Robinson nodded. "We can add loyalty to your list of virtues. I know you were with him in Las Vegas."
"He reported this?"
"No."
Robinson let that settle in for a moment as Poincaré formed a clearer picture of the man before him. "The Soldiers of Rapture," continued the director, "with their al Qaeda-like network are so decentralized that the best we're able to do is disrupt single actions. Which we've done. Just this past week there was a person slated for execution in Lucerne. Inspector Laurent got this information to us in a timely fashion—the target was a woman working in the clean energy field, and we eliminated the cell. Which is well and good, of course, but operations designed to save individuals drain our limited resources. I've been hired to move Interpol in a more focused, costefficient direction with bigger results. You've been around for nearly three decades. I don't believe we can afford any longer to rescue individuals. What do you think?"
Again, Robinson folded his hands and waited.
What Poincaré thought was that the new director likely earned his stripes setting landmines and watching how others reacted when they stepped on one. What he said was, "It's always worth saving a life. I don't envy anyone in your position having to make those calls."
The director nodded. "In Texas we have an expression, Cut the crap. In your new role, I'll be counting on you to speak plainly. Straight talk, please."
"My new role," said Poincaré. "Ludovici mentioned something about this."
"That's right. I want you to become supervising agent for all field operations, a post I'm just creating. A large responsibility. The position is strategic, not operational. I want you to upgrade the general quality of thinking in the field, the investigative IQ if you will. You're to be a mentor and sounding board to our agents. Beyond that, you'll get to define the job. There's no one who knows strategy better or who has better instincts, and I want you out of the field, effective immediately, to take on this work."
"I'm flattered," said Poincaré.
"I don't flatter people," said the director. "I need help."
"I suppose I'd be sitting behind a desk here in Lyon?"
"Correct. But there's no reason you couldn't do this work from Fonroque. I understand you own a vineyard. You can send me some wine—though I've been advised to have it tested for arsenic."
Poincaré smiled. "Straight talk, Felix. What if I decline?"
"It will play out as follows," said Robinson. "By the end of the day, you're to submit your Interpol credentials and firearms to the clerk on the first floor. They have a list downstairs of everything in your locker, so I'm sure you'll be scrupulous. If you accept the position, which I hope you will, we'll issue an amended credential giving you the highest security clearance in this building, equivalent to my own. But beyond Interpol headquarters, your authority ends. You are no longer a field agent, Henri. If you decline, then we'll have a watch for you and a pension. Maybe a farewell party with stale cake. You know the drill."
Poincaré knew the drill.
"I've asked Paolo Ludovici to stand by. You'll debrief him on the ammonium perchlorate investigation and turn over all your case notes. Do you understand?"
"And you're taking this action now because—"
"Because as far as work in the field is concerned, I believe you've lost your perspective. That business in The Hague, when you attended the trial of the Bosnian . . . that was a mistake. The sergeant-at-arms reported admitting you to the courtroom wearing a firearm. To the trial of a man who had assaulted your family? I don't believe you were exercising optimal judgment at that moment, and an error on your part would have reflected badly on Interpol. The report took a few weeks to find my desk, but had I known I would have pulled you from the field immediately. So you've been living on borrowed time, though neither of us knew it."
Poincaré liked Robinson. Nothing he said had struck a false note, and the man would do Interpol a world of good. He said: "I'm moved by your confidence in me, Felix."
"Inspector, I'm trying to give you a soft landing here. I need the help, and I will fill this position with or without you. Believe me, if I wanted you gone, I'd simply force your retirement. So take it or leave it, as we say in America. Think this over. In the meantime, your Interpol privileges are suspended as of five o'clock. We'll maintain your computer access to our servers as a courtesy—so you can monitor Ludovici's progress on the case. He's in his office, waiting for your files." Robinson walked around his desk. "From what I've read and all I've heard, Henri, you're too valuable for us to let you get killed out there because you're distracted. Whether or not you accept the new position, you're done with field work. And it's not that I don't understand the distraction. What happened to your family is unspeakable. And to whatever extent Interpol failed you in its protection, we are reviewing and correcting procedures—an effort I am personally overseeing. But in the meantime, I will not add to the misery by seeing you killed. Good day, Inspector."
ON HIS way to Ludovici's office, Poincaré placed a call to Fonroque. Claire was napping, Eva told him. She had had a quiet day, sitting on the terrace. "Would you like me to wake her, Monsieur?"
"No," he said. "Tell me. Did she speak at all while I've been gone? In her sleep, has she made sounds?"
Levenger passed him in the corridor, holding the Tyvek envelope and offering a thumbs-up sign. "Handing it off now, Henri. I'll contact you when I have something."
Poincaré waved his thanks.
"No, Monsieur. Nothing."
"Has Etienne called?" On his way to Lyon, Poincaré had stopped in Paris to inquire after Etienne and his family, and to visit Chloe at the Montparnasse Cemetery. He stayed for a time, sweeping the granite slab, and turned at a sound to see his son in a wheelchair, pushed by an attendant. Etienne met his father's eyes. Poincaré moved to speak, but his son made a motion and the attendant rolled him away.
"Yes, Etienne called and asked about Madame."
"And she said nothing?"
"That's right, Monsieur."
"Did he ask for me?"
"It was a brief call," said the girl. "Try in an hour if you want me to put the phone to Madame's ear."
Ludovici sat in his office, reading a case file—propped back in his chair, snakeskin cowboy boots on his desk. "Do you like them?" he asked after Poincaré knocked and let himself in. "The Italians kicked ass, Henri. And yours truly took first honors."
"You shot the fuzz off your peach?"
"I goddamned shot the fuzz off the fuzz!"
"Congratulations, Paolo." He set his briefcase on the desk, opened it, and handed over a tall stack of files. Everything I own on the Fenster—the ammonium perchlorate case," he said, which was not quite true. The hard drive Poincaré was holding for himself and Eric Hurley. "I've prepared an executive summary with an index to the files. You know the highlights, in any event, and should have no trouble." He emptied the contents of his pockets onto the desk in a show of full disclosure. There were paperclips, gum wrappers, loose change, and a jeweler's loupe. "For you," he said, handing Ludovici the loupe. "So that you don't overlook any details. And the coins . . . your first cup of coffee and beignet are on me." Poincaré counted out several euros and smiled when he came across an American buffalo nickel, which he returned to his pocket.
"Henri, this is no easier for me than—"
"It's all fine, Paolo. Really."
"Will you take the position?"
"I'm not sure," he said.
"I don't know if I hope you do or don't. You'll need to stay busy, in any event. Maybe you should, so your mind doesn't rot."
"That's thoughtful advice for a retiree. Thanks."
"Go to hell . . . and keep your phone on. I may need you."
WHETHER POINCARÉ did or did not take the position, he was gone from the field—a long chapter closed for him by executive order, a decision made without sentiment. Perhaps Robinson had done him a favor by preempting a slide into caricature. The last thing he or any agent wanted was t
o become the prize fighter who lacked the grace and good sense to leave.
He walked to his office. In his four hours remaining as a credentialed Interpol agent, he studied the surveillance loop of Dana Chambi yet again. The loop lasted just over two minutes, and he replayed it another hundred times—bringing his total well into the thousands. With digital zoom, he had identified the handbag she carried, a lead that produced nothing useful. He could read the physician's name on the white jacket she had stolen. He could even see that the stocking on her left leg was torn. Hundreds of details were known to him; but no matter how many times he watched the loop, he could not square what he saw with what those who knew Chambi said of the woman: accomplished researcher, teacher with a sense of theater and humor, volunteer at the Math League, dedicated keeper of James Fenster's flame.
She must be all one thing or all the other, he decided. The world of the assassin did not overlap the world of the scholar. And yet here she was on the surveillance loop, setting the diversionary fire and proceeding off-screen to murder a child. And there she was in Amsterdam in the days and hours preceding the explosion. Poincaré could not puzzle it through. At 4:29, thirty-one minutes left in a career that spanned three decades, he played the tape once more.
Frames 000-025: Subject enters from bottom of screen.
Frames 026-058: Subject looks right, looks left, opens bag.
Frames 059-102: Subject drops paper into can, pours accelerant.
Frames 103-114: Subject looks right, looks left. Frames
115-120: Subject lights match, sets fire.
Frames 121-136: Flames. Subject exits.
Poincaré enhanced the image at Frame 107. It showed Chambi checking the corridor to confirm no one would see her striking a match, her face and neck clearer here than in other frames. Allowing for the distortions of a pixilated enhancement, it was Dana Chambi. He had compared every photograph found of her with the images on the screen. Interpol's own facial recognition software confirmed the match, and yet Poincaré felt compelled to devote his final minutes to a fresh analysis. Again, an indisputable likeness—save for a detail too obvious even for comment: in the video Chambi wore no scarf to hide the angry-looking, amoeba-shaped island of purple on her otherwise unblemished neck. In the twelve photographs Poincaré had collected, she wore a scarf. Add to this the time they met in person outside the lecture hall, where she nervously adjusted the scarf when the discussion turned to Fenster, and the contrast was clear. Scarf, no scarf.
Look harder, he told himself. What he saw this time was an assassin taking care to avoid detection. No assassin intends to be caught in the act, and none intends to be caught after. The rhythm of such a life was to kill, escape, collect payment, and kill again. Yet the woman in the video made no effort to hide the port-wine stain, the single marker that functioned, in effect, as a name-tag that read: "Hi—my name is Dana Chambi!" She checked the corridor— twice—because she did not want to be caught. She let her port-wine stain show precisely because she wanted to be seen.
Poincaré looked across his desk to a photo of Claire and the children. Once again, the answer had been hiding in plain sight. It was not Chambi. It could not have been Chambi. Ludovici swore that Banović, with his reliance on ex-Stasi types, did not order this final brutality. Someone else, then—someone who wanted to annihilate him by crushing what he loved best. The mistake had been in not killing Poincaré. For now he would find this person and render a severe justice. This time he would be working alone.
PART IV
•
Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?
— JOB 38:36
CHAPTER 37
Poincaré composed a brief e-mail: Ms. Chambi. I know you didn't kill my granddaughter. We need to meet. Contact me. He pressed send and walked to the terrace.
The storms that rumbled through the valley the previous week had scrubbed the air clean. The harvest was coming; and without money to pay the migrant workers, Poincaré would watch the year's fruit rot on the vine. But he did not worry about that now. In a few hours, when the sun rose, he would kiss Claire and open a safe in the cellar, where he kept a gun. He would pack that and, before leaving, would kiss her again—this woman without whom he had no wish to live. Yet one day he would live without her or she without him because that was the way of this world: we love, if we can, and lose what we love.
From Munich, Poincaré took the first train to Innsbruck and stepped off at the village of Scharnitz, in Austria. Julie Young had not wanted him to go, yet here he was with just enough daylight to call on Father Ulrich at Pfarrkirche Maria Hilf. Poincaré hoped he might learn about his parishioners Lewis and Francine Young before meeting them himself. He arrived with little more than an address and the name of the parish priest copied off an Internet directory.
Scharnitz was an idyll of meadows and pastures ringed by the Tyrolean Alps. At that hour, the peaks blazed with a westering sun that left the valley deep in shadow. There was snow at the higher elevations, and already Poincaré had seen promotions for ski lodges hoping for an early season. Evergreens prickled from the humps of the lower slopes. Heavy-beamed houses with steep roofs and large woodpiles huddled on the valley floor. It was the Tyrol Poincaré knew from his youth, where Randal Young, according to his wife, had spent happy years.
He entered the simple church and found a basement office where a man in shirtsleeves sat with his back to the door. When Poincaré knocked, without turning the man said: "Confessions will be heard in fifteen minutes."
"It's not that sort of visit, Father."
The priest rose. "Ah—a visitor! Forgive me."
Poincaré introduced himself and explained his business, omitting the detail that he was no longer a credentialed agent. When he finished, Ulrich said: "Please, Inspector, spare Lewis and Francine further trauma. It's a terrible thing to lose a child."
Poincaré said nothing. At the priest's back, a window opened to a cemetery.
"A sad case," Ulrich continued. "Randal, in the prime of life— married, two children. They arrived in early March, I believe. One look and you knew the end was near. He had spent a good deal of his youth skiing in Karwendel Park. I came to Scharnitz only two years ago, fresh from seminary. When I learned that he was returning to visit his parents, I wrote to my predecessor. Apparently, Randal was a well-regarded skier. I understand several of his records still stand in the youth division. At the time, his father was posted in Munich with the U.S. Department of State. The family purchased a home here. They visited in all seasons, Inspector, but it was winter they loved best. When Lewis was posted to the Far East, they kept the house and returned when they could. They've retired here.
"I never met Randal until his final illness," said the priest. "Lovely people, his parents—but thoroughly broken. They hadn't given up hope when Randal arrived. He and his wife had come with the name of a spa near Garmisch-Partenkirchen that offered unorthodox therapies for his type of cancer. Nothing sanctioned by the medical community apparently, but by this point they had exhausted all other treatments. They went to the spa and returned within a week or so—then left for the States. Very sad. But it's not ours to understand why a young person dies. One trusts there's some good that comes of it."
"I doubt that," said Poincaré.
"Surely we don't know, Inspector. A child dies. Perhaps a sibling or parent devotes years to finding a cure—and tens of thousands are saved. The single loss is real. One does not minimize that. But the good that may come of loss can also be real. These are ebbs and flows beyond our understanding."
"WHO IS it?" Her German was correct, but the accent was American.
Poincaré answered through the closed door, in English. "Mrs. Young? I work for Interpol," which was true until he decided to reject Robinson's offer. "I've come with some questions concerning Randal." He heard footsteps, then whispering.
The door opened: "Our son died months ago," the man said.
"I know," said Poincaré
, "and I'm sorry for your loss. But he may have been connected with a case I'm investigating, so if you wouldn't mind . . . But perhaps this is a bad time. I could return in the morning."
"A case? What case?"
The loss of Randal Young had not been kind to his father. Aside from a pallid face, grief had colored the man gray. The light in his eyes had dulled, and Poincaré wondered which was worse: to be father to a son who pronounced you dead or to have a son who had, in fact, died.
The Youngs had organized their simple living room around a wood stove and what could only be called a shrine to Randal, consisting of photographs from his toddler years through to adulthood. Every combination of the boy and his parents smiled in these photos. Randal, a tiny package bundled against the cold, on skis. Randal making a precarious turn in the giant slalom. Randal with his mother on horseback in an alpine meadow. An underage Randal hoisting beer steins with his parents. And then, leaping years, Randal in a gown-and-mortarboard and Randal with a young, red-haired woman at his side. Then one red-haired child, and two. Poincaré drank tea as Mrs. Young worked him through the chronology.
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