by Cara Black
“Green light,” someone muttered.
She saw a black-suited tactics team pause at the door, simultaneously heard the crack of rifles.
“Don’t do it!” she yelled. “The building will blow up.”
“They’ve got three to five seconds before the reaction time sets in,” Sardou muttered. “They better make it count.”
In stunned disbelief she watched the team enter the building. No explosion. More cracks from the rifles. She could see bullet holes pepper and shatter the glass.
Aimée gasped, “Please God keep the children and Anaïs away from the windows! What happened?” she asked, turning to Sardou.
“Three minutes ago Rachid agreed to the demands,” Sardou said. “We recorded him dismantling the wires. Your plan was backup.”
“Then why shoot him?”
Aimée’s knuckles whitened as her fingers clutched the win-dowsill; she still braced herself for an explosion.
“We’d taken out the other one,” Sardou said. “RAID doesn’t like taking prisoners.”
Sixteen children with their teacher and a shaking Anaïs holding Simone were led out through the courtyard. Relief flooded Aimée until she remembered.
“What about Bernard Berge?”
Aimée’s answer came as three bodies were rolled out into the cobbled courtyard: one burly man in his underwear, and two men in black jumpsuits.
Three terrorists?
The tactics team stripped off the ski masks of the other two.
One was a bearded man, a small black hole over his cranial vault. Dead instantly, she figured. A surgical shot to the skull, which wouldn’t have affected his nervous system and prevented him from tripping the wire. Bernard was the other, in a stained jumpsuit. A dark red spot, like a third eye, dripped down his forehead. His features were relaxed, and he looked at peace. Aimée felt the oddest sensation, as if Bernard’s soul fluttered on wings above the cobbled courtyard and toward the weak sun.
“Nom de Dieu!” Sardou snorted, looking at Berge. “Berge will go from sinner to saint all in one day!”
“Berge was expendable, wasn’t he?” she said, angry. “Guittard always planned to shovel him in the dirt, one way or the other.”
Sardou’s eyes glazed. He turned and walked into the courtyard. As the stretcher lifted Bernard’s corpse, Aimée whispered a prayer. Poor Bernard had been terrorist fodder.
Outside, Guittard was holding a press conference, so jammed with media that she and René had to wait near the SAMU vans where tearful relieved parents were hugging their children. Mar-tine had arrived, joining Simone, and was helping Anaïs to a temporary first-aid station at the rear of a fire truck.
Disheveled, Anaïs sat on the truck’s fender, her wounds receiving attention.
“We were going to dismantle the system, Anaïs,” Aimée said. “We’d figured it out.”
“I knew you could, why didn’t you?” Anaïs said, her blond hair matted to her scratched and swollen face. “My suit’s mined.”
Aimée saw Kaseem Nwar. He stood smiling, rocking on his heels, as Philippe hugged Simone.
And then Aimée knew.
Everything fit together. Philippe had made a deal with the grinning devil. Seething inside, she stared at Kaseem Nwar, who bent down and patted Simone’s head.
“Philippe gave in to Kaseem,” Aimée said, turning to wide-eyed Martine and Anaïs. “He funded the mission, didn’t he?”
Anaïs shrugged, then winced with pain as a paramedic swabbed her face.
Aimée shook with fury. For the second time she’d been about to save Philippe’s family but he’d dealt with the devil. The smiling devil who sold out his own brother, Hamid.
“The DNS knew the terrorist defused the bomb,” she said. “But they killed them anyway, even Bernard.”
Anaïs bit her lip as the paramedic treated her.
“What do you mean?”
“Kaseem held you and your daughter hostage until Philippe caved in,” she said.
Anger flashed in Anaïs’s eyes. Then she softened as she looked at Simone and her husband. “I didn’t know it was Kaseem, Aimée. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to find out who was blackmailing Philippe.”
“Maybe you could have helped me more, Anaïs.”
Aimée strode over to Kaseem and Philippe. Philippe ignored her, holding Simone tightly.
“I owe you an Orangina, Simone,” she said, keeping her voice even.
Simone nodded, her eyes serious. “A big one.”
“Let’s take Maman home, Simone,” Philippe said.
He didn’t look Aimée in the eye.
Simone pulled her father’s hand.
“It’s not over, Philippe,” Aimée said, through her clenched teeth. “I’m seeing to that.”
But Philippe and Simone threaded their way past the emergency crew toward Anaïs. Philippe enveloped Anaïs in his arms. For a moment the de Froissarts huddled. Then Philippe led them to the debriefing area.
“Let things go, Mademoiselle Leduc,” Kaseem said.
“You risked little children,” she said. “Before that you tried to have me killed at the cirque. You sabotaged the AFL and your own brother Hamid’s cause!”
Kaseem shook his head. “No one believed in him anyway.”
Aimée felt pity for poor Hamid, starving himself for a cause to help immigrants. The irony being that Kaseem, his brother, supplied arms and assisted the massacres the immigrants had tried to avoid.
“The ‘ST196’photos—”
“Tell nothing,” Kaseem interrupted. “They’re just photos.”
Aimée shuddered. His cruel arrogance unnerved her.
“Piles of bodies in the desert,” he said. “So what. That’s been happening for years. Since the eighties. No one cares about Algerian infighting.”
“There’s a difference when surplus French weapons are responsible and French taxpayers foot the bill,” she said. “At least, the French might think so.”
Kaseem buttoned his wool coat; he snapped his fingers at a man leaning against a car. “The ministers turn a blind eye. So should you. You know, I enjoyed being with you. We could—”
“This whole thing was a hoax,” Aimée interrupted. “Sylvie discovered what ‘ST 196’ meant so you killed her, meanwhile Philippe cut the funding. Philippe hid Anaïs, so you used your brother Hamid. You engineered a hostage situation blaming the AFL. All this to pressure Philippe so he’d give in, fund the mission because his daughter was inside. Then Anaïs checked herself out of the clinic, a bonus for you. And no one would know. No one would put it together. But I did.”
“I’ll take that for a no to dinner.” Kaseem smiled and didn’t blink once. “Theorize all you want. You can’t prove it.”
Powerless, she wanted to nail him there on the spot. His patronizing smile got to her.
“You’re a wannabe general, aren’t you, playing with the big military boys,” she said. “As long as you supply the weapons, you get to play. Without toys from Philippe’s funding you’re just a maghour holding up the dusty wall!”
His eyes flashed.
She knew she’d hit home.
“Say what you like,” he said. “I’ve got what I want.”
And then he was gone.
The cobbles glistened below her, slick and gummy, as the panier á saktde, the van to carry out the dead, pulled up. Kaseem was right, and he made her sick. The bad guys had won. And she’d thought she could stop them.
As they loaded Bernard’s corpse onto the stretcher, she whispered a prayer.
There had to be some way to get Kaseem. Discredit him.
By the time Martine had joined her, she’d figured out a way.
“Kaseem’s not your favorite, I see,” Martine said. “What are you going to do about him?”
“Make him very uncomfortable,” she said. “With your help I can do some damage.”
“How?”
“Let’s go back to your office for a start,” Aimée said. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
<
br /> “Not if this involves Anaïs,” Martine said.
“Don’t worry,” Aimée said, pulling out her laptop. “The big fish will get caught, hook, line, and sinker. Not only that, you’ll sell more papers with my insider report. I’ve got the negatives to prove it.”
“Point me to the newsroom,” Martine said, flipping open her cell phone. “I’ve got a firsthand hostage report to write.”
Monday Evening
THREE WIRE SERVICES, IN addition to Agence France-Presse and CNN, had picked up Martine’s story by the time Aimée opened the door of Leduc Detective. She heard the radio say fingers pointed to an Algerian jewelry importer, rumored to be in the pay of Afghani-based terrorists and sympathetic to the militant fundamentalists. He was alleged to supply the Algerian military with inferior-grade weapons and military surplus. His Swiss bank account, the article continued, buried under an alias, hid a multitude of sins.
Aimée logged on to her terminal and René’s. From hers she accessed Sylvie/Eugénie’s account using the beur password. The five-million dollar balance was still there and she hit Save.
On René’s terminal she followed the maze he’d established to the Bank of Algiers. From the Bank of Algiers she linked to the AINwar bank account and the two other subsidiary companies. Aimée withdrew all but the minimum balance of ten dinars from each account.
In the same fashion as Kaseem and Sylvie had previously established, she transferred the sums to Sylvie’s Channel Island account. However, instead of their procedure, she transferred that balance, all fifty million francs, to the AFL’s account.
Now Kaseem and his businesses were broke. But the Algerian military would think he’d hid it all in Switzerland.
To foil attempts at wire tracing, she pulled out the police report of Sylvie Cardet’s death, highlighted the name “Eugénie Grandet” and the bank statements and faxed this to the records department in the Fichier in Nantes. The Fichier would declare the Eugénie persona dead and freeze the account.
She logged in to the Ministry of Defense, the humanitarian mission funding. Marking the shipment as time-dated medical supplies and perishable, she red-flagged the containers. This earmarked them for inspection prior to departure from the port of Toulon. Toulon was the largest naval center and adjoined a military complex. If the shipment contained the surplus military arms she figured it did, the inspectors would seize them.
Kaseem wouldn’t get his shipment.
She brushed off her black leather pants and reached for her jacket.
Now she figured she should pay Hamid a visit and tell him some good news.
HAMID’S WARD bed in L’hôpital Tenon overlooked leafy lime trees on the street below. Color now tinted his cheeks; his eyes had lost their listless quality.
“Salaam akikum,” he said, shaking her hand, then touching his heart.
“Aleikum es-salaam,” Aiméee returned his greeting. She pulled an orange from her bag, setting it on his enamel hospital tray. “May I peel this for you?”
“Merci,” he said. “I’ve given my life to the AFL, but I couldn’t save the sans-papiers.” Hamid said, his face still haggard. “But the new immigrants, the young ones, they think differently. I never heeded them. Now I must rebuild.”
“I know the truth,” she said, digging her fingers into the firm orange flesh.
“What do you mean?” Hamid’s eyebrows rose like accent marks over his deep-set eyes.
“Kaseem pressured you.” She peeled the skin, the segments fanned out in her hand. “Like he does everyone. But you’re his brother, as maghours you only have each other.”
She offered the orange pieces to Hamid. He slipped his worry beads into his other hand and accepted the orange. His eyes lit up with curiosity.
“Your brother killed Sylvie,” she said. “Blew her up.”
Hamid’s hand shook, but he didn’t drop the orange on the worn green linoleum. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry. He didn’t know Sylvie gave this to Anaïs,” she pulled out the photos. She spread some of them over the hospital blanket. “Isn’t it south of Oran, where you were born?”
Hamid nodded slowly and stared.
“Now it’s a wasteland labeled 196,” she said. “Just a number. Not even a name. A cemetery of bleached bones mingled with sunken munitions. As young men you two fought there once. You lost to the French.”
Hamid nodded. “Yes, a lifetime ago.”
“Kaseem calls himself the General,” she said. “He still likes to play war. He has to find toys so he can play with the big guys.”
Fear shone in Hamid’s large eyes. “There’s no proof.” His tone was hesitant.
“But Kaseem can’t do that anymore. I took care of those toys,” she said. “Sylvie’s money and his are back in the AFL.”
Hamid’s face registered disbelief.
Rectangular shadows crossed the linoleum in the long ward. Few beds were occupied. A smiling ward matron in a starched white uniform nodded as she passed them. The matron’s clogs clicked busily away.
Aimée passed him some more orange segments, then stood up.
“Now you can rebuild, Hamid,” she said. “Hire lawyers to fight deportation, run a day-care program, a newspaper, a meals on wheels—do it the way you want. Even attract the young kids with a modern center, a gym, Arabic classes, video games. You name it.”
“I don’t really know you,” Hamid said. His eyes were unsure.
“Sylvie would have wanted it like this,” she said. “To make up for her father’s work in the OAS. The murdered innocents, things she hated.”
“Funny.” Hamid’s eyes turned wistful. “That’s the last thing Sylvie told me.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“She wanted to make up for what her father did.”
“Sylvie must have been a special person.”
“A rare star,” Hamid said.
Touched, Aimée remembered Roberge saying the same thing. In fact, almost everyone but Anaïs had loved her.
“Where is Kaseem?” she asked.
She remembered how Hamid’s face twitched when he lied.
“On the plane,” he said, his mouth slightly askew. “Why?”
“I only want to tell him what I did,” she said. “Prepare him for what’s in store back in Algiers.”
She wanted to serve Kaseem justice on a platter, personally. See the look on his face, even if it was long distance.
She thought she’d have to battle with Hamid for hours but he seemed to come to a decision.
Hamid watched her, expressionless.
“Just don’t hurt him,” he said.
She nodded. She’d let the military he liked to play with handle that part.
“He’s at a wedding,” Hamid said.
STREET LIGHTS shone over the news kiosk as Aimée bought the special edition of Le Figaro with Marline’s lead story. Harrowing images of prisoners tagged with numbers, their numbers recognizable on piled corpses, filled the lower half of the front page. The sidebar column related the story of the alleged surplus weapons supplier, sympathetic to fundamentalists. Parfait, she thought. I just want to see Kaseem’s face.
Patrons milled around the busy Kabyle Star restaurant on rue de Belleville. Aimée threaded her way past diners to the back banquet room. From inside she heard traditional music accompanied by a tambour coming from the private wedding reception.
“I’m with the in-laws on the groom’s side,” she said to the curious bouncer.
Kaseem stood by the buffet, his arm around a uniformed man, laughing and toasting with a glass of juice. A furious gaiety spilled over the room of a hundred or so guests. Small children ran between the tables, old men in caftans scooping them up every so often.
“There, see him.” She pointed, and waved at Kaseem, knowing he couldn’t recognize her from the darkened distance. “Kaseem Nwar, my sister’s brother-in-law …” but the bored bouncer was already waving her inside.
Aromas of mutton an
d cloves from the steaming clay tajines tempted Aimée from the buffet. She saw platters of bistilla, flaky spiced pastry frosty with sugar and shaded by cinnamon. The air was dense with perfume, sweat, and orange blossom water.
Aimée hugged the wall, melting into the draperies as she surveyed the room. She saw the bride and groom spotlighted on the dance floor. The bride wore an ornate blue-and-gold caftan, her neck shimmering with gold necklaces. As the wedding couple danced by, guests stuck money in the laughing bride’s hair and around her shoulders.
“Such a gorgeous ta’shi ka” said a heavily kohl-eyed woman who’d appeared next to Aimée. “The gold sets off her hair and the blue highlights her eyes.” She eyed Aimée knowingly. “The third day of the wedding fite is always the best. The best spread!”
Aimée nodded, trying to move away from the woman.
The woman elbowed Aimée in the ribs. “Just like I told Latifa the other day, don’t worry. Everything will be perfect, everyone will come, the buffet will be wonderful, and your baby will pass the virginity test!”
Aimée wished the woman would shut up. Her voice kept increasing in volume.
“The groom’s family is so traditional.” The woman leaned forward, her tone becoming confidential. “What can they expect from girls born over here, eh? But they can hope, I say.”
“May I ask you a tremendous favor?” Aimée said, feeling out of place. She didn’t wait for the woman to answer. “Hand this to Kaseem, please!” she said thrusting the paper into the woman’s jeweled fat fingers. “That man there.”
She pointed toward Kaseem, who was seriously stuffing franc notes in the giggling bride’s hair. “He’s my friend’s uncle, and he wanted the paper for some reason. I’ve got to go back out and park the car. It’s on the curb and I’ll be towed. Please!”
The woman shrugged. “Why not? I want to find out if he has a son my daughter’s age anyway.” She let out a loud laugh, nudged Aimée in the ribs again, and worked her way to the other side of the room.
Aimée thought Kaseem might want that money back when he realized his bank account status. She’d enclosed a copy of his new statement as well. She edged along the velvet curtains dividing the banquet room from the dining area.
