in the dark behind the driver’s seat until he felt the metal box containing the emergency kit. Flashlight, flares, some first aid supplies, but Portier didn’t know if any of it was any good. It had been a long time since he had inspected it.
The flashlight still worked, more or less. The batteries were old, but the light was bright enough to let him inspect his battered van. Mercifully, the gasoline smell was coming from a small amount that had leaked around the cap to the tank. There was no immediate danger of fire. The van was scraped and dented but probably repairable. The bonus for early delivery of the furniture was dead and gone. Even his usual fee was in question.
The double blow to his finances had further exacerbated his already poisonous mood. Rather than just wait for another car to come along and send for help, Portier decided to walk to the farm house he had seen about a mile back. Right now, he didn’t want to look at this disaster any longer. “Mustafa get off your ass and set out some flares while I go for help. I don’t want some idiot crashing into it.”
As Portier stomped away back down the road slowly vanishing into the dark, his helper grinned widely. He accepted the possibility that any compensation for today’s work was unlikely with a certain fatalistic good nature. He quietly addressed the darkness. “My name is Karim al-Filistini . . . Asshole.”
Stumbling along on the lonely empty road, Portier regretted leaving the flashlight back at the truck. He regretted it more when his bladder began to protest. Trying to step off the pavement to relieve himself, he tripped and fell over a large unseen rock. Perfect, he thought, just one more shinny ribbon on this fucked up night. Still cursing fate and fumbling with his trousers, Portier didn’t see the Mercedes come racing by until it was too late. The car’s taillights were already gleaming in the darkness before he could even raise his head and try to signal for help.
“Go on you bastard” Portier shouted. “Drive as fast as you want. You aren’t going to get much further on this road.”
The thought that someone else was about to encounter frustration similar to his own raised Portier’s spirits. He grinned and whistled as he continued his trek in search of a telephone.
CHAPTER 11
Mckenzie saw the warning flares and the huge wrecked vehicle at almost the same instant. Slamming his foot down on the brake pedal, he skidded to a stop a few short feet away from the crippled moving van. In his headlights he could see the portrait of a dying dream. Every decision he had made tonight, every effort, every exertion, every unspoken prayer had brought him here. This had to be God’s ultimate jest. Throw his consciousness back into time, offer him a hope so precious that he could taste it, and then jerk it all away just as he reached out to grasp it. He fought a bitter desire to laugh hysterically and curse at the same time.
Karim was sitting comfortably in the grass a few yards north of the overturned truck. Placing the last safety flare on this portion of the road exhausted his ability to accomplish anything useful. A patient wait was now the only course open to him. Wait until Portier had summoned whatever assistance might be available. If Allah was truly just, then the Gendarmerie Nationale would show up and charge Portier with negligent operation of his vehicle. Of course, he assumed that those same gendarmerie would have no interest in the immigration status of the completely innocent worker standing discretely to the side.
In the midst of his contemplation, Karim heard the screech of tires on the pavement and looked up to see the headlights of the Mercedes piercing the darkness. He was about to rise and greet the new arrival when a disturbing premonition stopped him, locked him into place. From the angled position where he sat, he could see the dome light of the Mercedes come on as the driver opened the door. The man who emerged from the car looked well dressed and, from his graceful and fluid motion, probably young. In the interplay of glaring light and night shadows, Karim could not make out the man’s face, but he could plainly see this new figure walk to the front of the wrecked van. The man stood , frozen, immobile, staring at the unyielding obstacle lying astride his path. Then as Karim watched with a gnawing sense of alarm, the man raised clenched fists over his head and slammed them down on the van’s cold hood. - one, twice. The cry that tore through the darkness blended pain and fury with a heart rending despair.
“No!, No!, No!!!”
Mckenzie could tell immediately that there was no hope. Even before he approached the wreck, he could see that all passage along this road was blocked, sealed off as throughly as if that had been the intended result. On the left the roadway fell off into a deep depression; while on the right a drainage ditch and a heavy wooden fence bordered the pavement. Between these two impassible obstacles, the overturned furniture van rose from the pavement like the walls of an ancient fortress. There was no way forward. There was no way to reach her.
His hands would bruise and ache from the impact of his blows on the unfeeling metal, but Mckenzie was beyond caring. To come this far, to be so close and still to fail. It would have been far better if the bullets that struck him in that other place, that other time, had killed him. To confront this new agony was more than he could endure. He closed his eyes and leaned forward against the wreck. The natural darkness of the French countryside gradually deepened into an absolute blackness.
Then, just as before, the soft glow of warm blue eyes chased the darkness away. The pale white skin, the delicate features and dark auburn hair all swirled into place. In the perfect clarity of his imagination, Mireille gazed at him. She smiled - a gentle expression of encouragement but there was also a pleading entreaty shining in her eyes. “You must not give up Alexander. I need you. Come for me. Please come for me.”
Mckenzie jerked himself upright and opened his eyes. She had disappeared but her words still echoed back and forth again and again through his consciousness. “Come for me, please come for me.”
Mckenzie spun around wildly, frantically searching for some overlooked alternative. Oblivious to the unseen presence of Karim sitting transfixed in the dark a few yards away, he cried out, begging the night for an answer. “How Mireille? How can I get to you. Tell me!”
The response came from the heavens. The mid-October moon was barely past full stage, the sharp lunar edges were just beginning to fade. For most of the night, the thick passing clouds had absorbed the light from the moon and its attending stars. Now, the clouds abruptly broke apart and released a new illumination. A silvery glow spread across the countryside giving form to what moments before had been invisible. In that soft moonlight, Mckenzie looked toward the north, and in the distance, he saw the reflection of light on the pavement. Understanding struck with a near physical impact. He knew where he was. More importantly, he knew where he had to go.
The road from St Aubert down to Avignon ran north to south. That long straight stretch where her car had left . . . was to leave . . . the road extended west to east. It turned to avoid the rough undeveloped terrain in that long desolate gully. Years ago a primitive trail had traversed the same terrain and taken the avenue of least resistance around the natural obstacle. The paved highways of the modern era had simply followed the old existing path. The roadway hugged the rim of the gully in a straight line to the east before resuming the passage south, but only after a long sweeping switch-back turn. The asphalt reflecting the beams of moonlight in the distance was part of that extended straight segment. He was looking over the gully toward the scene of her accident. He was standing on the opposite side of the ravine directly across from the place he had stopped in his car in 1982.
Mckenzie instantly realized that he had been given one last chance. If he could cross the gully, climb the steep slope on the other side, he could flag down her car. He could still prevent the accident. It would not be easy but nothing tonight had been easy. Glancing at the glowing dial of his wrist watch, he saw the time slipping away. It was almost Three Twenty a.m. The margin for error was closing . . . fast.
He took a quick step toward the edge of the pavement and his foot struck something metallic lying on the ground. Looking down he found that a capricious fate, after tormenting him for hours, had elected to present him with one small favor. The flashlight Marcel Portier used in his ill-tempered inspection of his van had been left heedlessly on the road. Picking it up, Mckenzie determined that, while the batteries were