The Empire Of The Wolves

by Jean-Christophe Grangé

  A smile flickered over her face. Her pale lips barely stood out from her skin. Ackermann came back and turned off the last of the machines. "How do you feel?" Mathilde repeated.

  Anna glanced at her in hesitation. Mathilde understood at once. This was no longer the same person. Those indigo eyes were smiling at her from inside a different consciousness. "Got a cigarette?" she asked, in a voice that was seeking normal range.

  Mathilde handed her a Marlboro. She looked at the slender hand that took it. It was almost as if she could see that henna as a filigree. Flowers, spikes and snakes curling around a clenched fist. A tattooed fist, holding an automatic pistol.

  Behind the mist of smoke, the woman with the dark bangs murmured, "I would rather have been Anna Heymes."

  52

  Falmières railway station, six miles west of Reims. was a solitary building, dropped alongside the tracks in the middle of the countryside. A millstone building stuck between the black horizon and the silence of the night. Yet with its small yellow lantern and laminated glass umbrella roof, it had a reassuring look about it. Its slates, its walls divided into two blue and white bands and its wooden fences gave it the appearance of a shiny toy from an electric train set.

  Mathilde braked in the garage.

  Eric Ackermann had asked them to drop him off at a station. Any one will do, I'll manage."

  Since they had left the hospital. no one had said a word. But the quality of the silence had changed. The hatred, anger and defiance had melted away, and a strange sort of complicity had even started up among the three fugitives.

  Mathilde turned off the motor. In the rearview mirror, she could see the neurologist's pale face, like a shard of nickel on the backseat. They got out together.

  Outside, the wind had risen. Violent gusts were slapping against the asphalt. In the distance, jagged clouds were drifting away like a battalion armed with spears, revealing an extremely pure moon-a large fruit with blue pulp.

  Mathilde buttoned up her coat. She would have given anything for a tube of moisturizing cream. It felt as if each squall were drying her skin, digging deeper into the wrinkles on her face.

  They walked as far as the flowered fence, still without a word. It made her think of an exchange of hostages during the Cold War, on a bridge in old Berlin there was no way to say good-bye.

  Anna suddenly asked, "What about Laurent?"

  She had already asked that question in the garage under Place d'Anvers. It was another aspect of her story: the revelation of a love that persisted despite such betrayal, lies and cruelty.

  Ackermann seemed too tired to lie. "To be honest, there's little chance he's still alive. Charlier won't leave any traces. And Heymes was unreliable. He would have cracked as soon as anyone questioned him. He might even have gone so far as to turn himself in. Since the death of his wife, he…" The neurologist paused.

  For a moment, Anna seemed to be standing up to the wind; then her shoulders slumped. She turned around silently and returned to the car.

  Mathilde took a final look at the lanky frame, topped with a flaming red mane, awash in its raincoat.

  "And you?" she asked, almost in pity.

  "I'm going to Alsace, to lose myself amid all the other Ackermann." A sardonic laugh shook his frame. Then he added, in a lyrical gush, "And then I shall find another destination. The roving life for me!"

  Mathilde did not respond. He swayed, hugging his bag against his chest. Just as he used to be at the university. He half opened his mouth, hesitated, then murmured, "Anyway, thanks…"

  He flicked his index finger in a cowboy salute and turned around toward the isolated station, holding his arms up against the wind.

  Where on earth could he go? And then I shall find another destination. The roving life for me! Was he talking about a place ()dearth or a fresh region of the brain?

  53

  "Drugs."

  Mathilde was focusing on the white lines of the highway, which were shooting past rapidly. They flashed in front of her eyes, as some sorts of plankton shine at night in the wakes of ships. A few seconds later, she glanced over at her passenger. Her face was like chalk, smooth, inscrutable.

  "I'm a drug runner," Anna went on in a neutral tone. "A smuggler. A supplier for the big dealers. A go-between."

  Mathilde nodded, as though she had been expecting this revelation. In fact, she was ready for anything. There were no limits to the truth. That night, each new step revealed dizzying gulfs. She turned her attention back to the road. Several long seconds passed before she asked, "What kind of drugs? Heroin? Cocaine? Amphetamines? What?" By the time she had finished, she was almost yelling. She gripped the steering wheel. Calm down-at once.

  "Heroin. Only heroin. Several kilos on each trip. Never more. From Turkey to Europe. On me. In my luggage. Or by other means. There are the tricks of the trade. My job was to know them. All of them."

  Mathilde's throat was so dry that each breath was agony. "Who… who were you working for?"

  "The rules have changed, Mathilde. The less you know, the better." Anna's tone was now strange, almost condescending.

  "What's your real name?"

  "I have no real name. That's part of the job."

  "How did you work? Give me some details."

  Anna remained silent for a long time, as impervious as marble. Then, after an extended pause, she went on. "It wasn't really an exciting life. Growing old in airports. Knowing the best stopovers. The least well guarded borders. The simplest-or else the most complicated-connecting flights. The towns where your bags are left on the runway. The customs posts where you're searched, and the ones where you aren't. The structure of holds. Places of transit."

  Mathilde listened but paid attention mostly to the timbre of Anna's voice. Never had it rung so true.

  "A schizophrenic lifestyle. Constantly speaking different languages, answering to different names, having several nationalities. And your only home the standard comfort of VIP lounges in airports. And always, everywhere, fear."

  Mathilde blinked away the sleep. Her eyesight was getting hazy. The lines on the road were floating, drifting apart… She asked again, "Where are you from exactly?"

  "I can't remember yet. But it will come back, I'm sure of it. For the moment, I'm concentrating on the present."

  "So what happened? Why were you in Paris posing as a working girl? Why did you alter your appearance?"

  "It's a classic story. I wanted to hold on to my last consignment. To rob my employers."

  She paused. Each memory seemed to cost her an effort.

  "It was in June, last year. I had a delivery to make in Paris. A special load. Extremely precious. I had a contact here, but I chose a different route. I hid the heroin and went to see a plastic surgeon. I think… yes, I think that at the time, I had a good chance. But during my convalescence, something unexpected happened. Something no one expected: the attacks on September ii. From one day to the next, borders turned into solid walls. So there was no way I was going to leave with the dope as planned. Nor could I leave Paris. I had to stay there and wait for the situation to calm down, while knowing that my bosses would do everything to find me… So I hid where, normally speaking, no one would look for a Turk who was hiding out: among the Turks. With the illegal immigrant workers in the tenth arrondissement. I had a new face, and a new identity. No one would spot me."

  The voice faded away, as though exhausted.

  Mathilde tried to revive the flame. "What happened then? How did the police find you? Did they know about the drugs?"

  "That's not how things turned out. It's still vague, but I can just about picture the scene… In November, I was working in a laundry. A kind of underground dry cleaner's in some Turkish baths. A place you just couldn't imagine. At least not under a mile from where you live. One night, they came."

  "The police?"

  "No. Turks sent by my employers. They knew I was hiding there. Someone must have given me away. I don't know… What is sure is that they didn't
know that I'd altered my appearance. Right in front of me, they jumped a girl who looked like I used to look-Zeynep something…

  God save me, when I saw those killers arrive… all I can remember is a flash of fear…"

  Mathilde tried to complete the story, to fill in the gaps. "How did you end up with Charlier?"

  "I have no precise memories about that. I was in a state of shock. The cops must have found me at the baths. I can see a police station, then a hospital… Somehow or other, Charlier heard about me. An amnesic immigrant. With no work permit in France. The perfect guinea pig."

  Anna seemed to be weighing up her own hypothesis. Then she murmured, "There's an incredible irony in all this. Because the cops never realized who I really was. Without meaning to, they protected me from the Turks."

  Mathilde's guts were beginning to ache-with fear, worsened by fatigue. Her eyes were failing. The white lines on the road were turning into gulls, vague birds fluttering convulsively. At that moment, the signpost for the Paris bypass appeared. They were nearly back. She concentrated on the marks on the asphalt and continued. "Who are these men who are looking for you?"

  "Forget about that. As I said, the less you know, the safer you'll be."

  "I helped you," she replied, with gritted teeth. "I protected you. So come on! Tell me the truth."

  Anna hesitated again. It was her world-a world she had surely never spoken about before.

  "There's something special about the Turkish mafia," she said at last. "For their dirty work, they use political activists. They're called the Grey Wolves. They're nationalists. Extreme right-wing fanatics who believe in the return of Greater Turkey. Terrorists trained in camps when they're still children. Compared with them, Charlier's goons are just like scouts with Swiss Army knives."

  The blue signs were growing larger: PORTE DE CLIGNANCOURT. PORTE DE LA CHAPELLE. All Mathilde wanted to do now was to drop this living bomb off at the first taxi stand, to go back home, to comfort and security. What she wanted was to sleep for twenty hours, to wake up and say, "It was only a nightmare."

  She took the turning into Paris and said, "I'm staying with you.”

  “No, that's impossible. I've got something important to do."

  "What?"

  "Pick up my load."

  "I'll come with you."

  "No."

  A knot tightened in her belly, more of pride than courage. "Where is it? Where are the drugs?"

  "In Père-Lachaise cemetery"

  Mathilde looked over at Anna. She seemed wizened but also harder, denser-a quartz crystal compressed amid layers of the truth…

  "Why there?"

  "I had twenty kilos. I had to find some safe storage."

  "I don't see any connection with a cemetery."

  Anna smiled to herself dreamily "A little white powder amid all the gray powder…"

  A red light brought them to a halt. After the intersection, Rue de la Chapelle turned into Rue Marx-Dormoy. Mathilde said, louder, "What's the link with a cemetery?"

  "It's green now. Place de la Chapelle, then turn toward Place de Stalingrad."

  54

  The city of the dead.

  Broad. straight alleyways, lined with imposing trees that certainly looked the part. Huge mausoleums, raised monuments, dark, smooth tombs. In the moonlight, this part of the cemetery was decked with generous flower beds-a luxurious, opulent distribution of space.

  A hint of Christmas floated in the air. Everything seemed crystallized, enveloped by the dome of night, like in those small globes that have to be shaken to make the snow scatter across the landscape.

  They had attacked the fortress via the gate on Rue du Père-Lachaise, near Place Gambetta. Anna had guided Mathilde along the gutter that bordered the entrance, then between the iron spikes on the wall. The descent on the other side had been even easier-electric cables followed the course of the stones at this point. They were now going up Avenue des Combattants-Etrangers. Beneath the moon, the tombs and epitaphs stood out clearly. A bunker had been dedicated to Czechs who had died in World War I. A white monolith stood in memory of the Belgian troops. A colossal spike with multiple edges. like a Vasarely painting, paid homage to the dead Armenians…

  When Mathilde spotted the large building, topped by two chimneys, at the end of the slope, she understood. A little white powder amid all the gray powder. The columbarium. With a strange cynicism. Anna the smuggler had hidden her stock of heroin among the funeral urns.

  Against the night sky, the building looked like a cream-and-gold mosque, topped with a broad cupola, dominated by its chimneys like minarets. Four long edifices surrounded it, one at each of the four corners.

  Once inside the surrounding wall, they crossed the neat gardens with their thick, square hedges. Farther on. Mathilde could see galleries full of racks and flowers. They made her think of marble pages, encrusted with colored writing and seals.

  The place was deserted. Not a night watchman to be seen.

  Anna reached the end of the park, where the stairs of a crypt plunged down beneath the shrubbery. At the bottom of the steps, the cast-iron gate was padlocked. For a few seconds, they looked for a way inside. As though providing inspiration, a fluttering of wings made them look up: some pigeons were shuffling around in front of the grating of a small window, at a height of six feet.

  Anna stepped back to gauge the size of the niche. Then she braced her feet on the door's metal ornaments and clambered up. A few seconds later, Mathilde heard the scrape of the grating being pulled away, then the short slap of broken glass.

  Without a second's thought, she followed.

  When she reached the top, she slipped in through the gap. She had just reached the ground when Anna put on the light.

  The sanctuary was huge. Its straight galleries, arranged around a square shaft, were dug out in granite, stretching away into the darkness. At regular intervals, lamps diffused a glimmer of light.

  They went over to the balustrade of the shaft. Three further levels lay beneath them, multiplying their tunnels. The ceramic basin at the bottom of this gulf looked tiny. It was as if they were at the heart of a subterranean city, built around a sacred spring.

  Anna took one of the staircases. Mathilde followed her. As they went down, the humming of a ventilation system could be heard. At each landing, the feeling of being in a temple, or a giant tomb, became ever more crushing.

  On the second level, Anna took an alley to her right, punctuated with hundreds of compartments with black and white tiles. They walked on for some time. Mathilde observed the scene with curious detachment. Sometimes she noticed a detail among the openings. A bouquet of fresh flowers on the ground, enveloped in aluminum foil. An ornament or decoration standing out in a niche, such as the silk-screened face of a black woman, her frizzy hair spilling across the marble surface. The epitaph read: YOU WERE ALWAYS THERE. YOU WILL BE ALWAYS THERE. Or, farther on, a photograph of a child with gray rings under its eyes, stuck on a plain plaster plaque. Beneath it, someone had written in felt-tip pen: SHE IS NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPETH. SAINT MATTHEW.

  "Here," Anna said.

  A larger niche stood at the end of the corridor.

  "The crowbar," she ordered.

  Mathilde opened the bag she had slung over her shoulder and took the crowbar out. At once, Anna stuck it between the marble and the wall and pressed down as hard as she could. A crack started to snake across the surface. At the base of the block, she applied the crowbar once more. The plaque crashed to the floor, in two pieces. Anna picked up the tool and used it as a hammer against the plaster wall at the back of the niche. Particles flew up, sticking in her black hair. She continued to bang stubbornly, without paying heed to the noise she was making.

  Mathilde could no longer breathe. It felt to her as though these thuds were resonating as far as Place Gambetta. How long would it be before the watchmen showed up?

  Silence fell once more. In a white cloud, Anna dived into the niche and removed the rubble. Large clouds of
dust hit the wall.

  Suddenly, a tinkling sound was heard behind their backs.

  The two women turned around.

  At their feet, a metal key was shining amid the plaster debris. "Try using that. You'll save time."

  A man with short-cropped hair was standing at the entrance of the gallery, his figure reflected on the floor tiles. It looked as if he were standing on water. Lifting up his shotgun, he asked, "Where is it?"

  He was dressed in a rumpled raincoat, twisted across his body, but this in no way lessened the impression of power that he radiated. Especially his face, lit to one side by the rays of a lamp, gave off a look of quite startling cruelty "Where is it?" he repeated, taking a step forward.

  Mathilde felt like death. A stabbing pain was digging into her guts: her legs were giving way. She had to grab hold of the niche to stop herself from falling. This was no longer a game. This was not shooting practice, the triathlon, or any sort of calculated risk.

  They were quite simply going to die.

  The intruder kept coming. With a precise gesture, he aimed his gun. "For fuck's sake! Where's the fucking smack?"

  55

  The man in the raincoat caught fire.

  Mathilde dived to the ground. At the moment she hit the floor, she realized that the flame had burst out of his gun. She rolled over the plaster rubble. At that instant, a second fact became clear to her. Anna had fired first. She must have hidden an automatic pistol in the niche.

  More shots followed. Mathilde curled up, her fists clenched over her head. Niches were exploding above her, freeing their urns and their contents. When the ash started to fall on her, she screamed. Gray clouds rose up as the bullets whistled and ricocheted. In a fog of dust, she saw sparks flying from the marble angles, filaments of fire springing up across the debris, vases rolling onto the floor, then bouncing up with silvery glints. The corridor was like a starry hell, mingled with gold and iron..

  She curled up tighter. The shots were smashing apart the niches, ripping up the flowers. The urns broke open, spilling their ashes as the bullets crashed through space. She started to crawl, closing her eyes, jumping at each explosion.