Bred to Kill

by Franck Thilliez

  “You wanted to know what Phoenix looks like? We’re expecting a birth tonight. You’ll be in the front row. And afterward . . . I’ll drink your soul.”

  They carried Lucie into the jungle.

  The palm leaves closed behind them, like a theater curtain. A few cracking branches. Then silence.

  54

  A virus, handed down from the father or mother to the child. A monster cleverly hidden in the DNA, interacting with the hand-dominance gene, just waiting for the right moment to awaken, proliferate in the brain of the host organism, and destroy it. Sharko didn’t know much about viruses or their strategy, but the ten days he’d spent on this case had led him to a crazy hypothesis. A hypothesis he absolutely had to test.

  It was a tired-looking man with a gaunt face who answered the door, on the fourth floor of the Haussmann-style building where Sharko had already come with Lucie to question the sister of Félix Lambert. The inspector introduced himself without showing his fake ID. His firm voice and impassive expression did the job.

  “Police, Homicide division. I’d like to speak to Coralie Lambert. We’ve already met.”

  “Masson. Her name is Coralie Masson. We’ve been married for over a year.”

  The man, Patrick Masson, was not even thirty years old. He invited Sharko into the huge apartment without asking questions. The young woman was lying on a sofa, a pillow under her neck and hands on her stomach. She was watching television. She tried to sit up at the cop’s entrance, but Sharko walked forward quickly, palm outstretched.

  “No, please, don’t get up. I won’t be long.”

  The inspector asked Patrick to leave them alone for a few moments.

  “I’ll be outside having a smoke,” the young man said to his wife. He waved his iPhone, latest model. “If you need me, just call.”

  Sharko pulled up a chair so he could sit facing Coralie and looked at her swollen belly. He rubbed his hands together: he had to play it close to the vest. And especially, nothing about his discoveries in the laboratory.

  “It’s almost time for the birth,” he said calmly, with a half smile.

  Limply, Coralie aimed the remote and turned off the TV. She had pearlescent skin and dark rings under her eyes. She was so young.

  “I don’t think you came here to talk about my baby.”

  Sharko cleared his throat.

  “You’re right. The question I came to ask might seem strange, Mme. Masson, but are you lactose intolerant like your brother?”

  The young woman finally sat up with a small grimace and made herself comfortable amid the cushions. Her ankles were swollen, surely an effect of a pregnancy whose impending conclusion promised to be difficult. In a dish on the floor lay some apple cores, empty biscuit packages, and an open jar of strawberry preserves.

  “Yes, I am, but why do you ask?”

  “Because, as I said last time, our investigation has led us into medical territory, and it’s not just about Félix. It’s bigger than that. That’s all I can say for now, but I promise I’ll tell you more as soon as I can. Were your father and mother intolerant?”

  “My father could drink milk with no problem, but my mother was intolerant as well.”

  “Did you know that in Europe, lactose intolerance is mainly found in immigrant populations and their descendants?”

  “I didn’t. But what exactly are you trying to say?”

  “That at a certain point, there was probably some foreign blood in your family lineage. Blood that brought this intolerance and . . . uh . . . unfortunate side effects. And I believe it was relatively recent.”

  Coralie looked outraged. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and knit her brow. She stood up with difficulty, went to open a drawer, and came back with a photo album, which she handed to Sharko.

  “We are not immigrants, Inspector. We have been pure-blooded Frenchmen for many generations. Some members of my family drew up a family tree, with roots stretching back to the 1700s. You’ll find it in there, at the beginning.”

  Sharko opened the album. Large sheets of paper had been glued and folded inside, showing an extensive family chart.

  “I’m not disputing the truth of your lineage,” said Sharko. “What I mean is, well, a child can just as easily be born from an extramarital affair, without it appearing on the family tree. A cheated-on husband, perhaps.”

  Coralie kept silent, her lips pressed shut. Very quickly, Sharko spotted the branch for Coralie and Félix Lambert. Their mother, Jeanne Lambert, an only child who had died on the delivery table . . . Their grandparents . . . Dates, names, places of birth, all very French. According to the tree, Jeanne Lambert was born in Paris in 1968. The date immediately sent up a flare in the cop’s mind. The “Phoenix no. 1” tape, shot in 1966 . . . The smuggling of test tubes between the Amazon and France, in 1967 . . .

  Like an implacable machine, everything fell together logically in the cop’s brain. His theory seemed to check out. He looked Coralie in the eye.

  “You are lactose-intolerant. Your mother Jeanne was, too, but not your father. So the intolerance comes from the maternal side.” He pointed his finger at two boxes: Geneviève and Georges Noland. “Here’s my question: were your grandmother or grandfather on the maternal side also lactose intolerant?”

  Coralie thought for a few seconds.

  “My grandfather drank coffee with milk a few days ago, exactly where you’re sitting now. He divorced my grandmother a long time ago, but she drank milk too. They . . . they aren’t intolerant.” She paused a moment. “So that means . . .”

  Sharko could barely remain seated. He had, before his eyes, the genetic break in Félix Lambert’s lineage. He ran a hand over his lips, realizing the breadth of his discoveries and all the horror they implied.

  “Do you have any pictures of your mother and her parents?”

  Coralie took the album and leafed through it, before giving it back to the inspector.

  “Here, that’s my mom and my grandmother. And here, Mom and Grandpa. You won’t see any of the three together—my grandparents had already separated well before that. In these photos, Mom must be about fifteen. She was so beautiful . . . She was nineteen when she had me, and twenty when Félix was born.”

  Sharko looked carefully at the color photos. Jeanne was a black-haired teenager, with dark eyes, certain features that clearly took after her mother, like her nose, the way she smiled. Coralie said aloud what was running through Sharko’s mind.

  “My mother doesn’t look like my grandfather, that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? It’s . . . inconceivable!”

  Sharko pressed his lips shut. The child wasn’t Georges Noland’s, he was now certain of it. A certainty took shape in his mind, relating to the Ururu, the smuggled blood, the business about viruses and evolution: as crazy as it seemed, Coralie and Félix’s grandmother had received, probably without her knowledge, the semen of an Amazon Indian who was lactose intolerant, massive, and violent. Spermatozoa carrying a virus. The horror had taken place between 1967 and 1968. A horror intended to be spread from one generation to the next.

  His mind reeling, the cop shut the album and slowly handed it back to Coralie, forcing her to stretch out her arm. He noted which hand she used to take it.

  Her left.

  His heart sank. In a halting voice, he said, “Tell me your child is a girl.”

  Coralie looked at him strangely, then shook her head.

  “No, it’s going to be a boy.”

  Sharko tried to keep calm, but inside he was falling apart.

  “Are . . . are you being seen by a doctor?”

  “Yes, but I . . .”

  “What do the sonograms say? Is everything normal?”

  Coralie seemed at a loss before this policeman who asked such direct, personal, and seemingly pointless questions.

  “Of course everything’s n
ormal! The baby is nice and big, in perfect health.” She smiled. “He . . . he’s always moving! I’ve never had such an appetite, I can’t stop eating, he’s such a little piglet. There’s only that minor problem with my placenta, but it’s not ser—”

  “Hypervascularity?”

  “How did you know that? What does it mean?”

  Sharko’s last doubts dissipated. Coralie was carrying GATACA within her. After obliterating his mother, Coralie’s baby would grow up and transmit the retrovirus to his own child in turn, before his brain began eating itself and set him off on a violent rampage. A cursed cycle, destined to repeat as long as children were born in this family. Feeling devastated, Sharko squatted down in front of the young woman, searching for the right words.

  “Is your maternal grandmother still alive?”

  “Of course. But what’s going on? Please, tell me!”

  Sharko had trouble grasping the subtleties of the virus: the mothers seemed to die giving birth to boys, but were they spared when they had girls? Why? How? So many questions crowding to his lips.

  “I’m aware of certain facts that I can’t divulge at the moment, since we don’t yet have proof. I can only tell you that something happened between your maternal grandparents. Something genetic, related to your mother’s pregnancies. That’s where the flaw started, if I can call it that, which was passed down to your brother Félix . . .”

  He fell silent a moment, not wanting to tell her that she, too, was affected, and that a monster shaped like a man-of-war was nesting in her DNA and in that of her baby.

  “I need to question your grandparents. I need to know what happened during your grandmother’s pregnancy, and which doctors might have treated her.”

  “Did you say a flaw? What flaw? We’ve never heard anything about a flaw. My grandfather would certainly have said something about it to the family. He’s a geneticist, that’s his specialty. He’s the one who cared for my grandmother during her pregnancy. Repairing genetic flaws is his job, and there’s no one better at it.”

  Sharko felt as if he’d been punched in the face.

  “Did you say . . . a geneticist?”

  “A great geneticist. I don’t know a lot about it, but I know he discovered some important genes, a long time ago. He became quite famous for it. For years, he’s been the head of a major lab that specializes in helping couples who are having trouble conceiving, hormonal insufficiencies, that kind of thing. He helps them become pregnant. What do you want with him? What’s going on?”

  Sharko stood up, not sure if his legs would hold. It all seemed so clear now. Inseminations . . .

  He also understood the attempt on Lucie’s life in São Gabriel. Georges Noland had been present when Lucie questioned Coralie. Sharko remembered asking if anyone in their family had Amerindian origins, and Noland had cut him short. At that moment, the geneticist must have realized how far they’d gotten, and imagined one of them would end up going to Brazil. Lucie had even given him her card with her phone number. Without realizing it, she had delivered herself to the monster, who must have used his army contacts in the Amazon to try to get rid of her quietly by making it look like an accident.

  The inspector stared at the young woman in horror, unable for a moment to gauge the breadth of his discovery and, especially, the measure of Georges Noland’s perversity. The man had injected a virus into the body of his own wife, thus placing a curse on every succeeding generation. He had killed Louts and tortured Terney. In the shelter of his laboratory, he had inseminated who knew how many women with hormonal problems, embedding a deadly virus in their own DNA. How could any human being do such things?

  With a trembling hand, he took out a pad and pen from his pocket.

  “I’d like to talk to him. Could you please tell me his address?”

  A long silence. Coralie sighed. She caressed her belly to regain her calm.

  “At this hour, he must still be in the lab. My grandfather never stops working. The company is called Genomics and it’s based in Villejuif, near the cancer institute.”

  Sharko wrote down the information, teeth clenched. Behind him, the husband reappeared, a lighter in his hand. The inspector pocketed the notepad, then gently shook the young woman’s hand.

  “Please take good care of yourself.”

  He left her in a state of great confusion, pulled her husband into the hallway, and spoke to him in an urgent voice.

  “Has Coralie ever told you about her mother? Her death from massive internal bleeding when Félix was born?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then listen carefully: you are going to take her to the hospital immediately, because it’s very likely that what happened with her mother will happen to her as well. Tell the doctors every detail you have about Jeanne Lambert’s death, and tell them that if they don’t do something, the same thing will be triggered when Coralie gives birth to her baby. Something that will cause her to die of a massive hemorrhage. The whole thing is genetic.”

  The man was on the verge of collapse. Sharko laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “There might still be a chance to save her, but you have to go now. And, whatever you do, do not let her talk to her grandfather. I’m heading to Villejuif. This whole thing is his doing.”

  He ran down the stairs three at a time. Once in his car, he drew his Smith & Wesson from its holster, loaded it, and sped away from the curb.

  55

  Lucie was floating outside of time. She was finding it hard to raise her lids over her bloodshot eyes. A large fire was burning before her, its flames dancing so high they set the shadows ablaze. She was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, unable to stand, as if her limbs were no longer hers. Behind her, around her, a sound rumbled, voices from men’s throats beat time in unison, bare feet pounded the ground in a slow drumming rhythm. Hands and arms waved in the dark, describing incomprehensible figures. Lucie felt herself wavering and her eyes rolled in their sockets, assaulted by sharp flashes. Where was she? She couldn’t marshal her thoughts. Everything blended in her head, as if a tunnel had opened into the void where her memories flowed. Faces . . . her father, her mother, Sharko. They spun around, mixed together, stretched out, swallowed by a throat of ink. In the deep recesses of her skull, she heard the laughter of little girls, saw the white sand spurt before her eyes in slow motion. At first hazy, the faces of Clara and Juliette slowly came into focus. Lucie put out her hand to touch them, but they evaporated in the night. Smiles, then tears. Lucie faltered, her head fell back, while the tears bathed her face. She felt her body falling, then a caress on the back of her neck. Seeds and mushroom powder fell on the incandescent coal set between her legs. There was a backwash of burning smoke that enveloped her face. Lucie swooned, then came to in a trance. The smoke, the smell of plants and roots enveloped her, toyed with her senses.

  Suddenly the crowd parted and a roar went up, accompanied by brandished hatchets. Four men carried a woman who was lying on a carpet of leaves and branches. She was completely naked and covered in painted figures. They set her down near the fire. Designs snaked around her swollen belly.

  Chimaux sat next to Lucie and breathed in a brownish powder.

  “These plants we’re inhaling have unimaginable powers, especially the power to heal ailing bodies and minds. Breathe them in, breathe deeply, and let yourself be carried away . . .”

  He shut his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, they were burning like braziers.

  • • •

  Sharko screeched to a halt in front of a NO PARKING sign and burst from his car, the Smith & Wesson shoved in his belt. He ran past the huge Gustave-Roussy cancer institute toward a tall glass-and-steel building, with streamlined contours and wide automatic doors, above which red and black letters spelled out the word “GENOMICS.” He walked up quickly to the reception desk, flashed his fake police ID, and asked to see Georges Noland i
mmediately. The receptionist reached for the phone to call her boss, but Sharko intercepted her.

  “No. Take me to him.”

  “He’s working in a ‘clean room’ on Sub One. It’s where we store our tissue samples. I don’t have access and . . .”

  Sharko pointed to the elevator.

  “Can you get there on that?”

  “Only with a badge—there’s no other way to get down.”

  “In that case, call him, but don’t say it’s the police. Tell him his grand-daughter is here to see him.”

  She made the call.

  “He’ll be here momentarily.”

  Sharko went to the elevator and waited. When the doors opened, he flew inside and slammed Noland against the back wall, jamming the gun into his stomach.

  “We’re going back down, you and I.”

  The elevator door opened onto a hallway. In front of them, protected by thick glass partitions, stretched a large room on the cutting edge of technology. Men and women in surgical masks and sterile coveralls were working at monitors, pressing buttons that controlled huge cryogenic pressure equipment. Sharko forced Noland into the first office they came to, locking the door behind them. He pushed the geneticist against the wall and cracked the butt of his gun on the man’s head. The other bent in two, hands on his forehead. The cop pressed the barrel into his cheek.