by Cara Black
“Make sure she gets Rachid by the window,” he finally said.
Flustered, Aimée measured her words. “How do you propose a little girl would do that? Rachid isn’t stupid.”
“Sounds like she got rid of one terrorist.”
Sardou could have a point.
“Would a courtyard window suffice?”
“Facing south,” Minister Guittard said, cutting in on the line.
She punched the Return Call button on her cell phone. A recording came on: “The party is unable to answer your call momentarily or has stepped out of range. France Telecom thanks you for your patience and requests you try again momentarily.”
Great.
“She trusted me, Sardou; you blew it,” Aimée said. Sardou and Guittard’s conversation had wasted time and proved useless. Until Simone answered they hovered in a holding pattern.
“Call again. Keep trying, Mademoiselle Leduc,” Guittard said and hung up.
She’d pretty much figured that out.
And then she looked at her new cell phone with the battery … her dead Tintin watch … her mind raced. When she’d dropped the proposal off at the EDF site, the manager had warned her to turn off her cell phone since the electromagnetic rays from the HERF generator interfered with systems. Flattened them, he’d said. The electromagnetic fields were quite high due to all the unshielded equipment and the heavy iron reinforcement in the station walls. No reason it couldn’t do so now.
“Sardou,” she said, her voice certain and calm. “I know how to dismantle the bomb without touching the computer.”
BERNARD AIMED for the staircase, which tilted dizzily as he crawled toward it. His hand throbbed. Where had the little girl gone? Where was the gun?
The terrorist’s overalls clung to him. He shivered. If he could just get downstairs he’d pretend to be the other terrorist, wounded and unable to talk. He’d get Rachid by the window. With that thought, Bernard almost tumbled down the stairs headfirst.
And then the sun blazed for a brief moment as the clouds parted. Bernard smiled. The sun at last. He heard a zinging crack as a fine tinkle of windowglass powdered him. And then Bernard felt warmth on his face. The wonderful warmth, the heat from his childhood. Everything danced before him; his nounou, the slim grinning mother he knew as a child, his papa driving a jeep. Little teething Andre beckoned, and Bernard joined him.
RENÉ WALKED into the command center with a small shopping bag. He set the bag down and started pulling items out.
“Everything’s here,” he said, strapping on the Walkman-size HERF generator in his waist bag. With the power emanating from this he could knock out communications systems in the surrounding buildings.
Aimée helped adjust the antenna up his left sleeve so he could easily slide it out.
“From Simone’s conversation, we know one of the terrorists was knocked out,” Aimée said. “René resembles a child from this distance. If the doors Berge entered are closed, René can go to the window. Aiming the HERF gun at the device controlling the bomb, he shoots high-energy radio frequencies. He interferes with the detonation device, defusing the—”
Aimée never finished.
Sardou and every man wearing headsets rushed to the window.
“Green light,” someone muttered.
She saw a black-suited tactics team pause at the door, simultaneously heard the crack of rifles.
“Don’t do it!” she yelled. “The building will blow up.”
“They’ve got three to five seconds before the reaction time sets in,” Sardou muttered. “They better make it count.”
In stunned disbelief she watched the team enter the building. No explosion. More cracks from the rifles. She could see bullet holes pepper and shatter the glass.
Aimée gasped, “Please God keep the children and Anaïs away from the windows! What happened?” she asked, turning to Sardou.
“Three minutes ago Rachid agreed to the demands,” Sardou said. “We recorded him dismantling the wires. Your plan was backup.”
“Then why shoot him?”
Aimée’s knuckles whitened as her fingers clutched the win-dowsill; she still braced herself for an explosion.
“We’d taken out the other one,” Sardou said. “RAID doesn’t like taking prisoners.”
Sixteen children with their teacher and a shaking Anaïs holding Simone were led out through the courtyard. Relief flooded Aimée until she remembered.
“What about Bernard Berge?”
Aimée’s answer came as three bodies were rolled out into the cobbled courtyard: one burly man in his underwear, and two men in black jumpsuits.
Three terrorists?
The tactics team stripped off the ski masks of the other two.
One was a bearded man, a small black hole over his cranial vault. Dead instantly, she figured. A surgical shot to the skull, which wouldn’t have affected his nervous system and prevented him from tripping the wire. Bernard was the other, in a stained jumpsuit. A dark red spot, like a third eye, dripped down his forehead. His features were relaxed, and he looked at peace. Aimée felt the oddest sensation, as if Bernard’s soul fluttered on wings above the cobbled courtyard and toward the weak sun.
“Nom de Dieu!” Sardou snorted, looking at Berge. “Berge will go from sinner to saint all in one day!”
“Berge was expendable, wasn’t he?” she said, angry. “Guittard always planned to shovel him in the dirt, one way or the other.”
Sardou’s eyes glazed. He turned and walked into the courtyard. As the stretcher lifted Bernard’s corpse, Aimée whispered a prayer. Poor Bernard had been terrorist fodder.
Outside, Guittard was holding a press conference, so jammed with media that she and René had to wait near the SAMU vans where tearful relieved parents were hugging their children. Mar-tine had arrived, joining Simone, and was helping Anaïs to a temporary first-aid station at the rear of a fire truck.
Disheveled, Anaïs sat on the truck’s fender, her wounds receiving attention.
“We were going to dismantle the system, Anaïs,” Aimée said. “We’d figured it out.”
“I knew you could, why didn’t you?” Anaïs said, her blond hair matted to her scratched and swollen face. “My suit’s mined.”
Aimée saw Kaseem Nwar. He stood smiling, rocking on his heels, as Philippe hugged Simone.
And then Aimée knew.
Everything fit together. Philippe had made a deal with the grinning devil. Seething inside, she stared at Kaseem Nwar, who bent down and patted Simone’s head.
“Philippe gave in to Kaseem,” Aimée said, turning to wide-eyed Martine and Anaïs. “He funded the mission, didn’t he?”
Anaïs shrugged, then winced with pain as a paramedic swabbed her face.
Aimée shook with fury. For the second time she’d been about to save Philippe’s family but he’d dealt with the devil. The smiling devil who sold out his own brother, Hamid.
“The DNS knew the terrorist defused the bomb,” she said. “But they killed them anyway, even Bernard.”
Anaïs bit her lip as the paramedic treated her.
“What do you mean?”
“Kaseem held you and your daughter hostage until Philippe caved in,” she said.
Anger flashed in Anaïs’s eyes. Then she softened as she looked at Simone and her husband. “I didn’t know it was Kaseem, Aimée. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to find out who was blackmailing Philippe.”
“Maybe you could have helped me more, Anaïs.”
Aimée strode over to Kaseem and Philippe. Philippe ignored her, holding Simone tightly.
“I owe you an Orangina, Simone,” she said, keeping her voice even.
Simone nodded, her eyes serious. “A big one.”
“Let’s take Maman home, Simone,” Philippe said.
He didn’t look Aimée in the eye.
Simone pulled her father’s hand.
“It’s not over, Philippe,” Aimée said, through her clenched teeth. “I’m seeing to that.�
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But Philippe and Simone threaded their way past the emergency crew toward Anaïs. Philippe enveloped Anaïs in his arms. For a moment the de Froissarts huddled. Then Philippe led them to the debriefing area.
“Let things go, Mademoiselle Leduc,” Kaseem said.
“You risked little children,” she said. “Before that you tried to have me killed at the cirque. You sabotaged the AFL and your own brother Hamid’s cause!”
Kaseem shook his head. “No one believed in him anyway.”
Aimée felt pity for poor Hamid, starving himself for a cause to help immigrants. The irony being that Kaseem, his brother, supplied arms and assisted the massacres the immigrants had tried to avoid.
“The ‘ST196’photos—”
“Tell nothing,” Kaseem interrupted. “They’re just photos.”
Aimée shuddered. His cruel arrogance unnerved her.
“Piles of bodies in the desert,” he said. “So what. That’s been happening for years. Since the eighties. No one cares about Algerian infighting.”
“There’s a difference when surplus French weapons are responsible and French taxpayers foot the bill,” she said. “At least, the French might think so.”
Kaseem buttoned his wool coat; he snapped his fingers at a man leaning against a car. “The ministers turn a blind eye. So should you. You know, I enjoyed being with you. We could—”
“This whole thing was a hoax,” Aimée interrupted. “Sylvie discovered what ‘ST 196’ meant so you killed her, meanwhile Philippe cut the funding. Philippe hid Anaïs, so you used your brother Hamid. You engineered a hostage situation blaming the AFL. All this to pressure Philippe so he’d give in, fund the mission because his daughter was inside. Then Anaïs checked herself out of the clinic, a bonus for you. And no one would know. No one would put it together. But I did.”
“I’ll take that for a no to dinner.” Kaseem smiled and didn’t blink once. “Theorize all you want. You can’t prove it.”
Powerless, she wanted to nail him there on the spot. His patronizing smile got to her.
“You’re a wannabe general, aren’t you, playing with the big military boys,” she said. “As long as you supply the weapons, you get to play. Without toys from Philippe’s funding you’re just a maghour holding up the dusty wall!”
His eyes flashed.
She knew she’d hit home.
“Say what you like,” he said. “I’ve got what I want.”
And then he was gone.
The cobbles glistened below her, slick and gummy, as the panier á saktde, the van to carry out the dead, pulled up. Kaseem was right, and he made her sick. The bad guys had won. And she’d thought she could stop them.
As they loaded Bernard’s corpse onto the stretcher, she whispered a prayer.
There had to be some way to get Kaseem. Discredit him.
By the time Martine had joined her, she’d figured out a way.
“Kaseem’s not your favorite, I see,” Martine said. “What are you going to do about him?”
“Make him very uncomfortable,” she said. “With your help I can do some damage.”
“How?”
“Let’s go back to your office for a start,” Aimée said. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
“Not if this involves Anaïs,” Martine said.
“Don’t worry,” Aimée said, pulling out her laptop. “The big fish will get caught, hook, line, and sinker. Not only that, you’ll sell more papers with my insider report. I’ve got the negatives to prove it.”
“Point me to the newsroom,” Martine said, flipping open her cell phone. “I’ve got a firsthand hostage report to write.”
Monday Evening
THREE WIRE SERVICES, IN addition to Agence France-Presse and CNN, had picked up Martine’s story by the time Aimée opened the door of Leduc Detective. She heard the radio say fingers pointed to an Algerian jewelry importer, rumored to be in the pay of Afghani-based terrorists and sympathetic to the militant fundamentalists. He was alleged to supply the Algerian military with inferior-grade weapons and military surplus. His Swiss bank account, the article continued, buried under an alias, hid a multitude of sins.
Aimée logged on to her terminal and René’s. From hers she accessed Sylvie/Eugénie’s account using the beur password. The five-million dollar balance was still there and she hit Save.
On René’s terminal she followed the maze he’d established to the Bank of Algiers. From the Bank of Algiers she linked to the AINwar bank account and the two other subsidiary companies. Aimée withdrew all but the minimum balance of ten dinars from each account.
In the same fashion as Kaseem and Sylvie had previously established, she transferred the sums to Sylvie’s Channel Island account. However, instead of their procedure, she transferred that balance, all fifty million francs, to the AFL’s account.
Now Kaseem and his businesses were broke. But the Algerian military would think he’d hid it all in Switzerland.
To foil attempts at wire tracing, she pulled out the police report of Sylvie Cardet’s death, highlighted the name “Eugénie Grandet” and the bank statements and faxed this to the records department in the Fichier in Nantes. The Fichier would declare the Eugénie persona dead and freeze the account.
She logged in to the Ministry of Defense, the humanitarian mission funding. Marking the shipment as time-dated medical supplies and perishable, she red-flagged the containers. This earmarked them for inspection prior to departure from the port of Toulon. Toulon was the largest naval center and adjoined a military complex. If the shipment contained the surplus military arms she figured it did, the inspectors would seize them.
Kaseem wouldn’t get his shipment.
She brushed off her black leather pants and reached for her jacket.
Now she figured she should pay Hamid a visit and tell him some good news.
HAMID’S WARD bed in L’hôpital Tenon overlooked leafy lime trees on the street below. Color now tinted his cheeks; his eyes had lost their listless quality.
“Salaam akikum,” he said, shaking her hand, then touching his heart.
“Aleikum es-salaam,” Aiméee returned his greeting. She pulled an orange from her bag, setting it on his enamel hospital tray. “May I peel this for you?”
“Merci,” he said. “I’ve given my life to the AFL, but I couldn’t save the sans-papiers.” Hamid said, his face still haggard. “But the new immigrants, the young ones, they think differently. I never heeded them. Now I must rebuild.”
“I know the truth,” she said, digging her fingers into the firm orange flesh.
“What do you mean?” Hamid’s eyebrows rose like accent marks over his deep-set eyes.
“Kaseem pressured you.” She peeled the skin, the segments fanned out in her hand. “Like he does everyone. But you’re his brother, as maghours you only have each other.”
She offered the orange pieces to Hamid. He slipped his worry beads into his other hand and accepted the orange. His eyes lit up with curiosity.
“Your brother killed Sylvie,” she said. “Blew her up.”
Hamid’s hand shook, but he didn’t drop the orange on the worn green linoleum. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry. He didn’t know Sylvie gave this to Anaïs,” she pulled out the photos. She spread some of them over the hospital blanket. “Isn’t it south of Oran, where you were born?”
Hamid nodded slowly and stared.
“Now it’s a wasteland labeled 196,” she said. “Just a number. Not even a name. A cemetery of bleached bones mingled with sunken munitions. As young men you two fought there once. You lost to the French.”
Hamid nodded. “Yes, a lifetime ago.”
“Kaseem calls himself the General,” she said. “He still likes to play war. He has to find toys so he can play with the big guys.”
Fear shone in Hamid’s large eyes. “There’s no proof.” His tone was hesitant.
“But Kaseem can’t do that anymore. I took care of those toys,”
she said. “Sylvie’s money and his are back in the AFL.”
Hamid’s face registered disbelief.
Rectangular shadows crossed the linoleum in the long ward. Few beds were occupied. A smiling ward matron in a starched white uniform nodded as she passed them. The matron’s clogs clicked busily away.
Aimée passed him some more orange segments, then stood up.
“Now you can rebuild, Hamid,” she said. “Hire lawyers to fight deportation, run a day-care program, a newspaper, a meals on wheels—do it the way you want. Even attract the young kids with a modern center, a gym, Arabic classes, video games. You name it.”
“I don’t really know you,” Hamid said. His eyes were unsure.
“Sylvie would have wanted it like this,” she said. “To make up for her father’s work in the OAS. The murdered innocents, things she hated.”
“Funny.” Hamid’s eyes turned wistful. “That’s the last thing Sylvie told me.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“She wanted to make up for what her father did.”
“Sylvie must have been a special person.”
“A rare star,” Hamid said.
Touched, Aimée remembered Roberge saying the same thing. In fact, almost everyone but Anaïs had loved her.
“Where is Kaseem?” she asked.
She remembered how Hamid’s face twitched when he lied.
“On the plane,” he said, his mouth slightly askew. “Why?”
“I only want to tell him what I did,” she said. “Prepare him for what’s in store back in Algiers.”
She wanted to serve Kaseem justice on a platter, personally. See the look on his face, even if it was long distance.
She thought she’d have to battle with Hamid for hours but he seemed to come to a decision.
Hamid watched her, expressionless.
“Just don’t hurt him,” he said.
She nodded. She’d let the military he liked to play with handle that part.
“He’s at a wedding,” Hamid said.
STREET LIGHTS shone over the news kiosk as Aimée bought the special edition of Le Figaro with Marline’s lead story. Harrowing images of prisoners tagged with numbers, their numbers recognizable on piled corpses, filled the lower half of the front page. The sidebar column related the story of the alleged surplus weapons supplier, sympathetic to fundamentalists. Parfait, she thought. I just want to see Kaseem’s face.