The New Girl (Gabriel Allon #19)(47)

“So it’s true? Your wife and child were killed in front of you?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “My wife survived.”

The sun was blazing on the horizon—like a car, thought Gabriel, burning brightly in an otherwise quiet square in Vienna. He was relieved when Khalid abruptly changed the topic.

“I’ve never been to Carcassonne.”

“It was a Cathar stronghold in the Middle Ages.”

“Cathar?”

“They believed, among other things, that there were two gods, the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old. One was good, the other was evil.”

“Which was which?”

“What do you think?”

“The God of the Jews was the evil one.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to them?” asked Khalid.

“Despite incredible odds, they founded a modern state in their ancient homeland.”

“I was talking about the Cathars.”

“They were wiped out in the Albigensian Crusade. The most famous massacre took place in the village of Montségur. Two hundred Cathar Perfects were hurled onto a great pyre. The place where it happened became known as the field of the burned.”

“It seems Christians can be violent, too.”

“It was the thirteenth century, Khalid.”

Gabriel’s BlackBerry vibrated with an incoming call. It was Mikhail with an update. Gabriel listened, then ordered him to proceed to Carcassonne.

“Were they followed?” asked Khalid.

“No,” said Gabriel. “No such luck.”

The sun was slipping below the horizon. Soon it would be gone. For that, if nothing else, he was grateful.





33

Mazamet, France


In the forty-eight hours since Princess Reema’s hasty evacuation from the safe house in the Basque Country of Spain, she had been kept in a state of near-constant motion. Her memories of the odyssey were fragmentary, for they were fogged by regular injections of sedative. She recalled a warehouse stacked with wooden crates, and a filthy shed that smelled of goat, and a tiny kitchen where she had overheard a quarrel in the next room between two of her captors. It was the first time she had heard them speak. The language shocked her.

Not long after the dispute was resolved, they gave her another injection of the drug. She awoke, as usual, with a blinding headache and a mouth as dry as the Arabian Desert. The rags in which they had kept her for some two weeks had been removed, and she was dressed in the outfit she had been wearing on the afternoon of her abduction. She was even wearing her favorite Burberry coat. It seemed heavier than normal, though Reema couldn’t be certain. She was weakened by inactivity, and the drugs made her feel as though her limbs were made of iron.

The final injection contained a smaller dose of the sedative. Reema seemed to be hovering close to consciousness. She was certain she was riding in the trunk of a moving car, for she could hear the rushing of the tires beneath her. She could also hear two voices from the passenger compartment. They were speaking the same language, the language that had shocked her. She recognized only two words.

Gabriel Allon . . .

The rocking of the car and the close smell of the dirty trunk were turning her stomach. Reema seemed to be having trouble drawing air into her lungs. Perhaps it was the drugs they had given her. No, she thought, it was the coat. It was pressing down on her.

Her hands were unbound. She loosened the toggles and pulled at the lapels, but it was no use, it wouldn’t open. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in many days she wept.

The coat was sewn shut.



The avenue du Général Leclerc was located beyond the double walls of Carcassonne’s ancient citadel and possessed none of the old quarter’s beauty or charm. Plein Sud occupied a pie-shaped building on the south side of the street, the last in a short parade of shops and enterprises that catered to the working-class residents of the neighborhood. The interior was clean and neat and brightly lit. There was a large man with southern features who worked the pizza ovens, and a mournful-looking woman who saw to the paella. Four tables stood in a small seating area. The walls were hung with African art, and a large sliding glass door overlooked the street. It was a sniper’s shooting gallery, thought Gabriel.

He and Khalid sat down at the only available table. The occupants of the other three looked like the people they had seen rioting in the streets of Paris that morning. They were citizens of the other France, the France one didn’t read about in guidebooks. They were the put-upon and the left-behind, the ones without glittering degrees from elite institutions of learning. Globalization and automation had eroded their value in the workforce. The service economy was their only option. Their counterparts in Britain and America had already had their say at the ballot box. France, reckoned Gabriel, would be next.

A message hit his BlackBerry. He read it, then returned the device to his pocket. Khalid’s phone was between them on the tabletop, darkened, silenced.

“Well?” he asked.

“My men.”

“Where are they?”

With a movement of his eyes, Gabriel indicated they were parked nearby.

“What about the kidnappers?”

“They’re not in here.”

“Do they know we’ve arrived?”