Never, page 11
“Oh, fuck, I forgot I had a gun!” Tamara reached into the holster attached to her vest under her left arm. At the same moment the soldiers began to fire back.
Tamara lay flat on her belly with her elbows on the ground, holding her pistol in both hands, taking care to point her thumbs forward so that they would be out of the way of the slide when it sprang back. She set her Glock to single-shot firing—otherwise she could run out of ammunition in seconds.
The soldiers paused their fire. Immediately there was a third burst from the bridge, but this time, within a split second the soldiers fired a returning burst.
Tamara could not see the high bridge from her position, so she kept an eye on the pedestrian bridge. There was something like a riot as those desperately fleeing the near end, where the shooting was, shoved into less terrified people at the far end who probably were not sure what the bangs meant. The two border guards in camouflage trousers were at the back of the crowd and panicking just as much as the civilians, beating the people in front of them in their attempt to get away faster. Tamara saw someone jump into the river and start swimming for the far side.
At the near end, she saw the two jihadis clambering down to the riverbank. As she inched the sights of the Glock toward them, they took cover under the bridge.
The firing stopped, and Susan said: “I think we got him. Anyway, he’s vanished. Oh—oh—he’s back—no, this is another guy, different headdress. How the fuck many of them are up there?”
In the brief quiet Tamara again heard someone shout: “Al-Bustan!”
Susan used her radio to call for urgent reinforcements and an ambulance for Pete.
There was another exchange of fire between the soldiers and the high bridge, but both sides had good cover and it looked as if no one was hit.
They were pinned down and helpless. I’m going to die here, Tamara thought. I wish I’d met Tab a bit sooner. Like five years ago.
On the pedestrian bridge, the jihadi with the gaunt face reappeared, on the riverbank where the parapet ended and the roadbed of the bridge blended into the stony ground, only about twenty yards away. As she moved the sights toward him he got down on the ground, and she knew he was about to lie flat and take careful aim and shoot at all of them sheltering under the cars, something she felt sure he would do with no remorse.
She had only a second or two to do something about it. Without thought she got the man’s face in the sights of the pistol, looking through the notch of the rear sight and getting the white dot of the forward sight between his eyes. Some distant corner of her mind marveled at how calm she was. The barrel of her pistol followed the slow downward movement of the man’s head as he settled to the ground, moving quickly but not hastily, knowing as she did that anything but a quietly calm shot was likely to miss. Finally he steadied himself and gripped his rifle and brought up the barrel, and then Tamara squeezed the trigger of her Glock.
The gun kicked up, as it always did. Calmly she brought the muzzle down and resighted on the head. She saw that there was no need for a second shot—the man’s head was shattered—but she squeezed the trigger anyway, and her round smashed into a motionless body.
She heard Susan say: “Good shooting!”
Tamara thought: Was that me? Did I just kill a man?
The other jihadi appeared farther along the riverbank, running away with his rifle in his hand.
Tamara shifted her position so that she could see the high bridge, but there was no way to tell whether the shooters were still there. She could hear the sounds of trucks and cars continuing to pass. She noticed the throaty roar of a high-powered motorcycle: if there were only two shooters they might have fled on that.
Susan was thinking along the same lines. She spoke into her radio. “Before you deploy to the pedestrian bridge, check the road bridge in case any of the shooters are still there.”
Then she spoke to the soldiers under the green car. “Stay where you are while we find out whether they’ve all gone.”
Most of the commuters had now exited the pedestrian bridge on the far side. Tamara could see some of them clustered around a scatter of buildings and trees, peeping around corners, waiting to see what would happen next. The two border guards in their bright shirts appeared at that end of the bridge but hesitated to cross back.
Tamara began to think it might be over, but she was willing to lie here all day until she felt sure it was safe to move.
A US Army ambulance came racing along the dirt road and pulled up behind the green car.
Susan shouted: “All guns take aim at the high bridge parapet, now!”
The three soldiers who were still unhurt rolled from under their car and took cover behind other vehicles, aiming their rifles at the high bridge.
Two paramedics jumped out of the ambulance. “Under the green car!” Susan yelled. “One man with gunshot wounds.”
No shots were fired.
The paramedics brought a stretcher.
Tamara stayed where she was. She watched the remaining jihadi running along the riverbank. He was almost out of sight and she guessed he was not coming back. The two border guards began cautiously to walk back across the bridge. They had their pistols out, too late. Tamara muttered: “Thanks for your help, guys.”
Susan’s radio squawked and Tamara heard a distorted voice say: “All clear on the road bridge, Colonel.”
Tamara hesitated. Was she willing to bet her life on a fuzzy radio message?
Of course I am, she said to herself. I’m a professional.
She rolled out from under the car and got to her feet. She felt weak and would have liked to sit down but did not want to look like a wimp in front of the soldiers. She leaned on the fender of the Peugeot for a moment, staring at the bullet holes. She knew that some rifle ammunition could smash all the way through a car. She had been lucky.
She remembered that she was an intelligence agent and she needed to glean any available information from this incident. She said to Susan: “Ask if there are any bodies on the high bridge.”
Susan put her radio to her mouth and asked the question.
“No bodies, but some bloodstains.”
One or more wounded men had been driven away, Tamara concluded.
That left the one she had killed.
Determinedly, she stepped toward the pedestrian bridge. Her legs felt stronger. She walked up to the body. There was no doubt that the jihadi was dead: his head was a mess. She took his gun from his unresisting hands. It was short and surprisingly light, a bullpup rifle with a banana-clip magazine. There was a serial number on the left side of the barrel near the join with the frame. Tamara recognized the gun as having been made by Norinco, the China North Industries Group Corporation, a defense manufacturer owned by the Chinese government.
She pointed the gun at the ground, pulled the magazine release rearward, and disengaged the banana clip, then opened the bolt and took out the chambered round. She put the banana clip and the single round into the pockets of her trucker jacket, then she carried the unloaded rifle back to her ruined car.
Susan saw her and said: “You carry that like it’s a dead dog.”
“I just pulled out its teeth,” said Tamara.
The paramedics were loading the stretcher into the ambulance. Tamara realized she had not even spoken to Pete. She hurried over.
Pete looked ominously still. She stopped and said: “Oh, Christ.”
Pete’s face was pale and his eyes stared upward.
A paramedic said: “Sorry, miss.”
“He asked me for a date once,” Tamara said. She began to cry. “I told him he was too young.” She wiped her face with her sleeve but the tears kept coming. “Oh, Pete,” she said to his lifeless face. “I’m sorry.”
* * *
A switchboard operator said: “I have Corporal Ackerman’s father on the line, Madam President. Mr. Philip Ackerman.” Pauline hated this. Every time she had to speak to a parent whose child had died in the armed services, it wrenched at her heart. She was forced to think about how she would feel if Pippa died. It was the worst part of her job.
“Thank you,” she said to the operator. “Put him on.”
A deep male voice said: “This is Phil Ackerman.”
“Mr. Ackerman, this is President Green.”
“Yes, Madam President.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“Pete gave his life, and you gave your son, and I want you to know that your country is profoundly grateful to you for your sacrifice.”
“Thank you.”
“I believe you’re a firefighter, sir.”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
“Then you know about risking your life for a good reason.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t ease your pain, but I can tell you that Pete’s life was given for the defense of our country and our values of freedom and justice.”
“I believe that.” There was a catch in the man’s voice.
Pauline judged it was time to move on. She said: “May I speak to Pete’s mom?”
There was a hesitation. “She’s very upset.”
“It’s up to her.”
“She’s nodding at me.”
“Okay.”
A woman’s voice said: “Hello?”
“Mrs. Ackerman, this is the president. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
She heard the sound of sobbing, and it brought tears to her own eyes.
In the background the husband said: “You want to give me the phone back, honey?”
Pauline said: “Mrs. Ackerman, your son died in a tremendously important cause.”
Mrs. Ackerman said: “He died in Africa.”
“Yes. Our military there—”
“Africa! Why did you send him to Africa to die?”
“In this small world—”
“He died for Africa. Who cares about Africa?”
“I understand your emotion, Mrs. Ackerman. I’m a mother—”
“I can’t believe you threw his life away!”
Pauline wanted to say I can’t believe it, either, Mrs. Ackerman, and it breaks my heart. But she remained silent.
After a pause Phil Ackerman came back on the line. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize, sir. Your wife is suffering terrible grief. She has my deep sympathy.”
“Thank you.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Ackerman.”
“Good-bye, Madam President.”
* * *
The debrief took the rest of the day.
The army suggested the whole thing had been a trap: false information lured them to the bridge, where an ambush had been laid. Susan Marcus was sure of it.
The CIA disagreed with that interpretation, which reflected badly on Dexter. The implication was that he had trusted an informant who had deceived him. On the contrary, Dexter argued, it had been a genuine tip-off and the jihadis on the pedestrian bridge had panicked when the army arrived in force and had called in reinforcements.
By six o’clock in the afternoon Tamara no longer cared which explanation was accepted. She felt mentally bruised. Back in her apartment she considered falling into bed, but she knew she would not sleep. She kept seeing Pete’s lifeless body and the destroyed head of the gaunt-faced man she had killed.
She did not want to be alone. She remembered that she had a date with Tab. She felt instinctively that he would know what to do. She showered and put on fresh clothes, jeans and a T-shirt with a cotton shawl for decorum. Then she called for a car.
Tab lived in an apartment building near the French embassy. It was not very swanky, and she guessed he could have afforded better, but he would have been obliged to use diplomatic premises that could be vetted and monitored.
He opened the door and said: “You look dead beat. Come in and sit down.”
“I was in a kind of shootout,” she said.
“At the N’Gueli Bridge? We heard about that. You were there?”
“Yes. And Pete Ackerman died.”
He took her arm and led her to the couch. “Poor Pete. And poor you.”
“I killed a man.”
“My God.”
“He was a jihadi, and he was about to shoot me. I’m not sorry.” She realized she could say things to Tab that she had not been able to say in the debrief. “But he was a human being, and one second he was alive, and moving, and thinking, and then I squeezed the trigger and he was dead, gone, a corpse, and I can’t get him out of my head.”
There was an open bottle of white wine in an ice bucket on the coffee table. He poured half a glass and gave it to her. She took a sip and put the glass down. She said: “Do you mind if we don’t go out to dinner?”
“Of course not. I’ll cancel.”
“Thank you.”
He took out his phone. While he was making the call she looked around. The apartment was modest but the furnishings were expensive, with deep soft armchairs and thick rugs. He had a large TV screen and some kind of fancy hi-fi setup with large floor-standing speakers. Her wineglass was crystal.
She was interested in two silver-framed photographs on a side table. One showed a dark-skinned man in a business suit with a chic middle-aged blond woman, undoubtedly Tab’s parents. The other was of a fierce-looking little Arab woman standing proudly outside a shop front: that would be his grandmother in Clichy-sous-Bois.
When he got off the phone she said: “Talk about something else. What were you like as a boy?”
He smiled. “I went to a bilingual school called Ermitage International. I was a good student but I got into trouble sometimes.”
“How? What did you do?”
“Oh, the usual stuff. One day I smoked a joint just before math. The teacher couldn’t understand why I’d suddenly become completely stupid. He thought I was doing it to make the others laugh, a kind of stunt.”
“What else?”
“I joined a rock band. Of course we had an American name: the Boogie Kings.”
“Were you any good?”
“No. I was fired right after our first performance. My drumming was like my dancing.”
She giggled, for the first time since the shootout.
He said: “After I left the band got better.”
“Did you have girlfriends?”
“It was a mixed school, so yes.”
She saw a faraway look in his eyes. “Who are you remembering?”
He looked embarrassed. “Oh . . .”
“You don’t have to say. I don’t want to pry.”
“I don’t mind, but if I tell you it might sound like boasting.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“It was the English teacher.”
Tamara giggled—second time. She was starting to feel more normal. “What was she like?”
“About twenty-five. Pretty, blond. We used to kiss in the stationery store.”
“Just kissing?”
“No, not just kissing.”
“You bad boy.”
“I was crazy about her. I wanted to run away from school and fly to Las Vegas and get married.”
“How did it end?”
“She got a job in another school and disappeared from my life. I was heartbroken. But heartbreak doesn’t last long when you’re seventeen.”
“A lucky escape?”
“Oh, yes. She was great, but look, you have to fall in and out of love a few times before you begin to understand what you’re really looking for.”
She nodded. He was quite wise, she thought. “I know what you mean.”
“Do you?”
She blurted out: “I’ve been married twice.”
“I wasn’t expecting that!” He smiled, taking the edge off his expression of shock. “Tell me more—if you feel like it.”
She did. She was glad to be reminded that there were important things in life other than guns and killing. “Stephen was just an adolescent mistake,” she said. “We married in my first year at college and separated before the summer vacation. I haven’t spoken to him for years and I no longer know where he lives.”
“So much for Stephen,” said Tab. “If it’s any consolation, I feel the same way about a girl called Anne-Marie. I didn’t marry her, though. Tell me about number two.”
“Jonathan was serious. We were together for four years. We loved each other, and in a way we still do.” She paused, thinking.
Tab waited patiently for a few moments, then prompted her gently. “What went wrong?”
“Jonathan is gay.”
“Oh. That’s awkward.”
“I didn’t know it at first, obviously, and I guess he didn’t either, although at the end he admitted that he’d always been uncertain.”
“But you parted friends.”
“We haven’t really parted. We’re still close, or as close as you can be to someone who lives thousands of miles away.”
“But you are divorced?” he said emphatically.
That seemed important to him for some reason. “Yes, we’re divorced,” she said firmly. “He’s married to a man now.” She wanted to know more about him. “Have you ever been married? You must be, what, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-four, and no, I’ve never been married.”
“But you must have had at least one serious love affair, after the English teacher.”
“True.”
“Why didn’t you marry?”
“Um, I think my experience has been like yours except that I never actually tied the knot. I’ve had one-night stands and disastrous affairs and a couple of really great women with whom I had relationships that lasted a long time . . . but not forever.”
Tamara took another sip of wine. It was delicious, she noticed.
