Smoked (The Invincibles 5)

Casper pulled three files out of her bag. “Three CIA-related cold cases. Make yourself look useful.” She looked over her shoulder when the bartender came back in. “Au revoir, Monsieur Torcher.”

After Casper left, I went up to my room, opened the first envelope, and reviewed the documents. The case, now ten years old, was known as the La Chapelle-Saint-Maurice killings, named for the town in which the murders occurred. It involved the deaths of three members of a French family, one Brit, and one American citizen. There were two survivors.

While the local French authorities weren’t made aware of it, of the five people killed, the Brit was actually an IMI agent, and two others were CIA operatives—the American and one member of the French family, Pierre Martin. Martin’s wife and son were also killed in the attack. His two daughters, then aged eight and six, survived with minor injuries.

After five years of investigation, French police said they had “no working theory” to explain the murders and no suspects. Given there was no known link between the three operatives killed, the CIA had no working theory either.

The other two cases Casper gave to me also related to murders of CIA agents that had taken place in France. The first was of a Russian-American double-agent; the second case involved an undercover agent on a mission for South Korea.

There were countless other cases of murdered CIA agents that had gone unsolved, but each of these three could ultimately lead to a connection with Byrne, Kim, and/or Antonov—the very men Cope believed the former director had been working either with or for.

22

Siren

After more than a feckin’ week, I still hadn’t tracked down James Mallory. I began to think the gobshite was hiding from me.

I’d spent the last several days learning all I could about my dearly departed mother. She was a right saint from the way people talked about her. I began having my own memories of her after the family who lived in the house I grew up in got wind that I was in town and invited me to pop over for a visit.

As I walked through the front gate and up to the door, it was as though I’d traveled back in time. I suddenly felt like a young lass coming home from school.

As I sat in their kitchen, I could see myself having breakfast as my mother fussed about, getting both of us ready for our day. And then doing my homework at the same table while I waited for her to get home from work.

I didn’t remember my mother being particularly angelic or mean-spirited. My ma was just my ma.

It was when the woman invited me to look around upstairs that my memories hit the hardest. As I rounded the corner into the room where I somehow knew my mother slept, even without closing my eyes, I could see her lying in the bed where she’d breathed her last breath.

“I’m so sorry,” said the woman. “I know your ma was sick for a long time.”

“Cancer,” I murmured, walking farther down the hallway to the room that had been mine. “Do you have a daughter?” I asked, after opening the door and seeing the same pink-flowered wallpaper that had always been there.

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; “We did have,” the woman said, wiping away her own tears.

“Oh,” I said, startled. “My apologies.”

“Cancer like your ma. Her name was Siobhan too.”

I was overcome by discomfort and wanted to race back down the stairs and out of the house, but the woman had been so kind, I stopped myself.

“Thank you for allowing me a look about.”

“You’re welcome to come back around anytime.”

I nodded, making a beeline for the front door. “Thank you, and goodbye.” I was about to close the door when she hollered for me to wait.

“I have something that belongs to you.” She came to where I stood in the doorway, carrying a small metal box.

“What’s in it?” I asked.

“I’ve no idea.” She pointed to the padlock on the latch. “I couldn’t find a key.”

“Um, I’ve walked here from my hotel. Would it be all right if I swung by and picked it up later?”

“Of course. It’s been here as long as we’ve lived here; another few hours won’t matter.”

I went straight from there back to the cemetery where my mother, along with her parents, whom I’d never met, were buried. I sat down in front of her tombstone, pulled my legs up tight to my body, and wrapped my arms around them.