I reached into my pocket and pulled out the matchbook. Le Bar Bleu.
"I told you to get out," I repeated.
This time Banville did as he was told, pushing back the two commandos as well. I fumbled with the matchbook, finally pulling out a match. My hands weren't shaking anymore, but everything felt slow and difficult. I wasn't angry. I just knew what I had to do. Burn this fucking place to the ground.
I struck the match and threw it on the brandy-soaked papers. There was a small whoosh and crinkling of paper as the blue flames danced along the curled edges of newsprint, bills, and blank sheets of stationery. The blanket caught fire and I kicked it with my boot over to the window. The flames climbed up the curtains as the breeze fanned the fire and it began to eat at the peeling paint on the wall.
"Lieutenant!" Banville yelled, his hand on my shoulder pulling me back. I shrugged him off, holding the pale blue fabric in my hand for a second longer, before I dropped it in the flames.
Chapter Twenty-three
I walked out of the room with flames at my back. Smoke roiled along the ceiling and chased us to the stairs. Duxbury and Rodney clomped down the steps, their boots and combat gear adding noise and weight to their confused retreat. Banville was alongside me, his arm behind my back as if to prevent me from returning to that little room. He glanced down the stairs at Rodney who was looking up at us, eyes wide with fear and incomprehension.
"After you, sir," Banville said, as if he were holding a door open at a fancy hotel, or maybe a sanatorium. The smoke was turning the air gray and the flames were starting to run along the dry wood beams of the ceiling. It was time to go.
"Sure." I took the stairs slowly, trying to regain a sense of connection with the people and things around me. But all I cared about, all I could think about, was Diana. Diana in that room, and Villard. And how he was going to suffer. For what he’d done to her, and for how he was making me suffer now. For making me want to kill him even more than I wanted to be with Diana.
The air began to clear but I knew it wouldn't last, that as soon as the fire burned along the roofline, it would spread down the walls, dropping embers that would eat at the floorboards, opening gaping, black charred holes that would suck up the fresh air and turn it into bright flames, devouring everything that just moments before had been solid, permanent, dependable. And leave a smoking ruined mass of rubble, one or two beams left, holding up nothing but air.
I reached the bottom and waited for Banville who was a couple of steps behind me. He walked by me, the air current created by his passage drawing a little puff of smoke behind him.
"Captain," he bellowed as he turned the corner into the bar where we had left Harry. "We've got to leave, now."
He seemed to be taking over, with one officer wounded and the other loony. Rodney and Duxbury trotted after him, knowing the voice of authority when they heard it. I trailed them into the bar. Banville was helping Harry up and Rodney was already at the door, scanning the street to see if it was more dangerous than remaining in a burning building.
"What's going on? I smell smoke." Harry looked to me, then Banville, who had hoisted Harry's arm over his shoulder and was helping him hop towards the doorway.
"There's a fire," Banville answered, in a noncommittal tone. Harry shot a look over his shoulder at me. He locked onto my eyes and didn't let up. I had to turn away.
"Why did you start it?" Harry asked.
I picked up my helmet and put it on. It felt solid, heavy, blessedly real. I felt like I was waking up from a nightmare although I hadn't been asleep.
"It's a long story."
"Bloody hell."
I could tell he wasn't satisfied with my answer, but that was nothing new. We left the bar and walked into the street, the heat jumping off the white paving stones, a hot bright haze floating up to our eyeballs. The fire behind us was crackling and popping now, the smoke and sound attracting a crowd. Arabs chattered to each other, and a few Frenchmen pointed to the burning building, their arms waving wildly us they signaled to a vehicle coming down the street. It was an ancient fire truck, a hand-pump job that would've been an antique at the turn of the century.
"Let's get out of here," I said. No one disagreed, and as Banville helped Harry into the passenger seat of our jeep Rodney swiveled the. 30 caliber machine gun toward the crowd. The barrel was tilted up toward the sky, but the message was clear. The crowd backed off. Duxbury pulled out as the fire truck rattled up behind us. They were starting to work the hand pump as we turned the corner, a dirty gray column of smoke marking the sky behind us.
"Which way to your boat, Captain?" Duxbury asked Harry.
"We're not going back to the boat," I said, before Harry could respond. "We're going to the French Supply Depot." I unfolded a map and pointed to a spot about three kilometers from where we were. "Here."
"What's so important about that depot?" Harry asked, wincing a bit as he held one hand over his bandaged leg. "Or that bar? Why did you set it on fire?"
"The depot is part of this investigation. It may be a rendezvous for smugglers."
"I thought the bar was the rendezvous?"
"I was wrong." I couldn't say anything more. I looked at the buildings ahead of us, more whitewashed Arab houses, and palm trees lining the road, which had changed to hard-packed dirt after we left the French section of town. I moved around in my seat to get comfortable and to avoid Harry's eyes. Rodney, Banville, and I were crammed in the rear of the jeep, and Rodney took up a lot of room with the. 30 caliber on its swivel. I didn't want to explain; I just wanted to get my hands on Villard.
"Who was that girl?" Harry asked. He wouldn't let up.
"Which girl?"
"The one you raced through fire to reach, when you thought she might get hit. Remember her?"
"Yeah. She's connected with this."
"You know her."
"Yeah."
We came to an intersection, and Duxbury stopped for an Arab leading a couple of donkeys weighed down with packs. He crossed in of us slowly, the donkeys clip-clopping along and the flap of the Arab's sandals keeping time. Slow time. He didn't even look at us, as if jeeps, machine guns, and soldiers were merely part of the scenery. One of the donkeys lifted his tail and dropped a load as he passed. Kind of a salute.
Harry raised his hand before Duxbury could take off.
"Wait," he said, waving his hand to ward off the gathering flies. The donkey shit was putting out an all-points bulletin, and a few curious incomers buzzed us before diving into the feast.
"I'm senior officer here," Harry said, "and-"
"At sea," I said. "You're senior at sea, but now we're on land and this is a U.S. Army operation. You know the orders."
"I've been thinking about those orders. They looked as good as the phony ones you gave me in Scotland."
"But you checked with Headquarters, right? And they verified them?"
"Yes," Harry admitted, "they did, but these chaps don't know what you're capable of. I don't trust you, Billy. There's something decidedly odd about that girl and you."
"Let's find us some shade," said Duxbury, and gunned the jeep through the intersection, down a narrow lane that ran alongside railroad tracks. Houses and buildings thinned out here, and Duxbury pulled over into a grove of palm trees and green shrubbery. He faced me and kind of squinted as if to see me more clearly.
"Keep a sharp eye, Rodney," he said. "Now sirs, why don't you explain, real simple like, so's I can understand, what this is all about? Rodney and me, we'll take you where you need to go, if it's all on the up and up. If not, then maybe we'll just take you back to our CO and let 'im sort things out."