“Do you really think it’s safe for me to go back to Nice?”
“No, of course not,” Gabriel said. “I mean home home. New York.”
“New York? Gabriel, I’m not—”
Michael picked up at that moment. “Michael,” Gabriel said. “Guess who I found.”
“I’m not going to New York!”
Michael’s voice sounded shallow and tinny through the ancient phone equipment. “Gabriel?” he said. “Is that—”
But he got no further, since Lucy reached over and depressed the button in the handset cradle to disconnect the call.
“Now, is that any way to treat your brother?” Gabriel said. “Either of your brothers?”
“I am not going to New York,” she said.
“Well, you’re not staying here.”
“No, and I’m not going back to Nice,” Lucy said. “Aren’t we fortunate that there are more than three cities in the world?”
“What’s wrong with New York? You could stay at the Foundation. The security there is top-notch. Michael would love to take care of you, make sure nothing bad happens.”
“That,” Lucy said, “is what’s wrong with New York.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Gabriel. But I’m just not ready to see him again.”
“It’s been nine years,” Gabriel said. “When are you going to be ready?”
“Give me another nine,” Lucy said, “and we’ll talk.”
Gabriel threw his hands up. “So where do you want to go?”
“I’ll go to Paris. Or back to Arezzo. Or, hell, I can crash with Devrim in Istanbul—”
“I don’t know.”
“Look. Paris is a big place. They won’t find me there. I’ll disappear. I’ve done it before. I’ll send you e-mail and you can let me know when it’s safe to go back to Nice. Meanwhile maybe I can turn Sammi up, find out what’s happened to her.”
“In Paris?”
“It’s where she’d go if she couldn’t stay in Nice.”
Assuming she’s even alive, Gabriel thought.
“All right,” he said. “Paris—but you promise you’ll stay out of sight? You won’t contact anyone but me or Michael? Just till this thing is over.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Lucy said. “You just worry about yourself. You don’t need any more scars.”
“You’re telling me,” Gabriel said, and reached out a knuckle to brush her chin.
He picked up the phone again, waited for the operator to come on the line. “Collect call,” he said. “Same number as before.”
“I think we got disconnected,” Gabriel said. “The phones in this part of the world—”
“You knew,” Michael said. “That she was Cifer.”
Gabriel started to say something and then stopped, the words dying in his throat. Lucy was watching him. He wondered if she could hear what Michael was saying.
“Yes, I knew,” Gabriel said.
“Why did you lie to me? You told me Cifer was a six-foot-tall man with tattoos.”
“That was true, about the tattoos.”
“I suppose that’s something,” Michael said. He didn’t sound angry—just hurt.
“She didn’t want you to know, Michael. She was entitled to her privacy.”
“Why does she hate me?”
Gabriel saw Lucy wince. He covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Why don’t you give us a moment,” he said. “Maybe get some food.”
“No money, remember?” But she headed off in the direction of the airport’s restaurant anyway. Before she reached it she turned aside and pushed open the door of the bathroom.
Gabriel got back on the phone. “She doesn’t hate you, Michael. She just doesn’t want to see you.”
“Why?”
“Says she’s not ready yet,” Gabriel said.
“She was ready to see you, apparently,” Michael said.
“Three times in nine years,” Gabriel said. “For maybe an hour apiece.”
“That’s three hours more than she gave me.”
“I’m sorry, Michael. I know how you feel.”
“Do you?”
“I never heard from her at all until last year, in Istanbul. You at least got e-mails.”
“Under a fake name!”
“Yeah, well. I guess we’ve both got something to complain about. Right now, though, what matters is that she’s alive, and out of the hands of the Alliance. And if we want to keep her that way, we need to get her to Paris.”
“To Paris,” Michael said.
“That’s right. And me to Corsica.”
“Corsica!” Michael said.
“Yes, Corsica. And Paris.”
“She’s not willing to come to New York,” Michael said.
“You heard her,” Gabriel said.
“I certainly did,” Michael said. “Right before she hung up on me. She did hang up, right?” Gabriel said nothing. “Fine. I’ll book her on a commercial flight; you can take the jet to Corsica.”
“How long will it take Charlie to get to Marrakesh?” Gabriel said.
“Hardly any time at all, given that he’s already there.”
“He is?”
“Sure,” Michael said. “I got a call from your friend Samantha saying you were in trouble and she needed to follow you to Marrakesh. How do you think I found out about ‘Cifer’?”
A call from your friend Samantha—
“She’s alive?”
“She was a few hours ago.”
“So where is she?”
“Looking for you. I put her in touch with Reza Arif.”
“Arif!” Gabriel said. “Why him?”
“She needed someone to help her,” Michael said. “I admit he may not be the most trustworthy person we’ve ever—”
“The most trustworthy? No, I wouldn’t say you could describe him as the most trustworthy. Just like you couldn’t describe Taft as the skinniest president.”
“I did warn her about him,” Michael said.
At the other end of the terminal, the bathroom door opened and Lucy stepped out. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Just get Lucy on the next flight to Paris. We’ll talk about the rest later.” He hung up on Michael’s protests and joggled the button in the cradle to bring the operator back on the line. He gave her Sammi’s cell phone number, waited while it rang twice.
Lucy, Gabriel saw, was slowly making her way back to the counter.
“Allo?”
“Sammi?” he said, keeping his voice low. “It’s Gabriel.”
“Gabriel! My god, where are you?”
“At the Marrakesh airport. Where are you?”
“In the city, at the Djemaa el Fna.”
“Is Reza with you?”
“No—we split up to cover more ground.”
“Good. How quickly can you meet me here?”
“Without him? I can’t. He’s got the car keys.”
“Keys?” Gabriel said. “I’ve seen the way you drive. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to hotwire a car.”
“Of course I know how to hotwire a car. But I shouldn’t just leave him—”
“Do it,” Gabriel said—and hung up just as Lucy reached the counter.
“Who was that,” she said, “that you were telling to hotwire a car?”
If she knew Sammi was here . . .
If she knew, she’d never take the plane to Paris. She’d insist on staying, and she’d remain in danger.
“A man Michael put me in touch with,” Gabriel said. “Someone he thought might be able to help out. You feeling better?”
“I peed, if that’s what you mean,” Lucy said. “So what’s the verdict? Michael willing to fly me to Paris, or does he insist on a detour through New York first?”
“He doesn’t like it,” Gabriel said, “but he’s willing.” He turned the phone around and pushed it back toward the woman behind the counter. “Come on.”