The best form of defense is attack, Bruno thought, and strode quickly toward what seemed to be the greater threat, holding out his hand in greeting to the taller of the two men but ready to defend himself. The big man stopped in surprise but then lunged forward with both arms as if to wrestle him. Bruno used his momentum to pivot on his left foot, crashing his right boot into the side of his opponent’s knee. The man fell heavily to the floor. Bruno then turned to deal with the smaller man when a pain more piercing and intense than anything he had ever known hit Bruno on his left side. He felt himself go rigid in shock, his scream of anguish cut off as his throat seemed suddenly to jam closed. His limbs seemed to collapse, and he crumpled to the floor, his nerves jangling and his heart hammering. He had no idea what had happened to him and could barely see for the stars and flashes before his eyes when the appalling pain came again, in the pit of his stomach this time, and he felt his limbs jerking of their own accord, his feet and the back of his head hammering on the floor.
The pain stopped, though his nerves were firing random impulses all over his body. He seemed to have no power over his muscles and felt his bladder empty itself, wet and warm. As some self-control came back he wondered if he was having an epileptic fit. A spasm from his stomach turned him onto his side in time to vomit onto the floor rather than over himself. He smelled something burning and looked down to see smoke curling from a scorch mark on his uniform jacket. Had he been shot? He could see no blood. His senses were returning, and he looked up to see the two men stumbling away down the corridor, the bigger one leaning heavily on his partner.
Doors of the classrooms and labs were opening, and people were looking out. He tried to shout at them to stay inside their rooms, but only a squeak came from his throat. He could hear the siren of the gendarmerie van drawing closer. Suddenly someone was kneeling at his side, taking his pulse and telling somebody else to bring water and a cloth. He recognized it was Florence. Then another teacher was cleaning up the pool of Bruno’s vomit, and Florence was bathing his face with a damp cloth. He forced himself to sit up, his nerves still quivering. Now he realized he had been given two bad shocks with an electric cattle prod. The power must have been turned up very high.
His throat still wouldn’t emit anything but a croak. Florence gave him a cup of water and he swallowed. He tried to roll to his feet, but she held him down. He could see he was surrounded by a ring of schoolchildren staring down at him. A voice said dismissively, “He’s drunk.”
“Get kids back in their rooms. Danger. Two men, Arabs, one beard, white van outside,” he gasped. “Hide Momu. They hunt him.”
Then the siren was much louder, as if it was just outside. There was shouting and the sound of engines revving hard. The siren began moving away. Bruno’s mobile phone was ringing. Florence answered it.
“This is Bruno’s phone. He’s been hurt and can’t speak. Who is this, please?”
She turned to Bruno and said, “It’s Sergeant Jules. The police are chasing two men who just stole a car.”
Into the phone, she said, “Two men attacked Bruno here at the collège. We are calling the urgences. Bruno needs treatment. Nobody else here is hurt.”
Bruno was starting to feel a little better. He took his phone from Florence’s hand and said, “I’m okay, Jules. They hit me with a cattle prod. I don’t know if they have other weapons but we need to talk to them about the murder last night. Is there anything I can do? I’ll stay here, by their van. I immobilized it.”
Jules replied that they were in chase on the road to Belvès, and other gendarmes had been alerted. He hung up.
“What the hell happened here?” asked Rollo, the headmaster, who had just arrived. “What’s this about a murder?”
“Get the kids back in their classrooms, and we need to take Momu somewhere safe,” Bruno said. He dialed J-J’s number and found him in his car.
“I was just coming to see you, Bruno. I was almost at the mairie when we heard the sirens, and the gendarmes went by like bats out of hell. The police radio net has just put out an all-points bulletin for a silver-gray Renault Laguna.”
Bruno explained briefly, and J-J said he’d join him at the collège within minutes. Bruno closed his phone, rose gingerly to his feet, and watched the kids troop reluctantly back into their classrooms, stewarded by their teachers. Rollo, Momu and Florence remained, their eyes wide at what they had heard from Bruno’s briefing of J-J.
“I have to stay here to meet J-J and search that white van,” Bruno said. “Rollo, I need you to drive Momu home, pick up his wife and take them to the mairie. They’ll be safe there. Florence, thank you for your care. I’m feeling better now, and I’ll talk to you later. Momu, I wasn’t going to break it to you like this, but Sami has surfaced in Afghanistan and he wants to come home. The two men who attacked me are looking for him, and I think they came here looking for you. While they’re on the loose you’re in danger, and so is anyone at your house.”
A different siren was now audible and getting louder. Everybody looked around for the source of the sound except Momu, who asked, “Sami’s alive? He’s coming back? Have you spoken to him?”
“That will be J-J. I have to go and talk to him. Momu, he’s alive and coming home, and that’s all I know. Rollo, Momu, please do as I say. I don’t have time to explain right now.”
He limped off down the corridor toward the toilets, stripped off his trousers and fouled pants and cleaned up as best he could. His legs felt as if he’d played an exhausting game of rugby, and there were burn marks on his side and his stomach where the prod had shocked him. He splashed cold water over his face and decided against looking at himself in the mirror. When he got outside into the school yard, J-J was examining the white van. The blue light was still flashing on the roof of his car.
“It just came over the radio, the gendarmes lost them,” said J-J. “They used back roads and got away before we had the roadblocks organized.”
“That’s their van, and I think it might also be the one involved in the killing in the woods,” Bruno said, as a familiar Renault Twingo turned into the collège, just ahead of the red van the pompiers used for emergency medical services. Fabiola braked the Twingo, climbed out leaving the door open and marched up to Bruno, took his wrist to feel his pulse and looked searchingly into his eyes.
“Were you unconscious?” she asked.
“No, I was hit by two electric shocks from a cattle prod. I just collapsed. And I wet myself. Then I threw up. I feel better now, just aching.”
“I’m not surprised. Where were you shocked?”
He pointed, and she dropped his wrist, opened his jacket and pulled his shirt out to look at the two places.
“Those are the same kinds of burn I saw on the anus of the dead man last night, or rather this morning,” she said. “Count yourself lucky you didn’t go through what he did. That’s no ordinary cattle prod.”
She put her hands to the sides of his neck, palpating the glands. “Follow my finger with your eyes.” She waved her finger across his vision, then up and down, then close to his nose.
“You’ll live,” she said. “When you’re done with J-J, come see me at the clinic.” She went to the pompiers’ truck to tell them they would not be needed and got back into her car.
“Quite an assertive young lady,” said J-J. “You sure you’re in good enough shape to talk? You look like shit.”
“You heard her, I’ll live,” Bruno replied. “Lend me a set of evidence gloves and let’s take a look inside this van.”
The doors were unlocked and the key was in the ignition, left there when the driver had tried in vain to start the vehicle. The blown-up photo of Sami had gone. The charging wire for a mobile phone was inserted into the opening for the cigarette lighter. There were paper cups of coffee in the brackets between the two front seats and sandwich wrappers on the floor.
“Lovely,” said J-J. “Lots of fingerprints and DNA from the cups. The intelligence guys will think it’s Christmas.�
��
Bruno looked inside the litter basket at the entrance to the school, removed the distributor head from where he had hidden it and handed it to J-J. Then he opened the rear doors to see a mattress with two sleeping bags and a heavy-duty battery pack, which he assumed was used to recharge the cattle prod. A long wooden box was behind the two front seats, covered with a blanket. Bruno pulled the blanket aside and opened the box.
It was empty save for a lining of foam rubber, cut out in the shape of a bolt-action rifle. A second, smaller cutout suggested the shape of a telescopic sight. On the inner lid were stenciled letters and digits: FR-F2. Bruno recognized the designation for the standard sniper’s weapon for the French army throughout his time of service. Two ten-round magazines were wrapped inside camouflage rags and tucked between the foam rubber and the side of the case. They were both filled with NATO standard 7.62-millimeter rounds.
Under the driver’s seat was a small notebook, filled with Arabic, and a passport-sized photo of Sami, the original of the one Bruno had first seen. There were other prints, larger, of a man who seemed unaware of the photos being taken. They might have been surveillance photos. He was snapped entering and leaving a car, at a café table and among a crowd of Muslim men praying. Bruno wasn’t sure, but he thought it could be Rafiq, the dead man he had seen handcuffed to a tree in the woods a few hours earlier. He thumbed through to the latest blank page, turned back and saw the words “St. Denis” in Roman letters, Arabic writing below. He showed it to J-J, just as Rollo came out of the main school entrance, Momu close behind. Bruno called him over.
“Can you read this?” Bruno asked, showing Momu the notebook. “Wait.” He gave Momu a set of evidence gloves and helped him put them on before handing him the notebook.
“It’s the names of me and my wife, our home address and the address of the school,” said Momu.
“I wasn’t joking when I said you were in danger,” Bruno said. “Get your wife and go to the mairie. As soon as the gendarmes get back we’ll get what you need to stay there while we figure out something better.”
Momu nodded. “What about Karim and Rashida and the baby?” he asked.
“Is there anything in the notebook about them?”
Momu leafed through it and shook his head.
“Then I don’t think you need to worry about them. I’ll go and see Karim and let him know what’s happened. You and I need to talk about Sami, but in the meantime go with Rollo. I’ll find you later.”
J-J was on the phone. He looked across at Bruno and mouthed, “The brigadier.” He listened briefly and then handed the phone to Bruno. “He wants to speak to you.”
“I hear you’ve had a bit of a shock,” came the familiar voice.
“Two, in fact.”
“I’m on my way from the airport at Bergerac, and I’ll see you at the gendarmerie in St. Denis as soon as you’ve been to the clinic. J-J says the doc insists on checking you out. I want you with a clean bill of health. That’s an order.”
Bruno handed back the phone and was about to ask J-J for a lift back to his van when he heard the sound of an ancient Citroën deux-chevaux being driven too fast. It was Pamela’s car racing around the bend. She braked hard and climbed out, looking disheveled as if she’d left the house too quickly to look at her hair or change out of gardening clothes. She rushed toward Bruno.
“What on earth have you done to yourself this time?” she asked, anger in her voice but concern in her eyes. “Fabiola said you’d been attacked but didn’t go into details.”
“She looked me over; she must have told you I was okay.” He briefly explained what had happened, downplaying the incident, but Florence was in earshot and decided to intervene.
“He was writhing in agony, throwing up, and he couldn’t stand or walk for a few minutes. I was very worried for a while.”
“It wore off,” Bruno said. “I’m fine now.”
“I can’t bear this,” Pamela snapped, her eyes blazing. She wagged a muddy finger at him. “Each time you leave I never know what sort of trouble you might be getting into. You’re a magnet for it, Bruno, and I don’t think I can take much more.”
“It’s all right,” said Florence, taking Pamela’s arm. “He’s going to the clinic now for a checkup.” With her eyes, she gestured for Bruno to leave. He climbed into the passenger seat of J-J’s car. After a moment J-J squeezed himself behind the wheel and asked, “Where to? The clinic?”
“No, the mairie. My van’s parked there, and I want to go home and clean up.” He turned to face J-J. “Do you get this kind of reaction from your wife?”
“Yes, I think we all do,” J-J replied. “It’s one of the reasons so few cops can make their marriages last. Mine left me once because of it, but then she came back. Funny thing was, after that time when I got shot, she was fine and she never worried again. She said she’d been through the worst that could happen.”
“Sounds like a drastic cure,” Bruno said.
“They’re doing counseling now for spouses. Male or female, when a cop gets wed, the partner is offered a course in the pressures of being married to one of us, support networks, all that. Do you want me to see if we can get Pamela into one of those?”
“No. She’s British. Her idea of treatment is a nice hot cup of tea. And she does not see herself as my spouse, not even as a partner.”
“So you say, but she certainly acts like one.”
4
Having already been home to shower, change his clothes and feed his chickens, Bruno dutifully presented himself at the clinic, where Fabiola made him strip for a full physical. She spent some time examining the burn marks from the cattle prod, listened carefully to his heart, tapped his chest and checked his reflexes. Finally she drew some blood.
“You’re in a state of shock,” she said, “and I don’t want any jokes about cattle prods. You’ve had a hell of a jolt, which is a strain on the heart. Your heartbeat is still much too fast. I want you to go home and go to bed and cover yourself with some extra blankets. No food, no alcohol, no activities and drink a lot of water. I’ll come by later with some bouillon. I want to see you again in the morning.”
Bruno, who had great faith in Fabiola’s medical skills, promised to take her advice, or at least most of it. He explained that he had to attend a meeting at the gendarmerie but promised to go straight home afterward.
“Did you have to tell Pamela about this?” he asked. “She came straight to the collège and gave me hell, as though it was all my fault.”
“You’re her lover so she has a right to know,” Fabiola replied, looking at him levelly. “The two of you virtually live together even if you don’t want to admit it. And if Pamela was angry with you it’s because she cares. Dammit, Bruno, I get angry with you when I see the kind of trouble you get into. Concussions, burns, cuts and bruises after fights, near drowning in a wine vat, asphyxiation, hypothermia in that cave. Does that old bullet wound from Sarajevo still give you trouble?”
“The hip aches a bit when the weather changes; tells me there’s rain coming or winter’s on the way. That’s all.”
“I’d rather you didn’t attend any meetings, but if it’s important, just be sure you go straight home afterward. If you pass out halfway through, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll see you later with the bouillon, probably after I exercise the horses.”
He stopped briefly at the mairie to check his mail and e-mail and saw he already had a reply from Zigi: “Paperwork good. But if we send him out through Bagram the Americans and the Afghans will be involved. We’ll try to put him onto a French military flight on our own route through Dushanbe. I’ll let you know.”
Bruno knew that Bagram was the big air base outside Kabul run by the U.S. military. But the French had their own transport link and airfield facilities at Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, the country immediately north of Afghanistan. Bruno remembered that if the French military could possibly find a way to be independent of their American allies, they would. He was glad of i
t, imagining the kind of bureaucratic hurdles required to get a mysterious French civilian through American security checks.
He was just sending a quick reply when the mayor came into his office and closed the door behind him. “What’s this I hear about your being attacked at the collège? Philippe Delaron called to ask me about it.”
Bruno groaned inwardly. At least Philippe had not taken a photo of him writhing on the floor, throwing up and worse.
“I’m just heading to the gendarmerie for a meeting about it with the brigadier and J-J.” Bruno described the events of the morning. “The only reason to target Momu would be something to do with Sami, and it looks as though he’s on his way back here.”
“You mean Sami is the real target, and Momu is the way these men think they can get to him?”
“That’s right. Sami disappears from a mosque in Toulouse four years ago and turns up in Afghanistan, after doing heaven knows what. Then he arrives at the French military base, which means somebody in Afghanistan will be wondering what happened to him. His story suggests that people at a mosque in France are funneling French Muslims to the Taliban. Presumably those people would want to stop him from talking, which could mean killing him. But first they have to find him, and Sami’s last known contact is Momu here in St. Denis. I assume they planned to question Momu, probably brutally.”
“So Sami coming home could put the whole of St. Denis in danger?” the mayor asked.
Bruno shrugged. “The two tough guys they sent barely got away. We’ll get out sketches of them this afternoon. I think the brigadier has been keeping that mosque under surveillance anyway so he’ll know if they go there. I don’t think they’d take the risk of coming back here.”
Bruno tried to sound more convinced than he felt, but the mayor did not look reassured. He shrugged and sighed in a way that seemed to express all the anger and frustration that Bruno himself felt at the invasion of their placid town by murderous forces from the world outside. This was a time of year when St. Denis should be thinking of little but the wine harvest and the coming of the new rugby season.
The Children Return Page 3