Free Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich Page B

she’d been too determined to make the climb to tell him that the forecast wasn’t good.
    Just then, a hand gripped his shoulder. “What’s this?” asked the French-accented voice. “I have to track down my own welcoming committee?”
    Jonathan spun and looked into the face of a tall, attractive woman with wavy dark hair. “Simone…you made it.”
    Simone Noiret dropped her overnight bag and hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry.”
    Jonathan hugged her back, closing his eyes and clamping his jaw. Fight as he might, he was powerless against the emotion that came with seeing a familiar face. After a moment, she eased her grip and held him at arm’s length. “And so,” she asked. “How are you holding up?”
    “Okay,” he said. “Not okay. I don’t know. More numb than anything else.”
    “You look like shit. Stopped shaving, showering, and eating? This is not good.”
    He forced a smile, wiping at his cheek. “Not hungry, I guess.”
    “We’re going to have to do something about that.”
    “I guess so,” he said.
    Simone forced him to meet her eye. “You guess so?”
    Jonathan pulled himself together. “Yes, Simone, we’re going to do something about that.”
    “That’s better.” She folded her arms and shook her head as if she were castigating one of her fourth-grade pupils.
    Simone Noiret was Egyptian by birth, French by marriage, and a teacher by profession. Recently turned forty, she looked ten years younger, a fact which she attributed to her Arab heritage. Her Levantine blood was evident in her hair, which was black and thick as Nile straw and cascaded elegantly to her shoulders, and her eyes, which were dark and untrusting and made the more imposing by liberal use of mascara. She carried an expensive leather handbag over one shoulder. She dug in it for a cigarette—a Gauloise—one of the sixty or so she smoked each day. So far, the cigarettes had confined their damage to her voice, which was as scratched as one of the old Brel records she carted around with her from one city to the next.
    “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I needed to have someone around…someone who knew Emma.”
    Simone began to speak, then caught herself, turning away from him and throwing her cigarette to the ground. “All during the train ride, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,” she said. “I told myself that you needed someone strong. Someone to cheer you up. To look after you. But, of course, you’re the strong one. Our Jonathan. Look at me. Like a baby.”
    Tears ran from the corners of her eyes, smearing her cheek with mascara. Jonathan pulled a tissue from his pocket and wiped away the smudges.
    “Paul sends his condolences,” she managed between sniffles. “He’s in Davos for the week. Mr. Bigshot is to deliver a speech on the corruption in Africa. Now there’s an original topic. He wanted you to know that he is devastated that he couldn’t come.”
    Simone’s husband, Paul, was a French economist, a highly-placed paper pusher at the World Bank.
    “It’s alright. I know he’d come if he could.”
    “It’s not, and I told him so. These days we are all slaves to our ambition.” Simone caught a glimpse of herself in the shop window and winced. “
Mais merde.
Now I look like shit, too. What a pair we are.”
    The Ransoms and the Noirets had met in Beirut two years before, neighbors in the same apartment building during Jonathan’s tour with DWB. At the time, Simone was teaching at the American School in Beirut. Learning that Emma was in the aid game, she’d used her contacts to secure cheap digs for the “mission,” which was what aid workers called their operational units. The act of kindness had cemented Emma’s loyalty forever.
    Jonathan’s assignment to DWB headquarters in Geneva was greeted with joy, at least by the women. (Jonathan had dreaded the move…and with good reason, it turned out.) Paul Noiret was due to rotate back to Geneva two weeks earlier. The Noirets had once again come