"You know, he got up on skis the first try and aimed himself straight down the training slope into the hay bales. He jumped up, saying, 'More! More!' In winter, it was all he wanted to do. When Lewis got posted to Japan, Randal was twelve and wanted to stay on here, with neighbors. We brought him with us but promised to keep this house."
"Why," said Lewis Young, "are you here?"
Poincaré prepared himself to gouge an already disfigured man. He respected Young's loss enough to speak directly. "I understand that your son was a propulsions expert."
"That's right."
"And also expert at setting explosives."
"He worked summers for a mining company in Wyoming. What of it?"
"When he returned to Scharnitz in March, Mr. Young, did Randal bring with him any materials from his job in Pasadena? Chemicals, perhaps. In particular, a white crystalline substance that looked like table salt?"
"He could barely stand," said the woman. "No, there was nothing like that. He brought one small suitcase. He had a book on birding, which he left for me. Do you want to see it?"
"He doesn't want that, Francine!"
"Did he ever speak of going to Amsterdam?" said Poincaré.
Lewis Young began to work his hands as if he were washing them. "He went to the treatment center just north of here, over the border. He came back for a day or two, then returned to the States where he died. He didn't even make it home."
Poincaré had stirred their grief enough. He apologized for the intrusion and returned to his hotel room, wondering if the trip to Scharnitz had been worth the effort, when an e-mail message arrived from the insurance company that held a $2 million policy on the life of Randal Young. Poincaré had requested payout information, and the brief response surprised him:
The policyholder paid no premiums for the fourth quarter last year and the first quarter this year, after remaining current with premiums for five years. Policyholder wrote on 12 February to cancel policy. No claim made subsequently. No death benefit paid. Do not hesitate to write with further questions. Yours, S. Thompson.
Poincaré woke to a brilliant sky, the village still in shadow. The tallest peaks had caught the sun's first light, and the blaze off the snow cast him back to winter holidays in the Alps with his own parents and, later, with Claire and Etienne. Cows wandered the pastures, bells clanging. The day promised to be a glory, so it was with real sadness that Poincaré returned to the home of Lewis and Francine Young to drive a final stake through their hearts. When the door opened this time, he apologized.
"I often work this way, I'm afraid. Questions come to me after an interview, and then I can't sleep. Two brief questions, if I may."
This time there was no offer of tea. Lewis Young, his wife behind him, stood in the doorway. "Get on with it."
"The name of the spa that Randal visited." Poincaré knew the name and, in fact, had come with only one question.
"I told you this last night!"
The man repeated the name, and Poincaré asked for the correct spelling. Then he said: "Your photographs of Randal . . . I noticed there were none before he was two years old or so. Might I see some pictures of him when he was younger?"
Lewis Young slammed the door in his face.
CHAPTER 38
Poincaré stepped off the Munich-bound train at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. On the wall of a building beyond the station, he saw a red number 8! papered over what looked to be a 9! Even in the Tyrol, he marveled. Serge was right to give the Rapturians their due. Before he could hail a driver, a call came through from Levenger.
"Henri!"
"I hope you have something, Hubert."
"You were right. Numbers—nothing but. There were sub-files you didn't see, and the final count is some 27 million numbers, ranging from 47.56 to 13,164.53 with more rises than dips overall. They also segment nicely, with large blocks of about 400-to-800 thousand tending to run in relatively narrow ranges. Still, within a range, I can't discern a pattern. So I'm afraid you still have a puzzle on your hands."
Poincaré instructed Levenger to send the hard drive to Fonroque. He found a taxi and within fifteen minutes was standing before a villa set on a hillside that opened to a lake and, beyond that, the mountains. Franz Meister founded his institute a decade earlier to pursue plant-derived cancer treatments. Though the institute literature could not have been clearer about the experimental nature of its treatments, Poincaré found enough testimonials on the Web site to give a dying man hope. On occasion, infusions derived from Brazilian tree bark or aromatics from South Asia extended or improved a cancer patient's quality of life. More often they did not, and the institute made no effort to hide that fact. Still, patients came by the hundreds—among them, Randal Young.
Poincaré waited for an aide to close tall oak doors before approaching the windows in the villa's library. Herr Director, he was informed, was completing rounds and would join his visitor soon. Poincaré did not mind the wait. He took his morning medication, surprised and pleased that it had continued to suppress his arrhythmia. He could not deny feeling stronger, and he would need that strength; for whoever made Dana Chambi run was the person who had hired her double to kill Chloe. Trouble was coming and his body, for once, felt up to the task.
"Welcome!"
He was older than Poincaré by at least fifteen years and reminded him at once of the doctor his parents used to call when he was ill—a man who could improve his spirits simply by sitting at his bedside. Meister was both a physician and a biochemist. He had founded a pharmaceutical firm in the 1970s that, in time, was bought by AstraZeneca. With his millions, he launched a research program that pursued pharmaceutical exotics in rain forests throughout the world. The villa in Garmische served as the institute's administrative center and as a clinic and final refuge for the desperately ill.
Poincaré recounted the bombing in Amsterdam and the discoveries made at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He reviewed Randal Young's skill set and explained how the particulars of timing worked against his involvement. "What I can tell you," said Poincaré, "is that many people have vouched for the character of this man, yet certain facts implicate him. Given the timing of his death, I can neither prove a connection nor clear his name."
"You must know," said Meister, who sat opposite Poincaré behind an ornate desk, "the people I see are gravely ill. I don't ask about their lives before arriving because, once diagnosed, my patients tend not to think of themselves as insurance agents or teachers or bankers. They're simply people who want more life, and I do my best to help. Our clinic can do two things. We can restore some order to a patient's body, enabling him to beat the chaos of metastatic cancer—or fight it to a truce. When we can't do that, we try restoring a sense of order to the patient's soul. Randal was of the second sort. I analyzed his blood and knew he wouldn't last long. I told him so. We tried an infusion, but the prospects were not good. Still, he was willing. I must say I was touched by the devotion of his family."
Poincaré cleared his throat. "His sister, Dr. Meister?"
"Yes, his fraternal twin. And his wife."
Poincaré rose. "Dr. Meister, how long could Randal Young have lived after you discharged him?"
"He died within a few days, I understand. At an airport."
"I know that. I mean how long might one live?"
"There's no predicting, Inspector. I've seen a man with end-stage kidney cancer will himself to live until his son flew halfway around the world to his bedside. One observes the phenomenon even among coma patients. So how long—there's no objective way of telling. I can say I was a surprised by how rapidly he declined. I thought he'd have a little longer."
Poincaré opened his briefcase and produced photographs of Julie Young, Dana Chambi, and Madeleine Rainier. "These two," said Meister, pointing. "Randal's wife and his sister. Did you know that in the sixteen months prior to his admission, his sister donated a lobe of her liver, bone marrow, a vein in her leg, and a cornea—all in separate surgeries? It's a tremendousl
y affecting story, her devotion. One sees so much pain in my profession. But it's also true that in the months and days leading up to a death, one sees profound acts of love."
The interview with Dr. Meister left Poincaré pensive as he sat on the rail platform in Garmische, waiting for a return train to Scharnitz. For an hour he tried to sleep, and when he finally managed to doze his phone startled him awake. He answered reflexively, a poor choice: for it was Felix Robinson, whose calls Poincaré had been avoiding.
"Henri!"
"Hello, Felix."
"You're a hard one to reach. Where are you?"
"Taking a holiday in the Alps." Poincaré did not put it past Robinson to trace the call. He figured he may as well tell the truth.
"A personal trip?"
"That's right. The weather's fine this time of year."
"Your attendant in Fonroque said you'd be away for awhile. I'll make this brief. You can be on holiday provided you are not acting in your investigative capacity as a field agent."
"Felix, you know I'd never do that."
"If it gets back to me that you're exacting some sort of vigilante justice for your granddaughter, do not make the mistake of thinking you'll find a friend in Lyon. We are investigating that case ourselves. It's a priority for me. But you have no role to play. None. I advise you to spend time where you're needed. Home."
"Thank you for that."
"I will not permit a rogue agent to—"
"The line, Felix. There's static on the line. I can't quite—"
He flipped his phone shut and it buzzed again. He was about to kill the power altogether when he saw an incoming message. He flipped open the phone and read this:
Insp Poincaré. I'm frightened. Meet me in Gletsch on morning of Aug 8. D. Chambi.
CHAPTER 39
Poincaré understood.
When Madeleine Scott disowned her adoptive parents at the age of eighteen, she began a search that ended eight years later in Pasadena where she found Randal Young, already diagnosed with cancer, living with his wife and two children. Poincaré imagined the reunion: joy in knowing that Randal and she completed each other as only twins can, and despair. She had tried saving him with one part of herself at a time.
Poincaré had now linked Randal Young and his expertise with explosives to James Fenster, through Rainier. Eighteen months before the Amsterdam bombing, Rainier and Fenster were still engaged to be married, which meant that Rainier would have spoken of her brother to her fiancé or introduced them directly. But then she and Fenster split. What monumental betrayal, he wondered, could have prompted her to turn on the man she loved and coax her brother into building a bomb—or, perhaps, teaching her to build one?
Returning to Scharnitz just before sunset, Poincaré approached Pfarrkirche Maria Hilf, hoping Father Ulrich would be available for a franker discussion. Possibly Rainier had avoided Scharnitz altogether, unwilling to meet her brother's adoptive parents. Poincaré would soon find out. When he arrived at the church, he found the lights off and the windows shuttered. He walked to the rear of the building, by the cemetery, and looked in the window of the office where he had found Ulrich the day before. The church was deserted. As Poincaré considered how he might find an address for the priest, who couldn't be far, he noticed a man and a woman kneeling by a grave.
He watched them. The man rose and offered a hand to the woman. They stood for a moment, arms around each other, heads bowed. When they stepped up a path, Poincaré recognized Lewis and Francine Young. He crouched behind a bush and followed their progress out of the cemetery, waiting until they were well out of sight before trying an old iron gate. The valley by this point was deep in shadow, but above there was light enough to find his way. He turned left off the center aisle, aligning himself with the spot where he had stood by the church. He walked several paces more and discovered a fresh bouquet. The stone read: RANDAL YOUNG BELOVED SON, HUSBAND, FATHER.
In Poincaré's experience, one body was not typically buried in two places, whatever the claims on the deceased. Either Young was buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Pasadena, or he was buried here. If Poincaré were still a field agent, he would have ordered both graves opened; but with his credentials canceled and no time for a request that would be bitterly contested, he sought permission to do a terrible thing from the only court that mattered to him now: his own conscience. He forced the lock of a garden shed, found a shovel, and waited for nightfall.
At the hour when every light in Scharnitz went dark, Poincaré began to dig. The moon was up, providing nearly too much light; for he was certain to be seen in silhouette if anyone approached. But then who walks by a graveyard in a sleepy village in the dead of night?
The work was difficult for all the obvious reasons: his back and legs hurt; and then there was the natural aversion to decomposed flesh. But Poincaré had seen corpses in all manner of decay. The greater trouble was how, the deeper he dug, the less this became the grave of Randal Young and the more it became a grave in a corner of the Montparnasse Cemetery. He dug to ankle level, then to his shins—the work slow and tiring. His clothes were filthy; his hands, blistered. Foot on shovel. Step. Grunt. Scoop. Heave. A hundred times, another hundred. He lost count, but each time his thoughts turned to Chloe, he counted again from zero to clear his mind. I will find you. One. Step. Grunt. Scoop. Heave. Two. You need air and I will find you and give you air. It's only a sleep, my dear. A big sleep. You'll wake, I know it. Wait a little longer. One. Step. Grunt. Scoop. Heave. Two. Three. Four. Because how could you die? Not a child.
The night was still, the mountains spectral in the moonglow. Bats flew, but no ghosts troubled Poincaré save the ones he brought with him. He continued digging, and sooner than he would have guessed, the hole at knee level, the head of the shovel broke what sounded like a ceramic jar. No casket? he wondered. He reached into the jar and rubbed grit between his fingers. He grabbed for a handful and switched on a pocket light. Realizing what he had found, he returned what was in his hand to the jar and climbed from the grave. Decency demanded that he fill the hole; so he set to work, an easier job. The top level of sod he had peeled back in sections, and he laid these carefully in place before returning the shovel to the shed. Behind the church, he found a spigot.
With time to spare, Poincaré stood washed and changed on the rail platform in Scharnitz, waiting for the 6:10 to Munich. He would be gone well before Father Ulrich or anyone else could confront him with the desecration of a grave—albeit not a typical interment. For these remains had been charred. Cremated. Lewis and Francine Young had, in fact, stood over the grave of their son.
Poincaré placed a call.
"Paolo."
"Is that you, Henri? Do you know what time it is?"
"Tell me—the evidence bags from the Hotel Ravensplein, the toothbrush and the hair samples I had you throw away by the canal. Madeleine Rainier's. Do you still have them?"
"Of course. We went to our rooms that night, and I circled back to the trash can."
"Do me a favor. Run a DNA analysis on them and fax the results to Annette Günther at the medical examiner's office in Amsterdam. Ask her to compare your results to the ones she took off the remains at the Ambassade—along with the DNA profiles faxed from Boston. And in my notes, you'll find a DNA analysis of some baby teeth from Fenster's apartment. Fax that, too."
"Henri . . . what's all this about?"
In the distance, he could see the headlight of the approaching train. A custodian pushed a cart with mail sacks up the platform and lit a cigarette. A whistle blew. "Paolo," he said. "James Fenster is alive and in grave danger."
CHAPTER 40
Driving the Grimsel Pass is not for the faint of heart. Poincaré geared down at a hairpin curve on an outside lane, the mountain hard to his left, nothing but a rumble strip between him and a thousandmeter free fall to eternity. The Germans have a word for these places: der Abgrund. Poincaré knew of no word in any language that quite expressed its mix of terror and fascination.
A misstep at the abysm meant certain death; yet one fought an urge to walk the edge, to creep on hands and knees if need be, and stare. This time Poincaré did not stop or stare. He was driving hard, to Gletsch, for a meeting with Dana Chambi.
He traveled a route through mountains well known to Charlemagne, the Romans before him, and earlier still Paleolithic hunters who tracked game up these glacial valleys and over mountain passes. It was at just such a passage, at the head of the Rhône River and the ancient glacier that fed it, that they would meet. Poincaré knew the place. As a boy standing alongside a quay in Lyon, he once asked his father: "Where does it come from—all the water?" His father pointed east and said, "I'll show you." That weekend they set out, following the river northeast to Geneva and on to Lausanne and Montreux before dipping south to follow the Rhône to Martigny, where the river turned sharply east and north to Oberwald and finally Gletsch.
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