Inhuman Resources

by Pierre Lemaitre

  “Take off your clothes.”

  “What?”

  “I said take off your clothes! Now! Hurry up!”

  Kader realized the objective and put down the Sig Sauer and picked up the Uzi instead. Monsieur Guéneau looked on in horror, babbling incoherently.

  “Please, no,” he implored.

  “You have ten seconds,” Kader added, standing up.

  “No, I beg you . . .”

  Two or three long seconds passed.

  Monsieur Guéneau wept, looking in turn at Kader’s face and the submachine gun. At a guess, he was trying the utter the words, “Please, please, I’m begging you . . .” But at the same time, he was taking off his jacket, which fell to the floor behind him as he started to unbutton his shirt.

  “Trousers first,” Monsieur Delambre barked. “And take a step back . . .”

  Monsieur Guéneau stopped and did as he was told.

  “Farther back!”

  He was in the middle of the room, in full view. He set to work on his belt, letting out a groan as he went. He wiped his eyes clumsily.

  “Faster . . . ,” Kader urged him, under Monsieur Delambre’s instructions.

  Monsieur Guéneau had taken off his trousers and was hanging his head. He was wearing a pair of women’s panties. Bright red ones. With cream lace. The kind you might see in the window of a sex shop.

  If you want the absolute truth, I was disgusted by him. I’m no fan of homos at the best of times, but there’s something about deviant homos that I find even harder to stomach.

  “The shirt,” Monsieur Delambre said.

  When Monsieur Guéneau had taken everything off, we could see that he’d been wearing the full outfit beneath his suit: matching bra and panties. He made for a truly pathetic sight. His arms dangled at his side, his head bowed, sobbing more violently than ever. He was fuller in the chest than his bra size could cope with, and the bright-red material was slicing into his tubby, hairy body. His stomach was white and saggy, and the piss-soaked panties were wedged right up his fat buttocks.

  It was impossible to say where Monsieur Delambre’s intuition had come from, but it had come from somewhere. How had he suspected Monsieur Guéneau of his dirty secret? Mademoiselle Rivet did not know what had hit her: this first interrogation had gone way beyond anything she could have imagined.

  Monsieur Delambre took to the floor again:

  “Monsieur Guéneau!”

  The man looked at Kader in a state of bewilderment.

  “Do you think anyone can trust a man like you, Monsieur Guéneau?”

  He was doubled up with the humiliation, his shoulders drooping forward and downward, his chest heaving and his knees almost knocking against each other. Monsieur Delambre took his time before moving in for the kill.

  “For political reasons that we don’t have time to go into, we would like Exxyal Group to hit the headlines. Our cause requires us to damage the reputation of various large European corporations. Exxyal Group must be made to look its absolute worst, if you follow me. To achieve this, we need to provide the press with tangible proof. We know that you have access to information that can aid us in our cause: confidential clauses, bribes, kickbacks, secret deals, undisclosed backing, aid, sweeteners . . . You know what I’m talking about. So you have a choice. I can either kill you now. Or if you’d rather take some time to think through my proposal, I can send you back to your colleagues for a couple of hours. No doubt they’ll be amused to see you in this—what’s the word?—decadent outfit.”

  “No . . .” Monsieur Guéneau murmured, whimpering now.

  He was in an awful way—totally and utterly humiliated.

  He must have been aware of Yasmine looking at him from behind. Even though she was in uniform, she was still a young woman. He clawed at his sides as though he were trying to rip his skin off.

  “Unless, of course, you are prepared to support us in our cause?”

  It all happened very quickly.

  Monsieur Guéneau fell on the pistol, and before Kader could move a muscle, he’d grabbed it and jammed the barrel into his mouth. Yasmine’s reflexes were excellent. She caught his arm and jerked it toward her. The pistol bounced onto the floor.

  Everyone froze.

  Monsieur Guéneau, in his red lingerie, was lying spread-eagled on his back across the table, one arm flung over his chest, the other hanging in midair. He had the air of a wretched victim on a sacrificial altar, like something out of a Fellini film. You couldn’t help thinking that the man had just lost a part of his self-esteem that he would never recover. He wasn’t moving and was struggling to breathe. Eventually, he rolled onto his side, huddled into the fetal position, and started crying again, silently this time.

  It was clear that Monsieur Guéneau wanted to die.

  Monsieur Delambre leaned into the microphone again.

  “Time to do it,” he whispered to Kader. “Get his Blackberry.”

  Kader said something in Arabic to Yasmine, who went to fetch the little box where the hostages’ telephones, watches, and other personal effects had been put, then laid it by Monsieur Guéneau’s face.

  “Over to you, Monsieur Guéneau,” Kader said. “What do you choose?”

  The wait was interminable. Monsieur Guéneau was numb, his actions very slow. He seemed dazed, but managed to roll over, prop himself up, and, with great difficulty, stay upright. He tried to unhook his bra, but Monsieur Delambre rushed to the microphone:

  “No!”

  Not a chance.

  Monsieur Guéneau shot a look of pure hatred at Kader. But once again, it was futile: he was dressed in women’s underwear, soaked to the bone, terrified of losing a life he no longer had. He was crushed. He rummaged through the box and picked out his Blackberry, which he switched on with a familiar hand. The scene was all the more pitiful because it was so drawn out. Monsieur Guéneau connected his device to the laptop computer linked to the Exxyal Europe system. Kader was behind him to keep a close eye on things. Monsieur Guéneau punched in his code and started digging around the files of various contracts, I suppose—on our screens we couldn’t see what was happening in any detail.

  After that, I believe opinions differ.

  As far I’m concerned, I heard Monsieur Delambre say: “Bastard.” Whether it was one “bastard” or several “bastards,” I’m not a hundred percent sure. He didn’t say it loudly—it was more like he was saying it to himself. Mademoiselle Rivet said she didn’t hear anything herself. But I’m certain that’s what he said. The interrogation was over, Monsieur Guéneau was finished—how it had come to this, we weren’t even sure ourselves—and Monsieur Delambre turned his head and said “Bastard” (I’m sure of it). The operation he was conducting was far from complete, but the impression we got was that he’d lost all interest in it. Kader turned toward the camera, waiting for his instructions. Monsieur Guéneau, slumped over the laptop keyboard, continued to sob like a baby in his skimpy red lingerie. After a bit, Yasmine looked up at the camera, too.

  It was amid this general confusion that Monsieur Delambre decided to stand up. I was looking at him from behind, so I couldn’t tell you what his expression was like. My guess is that there was an element of—what do I mean?—relief about it . . . Like a calmness. Of course, it’s always easy to say that in retrospect, but you can check, I said this in my first statement.

  Anyway, Monsieur Delambre was on his feet throughout this weird silence, during which Mademoiselle Rivet’s disquiet was plain to see. Then he picked up his briefcase, turned, and left the room.

  The effect was odd. You’d have sworn he was heading home at the end of a day’s work.

  As soon as he left, I knew I had to act. In the interrogation chamber, Kader was still wondering what to do as the wretched Monsieur Guéneau sobbed over his keyboard. I grabbed the microphone and said hastily: “Stop that and get dressed!” before switching the mike to Mourad’s earpiece, causing him to crane his neck with great concentration. “Keep an eye on them,” I
said. I turned to run after Monsieur Delambre before he did anything stupid, but I’d barely taken a step before Monsieur Dorfmann and Monsieur Lacoste came into the room.

  They were standing stiffly upright and staring straight ahead. Next to them, Monsieur Delambre was clutching his briefcase in his left hand. In his right hand, he was holding a pistol, a Beretta Cougar, which was pressed against Monsieur Dorfmann’s temple. I could tell at once that he wasn’t playing around—there was a wild look in his eye and he was determined. And when you see one man holding a gun to another man’s head, it’s always best to assume he’s prepared to pull the trigger.

  “Everyone into the meeting room!” Monsieur Delambre yelled.

  He yelled because he was afraid, and his eyes were wide open, which made him look as if he were hallucinating.

  Mademoiselle Rivet let out a cry.

  “What’s going on?” I started saying, but Monsieur Delambre cut me off. He swung the gun over to Monsieur Lacoste’s head, aimed just in front of him, closed his eyes, and fired. Not a moment’s hesitation. The bang was horrific: two screens exploded (Monsieur Delambre had fired at random), glass was everywhere, smoke, a stench of burning plastic. Mademoiselle Rivet fell to her knees screaming; the two men he was holding at gunpoint buckled under the blast, hands to their ears.

  I held up my hands as high as I could to show that I wasn’t going to put up any resistance, because with the exploding screen and the foul smell of cordite, there was no doubt he could have killed any one of us, all of us.

  Monsieur Delambre was using live ammunition.

  24

  “Hands up! Move! Step on it!”

  Monsieur Delambre was shouting constantly, filling the space with sound to prevent us from thinking, and making the most of the element of surprise.

  In a few seconds, he made us cross the corridor, picking up Kader, Monsieur Guéneau, and Yasmine on the way, and—still screaming—shoved us violently in the back as far as the meeting room, where the fake hostages had just become real ones.

  For good measure, he then turned to the right-hand camera, took aim, and fired. The device disintegrated in a cloud of smoke. Next he swung to the other side and let off another bullet, but he had less luck: it struck well wide of the camera, making a hole the size of a football in the partition wall. But Monsieur Delambre was not about to lose face. “Fucking hell!” he yelled, before firing at the camera again, this time striking his target.

  It’s impossible for you to imagine the effect of three gunshots from a 9mm Beretta pistol in a 500-square-foot room. Everyone felt as though their head had just exploded like the cameras themselves. This Beretta had a thirteen-round clip. That meant he still had nine left to shoot, and whether or not he had a backup magazine, this was no time for fooling around.

  What struck me most was Monsieur Delambre’s professionalism. Sure, he was screaming like a man possessed and had lost all his composure (you could tell from his nervous, jerky motions—precisely what made him so dangerous). But he was continuously scanning around him, and each gesture was measured and deliberate. Kader shot me a glance to see if I was on the same page as him: there was method to Monsieur Delambre’s madness. It suggested some sort of coherent security protocol, and it was a sign that he’d received some training from a professional. For starters, he was holding his weapon with two hands. Amateurs often keep their arms locked, like they’ve seen on television, instead of simply tensing them (and more often than not, they place their weaker hand farther back on the weapon). Monsieur Delambre, however, was holding his weapon perfectly: poised and ready for the recoil should he need to shoot. It was surprising, but at the end of the day, I was there as Monsieur Lacoste and Monsieur Dorfmann’s adviser—why shouldn’t Monsieur Delambre have his advisers, too? And if he had sought guidance, then it was a necessary precaution, because there was nothing simple about what Monsieur Delambre was preparing to do.

  You see, waving a Beretta around in front of a couple of people is one thing, but taking twelve or so people hostage is another matter. And I must confess, Monsieur Delambre had made a pretty decent start, and our response needed to take this into account. I don’t mean to brag, but if he hadn’t shown such discipline or method, if he hadn’t made some of the right moves, Kader or I would have eaten him for breakfast.

  Deep down, I have to admit, I knew the tables had turned.

  It was as though the man on stage was entirely different from the one who’d been waiting in the wings. I had the unpleasant feeling that I’d been outplayed by a fellow professional, and, for a man of my experience, that was extremely hard to take. For the purposes of the operation, and as per our orders, until now we’d been “playing” at hostage taking, and just like that, someone had changed the rules of the game. I didn’t take it well. I don’t like being challenged, over and above the fact that Monsieur Lacoste was paying me to ensure everything ran smoothly. He’d agreed to my very high rates so that everything would run smoothly. And for some pathetic, unemployed little middle manager, prompted by God knows who, to come along and start brandishing a gun at us and thinking he’d get away with it . . . No, I didn’t like it one bit.

  Monsieur Delambre was holding a Beretta, a gun I know very well.

  Kader, Yasmine, and I looked at each other in silence and came to the same conclusion. The smallest window, the slightest error, and Monsieur Delambre was a dead man.

  By that point, everyone in there must have thought they’d gone mad. Those who’d known that this was a simulation realized that we’d switched from a role play to the real thing. The others must have been totally bemused to see the commandos who’d taken them hostage moments before were now prisoners themselves. That must have been quite hard for them to process. The Exxyal execs, who had seen Monsieur Dorfmann shot dead a few minutes before, must have been surprised to find him alive and well, at the same time as discovering they’d been the victims of a hoax. Various new people had now entered the fold, including a man holding a gun to their boss’s head and blowing cameras to smithereens. This state of astonishment played into Monsieur Delambre’s hands.

  Before anyone could take stock of the situation, he made all of us lie flat on our stomachs, arms and legs spread apart.

  “Fingers too, spread them! Anyone tries anything and I shoot!”

  That’s not something you make up on the spot. You’ve really got to know your stuff to say the “spread the fingers” thing. That said, despite the shrewd pointers he’d been given, you could tell from his technique that he was a first-timer. He must have recognized his error when he went to search the newcomers: everyone was lying down all over the place, and there was no way he could properly frisk everyone at the same time as keeping them all in his field of vision. This is the lone gunman’s primary problem. Working alone requires a lot of technical organization and anticipation, and if one aspect doesn’t go according to plan, you can be sure you’ll run into problems. What’s more, Monsieur Delambre’s mental state was not up to the task. He was still yelling things like: “Don’t move! First person to move gets it!” Deep down, he didn’t mean it. At least that was my impression when I felt him stand over me and pat me down. His movements weren’t so clumsy that I had reasonable cause to intervene, but they weren’t as systematic and precise as they should have been. He might slip up, I remember thinking—in fact I was sure he would. Stretched out in the middle of the room like a customer caught in a run-of-the-mill supermarket holdup, I resolved to show no mercy should I gain the upper hand.

  Little did he know, but Monsieur Delambre had never been so close to death.

  When he searched me, even if his technique was a little graceless, he had an advantage: he knew what he was looking for. Cell phones, mainly. One for each person. And then watches, to deprive us of any time markers. He had no difficulty relieving us of these objects, which he stashed in a drawer he’d pulled out of the table.

  After that, he went to the windows and shut the blinds before proceeding to the nex
t phase of the operation—namely, reconfiguring the room:

  “You!” he shouted in Monsieur Cousin’s direction. “Yes, you! Get up, KEEP your hands in the air, and move over there! HURRY UP!”

  He was still shouting, but some words he was screaming. It was hard to tell whether this was a sign of increased panic or whether he was still filling the space with sound to prevent us from thinking. The problem was, it was preventing him from thinking, too. I was one of the first he ordered to stand up, and this gave me the chance to observe him for a second. I remember noting how agitated he was. The idea that he was so impatient, so irritable, made us all scramble. We felt he wasn’t far from committing a blunder of some sort, or being seized by a murderous impulse at any point.

  When you look back on events as I am now, everything seems to play back in slow motion. You take in every gesture, every intention, but the fact is it all happened very fast. So fast that I didn’t even have time to consider the fundamental question: why was Monsieur Delambre doing this? What did he want? Why was an exec who’d been called in for a recruitment test taking his future employers hostage? And why with real bullets? Behind all this there were stakes that were beyond my understanding, and I realized that the best thing was to wait for the dust to settle.

  He made each of us get back up in turn and assigned us all a space. Then he ordered us to place our hands flat on the ground and sit on top of them, with our backs to the wall. The opportune moment was not going to be presenting itself anytime soon, because this position is one of the hardest to get out of. I’ve used it myself in countless operations.

  It was clear he hadn’t planned this in minute detail, because he’d often point to someone, hesitate, and snap: “There!” before changing his mind with a “No, there!” The effect was unsettling.

  Eventually everyone was in position. I’m not sure if it was deliberate, but there was a certain logic to the order we were in. To his right, he had the Exxyal Europe group: Madame Camberlin, Mademoiselle Tràn, Monsieur Cousin, Monsieur Lussay, and Monsieur Guéneau (who’d had time to slip his trousers and jacket back on). To his left, he had my team: Mourad, Yasmine, Kader, Monsieur Renard, and myself. And finally, alone in the middle, wedged between the two groups, were Monsieur Dorfmann, Monsieur Lacoste, and Mademoiselle Rivet. The result, though improvised, was impressive, because these two men immediately took on the appearance of a pair of defendants before a tribunal. They must have felt it: they were deathly pale. It was maybe more striking in Monsieur Lacoste’s case, who’s naturally suntanned (all that time on the ski slopes, at a guess).