Baptiste brought the rental car to a stop – a Ford Taurus in pearl black. He killed the lights and the engine.
‘There it is, number fifty-four,’ Pope said in a hushed voice.
‘Why are you whispering?’ Baptiste asked.
‘It’s a stake-out,’ Pope said.
Baptiste tapped a knuckle on the window. ‘In a soundproof car.’
Pope cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, mate, old habit. Too many night patrols in Kabul.’
‘Just act natural,’ Baptiste said, watching the house across the road.
‘Righto,’ Pope replied, drumming out a loud beat on the sill of the passenger door.
‘Not that natural,’ Baptiste snapped.
Pope huffed and folded his arms. Baptiste checked the street for activity in his mirrors. It was a quiet suburban neighbourhood. Prim, sprinkler-fed lawns. Low-rise homes, and driveways occupied by new registration cars. The street was part of a giant grid, a short drive out of downtown Vegas. Where the last of the homes stopped, the rest of the Nevada desert began. Number fifty-four had its lights on in the porch and the front room.
‘Looks like they’re still up,’ Baptiste said, taking a pack of cigarettes from inside a navy blazer. He tapped one out and popped it between his lips. He lit the end with a silver lighter, took a drag and leaned back, jet-lagged from the flight.
‘Er, mate…’ Pope said.
Baptiste took another drag. ‘What?’
Pope gestured to the cigarette. ‘Do you mind?’
‘No,’ Baptiste said, smoking some more.
‘Sod this.’ Pope wound down his window.
Baptiste cursed him in French and pulled on the master switch. Pope’s window stopped and wound back up.
‘What’s your bloody problem?’ the Australian complained.
‘The car’s nice and cool,’ Baptiste said. ‘You’ll let all the warm air in.’
‘Yeah and all the deadly chemicals out,’ Pope replied. ‘Are you aware of the dangers of passive smoking? I could die, you know.’
‘We can only hope,’ Baptiste murmured.
‘All right, then you could die.’
Baptiste shook his head. ‘I’m French.’
‘Uh, point A, you’re Russian,’ Pope said, ‘and point B – what does being a Frog have to do with it?’
Baptiste looked across the cabin. ‘We eat more white bread, drink more wine, smoke more cigarettes, and yet voilà, we live longer.’
‘Oh,’ said Pope, pausing a moment.
He went again for the window switch. Baptiste countered his move.
‘Rack off,’ Pope said, pressing the passenger switch.
Again, Baptiste reacted. The pair continued, locked in battle, the passenger window yo-yoing up and down.
‘You’re going to break it,’ Baptiste said.
‘I’ll break you if you don’t bloody—’
‘Wait!’ Out of the driver-side window, Baptiste noticed movement. He put a hand on Pope’s arm. ‘They’re coming out.’
Baptiste wound his window down an inch and tossed the cigarette. He closed the window and slid low behind the wheel. ‘This is the part where we whisper and hide.’
Pope slid down in the passenger seat. Together they watched Rose and Riley Turner step out of the house and turn off the lights, including the porch. The couple strolled down the driveway, dressed as if heading out for the night. The man wore jeans and a white and navy check shirt with the sleeves rolled up – the kind of shirt Baptiste would rather die than wear. The woman was more fashionable in tight white trousers, a slinky silver top and full yet tasteful make-up.
Baptiste noticed every little detail without effort – part of the training at the Institute, for many years it had been an unconscious habit. The Turners climbed inside their red Ford Mustang, the husband behind the wheel. He backed the car off the driveway and drove in no kind of a hurry to the end of the street. As the Mustang made a right turn, Baptiste started the ignition on the Taurus.
Pope rose in his seat. ‘Come on, mate, they’re getting away.’
Baptiste held up a calming hand. As soon as the tail lights of the Mustang slipped out of sight, he put the Taurus in gear. Accelerating at speed towards the end of the street, Baptiste slammed on the brakes.
‘Steady,’ Pope whined, a hand on the dash, understanding nothing of the art of the tail.
Baptiste turned right and kept the Taurus at a safe cruising distance behind the Mustang. He flashed a silver Honda making a left out of a side road and let it act as a buffer. The Honda was a low-slung coupé. It was easy to see over and follow any move the Turners made without arousing suspicion.
Baptiste tailed the Mustang onto the Las Vegas Beltway. Traffic was busy and the inside of the Taurus cool from a steady stream of air con. Huge billboards stood tall over the highway, the neon dazzle of the Las Vegas strip in the near distance. The Eiffel Tower of the Paris hotel, the pyramids of the Mirage and Manhattan skyline of New York-New York.
‘Please be going to the strip,’ Pope pleaded of the Mustang up ahead. He nodded towards the bright lights of the big Las Vegas hotels. ‘You ever been?’
‘I’ve not had the pleasure,’ Baptiste replied.
‘Nah, me neither,’ Pope said, like a kid staring longingly through the window of a toy store.
Baptiste sighed at the sight of it. If he was in charge of the WMDs, the strip would be the first thing he’d nuke.
Pope tutted to himself. ‘Well that kills that dream – they’re getting off.’
Baptiste took the exit and followed the Turners to a clutch of restaurants and fast food outlets. The couple pulled into a space in front of a diner.
Baptiste stopped moments later across the street, outside a burger joint. He kept the engine running and watched the Turners enter the diner. As they walked through the door, a waitress greeted them like old friends and guided them to a booth in the window.
‘We’d better park up and go inside,’ Pope said. ‘Watch ’em up close.’
Baptiste smirked. ‘You mean you’re hungry?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Take a seat in the window,’ Baptiste said, motioning to the burger bar. ‘I’ll double back to the house and see what I can find.’ He checked the time on the dash. ‘They ought to be here for a while, but call me if they make a move.’
Pope couldn’t wait to get out of the car. Baptiste couldn’t wait to have some precious alone time. After hours in the air next to a snoring, yakking bore, he almost missed the peaceful confines of his Parisian cell.
Baptiste swung the Taurus around and drove as fast as the speed limit allowed to the Turners’ home. He parked a distance down the street and walked the rest of the way. The street was dead, the desert sky huge. The spritz of sprinklers mixed with a light chatter of crickets and the scent of honeysuckle in the air. For a prefab neighbourhood with no discernible character, it could have been worse. Or perhaps his spell within the urine-soaked walls of solitary had sullied his taste.
Baptiste walked up the driveway of number fifty-four and picked the lock on the front door. He was inside in seconds, the alarm not set and the house reeking of cleaning products. Every movement echoed, as if the house were a hollow shell. It may as well have been – the place looked vacant. Baptiste wandered through the darkness and into the kitchen. He took a penlight from his pocket and ran it over the worktops. Inside the black-gloss cupboards were bare, and the fridge was turned off.
Baptiste moved into the living room and found a redundant TV bracket on the wall. No rug, no coffee table, ornaments or framed photographs. No nothing other than a sofa with a note taped to one of the cushions. He shone the penlight on the note – instructions to donate it to charity.
Baptiste crossed the hall into the bathroom, finding sink, tub and toilet bowl scrubbed to a sheen. He stepped into the master bedroom and found the bed stripped to a nearly new mattress – another item left for charity. The Russian rolled open a wardrobe door. It was empty aside from coat hangers. He dropped to the floor and sniffed the carpet – a lavender scent, recently shampooed.
Baptiste doubled back along the hallway and tried the internal door to the garage. The Turners hadn’t bothered locking it. The garage was bare, except for a pile of moving boxes arranged in the middle of the concrete floor. On one of the boxes was another note: ‘To be destroyed’.
Baptiste took out the rental car key and cut a line in the parcel tape sealing one of the boxes. He opened the lid and came across framed photographs of the couple: together on their wedding day, on their honeymoon. All were recent, judging by the hairstyles and cut of the bride’s wedding dress.
Baptiste dug out a taped-up shoebox and cut through the seal. Finding a stack of photographs, he picked out one of the Turners posing in front of a trainer plane on a desert airstrip. Baptiste put the photograph back and picked up another. He stopped. The sound of a van outside. Doors slamming. Men talking. Footsteps up the driveway.
The garage door rattled open. Two pairs of feet in work boots waited to enter. Baptiste heard another man coming in through the front door – a key in the lock.
‘Yeah, we’re here now,’ the man said, as if on a call. ‘We’ll be in and out in ten minutes.’
Baptiste closed the box but kept hold of it. He retreated without sound through the internal garage door. With no time to exit through the rear, he sought refuge in the bathroom. He hid around the back of the open door, bolt straight against the wall, clutching the shoebox to his chest.
The man on the phone marched along the hallway, his feet thudding over the carpet. ‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing to miss. They packed it up tight.’
Baptiste heard the other two men enter through the internal door from the garage. The three of them roamed around and met in the hallway, only feet away from his position.
‘Check the bathroom,’ said the man who’d come in through the front. He appeared to be in charge. And whoever he was on the phone to, in charge of him.
Baptiste heard boots over tiles. The flick of a switch and the bathroom light bright. He saw his reflection in the mirror, figured he’d have no choice but to engage.
‘Turn off the light, you dummy,’ said the man giving the orders. ‘We’re not supposed to be here, remember?’
The light was off as soon as it was on. Baptiste breathed easier as the men proceeded to move around the house.
‘Big stuff first,’ the leader of the group said. ‘Bed and then sofa.’
Baptiste heard grunting and complaining about the weight of the bed. Next up was the sofa.
‘Now the boxes,’ the leader said.
Baptiste edged out of his hiding space and peeped around the side of the internal door. He saw the men picking up the boxes and carrying them down the driveway. They loaded them with haste onto a long wheelbase van, black and almost invisible in the darkness.
‘Hey, this one’s open,’ said one of the men, a stocky forty-something with jeans falling down his behind.
‘Who cares?’ said the leader. ‘It’s all getting destroyed. Just load it in the van.’
The man pulled up his jeans and picked up the box. It was the last one. The leader closed the garage door from the inside.
Baptiste retreated to the bathroom once more. He watched from around the door as the man performed one last sweep of the house. He took out his phone and made a call on the way out, Baptiste following him to the front of the house in silence.
‘Yeah, we’re done here,’ the man said, stepping out of the front door. ‘No one saw a thing. We’re good to go.’
Baptiste hurried to the front door and watched through the porch window. The leader of the group climbed up into the van and it took off down the street.
Baptiste opened the front door and stepped out. He pulled the door shut and walked down the driveway, watching the van make a left turn and disappear from sight. As he looked at the shoebox in his hands, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Returning to the Taurus, he answered the call.
‘Find anything?’ Pope asked.
‘Hard to say,’ Baptiste replied.
‘Well you may wanna hurry back, mate,’ Pope said. ‘They’re sharing a dessert.’
Baptiste climbed behind the wheel of the car. ‘On my way.’