“Two other field agents are here today, if you’d like to meet them.”
“I hope they didn’t come in from the cold just to meet me,” Teddy said. Norton ignored the comment, but Teddy got the impression that Paris was not typically an active enough location to merit undercover work. “So who have we got?”
“Agent Valerie Paul was particularly eager to meet you.”
“By all means. Show her in.”
Valerie Paul was the type of woman who might have been the Paris office’s sexy shill, if they hadn’t happened to already have Kristin Rowan. Teddy wondered if that rankled. Valerie had brown hair, blue eyes, and a suspicious nature. Teddy knew she’d be following him from the moment he said hello.
“So what are you doing here, Agent Dressler?” she asked.
“I’m here on assignment, so something is going to happen. I’ve been talking to the people at the Agency trying to figure out what that is.”
She smiled. “And you expect me to believe that?”
“I’d be disappointed if you did. I doubt if they sent me here just to find out if agents were gullible.” Before she could respond, he added, “So what are you doing here? I understand you’re on assignment.”
“Just routine. There are certain foreign nationals we keep track of when they’re in town. I handed off my assignment to Agent Kristin Rowan early this morning. I believe you met her yesterday.”
“I probably did,” Teddy said. “I met so many agents.”
Valerie smiled. “Yes. She said I’d find you deflective.”
“That was actually in my profile, before I got it redacted.”
The intercom buzzed. Norton picked it up, listened, and said, “Send him in.”
A young agent came in. He was slightly shorter than Agent Reynolds, but a rough-and-ready type. Teddy would have picked him in a fight. He looked like he needed a shave. It went with his image.
“This is Agent Workman,” Norton said. “Agent Workman, this is Agent Dressler, temporarily on assignment.”
Workman shook Teddy’s hand. “‘Temporarily’?”
Teddy shrugged. “I go where they tell me.”
“And they told you to come here?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“I assume they’re preparing for something.”
“They haven’t told you what?”
“They never tell me more than they have to. You know how it goes.”
Agent Workman gave a look as if he didn’t really know how it goes at all. As if, in fact, he felt Teddy was full of bullshit. Teddy couldn’t blame him.
“Look, guys, I’m on your side. I won’t be able to prove it until something happens, but when it does, you’ll be glad to have me. In the meantime, what do you say we get out of the station chief’s hair, and let me treat you to a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee’s free.”
“Even better.”
Teddy took them down to the commissary. Jacques looked up from his computer as they went by, but it was just a casual glance. He didn’t try to catch Teddy’s eye.
They got themselves coffee and sat at one of the tables.
“All right,” Teddy said. “Now that we’re not being judged by the boss, let’s get down to brass tacks. Something happened here, and someone knows what it is. I don’t necessarily mean in the Agency, it could be something in town. Whatever it was, it was enough to raise a red flag and result in my presence. So what’s been going on recently? Is there any little thing—any incident—that could have raised the alarm?”
“Rami disappeared,” Workman said. Valerie shot him a glance. “Well, he asked. It’s not like we fucked up or anything. It’s something that happened in the last few weeks.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell. We monitor certain foreign diplomats.”
“If you can call them diplomats,” Valerie said.
“That is the polite term. Enemy agents or spies would be more accurate. Anyway, one of the Middle Eastern agents we were concerned with—Rami, a Syrian—was here for a few days and we were keeping tabs. Suddenly he was gone. It doesn’t have to mean anything. People change their plans. People get called home.”
“Was this of any particular concern?”
“None. It’s the sort of thing that happens from time to time. But when you ask for any incident, we’re hard pressed to come up with one. That’s the only one I can think of, and that’s stretching it.”
“I’ll say,” Valerie said. She seemed more than a little defensive. Teddy wondered if she had been on duty when the man disappeared.
“Was there anything to indicate the man had dropped out of sight, as opposed to just going home?”
“It was sudden and unexpected,” Workman said.
“Why? What did you expect him to do?”
“We expected him to be in town for a week. That’s what his plans were. He’d only been here two days when he dropped off the map.”
“Could it be because he noticed he was under surveillance?”
Valerie bristled. “No, but if you want to take it that way, feel free.”
“It’s a tough business,” Teddy said. “You’re watching people, someone else is watching you. Somehow or other it all means something, but you can’t spend your time wondering if you had a good day. I’m just trying to sort out what happened. I’m trying to figure out why, and what you base your opinion on. If you were under the impression that you were spotted, that would support your conclusion that the guy took off. But no one’s blaming you. Don’t fall into Norton’s trap. He thinks I’m here to reassess the station. He’s afraid for his job. Don’t be afraid for yours.”
“That isn’t what I’m thinking at all,” Valerie Paul said.
“I’m glad to hear it. This guy who disappeared—Rami—how’d you know he planned to be here for a week?”
“That’s how long his hotel reservation was.”
“He was staying at a hotel? Which one?”
“L’Arrington.”
36.
TEDDY LED Valerie Paul to the Gare de Lyon Railway Station. He opened locker 27, which had Daniel Remington’s passport, and took out five hundred dollars. Then he led her back to his apartment. Having spent the previous night at Kristin’s, Teddy hadn’t been back since he had led Agent Reynolds there.