by Cara Black
He pulled out a pocket calculator, hit some keys. “With the low interest rates, we’d pay less to own than to rent.”
“I don’t know if I can swing it,” she said.
Or wanted to. She hesitated admitting to René that she liked rue du Louvre, liked working at her grandfather’s old worn desk, even liked the temperamental elevator from the previous century.
“Let me factor in the upgrades, make an offer, and see if the seller bites.”
So his mother and the comte had come through, she thought. Would this signal a parting of their ways? She suppressed that thought. Right now, she couldn’t think of the future or worry about René if he was determined to go ahead.
“Why not come with me and take another look?” René itched to leave.
“Not tonight.” She had other things to do. Things he wouldn’t approve of.
“Do you feel all right?” René stared at her. “Grief comes in stages. You go through shock, denial, then comes anger. . . .”
“So it’s nice and tidy, in that order?”
She got out and slammed the car door, her hands shaking. Then shame filled her for shouting at René.
“I’m sorry, René,” she said. “I know you want to help.”
He shrugged. “I’m your friend.”
“My best friend,” she said.
She had no time to deal with grief. Yves’s killer, the assassin, was on the loose. “But right now, I’ve got things to do.”
She hitched her bag onto her shoulder and took off down the rue de Paradis. She didn’t look back. After a few minutes, she heard his car start and then drive away.
Aimée noticed the iKK—the Kurdish Workers Party— affiches, not even proper posters, like those she’d seen outside their office. Here they were taped on the exposed drainpipes running down the buildings, slapped on pebbledash walls in a crumbling passage between buildings. That much-copied photograph of piled Kurd bodies was chilling. It sickened her.
And she thought about the iKK members, seeking revenge. Or, for that matter, militant Turks, this Yellow Crescent, taking action to silence Kurds here, like Jalenka. She remembered René’s comment . . . what better time to assassinate someone than when the authorities were preoccupied by incessant Metro bombings. Were these groups still condemned to play out the thousands of years of hostility?
She stopped at her goal on the rue de Paradis, the porcelain factory showroom, intent on questioning the guard, Vatel. Inside the glass doors there was a lighted hallway. A guard sat at a distant desk. She waved and got his attention.
Disappointed, she recognized Nohant as he took his time lumbering down the hallway.
“The building’s closed,” he shouted through the glass door.
“I’m looking for Vatel; he working tonight?”
Nohant shook his head. “He’s reassigned.”
Merde! With her luck, in some suburb.
“Where?”
Nohant stood, hands on his hips. “What’s it to you?”
“Don’t you have a phone number?” She hated shouting like this.
He shook his head. “Time for my rounds.”
“Please, I need to speak with him,” she said. “Help me out, Nohant,” she pleaded.
He hesitated. He pulled some cards from his pocket, rifled through them, and held one up to the glass. His Sarko Security card with logo, main office address, and a penciled-in address on Cour des Petites Ecuries. She grabbed a pen and copied it on her palm.
“Tell him thanks for the overtime, he’ll understand,” said Nohant, or at least that’s what she thought he said.
Wednesday Evening
VATEL STOOD IN the locker room unzipping his jumpsuit as he watched the small télé on the table. “A news bulletin . . . reports indicate an attempt on the Turkish member of Parliament . . . linked to the series of Metro bombings . . . in this video obtained from the Institut Kurd. . . .”
His fingers froze.
A spiky-haired woman dived onstage and tackled Jalenka Malat. Shots rang out. Puffs of powdery dust erupted from the podium. Vatel recognized the impact thuds of bullets from a high-powered rifle.
The camera angle wavered. Then there were loud screams. Women were scrambling under the chairs. Then the scene erupted in confusion.
“According to our correspondent, Jalenka Malat survived. However, a staff member suffered a mortal wound.”
Vatel’s hands shook as he checked the cell phone Florand from the Brigade Criminelle had given him. Four messages.
Terror rippled his insides. Florand expected information. For all Vatel knew, he’d be waiting at his apartment with a one-way second-class ticket to Istanbul, demanding to know why he hadn’t made contact.
And he’d known. But then he hadn’t expected that there was truth in Mehmet’s rumor. Wrong, so wrong. A dead journalist, now the assassination attempt. He had to find some way to placate Florand. Only an idiot would blame the iKK. He’d find out about the Yellow Crescent. Only one person would know. He slammed his locker shut and ran out the door.
Wednesday Evening
AIMÉE CALLED THE number Nohant had displayed as she walked toward the Cour des Petites Ecuries.
“Sarko Security,” answered a male voice.
“Monsieur Vatel, please,” she said.
“He’s off shift,” a man said, young by the tone. “Can I help you?”
Missed him again!
“Who’s this?”
She thought fast. “His girlfriend—well, ex-girlfriend. We’re still speaking, but . . . I have to reach him!”
“I’d have to ask the boss.”
“Do you have to go to all that trouble?”
“Monsieur Belfont at the main office should okay this first.”
“But, I really need to speak with him,” she interrupted. “Would you know—?”
A loud buzzer in the background drowned out her words.
“Sorry, I’m resetting the alarm.”
“Look, he kicked me out, I’m desperate, I need my things. Please!”
Pause.
“He just went out the back door.”
“Merci.”
Aimée hurried to the Cour des Petites Ecuries, a T-shaped passage which had held the former royal stables. The last rays of the sun shone, then sputtered into a fading twist of light swallowed by the shadowed corners.
Vatel had seen more than he’d disclosed . . . she’d bet money on it. If he remembered the chador-clad assassin, he’d know more. She might be able to discover a way to find her.
She passed Brasserie Flo, open windows revealing the dark mahogany art nouveau interior. Number 54, an old fur warehouse had arching iron struts and floor-height half-oval windows, towering over a turn in the passage. It housed architecture firms, designers, and pret à porter clothing manufacturers, more upscale than the off-the-rack wholesalers a few blocks away in the Sentier.
A man wearing a jumpsuit labeled Sarko Security rushed out of a door. Dark-haired, mid-twenties, with a thermos hanging from a strap around his shoulder. She recognized Vatel, the Kurd Nohant had described. More muscular and trim than Nohant, an ex-Legionnaire by his stance, he could pass for European with his light green eyes. Men joined the Legion to erase their past and obtain new identities. What secrets did he hide?
“Monsieur Vatel?”
Startled, he looked her up and down. Something like recognition showed in his eyes.
“Do I know you?”
There was a roll to his syllables, a slight accent. Coolness emanated from the stone passage corners, an evening respite from the heat. Conversations drifted from the open windows above them.
“I’m Aimée Leduc,” she said, showing her PI license. “Nohant, your co-worker, told me you worked here. By the way, he says thanks for the overtime. I’m here because I’d like to talk with you.”
“Why?” He stepped back.
“You reported an attack that took place early Tuesday morning on rue de Paradis.”
He stood
in the half shadow. She couldn’t make out his expression.
“You described the woman as tall, wearing a chador. What else do you remember?”
He shook his head. “Excuse me, but I’m late.”
“If you could just—”
“I told the Brigade all I knew,” he interrupted. “Why is it so important to you?”
He’d bolt in a minute if she didn’t persuade him to talk.
“A man’s body was found on rue de Paradis,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “Yves Robert, an investigative journalist who’d covered the Kurds and written an exposé of the Yellow Crescent.”
Vatel backed away. She’d touched a nerve.
“He knew of the plot to assassinate Jalenka Malat.”
“None of this involves me,” Vatel said. “I don’t know why—”
“But it involves me. He . . . we’d gotten engaged,” Aimée said. “I prevented Jalenka’s assassination. . . .”
“You’re the one!” he said, his voice just above a whisper.
So he’d heard.
“A woman in a chador killed Yves to silence him. His boss feels the Yellow Crescent’s responsible. But I don’t buy that. I think the same woman tried to assassinate Jalenka, failed, and got away. You’re the only one who saw her. Will you talk to me now?”
He pulled his collar up, watched her as if deciding. “Non, but I know someone you should speak to.”
“Who’s that?”
“Someone who knows.” He glanced at the sports watch on his wrist. “You ready?”
“Oui.”
“But I need to blindfold you when we get there.”
“What?”
“There’s a fatwa on him. He’s in hiding.”
She tried to control her fear.
“Fatwa . . . you mean a contract?”
He nodded.
“But why, who—?”
“You agree or not?” he interrupted.
What did she have to lose?
A COLD DRAFT swirled around Aimée’s legs. She’d followed Vatel through several passages, keeping off the main boulevards. The last street they’d crossed had been rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin where the Mairie was located, a nineteenth-century spired confection more like a château than a city hall. A large remodeled warehouse fronted the street with a plaque on it: “Here Jews worked for the Occupiers. . . .” Before she could decipher the rest, Vatel gestured her forward.
“Close your eyes.”
She complied and felt her arm clutched, heard a door buzz open, and then was escorted inside, a cloth tied around her eyes. In the darkness, for a moment, her bout with blindness came back to her . . . that helplessness, only able to rely on her senses. Stop it . . . she wasn’t blind, could rip this cloth off any time. And she fully intended to, once she’d met whoever they’d come to see.
“He’s supposed to have returned this afternoon,” Vatel said.
“Who?”
“It’s better you don’t know,” Vatel said. “But if anyone understands the Yellow Crescent, he does.”
She stifled her unease. Better not to think she might be about to interview a wanted criminal while wearing a blindfold.
“You want to talk to him, too, don’t you, Vatel?”
Vatel stopped suddenly, and she plowed into his shoulder. “Sorry.”
“Keep quiet.”
She shut up. Felt uneven cobbles under her feet, heard the creak of a door.
“There’s a step down,” he said.
Then they were inside a damp, mildew-smelling tunnel echoing with their footsteps. The creaking of a door. Now, fresh cool evening air brushed her arms and she heard the clink of cutlery, the hiss and spatter of frying food. A scent of car-domum and mint. More uneven cobblestones. Vatel halted. A faint buzz, then a door opened and a cold rush of rotten-smelling wood. A cavern? And then she felt a cloth being draped over her shoulders, brushing her ankles, fabric being stretched over her head, around her face.
“What’s going on?” Stupid, trusting him. Had she let herself be kidnaped?
“You need to wear it, please . . . shh! Hold this.”
She felt clumped fabric being placed in her hand. “Don’t trip. We’re going up stairs.”
Even with her hand clutching the railing, she tripped several times mounting the steep winding staircase while swathed in the hot cloth.
She heard Vatel’s knuckles knocking lightly. Then again. Quiet, except for the creaking of floorboards somewhere, the muted sounds of a violin on the radio, and a child’s cry from somewhere below.
“Roj bas,.”
And then Vatel’s arms ushered her forward. She knocked into what felt like a doorway, heard what sounded like windows cranking closed.
“Sit down here.” She felt for a chair, with no success. She gathered the material and sat on the floor, cross-legged. A conversation ensued in a guttural language; Arabic, Turkish, she had no clue.
And then she smelled the acrid aroma of coffee and tobacco.
She felt the cloth over her eyes being untied, rubbed her eyes, and opened them. A black chador covered her; a veil covered her head and half her face. She sat on a red Kilim rug in a white-walled room, the only decoration a large black-and-white photo of a snow-capped mountain. A plugged-in high-end laptop stood on a table beside a French–Turkish dictionary and an open notebook. She turned to see a smiling bearded man, hook-nosed, with sharp brown eyes. He nodded. A hookah bubbled at his side. “Excuse the cloak and dagger, Mademoiselle. I apologize. But may I make one more imposition?”
Fluent non-accented French. Polite, almost academic.
She nodded, noticing another bearded man in the corner, sitting cross-legged, his eyes averted.
“May I see your ID? I’m not paranoid, I assure you,” he said. “It’s necessary.”
She reached for her bag under the chador, found her carte d’identité and PI license. This slight exertion in the hot engulfing robe and stifling room made her light-headed.
“Merci,” he said.
She reached to pull the veil from her head.
“Please, keep your hair covered,” the man said, “if you don’t mind. Some of us here follow the Koran in its strict interpretation.”
“Of course,” she said, feeling awkard. She didn’t know the customs or etiquette. She’d probably violated a few Muslim precepts already.
Vatel placed a demitasse of steaming coffee on the floor by her, careful not to touch her hand. Then he sat across from her. She sipped it, the grounds sticking in her teeth. This man’s face . . . something about his face seemed familiar. But she couldn’t place it.
“What do I call you?”
“Kat. I hear you have questions,” he said, then inhaled deeply from the hookah.
“And suspicions. Vatel said you have answers.”
He shrugged and shot a glance at Vatel, who leaned forward staring intently at Kat.
“Experience has taught me a few things,” Kat said. “In Istanbul, I lived under what amounted to house arrest, though the government called it ‘security surveillance for my safety.’ Here I hide in plain sight, Mademoiselle, do my work, blend in with others in the quartier, even visit cafés. Impossible for me in Istanbul. But more pertinent to you, I think . . .” he paused and tugged his beard, “. . . the Yellow Crescent hasn’t made an attempt on my life in more than a year.”
He’d got right to it.
“Meaning?”
“Vatel saw similarities between my situation and that of the murdered journalist,” he said. “Let’s say he has intimate knowledge of the Yellow Crescent’s methods. However,” he said, “I disagree with his conclusion. Their leader is Colonel Ehret. His secret military funding for hit teams has dried up. The Yellow Crescent operates by instilling fear; it does its dirty work in Turkey, not here. And professional killers leave no calling card or signature.”
“Signature . . . I don’t understand.”
“A distinctive curling slit under the ear of their victims.”
Yves’s lifeless face, his slumped head, the knife curl and makeup behind his ear, flashed in front of her.
“Then how do you explain a Reuters correspondent in Vienna—”
“But that occurred more than a year ago.”
“You’re implying Yves’s murder was deliberately made to look like Yellow Crescent’s work?”
He took another drag from the hookah.
“By their enemies in the iKK Kurd party?” she asked.
“I don’t think they’d kill a journalist who told their story, albeit from his own perspective.” He shook his head. “He disagreed with the iKK’s tactics, but it would do the party more harm than good to silence him. No one else had the courage to write an exposé of the Yellow Crescent.”
That theory put her back to square one. Without a reason for Yves’s or Langois’s murder. Nowhere.
“Turkey’s applying to the EU; everyone’s on their best behavior.” He gave a short laugh. “At least on the surface. This is not the time to dispatch contract killers to France. And your government desires the fat contracts—”
“What contracts?” she interrupted.
“For a start, dam construction and hydroelectric power plants to be built in the reclaimed Kurdish area.”
“Jalenka mentioned Kurdish resettlement.”
He nodded. “They resettle Kurds wherever it suits their policy.”
Doubts stirred in her mind; the implications were too complex to understand quickly.
She glanced his way, then turned to Vatel, who’d remained quiet and attentive to this “hero.” That bothered her. Now she finally realized. “But it was you who found Yves’s body, wasn’t it Vatel?”
He didn’t deny it. The water in the hookah bubbled. The close air and dense heat were stifling her.
“You witnessed the murder! You saw the assassin! Why didn’t you tell the Brigade?”
Vatel shook his head. “All I saw was a chador. I heard a scream,” he said. “She was tall, that’s all I remember. Then when I found him—”
“You saw the slash under Yves’s ear.”
“True. It was just like a Yellow Crescent murder,” Vatel said. “To send a message to Kurds in the quartier. . . .”
