Dara’s aunt Amina lived in a small one-bedroom walk-up off the Boulevard Barbès. Compared to what she had left behind in northern Iraq, however, where her people were being decimated by Jihad Nation, it was heaven. No rolling blackouts. No food shortages (unless you factored in shortages of cash). No crazed jihadis at the door.
Around the corner the street market was already setting up for the day underneath the elevated Metro line when Maggie and John Rae pulled up in a cab.
“Wait here,” Maggie instructed the driver in French, then switched to English and told John Rae the same. John Rae tapped his wristwatch as she jumped out, dashed across the street, dodging an irate bicyclist who shook his fist at her.
Upstairs, on the fourth floor, the door to Amina’s apartment opened as soon as Maggie reached the landing. Aunt Amina peered out, her big hair hennaed and sprayed, the scent drifting out into the hallway. She was completely made up, including dark red lipstick. She wore a blue pant suit that hugged her full figure and a thick gold chain over her ample bosom.
Amina was not the shy and retiring type. But one look at her face close up revealed that her mascara had run and been reapplied.
“Amina,” Maggie said, giving her a deep hug, “I don’t know what to say.”
Amina showed Maggie into the tiny apartment where a large fabric wall hanging and a healthy spider plant in a green ceramic pot on the polished hardwood floor fought off the gloom. She had already set up a small shrine with Dara’s photograph and a flickering candle in the corner of the room.
“Sit down, Maggie,” Amina said in a husky voice. “Have some tea.”
Maggie felt like a rat for having to grab Dara’s laptop and run.
“I can’t, Amina. I’m flying back home in an hour. When I return I’ll spend more time. I want you to know that the company I work for will pay for Dara’s funeral services.” Maggie hoped so, anyway. She retrieved a white envelope from the breast pocket of her jacket, which contained several hundred euros she’d withdrawn from her account at the ATM on the way here. She handed it over. “In the meantime, this will hopefully cover immediate living expenses.” Amina owned a small tea room where Yazidi people met but it was more of a calling than a source of income. Without Dara’s outside earnings as an IT consultant she would soon be in dire straits, living in Paris.
Amina took the envelope. “Thank you.”
But despite the customary grieving, something seemed wrong. Maggie held Amina at arm’s length and scrutinized her desolate face.
“Amina—is something else the matter?”
Amina looked down at her gleaming black flats. “I think I did something very stupid, Maggie.”
“What do you mean she gave the laptop away?” John Rae said as Maggie climbed back into the cab. More vendors were arriving and setting up market stalls in the street. The cab driver was watching a video on a tablet fixed to the dash and didn’t seem to mind as long as the meter was running.
“Waleed stopped by her place earlier and picked it up,” Maggie said. “Amina told him she’d already agreed to give it to me but he insisted it was Incognito’s property—which it is. He got difficult—something he’s good at—threatening to sue her and saying he’d have her deported.” Maggie shook her head. “As if he would. But she fell for it. In the end, Amina handed it over.”
“Well, it was a noble effort, Maggie.” John Rae leaned forward to the driver and said, “Airport. Le Bourget,” splitting each syllable into a separate word, making him sound a little like Herman Munster.
The driver nodded, started the engine.
“Wait a minute, JR,” Maggie said. “Going back without that laptop is calling it quits. There’s info on it that’ll keep Operation Abraqa going.”
“That’s how we roll at the agency, Maggie.”
“Well, it can roll without me.” She instructed the driver in French to hold off. He obliged, sat back, turned off the engine, watched the Simpsons in French with half an eye.
“No, no, no, no,” John Rae said. “It’s not a damn suggestion. It’s an order. From on high. You’re coming back with me.” He raised his eyebrows. “Copy that?”
The cab driver’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of them in the rearview mirror, as he obviously wondered how to proceed.
“I’m serious, Maggie. If we aren’t on that C-130 and talking to the brass first thing tomorrow, you can kiss any chance at all of getting Abraqa resurrected.”
Punt.
“Whatever,” Maggie said. “Let’s just go, then.”
“Thanks for seeing it my way.” He leaned forward and said to the driver: “Air. Port. Now.”
The cab started up again, spun around and headed down Boulevard Barbès, stopping at the light to turn right.
“Since when does the cabbie stop at a red light in this city?” John Rae said. “Maggie, please tell this guy we need to get there today.”
Maggie leaned forward and spoke calmly in French: “This jerk is threatening me. Please pull over at the Metro station so I can jump out of the car. Then I want you to take off. Take him to Le Bourget. Don’t let him argue. Pretend you don’t understand what he’s saying.”
The cab driver blinked into the rearview as he absorbed that. “Will he be all right?”
“Oh, yes. He won’t hurt you. He’s just being a complete asshole with me right now. Well, he is American.” She laughed.
The driver laughed too.
John Rae laughed as well. “I’m just glad we’re all friends again.”
They set off. And stopped in front of the Barbès—Rochechouart Metro station.
Maggie flung open the door, hopped out, slammed the door. “See you at the airport, JR.” She sprang into a run in her jeans and sneakers, heading for the Metro entrance already thick with morning commuters.
“You’re starting to piss me off!” John Rae shouted out the cab window as the vehicle swerved off into traffic.
She pushed through the crowd, down into the subway.