Before Moz had even begun to translate, the foreigner was walking towards his yellow van. And when he returned it was with a white box, a blue and red logo printed on either end.
"Pepsi," said the foreigner. Handing them each a can, he dropped to his heels and settled into an uncomfortable-looking squat. "Learnt to sit like this from an Ethiopian," he told Moz. "Met him at the Gare du Nord in Paris. Cool guy, begging. He gave me this..." The foreigner pulled a silver cross from inside his shirt. "It's very old."
"And what did you give him?" This seemed important because foreigners didn't always understand the rules governing the giving and receiving of gifts. "You did give him something?"
"My watch." Dave shrugged. "I never really liked it anyway."
"Was it a good watch?"
"Well." The man thought about it. "Depends what you mean by good. Not gold, if that's what you mean. And it ran on a battery." Until then Moz hadn't known watches could be made from gold or run on batteries. He looked at the foreigner, wondering whether to ask his next question.
"Where's Paris?"
"In France."
"Where's France?"
"You always ask so many questions?"
"Always." Moz nodded. Of course he did. How else was he going to learn anything?
"North of here," said Dave, then smiled as Moz opened his mouth. "Wait," he said, "I'll get my atlas." And he was gone before Moz had time to ask him what an atlas might be.
The first thing Moz noticed about the picture of France were parallel lines along the bottom of the page, each with a 0 at one end and 1000 written at the other, as a number, not as a word. One of them said "kilometres," while the other was labelled...
"Miles," he said.
Dave nodded.
There was no secret, miles were just fatter kilometres. Looking closer, Moz realized you got eight of one for five of the other.
In the end, Hassan grew bored with waiting and that meant Idries got bored too. So when Hassan crushed his can and stood, nodding abruptly to the foreigner, Idries did the same.
"Time to go," Idries said.
"I'm staying here," said Moz.
"Coward." It was the first thing either of the silent boys had said in the entire time since Moz was cornered. And as soon as the boy opened his mouth Moz knew why he'd been silent. What with every radio claiming a new war with Algeria was inevitable.
"You're Algerian."
"What of it?"
"Nothing." Moz grinned at Hassan. "Can't you get any real friends?"
"I'll see you later," Hassan said. He jerked his head at Malika. "Come on, time to move."
The nine-year-old looked from Moz to Hassan and then at the white box which contained the Pepsis. "I'm going to stay," Malika said.
CHAPTER 9
Washington, Wednesday 27 June [Now]
"You can help...?" Gene Newman sounded almost doubtful.
"We'll see," said Professor Mayer. "Let me send you Katie Petrov. You'll like her. Very bright. Try not to like her too much..." Only Professor Mayer would have dreamed of talking to the President like that or got away with it.
"Okay, Petra," he said, "we'll talk later." President Newman put down his phone and flicked shut a little black book in which he kept those numbers which mattered to him. Old friends, ex-lovers, big-budget contributors and his old tutor. The fact he dialled these calls for himself drove his staff wild. That was one of the reasons the President still did it.
Gene Newman had a problem. On the desk in front of him was a telegram from the new Pope congratulating him on the capture of Prisoner Zero and asking him to rescind the death penalty.
A telegram was how the Washington Post described it, although the reality was more a list of tightly argued points, some of which were pretty good, particularly the one about not making martyrs. Unfortunately that suggestion didn't seem to be playing well in Kansas.
The letter from the Prime Minister in London was more mealy mouthed but it said more or less the same. Now might be a good time to commute the sentence and avoid making more martyrs than were strictly necessary.
Gene Newman loved that last bit.
"Mr. President..."
Gene Newman's secretary walked the long way round to his desk. Even after two years in the job, Isabel Gorst didn't feel right stamping across the eagle that glowered at her from the centre of the Oval Office carpet.
"Isabel."
The President wore black out of respect for those killed in the Marrakech helicopter crash, for the guards in the prison van and for the CIA agent and Moroccan officer whose bodies had been found in a burned-out car. Black tie, black suit, Stars and Stripes enamel badge. He'd been wearing the same outfit for almost a month.
"What have you got there?"
The President asked his question without looking up from the Pope's telegram. All the same there was a warmth to his voice that had the elderly Hispanic woman smiling. She knew it was mostly a side effect of memory.
For much of his early twenties, Gene Newman had earned his living with that voice, still did if he was honest. It had taken him from a local soap to prime-time comedy drama inside of three years. And from there to Hollywood. And his trick, the best he'd ever pulled, was to retire at the height of his earning power.
There'd been no big announcement, just an easing off of public appearances and a reluctance on the part of his agent to forward scripts that weren't original, thoughtful and immaculately written. Since these were rarer than hens' teeth, Gene Newman made two films in his eighteen months in Hollywood, won an Oscar for each and then bowed out so gracefully it took even his agent a year to work out what had happened.
"Edvard asked me to give you this."
She put a thin report on the side of his desk rather than overbalance the unstable pile that was his in-tray.
"It's breeding," said President Newman. He meant his in-tray.
"Let me handle it."
The President looked at her.
They'd been through this before, many times. The President's habit of trying to read everything that passed through his office was regarded with tolerant amusement by his friends and as a sign of paranoia by his enemies.
His wife, who seemed to spend more time than ever in the gym and rarely bothered to read anything before signing it, viewed it as a simple quirk and expected no less from a man who'd thrown in a high-level Hollywood career for three years at Harvard, two years at Oxford and ten months at the Sorbonne.
A number of stories circulated about his reasons for leaving Paris, and in his defence the President would only point out that he was still married and to his first wife, which made him something of a statistical rarity.
"Is that what I think it is?"
Isabel Gorst nodded.
"You read it?"
She looked as shocked as she felt. "It's from the National Security Advisor," she said.
"Just asking."
"Is there anything else, Mr. President?"
"Coffee," he said. He had kitchen staff to do all this, of course, but the First Lady had taken them aside and corrupted the lot of them. Told them about his kidneys, caffeine and the night sweats. So now he got decaf with soya milk as well as only one whiskey a day, more ice than alcohol. Payback for being a little too free with the chemicals in his teens. A fact he'd happily deny on anything except a Bible.
"You know, I'm not sure--" Isabel Gorst began.
"Look," said the President, opening the file. "I'm about to find out exactly why some guy tried to shoot me. I deserve a coffee."
When the cup finally arrived, weak, more milk than coffee, Gene Newman was still coming to terms with the fact that, far from now having his reason, it seemed the entire might of his intelligence services was unable to give him a name, nationality or political persuasion for the man.