Not Exactly Innocent

CHAPTER 1 – PRELUDE

In Moscow, certain Communist and military leaders were figuratively tearing out their collective hair. It was bad enough that the man code-named Goddard should have decided to defect. What was worse was that Vadim Koriokin didn't seem to have any preference for where he went. He was just going, quite probably to the highest bidder.

Or, more to the point, he had gone. No one knew where. If push came to shove, the usual suspects could be denounced, but that would not of course find the man. It might make some people feel better, it might make some people look better, it might even clear up certain other annoyances by getting un-cooperatives off the streets, but it would not of course find the man.

He'd destroyed files before he left. Several months' worth of work was gone. Even more horrifying, some of the remaining computer files and programs didn't smell quite right, as if someone had altered them slightly. Indeed, when checks were made, minor (or at least easily overlooked) errors were found. Missiles supposedly aimed at India would have landed in Pakistan, for instance. For a weighty, bloated bureaucracy like the Russian military establishment, the cross-checking of every bit of data pertaining to the country's missile system had been moving surprisingly quickly and in an organized way. Still, it was a huge undertaking and would take months, even if everything went well (which it never did). If anyone attacked the Motherland in the meantime, who knew what little crucial bit of sabotage might still be undetected? Who knew what would happen? Or not happen?

Behind the scenes, shadowy men privy to the details of the disaster made bad jokes about their 'favorites' among the mistaken coordinates.

Here's one for you, A– said to B–. Instead of Paris, we would have hit a tiny town in northern France. Not a great strategy, perhaps.

Where exactly? B– asked.

Does it matter?

I'm beginning to have a theory. That's all.

Just a small town, near the Eurotunnel, but not necessary to it. Totally worthless place, as far as we can see.

B– tossed out the name of a small town.

A– was impressed. You're right. But how did you guess?

Have you heard of a French covert agent by the name of Leandre Durand?

Vaguely.

Of course, vaguely. He's been unobtrusive in his own over-dignified, fussy, humorous way.

So?

So, he's one of the few men to have ever caused our Goddard true misery, and he hides his family there. Or he used to. B– said. He chuckled maliciously. The French, of course, think no one knows that. Like we are not well connected in France, eh?

Where is he now? This Durand?

The last I heard of him, he was temporarily assigned to the French embassy in Australia, and may have to be retired for health reasons.

A convenient catch-all, health reasons. I think I'll ask someone to check.

If you don't find out anything, I'll have you reassigned to submarine duty, I think.

I don't find that comment amusing.

I didn't mean for it to be. If Goddard is after Durand, our unlucky Frenchman may prove very good bait. But only if we find him first, of course.

CHAPTER 2 – THE HUSBAND GETS SENT TO RUSSIA

Henry Rochester tried to get his affairs in order, but found he'd been in British intelligence so long, and had undergone so many identity changes, that his assets had accidentally, but effectively, splintered.

Five specialists and three weeks later, he'd resurrected savings that had been deposited for him under two defunct aliases and his original name (Richard Hugh). He'd also managed to get the persons in charge to admit that he was 48.46 years old, rather than 45.13 and – with much effort – had kept them from 'correcting' his length-of-service record in the wrong direction. But the mess was nearly as big as ever, if you got right down to it.

You should have come to us earlier, the head of pensions told him.

I assumed, Henry said, that the code name would keep things straight. That hasn't changed since I joined this particular branch of the service.

It never pays to assume, Triple-O Five, the accountant said.

Henry semi-politely excused himself and left the premises before he gave in to an undignified urge to slug somebody.

Shortly thereafter, noticing that Triple-O Five and his wife were now listed as having the same birthday, the bureaucrats applied bureaucratic logic, dug through their old files, found the since-corrected mistake, and uncorrected it, officially making him 45 years old again. Older files, after all, have precedence.

Henry was duly and officially notified in writing that his file was now cleaned up. Being suspicious by nature, he read the attachments instead of taking their word for it. He noticed that he was erroneously younger again. He went back and, with admirable calm, tried to explain that he and his wife did have the same birthday, same year and everything, and that they were both 48 years old and counting – but the accountants clearly thought he had slipped into perpetual crankhood, and smiled icily at him whilst offering no cooperation whatsoever.

After considering more physical options, as a next step Henry got an appointment with his chief. The chief called what amounted to the payroll and accounting department. (It kept changing its name, to keep up with trends. But it amounted to the payroll and accounting department, so that's how the chief filed it in his mind.)

Payroll and accounting blamed the problem on the fact that hardly any field agents at Henry's particular small, odd branch of British intelligence (unofficially, but widely, dubbed MI5 1/2) had lived long enough to worry about pensions before. Furthermore, it was considered bad form for field agents in that branch to acquire dependents. It simply wasn't done. Surely no one expected them to cater to people who did things that 'weren't done'?

The chief wisely decided not to impart these 'facts' to the agent sitting quietly in his office, drinking coffee. His body appeared relaxed, but his eyes were nearly homicidal. Of course they were. The man had finally dared to take a wife, and now he was finding she'd be stranded financially, at least from his end, if he were to turn up dead or go missing. Worse yet, this agent was specially trained in finance, and therefore couldn't be bluffed into believing that everything was all right, while the chief found the time to make it right.

Chief Stolemaker was genuinely upset. Triple-O Five was one of his better agents, plus he'd given most of his life in service to crown and country. It wasn't right he was coming up short in the compensation department. Of course, the man hadn't done what he'd done for money. There weren't the slightest hints of mercenary tendencies at all, as far as could be determined. But the money had been promised, plus the fellow had a reason to care that it was there, now that he had a dependent for the first time in his life.

Stolemaker's computer flashed code at him. He excused himself to read an urgent update.

I think I see where some of the problems are, Henry said, once his superior turned his attention back to him. In the way agent-related accounts are tracked, I mean.

And I'd love to turn you loose on them, believe me, Stolemaker replied. But I need you back out in the field. I'll do what I can. In fact, I give you my word of honor that if anything should happen to you, your wife will be properly taken care of, if it has to come out of my own pocket in the short term.

Now you're almost scaring me, Henry said, pleasantly. He smiled as he settled into his chair to hear more. A relative-newlywed could go nuts when his wife went out of town on business, he'd found. It made a man feel like he was all at loose ends. It didn't help that he hadn't the least idea where Deborah was or what she was doing.

Stolemaker hid a smile. Hints of danger always worked well with certain agents. He was pleased to see that Triple-O Five hadn't lost his edge since getting married. What do you know about an American who used to call himself The Northern Nightlight? he asked.

Eric Olson? I thought he'd rather fizzed out. Went into crystals and reincarnation, and got happy staring at his own navel.

Unfortunately as far as our business goes, it didn't last. The man discovered real estate, has a knack for it, is a bloody multi-millionaire, and is trying to buy up unscrupulous scientists who specialize in germ warfare and/or nasty chemicals.

You want me to find him?

We have another agent on that, Stolemaker said, with a twinge of something approaching guilt, tinged with confusion. He got professionally brisk. At any rate, we need you to help pin down who Olson may have on his payroll. Can you leave for Moscow in, say, an hour?

Henry liked the sound of things. American cases with Russian twists generally got very interesting. Leave it to me, sir, he said.

As soon as Henry was on his way (i.e., safely out of earshot), the chief called accounting again and explained what he expected of them within the next 24 to 48 hours, under pain of penalties they wouldn't want to contemplate.

It was just as well, he thought, that he'd had no idea how much time in this post had to be spent fighting different offices in the same government. He wasn't sure he'd have accepted the position if he'd known how hard it was to arrange it so that good people were actually fighting enemies instead of each other.

That part of the job done, Stolemaker wondered what he should have said when Triple-O Five blindsided him by not knowing about the agent he'd sent after Olson. Good grief, when he'd told Mrs. Rochester not to tell anyone what she was on, he hadn't thought that she'd not tell her husband. He should have known better. The woman was famously dutiful.

CHAPTER 3 – THE WIFE IS IN THE MIDWEST

Deborah Rochester sat in an Association of Actual and Honorary Cousins of Vinland Hall in the upper American Midwest and tried not to be too concerned about the food being put in front of her. Treating fish with lye might have made sense in the old days, when there were no other viable options for keeping food usable over long periods. She wasn't sure, though. On the upside, at least lutefisk didn't have eyes on it. An undercover assignment or two in Japan had been put in jeopardy by the distraction of food that had looked back at her. Despite a greater than normal courageousness overall, she did have a weak link when it came to some sorts of food: brains, tongues, hooves, haggis, eyes, that sort of thing. But especially dead eyes.

The lutefisk looked unappetizing, but she dutifully gave it a go. Not as bad as I thought it would be, she said, after a couple of bites.

It turned out to be the right thing to say for this group.

You don't have to eat any more, really, the man to her right said. We understand it's an acquired taste.

Deborah chuckled. Translate that for me, Mr. Stennett. I don't speak Norwegian-American. Does that mean you'd rather I stopped with what I've eaten, so you can sit around and feel superior to me?

Try the lefse. I'm sure you'll like that. My wife made it, Stennett said, nodding at thin potato pancakes. His eyes beamed with approval. He liked women with spunk, as long as it was friendly and properly self-depreciatory spunk. This woman, whom he was shepherding around at the request of the Chamber of Commerce, had been winning points with her manners ever since they'd walked in.

He'd been surprised to find that a London firm's representative was an American woman – a rather short, average-looking, middle-aged American woman. At least she was a natural blonde, crowned with sort of a honey color, instead of some over-processed female with odd streaks in her hair. (Due to unrelated matters, Stennett was reaching his breaking point with over-processed females.) This visitor's clothes were normal, too: nice and professional, without being aggressively professional. He'd been afraid he'd wind up trying to look at ease while sitting next to someone wearing a pseudo-masculine power suit at an event that was to include a couple of polkas for old time's sake and then some country line dancing. (A great invention, country line dancing. Kept the kids interested, and hopping, but more or less under control.) No, this woman seemed to have some sense, thank goodness. And a sense of humor.

Also, she didn't seem hung up on stereotypes. He'd been afraid he'd be expected to explain and defend his friends and neighbors. It wouldn't have been the first time. Some folks tended to get nervy when people couldn't easily be divvied up into their idea of ethnic groups.

It annoyed him that in this day and age some people still wanted Norwegians, or for that matter Americans, to fit into pigeonholes, especially ones based on skin color. It was just all so… so… well, it was ridiculous. Norwegians were cosmopolitan people who'd made themselves at home all around the world for hundreds of years, mingling blood as well as language and culture. On top of that, the local Lutheran church had pushed, several years back, for adopting children out of India and China. That crop of youngsters was hitting adolescence with a vengeance (pop culture had much to answer for), and was making itself conspicuous tonight. The visitor hadn't blinked an eye. In fact, she was getting along with them famously.

Stennett stood at the ready to shoo off teenagers if Mrs. Rochester showed signs of getting tired of being treated as an honorary member of their clique, but so far she'd seemed to enjoy their company. She'd even gone so far as to correct their manners a time or two, and seemed to have gotten away with it. His own son had flung out a cuss word in her presence, and wound up apologizing for it as soon as the woman had caught his eye. All she'd done, as far as Stennett could see, was look disappointed in the young man, and he'd crumpled with remorse. For a wonder, the boy's mouth had been clean since.

Stennett's chest swelled, but he tried not to show it. It was nice, being in charge of an important visitor. That his son was behaving like a gentleman was icing on the cake and almost too wonderful to bear with any degree of stoicism. But, of course, it would never do to walk around looking proud. God had ways of fixing that. So, for that matter, did his buddies in the Cousins of Vinland.

-

Even with the warnings she'd had in her British intelligence briefings, Deborah wasn't quite prepared for Eric Olson when he walked in. He was an imposing man, but in an unpleasant way – sort of anti-charismatic, she thought. Everyone noticed him. People edged back instinctively. Thank goodness for small favors, she thought. Big-time crooks who made people uneasy were a bit hard to come by. The trend, unfortunately, was for charmers, the sort that made a well-read person think of the monster Fraud in Dante's Inferno: His face the semblance of a just man's wore, So kind and gracious was its outward cheer; The rest was serpent all. But this guy? If she proclaimed that Olson was evil, most people would believe it – none of this 'he always seemed such a nice boy' routine that neighbors so often spouted to reporters following the arrest of a serial murderer. If this guy wanted to blend in, he'd have to join a big-time, in-your-face motorcycle gang or something – plus, lose the horned hat. He was the only person in evidence who was striding around in a horned hat, unless you counted a six-year-old boy playing Vikings and Indians over in a corner with a friend in a feather headdress.

She reluctantly pulled her eyes away from the kids, and back to Olson. For all his silly theatrics, there was no question he had taken command of the room. In person, he seemed, somehow, somewhat, a darker version of FDR. The build was similar. So, in an odd, morphed way, was the face, if you could imagine Roosevelt without his trademark pasted-on grin. There was even something in his bearing, and his force of personality. Deborah revised her assessment. Perhaps he wasn't anti-charismatic after all. Too bad he hadn't channeled his talents into an acting career, though. Movie stars could be horribly anti-social, and dreadfully bad for society, but rarely were they deemed dangerous enough to warrant using upper-level agents, much less pulling an upper-level agent away from a zealously-appreciated extended honeymoon.

Maybe you'd like to see some of the rest of the county? Stennett suggested, when he saw her eyeing Olson. He maneuvered to the side away from her cane and tried to steer her toward the door.

Sorry, Mr. Stennett. I need to see the warts as well as the gems, if I'm to give an honest assessment of your community. Who is he? Or should I say what?

You tell us, Stennett said. He showed up a couple weeks ago, and has been trying to take over ever since. He rants and raves about how we need to be modern day Vikings and conquer something. It's all very embarrassing, not to mention a bit scary.

I can't see why you couldn't have him arrested for trespassing.

We'd rather not press charges, if we don't have to. Besides, the cops we talked to advised against it.

I suppose they have their reasons, Deborah said. She hoped they were just trying to keep a bad situation from escalating. Guys like Olson often moved along if ignored by enough people, and any cop who'd been around the block a few times would know that. Better that than finding out that the suspect had corrupted someone in local law enforcement. He'd been caught at it before. There'd been no indication that the surprisingly scant jail time he'd reaped in consequence had convinced him he'd been in the wrong to go hunting for cops who could be won over. There were, however, definite clues that he'd learned to cover his tracks better.

Olson took the microphone away from the band and launched into high-sounding rhetoric that sounded surprisingly like a pulpit-thumping revival message, but with himself cast in the starring role of messiah. To Deborah's dismay, the teens in the room were spellbound. Worse, a few of the kids were keying in on their parents' disapproval and were feeding off the feeling of shocking the old folks. If Olson ever decided to play Pied Piper, here was one place he might have a chance, she thought – at least among the more rebellious youngsters.

Her nimble mind started weighing her options, such as she had. Olson fell into one of her least favorite criminal categories. People she respected were sure he'd killed before, and was on track to kill again, but so far didn't have enough evidence to prove it in a court of law. If they were right, the man was not only escaping justice, he was a ticking time bomb. If they were wrong, she was tracking a man who didn't necessarily need to be tracked by law enforcement, and possibly, just possibly, shouldn't be tracked. Inalienable rights were not anything to sneeze at, after all. At the end of the day, whether he was guilty or innocent, she was operating in a variety of limbo, at least for now.

The kids who'd been playing Vikings and Indians stopped their game, and started mimicking Olson. He eyed them sideways and smiled. Deborah felt a chill go down her spine.

CHAPTER 4 – DURAND IS PLANTED IN BOISE

Leandre Durand was not happy with his situation. He sniffed the air, and found it somehow wanting. He straightened his cuffs, and resolved to make the best of it. The resolve didn't last long. His latest sojourn to America had been full of petty humiliations, and he quite frankly wished that an honorable way to resign would miraculously present itself. Of course, if a miraculous rescue did not emerge, he would stay and see the matter through.

If he'd been sent to fight a mighty adversary, it might be different. He fancied that he could infiltrate, for instance, the Hell's Angels and handily send the worst of them to prison. Now that he stopped to think about it, he'd not ridden a large motorcycle in his life. He'd liked the smaller motorcycles of his youth, while he was in his youth, but now that he was in middle age he found he ached to ride some monster of a machine. He sniffed again, this time at his own foolishness.

He forced himself to head back to the real estate office, despite it being another source of humiliation, or, at least, irritation. Once they'd found he was a foreigner, the people at the real estate office had piled on the extra service. He was sure it was because they felt he could not be expected to find his way around in their city. It was not so very large a city. True, it was packaged into odd neighborhoods, and had many cul de sacs, and there was always the most illogical road expansion project going on somewhere between where he was and where he wished to go. But this was a small city, with low mountains visible from it to give a man a sense of direction if all else failed. As if any of this was important to a man who could navigate almost easily in London, even though he didn't live there. Compared to London, this half-grown town of Boise, Idaho, was a model of prudent planning, he thought.

-

The real estate agent hid her smile as Durand approached. He'd been forcing his cheerfulness and enthusiasm, and she guessed that moving wasn't his idea. This didn't surprise her. Probably half her clients were looking for a new home because their spouse wished for them to do so, and for no other reason. When she discreetly pried (the better to help him find the perfect home, you understand), she met a careful reluctance. This also didn't surprise her. She amended her theory. Not only was this a case of a man moving to a strange city at the request of his wife, this was most likely a man who was moving to a strange city because of a wife's promotion. The wife had probably thought she was being kind, letting her husband be in command of the house hunting, but undoubtedly the man knew that his wife was trying to be kind. It was not altogether the kindest thing a couple could do to an innocent real estate agent, but, on the other hand, an experienced agent could use the situation to her advantage. Men who felt humiliated could usually be talked up a few thousand dollars, if it was done right. For some of them, it made the decision seem bigger and more important. For others, it was a sneaky way to 'get even' with his wife, by spending more of her hard-earned money. In any case, Rebecca Dory knew how to use it to her advantage, without overdoing it – no sense alienating someone who would almost certainly want to sell a house sooner or later, and would want a discreetly sharp agent working for him.

-

After their meeting, Durand headed toward his hotel with a general sense of satisfaction. The real estate agent had been trying to convince him to sign a deal today. Clearly, she had been trying to slip a bad deal by him in the guise of a good deal that wouldn't last. Although walking away had left him still without a home, it had done great things toward restoring his sense of control.

Besides, he wasn't sure that he should be buying a house. He'd rather rent, since this was not his country and since he didn't intend to stay. Even though it wasn't his own money at stake, it didn't seem the wisest use for French funds. Ideally, he should stay at a hotel; preferably a rather nice one, such as the one he was using while he half-heartedly house hunted. Hotels had amenities. And staff. And security cameras. To be sure, security cameras could work both for you and against you when you were undercover, but mostly they discouraged intruders, if the intruders had any brains at all.

But his orders had said to try to buy a house while he waited for further instructions. So, really, he probably should be trying harder to find one and move himself out of the nice hotel. On the other hand, overall his orders had been so vague, so open-ended. Perhaps they would be revoked before his wife and children were flown in to complete his cover?

In fact, if he could just pull enough strings, he thought, his family would either stay in Australia, where he'd last been posted, or they'd return to France. He'd never hidden behind his beloved Perrine and their four children. He adamantly did not want to start now.

He'd had a regular diplomatic post in Australia, almost totally above board and very nearly entirely out in the open, while he finished recovering from injuries sustained in a car crash. It wasn't a sham job, by any means, but compared to his usual occupations it had been very nearly a holiday. It had done no harm, under the circumstances, to openly be a husband and father, with his family happily gathered around him for a change. Whatever this new assignment was – oh, how he wished his office-headed superiors would send him information enough to properly align his activities by! – he was back to undercover work, and he did not want his family to come, regardless of some desk-bound bureaucrat's idea of a perfect plan.

He'd had a nightmare about it the night before. In his nightmare, he'd been walking around in front of the Boise Centre on the Grove during an Alive After Five event, wearing a sandwich board that stated, in large letters on the front, Secret Agent Hiding Behind Wife. The back of the sandwich board read: Pretending to be Retired. The dream had annoyed him. Even the littlest things about it annoyed him. He was annoyed that the word grove was used for a landscape with paving stones. He was further aggrieved that the establishment didn't use the American spelling for center. Language ought to be used properly, especially by its native speakers. He was annoyed that he'd been made to be so conspicuous, even though the situation was imaginary. That he'd imagined himself to be part of a free public entertainment made it worse. He was also annoyed that he was pretending to be retired. It was indecent for a man in his early fifties to even dream of being retired if he was not disabled, and never mind that his balding head made people think he was older. Mostly, though, he was annoyed because innocent members of his family were to be sent where he did not want them to be sent. If the home office wanted him to hide behind a woman, they should assign to him a trained female agent to pretend to be his wife. Even that idea was not to his liking, but at least it was professionally and paternally acceptable.

By the time he got to his hotel, all sense of general satisfaction was gone.

He checked for messages at the front desk. There were none. He scanned his room as he entered and found nothing amiss. He checked his computer for messages. Nothing there, either. This was not unheard of. In all his years of service to France and (by mental extension) the entire civilized world, he'd lost track of the times he'd been sent somewhere without an explanation and told to hold himself in ready reserve. Sometimes it panned out into action. Sometimes he was just sent home again. Sometimes they told him what the idea had been, sometimes they didn't. It was just how it was.

Automatically, because he'd not done so for two hours and therefore it was time, he pulled a small device from his pocket and checked that for messages. There was one waiting to be pulled up. He braced himself. His newest supervisor sometimes sent messages that amounted to nothing more than saying hello. His newest supervisor believed wholeheartedly that this let agents in the field know that they'd not been forgotten. The supervisor believed earnestly that they found the contact reassuring. Durand had quietly polled other topnotch senior agents. To a man and to a woman they found the practice intolerable, not least of all because it seemed an insult to suggest that the greatest secret agency in the world was capable of forgetting any agent, particularly a senior agent, and especially one of their indisputable caliber and honestly established reputations.

Durand vowed to stay in control of himself if all that popped up on the tiny screen was 'Bonjour!' He further vowed he would not allow himself to scream if the message was 'BONJOUR!!!' The new supervisor felt that capital letters and exclamation points provided a heartier greeting. Durand did not agree. In his opinion, it was the sad result of hiring overgrown children to do the work of grownups. He steeled himself against possible unintended insults. He pushed the appropriate buttons.

At last. Instructions. He had a ten o'clock appointment at the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tomorrow morning he would know something. The thought of it energized him. He picked up the copy of the Idaho Statesman he'd bought that morning, intending to read it with fresh eyes, with an idea of arriving at his interview fully conversant on matters of local interest. It was a trick he'd learned from an American agent, who'd found that a speaking acquaintance with small, local affairs could unnerve someone who was feeling superior because he was on his own turf. Durand could not imagine why he might want to intimidate an agent of the FBI, but of course it never hurt to have a card up one's sleeve. Besides, it was amusing.

One of the articles intrigued him, because of a reference in passing that the United States Marines had used Boise as an urban warfare training area. He read that they'd used it primarily to practice surveillance and tailing techniques, and to test communications equipment to see if it would properly work around skyscrapers. Durand nearly let loose a laugh. To practice tailing a person, they should try a real city, such as Paris. He stopped smiling, ashamed of himself. Most places in the world were more like Boise than like Paris, which was, at any rate, of course incomparable. Here, of course, crowds were never what they were in peak times and places in Paris, and that had probably been part of the point. It was, in its own way, harder to tail someone if he could easily see you if he turned around. In fact, Durand had collected a close call with death that way, with a bullet whizzing past his ear (Sarajevo, post-Olympics, in his opinion altogether a dismal spot, even without bullets flying toward one).

He grabbed his jacket and headed out again, determined to get in some practice in urban warfare techniques before the day was done. After all, who knew if he would have any time to call his own after tomorrow morning?

Besides, perhaps they would ask him to tail someone. He had been practicing being invisible, so to speak, but only in the sense of learning to blend in better, of fading into a crowd or loitering at bus stops without drawing undue attention. But he considered that it was time to pick a target and see if he could keep the person in sight, without being caught at it by the subject or by bystanders.

The experiment was a failure. He hadn't gone three blocks after picking a target before his way was blocked by a big man in a good suit who clearly wondered why he, Durand, was trailing the mousy little man in the dull gray shirt. The big man blocking the way acted strangely. Need help? he asked, in a quiet voice faintly echoing the northern British Isles.

Durand didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

The man excused himself and walked to the nearest crosswalk and across.

Durand continued to follow the mousy little man for a while, but his heart was not in it, especially after he noticed that the suited man had moved ahead of them and unobtrusively positioned himself to get a good look at the mousy little man's face, before making a small nod in Durand's direction and moving off again. After that, Durand stayed on the tail only long enough to convince himself that the suited man, the interloper, was gone.

All night long, he dreamed that he had brought disturbance, if not destruction, on the mousy little man, whom he had singled out for no reason more sinister than that the man's clothes were dull and commonplace.

Admittedly, the man had also seemed a little out of place somehow, like himself. Durand had identified with the fellow immediately upon setting eyes on him. He'd even