The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(30)

At last, she heard someone calling her name, with the emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first. She saw a woman limping slowly across a sun-drowned esplanade by the sea, her face shrouded in a black veil. Then the woman was gone, and a man took her place. His eyes were blue-gray, like glacial ice, and he was shouting at the top of his voice.

“Sarah! Sarah! Can you hear me, Sarah?”





Part Two

Abdication





20

Geneva–Lyon


The bomb had been small, just five kilograms of military-grade high explosive, but of expert construction. It had been contained not in a car or truck but a briefcase. The man who was holding it when it detonated was reduced largely to a collection of organs and extremities, including a hand that landed on the windshield of a car traveling along the boulevard Georges-Favon. A billfold was found inside the remnants of a leather coat, which was wrapped around the remnants of a human torso. All belonged to one Lucien Villard, a veteran of the French Service de la Protection who until recently had held the position of chief of security at the International School of Geneva. Two other people, a man of twenty-eight and a woman of thirty-three, were killed in the explosion. Both had been standing directly next to Villard as he waited to cross the rue du Stand. Both were Swiss citizens and residents of the canton of Geneva.

The briefcase was harder to identify, for there was almost nothing left of it. The Swiss Federal Police would obtain closed-circuit video showing Lucien Villard taking possession of the bag at Café Remor. It had been discarded there by a bespectacled man in a tan overcoat. As the man left the café on foot, he was followed by a tallish man with fair skin and hair, and by a second man driving a Passat sedan. The man in the tan overcoat had conducted a brief phone conversation before entering, and then quickly leaving, a movie house on the rue de la Corraterie. Onyx, Switzerland’s capable signals intelligence system, would eventually produce an intercept of the call. The recipient was a female, and they had communicated tersely in French. Linguistics analysts would determine that neither came by the language naturally.

As for Lucien Villard, he departed Café Remor with the briefcase at 5:17 p.m., followed by a woman who had been at the café with the tallish man. She was standing a half block from Villard on the boulevard Georges-Favon when the bomb detonated. For several minutes she lay on the pavement, unmoving, as though she were among the dead rather than the living. Then the tallish man appeared and placed her hurriedly into the backseat of the Passat sedan.

The car was of French registry, and it was to France, within minutes of leaving the scene of the explosion, that it returned. Shortly before nine p.m., it entered a parking garage in central Lyon, with much of its rear registration plate smeared by mud. Gabriel concealed the key beneath the left rear wheel well while Mikhail helped Sarah from the backseat. Her steps were unsteady as they crossed the street to the Gare de la Part Dieu.

The night’s last train to Paris was boarding. Mikhail quickly purchased three tickets in cash, and together they made their way to the platform. The carriage they entered was nearly empty. Mikhail sat alone in a rear-facing seat at the front; Gabriel and Sarah, on the train’s starboard side. Her face was ashen, her hair was damp. Mikhail had washed the blood from it with a couple of liters of Vittel before dressing her in clean clothing. Fortunately, the blood was not Sarah’s. It was the blood of Lucien Villard.

She examined her reflection in the window. “Not a mark. How do you explain that?”

“The bomb was designed to limit collateral casualties.”

“Did you see the explosion?”

Gabriel shook his head. “We only heard it.”

“I saw it. At least I think I did. All I remember is the look on Lucien Villard’s face as he was being ripped to pieces. It was like he was . . .”

“A suicide bomber?”

Sarah nodded slowly. “Have you ever seen one before?”

“A suicide bomber? I’ve lost count.”

Sarah winced suddenly. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. I think I might have broken a rib or two.”

“We’ll have a doctor take a look at you before your flight.”

“What flight?”

“The flight that’s going to take you from Paris back to New York.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Gabriel didn’t bother to respond. The face in the glass was contorted with pain.

“The evening didn’t go exactly as planned,” said Sarah. “Lucien Villard got blown to bits. And one of Reema’s kidnappers slipped through our fingers.”

“I’m afraid that sums it up rather nicely.”

“He walked straight into our arms, and we let him get away.”

“Mikhail and I were the ones who lost him, not you.”

“Maybe we should have taken him at the café.”

“Or maybe we should have put a bullet in him while he was walking along that quiet street near the movie house. A bullet tends to make even the hardest of men talkative.”

“I remember that, too.” Sarah watched an ugly banlieue slide past her window. “I guess we know how the kidnappers learned that Khalid’s daughter was enrolled at that school.”

“I doubt they needed Villard to tell them that.”