The Sixth Station (30 page)

There was already fruit and wine laid out on the tiny cheesecloth-covered table in the center of the room. When she left, I immediately sat down on the wooden dining chair and turned on my iPad. I had been too long without information.

No signal.

It was only a few hours until I was to meet Pantera—or the alleged Pantera—so I decided to try to relax. I ran a scalding-hot bath in the chipped but clean oversized claw-foot tub and inched my way into the steaming water, yelping with every inch conquered. I sank down and dunked my head. The water turned an orangey color. The bad dye job was still running.

Ahhhh. Forget for a minute that you are hunted. Just pretend you’re back in college visiting France on the cheap.

As I came up for air, suddenly great heaving sobs escaped from me like steam from a busted pipe. “Mom, help me!” I cried. I felt just like that poor little kid who wanted her mom to come save her from that house of horrors in Ephesus. I knew, however, that my wish was even more impossible than the kid’s had been. My mother couldn’t even know where I was—for her own safety, and mine.

I am completely alone in the world. Like Blanche DuBois, I depend on the kindness of strangers. Well, the kindness of professional assassins, more specifically.

28

I soaked and sobbed until the water was no longer painfully hot and the tears had subsided into gasps for air. I composed myself as best as I could, climbed out, and dried off with the towel. The operative word being
the.

I realized that my wardrobe choices for dinner, or what I presumed would be dinner, were slim, none, and completely ridiculous. It wasn’t like I had a party dress in my bag.

So I just rinsed out my undies, hung them on the windowsill in the hot sun to dry, and lay down on the monk’s bed. I was afraid to nap for fear of not waking up, so I didn’t close the wooden shutters.

At 6:45, I got up, put on my jeans, a T-shirt, my leather jacket (it cooled off at night up there in the mountains), and my Frye boots. I attempted to do something—anything—with my scary bright red killer clown hair, but it was impossible.

The attempt to hide the puffy eyes with under-eye concealer didn’t work, either, since industrial-strength cover-up was needed at that point. I compensated by putting on too much black eyeliner, mascara, and red lipstick. The light in the room was so bad I had no idea if I looked OK or like I’d wandered off from Cirque du Soleil.

What are you trying to pull off here? You think the old coot with the honeyed voice will melt at the sight of you and give up all his secrets? You’re lucky if he doesn’t drop dead walking up the hill. If he was in his twenties back in ’82, he’d be—what?—mid-to-late fifties? Or more.

As I was leaving, I double-knotted the Gap scarf around my neck, hoping for a pulled-together look. It wouldn’t pay to show up to meet an international man of mystery looking like a slob—despite my terrible dye job that was beginning to fade in places. One more check in the mirror.

Crap. I look like a traffic light melted on my head—red, greenish, and yellow.

I climbed down the rickety wooden stairs—it was chilly as could be—and attempted to make my way down the rocky (need I mention unlit?) and unnecessarily steep path, past the welding shop. Three large dogs happily followed me, so I carefully secured the gate so they wouldn’t wander off.

Pantera was right. It took all of a minute to walk to the Hotel Restaurant Costes. It was a lovely old plaster-and-stone building with quaintly chic shutters and a terrace overhung with vines, under which tables were aglow with candles, just waiting for customers. I had my doubts, however, about a big alfresco dinner crowd showing up in this chill.

I walked into a gorgeous (warm!) tiny lobby with an unmanned reception desk. There was a bar to my right and a minuscule library with books—all in French, of course—every one with a title that had the words
Pays Cathare
(“Cathar Country”) in the title.

I walked a few steps to the ancient stone arch that led to the adjacent dining room. Lit by a few brass hanging lanterns and candles, it was one of those magnificently homey, beamed-ceilinged rooms with exposed stone where the plaster had worn away. There were only a dozen or so square wooden tables, each set with pristine beige-and-white tablecloths, linen napkins folded like lady’s fans, candles, and tiny vases of local flowers. The walls were hung with swords and tapestries that looked equally old, depicting what I assumed were historical albeit pastoral scenes. Many of the figures in the tapestries were dressed as knights with those strange-shaped yellow crosses on their chests.

I could see that only one table was occupied—a middle-aged couple was mid-meal. The son of the landlady at the B and B told me that, unlike in other parts of Europe, the people in the Languedoc region dine early, so I assumed they weren’t getting many more customers even indoors that night. I stood at the archway waiting to be seated, although there wasn’t a staff person anywhere to be seen.

Eventually, a harried waiter / front desk / concierge / bartender came out of the kitchen door located behind the bar.

“Madame? Avez-vous une réservation pour une personne?”

Is he kidding? It’s empty.

“Ah, no, sorry. Two for dinner, please.”

He switched to English.
Damn those French!

“This way…”

He led me across the red stone tile floor to a table in the center of the room.

My dad always taught me to keep my back to a wall so I could see who was coming in, while Donald always preferred sitting in the middle of a room so he could shoot (photos!) while running out. I went with my father’s advice, and asked if I could instead be seated at the last table against the back wall, right next to the glowing fireplace. I wanted to be able to see everyone who walked in.

“Ah, our most romantic spot!
C’est romantique!
”

Yeah, wait’ll you get a load of “Gramps.”

I was a full ten minutes early, so I checked out the wine list, which included Vin de pays d’Oc, Vin de pays d’Aude, Vin de pays de l’Hérault, Vin de pays du Gard. Not knowing one
vin de pays
from the next, I went with the midrange red, hoped for the best, and waited nervously for Pantera to show up.

7:25, 7:30, 7:35 …
Where is he? Is he bagging on me? Is he huffing and puffing up the hill?

By 7:40, the couple had finished their meal and got up to leave. I turned on Sadowski’s phone—just to see if there was a signal, and there was.

I couldn’t help myself. I had a text message.

I am regrettably running approximately 15 mins late. Y. I left you an e-mail as well.

I checked the new
untraceable
e-mail address. Same message.

How did he get that address? I’ve set myself up. I’m screwed.

The waiter brought the wine, and I sipped it shakily. Something inside me was warning me against the whole thing.
Get up and leave. But where do I go? He’s got a bead on me—whoever he is.

I stood up to leave anyway—I’d get in the car and drive the hell away from that town—when I heard the little bell on the hotel’s wooden front door jangle as the door opened and shut. The long shadow of a man darkened the wall against the archway as he made his way inside. Long and lean—even in shadow, that was clear.

The shadow took shape as the man reached the dimly lit archway. Leather jacket, jeans, and a bad attitude that was obvious even in that “romantic” French light. So was the bulge at his hip under that jacket.

The sumnabitch is packing
.

Pantera entered the arch and turned full-face into the brighter light of the dining room.

Shock turned to panic and my heart started racing like I’d been shot up with adrenaline. Fight or flight kicked in. I tried to get up, but my knees buckled under me. I tried again but he’d already started walking toward me in the empty restaurant. He stopped, looked directly at me, fixing me in his stare, and then nodded his head in smirking acknowledgment.

Oh, God! It’s the German! And my back is to the wall.

For the first time in my life—including my time in Iraq—I literally had nowhere to run.

29

Was Pantera my hunter, or was this not Pantera at all? Pantera should have looked older. This one, however, was sort of ageless—hard to peg—craggy face notwithstanding.

It isn’t him—it’s my hunter
.

I stood and backed up against the wall as he came closer. I was smack against the fireplace wall now. He motioned for me to sit, and when I refused, he came around and grabbed my arm with incredible strength and forced me into a chair. With the other hand he pulled a chair out for himself and sat down next to me.

“No sense trying to run,” he said, his in-person voice a combination of honey and poison. “Mind?” he asked as he picked up the bottle of wine and studied it. “We have some great wines here in Languedoc. This isn’t one of them.”

He nonetheless poured a bit, held it to the light, and said, “Nice color, though.” He smelled it. “Even with a medium-grade wine, there is nothing like the bouquet of a local French.” Then, holding it by the stem, he tasted it.

“Nicer than I would have expected.” He filled his glass then and lifted it. “To you, Ms. Roussel. It has been a very good hunt.”

I found my voice. “I’m not a deer—even if I look like I’ve been caught in the headlights.”

“Yes, I know what you are.”

He hasn’t unholstered the pistol, as far as I can tell. Turn the table over. Run for it.

“Mind if I finish mine?” I asked sarcastically. I took a sip and then foolishly stood up and shoved the table at him as hard as I could and jumped to the opposite side. I leapt away from the table and attempted to run. The speed and strength of his grip as he grabbed my arm without even getting out of his chair was, I can only say, shocking.

Holding me with just one hand, he looked at me hard. “Sit down, Ms. Roussel. I think I invited you to dinner, and I never like my female guests to throw furniture. At least not before the entrée. It’s not very French. Or very nice.”

When I wouldn’t budge, he forced me again into a chair—this time next to him on his right. He slipped his hand down my arm and forced it under the table, holding me with a death grip.

“Shall we begin again? I am Yusef Pantera. Nice to meet you, Ms. Alazais Roussel—aka Alessandra née
‘Alexandra’
Russo.”

No, the aka is the “Alazais Roussel,” asshole!

As if reading my thoughts, he smiled, “No, I do not have the order confused.”

Why do I know that voice?

He signaled for the waiter.

Is he kidding me?

“Reni—what do you recommend this evening? And please no
cassoulet au poulet.
Ms. Roussel had the dish earlier today.”

I knew better than to ask how he knew, so I said, “I appreciate your speaking in English.”

“Yes, one of us has manners.”

“And that one of us is also packing.”

He smiled and tightened his grip under the table as the waiter began reciting the evening’s dishes. I distinctly heard “escargot.”

“Listen, Mr. Pantera, I prefer that you kill me rather than force me to eat snails. I’d have a better chance with a bullet than a snail.”

“You’d never make it as a Frenchman.”

“That alone is worth living for.…”

“I can’t imagine a sophisticated woman who doesn’t love escargot.”

“You just met one. I prefer my food without faces and fleshy horns, thank you very much.”

“I see.”

That voice. Where?

“Mr. Pantera. Why the hell are we making small talk when you have a grip on my arm and a gun in your holster?”

“No. In fact, I have a
hand
on you. Like a lover. Quite different from a ‘grip.’”

“A lover? I don’t think so. Look, you’ve chased me all over the world. I thought I killed you in that blast that
you
set to kill
me,
and now you think you will kill me up close and personal. How am I doing so far?”

“The chase part is correct.”

“What about the killing part?”

“If I wanted you dead, you would be dead. As for me, you wanted me dead but didn’t do a very good job of it, I’m afraid.”

I took a big gulp of wine. “Excuse me? Are you a bounty hunter then? Were you trying to take me alive?”

He laughed. Almost out loud. I looked around for some way to get away. But the death grip had not loosened a bit. “Wanted dead or alive!” Then he laughed really hard.

I hate this guy. Arrogant asshole.

“What do you want with me? Why were you chasing me? Well, until I brought you right to me like a, a…”

“Not chasing, looking after.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ms. Roussel…”

“Will you please stop calling me that?”

“All right, then, if you want to go on a first name basis. Alazais.”

“That too.”

“You are
very
difficult. I’m sure I’m not the first man to tell you that. Or woman. However, as you have been told
repeatedly,
none of this can be changed. It’s your destiny—and mine. My job is to make sure you arrive at your destiny in one piece.”

“Oh, brother. That’s why you tried to kill me? That’s why you followed me all over the world? To keep me alive to fulfill my
destiny
?”

Nut-job psycho killer.

“No. I am here to guard you—and keep you from getting killed. The world depends on it.”

“Not that again. Such bullshit. You planted explosives in my car. You tried to kill me!”

“No. Well, I wouldn’t have let you die, at any rate.”

“Just maimed. What a guy.”

“I wouldn’t have let you get hurt.”

“Yes, you would, but
I
detonated—”

“You beat me to the punch—yes—very clever.”