Near Dark (Scot Harvath #19)(26)
His handler had run the best assassins the IRA had ever fielded. The boy, in time, would surpass them all.
The British would both hunt and fear him. They would publicly declare him a savage, but privately marvel at his abilities. His kills would be the subject of lengthy newspaper and magazine articles. Then, one day, he would simply vanish.
It was Christmas 1999. The Good Friday Agreement had been signed, voted on by the citizens, and put into effect. The Troubles, for the most part, were finished. The demand, locally, for men of his vocation had practically collapsed overnight.
There was also a rumor that he remained at the top of a very secret “most wanted” list. With the ground shifting under Northern Ireland, new political parties and new allegiances were being forged. There was a dirty, ignoble scramble for power that would have made the ancient Romans blush. The knives were out. It was only a matter of time before someone turned on him.
With his mother already two years in the grave from a heart attack and his siblings old enough to take care of themselves, there was no reason for him to remain. He could go wherever he wanted. And where he wanted to go, was France.
Through an IRA contact in Dublin, he was able to change his identity and get a Republic of Ireland passport. Michael McElhone became Paul Aubertin and he never looked back.
After traveling through France, seeing all the sights he had always dreamed of, he applied to join and was accepted into the French Foreign Legion.
His plan was to serve for three years and then take advantage of the opportunity to apply for French citizenship. Two years in, on a mission in Kosovo, he was wounded and rotated back to France for a series of lengthy surgeries.
Per a provision in French law, any soldier of the Foreign Legion who gets injured in battle can immediately apply to become Fran?ais par le sang versé—“French by spilled blood.” A social worker helped him fill out the application from his hospital bed.
By the time his physical therapy was complete, his application had been approved.
After his naturalization ceremony in Paris, he decided to stay for a while. He took extension classes at the Sorbonne, immersed himself in the city’s museums, and devoured every history book he could find from the stalls along the Seine near Notre-Dame, as well as the Abbey and Shakespeare and Company bookstores of the Latin Quarter.
The more he read, the more he fell in love with the Normandy region to the north. That was where his truest passion lay—Deauville, Rouen, the beaches of D-Day, and the most mesmerizing abbey he had ever seen, Mont-Saint-Michel.
The dramatic medieval monastery and fairy-tale village sat on a fortified island in the middle of a tidal basin at the coast—abutted by the mouth of the Couesnon River.
It was a UNESCO World Heritage Site that looked like it had been torn out of a Harry Potter movie. Attracting over three million people a year, it was considered one of the most awe-inspiring attractions in all of Europe. With all the books he had read about it and all the pictures he had seen over the years, nothing compared to viewing it in person.
According to legend, the original site had been founded by an Irish hermit. Then, in the eighth century, the archangel Michael had appeared to Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, and told him to build a church on the island. It was why Michael McElhone had taken the name “Aubertin.” He had always felt a special kinship with Mont-Saint-Michel. The fact that it had been founded by an Irishman only made that kinship stronger.
After visiting a couple of times while still living in Paris, he realized this was where he belonged. Packing up his meager belongings, he moved to Normandy.
He survived on a small pension from the Foreign Legion, which he augmented by working as a private tour guide for wealthy tourists. The business, though, was spotty—and he had his eyes set on a beautiful house with a view of the ocean. So, to pump up his bank account, he fell back on what he did best—killing.
Being a tour guide was a great cover, and he actually enjoyed it. The challenge was saying no to wet work contracts during tourist season.
None of the other guides disappeared during the spring and summer. That was bread-and-butter time. They normally bumped into each other several times a week, if not a day, making the rounds at the same sights. Often, when things got really booked up, they even referred clients to each other.
Dropping off the grid would have been highly unusual, and something he wouldn’t have been predisposed to do. But then, Lieu Van Trang had contacted him.
For lack of a better term, Trang was his business manager. On those off-season occasions when he did take contracts, that’s who they came from. This time, though, he had offered something quite different. He wasn’t operating as his business manager, but rather he wanted to be partners.
The eccentric and notoriously security-conscious Vietnamese would only discuss the deal face-to-face. He had family in Paris and would use the opportunity to see them as cover for their meeting. It was only a train ride for Aubertin and so he had agreed.
Because of its colonial past, Paris was home to the oldest Vietnamese community in the Western world. There were said to be, at any given time, more than 100,000 people of Vietnamese descent within the city limits. Unlike the Chinese or North Africans, they weren’t congregated in one particular neighborhood. Instead, they were spread out, many of them having even married into traditional French families.
Trang had access to a Buddhist temple in the 17th arrondissement and had suggested they meet there. It was safe and no one would bother them. Aubertin, though, didn’t like it—for the same reason he would never take a meeting in a French mosque.