The brigadier, focused on the task at hand, said, “Now, gentlemen, we’d better draft your statement requesting the police to intervene to protect your mosque against a Salafist and terrorist takeover. And we’ll have to stress your concern for the children in the orphanage and your shock at the evidence of murders and terrorist recruitment taking place under your noses. And since you’re so accustomed to being on TV, Ghlamallah, perhaps you’d draft a statement you can read in front of the cameras.”
The old imam coughed, tugged at Ghlamallah’s sleeve and murmured something in his ear. Ghlamallah nodded and turned to the brigadier.
“I am reminded to convey to you the unfortunate news that the Niqab, the Caïd and Mustaf, the one known as Zhern’ber, the Strong Man, seem to have left the mosque precincts sometime between yesterday noon and when we left this morning. We have no idea where they have gone or what they are doing, but the imam insists you should know.”
The brigadier nodded and addressed the old imam directly. “We knew that already, but I’m glad you confirmed it without being asked. It helps build a little trust.”
“The imam would also like to know—” Ghlamallah went on, but the brigadier cut in.
“The imam is old enough to speak for himself,” he snapped. He looked at the old man. “Well, what is it?”
“That other woman there, the Western woman, who is she? She’s not a member of the tribunal, at least of those listed in the newspaper.”
“She’s one of the officials who have been helping to debrief Sami and support the family as the tribunal does its work,” the brigadier replied crisply. “You’ve seen the château, the security arrangements we’ve been forced to put in place because of your so-called security services. Perhaps you can think what the French people are paying, in soldiers’ lives as well as money, to deal with this crisis you created through your negligent handling.”
He turned to Bruno. “Perhaps you would see these two gentlemen to the waiting room outside my office and find some pens and paper so that they can start drafting something suitable. I’ll rejoin you there shortly, after the tribunal reconvenes. I think the tribunal will be calling on you shortly to tell them what you know of Sami. And then perhaps you’d check on this Halévy woman whose bequest is suddenly all over the radio. The last thing we want is another security situation involving her.”
26
Bruno’s experience before the tribunal was short and mostly straightforward. He described what he knew of Sami’s boyhood, his amazing skills at serving tennis aces and sinking baskets and his gift for repairing anything mechanical. Professor Chadoub, who asked him to call her Amira, wanted to know how Sami had gotten along with other children of his own age, girls as well as boys. He answered as best he could and recommended they speak to Momu’s son, Karim, who had played a sterling role as big brother. Professor Weill asked if he’d ever seen Sami perform any violent act and had smiled, his eyes twinkling, when Bruno replied, “Only against a tennis ball.”
“There’s just one more aspect of this that intrigues me, as a music lover as much as anything else. Sami seems to have an extraordinary response to Mozart. Do you know anything about that?”
“I noticed it first in the car on the way back from picking Sami up at the airport,” Bruno said, thinking there was no reason to let the tribunal know of the playlists being used to conceal messages. “Mozart was on the car radio, and it seemed to calm him. I bought some CDs for him, and he listens to them all the time. He said something about it being predictable, like mathematics, until it suddenly wasn’t. It struck me as a perceptive way to describe Mozart’s music.”
“What did you buy for him?”
“What I found in the supermarket, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the Jeunehomme Piano Concerto and The Magic Flute. Later I took him some of my own discs, the Horn Concertos, Symphony no. 40 and Figaro. He likes them all, sometimes tries to sing along. I’d be fascinated to hear what he’d come up with if he ever learned to play the piano.”
“Indeed, so would I. And now a last, rather personal question, I’m afraid: do you like him?”
“Yes, I do, at least the Sami I knew as a boy and the Sami I have seen since his return,” Bruno said without even thinking about it. “I find it very hard to equate that Sami with what we hear of his work in Afghanistan.”
“You’re an experienced policeman,” Chadoub suddenly intervened. “Do you think he’s responsible for his actions?”
“I’m not sure he thinks as we do of the difference between right and wrong, but I suspect he knows what he did in Afghanistan was deeply wrong. That’s why he got out. I think he made bombs because it was the way he found to stay alive. He sometimes seems watchful of others, as if observing what actions of his meet approval. Does that make him responsible? I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure he can’t understand a judicial proceeding, far less be responsible for his own legal defense.”
It was Deutz who asked the key question, about changes in Sami’s behavior since his return. Bruno described seeing Sami at the airport huddled speechless in the fetal position, and his nervousness around new people. He mentioned Sami’s apparent distress at being addressed in Arabic.
Even as Bruno answered, it felt odd to see Deutz in this context, thoughtful and professional. He was adept at zeroing in on the key point and played his role perfectly, neither steering Bruno nor letting him evade the question. It was impressive, but for some time now Bruno had seen Deutz in a wholly different light: as a vain man of great ambition and without self-restraint. Deutz was a rapist who had no right to sit in any kind of judgment on others, let alone on a hapless youth like Sami. And he was sure that Nancy was right about the dangerous consequences of Deutz’s techniques to turn prisoners into informers. Even as he tried to explain his thoughts to the tribunal there was a corner of his mind that was looking coldly at Deutz and vowing to bring him to justice.
“As a boy, Sami didn’t seem afraid or distressed,” Bruno said. “He gave me the impression of being a contented child, always eager to help if he could fix something. He didn’t interact much with others, very seldom spoke. I still see that Sami now, when he’s with people he knows or those he loves, or with animals. But since he left home he’s obviously known pain and terror, and they’ve marked him. He’s clearly glad to be back in familiar surroundings with his family.”
“We’ve heard from Sami’s adoptive father about his dreadful experience in the Algerian civil war when his family was slaughtered. He knew pain and terror then, but you say his later childhood showed no sign of that,” Deutz said.
“I don’t know whether his childhood in Algeria before the massacre was normal, whether he spoke and interacted like other children. Momu or Dillah might know. At the time, not having learned from Momu about the massacre, I assumed Sami had been born that way. Now I suspect his autism, or whatever name we use to describe his problem, came as a result of his ordeal, but I’m not a doctor and not qualified to judge.”
That was all the tribunal wanted from him. As he left the balcony Nancy was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.
“Nice job, particularly on the Mozart. It really helps to humanize Sami,” she said. “I was worried about the wind messing up the audio when they hold these sessions outdoors, but the video feed was fine. Now that they have the feed direct in Washington, they hardly need me.”
Bruno’s eyes widened in surprise. “You mean that what I just said has already been heard in Washington? Including that part when I said I liked him?”
“And Harvard, and New York, Raleigh, Houston and Minneapolis. We’ve lined up some of the best psychiatrists in the States to monitor these hearings and give us their own reports. The Justice Department will make its own report on Sami’s likely legal status.”
“I had no idea …”
“Sami’s autism is going to be the most famous case on the planet, and probably the most studied. The newspapers back home are suddenly full of medical experts explaining what it is a
nd how little we understand it. The TV footage has helped changed the mood. He’s Sami now, not the Engineer.”
“I like these kinds of newspaper headlines better,” Bruno said.
“Wait till the next little drama hits, one of the tribunal members being arrested for rape,” she went on, a triumphant glint in her eye. “I had a call from Annette. She’s spoken to one of the other medical students who got the Deutz treatment. That’s two cases as well as Fabiola. The guy is toast.”
She used the French term pain grillé, and Bruno shook his head, not understanding the expression.
“It means he’s done, he’s finished, his goose is cooked.”
Bruno grinned. He loved to hear these English idioms translated directly into French, reminding him how wonderfully inventive and quirky languages could be. And “his goose is cooked” was one any good Périgourdin would relish.
“Then the essential question is likely to be about the timing,” Bruno said. “The procureur has to sign off on it first, and I imagine he’ll need to talk to Paris. They won’t want an arrest to overshadow the tribunal process, so they’ll probably wait until the tribunal report is complete.”
“They’re supposed to end the hearings today and produce their report tomorrow. The brigadier expects it will be unanimous, but who knows. One thing worries me: who’d respect a tribunal verdict once Deutz has been disgraced?”
Bruno nodded; he hadn’t thought of that. Either way it was going to be a mess. He was glad it wasn’t his decision.
“I just hope the trial isn’t too much of an ordeal for Fabiola,” he said.
“A lot less of an ordeal than she’d face in the States, with a clever defense lawyer asking her about her every sexual experience. That’s our adversarial system. The defense usually tries to turn the woman into a slut in front of the jury by alleging the immoral woman led the poor helpless guy along. There are times I prefer justice your French way.”
Bruno remembered something he’d read, perhaps in a Montaigne essay, that one of the most convincing reasons to believe in a Supreme Being was that it held out the prospect that a perfect justice could exist, however impossible it might be for flawed humans to achieve it. He was just trying to recall the exact quote when he heard footsteps on the stairs; it was the brigadier, leading the two imams and smiling broadly, a triumphant gleam in his eye.
“They have agreed to tell the tribunal what they know of Sami’s time at the mosque,” the brigadier explained, and led them up the last set of stairs to the balcony, the older imam on Ghlamallah’s arm.
“That’s good,” Nancy said when they were out of earshot. “It means we’ll get Ghlamallah’s voice on tape. We’ve got some special equipment that washes out all the voice modifiers you can buy. There’s a lot of queries about some of the voices on the phone taps, and it would be useful to have something on him.”
“Whatever happened to those pixels in the photos on his smartphone?” Bruno asked, remembering Nancy’s comment about NSA software that could scan them for hidden messages.
“They were clean,” she said, shrugging. “But I’m not surprised. The jihadis have known we had that capacity for some time. But they don’t know we’re now reading their Mozart playlists.” She checked her watch. “This is an unscheduled hearing. All the others are done. I was hoping it would be all wrapped up tonight and we’d have the final report tomorrow. The brigadier said he’ll stay up all night writing it.”
“And then you go back to Paris?” Bruno asked, trying to keep his voice level. He knew he’d remember her and those sudden moments when he had felt the jolt of attraction pass between them. Suddenly his mouth was dry again.
“Probably straight to Washington, a lot of meetings as we draft the three options.” She was looking into his eyes as if searching for something.
“Three options? You know already?” They were at least a meter apart, but he felt she was much closer than that. There was a strange disconnect between the words they were exchanging and another, quite different and deeper communication that seemed to be taking place.
“It’s the way things are done in Washington.” Nancy’s voice sounded faint. She closed her eyes, half turned and took a deep breath. Whatever sudden charge had begun to flow again between them seemed to fade. Bruno supposed he ought to be grateful. She was leaving within a day or so, and he’d never see her again. If she stayed, she’d only complicate things.
“Some president, I think it was Nixon, wanted every decision that came up to him to be on one sheet of paper with no more than three options.” Now her voice was normal again, crisp and efficient. “For Sami the options had been pretty clear from the start. One, we demand extradition and trial in the United States. Two, we demand a trial and punishment but leave the jurisdiction to France. Three, we accept a tribunal verdict that he’s not fit to stand trial and treat him as a cooperative witness who stays in protective and medical custody. The brigadier and I have talked about it and we agree: we’re going to do all we can to get the most sensible decision, option three.”
“It sounds as though whoever drafted those options knew that one and two were hardly possible, politically. They wanted option three all along.”
“Exactly. That’s how bureaucracies work, how our political masters want us to work, reshaping the complexities of the world into three clear choices.”
She laughed, a warm sound, almost a chuckle that seemed to embrace him in a complicity of two professionals trying to make sense of a crazed world. “So here we are, two servants of our separate states, conspiring to bring about the only rational outcome while standing on the landing of a stone staircase in a medieval castle and wondering about a bunch of jihadi nuts on the loose and trying to kill us and everyone in here.”
Bruno said nothing, wanting to extend this moment, to remember her as she looked now. The time stretched and she looked away again.
“We can’t stay here. What are you planning on doing now?” she asked.
He closed his eyes and took a breath. It was over. He straightened his back and brought himself back to his duty. “I’m off to track down Maya Halévy. The brigadier is worried that she might be at risk, now that the news of her bequest has gone public.”
“Oh, Arab terrorism, Jewish money, I think I get it,” she said. “And that car certainly stands out. Have you seen the Sud Ouest website?”
She whipped out her smartphone and called up Delaron’s news story with the image of Maya waving cheerfully as she stepped into her Rolls. A second photo below showed Bruno, the mayor and Maya emerging from the collège.
Bruno hadn’t seen it, and he was startled. The job of protecting Maya had suddenly grown urgent. And personal, too: if the men who’d attacked him saw his photo, he reflected, they might think they were getting two targets rather than one.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, but he was already calling Yacov Kaufman. Nancy turned away with a natural courtesy, pretending to be checking e-mails, giving him space. Bruno spoke briefly, listened, agreed to meet and hung up.
“They’re in Bergerac, sightseeing with the Rolls-Royce. I’ll drive there to meet them and let them use my Land Rover. I’ll bring the Rolls back and put it in a friend’s barn.”
“I should come, too. There has to be a woman in the back to replace Maya. Besides, I’ve always wanted to be driven in a Rolls.”
Bruno shook his head. “We’re not serving as bait. We just have to get that damn magnet of a car off the street.”
“We’ll be bait whether we like it or not. We’re armed and we know what we’re doing. We’ll tell the brigadier, and he’ll arrange backup. We have a chopper and a squad of troops on call. How long is the drive?”
“From Bergerac back here, forty minutes, maybe less.”
“I’ll go see the brigadier. You arrange for the weapons and flak vests. I’ve got my Glock but I want an M-16 or something like it. If we’re ambushed, some grenades would be useful, maybe some smoke.”
Bruno stare
d at her in disbelief, but she was already heading up the stairs. “Wait,” he said. “Look, this is Périgord, civilian country. We don’t go around armed like that.”
“Bruno, you know how these jihadists will be armed. And they’ll be gunning for Maya. They aren’t going to try hitting this place; it’s a fortress. We’ve got the sniper zones covered. They’ll be desperate to hit something, anything, and they won’t be able to resist an Israeli millionairess, in a Rolls-Royce, no less.”
Bruno could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t sound ridiculous but had to say something: “You’re a diplomat.”
“I’m a law enforcement officer, and these people are terrorist criminals and enemies of my country,” she snapped. “Let’s go.”
“Okay, but we’ll both go to see the brigadier. We can’t do this without authorization, and only he can arrange the support.”
The more he thought of it, the more inevitable the idea seemed. Maya would be at risk. Her car would be unmistakable. He had to get to Bergerac and arrange another car for her. It was reasonable to take precautions, which should include helicopter reinforcements on standby. He found himself rehearsing the arguments he’d present to the brigadier.
But there was no need. The brigadier seized on the plan even before Nancy had finished explaining. “It’s a much better idea than twiddling our thumbs here and waiting for them to come to us,” he said, and began arranging for the troops, the helicopter, the communications—and an ambulance.
27
A map was spread open on the hood of Bruno’s Land Rover. Nancy and the brigadier stood to his left, and a young paratroop lieutenant and his three-man team to his right. Bruno said, “We have to think like them, to know only what they know.”
Bruno explained that the jihadists knew from the media that Sami was in the château and probably out of their reach as long as he remained there. Short of artillery, the château should be deemed safe. They also knew that Bruno was based in St. Denis and that Maya Halévy with her very identifiable car had been with him there that morning. They knew she was extremely rich, so they would assume she would be staying at the most luxurious hotel in the region, which, without question, meant the Vieux Logis in Trémolat. They were wrong, but the jihadis weren’t to know that. They would focus on the Rolls-Royce and Trémolat.
The Children Return Page 25