Introduction

Le Tour Finale is a taut yet intricate thriller set in France during the famous Tour de France bicycle race and its aftermath. The story juggles essentially two protagonists: John Rexford, a former marine and covert assassin, and Alex Pena, an American policeman turned bodyguard. The US government recruits Rexford, a conditioned cyclist and assassin, to join the Tour as part of a team whose successful mission will bring an end to the current French government plot to form a military and economic partnership with Russia and render the European Union and NATO obsolete.The task quickly changes when the mission is exposed. Now Rexford and Pena must escape a country that is under military lockdown, but first rescue what is left of their team from the notorious high security prison of La Santé. The future of the European Union and NATO hang in the balance as the two men weave their way through prisons, French police, and an underground French Resistance that is not what they seem.

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Excerpt

The scene opens in a small room in the basement of an orphanage.

“What are you doing?”

He turned away, wiped his tears into the blanket, and gently dropped it into the crib.

“What are you doing?” she asked again.

“What do you want?” said Alex.

“Don’t touch things in here,” said Vita. She made a fuss about fluffing the blankets in each crib.

“I didn’t see any signs,” he said.

Vita motioned him to sit down. She placed a wooden toolbox on the floor near her feet.

He waited a few seconds then reluctantly sat. They were two feet apart. Her skin appeared soft, like the baby he had imagined. “So?”

“So,” she replied. “Jilly wants you to look more the imbecile than you already do.”

Her brown eyes were both warm and icy. He thought of a smart-ass remark, but let it go. Vita opened the wooden box filled with small glass jars and brushes.

“You need a lazy eye,” Vita said. She grabbed a large, fluffy brush and a cotton ball. She lifted the top shelf of the toolbox long enough to pull out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and quickly closed it. She set the bottle down and motioned her hand toward his eye.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“I have to prepare the surface,” she replied. “Have to remove the bacon grease, or the strip won’t stay on.”

Strike three. Not that he was counting, but one more mouthy remark and he’d put the bitch in her place.

“Strip?”

He let her rub the alcohol-soaked cotton ball around his upper and lower eyelid. His eyes twitched from the vapors and he almost pulled away.

Vita handed him a small cloth swatch and said, “Here, wipe it dry.”

As she pulled her right hand away, he noticed a gold Claddagh ring. The point of the heart faced her wrist indicating her own heart had been captured. He wanted to ask her about it—hell, he wanted more than that—but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. He wanted to hate her, but she was so beautiful it was difficult.

Vita held a small plastic strip in her hand. She pulled the protective layer off one side, exposing the adhesive, and moved it toward his eye. “Relax, it won’t hurt. I have to put this in the socket of your upper lid to make your eye droop.”

Vita’s warm touch against his cheek made him realize how lonely he had become. She separated the skin of his upper eyelid with her thumb and index finger.

“Voilà.”

She pulled a compact from the box and opened it so he could see himself in the small oval mirror.

He held her wrist gently so it wouldn’t shake, and saw his reflection for the first time since he had fallen through the window. His eyes were sunk into his face like small caves. Tiny scabs on his cheeks, nose, and neck were in various stages of healing. His skin was dirty. His left eye drooped, half-closed from the plastic strip.

“You can see the strip,” he said. “That’s no good.”

Vita shook her head and reached into the box. She held two glass jars next to his face to compare hues. Satisfied with her choice, she put one jar back into the box.

“I’m not African.” He nodded toward the makeup jar.

Vita dipped her thumb into the pigment and said, “It dries twenty percent lighter. It’ll be fine.”

She smudged a thick dollop of makeup base on her wrist and went to work on his complexion using her thumb as a brush.

“It stinks,” he said, and scrunched his nose. “What is it?”

“Don’t do that,” she said. “Your skin needs to be relaxed.”

Vita wiped the makeup from her wrist and thumb with a small cloth and scrutinized her work. Satisfied, she reached down and grabbed a brush with long, soft bristles. She twirled it over his eye to smooth out rough spots and leaned back. “Not quite.”

She took another small dab of pigment onto her thumb. He waited patiently as she brushed, smudged, and blew on his face. Her breath had a faint trace of sweet coffee. She finished with the brush again.

“Ça suffit.”

She rearranged her tools in the makeup box, reached into a lower compartment, and pulled out a straight razor. He grabbed both her wrists before she could get it higher than her breasts. Vita let her arms go limp.

“Do you have a death wish?”

She exhaled as if annoyed and said, “You need a shave. Most non-Muslims, even the feeble, shave in Paris. Now, are you going to let me do it?” She cocked one eyebrow and waited for an answer.

Five seconds passed and he said nothing.

“Look,” she said, and reached into the makeup kit with her free hand. “You can have this one.”

Vita held out long screwdriver with a thick wooden handle. He took it from her, rested it on his lap pointed directly at her stomach, and released his grip on her wrist. As she raised the straight razor to his cheek, he incrementally raised the screwdriver’s pointed tip until it pointed at her heart.

“Strange thing to have in a makeup kit,” he said. “If you get my point.”

“Ah, yes,” Vita replied. “In every joke, there is a joke.”

“What?”

“It’s a Russian saying,” she said. “It means even though we are kidding there is always something serious intended.”

She dry-shaved both sides of his face. Her lips pursed each time she pulled the razor down across his skin, as if she felt the pain a little herself. Vita brought the razor to his throat with a slow and careful movement. He tensed and moved the screwdriver until it was an inch from her heart.

They both froze.

“Monsieur Pena?” Her eyes moved to the steel shaft at her chest. “It appears we have a Mexican standoff.”

He nodded but said nothing. Inside, he laughed a little.

“May I proceed?”

He nodded again.

She pulled the razor along his jugular with a blank stare.

“Ouch! What the hell?”

Vita dropped the razor.

“Je suis désolé.” The screwdriver poked her breast through her thin shirt. “I’m sorry.”

He picked up the straight razor and dropped the screwdriver on the floor. “I’ll finish it,” he said, and scraped away the remaining beard.

Vita grabbed several cotton balls and dabbed the cut on his neck.

“It shouldn’t be perfect, anyway,” she said. “You want it to look like you try to shave, but you’re not really good at it. It’ll be fine. Bien?”

“Where did you learn this?”

“Theatre,” she said. “My parents were in the…” She stopped short, and then said, “I hung around theatre people as a young girl, and they let me play with this stuff.”

“You were in the theatre?” he said. “That explains the clown getup.”

She smiled. “It’s for the kids. My parents were actors in London.” She paused again, as if to say any more might reveal too much. “Get up.”

“What?” He questioned her but stood anyway.

“Jilly wants you to walk like an imbecile. So let’s see. Walk.”

He tried a few slow steps until she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “No, no. You must walk like an animal if you want to be a human. Remember the way Jilly taught you?”

He rolled his shoulders forward and sank his lumbar as if he were on a horse. He looked at her for affirmation.

“Almost,” Vita said. “Drop your belly. Let it stick out like you don’t care, like a child would. Like this.”

She stood beside him and assumed the position as if sitting on a horse. “Now walk with me. Toe, ball, heel…and breathe through your belly, like a baby.”

They dragged their feet slowly across the floor. He watched her rounded, full belly as she breathed and he thought of his wife again. She had been so beautiful when she carried their son, but had turned into a spoiled little gringa after the child was born. She had made him feel as if he were nothing more than a sperm donor.

As they practiced, Vita whispered, “Toe, ball, heel” until the rhythm of her soft voice matched their steps.

“How does Jilly know this?” he asked.

“Jilly knows a lot about the world, of animals and people.”

“I didn’t think he was just an exterminator.”

Vita gave him a sideways glance but said nothing.

“Have you known him long?”

“Since I first arrived in Paris,” she said.

“So you were a young girl in London? Why are you here?”

She scooped up her toolbox and pulled a soiled and frayed baseball cap from her pocket. “Put this on. Go nowhere without it. Wear it pulled down and tight against your head.”

Vita moved to the door but stopped when she heard his voice.

“Hey,” he said. “I was just…”

“C’est bien,” she said. “I will tell him you’re ready.”

“What’s the big deal with you, woman?” He stopped in mid-zombie walk.

“How’s your son, Alex?” Vita asked as if he was an old friend and they were catching up after a few years, but her tone was edgy.

“I don’t have…” He stopped short. They had his wallet and he kept pictures of his family there—his moveable feast.

“Conneries.”

“What?”

“Bullshit!” Vita bounced from foot to foot and held tight to the box. “You ask a lot of questions for a guy who hangs around cyclists. Don’t you think?”

“You keep me a prisoner here,” he said. “Don’t you think I want to know what’s going on?”

“How’s your son, Alex?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

She sneered and said, “Tough life being a cop: Working nights, weekends, taking care of drug addicts and all those pretty Texas whores. Must be stressful.”

“I’m not a cop.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You ask too many questions for a cyclist, cochon. Once you wear the uniform, the stench doesn’t leave. The little boy in the picture wears a cop hat. Unless it was Halloween, I’d say he was being Daddy’s boy, n’est pas?”

“All right,” he conceded. “I was a cop, but no more. I left that life. And don’t call me a pig. I don’t take that shit from anyone.”

“And what do you do for Lone Star Extrusion?” she asked. “But before you answer, remember, a lie requires commitment.”

“Don’t be a jerk.” He held back the profanity waiting on his tongue.

“Did they need a lawman to oil bike chains?” she asked. “Or were they expecting an explosion and wanted crowd control?”

“We had nothing to do with the explosion.” He sat down on the cot as if defeated. “For all I know it was you whackos. Your people killed my men, and God knows how many others in your little protest. Assholes.”

“I will say this once,” she said, and rubbed the top of the box like it was a treasured antique. “Jilly is like a father to me. If he doesn’t return from the Bois be Boulogne, or if anything seems a little off, you won’t have to practice speaking slowly anymore. ” She drew out the word slowly and let her lips pull to one side, as if she were the one with the handicap. “Abruti.”

He had called her a jerk, so turnaround was fair play. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

What are the internal motivations for John Rexford to return to the assassin’s life, when in the previous novel—Cut and Cover—he was finally free?

Which character do you think takes the consistent “higher moral ground” in Le Tour Finale?

Is that character right or wrong to do this? In other words, does his high morality put innocent people at risk?

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