“He said the same to me,” Isabelle replied. “And I think he’s genuinely trying to be helpful, as he was with the photos.”
“Getting shot by your supposed colleagues would tend to have that effect,” said the brigadier, raising his eyes from a sheaf of cell-phone traffic reports.
“The big news was that he told us about their weapons. Demirci brought a cache of weapons with him, AK-47s, a box of what may be grenades and lots of explosives. They also have gas masks,” Isabelle said, brushing her hand over her short hair in a way Bruno remembered. It meant she was tired. “So now Paris is getting worried about the use of biological weapons or nerve gas.
“Al-Husayni also said that Mustaf was contemptuous of Leah and her focus on this testament, even though her efforts had the backing of some influential imams,” Isabelle went on. “Apparently Mustaf referred to Leah as a ‘Jewish spy’ and accused al-Husayni of being a traitor to his people and his faith by living with her. Mustaf’s only use for her was to get access to her bank account and her ability to rent cars and lodgings with a French ID. Al-Husayni said he’d tried to persuade Mustaf of the importance of the testament, but he’s full of guilt about that because the only result was the torture session with Dumesnil. By the way, J-J, I got your notes of your interview with him, thank you.”
“You must have picked up on Dumesnil’s reference to hearing them talk about a Jewish farm,” J-J replied. “Bruno and I assume that was a reference to the scout camp. Maybe Mustaf and his boys don’t know the event has been postponed, but I’ll bet they know that the Muslim scouts have backed out. Maybe they even had something to do with that.”
“It was going to be next weekend,” said Bruno.
“Maybe we could set a trap, see if Mustaf’s killers turn up, even though they know we’re looking for them.”
Bruno shrugged. If they were still searching for Mustaf’s gang the following weekend, the brigadier would probably be out of a job. Isabelle turned to look at him, but the brigadier was on his phone to Paris again. “I’ll ask him later. It might be worth a try. We have to do something.”
“You know I have to attend a wedding this afternoon and the dinner this evening,” Bruno told her. “You remember Horst, the German archaeologist who got kidnapped by the Basques? He’s getting married to another archaeologist. The guests are getting a special tour of Lascaux this morning.”
“Might they be eminent enough to be a target?” Isabelle asked. “Al-Husayni told me that to try and protect Leah, he’d stressed to Mustaf how important archaeologists were in France, and that Lascaux was like a national shrine.”
“Only if you’re an archaeologist,” said the brigadier, putting down his phone. “And Lascaux is now well guarded by a gendarme mobile unit. What time are your archaeologists going there?”
“Their trip is booked for eleven-thirty,” said Bruno, looking at his watch. It was just past ten. “I could join them, if you think it’s worth it. Then they’re having lunch in Montignac and supposed to get back to St. Denis at four for the wedding in the mairie.”
“Why not? I have nothing else for you to do except to keep on monitoring those networks of yours, and you can check for any holes in the security cordon the gendarmes have set up,” said the brigadier. “Make sure you’re armed.”
Bruno called Amélie and found her still in her hotel room, and it did not sound as if she was alone. Yacov was supposed to be returning to Paris this morning but maybe not. “How was your dinner last night?” he asked.
“Sublime, that’s the only word for it.” There was a joyous lilt in her voice that suggested the pleasures of the evening had not ended at the dinner table. “Is there something you need me to do?”
“Not really. I just need to keep an eye on the incoming messages, just in case the networks throw something up. But I can get those on my mobile and I’m calling to ask if you’ve ever seen the Lascaux cave? There’s a special tour for the wedding party, and all the gods of Périgord would curse me forever if I didn’t make sure you saw the cave while you’re here. I can pick you up in about fifteen minutes.”
“I’d love to see it and there’s no problem about picking me up. Is there room for Yacov to come, too? We’ll wait for you outside my hotel. Do I need your rubber boots again?”
“Sneakers will do. And certainly Yacov can join us. Make sure he brings his identity card.”
Bruno went to his office in the mairie but saw nothing urgent on his computer. He unlocked the safe to take out his personal weapon. Even unloaded, it was heavy, just over a kilo, but it fit his grip like the handshake of an old friend. He cleaned it as he had so many times before, focusing on the task to dispel the somber knowledge that he held the lives of as many as fifteen people in his hands. He loaded it, checked that the safety catch was on and donned his holster with its spare magazines. Then he picked up Amélie and Yacov and saw to his surprise that Yacov was wearing one of the brigadier’s special badges in his lapel. He pondered what that might imply about Yacov’s status. It was not something he could raise in Amélie’s presence, but he thought about Yacov as they drove out through Les Eyzies toward Montignac and the Lascaux cave.
It was a route he knew well, and on the way he tried to explain to his passengers why the cave was so important to him. Bruno now visited Lascaux at least once a year, since his friendship with Horst had deepened his interest in the rich prehistory of the region. The whole valley had been designated by UNESCO as a special zone of World Heritage, with one hundred forty-seven separate sites of importance and twenty-five painted caves, Lascaux prime among them. Bruno had now visited sixteen of the caves, many of them with Horst and Clothilde. He’d collected a small library of books on the caves and the culture that produced them, regularly attended lectures at Clothilde’s museum and at SHAP, the Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord.
Lascaux was special, Bruno explained, a great gushing torrent of art and color that snatched his breath away each time he entered the dark cave and saw the tumult of painted life above. It was an effort to keep his eyes still as his gaze was drawn in turn to the horses prancing around the great and looming bulls with the raw power of their shoulders and menace of their horns. He had learned to look for the artists’ special touches, the gap between leg and body that gave them movement, the suggestion of perspective that made the beasts seem about to wheel and charge. And then his eye would be caught by the sudden hints of other life, a bear, the twin horns of an ibex, the antlers of a red stag, a parade of ponies, some with the shaggy hair of their winter coat, so different from the plump brown horses with their dark manes.
It must have been a great leap, Bruno said, for hunter-gatherers struggling to stay alive and warm to suddenly blossom and explode into such artistry, such an act of creation, and in so remarkable a communal effort to which they must have devoted years of their lives, perhaps whole lifetimes. It was not just the first flowering of human art but equally an unmistakable act of worship and of kinship with the painted animals they had made eternal.
Amélie was a good listener, leaning back against the passenger door so she could watch Bruno as he tried to convey his passion for Lascaux and all that it represented. Yacov was leaning forward from the rear seat, perhaps as much from a desire to stay close to her as to catch everything Bruno said.
What Bruno didn’t tell them was his private thought that if his early life had been different, with better teachers in an upbringing that encouraged learning and kept books in the home, he might have passed his baccalaureate and gone to university and become a teacher or even an archaeologist. A decade or so earlier his regret had been that his schooling couldn’t help him master the math and science required to join the air force as a pilot. Maybe in a few years’ time he’d have other regrets, not being a chef or a winemaker, or not having children.
He crossed the old stone bridge in Montignac and, knowing that Horst and Clothilde had made special arrangements for their group, he drove past the ticket office and ou
t through town toward the hill that housed the caves. As he approached the vast building site of the new Lascaux IV museum, he came to the first roadblock. Two gendarmes wearing flak jackets and helmets waved him down while two more stood, rifles ready, at each side of the road. Another twenty yards farther a Berliet VXB armored car was parked, engine running, and another gendarme in the open turret with a machine gun.
He slowed his police van and waited for them to come to him and see his uniform and the brigadier’s special badge. When one of the gendarmes looked through the car window, casting an appreciative eye at the young woman beside him, Bruno said that he was armed and heading to join the archaeologists on the visit to Lascaux. Amélie showed her justice ministry pass, Yacov showed his ID card, and they were waved through, the gendarme saying the archaeologists’ van had passed less than five minutes earlier.
“I’ll tell the guards farther up to expect the three of you,” the gendarme said, keying the button on his lapel radio.
On the final curve of the road that climbed to the cave they came to another roadblock with the same complement of gendarmes and armored car but with a sniffer dog attached to the unit. Bruno was waved through and parked under the trees, noting that there were fewer tourists than he’d have expected. He saw Clothilde and Horst and their friends standing under the shelter where groups waited to enter the cave in turn.
Chapter 27
Raquelle was standing on a small stool, apparently giving the guests a lecture. The guests kept darting nervous glances at the armored car parked by the entrance to the bookshop, and at the watchful gendarme in flak jacket and helmet manning the car’s machine gun. There were usually about thirty visitors in each group, all the cave could hold, and the stewards tried to steer them through every fifteen minutes, rotating French guides with ones speaking English, German, Spanish and Japanese. There was room for at most a few hundred people per day to pass through the main cave and narrow axial chamber. Since more than two million tourists came to the region each year, mostly in summer, only a fraction of them could get tickets for Lascaux. That was why the new Lascaux IV museum was being built, to allow more people to appreciate the art and genius of their distant forebears.
Ahead of Clothilde’s party were more armed gendarmes, all carrying FAMAS assault rifles, known affectionately as le clairon, the bugle, from its modernistic design. Another sniffer dog was checking everyone in line. Bruno went up to the sergeant in charge to introduce himself and his guests. Amélie showed her official ID again with its red, white and blue stripes of la République, and Bruno asked where he could find the officer in command.
The sergeant saluted, evidently recognizing the badges Bruno and Yacov wore, and reported that the officer was moving back and forth between posts. There was another team covering the rear approach and patrolling the scrub and woodland.
“What about the original cave?” Bruno asked. “You know this one’s just a copy.”
“I don’t know anything about that, we’ve just been flown in from Bordeaux. The only map we have is a tourist guide,” the sergeant said. He pointed to the microphone attached to his helmet. “I’ll ask the captain to join us.”
The captain arrived a few minutes later, a tall, rangy man of about thirty. He was carrying a Heckler & Koch UMP9, a submachine gun favored by special forces, and wearing grenades on his chest webbing. Yacov seemed unconcerned with the high level of security and was looking around at the placement of guards and the weapons with what seemed to Bruno like a very professional eye. Bruno asked the captain if there was also security at the original cave. He pointed. “It’s about two hundred meters due east along that track with the signpost pointing to Le Regourdou.”
“What’s that, a farm?”
“It used to be, it’s now a tourist attraction, a site where the oldest Neanderthal skeleton was found. Weren’t you briefed?”
“Yes, but very hastily. We were told Lascaux contained very important cave art, attracted lots of tourists, and we should start antiterrorist patrols and check visitors but not stop the public visiting the cave. We’re here until further notice, twelve hours on and twelve hours off.”
“You have one squadron, twenty troops?”
“Twenty-four, two armored cars and a scout helicopter on call, and we’re guarding the new museum, too.” He glanced down at Bruno’s chest, noting the ribbon of the Croix de Guerre on his uniform jacket that the mayor insisted he wear. “When were you in the military?”
“Over ten years ago, combat engineers, sergent-chef.”
“And where did you win that?”
“Sarajevo, I was attached to the UN peacekeepers.”
“In that case, we’re very glad to have you here. Have you heard anything new about the threat?”
“Just that their phone discipline seems remarkably good. At least three of them have been through ISIS training camps and they have AK-47s. These guys aren’t amateurs, they’ll watch for your patrols and they’ll attack another way. Keep your eyes peeled on the woods to the south. Maybe you could get your chopper to do patrols from the air. Do you have access to dogs?”
“Only a sniffer dog for explosives,” the captain said, adding that he’d ask his commander about the helicopter.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Bruno, shaking his hand. “Good luck.”
Bruno called Isabelle to pass on his concern about the lack of briefing and suggested she ask Commissioner Prunier if there was a police canine unit that could help search the woods. Then he joined Clothilde’s group, where Amélie was already chatting with Florence, and Pamela was asking Yacov if his grandmother was returning soon to St. Denis. Pamela looked pointedly at Bruno’s sidearm and said the so-called security exercise looked much more serious than she’d thought.
“Fabiola told me about the man she treated yesterday, the one who’d been shot,” Pamela added. “Are we in any danger?”
“Not much more than anybody else in France these days,” he replied, aware that he was being evasive but determined not to cause alarm. “Let’s leave it there. I don’t want to worry the guests.”
“Too late for that. Once they saw the armored cars they’ve been talking of little else.”
In fact, Raquelle had been talking of Max Raphael when Bruno had arrived. He had heard her speak of him before. Raphael was a German Jew, a Marxist scholar who had taken refuge in France in the 1930s. She and Horst maintained that he had been the most significant art historian and theorist of his time. Raphael had said the importance of the cave paintings and the tumult of animal life was that it represented the first time humans had seen themselves as distinct from the animal world, the moment we became conscious of ourselves as human beings.
Raquelle explained to the group how Raphael had taken detailed measurements and found to his astonishment that the prehistoric cave artists had used exactly the ratio that the Greeks of the classical age and the Old Masters of the Renaissance had defined as the golden mean, a ratio of 2:3 to 3:5. Euclid had studied it, Leonardo had sworn by it, the Renaissance scholar Pacioli had called it the Divine Proportion, and modern mathematicians had related it to the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. Raphael’s theory was that this sense of proportion was innate and emerged from the shape and proportions of the outspread human hand.
“I had no idea,” Florence murmured into Bruno’s ear as they went into the cave. “I must look into this and get the collège students to work on it. It seems like an imaginative way to teach mathematics.”
She stood close to him in the anteroom to the great chamber, where Clothilde explained the tools and pigments the artists had used. At one point Florence edged back to give the others more space and her hip brushed against Bruno’s gun. She looked down, saw his holster, and her eyes widened. He put his finger to his lips and stepped back slightly.
Then, one by one, they each stepped into the almost-dark Hall of the Bulls. The last lights were extinguished, and they were all inside a darkness more complete than most of them had ever
known. It lasted perhaps ten seconds, long enough to realize just how far they were belowground and how accustomed they were to the comfort of at least some gleam of light.
Then the lights blazed on, and a collective gasp of surprise and then of enchantment followed as the roof and upper walls above them exploded with life. As their eyes adjusted from darkness to light, the great bulls seemed to quiver, almost to move, so confidently had they been depicted in their power. And then their vision shifted to the horses and smaller animals, their grace and delicacy balancing the size and the might of the bulls.
From somewhere, a hand reached out to grasp Bruno’s right arm. It was Florence. He smiled to himself, understanding the reflexive need for human touch in a place so infused with animal strength. He felt her lean against him. Ahead he could see Horst and Clothilde, who each knew the cave well, standing entwined, their arms around each other, their faces lifted to the compelling display above them. In here, he thought, we all become infants again, feeling the innocent awe and delight of children at this moment of intense connection with the humans who made this place sacred some seventeen thousand years ago.
“The great historian Abbé Breuil, one of the first men of our own time to see this place, called it the Sistine Chapel of prehistoric man,” Raquelle said, and let the thought sink in. “We don’t know why they painted here, why they felt inspired to invest so much collective time and effort on this cave, whether it had a spiritual meaning or something more prosaic, a display of wealth and grandeur to impress other tribes and clans. We do not know what kind of society had developed that could produce this great work of art. We know only that we people of modern times respond instantly to this ancient masterpiece and recognize that it came from people recognizably like us, with the same aesthetic sense, the same response to beauty.”
The Templars' Last Secret Page 25
