The Templars' Last Secret

by Martin Walker

  “It’s a long story,” said Bruno, and explaining it took up the time before J-J’s arrival. Halfway through, Bruno had a call from the ambulance driver: Dumesnil was in intensive care, but the doctor thought he’d live.

  Chapter 17

  “The trail has gone cold in Germany, at least for the moment,” said the brigadier, his face enormous on the video screen. “We can’t even track them from the stations where they boarded the trains. The Germans still have all sorts of legal limitations on security cameras and on storing the data. The good news is that we’ve identified one of the three unknown men. He’s Mustaf al-Takriti, Iraqi, thirty-six years old and a serious threat. He’s on the Americans’ target list. Commissioner Perrault will explain.”

  The brigadier was in Paris, and Bruno was one of four men attending the videoconference in Périgueux. J-J was sitting on one side of a long table, flanked by Prunier, the police commissioner for the département, and by the regional general of the gendarmes. Bruno sat beside Prunier, feeling slightly dizzy, disconcerted by the way Brigadier Lannes’s image kept jerking, slightly out of sync with his words coming out of the speaker. The brigadier adjusted something on the console before him, and the camera backed away from the close-up and revealed the others in the Paris studio.

  Beside the brigadier was a saturnine, middle-aged man from France’s joint antiterrorism center and an attractive and elegantly dressed young woman who made Bruno’s heart turn over when he saw her on the screen. It was Isabelle, who, after leaving him and the Périgord, had worked first at the Ministry of the Interior in Paris, then at Eurojust in The Hague. She was introduced as the Eurojust official attached to the European Union’s antiterrorism center, which sounded like another promotion for her.

  Bruno kept his face impassive but his eyes were hungry for this sight of her. She was still too thin, as she had been since being shot in the thigh during an ambush of a shipload of illegal immigrants. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her hair was longer, enough to be pulled back into a bun. Her outfit was plain, a black turtleneck sweater and a black leather jacket slung over the back of her chair. He wondered if she knew he was watching her, if the video screen at her end showed all four men at the table.

  “Mustaf al-Takriti comes from Takrit, hometown of the late and unlamented Saddam Hussein, and is a member of his clan,” Isabelle said. “He was a new recruit in the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi secret police, when Saddam was overthrown. His father, who was killed in the U.S. invasion in 2003, was a Mukhabarat general and close to Saddam. Somehow Mustaf became attached to the Sunni resistance movement against the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. He’s now part of ISIS.”

  Isabelle paused, and gently tapped two of her fingers against her lips as if thinking. Bruno sat bolt upright, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He knew that gesture. It had been her private signal to him when they were not alone that she wanted to be kissed. But was it for him? Did she even know he was there at the other end of the video link?

  She went on to explain that ISIS was the Anglo-Saxon acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but the jihadists called themselves Daesh. This was the Arabic acronym which asserted their claim to the whole of the Levant, which encompassed Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, including the territory of Israel, and North Africa, as well as Iraq and Syria. Daesh was committed to restoring the historic caliphate of the Ottoman Empire and ruling all Muslims around the world under strict Islamic law.

  “Mustaf has been identified as a senior figure in the Daesh force that occupied Mosul and then took part in some of the mass executions that followed. There is a reliable British report that he was seen in Raqqa, Syria, three months ago. The Americans have circulated a photo that shows he was also present in Derna when that became the first Libyan town to declare allegiance to Daesh,” Isabelle went on.

  “The reason we have a good photo of Mustaf,” said the saturnine Frenchman, “is that it comes from a mug shot taken by the Americans when they arrested him in Iraq in 2004. They put him in the Camp Bucca detention center. That was where he got to know all the other Daesh leaders. The Americans ran the place almost like a vacation resort, with first-class health care and the inmates were allowed to organize their own education and religious classes and even set up a soccer league, in which Mustaf was a star.”

  “Then the Americans decided to let them all go, when Washington switched tactics and began to back the Sunni resistance against the Shia,” said the brigadier, poker-faced. These videoconferences were all recorded, Bruno knew, and the brigadier was being careful of the diplomatic etiquette. The Americans could be touchy about European colleagues criticizing their policy shifts in the Middle East.

  He waved to Isabelle to continue, and she nodded coolly and spoke again without consulting her notes.

  “Mustaf, as a member of the country’s elite under Saddam Hussein, went to a special school in Baghdad where he learned English, so he is bilingual in that language. When he was a child, the family had a French-born nanny of Moroccan origin, who taught him French, subsequently returned to France when Mustaf went to university. She added that Mustaf also studied Russian at school. His French, she told us, was very good indeed.

  “We know Mustaf has been with al-Husayni, the partner of the dead Israeli woman Leah Wolinsky, also known as Leah Ben-Ari. However, we are still trying to identify the other two members of the team,” Isabelle went on. “The fact that the Israelis and the Americans don’t have anything on these two may indicate that they are Europeans, either Muslim born or converts. We are checking, but our files on European sympathizers, even French nationals who went to fight with Daesh, are far from complete. I suggest we have to assume that they will be able to blend easily into European and possibly even into French society. So far, we know more than fifteen hundred French nationals who have gone to Iraq or Syria to join Daesh.”

  Isabelle stopped and turned to the brigadier. He nodded and said, “So Mustaf is a category one target for us. But he’s a very skilled operator, fluent in our language and obviously dangerous. I’m sending down three teams of special forces, so you will have firepower on hand if you need it. We’ll probably base them in Périgueux, Sarlat and Bergerac. Of course, we’d like to catch Mustaf alive. From now on we’ll do these briefings daily, at eight in the morning with another, if required, at six in the evening. Any comments?”

  Prunier raised his hand and asked about possible reinforcements for his police and for the gendarmes to help search for the vehicle Leah had rented. Whatever you need, the brigadier replied.

  “This has now been formally listed as an antiterrorism inquiry,” said the brigadier. “Someone from the specialist unit is drawing up a list of possible targets in your region, including nuclear power stations, chemical plants, dams and so on. I’ll arrange for extra police from Bordeaux, Limoges and Toulouse. General, do you have space for them in your barracks?”

  “We do. Commissaire Jalipeau has just reminded me to ask when can we expect the breakdown of calls from that cell-phone tower near the gîte where they stayed?”

  “There’s a team working on that and we should have something today,” Isabelle replied. “I’ll call J-J—I mean, Commissaire Jalipeau—as soon as it comes in. We also have a team going through all the other rail stations, ports and airports and entry points to see if we can find when and how those other two men in their hoodies came to France. Chef de Police Courrèges, I gather you will be coordinating the local search for whatever new base Mustaf has found. Will you need more staff?”

  “Not immediately, Commissaire,” Bruno replied, feeling slightly ridiculous at calling Isabelle by her rank when they had been lovers for a whole glorious summer. “If we do, I’ll let you know. But we might want sniffer dogs on hand to detect explosives; that way they can patrol major tourist sites without arousing too much public concern. One other thing, this Testament of Iftikhar. I think we need to contact a medieval scholar who may be able to tell us more about its significance? There’s a
professor at the Sorbonne called Philippeau. It looks as though our Dumesnil was writing to him when Mustaf and his team came in to torture him. I can call Philippeau. May I suggest you liaise with the Israelis.”

  “I’ll do it. I have an Israeli contact here,” said the brigadier. “What do I tell them?”

  “This so-called testament was obviously very important to Leah, and I can’t think of a reason why they would want to torture Dumesnil except to try and learn more about that. Mustaf doesn’t strike me as the scholarly type. Why else would Mustaf have this Palestinian history professor on a terrorist team? Imagine the political implications if this testament were to be found.”

  “Very well. Talk to the professor. We’ll confer again tomorrow morning. By then, perhaps we can come up with some idea of what these men are after. Thank you, messieurs.”

  The screen went black, and the four men in Périgueux sat back in their chairs. J-J stood up, stretched and then opened the door to ask a secretary to arrange some coffee. He came back and sat at the head of the table.

  “We can’t talk if we’re all lined up in a row like schoolkids,” he said. “Come around where we can see each other so we can work out how to organize this.”

  “My gendarmes can take care of the road traffic watch, the garages and gas stations,” said the general.

  “My guys can handle the rail stations, hotels, restaurants and gîtes outside Bruno’s turf,” said Prunier with a grin as he glanced at Bruno. The two men had played on opposite sides of an army-versus-police rugby match more than ten years earlier and had become friends. “We all know Bruno has his own system in that valley of his. We’ll also double-check all the Internet cafés and other public access points, as well as security cameras in supermarkets and ones covering mosques. We also have the telephone monitors on standby for all calls in Arabic. I’m briefing the media after this, so we’ll have Mustaf’s face on the front page of every newspaper and on TV. Am I missing anything?”

  “Shops selling halal meat,” said Bruno. “And motorbike and cycle rentals. They probably won’t want to use that Peugeot Traveller they rented, unless they’ve already found a new set of wheels. They may be living rough, so we’d better check places selling sleeping bags and portable stoves.”

  “Is there any reason to believe they’re still in the region?” asked J-J. “They had an hour and a half to get away from Sarlat before we could even ask for some roadblocks to be set up. They could be anywhere by now.”

  Prunier shook his head. “They came here to the Périgord with this woman, Leah, for a reason. Maybe it had to do with the Iftikhar business, maybe not. But I think we can assume they went to see Dumesnil because they wanted to find out more about it from him. What I don’t understand is why all four of them went and why they used torture. If al-Husayni had called on him alone, Dumesnil would have reason to welcome him as a scholar and fellow historian.”

  “Perhaps Mustaf doesn’t trust al-Husayni out of his sight,” said Bruno. “Al-Husayni doesn’t seem to fit the usual profile of a Daesh militant.”

  “That could be right,” said J-J. “But what’s here in the Périgord that would attract a senior Daesh figure? This region is about food, wine, tourism, farming and historic monuments. The big opening of Lascaux IV is months away. That would be a target, but right now it isn’t even the tourist season.”

  “To these guys, all monuments are targets,” said Prunier. “Remember when the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues in Afghanistan, and then Daesh blew up the Roman temples in Palmyra and took pickaxes to the statues at Nineveh. They believe in destroying monuments and we’ve got plenty of those.”

  “Maybe they’re here for more than one reason,” J-J suggested. “There’s something to do with the Iftikhar testament, certainly, but maybe while they’re here they want to take the chance to attack or destroy something important to French culture. To me that spells the Lascaux Cave. Perhaps that’s what the two unknown guys are for.”

  “There could be another target, the Boy Scout camp that we’re opening outside St. Denis next week,” said Bruno. “Maya Halévy will be there, the Israeli woman who paid for the place as a memorial. She and her brother were sheltered there from the Nazis during the war. It was going to be opened with contingents from all the scout groups, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim, but the Muslims announced this week they were pulling out because of the Israeli connection. A hundred French youngsters and this Israeli philanthropist could be quite a target.”

  “We hadn’t been thinking of arranging any special security but that could be a very bad mistake,” said Prunier. “We can’t leave them unguarded. Maybe we could use one of those special forces teams the brigadier mentioned.”

  “I can assign some of our forces mobiles with their own helicopters,” said the general of gendarmes. “They aren’t special forces, but they’re very good, the ones we use to guard nuclear power stations. And I’ll put in a request for GIGN.”

  Bruno nodded his approval—Groupe d’ Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale was an elite unit—but he wondered how to steer the general away from the idea that all that was needed was firepower.

  “I wonder whether just guarding the camp is the best approach,” said Bruno. “These are kids. What are their parents going to say if anything goes wrong, and we knew there was a threat? They could accuse us of using their children as bait to set a trap. Perhaps we should consider postponing the opening.” He paused, and looked at Prunier and the general. “If the politicians and the media start looking for scapegoats in the event of a disaster, they’ll start with you two.”

  “Point taken,” said Prunier.

  The meeting broke up. Bruno pondered contacting Amélie. When Prunier had called him at dawn to attend the videoconference, he’d left a note at her hotel explaining that he had to attend a security meeting to which she would not be admitted and he’d call her when he could. He’d turned his phone off during the meeting, and when he turned it back on, he saw an urgent text from Horst that said simply, “Eureka. Join me at Commarque soonest.”

  Bruno grimaced. He wanted to get back to his office and start going through the e-mails from his network of people in the local tourist business after he launched the search for the four suspects. Commarque was out of his way. But Horst was a good friend, and about to get married. Bruno skimmed through the e-mails on his phone, saw nothing particularly urgent and set off for the château.

  The crowds had gone, but the count was there with Horst, Clothilde and two more of the archaeologists from the museum. Another truck was parked beside the seismic sensor Bruno had seen on his last visit.

  “That’s the ground-penetrating radar,” said Horst, who was shifting from one foot to the other in his excitement and clutching Clothilde’s hand. “They’ve found another cave, at least one. And there’s something inside it. From the blurred shape, which is all we can make out, it could be an altar or a tomb.”

  “Congratulations,” said Bruno. He kissed Clothilde and shook hands with the count and the other archaeologists before asking, “Where is it?”

  “The cave is quite deep, at least five meters below current ground level, at about the same depth as the cave where the equine engraving was found,” said Clothilde, her eyes bright. “It seems to be quite close behind one of the troglodyte caves, one where we found animal bones, flints and pollen in the floor. They were dated between fifteen and eighteen thousand years old, Lascaux period.”

  “When you say it’s behind a known cave, is it sealed off or is there a way into it?” asked Bruno.

  “The technicians are in there at the moment, trying to map the new cave and look for others,” Horst said. “The seismic investigation showed the whole hill to be honeycombed with caves and what look like courses of underground streams. Heaven knows what passages between the caves we might find. Remember how much lower the ground was that long ago.”

  There came a shout from the tower of the château, nearly a hundred meters above them
. Looking up, Bruno saw three men, all waving down at them.

  “You’ll meet them this evening, the guests I told you about,” said Horst. “Two colleagues from Germany and another from England, close friends of many years and very good archaeologists. One of the Germans is from Düsseldorf, and that is very significant for this region. Can you guess why?”

  “I couldn’t begin,” said Bruno, smiling.

  “Here at Les Eyzies is where the first Cro-Magnon skeletons were found. But before that was the discovery in 1856 of Neanderthal man near Düsseldorf. So we shall have here archaeologists from the two great sites of prehistory.”

  Horst threw up his hands with a flourish. “What could be more suitable for a marriage of archaeologists? And I’m delighted that our wedding is coinciding with this latest discovery at Commarque. Clothilde and I couldn’t have had a better wedding present.”

  Bruno nodded, wished them luck, slapped Horst on the back and reminded him not to let the cave get in the way of his bachelor supper that evening. Bruno was in charge of the cooking, but the event was being hosted by the baron at his chartreuse, since they assumed Horst’s German friends would prefer to dine in a historic building than in Bruno’s modest home. The baron also had a much-bigger oven than Bruno, which would be needed for the dish Bruno had in mind. Ivan at the bistro had ordered a whole wild salmon of three kilos from his supplier, to be delivered to him at the restaurant fresh that day. Bruno was providing the herbs and new potatoes from his garden, and Fauquet was making the tarte au citron that was Horst’s favorite dessert. Marcel, who ran the finest vegetable stall at the local market, had promised Bruno two kilos of young green asparagus to begin, and Stéphane from the fromagerie was preparing one of his special cheese boards.

  Jack Crimson and Gilles were providing the wine, and considerable thought had gone into the selection. To begin, they had three bottles of sparkling rosé wine from Château Feely, which would be the aperitif and could also accompany the asparagus. The white wine for the salmon would be a Cuvée Mirabelle from Château de la Jaubertie, but Hubert from the town’s cave des vins had suggested they might like to try something unusual, a red wine that would go surprisingly well with the salmon, a Château Laulerie, made entirely of merlot grapes. Since Horst preferred to drink red wines when he could, and Bruno and the baron had tasted the wine and approved, they had three bottles, and two bottles of the honey-sweet Monbazillac from Château La Robertie for the dessert.