“For that conference in Seattle next month? I booked your tickets last week, remember? Nonrefundable.” Her typing hadn’t even slowed.
“Peggy, stop typing. Listen. I need to fly to France. Marseilles. Like, ten minutes ago.” On the other side of the doorway, her keyboard fell silent. “It’s Miranda,” I went on, pulling on the clothes I’d intended to wear to my meeting with the president. “Ruptured appendix. She’s going in for surgery right now.” Rummaging in my closet, I dug out my “go” bag, a duffel I kept packed and at the ready, and slung it over my shoulder.
“Oh, my Lord,” she gasped. “Poor thing.”
By then I was already headed for the staircase, my shirttail still untucked, my shoes and socks in one hand. “I’m off to the airport,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Call me once you book it.” As the steel fire door slammed shut behind me, I thought I heard her say something else, but by then I was halfway down the steps.
It wasn’t until the helicopter was lifting off from the goal line that I realized what she’d said. The realization came when I saw her dash onto the field, wildly waving her arms, clutching my laptop in one hand and a small blue booklet in the other: my passport.
Twenty-two minutes and thirty-three hundred dollars later, my passport in one hand and my bag in the other, I boarded a United flight for Dulles airport in Washington, D.C. From Dulles, Lufthansa would take me to Frankfurt, Germany, and finally to Marseilles, where Beauvoir had promised to pick me up.
By the time I boarded at Dulles, I felt sure Miranda was out of surgery, but my half-dozen phone calls got no answer or return message. The silence was terrifying.
As the aircraft climbed out of Washington and wheeled toward the Atlantic, the ten-thousand-foot chime sounded, reminding me of the church bell I’d heard tolling a few hours before. Please, I prayed, though I could not have said to whom or what I prayed. Please not for Miranda.
CHAPTER 2
The Customs agent didn’t bother to look up as he took my passport and reached for the inked stamp. “Is the purpose of your visit business or pleasure, Monsieur Brockton?” His flat tone suggested that he was already profoundly bored with me, even before I spoke.
I hesitated, uncertain how to respond. “Pleasure” didn’t seem to fit the urgent nature of the trip, but if I said “business,” that might open the door to more questions, or to the need for a work visa. “Uh, pleasure,” I finally said. He looked up with a frown, as if he disapproved of pleasure, or of my limited enthusiasm. Then, with a slight sniff, he whacked the stamp down onto the page and flipped my passport back onto the counter.
As I emerged through the glass doors of the international terminal into the outer lobby, I scanned the crowd, searching for the face of a French archaeologist who appeared to be searching for the face of an American anthropologist. What would a French archaeologist look like? Angular and arrogant, sporting a black beret, an unfiltered cigarette, and a pencil mustache? In my anxiety over Miranda, I hadn’t thought to ask Stefan how I’d recognize him, and he’d neither volunteered that information nor inquired about my own appearance.
I was midway through my second scan of the throng when, over the general din of foreign words and exotic accents, I heard a laugh — a familiar female laugh. My head snapped back to the right, to the cluster of faces I’d just rescanned, and there stood Miranda, arms spread wide, grinning broadly and shaking her head as if to say, “Unbelievable! You looked right past me! Twice!” I dropped my bag in astonishment; my hands flew to my chest, over my heart, as relief and happiness flooded me. Miranda was here, and she was all right. In fact, she looked better than all right, she looked fabulous: strong, healthy, excited, even radiant. What she did not look like was someone who’d just gotten out of emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix.
Miranda ran to me and flung her arms around my neck. “Thank you, thank you, for dropping everything and racing over here. I am so glad to see you!” She squeezed me tightly.
“Be careful,” I said. “You’ll rip out your stitches. Doesn’t that hurt like hell? Why aren’t you still in a hospital bed? How can you look so good so soon after surgery?”
She laughed again, a musical, pealing laugh like carillon bells. “So many questions, so little time! I’m fine. Doesn’t hurt a bit. I don’t actually have stitches.” I pulled back and stared at her, more confused than ever. She laughed again. “You’re the victim of a slight deception. But don’t worry; it’s for a good cause, and you’ll be glad you came.” I shot her a glance — one loaded with questions and blame, which she clearly comprehended — but she just shook her head. “All will be revealed in the fullness of time. After we get to Avignon. Meanwhile, meet Stefan.” She turned toward the line of faces, and a slight, bookish-looking man, forty or so, stepped forward, limping slightly — not one of the French traits I’d imagined. I extended my hand, and he shook it weakly. “Stefan Beauvoir, Bill Brockton.” Suddenly Stefan took me by the shoulders and kissed me on both cheeks. I’d known that cheek kissing was a common French custom, but in my imagination only men and women greeted one another this way; I’d somehow overlooked the fact that men kissed other men. I preferred the American handshake. Strongly preferred the American handshake.
Stefan cast a dubious eye on the yellow L.L. Bean duffel I was carrying. “Where is the rest of your baggage?”
“This is it,” I said. “I didn’t have time to pack. Besides, I didn’t think I’d be staying long.” He shrugged and smiled. It was a slight, cryptic smile, as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s but a bit more coy, as if he enjoyed prolonging my suspense.
It was lucky my bag was small, because Stefan’s car — a Fiat Punto — was built for midgets. The engine was proportionately tiny, too. A few miles north of the airport, the car slowed to a crawl as the road angled up a narrow valley between rocky hills. When we finally topped out, we’d left the coastal plain for the rolling farmland of southern Provence.
Miranda kept deflecting my questions, promising to explain everything once we were in Avignon, but with each deflection I found myself growing edgier. Now that my panic about her health had been resolved, I resented being manipulated — tricked and scared into coming — and I hated being kept in the dark. “It’s not a good idea to talk in the car,” Stefan finally interjected when I launched another inquiry. “We might have bugs.”
“He means it might be bugged,” Miranda explained.
“I knew what he meant,” I snapped.
“Ouch,” she said.
“Sorry,” I grumbled. “I’m tired from the trip — I can never sleep on planes. And somebody tried to barbecue me yesterday. So I’m kinda cranky at the moment.”
“Barbecue you?” She sounded slightly concerned but mostly amused.
“Barbecue,” I repeated. “What’s the French word? Flambé?” I told them the story, and ended by leaning forward, putting my scorched head between the front seats.
Miranda rubbed the stubble. “Wow, that’s crispy. I’d say you just used up another one of your nine lives.”
Stefan took a glance, then looked in the rearview mirror. “Is there any possibility that the barbecue chef — the guy who was shooting at you — followed you to France?”