16
‘Madame Mastigou has arranged the flight plans, Abiger. Your brothers and sisters will be arriving at New York’s JFK airport in eight hours’ time. They will each have a rental car at their individual disposal. You will keep in touch by cell phone. I will suggest to the others that they buy pay-as-you-go, to avoid any public record of their calls. They can contact you from the airport and you can exchange numbers. Then you and Vau must dump your old phones and buy new ones too.’
‘What if our trio head north?’
‘Then you will head north after them, and your brothers and sisters can catch up with you later.’
‘You’re assuming they are going to travel by car.’
‘No I’m not. But if they’re taking a plane, they won’t leave from a local airport. Calque’s no fool. He knows that airports have gaping holes in them in terms of security. Sabir will try to shake you first. Then he’ll aim for a hub airport with a lot of traffic. Somewhere like O’Hare, Baltimore, or Boston. Trusting that he can lose himself in the crowd.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better for us just to take them all here? Ambush them nearby? I can’t see Sabir carrying his shotgun with him in the vehicle. Too risky. We could bundle them off to a deserted barn somewhere and sweat them for the information we need.’
‘No. Sabir’s been forewarned, thanks to your and Vau’s mistake. He’ll have covered his tracks already. Destroyed all written documentation. The man has a memory like an elephant, or so I understand from certain sources in America that I’ve paid for information about him.’
‘Ah. I see.’ His mother had wrong-footed him again. Abiger could feel the resentment eating away at his guts.
‘In addition, I think it extremely unlikely that he will have told Lamia and Calque any more than he feels they need to know. So he’s still our primary link to the whereabouts of the Second Coming. And to the possible identity of the Third Antichrist. The man carries it all about with him in his head. If he’s backed into a corner he’s perfectly capable of sacrificing himself for some perceived greater good – he’s just that sort of bleeding heart. Remember what he did to my darling Rocha? The man’s morbidly claustrophobic, but still he managed to figure out a way to get back at Rocha and kill him. He looks soft, but he has a core of steel. No, I’d rather he leads us inadvertently to wherever he is going. It’s better like that.’
‘If you say so, Madame.’
‘I say so, Abiger.’
17
‘Are they still behind us?’
‘They’re still behind us. And making no attempt whatsoever to hide themselves.’
The trio had just passed through Scranton, and were now on the thruway towards Harrisburg, heading south.
‘What if we head towards Miami, and not towards Texas, as we decided? There must be a ferry of some sort from Florida to Campeche? Or to Veracruz? Or even to Cancun?’ Calque was feeling irritable. He had come to a grudging understanding with Lamia and Sabir that every hour, on the hour, he could crack open a widow and smoke a cigarette. But he needed more than one cigarette an hour to feel like a human being. He glanced surreptitiously at his watch to see if his hour was up. ‘It would save us three days’ driving.’
‘And it would set us up as sitting targets. While we move, we’re safe.’ Sabir glanced over his shoulder. ‘Smoke your damned cigarette, Calque. You may not realize it, but you’re kicking the back of my seat about eighty times a minute.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Calque speared the window button with his finger. ‘I do get nervous when I’m thinking things through.’ He lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘And I’m thinking things through now.’ He allowed the cigarette smoke to trickle luxuriously through his nostrils. ‘So what are we going to do tonight?’
Sabir turned to Lamia. ‘You tell me your brothers won’t give up without a fight?’
‘That’s an understatement.’
‘Then what do you think they are waiting for? Why are they holding back?’
‘Just as you said. While we’re moving, we’re safe. But the minute we stop, we’re vulnerable. And we’re particularly vulnerable at night. I assume you don’t intend to sleep in the car?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Then it seems we have only one choice.’
‘And what is that?’
‘We have to lose them before we bed down for the night.’
Sabir snorted.
‘It’s three in the afternoon. By nine o’clock this evening we’ll be well beyond Harrisburg. If we don’t intend to drive all night, we’ll have to come up with a plan before that.’
‘Great. Any ideas anyone?’
Calque had finished his cigarette. He threw the used butt out of the window. His face wore a placid expression, as if he had just taken a hit of raw opium, and not a toke or two of flue-cured Virginia tobacco. ‘I have a plan.’
Sabir glanced in the rear-view mirror. The twins’ car was keeping station a steady third of a mile behind them. ‘Okay. Give.’
‘Ah. Your elegant American expressions. How poorly they translate into French.’
Sabir understood what Calque meant. Translate most American expressions into French and they sounded abrupt – lacking in politeness. French was a language in which requests, and even orders, were customarily couched in velvet. Sabir decided to wind Calque up a bit. ‘Esteemed Captain Calque. Mademoiselle Lamia and I would very much appreciate hearing your proposal to rid us of the unwanted attentions of Mademoiselle Lamia’s mortiferous twin brothers. In addition, any light that you may be able to shed on their possible future plans would be very welcome indeed. Suffice it to say…’
‘Sabir?’
‘Yes?’
‘Shut up.’
There was an amused silence in the car while Calque gathered his wits about him. ‘All right. I have my plan. I am ready to give it to you.’
‘Excellent. What is it?’
‘It involves taking three separate motel rooms. One for you. One for me. And one for Lamia.’
‘And to heck with budgetary constraints?’
‘Sabir, you are not endearing yourself to me by this levity.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘We take three motel rooms. We enter them, leaving the car out front. But not for long. Soon I exit from my room and get into the car. I drive off. Now, because I am not important to them, the twins will continue watching the two remaining motel rooms. Sabir must then go and knock on Lamia’s door. She must let him in. Her brothers will draw the obvious conclusions. Am I correct?’
‘No. You are not correct.’ Lamia was curled up on the front seat, her stockinged feet tucked beneath her. ‘My brothers are fully aware that my love life is close to non-existent. They tease me endlessly about it, in that endearing way they have. The idea of my having an affair with Monsieur Sabir within a day of meeting him would strike them as so preposterous that they would probably come barging straight in simply out of curiosity.’
‘Oh.’ Calque seemed just a little nonplussed, as if one of his fondest illusions had just been shattered. ‘You really have no love life to speak of? That is outrageous for such a beautiful woman as yourself. I cannot understand it. The men you encounter must be blind.’
Lamia reached behind herself and felt for his hand. Calque brought her fingers lightly to his lips.
‘So what were you imagining for after Lamia came to my room? Beyond the fake sex, that is?’
‘I was going to suggest that you both exit via a back window, leaving the lights still on and the door locked. With a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door handle. Then you both make your way to a pre-arranged rendezvous – a certain number of streets down, say – where I pick you up. Leaving the twins watching a series of empty motel rooms. We drive on for another hundred miles – on minor roads, of course – and only then do we stop for the night.’
Sabir looked at Lamia. ‘Apart from the sex idea, it isn’t bad. I like the bit about Calque taking off in the car, leaving both of us back at the motel. That makes sense. Why don’t we both just climb out of our rooms independently, and forget Calque’s Gallic notions of romance?’