A Twist of Orchids

by Michelle Wan

  In that instant several things happened. The door slammed shut behind them, there was a rush of movement, the darkness was suddenly bulky with bodies, and a gruff voice that Mara and Julian both recognized shouted: “Freeze! You’re surrounded!” Kazim pitched forward, pulling Julian with him to the ground. Then the lights went on.

  • 42 •

  Jacques Compagnon was furious.

  “Imbéciles!” he roared. “You have compromised our only chance of catching Rocco Luca in flagrante. You are obstructing the law in the exercise of its functions—”

  Julian sat up to reveal the prone form beneath him.

  “This,” he said, cutting through the stream of the adjudant’s invective, “is Kazim Ismet.”

  Compagnon’s prominent eyes bulged. “What?”

  “I think he has a lot to tell you.” Tenderly, Julian fingered his left elbow where it had struck the floor.

  “Bordel!” spat the adjudant. “I’ll wager he does.”

  “I’m not saying anything until I’ve seen a lawyer,” said Kazim. “It’s my right. What have you done with my parents?”

  Compagnon smiled unpleasantly. “Your mother is upstairs. Keeping company with Gendarme Sauret. Your father”—the veins in the adjudant’s neck swelled—“is being entertained by the drug squad in Marseille. Earlier today he took delivery of a crate of six dozen cans of olives laced with heroin, my lad. Two kilograms of the stuff. It was tagged by a sniffer dog at the port.”

  “A dog can smell through cans?” Mara marveled.

  “Easily.”

  Kazim made a strangled noise. “You’re crazy. My father wouldn’t get involved in something like this.”

  “I’ve got news for you, mon gars. He is involved. Our telephone surveillance logged a call to your father at 11:03 last night ordering him to meet a shipment due to arrive at Marseille port at thirteen hundred hours this afternoon. He doesn’t normally drive all the way to Marseille for a crate of olives, does he? We couldn’t trace the call back to Luca—the bastard uses throwaways—but we know the word came from him all right. Your father’s linked, Kazim. The only thing that will go in his favor is that he turned himself in.”

  “What?” said Julian.

  “That’s right,” said Compagnon, and he sounded more outraged than pleased. “Customs let the crate pass in the expectation that whoever came for it would lead us to Luca. Unfortunately, it was Osman Ismet, and he gave himself up voluntarily on the spot.” The brigade leader’s features shaped into a horrible grimace. “He told a customs officer he thought there might be something funny with the olives. God in heaven! We could have landed Luca in it, but Ismet short-circuits the whole operation by singing like a choirboy! After that, our only hope was that Ismet was supposed to bring the shipment back to the store. He was to set the crate inside the rear door and leave it unlocked. He only thought to inform the drug squad of this when he realized his wife would be in for it if Luca’s goons came and found no olives. The drug squad informed us. We were waiting for Luca to take delivery”—Compagnon’s face turned nearly purple—“when you turned up.”

  “Look,” pleaded Kazim, and for the first time Julian had the impression that he was worried about someone other than himself. “You’ve got it all wrong. The heroin was me, okay? I mean, before this. I was doing a little business on the side, quoi, but my parents knew nothing about it. First of all, they would never deal drugs. Second, they’d never order that many olives at one time. Besides, two kilos of H? That’s chicken piss. It’s more than I ever handled, but way less than Ton-and-a-Half would even bother with. He’s expecting a big shipment, I mean une grosse affaire, quoi, but it has nothing to do with us.”

  “A big shipment?” Compagnon demanded hoarsely, “How big?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Kazim recounted his experience in the Jacuzzi. “After they hauled me out, I heard him talking about it.”

  “Luca?” Compagnon wanted to be certain. “You’re positive it was Luca?”

  Kazim shrugged. “Sure. I saw him, quoi. He said a mom-and-pop outfit like Lokum had its uses, but he wouldn’t risk using us for something really heavy. Anyway, why would the Ton even want to touch us? He must have figured you were already all over the shop because of me. I think he just wanted a front.” Kazim looked resentful. “I heard him say something about a passe-passe.”

  “Passe-passe?” Compagnon said sharply. A conjuring trick. His color went from white to red with shock and anger.

  “Now you see it, now you don’t,” murmured Julian.

  “Putain!” roared the adjudant, and expelled a volley of even stronger curses. He looked as if he would explode. “Are you telling me while the sniffer dogs were occupied with a crate of maudits olives, something else came in on that Ropax?”

  “Ropax?” Julian stiffened.“Are you talking about the Bosporus I?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What day is it?” Julian asked urgently.

  “The sixth,” said Mara. “Why?”

  “You,” Julian addressed himself to Kazim. “The woman you said you saw with Luca. What did she look like?”

  “Don’t know. I just got a glimpse of her, quoi. They were trying to drown me, remember?” Kazim’s tone was petulant.

  “Think, you little prick,” Julian said in a barely contained voice.

  “Okay. Okay.” Kazim spoke very quickly. “She had crazy red hair, quoi, and big bazookas.”

  Julian swung around to the brigade head. “What time did the Bosporus I dock?”

  “A little past one.”

  Julian checked his watch. Ten past ten.

  He said, “She was bringing back a load of orchids. Adjudant Compagnon, I think I know how the drugs came in. Trouble is, by now we may be too late to catch her.”

  • 43 •

  “Her name is Adelheid Besser,” Julian told the gendarmes. “She’s an orchid collector and breeder. She went to Turkey for a conference. She traveled out on the Bosporus I. She was due back today, and that’s probably how she returned.”

  “And you think the drugs are coming in with the plants?”

  “If she was the one Kazim saw, then she’s clearly involved with Luca, and it’s a good bet that’s how they’re doing it. The orchids make a good cover. Customs focuses on the plants. Their interest would be on spotting a rare species she might be trying to smuggle in, not on drugs. But, of course, she’d have all the necessary import documentation because the orchids are for scientific purposes. She’s got some kind of research project going with people in Turkey. The plants would have cleared easily.”

  Compagnon ordered two officers to remain at Lokum and called the gendarmes staking out Luca’s residence.

  “He’s not here, sir,” said the officer who responded. “Do you want us to remain?”

  “Damn right,” barked the adjudant. He then called Brames for reinforcements to join the team at Luca’s.

  Compagnon, Laurent, and Julian jumped into a police car that Albert brought to a squealing halt in front of the store. Four more gendarmes piled into a second vehicle. Mara wanted to pile in as well, but Compagnon told her irritably to return to the store and give her statement to Lucie Sauret who, with her partner, was remaining to guard Betul and Kazim. Before Mara could protest, he slammed the car door in her face. Julian powered down his window.

  “Be reasonable, Mara. Do what the adjudant said. I’ll see you back at the house.” He tossed her the keys to his van.

  He directed them out of the town, onto the D660, then north toward Queyssac. The village was dark and silent as they sped through it. After continuing for another few kilometers, Julian realized that he had missed the turnoff. He told Albert to go back. Albert braked hard and swung around sharply, nearly side-swiping the gendarmes following them.

  “Bordel!” roared Compagnon as Albert veered wildly. They bounced over the rough shoulder, teetered on the brink of a ditch, regained the road, nearly
hit another oncoming vehicle, and shot back down the way they had come. The second car of gendarmes completed an equally reckless U-turn and came roaring up behind them.

  “For pity’s sake!” Julian exclaimed. “Slow down. It’s somewhere around here.”

  “It had better be,” Compagnon growled dangerously.

  Eventually their headlights caught the wink of a reflector on a signpost ahead of them on the left.

  “That’s it.” Julian pointed. “Turn there. Her house is at the top of the hill.”

  “Pull off,” Compagnon ordered Albert. “We’ll go on foot from here. Don’t want to give the game away.”

  Julian added silently, If there’s anyone there to give the game away to. He had no reason to believe there would be. Grimly, he put the probability of coming up empty-handed against the probability of success at ninety to ten. Too much time had elapsed. Compagnon’s growl was a pale forewarning of terrible things to come if the entire operation proved fruitless.

  They left the cars at the roadside and went at a trot up the long, steep lane leading to the house. A bright moon made it possible for them to find their way without the use of flashlights. At the gate set into the high stone wall surrounding the property, Compagnon called a halt.

  “The entry is remote-controlled,” Julian informed him. “You have to ring the bell. She likes security.”

  Compagnon said, “Security, eh? Do you know if the wall is wired? And if the grounds are equipped with motion sensors?”

  “Er—no. I don’t know, that is,” said Julian lamely.

  Laurent was shining his light along the top of the wall. “Looks clear, sir.”

  Compagnon and his men were fit and well trained. Swiftly and silently they were up and over the barrier, which proved not to be wired, but their movement on the other side as they ran toward the house triggered a flood of outdoor lights. Julian, who was left hopping about on the outside, heard Compagnon swear.

  Julian tried to scale the wall as the gendarmes had done, scrambling for hand-and footholds. Unfortunately, his repertoire did not run to vertical assaults. A second attempt was equally unsuccessful. The third time, he found a toehold, but it crumbled under his weight just as he flung an arm over the top. He hung in limbo for a moment, then slithered down painfully, scraping his hands and nose.

  “You need a boost,” said a voice behind him.

  He whirled around and stared into the shadows. “Mara? What the hell? What are you doing here? Christ, Compagnon will explode when he finds out you followed us.”

  “Good. I’d like to see him all over in little bitty pieces. You came damned close to hitting me back there on the road, you know. Where did Albert learn to drive? Montreal?”

  “Ah,” said Julian. “That was you.”

  “Of course it was me. That was a rotten thing you did, leaving me behind.”

  “I’m sorry, but you really shouldn’t be here.”

  “And you should? Oh, forget it. Come on. Leg up.”

  She made a platform with her hands, and Julian used it. This time, with a few additional shoves from Mara, he made it all the way to the top. From where he sat, straddling the crown of the wall, he saw lights coming on in room after room of the house. He glimpsed shadowy forms moving swiftly past the windows. Ever direct in his methods, Compagnon must have gained entry by knocking on the front door. So someone was at home, and the gendarmes had been admitted to search the premises.

  “Hey, what about me?” Mara called up to him.

  “Look,” Julian said. “You’d better stay where you are. You don’t know what they’re going to find in there. Ow! Let go, will you!”

  “Like hell I will.” She was hauling herself up with the aid of his right leg. If he wasn’t going to help her, she would help herself. Julian had no choice, if he wanted his knee to remain intact, but to pull her the rest of the way.

  “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?” Mara demanded once she was perched rather breathlessly beside him.

  “Drugs. And orchids.” Briefly, he explained.

  They jumped down together, landing on soft earth on the other side. The house went suddenly dark. Then the exterior lights went out.

  “The greenhouse is at the back,” Julian said. “That’s where the action will be. If there is any action,” he added, revisiting the bad feeling he was having about the operation.

  He led the way. Rounding the corner of the house, they nearly collided with Compagnon. Behind him were Albert and two other gendarmes.

  “We’ve been over the entire property,” the brigade head told Julian ominously. “No one’s here but a woman who says she’s the live-in plant assistant. She said she was expecting her employer back sometime this evening, but she hasn’t seen or heard from her. So where is Adelheid Besser, eh?”

  “Ah,” said Julian stupidly.

  “And what’s she doing here?” Compagnon flared, realizing who was with him. Then he said wearily, “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. In fact, the real question is what the devil are we doing here?”

  Julian heard movement behind him. Laurent’s long shape appeared.

  “Exterior sensor lights deactivated, sir,” said Laurent. “Jean-Louis is with the employee to make sure she doesn’t take off or make any phone calls.”

  “This is nothing but a wild goose chase,” Compagnon sputtered at Julian. “A complete waste of police time. To say nothing of the hot water you’ll land me in if Madame Besser chooses to lodge a complaint. I’m treading a fine line here, making a night search based only on a hunch—a foreigner’s hunch, at that!”

  Julian could feel the adjudant’s anger blasting him like heat from a furnace. The ninety–ten odds he had given himself collapsed completely. It had been his intuition, the gut level understanding one orchid freak has of another, that had brought them there. He had reasoned that Adelheid would want to get her plants bedded down as soon as possible after their stressful journey. But he had thought simplistically. There was no reason why she had to bring them back here. What was to prevent her from bedding them down in Marseille itself, or Montpellier, or Nice, or Cannes, or Zurich, for that matter? Except, the tiny intuitive voice in his head reasserted itself, she was fussy about her orchids, and they would take precedence over any non-botanical cargo she might be carrying. She would be especially fussy if she were trying to smuggle in something rare. Her priority would be to get it into an optimum environment, and where better than here?

  Then where, as Adjudant Compagnon had asked, was she? It was now twenty to twelve. The Bosporus I had docked almost eleven hours ago. The trip from Marseille took seven, maybe eight hours. There were many reasonable explanations for her delay. Traffic, car trouble, an accident. Or, if there had been some problem with her documentation, if she had encountered a very thorough inspector who had wanted to examine each plant, she could have been held up for any amount of time.

  “Adjudant Compagnon,” Julian said. “I think you should wait.”

  “For what?” snapped the seething brigade commander.

  “I think Adelheid Besser isn’t here because she’s still on her way.”

  “Pah! The woman’s had plenty of time to arrive. Plenty of time to go anywhere. She could be in Paris by now.”

  “No, she’s coming here,” Julian said stubbornly. He was growing more certain of his conclusions by the second. “She needs to. For the orchids. Besides, she’d figure there’s no risk. They think you’ve fallen for the passe-passe.”

  Compagnon’s scowl lunged at him out of the semi-darkness. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “But you’d better be right.”

  Mara spoke up: “If you’re planning on taking anyone by surprise, shouldn’t you do something about your vehicles, adjudant? They’re sitting on the roadside like beacons.”

  “Merde!” exclaimed Compagnon. “Albert, Roussel, on the double. Get them out of view. And take this—take her—with you!”

  • 44 •

  At a little past midnight,
headlights flared among the trees lining the long approach to the house. A few minutes later, the automatic gate swung inward, and a vehicle passed through. Its tires crunched quietly over the gravel of the drive leading around to the greenhouse. The gate remained ajar.

  Adelheid parked the Kangoo. She sat for a long moment, staring at the play of moonlight on the glass panels of the greenhouse. Briefly, she wondered why the motion sensor lights had not come on but concluded that the system had short-circuited again. It was always happening. She was too weary after a long day, a long drive, to give the matter much thought. She had gone through a very tense time with that damned Compétence W agent, who had wanted to impound her orchids. However, she had held her ground, had even threatened to lodge a formal complaint with his superiors, naming people on whose favors she knew she could not call. In the end, she had outlasted and outargued him.

  She climbed stiffly out of the van and, with a jingle of keys, unlocked a side door leading into the anteroom of the greenhouse. She returned and opened the rear of the van. She reached inside, partly disappearing from view. As she reappeared, bearing a flat of plants covered by a clear, rigid plastic top, another car, its lights extinguished, pulled up alongside her. Serge lowered the driver’s window.

  “Ah,” she said, “c’est vous. You came quickly. I haven’t unloaded yet.”

  The doors of the Mercedes swung open. Serge’s thin form emerged from one side, the bulky figure of Ton-and-a-Half from the other.

  “Forget it. We’ll take over from here,” the Ton said.

  “No,” she said firmly. “You must wait until I unload.”

  “I said, we’ll take over from here.”

  “Wrong,” said Adjudant Compagnon, stepping out from the side of the greenhouse as the floodlights came on. “We’ll take over from here.” Gendarmes moved in swiftly from all directions. “If you would oblige us, Monsieur Luca?”

  “What the hell?” snarled the Ton as Roussel and Albert pushed him and Serge against the Kangoo to frisk them. Laurent clamped a restraining hand on Adelheid.