“I need to hear you me out before you react to what I’m about to say, okay?” I spoke to my dear friend as quickly and calmly as I could. “There are some guys who arrived just now. Just hear me out. The . . . Look at me . . . I’m going to lure them away from you. I’m going to do this by circling around in a half-mile loop, okay? Half mile. Gimme exactly three minutes to get started. Then you quietly go out the back gate, you keep your face down, you go out—memorize this—you walk uphill north, stay in the thickest part of the tourist crowd, and go to the top of the Sacré-Coeur church to wait on the steps in the middle of it. Middle. In the crowd. Middle. We don’t have time to debate this. I’ll meet you there as soon as I lose them.”
Either they tapped the phone line or the cops themselves were no longer to be trusted. One or the other.
Jenn seemed to understand it. She heard every word I said, processed it admirably, then nodded in somewhat-reluctant-but-dutiful cooperation. I went over to the front door. I stopped to listen downward, toward the courtyard, for the men. I had no idea what I’d do if they trapped both us up here. I had no gun, no bribe money, nothing potent enough to fend off four people. I turned around. I looked at her, realizing I might never see her again.
“There’s . . . uh . . . There’s something I need to . . . uh . . .” There was something I needed to tell her but felt ridiculous even thinking of it right now.
She gave me a confident, somber nod. Wide eyed. Willing to hear what I had to say.
“The files . . .” I held up the USB flash drive, backing away from my original thought. “It’s better if it’s on you.”
She accepted it. She didn’t hesitate. She’s the queen of being practical. “Aux armes means ‘start the war.’”
I headed down the stairs, got to street level, saw the men, and kept walking—the goal being to lure them away. I made sure they had me in sight, and after I turned the corner I yelled out, “Run! . . . RUN! . . .”
Toward nobody.
I yelled it down the street as if Jenn were two blocks ahead of me.
“Go, Jenn! . . . Run! . . .”
Then I ran ninety degrees away from that direction, taking a hard left, forcing the guys behind me to separate, one group following me, one group following a phantom. I should’ve taken a head count the moment I saw them split, verifying how many guys chose the ghost over me. I felt the wound in my shoulder opening up—I knew it would—all those hours of progress undone within seconds, but I’d gotten better at the overall game of squaring off against cold killers. After consecutive days of it, you evolve. I processed every detail around me now. I saw storefronts. Upcoming pedestrians crossing. Scooters. Options. Hazards. I ran efficiently. I knew the best recourse if I got captured would be to yell “Thief!” I knew where to find the biggest rock on the ground. I knew the easiest place to get a knife would be in the cooking aisle of a grocery store. I should’ve taken a head count, though. The whole point was to lure them away from Jenn and, having split them up, I had no idea if I’d cleared her a path. After five blocks I felt I was alone and turned back to look down the empty alley behind me, turning around again to find Hugo charging at me from the corner, making sure that this time I was absolutely blindsided with the solid metal pipe that he swung against my skull, knocking me to the asphalt, unconscious.