by Cara Black
The garage lay dark, doors locked, windows semishuttered. Puzzled, she took out her penlight and shone it through a crack in a shutter. Before she could knock, she saw the blinking red light of an alarm system and stopped. With her penlight she examined the garage, seeking a side entrance, without success. The premises were shut tight as a drum, yet the woman had called her from here.
What if the woman had been part of the nearby demonstration? Aimée filed that possibility away. But if the woman was hurt, and being chased, it seemed unlikely she’d run across the bridge to reach this island. Too exposed.
Aimée strode over the zebra-striped Pont de Sully crossing to Place Bayre, the one green space on the island. Miles Davis’s favorite walk. And a good place to hide among the chestnut trees, deserted gravel paths, and slatted benches. In its center, a stone statue of a naked man straddling a lion replaced the original bronze animals melted down by the Germans during the Occupation. Diffused light from green metal street lamps filtered through the branches of the trees, casting sticklike shadows on the gravel. She flicked on her penlight. And then she noticed scattered gravel; it looked as if it had been kicked. Or as if there had been a scuffle. She followed the scattered gravel behind a tree trunk. Her foot stepped on something soft. She stopped.
Please don’t let it be . . . ! She didn’t want to finish the rest of her thought.
Cautiously, she shone the penlight in an arc, poking the leaves with her high heels, expecting to find a human hand or foot. She ground her teeth. Non, only soft mud.
A twig crackled behind her. The baby’s mother? She spun around.
The path lay deserted.
“Allô?”
The only response was the flapping of a seagull’s wings overhead. If the woman was here, surely she’d show herself. Hiding from Aimée made no sense.
She had to calm down. The noise could have been made by squirrels or chipmunks or even a less desirable member of the rodent family.
She walked toward the path and heard the crunch of gravel. She stopped in her tracks. An assignation? In the seventies this spot had been notorious for cruising gays waiting for cavalry soldiers from the nearby Arsenal. Maybe they were still active? But the footsteps padded on, keeping pace with her. Stupidly, she’d left the Beretta in her spoon drawer.
She speeded up, then took cover behind an ivy-draped tree on her right. She inhaled, wishing her heart wasn’t beating so hard.
Something moved. She parted the glossy green ivy leaves and peered around the trunk of the tree. Behind her, bushes rustled and she froze, holding her breath. Silence.
And then she saw . . . a shadow, the silhouette of a raised arm holding a bar with a hooked end. As quietly as she could, she backed away until a branch snapped beneath her feet. Then, behind her, more rustling noises in the bushes.
She slipped off her heels, stuck them in her pockets, and sprinted through the bare trees, her heart thumping. If she could make it to Boulevard Henri IV, people might be standing at the bus shelter. At least there would be passing cars.
Sharp pebbles cut her feet but she kept going, past the stone wall, and made it out to the street. She didn’t look back as she ran across it, despite flashing headlights, a car swerving, brakes squealing, and blaring horns.
She kept close to the buildings, rounding the curve into Quai d’Anjou, passing the red wall tile marking the height of the 1910 flood that had devastated Paris.
Now her apartment was just a few doors away! She leaned against a carved stone portal, her shoulders heaving, trying to catch her breath. Perspiration dampened her dress; her black stockings torn to shreds.
Yellow light from the street lamp filtered through the budding branches of a plane tree onto the deserted pavement. She could see no one.
She counted to ten, then walked on.
The footsteps came again, this time closer. The baby. Was there a threat to the baby? She tried to recall the mother’s words. Whoever was after her, Aimée couldn’t lead them to her doorstep and the baby.
She started to run.
Monday Night
ON THE BOULEVARD, Krzysztof stumbled in front of the advancing boots of the CRS. Candle wax had spilled, scorching his arm. Thick white foam sprayed by the silver-helmeted pompiers, the firemen, clung to his pants. A man in a flak jacket with EXPLOSIF—bomb squad—printed on his vest was operating a remote-control device. The crowd surged from all sides, shouting angrily.
“Clear the area,” said a voice from the loudspeaker.
Whistles shrilled. Krzysztof watched, astonished, as behind them a metal robot on small grinding tank treads tore apart empty candle boxes and the backpack he’d set down by the nearby planters.
“Get away from those boxes. Move!” one of the CRS barked. From the crushed backpack, broken wine bottles cascaded onto the ground, but no liquid pooled in front of the shards of glass. They had been stuffed with yellowed rags that emitted a pungent kerosene odor.
“Bottle bombs . . . stand clear.”
“We didn’t bring those,” Krzysztof shouted. “We’ve been set up!”
High-pressure blasts of frigid water from a Karcher, a water cannon mounted on a police-truck roof, drenched him and the others. People near him scattered, slipping as they ran away. He saw a red flashing light as an ambulance braked to a halt near where Gaelle had fallen.
He found himself pushed and shoved under a pile of wet bodies, limbs flailing. Panicked, he tried to crawl out from under on his hands and knees, gasping for air. He couldn’t see Gaelle; he couldn’t see anything with water hitting his face.
Visions of his father in Warsaw’s Bialoleka Prison flashed before his eyes: the dingy cell holding political prisoners, the hacking coughs of fifteen men to a cell, the vomit-tinged corners. He vowed that he’d never let himself get caught and end up in prison.
Pulling himself forward on his hands and knees, he clawed dirt and vines with his fingers. The water still pelted him; he was soaked.
He’d caused this disaster. And he couldn’t stop it.
“This way,” a man called, “over here.”
Shaking, Krzysztof followed the voice, burrowing behind some planters. Then he was through and he straightened up behind an idling police truck and wiped his eyes. Peering around, he saw two white-coated medics lifting a stretcher on which Gaelle lay into the ambulance.
More people were crawling behind the planters, shoving the hastily erected barricades down.
He followed a police truck down an adjoining street. He ran, dodging a taxi. His thin-soled, lace-up suede boxing boots made little sound as he pounded the pavement. Sirens echoed as more police trucks approached. He turned right and almost ran into a patrol of blue-uniformed flics guarding the street. He ducked into an arched doorway, thankful that they hadn’t seen him.
He caught his breath. Terrified, sick to his stomach, he waited. Five, ten long minutes, dripping and shivering in the humid air.
He had to salvage their campaign. To do something. They’d been sabotaged but he wouldn’t let whoever did this get away with it. They had proof of the oil company’s falsifications, but the evidence they’d compiled wouldn’t be safe at the MondeFocus headquarters. After finding bottle bombs, the flics would obtain search warrants and search the office.
Who could have set them up? He pulled out his cell phone, tapped in the MondeFocus number . . . he had to warn Brigitte. There was no answer and the machine didn’t pick up. She must not have returned yet from the protest at La Défense. He couldn’t wait any longer. He peered out again. One of the flics ground out a cigarette with his foot.
If only they’d move on. He needed to safeguard the files at the MondeFocus office, and he’d have to enlist help. His mind raced. When Brigitte returned, they’d put their heads together and come up with a new plan. Tomorrow was not too late to submit their alternatives to the oil executives. And after this near riot, they would certainly get press coverage. Something could still be salvaged.
The office was cl
ose, just over the short Pont de la Tournelle, on Ile Saint-Louis. Almost where he’d started from on this disastrous evening. His jacket had half dried by the time the flics left to patrol the next street. He hugged the walls, crossed Boulevard Saint-Germain with his head down, then paused on the bridge leading to Quai Tournelle at the floodlit, needle-like monument of Sainte Geneviève. The Seine ran dark and viscous below.
Ahead lay a few lit windows in the Polish Foundation and he debated for a moment seeking refuge there. But his uncle would ridicule him after berating him for leaving the reception in the first place. His adrenaline had surged when he’d had to get away, and now his emotion had turned to anger. The CRS had beaten Gaelle, lied about the permit, and dispersed their march. Someone had set them up by planting bottle bombs. The blonde’s face flashed in front of him. He had to be sure not only of who had betrayed them, but of why.
Krzysztof’s lungs heaved as he pressed the numbers on the digicode for the office of MondeFocus. The olive green door clicked open and he ran past a wheeled shopping cart, taking the stairs two at a time as he raced up the winding staircase. The MondeFocus office door stood ajar, a slant of light illuminating the black-and-white diamond-patterned tiles of the landing.
Too late. He was too late.
He leaned against the door, his shoulders sagging. Inside, desk drawers had been dumped on the floor, papers strewn. The floppy-disc box was empty; the copy machine that stood on a makeshift slat of lumber across two sawhorses was open. Had they gotten to the file cabinet? A brief ray of hope flickered inside him. He rooted in the drawers of the cabinet: all their vital evidence, oil platform drilling statistics, petroleum percentages, all gone.
Then he heard voices and footsteps and looked up. Brigitte, the director, burst into the office. Fine lines webbed the corners of her mouth and she looked tired, showing the age she normally managed to hide. She stopped when she saw him, surprise and fear on her face. “We heard on the radio . . . what are you doing?”
A long-haired man in overalls and a stocky woman followed behind her, carrying armfuls of leaflets. Brigitte turned and exchanged looks with the man.
“I just got here,” Krzysztof said.
“Just got here?” Brigitte said. “You’re rummaging in the files. How did you get in?”
He stepped back in alarm. “Someone has ransacked the office—the door was left open.”
The look on Brigitte’s face chilled him.
“I think you did this and now you’re trying to make it look—”
“Brigitte,” the woman said, stepping forward. “Give him a chance to speak.”
“You think I’d do this?” He choked. “The movement’s my life, you know that.”
“You’re a dilettante who’s been hanging around here for a few weeks,” Brigitte said. “A student fired up with big ideas for a peace vigil that backfired. Did you know that Gaelle’s in the hospital?”
“Gaelle tried to talk to the CRS, I wanted to stop her . . .”
Brigitte shook her head. “Our coalition formed MondeFocus years ago. Since then we’ve done painstaking, backbreaking work, building our reputation for factual opposition to the destroyers of the environment, careful never to become involved in violence, and you’ve shot it all to hell in one night!”
“You have to listen to me,” said Krzysztof. “The files containing the evidence were stolen.”
Brigitte asked, “Why didn’t you obtain the permit for the vigil?”
He nodded. “But I did . . . they revoked it.”
“Then you supplied false information, didn’t you? To make sure they’d revoke the permit,” Brigitte said.
Where was the copy of his application? Where had he put it? He raked his pockets with shaking hands but only came up with a used Metro ticket and a few centimes. He looked at the long-haired man. “Pascal, you showed me how to apply and gave me the form to fill out. You saw the application!”
Brigitte turned to Pascal.
“Eh, get your facts straight,” Pascal said, his voice charged with anger. “Giving you a form isn’t seeing how you filled it out and whether you submitted it.”
Krzysztof reeled at the look of doubt in Brigitte’s eyes. “But I told you, they granted the permit,” he said. He appealed to Pascal again. “You and I were together the day I picked up the permit at the Préfecture, Pascal. We’ve been sabotaged!”
“And pigs have wings. Remember the first thing I said? Get the Préfet’s signature. Bet you didn’t follow through, eh?”
He’d tried so hard, fought with his uncle, even missed his physics exam. And now Gaelle was hurt and he was being blamed for everything that had gone wrong. And if they didn’t do something to find the real saboteurs, the agreement would be signed.
A man stumbled into the office, his shirt wet and bloodied. Blood dripped from his swollen nose. He stared at the mess, then his gaze settled on Krzysztof. He pointed his finger, stabbing the air. “You, you’re the one!”
“Hold on, Franck, you’re bleeding,” Brigitte said, grabbing a first-aid kit from the items scattered on the floor.
“It’s him,” Franck said. “The TV crew showed me the video.”
“What do you mean?” Brigitte asked.
“He carried the bottle bombs in his backpack,” he said, pointing a shaking finger. “It’s on film, I saw it.”
Krzysztof was terror stricken. He struggled to breathe. “A blonde asked me to carry her backpack. I didn’t know it held bottle bombs. She was a plant, don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see,” Brigitte said. “You came here as a volunteer. We have other causes you could have worked on but you’ve been fixated on the oil conference. Only that interested you.”
Orla. He had to tell them about the information she’d promised.
“Le Pen’s right wing hired you,” Brigitte accused him. “They’ll stop at nothing to discredit our movement. I should have suspected! You have all the hallmarks of the scum intello student saboteurs the right wing plants to disparage us.”
Perspiration dampened his sweatshirt. “Le Pen, that fascist . . . you’re calling me a saboteur?”
He banged his fist on the littered desk, sweeping papers onto the floor.
Brigitte’s eyes flashed. “And as soon as you could, you headed here and ransacked the office!” She grabbed his arm.
He had to calm down. If they didn’t believe him, the oil companies, led by Alstrom, the worst one, would get away, implicating him as a spy, a saboteur. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “But you must believe me: we were all betrayed.”
Four pairs of eyes stared at him.
“We had them dead to rights; the evidence was here, in black and white. So they sent someone to steal the files after setting me up,” he told them. “If we don’t find those files or get hold of Orla—who has more information—the oil companies will be able to push their agreement through. We can’t fight among ourselves; we have to act against them before it’s too late.”
Instead of nodding in agreement, Brigitte reached for the phone. “You stole the files. You’ve worked things perfectly so the agreement can’t be stopped,” she said. She picked up the receiver and dialed 18. “You can tell your story to the flics when they arrive.”
His pulse raced. He’d been framed but they wouldn’t believe him. He was cornered. He made his feet move, backed out the door, and ran down the stairs.
Monday Midnight
AIMÉE PUSHED OPEN the gleaming green door of the Chambre Professionelle des Artisans Boulanger-Pâtissiers, the bakers’ union and academy, and rushed past bread sculptures, ancient kneading tables, and a turn-of-the-century wooden bread cart in the foyer. Woodcuts of bread ovens lined the walls. The door clicked shut behind her. Now if she could just . . . The door buzzer sounded and she jumped. Her hands trembled. To get in, you had to know the door code, like she did; few buzzed unannounced at night. The buzzer sounded again, echoing off the stone-paved foyer. She leaned down, trying to catch a glimpse
of the person who was buzzing for admittance through the crack in the four-hundred-plus-year-old door. But no one was visible in the dim sodium yellow of the streetlight. A car engine started, and she heard the the motor idling on the quai. She hoped it was the person who had followed her, about to drive away. Then a muffled cough came from right outside the door. She had to hurry and get out of here.
Pungent warm yeast smells filled her lungs. In the rear, she saw a group of men in the kitchen wearing white cooks’ shirts buttoned on the side, like a culinary military uniform, she always thought. Indeed, the baking master ran the academy with precision rivaling the nearby Arsenal’s cavalry exercises.
A row of bullet-like moist white baguettes sat on the marble kneading table, poised for insertion into the wall oven.
“Escaped again, eh?” Montard asked, measuring cup in hand, his wide brow and flushed face beaded with perspiration.
The buzzer sounded again. Montard shot a look over his flour-dusted shoulder. “Another man who wouldn’t take no for an answer? This one’s persistent.”
She’d used the academy’s back exit before. It came in handy when a date turned sour. She shrugged, sticking her shaking hands in her pockets.
“The espresso is on me, Montard.”
“Someday . . . you’re always asleep when I’m working.”
The oven timer beeped and Montard sprang into position, reaching with a long wooden paddle to hoist the baked loaves onto cooling trays. She walked past the industrial-sized aluminum mixer and hundred-kilogram sacks of flour and bins of Maldon sea salt to open the fire exit door. Threading her way through the courtyard, past a dormant rose trellis and hedges winding by an old well, she emerged by her own courtyard’s old carriage house. She paused until she was sure that no one was following her. Shining her penlight in the corners, she checked her courtyard again. And then trudged upstairs. In her apartment bedroom, René, his sleeves rolled up, sat on the floor working on his laptop. The baby cooed on the duvet.