Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (best english novels for beginners txt) 📗

is going to open toward her, so after ringing the bell, she descends one step to ensure that she is safely out of range. It seems Allard has knocked enough visitors flat on their asses to know to greet them with caution, since the door opens guardedly. Once he is confident that contact is not imminent, the gesture is completed with gusto.

“Good morning, Ms. Yi,” he says, squinting against the outside light. He does not offer his hand, nor does Henrietta offer hers. Even though nobody has so much as whispered the word “bioterrorism,” at times like these, certain protocols are instinctively observed.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Allard,” Henrietta replies. “Merci de me voir.”

“Of course. Please. Come in.”

As Henrietta follows Allard into the gloom of the trailer, she realizes that they have gotten into the common multicultural pattern of each speaking the other’s language. One might think such things happen out of a profusion of mutual respect, but it’s usually more complicated than that. Americans like to try to impress with a few well-rehearsed phrases, while their multilingual counterparts try to spare their conversational partners from inevitable humiliation. The question becomes: which one will eventually succumb?

“Your accent is very good,” Allard says. In his wake, Henrietta can smell sweet, aromatic tobacco—the kind you imagine being hand-rolled in walnut-brown paper, zipped across the tip of a tongue, and sparked up by an artist or a poet. “I assume it is from your time in Geneva, when you led backlog research at the LHC.”

(English it is; the winner is typically he who lands an inquiry early enough to make responding in the opposite language feel sufficiently awkward.)

Henrietta is learning that intelligence-community posturing dictates that you not-so-subtly insinuate knowing everything of interest about your interagency counterparts.

“That’s right,” Henrietta says. “All the Americans wanted to practice their French, and all the French researchers wanted to practice their English.”

“No, they didn’t,” Allard counters. “They just wanted to stop you from speaking French.”

He turns in order to show Henrietta that he is joking—not by smiling, exactly, but by arching an eyebrow such that it seems to tug ever so slightly at the corner of his mouth. There is something about the subtlety of the expression that reminds her of her father, and Henrietta cannot help but smile.

In times of heightened alert, most of the world’s intelligence agencies revert to paper-based sharing to reduce the risk of leaks, so every horizontal surface in the trailer is buried beneath precarious stacks of spiral-bound dispatches. The only exception is a long twill couch that—given the tasseled throw and shape and position of the pillow—Henrietta can tell has been adapted for napping. From a chair on the guest side of his desk, Allard lifts a stack of booklets stamped “TRÈS SECRET” in a bold red font, then transfers them to the couch, where they promptly tip and sprawl themselves out across the cushions like a blackjack dealer’s flourish.

“I apologize for the mess,” Allard says. “It is the maid’s day off.”

“I understand,” Henrietta reassures him.

She smooths her dress as she sits, then finds herself looking up at Allard when he does not join her. Instead, he turns, squats, and pulls open a deep metal filing drawer that has been repurposed as a diverse and tightly packed minibar.

“Drink?” he suggests.

Henrietta suspects he is not offering her a cold can of La Croix or a dainty bottle of Orangina.

“No, thank you.”

One tumbler it is. And a bulbous bottle of brandy. Henrietta is no expert on mid-morning drinking, but the pour that follows the squeak and pop of the top sounds desperately generous.

“So, you work under Alessandro Moretti,” Allard says. The bottle is recorked with a bump from his palm and slotted back into place. Allard slides the drawer noisily home with the toe of a woven-leather loafer.

“I do,” Henrietta confirms.

“Do you know a man named Simon Baptiste?”

Allard has still not turned around. His head is down, and his fingertips are tented against the tops of stacks of classified dispatches.

Henrietta was not expecting to be the one answering questions. And she is not entirely certain what she is at liberty to reveal. There is obviously an established connection between Moretti and Allard, but how much information is allowed to flow over that line, she does not know.

So she decides to play it safe.

“I believe I’ve heard the name.”

“What can you tell me about him?” Allard asks without hesitation.

“Excuse me?”

“What can you tell me about Simon Baptiste? What does he work on? Where does he live? Does he have a family?”

In some ways, Henrietta is relieved by Allard’s audacity. There is now no question whatsoever that they have ventured into highly confidential territory.

“I’m sorry,” Henrietta says. “I don’t understand. Do you know Simon?”

Henrietta can hear Allard breathe deeply into his glass as he tips it back and swallows. He waits for the cognac to settle, then turns and steps back behind his desk. After planting the tumbler on an amber-ringed dispatch, he drops himself into his padded leather chair with a somber and tired sigh.

“Simon Baptiste,” Allard says, “is my son.”

Henrietta uses the ensuing silence to try to see it. Allard is indeed tall and lean, but his misty eyes are much brighter than Simon’s. His thick, product-tamed hair is mostly silver, so no match there, but the shape of the face is nearly the same. Allard’s copper and white beard, full as it is, does not entirely conceal the slant of his jaw nor the hollow of his cheeks.

But Henrietta is not yet ready to concede.

“I think we might be thinking of different people,” she says.

“Why?” Allard asks. “Because Simon is dark-skinned? His mother is Sudanese. Stunning woman. As brilliant as she is beautiful. She was a model when I met her. Runs her own agency now.”

“No, not because he’s dark-skinned,” Henrietta says hesitantly.

“Then why?”

“Because Simon’s parents are dead.”

She does not say it with indignation or suspicion, but genuine consternation.

“Or so you’ve been told.”

Henrietta smiles uneasily. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means,” Allard says, “the CIA