Deep down, Sema had always known that the Wolves would eventually discover her new appearance. And from that moment, they would know exactly where to find her. For an extremely simple reason. Their leader was Mr. Corduroys, the lover of chocolate filled with marzipan who was a regular customer at the Maison du Chocolat. She had made that incredible discovery as soon as she had recovered her memory. His name was Azer Akarsa. Sema remembered seeing him in an Idealist camp in Adana when she was a teenager, where he was already seen as a hero…
Such was the final irony of her story. The killer who had been tracking her for months in the Turkish quarter had seen but failed to recognize her twice a week while buying his favorite confection.
According to the TV report, the events in Saint-Cloud had taken place the previous day, at around 3:00 in the afternoon. Instinctively, Sema sensed that they would await the next day before attacking the Maison du Chocolat.
In other words, right now.
Sema grabbed the phone and called Clothilde at the shop. No answer. She looked at her watch: 12:30 in Istanbul, so an hour earlier in Paris. Was it already too late? From that moment, she tried the number every thirty minutes. In vain. Powerless, she paced around her room, worrying herself to death.
At her wit's end, she went down to the hotel's business center and sat down in front of a computer. Via the Internet, she consulted the electronic version of Le Monde from Thursday evening, reading through the articles devoted to the death of Jean-Louis Schiffer and the double murder at Saint-Cloud.
Absentmindedly, she browsed through the other pages and came across some more unexpected news. The article was entitled "Suicide of a Top Police Officer." There, in black and white, was the announcement of the death of Laurent Heymes. The lines wavered before her eyes. His body had been discovered on Thursday morning, in his apartment on Avenue Hoche. Laurent had used his service revolver-a 38-mm Manhurin. As to his motives, the article briefly mentioned the suicide of his wife, a year before, and the fact that friends said he had been depressed ever since.
Sema concentrated on these densely worded lies, but she could no longer read the words. Instead, all she could see were pale hands, a slightly panicked stare, flaming blond hair… She had loved that man. A strange, disturbing love, mixed up with her hallucinations. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she held them back.
She thought of the young cop. dead in that villa in Saint-Cloud, who, in a way, had sacrificed himself for her. She had not wept for him. So she would not weep for Laurent, who had been one of her manipulators.
The most intimate one. And thus the biggest bastard.
At 4:00, she was still there, chain-smoking, with one eye on the television and the other on the computer, when the bomb exploded. It appeared in the new electronic edition of Le Monde, in the "France-Societe" section:
SHOOT-OUT ON RUE DU FAUBOURG SAINT-HONORE
At noon on Friday, March 22. the police were still present at 225 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré after a gun battle in a shop called La Maison du Chocolat. No explanation has yet been given for this spectacular shoot-out, which has left three people dead and two wounded, three of them from the ranks of the police.
From the initial reports, especially the testimony of Clothilde Ceaux, a shop assistant who escaped unscathed, it appears that the sequence of events was as follows: At 10:10, just after the shop opened, three men arrived. Some police officers in civilian clothes, who had been stationed just opposite, immediately intervened. The three men then produced automatic pistols and opened fire on the police. The gun battle lasted only for a few seconds, on either side of the street, but was extremely brutal. Three officers were hit, one fatally. The two others are in a critical condition.
Two of the assailants were killed, but the third escaped. They have been identified as Lüset Yildirim, Kadir Kir and Azer Akarsa, all Turkish nationals. The dead men, Yildirim and Kir, both had diplomatic passports. It has proved impossible to find out how long they have been in France. and the Turkish embassy has refused to comment.
According to the police, the two men were known to the Turkish authorities as members of an extreme right-wing group known as the Idealists or Grey Wolves, and they had already carried out a number of contract killings on behalf of Turkey 's organized crime cartels.
The identity of the third man, who managed to flee, is even more surprising. Azer Akarsa is a businessman who has had extraordinary success in the tree-farming sector in Turkey and enjoys a good reputation in Istanbul. He is known for his patriotic views, but he backs a modern, moderate nationalism that is compatible with democratic values. He has never had any dealings with the Turkish police.
The involvement of such a person in these events suggests a political motivation. But the real reasons remain obscure. Why did the Turks go to the Maison du Chocolat armed with assault rifles and handguns? Why were there policemen in civilian clothes (in fact, officers from the Division Nationale Antiterroriste, or DNAT) stationed across the street? Were they following the three criminals? It is known that they had had the shop under surveillance for the past few days. Were they preparing an ambush for the three Turks? If so, why take so many risks? Why attempt an arrest on a busy thoroughfare, in the middle of the day, when no warning had been given? The Public Prosecutor's Office is concerned about these anomalies and has ordered an internal inquiry.
According to our sources, one lead is being favored. The gun battle on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré could be linked to two other cases of murder, which were reported in yesterday's edition: the discovery on the morning of March 21 of the body of retired inspector Jean-Louis Schiffer in Père-Lachaise, then the bodies of police captain Paul Nerteaux and of plastic surgeon Frédéric Gruss later that day in a villa in Saint-Cloud. Over the last five months, Captain Nerteaux had been investigating the murders of three unidentified women in the tenth arrondissement of Paris and had consulted Jean-Louis Schiffer, an expert on the capital's Turkish community.
This series of murders could lie at the heart of a complicated affair, both criminal and political, that seems to have escaped the attention of both Paul Nerteaux's superiors and the investigating magistrate, Thierry Bomarzo. Further confirmation of a link lies in the fact that one hour before his death, the captain had put out a bulletin on Azer Akarsa and requested a search warrant for Matak Limited, in Bièvres, one of whose main shareholders is Azer Akarsa. When his portrait was shown to Clothilde Ceaux, the main eyewitness of the shooting, she formally identified him.
The other key figure in this case could turn out to be Philippe Charlier, one of the commissioners of the DNAT, who clearly has some information concerning the assailants. Philippe Charlier is a major figure in the war against terrorism, but one whose methods have proved controversial. He has been summoned later today by Judge Bernard Sazin, who is leading the initial inquiry.
This confusing series of events occurs in the middle of a presidential campaign, with Lionel Jospin planning to merge the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) with the Direction des Renseignements Généraux (DCRG). This projected merger is aimed no doubt at reducing the sometimes excessive independence of certain police officers or secret service operatives.
Sema closed her browser before making her own personal summary of the events. On the good side, Clothilde was safe and Charlier had been summoned by a judge. Sooner or later, he would have to answer for all these deaths, as well as the "suicide" of Laurent Heymes…
On the negative side, Sema placed just one point, but it outweighed all the others.
Azer Akarsa was still at large.
And this threat confirmed her decision.
She had to find him and, further up the line, discover who had put out this contract. She did not know, had never known, his name. But she knew that little by little, she would expose the entire pyramid.
At that moment, all she was sure of was that Akarsa would return to Turkey. He was probably already back, being sheltered by his people, protected by complacent police
officers and politicians.
She grabbed her coat and left the room.
It was in her memory that she would find the path that led to him.
68
First, Sema went to the Galata bridge, near her hotel. She looked long and hard at the far side of the canal of the Golden Horn, the city's most famous panorama. The Bosporus and its boats; the Eminönü quarter and the New Mosque; the stone terraces and flights of pigeons; the domes and arrowlike minarets, from which five times a day the voices of the muezzins poured out.
Cigarette.
She did not feel like a tourist, but she did feel that this town-her town-might provide her with a clue, a spark to give her back all of her memory. For the moment, she could still see the past of Anna Heymes, which was being gradually replaced by confused sensations, linked to her daily life as a drug smuggler. Snatches from an obscure trade, with no clear reference points, no personal details that could give her the slightest indication how to find her brothers again.
She hailed a cab and asked the driver to cruise through the city, at random. She spoke Turkish without an accent, and without the slightest hesitation. That language burst from her lips as soon as she needed it-like a source hidden in her inner self. So why was she thinking in French? Was it an effect of her psychic conditioning? No. This familiarity went back further than that. It was an essential part of her personality. During her life, her education, there had been this strange implant…
Through the window, she observed each detail: the red Turkish flags, decked with a golden crescent and star, which marked the town like a wax seal; the blue walls and the brown buildings, stained with pollution; the green roofs and domes of the mosques, which oscillated between jade and emerald in the light.
The taxi drove along a wall: Hatun Caddesi. Sema read the names on the signposts: Aksaray, Kücükpazar, Carsamba… They resonated vaguely inside her, evoking no particular emotions or distinct recollections.
Yet, more than ever, she sensed that something, anything-a monument, a sign, a street name-could stir up that quicksand and shift aside the memory blocks within her. Like wrecks lying on the seabed, which you only need to brush against for them to drift back up to the surface…
The driver asked, "Devam edelim mi?"' ("Shall we continue?")
"Evet." ("Yes.")
Haseki. Nisanca. Yenikapi.
Another cigarette.
The din of traffic, the tide of passersby. The urban press culminated here. Yet, the overall impression was of gentleness. Spring was making the shadows quiver above this tumult. A pale light glittered though the ironlike air. A silver gleam hung over Istanbul, a sort of gray coating smothering any violence. Even the trees had something worn about them, a cinder coat that calmed and soothed the spirit…
Suddenly, a word on a poster drew her attention. A few syllables on a red- and- gold background.
"Take me to Galatasaray," she told the driver.
"To the school?"
"Yes, the school. To Beyoglu."
69
A large square. on the outskirts of the Taksim quarter. Banks, flags and international hotels. The driver parked at the entrance of the pedestrian precinct.
"It will be quicker on foot," he explained. "Take Istiklal Caddesi. Then after about a hundred yards, you-"
"I know"
Three minutes later. Sema had reached the railings of the school, jealously protected by the somber gardens. She went through the gate and dived into what was almost a forest. Firs, cypresses, eastern planes and lime trees, with their green blades, soft shades, shadowy mouths… Sometimes a patch of bark added some gray, or even black. On other occasions, a tip or bough split into a lighter line-a broad pastel smile. Or else dry almost blue thickets with the transparency of tracing paper. The whole spectrum of vegetation was on display.
Beyond the trees, she spotted a yellow facade, surrounded by sports fields and basketball courts. It was the school. Sema stayed hidden among the boughs and looked at the pollen-colored walls, the neutral cement surfaces. The badge of the school, an S intertwined with a G, red trimmed with gold, on the navy blue sweaters of the pupils walking there.
But above all, she listened to the rising din. It was a sound that is identical in all latitudes: the joy of children freed from school. It was noon. Time for the lunch break. More than a familiar noise, it was a call, a rallying cry. Sensations suddenly gathered around her, entwining her.. Suffocated by emotion, she sat down on a bench and let the images of the past flood in.
First her village, in distant Anatolia. Beneath a limitless, merciless sky, the wattle and daub huts, clinging to the sides of the mountains.
The rippling planes of high grasses. The flocks of sheep on the steep slopes, trotting along at an angle, as gray as filthy paper. Then, in the valley, the men, women and children living like stones, broken by the heat and the cold..
Later, the camp-a disused spa resort, surrounded by barbed wire, somewhere in the Kayseri region. The daily indoctrination, training and exercises. Mornings spent reading Alpaslan Türkes's Nine Lights, repeating nationalistic doctrines, watching silent films on Turkish history. Hours devoted to learning the basics of ballistics, telling the difference between different sorts of explosives, shooting with assault rifles, handling knives…
Then suddenly, the French school. Everything changed. A suave, refined environment. But it was probably even worse. She was the peasant. The girl from the mountains, among the sons of notables. She was also the fanatic, the nationalist holding on to her Turkish identity and ideals amid middle-class, left-wing pupils all dreaming of becoming Europeans…
It was here, at Galatasaray, that she had fallen so much in love with the French language that in her mind, she turned it into her new mother tongue. She could still hear the dialect of her childhood, those clashingly crude syllables, being gradually supplanted by these new words, those poems and books that modulated her slightest thought and molded each new idea. The world then, quite literally, became French.
Then the time came to travel. Opium. The fields in Iran, set in steps above the jaws of the desert. The patches of poppies in Afghanistan between the fields of corn and vegetables. She could picture that nameless, undefined frontier. A no-man's-land of dust, dotted with mines, haunted by wild buccaneers. She remembered the wars. The tanks, the Stingers-and the Afghan rebels playing their game of buskachi with the head of a Soviet soldier.
She could also see the laboratories. Airless structures full of men and women wearing cloth masks. The white dust and acidic fumes, the morphine base and the refined heroin… her real work had begun.
It was then that the face became clear.
So far, her memory had worked in only one direction. Each time, a face had acted as a detonator. Schiffer's appearance had been enough to bring back the previous months' activities-the dope, running away concealment. Azer Akarsa's smile raised up the camps, nationalist meetings, men brandishing their fists, with their pinkie and index fingers raised, screaming high-pitched wails or else crying "Türkes basbug!" -and had identified her as a Wolf.
But now, in the gardens of Galatarasay, the opposite was happening. Her memories revealed a pattern of leitmotifs that crossed each fragment of her recollections'… At first, a clumsy child, right back at the beginning. Then an awkward teenager, at the French school. Later, a fellow smuggler. In those underground laboratories, it was definitely always the same pudgy figure, dressed in a white coat, that was smiling at her.
Over the years, a child had grown by her side. A blood brother. A Grey Wolf who had shared everything with her. As she concentrated, his face became clearer. Babyish features beneath honey-colored curls. Blue eyes, like two turquoises placed among the rocks of the desert.
Suddenly a name emerged: Kürsat Milihit.
She stood up and decided to go inside the school. She needed confirmation.
***
Sema introduced herself to the headmaster as a French journalist and explained the subject of her repo
rt: former Galatarasay pupils who had become celebrities in Turkey.
The headmaster laughed in pride. What could be more natural than that?
A few minutes later, she found herself in a small room, its walls lined with books. In front of her, the files covering all the classes over the past few decades-names and pictures of former pupils, the dates and any prizes awarded each year. With no hesitation, she opened the register for 1988 and turned to the final year. Her year. She did not look for her previous face; the very idea of looking at it made her feel ill at ease, as though she were touching a taboo subject. No. She looked for the portrait of Kürsat Milihit.
When she found it, her memories grew even more precise. The childhood friend. The traveling companion. Today, Kürsat was a chemist. The best in his field. Able to transform any gum base into the best morphine, and then distill the purest heroin. His magician's fingers knew better than anyone how to manipulate acetic anhydride.
Over the years, she had organized all of her operations with him. During the final convoy, it was he who had reduced the heroin to a liquid solution. It was Sema's idea: they injected the smack into the air cells of bubble bags. If they put a hundred milliliters in each envelope, then only ten of them would be needed to transport a kilo-so two hundred for the entire load. Twenty kilos of number four heroin, in a liquid solution, concealed within translucent packaging containing banal documents, to be picked up at the freight terminal of Roissy airport.
She looked again at the photo. That large teenager with the milky forehead and copper curls was not just a ghost from the past. He had now a vital role to play.
He alone could help her find Azer Akarsa.
70
An hour later, Sema was in a cab crossing the huge steel bridge over the Bosporus. The storm broke just at that moment. In only a few seconds, as the car touched the Asian bank, the rain marked off its territory with violence. At first, there were needles of light hitting the pavements, then puddles, spreading, seeping, hammering as if on tin roofs. Soon, the entire landscape was weighed down. Dark spray swished up in the wakes of the cars, the roads swayed and drowned…
The Empire Of The Wolves Page 32