AFTER TRAVELING through Turkey’s Central Anatolia Region for two days, Clem finally got back into cell phone range and found back-to-back messages on her phone. In the first message, an attaché from the Dutch embassy in Ireland asked her to call as soon as possible; that was the night I’d passed out at home and ended up in the hospital. The second message was from me. It said: “You have to come to Donegal right away. Something terrible has happened.”
She and Niels hopped breathlessly on a flight from Istanbul to London to Derry and arrived in Dungloe the next day at about four in the afternoon. Despite my phone calls since—one for every time she changed planes—and the embassy representative who met her at the airport and tried to calm her, Clem arrived white as a ghost.
My father had arrived a few hours earlier. He paid for the most expensive cab ride of his life from Dublin (at least something made him finally leave his house on Liberty Street) and arrived in Dungloe that morning. By that time, dozens of reporters, police officers, and curious onlookers filled the hospital corridors, and my father worried what he might find. When he’d determined his son and grandchildren were safe, he became “the Chief” again and took control of the situation. He took care of the children, spoke to the police and reporters and kept everyone else at bay. When Clem finally arrived, he was the one who gave her an explanation of sorts: “Some men tried to rob Peter’s house and there was a shoot-out. But the children slipped out to the beach and hid behind the rocks. They missed the whole thing. They’ve caught a bit of a chill and a couple of scrapes, but they’re fine.”
Clem descended on the kids. She hugged them for a long time, examined every inch of them, and showered them in kisses. Only then did it actually hit her that she was in Ireland.
“Jip was the one who told us we had to run, and Judie understood right away. She told us to run out the back door,” Beatrice told her mother, as my father and a stupefied Niels looked on. “Jip led the way. He said we had to run toward the rocks and hide in these tiny caves. We stayed there for a long time, and then we heard gunshots. I started to cry. I thought they’d killed Judie, but Jip wouldn’t let me leave the cave. Eventually, we saw someone coming for us. It was Dad.”
Clem and Niels were tanned from their vacation, but their faces showed the wear of not having slept much the last two days. In a way, I was glad to see them. And I’m glad Niels didn’t wait outside the room. Instead, he came in, shook my hand, and asked me how I was doing. I told him I was okay. The last time I saw him, I’d busted his lip. This time, I was the one with the busted lip and broken ribs. When I said it out loud, the three of us laughed.
“I’m still not clear on what happened. The police haven’t explained much at all to us. Just that there was a shooting at your neighbor’s house, and some men tried to rob the place. Some television reporter was saying there was a shoot-out and your neighbors were hurt. . . .”
Everyone wanted the story. But the real story was hard to explain. Besides, I was still coming to grips with what had happened myself.
Did anyone know anything about Leo and Marie? The last thing I remember in those dizzying minutes after the police and ambulance arrived was Judie applying pressure to Marie’s wounds while I rushed out to find the children on the beach. I returned in time to see both loaded into ambulances. Marie was in bad shape. She was as pale as the moon and had an oxygen mask over her face. Before any of us could say anything, the ambulance sped off. In the distance, over the rise on Bill’s Peak, I saw another set of ambulances headed toward Leo’s house. I’d left him lying on the floor of his living room with two gunshot wounds. Now, no one could tell me whether he was alive or dead.
My dad asked around, but when he came back to the room he informed me that my neighbors were no longer in Dungloe. “They’ve been taken someplace else. I’m not sure where or why.”
More unanswered questions.
“They said you’d been taken to the hospital the day before, that you’d had some kind of nervous breakdown and you left without telling anyone. Is that true?”
That part of the story was especially interesting to the detectives. “Tell us exactly how you ended up in town since you were supposed to spend the night in the hospital for observation.”
I didn’t lie. I told them I left because I’d gotten a bad feeling that something was about to happen to my family. I told them every detail about my trip from Dungloe to Clenhburran, including the part about the young man and his grandmother who gave me a ride. I told them about my stops at Andy’s and at Judie’s boarding house, where I borrowed a bike. I told them every verifiable detail, including where I had fallen off the bike, and the criminals had picked me up on the side of the road. How they’d immediately raised my suspicions and, how, luckily, I’d been able to warn Leo and Marie in time. The detectives wrote everything down but kept giving each other sideways glances. “Tell me more about this ‘bad feeling’ you got.”
I saw them talking later with Dr. Ryan and John Levey, the hospital psychiatrist. Both doctors were shaking their heads. I couldn’t hear them, but I could make out the gist of the conversation: There was no reason to suspect I’d done anything wrong, but the story didn’t completely add up.
Maybe that’s why there were two officers posted at my hospital door until late that day. They finally let Judie in, and we were together in the room, along with my dad and Niels. Clem had taken the kids for some fresh air after they gave their statements to the police. She, Niels, and my dad had thanked Judie endlessly for the brave way she whisked the kids out of harm’s way but stayed behind to risk her life and face the criminals. But everyone kept asking her the same thing: How did you know they were coming to hurt you? How could you know?
“I just . . . got a bad feeling,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Besides, we’ve been hearing a lot of things about robberies lately. They recently ransacked a house near Fortown while the owners slept. Things like that. I just saw that van and something told me there was danger.”
“Well,” my father said, “thank God for that instinct, Ms. Gallagher.”
THE DETECTIVES bought the story. Maybe it was Judie, with her bandaged, angelic face who finally convinced them.
I later learned that doctors Ryan, Levey, and Kauffman issued a joint statement about my so-called “premonitions.” They called my visions a “fortunate” coincidence “that was, naturally, completely disconnected from reality.” The report also mentioned my visit to the Dungloe police station and the interview with Sgt. Ciara Douglas, who corroborated my testimony: “He was genuinely concerned about the safety of his home. He seemed a little paranoid to me. But maybe that’s what helped him survive.”
“It’s an isolated incident,” a neighbor told Ireland’s RTE television. “Nothing like this had ever happened here before. Although there’s talk of a gang of Eastern Europeans. What I do know is it’s not some B.S. story made up by the alarm companies. It’s a real threat, apparently, and our small, isolated communities need to be better protected. Or our residents have to be ready to defend themselves the way Mr. Harper did. You want my opinion? I’m glad he did what he did. Four fewer scumbags in the world.”
In the evening, other detectives came around and told us Leo and Marie had been transferred to a hospital in Derry. They were alive, though Marie was in intensive care.
“Is she going to make it?”
“We won’t know until morning. In the meantime, I’d like to go over a few statements your neighbor Leo made, if you don’t mind. . . .”
There were four bodies to account for, after all. The detectives didn’t leave until after midnight.
THE NEXT DAY something changed. The police took off, saying they’d had some “new information.”
They also told us Marie was out of danger. “She’s still in a fragile state, but her condition is improving.”
We were allowed to go home the next morning but were told not to leave the country for the next few days. There were still questions to clear up and probably a visit to the courthouse.
Clem and Niels stayed another day, until Judie and I were released from the hospital. I told them they should take the kids and return to Amsterdam. The sooner they put some distance between themselves and this place, that house, the sooner they’d be able to heal. I promised the kids I’d follow them soon.
“You swear, Dad?” Jip said.
“I do, baby. As soon as this whole mess is cleared up, I’ll meet you guys in Amsterdam.”
It was hard to say goodbye, as the taxi idled in front of Judie’s hostel. Half the town had turned out. A few friends Beatrice and Jip had made during their short but intense summer in Donegal came to say goodbye with flowers and other little trinkets. Laura O’Rourke, Mrs. Douglas, and half the regulars from Fagan’s had come out, too. No one asked too many questions. At this point, there was an official story—Thieves meet an untimely end during an armed robbery in Donegal—and neither Judie nor I were going to contradict it.
Alarm vendors and self-defense courses all of a sudden were getting more business. Even Mr. Durran had started selling motion-sensing outdoor lights. The teenage store clerk from Andy’s gave a nervous television interview and said the four criminals had given her the creeps. They had four espressos, and one of them had left his pack of cigarettes on the table. At least her story helped clear up any suspicions about me. She said she remembered me coming in, asking about the four and rushing out again.
On Sunday July 21 the Irish Times ran a story in which a police commissioner was quoted as saying that he doubted the four were “common criminals,” and that INTERPOL was looking into the case. He was sure they’d have more information soon.
If there was ever new information, it never made it into print.
DAD STAYED A WEEK, spending the night at the hostel with Judie and me. The old curmudgeon was gone. He became another person overnight. He made breakfast every day and forbade Judie from working at the store. “I’ll take care of everything, dammit, you’re in no condition to be working.” Maybe all he needed in life was a reason to care about something. I was glad to see him back to his old self, and I convinced him it was okay for him to go home at the end of the week. I’d be by to visit soon.
Meanwhile, there was no news from Leo or Marie. I called the hospital in Derry and was told they’d been transferred. “The woman was stable, and they left in an ambulance toward Dublin two days ago,” the hospital operator said. Destination unknown.
Their cell phones had been disconnected. I tried the detectives, and they told me Leo and Marie had gone to make a statement at the courthouse in Dublin and to meet with members of the US Embassy. The case was in “someone else’s hands,” he said.
“Whose hands?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Harper. But I can tell you two things: The people who tried to kill you were no common criminals, like the newspapers claim. They weren’t your average thieves. And your friends? They weren’t your average neighbors, either.”
A MONTH WENT BY. The town returned to normal. I stayed on with Judie at the hostel. My house, as well as Leo’s, were still considered active crime scenes and were off-limits. There was no word from Leo and Marie. None. Not a single phone call.
ON AUGUST 26, police took the crime tape off the doors of both houses. Imogen Fitzgerald went to work and got me out of my lease without any penalty. She also got a cleaning crew in there, and in a couple days, they left it like nothing had ever happened. She set me up with an international moving company and on September 15, I’d hand the keys over and say goodbye to Clenhburran.
Judie hadn’t said anything about coming with me to Amsterdam, and I respected her silence. We were both still hurt. Weak. Many a night, I woke up with a shout, in a cold sweat. Tom would show up at the foot of my bed in a dream, intent on revenge, the ax still wedged in his skull, his mouth and eyes twitching from the blow . . . Now, it was Judie who woke me up from my nightmares instead of the other way around. She would hold me and kiss me sweetly on the cheek, and after an hour or two, I could finally get back to sleep.
THE WEEK before I was due to leave Ireland, I finally returned to the house. Judie wanted to come with me, but I told her I’d rather go alone. I needed to go alone.
It was a gray and drizzly morning when I set foot back on Tremore Beach. The sight of the fence, rebuilt and braced while the cement set, sent shivers down my spine.
I went around to the back of the house, where Tom’s corpse would have laid before they tagged him and bagged him. Imogen’s cleaning crew had painted the drain around the septic tank a brick red, perhaps to hide any blood they hadn’t been able to wash away. I stood there, at that de facto tomb, but I didn’t say a prayer. I thought back on that night. The sound of his skull cracking resonated in my memory.
The house was still when I finally stepped inside, only the sound of rain pitter-pattering on the roof. The sliding door to the terrace had new glass. The living room furniture and rug had been removed. Imogen said it would be forever before anyone rented this house again, especially now that it had a backstory (not to mention it was expensive and remote). But it was a pretty house. Perfect for an artist looking for a hideaway.
There were a couple of boxes in the attic from when I’d moved in. I brought them downstairs. There wasn’t much left to pack besides clothes, some books, and my instruments. I’d have it all sent to my studio in Amsterdam. I’d figure out what to do with it later. Pat had offered to let me stay at his house. He had called me the moment the news went out on the AP wire. Somehow (and I had my theory), the story had made the news back home: Composer Peter Harper injured in attempted robbery in coastal Ireland. It had been big news. I’d been described as some kind of hero who had defended his children and neighbors with an ax. Of course, the tabloids ate it up. And now Pat was getting a dozen calls a week about new projects for me. “Free publicity, Pete. (All it cost me was couple of broken ribs.) You can’t say no, now. You can smell the money coming in. Everyone wants your music. You have to get back to work. . . .”
An hour later, I was sitting on the floor of the living room, packing up the final items. The rain had let up, and the sun was setting. The house was starting to get chilly, so I decided to get some firewood to start a fire. I came back with the remaining logs from the shed. Despite everything, I’d miss this place. Waking up in the morning and hearing the birds, the waves crashing. Chopping firewood and lighting the fireplace. Hell, even mowing the lawn. And watching Leo run up the beach and calling out to him to come in for a beer.
I started piling the remaining kindling into the fireplace, as well as the stack of magazines next to the couch, a final act of warmth for this old house. Just as I lit the match and was reaching in to light it, something happened. A draft from the chimney blew out the match. And it was immediately followed by three solid knocks at the wooden front door.
Thump, thump, thump. Three quick knocks.
My heart jumped. I couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be . . .
They knocked again.
I stood up and walked slowly across the room to the front door. I didn’t even bother asking who it was. What was the point? I turned the lock and opened the door.
A person was waiting at the door. A person I knew. Soaked through and through. Wearing a smile.
“Harper! Thank goodness you’re here,” said Teresa Malone, the mail carrier. “I was about to leave.”
“Te . . . Teresa?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
She was wearing her rain gear, from head to toe. Her scooter, which I hadn’t heard with all the wind and rain, was parked out front next to my Volvo.
“Judie told me you were here, and I thought I should, well . . . even though this place gives me the creeps. I don’t know how you got the courage up to come back here. Anyway, I got a package for you. I felt I should hand it to you in person.”
She gave it to me, wrapped in a plastic bag. It was a small package with nothing but a simple phrase written on it: “Hand deliver to Peter Harper.”
“It came inside another box addressed to the local post office. When I opened it, I found this.”
I just stared at it.
“Who sent it?”
“There was no return address, but the postmark is British. The address to the post office was handwritten on the side.”
“So . . . it must be someone from town. Someone who knows me. And you.”
We looked at one another and smiled.
“Have you heard anything from them?” Teresa asked.
“Two moving trucks arrived at their house yesterday,” she said. “They took everything. I know because my cousin Chris knows one of the officers from Dungloe who had to go over there to oversee the move. He asked where the movers were taking all the stuff, and they told him it was going in storage. There was no final destination. But the message was clear: They weren’t ever coming back. I can’t blame them. After something like that? Still, I thought there would be some kind of goodbye. Something . . .”
Her eyes turned to the package.
“Thanks for bringing this over, Teresa.”
“I hear you’re moving, too. Is that true?” she said, touching my arm. “I was so sorry to hear what happened to you and your children. All of us in town are still horrified. Promise me you’ll say goodbye before you go.”
“I promise.” I said.
I smiled goodbye and watched her walk back to her scooter in the rain. She beeped twice as she turned and headed back toward Bill’s Peak.
I closed the door, lit the fire, and opened the package.
There was a letter inside.
I leaned in to the light from the fireplace, unfolded it, and read it.
Peter,
I wish I had more time to write, but I don’t know where you’ll be in a few months, nor where I will be. And I wanted to make sure you got the explanation you deserve. I’m not allowed to contact you, and I’m writing to you almost in secret, but I feel obliged to do it. I owe you and your family a great debt, and I feel you should at least know the truth.
First, I hope your and Judie’s injuries have healed, and I pray that your children are okay. I hope that one day this whole nightmare for which I feel completely responsible will be nothing more than a distant memory or, at least, one that will make a great story.
Second, I want to say thank you for saving our lives. Marie suffered a serious, nearly fatal, gunshot wound, but the surgery was a success and she’s completely out of danger, thank God. She’s a strong woman. As for my knee, well, I guess I won’t be able to run as fast as I used to, but I’m alive to tell the tale. And that’s all thanks to you.
If you hadn’t come to our door that night . . . if you hadn’t insisted that I carry a gun with me, everything would have turned out very differently. The day I visited you at the hospital, and you warned me the way you did, I went home and tried to shake the idea, but I couldn’t let it go. I went into the shed and dusted off an old revolver I’d bought years ago. At first, I thought I’d just keep it nearby, in the living room somewhere or even under my pillow. But that night, the night everything happened, your kids were coming over to spend the night, and I didn’t want to leave a gun lying around. Plus, there was that storm. . . . I thought, is it possible you were right about everything, after all? Either way, the gun ended up on my ankle, you came through the door . . . and you saved our lives, Peter. You gave Marie just enough time to escape. And sure, we each took a couple of bullets. But we never would have had a chance without you, without your stubbornness, without your craziness, without your gift. . . .
Because that’s what you have, Pete. A gift. I don’t know how you got it, but use it and treat it like gold. I know you’ve suffered because of it, but I also know it can do a lot of good. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll pull the lottery numbers out of the air, and it won’t seem so bad. . . . The fact is no one could have stopped this except you. You were right all along. But we lied to you, Peter. We had to. Or rather, we avoided telling you the truth.
I suppose you hate us for having been so stubborn. You knew from the beginning this was going to happen and because we didn’t believe you, we put your family at risk. I’m sorry, Peter, deeply sorry. But they don’t teach you in school to believe in ghosts and visions . . . especially when they’re predicting your own worst nightmare come true. I guess we just didn’t want to believe it.
I was so close to telling you the whole story that afternoon. The day you asked about Daniel and the painting you’d found . . . I almost ran after you to tell you the truth. I’ve felt close to you since the day we met, Peter, like you were the first true friend I’d had in a long time. You have a good heart. You can see it from a mile away. That’s why I nearly broke my vow of secrecy. I just couldn’t will myself to do it. My stupid, old distrustful mind told me it was better not to say anything. “What if you’re wrong?” I told myself. “What if you can’t trust him?” But Marie never doubted you, of course. She thought maybe you’d picked up something subconsciously, some detail we’d let slip because we confided so much in you. But I was skeptical. That first night when you showed up at our door, I spent the night awake thinking. Was this all part of some ploy? Is he trying to wheedle information out of us? I guess it’s the residue of being suspicious for a living, always looking out for someone trying to conceal who they really are. Especially when you know someone is trying to find and kill you.
I looked into you. I made some calls to find out who you were, and all I can say now is I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I did the same thing with the guy who rented the house before you. He must have had his suspicions because he ended up leaving a month later.
By this point, you must already have figured it out. We are Leo and Marie Blanchard. Or at least we were. I never really cared much for the last name Kogan. I like the new one they just assigned us much better. Actually, we have new first names, too, for added security. As you can probably guess, I can’t tell you what they are, but rest assured they’re good names. They fit our faces.
This is one of the few outright lies I told you. I promise there aren’t many more. Almost everything else I told you is true: that I worked in hotel security, that Marie painted and traveled with me. And it’s true that I was thinking of retiring in 2004. Like I told you, I’d been traveling for work for twenty-five years, I’d lived in a dozen cities and I was tired. Tired of that nomadic life. Tired of always moving on before we could ever make any friends.
Marie and I had planned to buy some land on the island of Phi Phi in Thailand, build a bed and breakfast, and spend the rest of our days there, tanning and sailing. I resigned from the hotel where I was working, determined to start my new life. But that very month, out of the blue, I got an offer from a six star resort in Hong Kong.
It was supposed to be a one-year contract as a consultant to design the hotel’s security and build the security team. Six stars. It was almost four times my previous salary. Looking back, that should have been a red flag. At a time when hotels were cutting back on their own private security and outsourcing, where were they getting all this money? But I was blinded by the prospect. That money could help fill all the gaps in our retirement plan for Thailand. I accepted the job, and we moved that summer. I’d pay a heavy price for my mistake.
I started in May, and it didn’t take long to realize something was fishy. After all those years in the business, you start picking up on things, especially when something doesn’t quite fit. And there were a lot of things that didn’t smell right to me. My new boss, the director, who was a total newcomer to the business, gave me this weird “welcome speech” with all kinds of hidden meanings. “We have a very special and distinguished clientele. Discretion is our number one priority here at the resort, Mr. Blanchard. I hope that’s clear. Loyalty and discretion.” The amount of money being thrown around compared to how few people actually came to the resort just didn’t add up. I’m telling you, the whole thing stunk. I should have resigned that very first day. But I didn’t. I guess I figured, “Just mind your own business, stick out the year, and get out.”
I could tell you all kinds of stories, things that should have made me run. The clients, first of all, were dirty. That much was clear. You only had to look at their faces. Big limos lining the entrance, hookers and orgies in every suite. The things I saw in those private rooms when I personally had to be called in to carry out some drunk prostitute or troublemaker. After years of trying to do honest work, I’d suddenly walked into a snake pit. And I was in up to my neck. Well, mostly as I was only a consultant. It was my job to set up cameras, install procedures, but they put their own people at the computers and monitoring stations. I paid attention in case I needed an exit strategy.
And, of course, they knew how to deliver a message. With money and gifts. On my six-month anniversary, they bought me a Porsche, to “celebrate a job well done, with dedication and loyalty.” Loyalty was the keyword, Pete. They feted Marie with jewelry, almost every month. Gifts she never wanted to accept, but which I told her she couldn’t refuse. More mistakes. We were already halfway through my contract, and I realized it would be dangerous to quit at this point. Then, about eight months into my contract, the director of that cesspool called me into his office to offer me a job “in house.” They had been pleased with work and wanted to make me “part of the family.” You have to hear how those words sound coming out of the mouth of a criminal. And you should have seen the look on his face when I said thank you, but I have plans to retire. “Retirement? But you’re so young, Mr. Blanchard. It would be disappointing to see you leave us so soon. It would be . . . upsetting to our investors.”
Everything changed after that. I noticed right away. There was less work for me to do. Fewer visits with the director. They started restricting my access, and at first, I was happy about it. I’d sent a message, and they’d gotten the point. Then one night, on my drive home, two cars flanked me on the highway. They steered me toward a detour and down to a secluded area near the port. Waiting for me was a strange contingent of men in blue suits, led by a white-haired guy named Howard, who said he was the head of INTERPOL in China.
“Earlier tonight, in Hong Kong, we detained a suspect who was carrying this,” he said, handing me a folder. In it were pictures of Marie and me, the address to our house, and the license plate of our car. “They are going to get rid of you at the end of the year. A car accident or a gas explosion at home. That’s how they do it, to make it look like an accident, for those who don’t ‘take the oath.’ You can never go back to your old life, Mr. Blanchard. But you can help yourselves, right now. INTERPOL can put you into witness protection and give you a new life. You need to cooperate with us.”
The old Leo and Marie were as good as dead, but INTERPOL could offer to resurrect us into a new life. It was the only option we had left. They’d give us new names, new passports, and some money to start over someplace else. In exchange, they needed something from us. And that “something” was information from the resort’s computers. Names, telephone numbers, dates to which I had access.
We didn’t have much time to think it over. I went home and told Marie everything. We left the car and went for a walk into town. We tried to stay in a public place, and we talked for hours, until everything started to close down. Then we slept in a hotel rather than risk going home. At four in the morning, I called Howard and told him we accepted his offer. He sent his agents over to the hotel, and we went over the plan for the following day. One of them spent the night standing guard, drinking coffee, and sitting with his revolver in his lap. Another one watched the door. They told us to stay away from the windows. We’d sleep maybe an hour or two.
I still had access to certain areas of the resort. I had to do it all in one day, before anyone noticed. I showed up at work that day with my stomach in knots, but I tried to act normal. I’d spent my career chasing thieves, and now, I was going to become one of them. I picked out one of the dumber staff at the resort. I told him I had to use the company computers to run some names and needed to get into the surveillance room for a few minutes. I went to work. I downloaded nearly a thousand files onto a tiny drive the size of thumbnail. I hid it under my tongue to get past the security pat down, a procedure I’d initiated. I told them I was going out for lunch—and never came back.
And that’s how our lives in witness protection began. More agents arrived at the hotel that day, eight total in a pair of cars with bulletproof windows. They told us they’d take us to a safe house near Dashen Bay, but that turned out to be a lie. We were too valuable to INTERPOL for them to trust even us with the truth. We weren’t allowed to go back home. They’d buy us new clothes, whatever we needed, but we couldn’t expose ourselves. We left behind our home, our neighbors, our books, our clothes, all of Marie’s paintings. . . . It was terrible. We were in shock. Marie asked if we could water the plants before we left. Could we at least leave the cat for the neighbor to watch? No, they told us. Too risky.
Wearing baseball caps and dark sunglasses, we arrived at a safe house on the Chinese border, an old military barracks outfitted with cameras, bars on the windows, and round-the-clock security. They told me to call the resort and tell them I’d had a family member fall ill; I’d be gone for a few days and would call them later with an update.
We spent two weeks locked up there, like criminals. It was terrible. They treated us like livestock. I lost it when they told us not to stand near the windows. Marie couldn’t stop crying. It was the one time in my life I was relieved our son, Daniel, hadn’t lived long enough to go through that.
Our second week there, they sat us down for some news. First, the “organization” had figured out our play and had sent our names and pictures out to their network. They put a bounty of $100,000 on my head. Not bad, huh? Second, INTERPOL had managed to get a trial date set so we could testify. Only two more months of this. In the meantime, we’d meet once in secret with the judge and the state’s attorney handling the case at some other undisclosed location. We’d be transferred to another location, in Laos, while we waited those two months to testify.
We had to sign power of attorney over to an INTERPOL lawyer so he could handle all the details of our disappearance: the sale of our house, transferring our funds to a Swiss bank. We signed away our old lives, all the documents that erased who we had been. Leo and Marie Blanchard were no more.
We lived in the mountains in Laos during those two months, with four INTERPOL agents. The date to testify finally arrived. I flew on a private plane to a Chinese naval airbase in Sai Kung. From there, we took a camouflaged armored van to the courthouse. They brought me in the back door, wearing a ski mask and a bulletproof vest. I sat in a booth, behind bulletproof glass, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. I testified to a small group about my one-year contract at the resort and how I’d accessed the information I gave INTERPOL. The questioning lasted close to two hours before they were done with me. “Thank you, and good luck,” the judge told me.
Leo and Marie Blanchard died on a beautiful, starry night. The sea was flat and a breeze blew in from the south. The moment we switched vessels, when we stepped off the Fury and onto that military powerboat, we left our old lives behind. Our friends and family could never suspect we were still alive. Assassins looking to make good on the bounty had to believe someone else had gotten to us first. We switched boats several miles off the coast of Macau. From there, to a private airplane on the island of Phen-Hou. And from there, to Singapore. Then Europe. And England. Far, far away, to the other side of the globe.
We lived in a house in London for eight months until the final arrangements were made. We got a new last name: Kogan. I even remembered snickering when I read it out loud. We got new passports, birth certificates (we were now born in Salt Lake City, Utah), a pair of Visa credit cards, and the Swiss bank account number that contained the proceeds of the sale of our house, cars, sailboat, and life savings. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? It’s not, believe me. Imagine everyone you’ve ever known thinking you’re dead. You’ll never be able to call to wish them a Merry Christmas. You’ll never know anything about their lives, ever again. It’s like actually being dead. You’re a ghost. The relocation program director impressed on us how important it was to never try to contact any family or friends, not even sending a postcard without a return address. Simply knowing we were alive would be enough for the organization to resume their search.
“Your car exploded in Hong Kong yesterday when a tow truck tried to move it from the spot where it had been parked for four months. The driver was injured, but he’ll recover,” one agent told me.
In Chelsea, where we lived in London, there was a little newsstand that sold newspapers from around the world, and we’d read them every day, looking for traces of our old lives. There was nothing, except for a small article in a Hong Kong daily about the Fury’s disappearance.
Still, it was hard to adapt to this new life. We lived a cloistered existence, without much contact with anyone else. We were scared any little detail would filter out and reach the wrong set of ears. I’m sure our neighbors in Chelsea thought of us as the nice but reclusive old couple of expats. We’d do our groceries, smile at our neighbors, but we always kept our distance. If anyone got too close, we would start to avoid them. We never accepted a single dinner invitation. We were always too busy.
It started to grate on us. It wasn’t in our nature to be recluses. We talked it over with the relocation program director, and he was the one who suggested moving to a more isolated area, a rural community. It had worked for others in the past. The chances of our identities coming to light in a small town were much more remote. “Why not try Ireland or Scotland? There’s some beautiful countryside there. Cold, but safe. Not too many people around.”
And that’s how we got to Clenhburran, Peter. From the moment we set foot there, I knew we would put down roots. It wasn’t my dream beach in Thailand, but it was a beach nonetheless, a sanctuary, a place we could retire to. For the first time since we escaped from Hong Kong, I felt free. Marie started to make friends again, and I finally felt at liberty to start sharing my own life, always careful not to mention that “minor episode,” but never outright lying about my past. That’s no way to make real friends.
And that was my plan, more or less. To grow old here with my wife, a warm fireplace and my cup of hot tea. To live out my years here and die in peace, but not before writing one final letter to tell all the people I left behind what really happened—the way I’m writing to you today.
But somehow, the organization found us. INTERPOL still has no idea how. They said we must have broken some kind of security protocol, but I insisted that we’d followed all the rules to the letter. We’d been the most perfect dead couple in history. We had never called or written to anyone from our past. And only God knows how much we’d suffered because of it. The church-going women in town think Marie is a saint, the most devout of them all, but in fact the reason she goes to church to light a candle every day is in memory of some friend or family member she knows we’ll never see again.
Maybe, quite simply, our story traveled by word of mouth—farther than anyone thought possible—until that information ended up in the wrong hands. Maybe the international mafia’s reach is greater than we ever imagined. Or maybe someone just recognized us on the street. Who knows? The important part is that our friend Peter Harper saved our lives, and that we know for sure.
So now we’re on the move again. I’m not sure where we’ll end up, but hopefully somewhere warmer, near the ocean, where I can buy another sailboat. You know what? Maybe I’ll pool my money and buy myself that dream boat, after all. Marie and I can live on it and maybe I can convince her to go on one last adventure and sail around the world. We’ll disappear again on the big blue sea once and for all. One way or another, I’m going to fulfill our dream. I’ll keep you posted. You’re easy to find, what with being famous and all.
Speaking of which, I’ve reached the advice portion of this letter. First, the most practical. Now that you know who we were up against, you might be wondering if you have anything to worry about from the organization. My friends at INTERPOL worked with the police to clear your name on the official report. Now, it says only that you killed Tom and Manon in self-defense. That I killed Randy, and that Frank bled out on our rug as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. I doubt anyone will miss four evil bastards in the world. The guys at INTERPOL tell me they were mercenaries, and it’s probably better that none of them survived. Otherwise, the organization would have killed the survivors for failing so spectacularly against a little old man and a family man with his two kids. Then again, they never counted on Peter Harper and his sixth sense, did they? Either way, you probably have nothing to worry about, but it never hurts to keep an eye out. Then again, with your natural instincts, you probably won’t have to. Just listen to that inner voice.
Next piece of advice: about you and Judie. Nowadays, everyone makes a big deal about their freedom, but I think there’s something people don’t understand. I think sometimes people use the word “freedom” when they mean “I’m scared of taking a chance.” Okay, so I know I’m an old man, and feel free to wipe your ass with this advice. But if you can see into the future, then I can see into the hearts of people. And I can tell you that maybe—just maybe—there’s a little bit of that fear inside you. The fear of falling in love again. The same fear that keeps your father locked away from his life in Dublin. I know you’ve been hurt and you’re pissed off at the world and you don’t want to let anything or anyone all the way in again. And maybe that’s affecting your music, too. Being creative is an act of absolute confidence. That’s what you told me, wasn’t it? It’s about freedom—real freedom. And you’ve come searching for that freedom on a desolate beach by the ocean, where you assume a man can be most free. But you’re still trapped in a small, windowless room of pain and self-doubt. If any good comes out of this whole nightmare, I hope it’s to shake that fear out of you. I pray that it does.
I would have liked to tell you all this in person. To sit on the porch with a couple of Belgian beers and solve the world’s problems one last time as the sun set. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to have been your friend, Peter. And I hope this world sees fit to let our paths cross.
Marie sends you a big hug and a kiss, and I know she’ll miss you, too. More than likely, one day she’ll light a candle for you, for Judie, for Jip and Beatrice, and we’ll think of you wherever we are.
Take care of yourself, Peter.
Your friend,
Leo