The Day After Tomorrow

83

“VERA—”

“Oh God, Paul!”

Osborn could hear the relief and excitement in her voice. Despite everything, Vera hadn’t been out of his mind for more than a moment. Somehow he’d had to get hold of her, talk to her, hear her tell him she was all right.

He couldn’t use the phone in his room and knew it. So he’d gone down to the lobby. McVey wouldn’t like it if he found out, but as far as he was concerned he had no other choice.

Once he reached the lobby, he’d found the phones near the entrance in use. Taking a chance, he’d gone to the desk and asked if there were others. A clerk had directed him to a corridor just off the bar where he’d found a bank of old-style private phone booths.

Entering, he closed the door and took out a small address book where he’d written the number of Vera’s grandmother in Calais. For some reason the old burnished wood and the closed door seemed reassuring. He heard someone in the booth next to him finish a call, then hang up and leave. Looking out through the glass, he saw a young couple pass, going toward the elevators. After that the hallway was empty. Turning back, he picked up the phone, dialed the number and charged the call to his office credit card.

He heard the phone start to ring through on the other end. It rang for some time and he was about to hang up when the old woman surprised him and answered. Finally, the best he could garner was that Vera was not there and hadn’t been. He felt his emotions begin to run away and he knew he’d go crazy if he didn’t get a grip on them. Then it crossed his mind that she was still at the hospital, that she’d never left. Using his credit card, he dialed her direct line. The number rang through and he heard her voice.

“Vera—” he said, his heart leaping at the sound of it. But she kept on talking and in French and he realized it was her voice mail. Then he heard a click and a recorded voice tell him to dial “O.” A moment later a woman answered. “Parlez-vous anglais?” he asked. Yes, the woman spoke a little English. Vera, she said, had been called away two days earlier on a family emergency; it was not known when she would return. Would he like to speak with another doctor? “No. No, thank you,” he said, and hung up. For a long moment he stared at the wall. There was only one place left. Maybe, for some reason, she’d gone back to her apartment.

For the third time he used his credit card, this time wondering if he shouldn’t go to another phone, one outside the building. Before he could hang up, the number rang through and on just the second ring a man answered.

“Monneray residence, bonsoir.”

It was Philippe picking up the call from the switchboard. Osborn was silent. Why was Philippe monitoring Vera’s calls without giving them a chance to ring long enough for her to pick them up herself? Maybe McVey had been right and it had been Philippe who’d alerted this “group” to who Vera was and where she lived, then later helped him escape from under the noses of the police, but not until he’d notified the tall man.

“Monneray residence,” Philippe said again. This time his voice was hollow, as if he were suddenly suspect of the call. Osborn waited a half beat, then decided to take the chance.

“Philippe, it’s Doctor Osborn.”

Philippe’s reaction was anything but cautious. He was excited, delighted to hear from him. He made it sound as if he’d been worrying himself to death about him.

“Oh, monsieur. The shooting at La Coupole. It was all over the television. Two Americans, they said. You are all right? Where are you?”

Uh uh, Osborn told himself. Don’t tell him.

“Where is Vera, Philippe? Have you heard from her?”

“Oui, oui!” Vera had telephoned earlier in the day and left a number. It was to be given only to him if he called, and to no one else.

A noise outside the phone booth made Osborn look around. A small black woman in a hotel uniform was vacuuming the hallway. She was old, and her hair twisted up under a bright blue scarf made her look Haitian. The hum of the vacuum grew louder as she worked closer.

“The number, Philippe,” he said, turning his back to the hallway.

Fumbling a pen from his pocket, Osborn looked for something to write on. There was nothing, so he wrote the number on the palm of his hand, then repeated it just to make sure.

“Merci, Philippe.” Without giving the doorman a chance for another question, he hung up.

Against the sound of the old woman’s vacuum, Osborn picked up the phone, again debated moving to another telephone, then said the hell with it, dialed the number written on his hand and waited for it to ring through.

“Oui?” He started as a man’s voice came on, tough and forceful.

“Mademoiselle Monneray, please,” Osborn said.

Then he heard Vera say something in French and add the name Jean Claude. The first line clicked off and he heard Vera say his name.

“Jesus, Vera—” he breathed. “What the hell is going on?—Where are you?” Of all the women he’d ever known, none affected him as Vera did. Mentally, emotionally, physically—and what had been built up inside him came gushing out pell-mell, like an adolescent, without thought or judgment.

“I call your grandmother’s worried to death about you and her English is worse than my French and the best I can understand is she hasn’t heard from you. I start thinking about the Paris inspectors. That they’re mixed up in this and I sent you to them. . . . Vera, where the hell are you? Tell me you’re okay—”

“I am okay, Paul, but—” She hesitated. “I can’t tell you where I am.” Vera glanced around the small, cheery, yellow-and-white bedroom with a single window that looked out on a long floodlit driveway. Beyond it were trees and then darkness. Opening the door she saw a stocky man in a black sweater with a pistol at his waist monitoring the call on a wireless, recorder. An assault rifle leaned against the wall next to him. Looking up, he saw her staring at him, her hand covering the phone.

“Jean Claude, please . . . ,” she said in French. He wavered for a moment, then turned off the machine.

“Who are you talking to? Those aren’t the police. Who was the man that answered?” Osborn snapped suddenly. He could feel the jealousy surge through him like an ugly wave. Outside the phone booth, the solid hum of vacuum seemed louder than ever. Turning angrily, he saw the old woman staring in at him. When their eyes met, she abruptly lowered her head and moved off, the whir of the vacuum vanishing with her.

“Dammit, Vera!” Osborn turned back to the phone. He was angry and hurt and confused. “What the hell is going on?”

Vera said nothing.

“Why can’t you tell me where you are?” he said again.

“Because—”

“Why?”

Osborn glanced out through the glass. The hallway was empty now. Then, brutally and with a rush, he realized. “You’re with him! You’re with Frenchy, aren’t you?”

She could hear the hard rasp of his anger and she hated him for it. Like that, he was telling her he didn’t trust her. “No, I am not. And don’t call him that!” she snapped.

“Dammit, Vera. Don’t lie to me. Not now. If he’s there, just tell me!”

“Paul! Stop it! Or I’ll tell you to go to hell and that will be the end of our relationship.”

Suddenly he realized he wasn’t listening, not even thinking, but instead doing what he’d always done, since the day of his father’s murder, reacting to his own numbing fear of losing love. Rage, anger and jealousy—that was how he fended off hurt, protected himself. Yet, at the same time, he was forcing away those who might have loved him and reducing any feelings left to little more than sadness and pity. Then, blaming them, he would slink away, as he always had, to the dark corner of his own exile, ravaged and raw, alienated from everything human on earth.

Like an addict suddenly aware, he realized that if he was ever going to stop his own destruction, it had to be now, at this moment. And difficult as it was, the only way to do it was to damn the outcome and find the courage to trust her.

Digging deep inside, he brought the receiver back.

“I’m sorry ...,” he said.

Vera ran a hand through her hair and sat down at a small wooden desk. On it was a clay sculpture of a donkey that had obviously been crafted by a child. It was awkward and primitive but wholly pure. Picking it up, she looked at it, then held it comfortingly against her breast.

“I was afraid of the police, Paul. I didn’t know what to do. In desperation I called Francois. Do you know how hard that was for me after I’d left him? He brought me here, to a place in the country, and then went back to Paris. He left three Secret Service agents to protect me. No one is to know where I am, that’s why I can’t tell you. In case someone is listening. . . .”

Abruptly Osborn’s veil lifted, jealousy was gone, replaced by the deep concern that had been there before. “Are you safe, Vera?”

“Yes.”

“I think we should get off the line,” he said. “Let me call you again tomorrow.”

“Paul, are you in Paris?”

“No. Why—?”

“It would be dangerous if you were.”

“The tall man is dead. McVey killed him.”

“I know. What you don’t know is that he was a member of the Stasi, the old East German secret police. They can say they’re disbanded but I don’t believe it’s true.”

“You found that out from Francois.”

“Yes.”

“Why would the Stasi have wanted to kill Albert Merriman?”

“Paul, listen to me, please.” There was urgency in her voice. But she was also frightened and confused. “Francois is resigning. It will be made public in the morning. He’s doing it because he’s being pressured from inside his own party. It has to do with the new economic community, the new European politics.”

“What do you mean?” Osborn didn’t understand.

“Francois thinks they are all being subjugated by Germany and that Germany will end up controlling the purse strings of all of Europe. He doesn’t like it and thinks France is becoming too involved for its own good.”

“You’re telling me he’s being forced out.”

“Yes—very reluctantly, but with no choice. It’s become very ugly.”

“Vera, is François afraid for his life if he doesn’t resign?”

“He never spoke to me about it. . . .”

Osborn had hit a nerve. Maybe they hadn’t discussed it, but she’d thought about it. And probably couldn’t stop thinking about it. François Christian had sequestered her someplace in the country with three Secret Servicemen guarding her. Did that mean the fact that the tall man had been a Stasi agent somehow interconnected with what was going on in French politics? And that François was worried Vera might be in danger because of it, that they would do something to her as a warning to him? Or was she hidden away and protected because of her connection to Osborn and now McVey, and what had happened to Lebrun and his brother in Lyon?

“Vera—if they’re listening, I don’t give a damn,” he said. “I want you to think carefully. From what Francois said, is there a connection between Albert Merriman and me and the situation with François?”

“I don’t know. . . .” Vera looked at the tiny, sculpted donkey still in her hand, then gently set it back on the table. “I remember my grandmother telling me what it was like in France during the war. When the Nazis came and stayed,” she said quietly. “Every moment was filled with fear. People were taken away with no explanation and they never came back. People were spying on each other, sometimes in the same families, and reporting what they saw to the authorities. And men with guns were everywhere. Paul—” She hesitated, and he could hear how afraid she really was. “I feel that same shadow now—”

Suddenly Osborn heard a noise behind him. He wheeled around. McVey was outside the phone booth. So was Noble. McVey jerked the door open.

“Hang up,” he said. “Now!”