You do not have because you do not ask.
—THE BOOK OF JAMES
Paris, France
After the incident with the black Mercedes, Thomas accompanied Julia to Place de la Concorde and dropped her off in the lobby of the American Embassy. She promised to call as soon as she heard something from the BRP.
Thomas left the embassy feeling stir-crazy. He had done what Léon had considered miraculous—he had found a tip and turned it into a lead.
He had seen the woman, probably Navin’s aunt, in the car. He had no idea where she had gone, but the Petrovich flat couldn’t be empty. Some measure of truth lay beyond the double doors, something that could lead him to Sita. Yet the lead had to be processed and vetted by police bureaucrats. It was infuriating.
He wandered south across the vast Place de la Concorde, looking for a way to work off his irritation. He crossed the bridge over the Seine and walked west along the Left Bank. The clouds broke and the river sparkled in the sunlight.
He kept a brisk pace all the way to the Eiffel Tower. He skirted the mob of tourists huddled at the base of the massive landmark and made his way southeast along the broad Parc du Champ de Mars that extended from the tower to the sprawling complex of the École Militaire. He took a seat on a bench and watched the birds play in the turbulent wind.
After a few minutes, he took out his BlackBerry, thinking to call Priya. It was late afternoon in Bombay. She picked up on the second ring, sounding weary but happy to hear from him.
“How is Paris?” she asked.
“Magnifique,” he said. “How is Bombay?”
“Getting hotter by the day. Is the search going well?”
He delivered a short version of the events of the past two days.
Priya was impressed. “You’ve been more successful than I expected.”
“Two steps forward, one step back. How is your father?”
Priya took a short breath. “He’s still in Varanasi.”
“Well, give him my best when you see him.”
“I will.” Priya paused. “I’m proud of you, Thomas.”
Her encouragement gave him unexpected buoyancy.
“I meant what I told you. Bring Sita home.”
Thomas stood from the bench and walked along the edge of the grassy mall toward the Military Academy. At the intersection of Place Joffre and Avenue due Tourville, he headed east past the Hôtel des Invalides. He wandered through the idyllic streets of the Seventh and Sixth Arrondissements before stopping at a café and ordering a sandwich. He checked his BlackBerry regularly, thinking that Julia might have sent him an e-mail or a text message, but his inbox was empty.
After lunch, he walked east through the Luxembourg Gardens and up the hill along Rue Soufflot to the megalithic Pantheon. He paused beside the stone facade of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève and scanned the names of the great scholars and intellectuals inscribed beneath the library’s windows. Da Vinci, Erasmus, Newton, Bacon, Kepler, Lavoisier. As a student, the names had inspired him. Now they troubled him. They were visionaries one and all, risk takers who had challenged the status quo, often at great cost to themselves. A memory came to him then—Priya’s words when he took the job at Clayton. “They will turn you into a mercenary,” she had said, “and you will lose your soul.” He didn’t agree with her. But the philosophers and scientists, saints and sages, on the library’s walls spoke with greater authority. How many of them, if they were alive, would have taken her side?
He turned and walked along the cobbled plaza toward the Église Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. He paused in front of the church, and Jean-Pierre Léon’s question echoed in his mind: “Are you a religious man, Mr. Clarke?” For some reason the Frenchman’s words nagged at him. He would never have considered asking heaven for help in his quest to find Sita. Yet the thought persisted, like a burr that would not let go.
An older couple left the church, and Thomas glanced inside before the heavy door swung closed. The sanctuary was vast, with gabled ceilings, vaulted archways, ornate pillars, and windows with elaborate tracery. He found himself drawn to the place. On a whim, he decided to look around.
The noises of the street disappeared as soon as the door to the church closed behind him. The silence of the sanctuary was unbroken. He walked slowly through the grand arcade on the fringes of the nave. Sunlight streamed through stained glass high above, and votive candles flickered in the shadows before icons of the saints. A sign beside them indicated that the cost of a candle was two euros. He hesitated, wrestling with doubt, but suddenly his objections seemed more reactive than reasonable. What could it hurt to pray?
He dropped a coin in the canister and picked up a candle, lighting the wick with an existing flame. He placed the votive at the bottom of the rack and walked to a chair at the edge of the nave. He made the sign of the cross as he had when he was a boy and knelt on the stone floor, bowing his head and placing his folded hands beneath his chin.
At first he thought to pray for luck, but the idea seemed sacrilegious. So he prayed for grace. It was a concept straight from the Catechism, heavy and musty and frayed like a folio in an ancient library, yet it carried a resonance he could not define. He spoke the words and then opened his eyes. The church was as it had been, as was the world. But for the first time since Mohini died, he felt a measure of peace.
He left the church for the cobblestones of Place Sainte-Geneviève. He checked his BlackBerry, but Julia had still not contacted him. He browsed in a used bookshop and bought a round of cheese at a fromagerie before returning to his hotel. He wanted to call her for an update, but he knew he shouldn’t pester her.
The call came, at last, a few minutes before six.
“Hey, Thomas,” Julia said, “I’m sorry for the long silence. I was tied up in meetings all afternoon. I got your warrant.”
Thomas was amazed. “How’d you pull it off?”
“Some friendly persuasion and good bit of luck. We knew the BRP was watching the Petroviches, but we didn’t know why. As it turns out, they’ve been operating an escort service and a porn site using girls from Eastern Europe. The BRP’s wanted to nail them for over a year, but the evidence was too flimsy. Until now. One of the girls talked. They’ve been planning an operation for a week. My tip about Sita confirmed it. The BRP is going in tomorrow morning.”
Thomas was dumbfounded. Somehow Sita had stumbled into a war zone. “What are the chances that they’ll let me tag along?”
Julia laughed. “Try zero. They don’t let us come near their fieldwork, and even if they made an exception in this case, which they won’t, they would never let you in. We’re going to have to wait this one out on the sidelines.”
“Will they call you after it’s over?”
“My guy promised to contact me. When that happens is anyone’s guess. Sit tight.”
The night passed with excruciating sluggishness. When dawn came, Thomas gave up on the idea of sleep. He visited a café on the street corner and drank a double shot of espresso while scanning a copy of Le Monde. Julia called him at seven. She sounded out of breath.
“The raid went down as planned,” she said. “The BRP rescued six Ukrainian women from the flat. But the Petroviches were gone.”
“How can they be gone?” Thomas asked. “We just saw one of them …” His voice trailed off as a thought came to him. “We tipped them off, didn’t we? I tipped them off when I went running after the car.”
“I have no idea.”
“And Sita?”
“They found no sign of her. I’m sorry.”
“What about the girls? If Sita worked at the flat, one of them must have seen her.”
“You’re right,” she said, sounding hesitant.
“What?”
“It’s just that I’ve used up all my favors to get you this far. The girls are off limits. The protocols are incredibly strict, especially since the Petroviches are still at large. They’re probably already in a safe house. I don’t know where they are, and the BRP isn’t going to tell me without a very good reason.” She paused. “The word of an Indian waitress isn’t going to cut it.”
“I understand,” Thomas said.
The silence between them lingered until it became awkward.
“Damn it,” she said. “I knew it was going to come to this. Look, I’d like to help more, but this is too much. Going off the reservation on this could compromise me with everyone—the French, the Bureau, the ambassador.”
“I’m sorry.”
She thought for a long moment and then gave an audible sigh. “Give me a little time.” She paused. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Be patient, all right?”
“Patience is my middle name.”
She gave a wry laugh. “Somehow I doubt that.”
Julia was right. Waiting had always been a curse to Thomas. Priya had called it a defect in his genetic makeup. As a consequence, the next three days felt like a form of slow torture. He wandered around Paris like a ghost, taking random trains, exploring the exterior beyond the Boulevard Périphérique, watching the boats on the Seine from Pont Neuf, and lurking around Place Pigalle after midnight, observing the parade of men searching for a woman to turn their fantasies into flesh.
On the evening of the third day, he was sitting in an overstuffed chair by the window in his hotel room sipping a glass of cognac and watching the lights of Paris awaken to the night when the call came through. He stared at the phone in momentary shock, the thrill of the sound vibrating in his head. He reached out and yanked it off the bed, pressing the device to his ear.
“Julia?”
“Meet me at Gare Montparnasse at six thirty tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Who did you talk to?”
“Six thirty tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
She hung up without another word.