
I read again, and I could almost feel the raised wound on Rahim’s stomach, the long gash just below his ribs that I’d liked to run my fingers over while he slept. His body’s only imperfection, I’d thought at the time, like the toothed smudge of a potter’s mark on smooth clay.

“Bring back memories?” I heard Valsamis say.

“Is this a joke?” I asked.

Valsamis cocked his head to one side. “Now, why would you say that?”

“This. All of this,” I said, motioning to the paper. “He’s not a terrorist.”

Valsamis took a business card from the briefcase and handed it to me. JOHN VALSAMIS, it said. In the center of the card was an embossed seal, an eagle grasping three crossed arrows, and around it the words DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

“We’d like you to look up your old friend for us,” he said.

So this was what he’d come for. Not me but someone else. What I could give him.

“I don’t do this,” I told him. “Besides, I haven’t seen Rahim in years. I can’t help you.”

“We think you can.” Valsamis said this as if it were a fact that had been clearly established, as if I and my opinions had little bearing on the situation.