Near Dark: A Thriller by Brad Thor Page A

ignoble scramble for power that would have made the ancient Romans blush. The knives were out. It was only a matter of time before someone turned on him.
    With his mother already two years in the grave from a heart attack and his siblings old enough to take care of themselves,there was no reason for him to remain. He could go wherever he wanted. And where he wanted to go, was France.
    Through an IRA contact in Dublin, he was able to change his identity and get a Republic of Ireland passport. Michael McElhone became Paul Aubertin and he never looked back.
    After traveling through France, seeing all the sights he had always dreamed of, he applied to join and was acceptedinto the French Foreign Legion.
    His plan was to serve for three years and then take advantage of the opportunity to apply for French citizenship. Two years in, on a mission in Kosovo, he was wounded and rotated back to France for a series of lengthy surgeries.
    Per a provision in French law, any soldier of the Foreign Legion who gets injured in battle can immediately apply to become Françaispar le sang versé —“French by spilled blood.” A social worker helped him fill out the application from his hospital bed.
    By the time his physical therapy was complete, his application had been approved.
    After his naturalization ceremony in Paris, he decided to stay for a while. He took extension classes at the Sorbonne, immersed himself in the city’s museums, and devoured every history book hecould find from the stalls along the Seine near Notre-Dame, as well as the Abbey and Shakespeare and Company bookstores of the Latin Quarter.
    The more he read, the more he fell in love with the Normandy region to the north. That was where his truest passion lay—Deauville, Rouen, the beaches of D-Day, and the most mesmerizing abbey he had ever seen, Mont-Saint-Michel.
    The dramatic medieval monasteryand fairy-tale village sat on a fortified island in the middle of a tidal basin at the coast—abutted by the mouth of the Couesnon River.
    It was a UNESCO World Heritage Site that looked like it had been torn out of a Harry Potter movie. Attracting over three million people a year, it was considered one of the most awe-inspiring attractions in all ofEurope. With all the books he had read aboutit and all the pictures he had seen over the years, nothing compared to viewing it in person.
    According to legend, the original site had been founded by an Irish hermit. Then, in the eighth century, the archangel Michael had appeared to Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, and told him to build a church on the island. It was why Michael McElhone had taken the name “Aubertin.” He had always felt aspecial kinship with Mont-Saint-Michel. The fact that it had been founded by an Irishman only made that kinship stronger.
    After visiting a couple of times while still living in Paris, he realized this was where he belonged. Packing up his meager belongings, he moved to Normandy.
    He survived on a small pension from the Foreign Legion, which he augmented by working as a private tour guide forwealthy tourists. The business, though, was spotty—and he had his eyes set on a beautiful house with a view of the ocean. So, to pump up his bank account, he fell back on what he did best—killing.
    Being a tour guide was a great cover, and he actually enjoyed it. The challenge was saying no to wet work contracts during tourist season.
    None of the other guides disappeared during the spring andsummer. That was bread-and-butter time. They normally bumped into each other several times a week, if not a day, making the rounds at the same sights. Often, when things got really booked up, they even referred clients to each other.
    Dropping off the grid would have been highly unusual, and something he wouldn’t have been predisposed to do. But then, Lieu Van Trang had contacted him.
    For lackof a better term, Trang was his business manager. On those off-season occasions when he did take contracts, that’s who