by Daniel Kalla
Fontaine struggled to sit upright. Several glasses and two empty wine bottles were scattered on the coffee table in front of him. Then he saw the white powder dusting the tabletop. A line of the powder seemed to point right at him. Cocaine. He had a vague recollection of trying the drug before, but it held no temptation for him now. The sight only fueled his disquiet.
He stared at the full wineglass nearest him. Concentrating hard, he reached for it, knocking the glass with a shaky hand. It wobbled and listed before he managed to grip it between both his palms. He saw that his hands held the glass, but he could barely feel the contact. He brought it to his lips, but he spilled almost as much as he managed to swallow.
The sound of voices from the attached room drew his attention. He immediately recognized the clipped feminine tone, but it took a moment to remember her name: Martine. The other voice, deep and spoken with a heavy Russian accent, was also vaguely familiar. They spoke English. Despite being bilingual, Fontaine had trouble following the conversation.
“It’s almost two o’clock,” Martine deGroot said. “He might wake at any time, Viktor.”
“So?” the Russian said.
“So, I would like to have this done before then,” deGroot snapped.
“He is not going anywhere. What does it matter if he sleeps or not?”
“It matters to me,” deGroot said. “I do not particularly want to do this at all, let alone with him conscious.”
Though he was unable to follow the meaning of the conversation, a sense of ominous threat flooded Fontaine. He took another slurp of his wine, bobbling the glass.
“She wants it done,” Viktor said. “So we do it.”
“But he does not have to be awake. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Not so hard,” Viktor replied with a touch of petulance.
“Let’s not fight, Viktor,” deGroot said, her tone suddenly contrite. “Is the car packed?”
“Yes.”
“I will be waiting for you there,” she said with a touch of invitation, before her tone hardened. “Remember, Viktor. Everything must burn.”
“It will.”
“There cannot be anything left. You understand?”
“It will burn.”
What must burn? Fontaine wondered. The glass dropped out of his hand, bounced off his leg, and thudded against the coffee table without breaking. His thigh felt wet and he looked down to see the dark stain on his jeans.
When he looked up, DeGroot stood across the room from him, dressed completely in black. “Claude, you’re awake,” she said pleasantly.
“Where am I, Martine?” he asked in French.
She walked closer. “Meribel.”
“Meribel…,” he repeated, bewildered. Then he remembered. “The mountain.”
“That’s right,” DeGroot said. “You wanted to ski again.”
Fontaine took her word for it. “I love the snow here. It’s beautiful. So soft. Nothing like that ice of the Antarctic. So hard. So endless.”
DeGroot smiled, but the gesture only heightened Fontaine’s unease. “I have to go now, Claude,” she said.
“Not yet,” he said, aware of a sudden sense of finality. “The water…”
“It’s all taken care of, Claude,” she reassured him.
“The Lake, Martine.” Without understanding why or how, he knew that everything happening to him was connected to Vishnov. “Tell me about the Lake.”
“The first cargo ship has already sailed from port. Tomorrow, it will reach Argentina, where the water will be treated and bottled.” Her eyes lit. “In a few days, the Lake will be in stores—”
Fontaine waved a hand wildly to interrupt. “No! Tell me about the water. It’s in the water, isn’t it?”
DeGroot folded her arms and studied him silently.
As if a fog lifted inside his skull, Fontaine suddenly had a clearer understanding of his predicament. Without recalling the specifics, he remembered that he had lost trust in DeGroot. She was the one who pushed him into the idea of bottling the Lake, promising unimaginable wealth and fame. She had struck the deal with Manet, and insisted on being the sole liaison. And she had won the support of Yulia Radvogin, forcing a deeper wedge between Claude and the CEO.
Eyes cold, DeGroot stared at Fontaine without responding.
“What’s in the water?” he begged. “Please tell me.”
“I told you not to drink it. I told you to wait until it was sterilized.”
Sweat broke out on his brow. “Why did I need to wait? What is in the water?”
DeGroot looked over her shoulder. “How much longer?” she asked in English.
“Five, maybe ten minutes,” Viktor called back.
DeGroot turned back to Fontaine. “Some of the people Georges gave the water to in France became sick,” she said.
“Sick? What do you mean ‘sick’?”
“They call it Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” she said with a slight shrug.
The name rattled inside his brain for a few moments until it stuck. As porous as his memory was, he recalled the monstrous affliction with a shudder. The microbiology department where he earned his PhD was one of the leading research centers for CJD. “The prion disease?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“From the water?”
“It would appear so,” DeGroot said indifferently. “Technically, I believe the prions are carried inside the Arcobacter antarcticus bacteria that you discovered.”
It took Fontaine a moment to make the association. “But the Lake—”
“Will be perfectly safe.” She backhanded his concern away. “We are pretreating the water with heat, light, and chemical sterilization.”
Fontaine felt no better for the explanation. Something was wrong in her logic, but he could not put his finger on it.
Sweat poured off him. He looked at his numb hands. The realization hit him with the impact of a gunshot. “I have it, don’t I?” he croaked. “I have the prion!”
DeGroot pursed her lips and nodded.
“Oh, God…” He rocked in his seat clumsily.
DeGroot checked her watch again. She moved nearer but stopped at the coffee table. She grabbed an empty glass and filled it from the open bottle. She knelt near him. He smelled her fruity cologne and recoiled in his seat. She pushed the wineglass closer to his lips. “Listen to me, Claude,” she said sternly. “There is medicine in this wine. It will help you relax.”
“Relax?” he asked, panicky. “Why do I need to relax?”
“It will make things easier for you.”
Fontaine was too distressed to fight her. He put his lips around the rim and slurped at the wine as she tilted the glass for him. He gulped at the glass, spilling some and choking on the last mouthful.
“What is going to burn, Martine?” he asked when the rim left his lips.
She put down the glass and shook her head slowly. “Nothing.” She straightened to her full height and looked down at him. “I have to go now, Claude.” She turned and headed out of the room. “Good-bye,” she called over her shoulder.
Fontaine’s eyes were feeling very heavy. His mouth felt frozen, as if he had been to the dentist. The room began to spin. As his eyes drifted shut, it suddenly hit him. “Heat and light won’t help,” he slurred. “Prions aren’t alive.”
The room went dark. “I don’t speak French,” Viktor said in his heavily accented English.
“You can’t kill prions…,” Fontaine said, and then everything went black.
42
Limoges, France. January 21
Avril woke at 5:05 in the morning, surprised to discover she had slept for almost three hours.
Frédéric!
She sprang out of bed, determined not to waste a moment of the day. She threw on a housecoat and slippers and headed for her kitchen. Though she had not eaten more than a couple of pieces of bread and a slice of Camembert in the past two days, she was not hungry. However, she needed a café au lait to ward off a caffeine
-withdrawal headache. She filled a small saucepan with milk and put it and the kettle on the flame. While waiting for the milk to heat, she switched on the laptop computer that she kept stationed on the kitchen counter.
Avril rarely used her computer at home, preferring to use the broadband Internet access at her office instead of the sluggish dial-up connection. This morning the wait seemed interminable as her laptop buzzed and beeped before the three long bells finally announced that the modem had logged on. Nerves raw, she watched the new messages accumulate at a snail’s pace, certain that another e-mail from her son’s captors was about to surface. Her breath caught in her throat when she spotted the message from Paris_Parent66 on the list. Finger trembling, she clicked the mouse on the subject line.
The tears started before the photo finished downloading.
Dazed, Frédéric stared back at the camera through only his left eye. His right eye was dark purple and swollen shut. Crusted blood caked over both nostrils. His entire upper lip was so swollen that it looked as though it were attached to his nose. His T-shirt was covered in blood.
Monsters! I will kill you. I will make you pay! Avril sobbed, clutching her head in her hands. Oh, Freddie…
Avril stared at the photo for almost a minute before she noticed the message typed below it. She scrolled down and read the text.
THE NEXT PICTURE WE SEND OF FRÉDÉRIC, HE WILL BE DEAD. STOP TRYING TO FIND US.
WHEN THE INVESTIGATORS RETURN TO TALK TO YOU AGAIN, YOU WILL ACCEPT WHAT THEY TELL YOU ABOUT THE GLACIER. YOU WILL ENSURE THE DISCUSSION INCLUDES ONLY THE ICE. YOU WILL KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ANYTHING ELSE TO DO WITH LIMOUSIN. YOU WILL DO THIS, OR YOUR SON WILL MOST CERTAINLY DIE.
ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS E-MAIL.
Her hand still shaking, Avril overshot the REPLY icon twice before clicking it. Fighting the urge to unleash a torrent of rage and threats, she typed the word “understood” and then hit the ENTER key before she could add any more.
Avril closed the e-mail program and shut the lid of her laptop, unwilling even to face its blank screen. She stared at her cell phone on the counter, immobilized by sudden indecision. She knew that his captors would never voluntarily release Frédéric, but she could not bear the thought of being responsible for any more of his suffering.
You are a detective, think like one! she reminded herself. “What would I do if this were someone else’s son?” she said aloud, trying to distance herself from her whirlpool of emotion.
Avril could think of only one answer. She scanned the kitchen with a quick check over her shoulder, ensuring the blinds were shut, and then reached for her address book. She found the number, picked up the phone, and was about to dial when she slammed it back on the cradle. What if they’ve bugged my landline? She glanced at her cell phone lying on the counter but decided that, with cell phone scanners readily available, even that was too risky. Instead, she jotted the phone number down on a piece of paper and tucked it into her purse.
She downed two cups of coffee before the shaking finally stilled. She showered, changed, and hurried out to her car. Another few inches of snow had accumulated overnight. Lost in her thoughts, she barely noticed the deep freeze as she scraped the snow off the windows.
The local gas station was still closed when Avril arrived. Confirming with a quick scan that she was alone, she rushed to the phone booth outside. She dialed the operator, who connected her to the number in Paris.
“Hello?” a voice said groggily after the fourth ring.
“Étienne, it’s Avril,” she blurted.
“Avril?” murmured Inspector Étienne Breton of the Police Nationale. “It’s not even six o’clock.”
“I am so sorry to wake you, but I need an urgent favor.”
“Must be, huh?” His tone sounded concerned. “What is it, Avril?”
She fought to contain the urgency in her voice. “I need you to trace a series of cell phone calls for me.”
“Hmmm,” Breton said. “Do you mean calls that originated from a particular cell phone?”
“No,” Avril said softly. “I have the cell phone and the number. I want you to trace the source and location of the calls to that particular number.”
“That’s a bit of a sticky area without a magistrate’s order.” He sighed. “What is the number?”
Avril recited her own cell number. “There should be no legal worries,” she added.
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s my mobile phone.”
There was a pause. “Avril, what the hell is going on?”
Her mind raced to come up with an excuse. “Étienne, I am being threatened.”
“Threatened?” Breton echoed. “And you don’t know who is behind these threats?”
“No.”
“Come on, Avril,” he said. “I need more. Are you in real trouble here?”
“I wish I could tell you more, but I cannot. Not now.” She cleared her throat. “Étienne, please trust me on this.”
“How long have I known you, Avril?”
“Twenty years, at least.” She summoned a laugh. “We were only children when we met.”
“Not children, but not yet middle-aged, either. I used to tease Antoine back then that one day I would steal you away from him. I was only half joking.” He went quiet for a few moments. “Give me a few hours. I will see what I can come up with.”
She swallowed. “Thank you, Étienne.”
Avril hung up and rushed back to her car, confirming with another glance that no one was around to watch her.
During the drive into work, other cars joined hers on the snowy roads, but she avoided checking for familiar vehicles in her rearview mirror. She assumed she would still be followed, but undoubtedly whoever was tailing her would be more careful. Besides, even if a black Mercedes or silver Audi stopped right in front of her, she would not approach it. She could not allow Frédéric to endure any more torture because of her. Instead, Avril focused on the e-mailed instructions. How could a piece of glacier incite such illness and death? she wondered. However, she kept coming back to the same question: What is it that they want me to keep Haldane and Renard away from?
Aside from Pauline Lamaire and Yvette Pereau—whose disappearances she had already put to rest—the only answer that came to mind was Ferme d’Allaire. She remembered reading an article on how officials from the Ministry of Agriculture were combing every inch of the farm for clues about the source of the possible mad cow outbreak. What could anyone at the farm possibly hide from those investigators?
She slapped the steering wheel in sudden realization. Not what, who! Who are they trying to hide? If Haldane was right about the cover-up, then someone inside the farm had to be involved. Someone who could lead Avril to Frédéric’s kidnappers.
Avril arrived at the Gendarmerie Limoges at least an hour before the day staff. She headed toward her office in the dim light leaking through the small translucent windows of the otherwise dark hallway. As she passed Valmont’s office, she noticed light from within. She ducked her head through his door. Her hulking colleague sat stooped over his desk and stared at his computer screen with a pen clamped between his teeth like one of his unfiltered cigarettes. When he noticed Avril at his door, surprise creased Valmont’s features, but his expression relaxed and he soon broke into a sarcastic grin. “You still look whiter than I remember,” he said, pulling the pen from his teeth. “How are things with Frédéric?”
Avril felt flooded with brief confusion before she remembered the invented story of her son’s school problems. “Oh, it is day-to-day.”
“A break from school might be the best thing for him in the long run,” Valmont grunted and then cleared his throat with one of his vocal tics.
Avril glanced around her to ensure that they were indeed alone.
Valmont frowned. “Come on, woman, out with it,” he said.
Avril bit her tongue. Desperate to tell Simon, she still believed that Frédéric’s abductors had somehow infiltrated th
e Gendarmerie. She did not feel safe raising the matter inside these walls. She shook her head. “It’s the anniversary of Antoine’s…accident,” she said, even though it was still three days away. “I was hoping you might join me after work at the cemetery to mark the occasion.”
Valmont cocked his head in surprise and reddened slightly. His eyes fell to the keyboard in front of him. “Certainly, Avril, I would be…er…honored to.”
Avril tracked down the names of Ferme d’Allaire’s directors through the company’s website and she managed to find addresses for most of the people listed.
Frantic not to antagonize Frédéric’s abductors, she prayed that if they learned about her inquiries into the farm—which was inevitable if they had someone on the inside—she could argue it was part of her effort to dissuade Haldane and Renard from nosing around themselves.
As she hoped to use surprise to her advantage, she decided to drop in on the directors unannounced. Her first stop was at Geneviève Allaire’s imposing mansion on the northwest outskirts of Limoges. At the gilded wooden doors, she rang the doorbell three times, but no one answered.
She drove directly from the Allaire home to that of the farm’s general manager, Marcel Robichard. For the second time in two days, she found herself cruising along the streets of Lac Noir, though Robichard’s old stone house was on the opposite side of town from the Manet family’s.
At the door, she heard faint TV noises from inside, but she had to pound on it before Marcel Robichard answered. He was dressed in a bathrobe and reeking of cigarette smoke, his uncombed shock of black hair puffed up more on the right side of his head than the left. “What do you want?” he snapped.
“M. Robichard?”
His eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“I am Detective Avril Avars. I need to ask you some questions relating to Ferme d’Allaire.”
Robichard stood his ground. “I have been over this a hundred times,” he whined.