The Empire Of The Wolves

by Jean-Christophe Grangé

  “For example?"

  "She said that the wolves had got it wrong. Yes, that's it… she talked about wolves. She kept saying that they'd taken away the wrong girl. It was incomprehensible."

  The idea flashed back forcefully into his consciousness. How had that working girl known that the kidnappers were Grey Wolves? How did she know that they had hit the wrong target? There was only one answer. Their real prey was her.

  Sema Gokalp was the woman to be hit.

  Schiffer fitted the pieces of the puzzle together with ease. The killers had a lead: their target worked at night, in Talat Gurdilek's sweatshop. They had arrived in the laundry and taken away the first woman who looked like the photo in their possession: Zeynep Tütengil. But they had made a mistake. The real redhead had taken the precaution of dying her hair brown.

  Another idea occurred to him. He took the Identikit portrait from his pocket.

  "Did she look at all like this?"

  The man leaned over. "No. Why the question?"

  Schiffer pocketed the picture without answering.

  A second flash. Another confirmation. Sema Gokalp-or the woman who was hiding behind that name-had taken her metamorphosis even further. She had altered her face. She had resorted to plastic surgery. A classic technique for those who burn their bridges thoroughly. Especially in the world of crime. Then she had adopted the identity of a simple working girl, in the steam of La Porte Bleue. But why had she stayed in Paris?

  "It wasn't about racketeering."

  "Oh no?"

  "No, the Grey Wolves are back, Charlier. They were the ones who raided the baths. That night, they kidnapped a girl. The corpse that we discovered two days later."

  Charlier's bushy eyebrows seemed to form two question marks. "Why would they bother slicing up a working girl like that?"

  "They have a contract. They are looking for a woman in the Turkish quarter. You can trust me on that score. And they've got the wrong one three times now."

  "What connection is there with Sema Gokalp?"

  It was now time to lie a little.

  "That night at the baths, she saw everything. She's a vital witness."

  A twitch passed across Charlier's eyes. He had not been expecting that. Not at all. "So what do you think it's all about? What's at stake?"

  Schiffer lied once more. "I don't know. But I'm looking for the killers, and Sema could put me on the right track."

  Charlier leaned back into his chair. "Give me just one reason to help you."

  The cop finally sat down. The negotiation had begun. "I'm feeling generous," he said, and smiled. "So I'll give you two. The first is that I could reveal to your superiors that you spirit away witnesses in a murder case. That's not bad for a start."

  Charlier smiled back at him. "I've got all the paperwork. I can provide her expulsion order and her plane ticket. Everything's in order."

  "Your arm is long, Charlier, but it doesn't stretch as far as Turkey. With just one phone call, I could prove that Sema Gokalp never arrived there."

  The commissioner seemed to weigh less heavily on his chair. "Who'd believe a crooked cop? Ever since your days in the anti-gang, you've been collecting skeletons in your cupboard." He opened his hands, indicating the room. And I'm at the top of the pyramid."

  "That's the advantage of my position. I have nothing to lose.”

  “Give me the second reason."

  Schiffer leaned his elbows on the desk. He now knew that he had won. "The stiffening of security measures in 1995. When you let yourself go on those North African suspects in the Louis-Blanc station."

  "Are you blackmailing a commissioner?"

  "Or else getting it off my conscience. I'm retired. I might feel like making a clean breast of it. Of my memories of Abdel Saraoui, whom you beat to death. If I open the way, the boys at Louis-Blanc will all follow. Believe me, they still haven't digested the howls that came from his ell that night."

  Charlier was staring at the paper knife in his huge hands. When he next spoke, his voice had changed. "Sema Gokalp can't help you anymore."

  "You mean you-"

  "No, she underwent an experiment."

  "What kind of experiment?"

  Silence.

  Schiffer repeated, "What kind of experiment?"

  "Psychic conditioning. A new technique."

  So that was it. Psychic manipulation had always fascinated Charlier.

  Infiltrating terrorists' minds, conditioning consciousnesses, that kind of crap… Sema Gokalp was a guinea pig, the subject of some crazy experimentation.

  Schiffer thought over the absurdity of the situation. Charlier had not chosen Sema Gokalp; she had quite simply fallen into his hands. He did not know that she had altered her appearance. Nor did he know who she really was.

  He stood back up, charged with electricity from head to foot.

  "Why her?"

  "Because of her mental state. Sema was suffering from partial amnesia, which made her all the more suitable to undergo the experiment." Schiffer leaned forward, as though he had problems hearing. "Are you telling me that you brainwashed her?"

  "Yes, the program did use such treatment."

  Schiffer banged his fists on the table. "Fucking idiots. That was the last memory you should have wiped out! She had things to tell me!" Charlier raised an eyebrow "I don't understand what you're going on about. How could that girl have anything of importance to reveal? She just saw a few Turks making off with a woman, that's all."

  Onward again. "She's got some information about the killers," Schiffer said at last while prowling around the room like a caged beast. "I also think she knows the identity of the target."

  "The target?"

  "The woman the Wolves are looking for. And have not yet found.”

  “Does it really matter?"

  "Three murders, Charlier. They're starting to mount up, aren't they? And they'll go on killing until they find her."

  "And you want to hand her over?"

  The movement of Charlier's shoulders almost split the stitches in his shirt. Finally he said. "Anyway. I can no longer help you."

  "Why?"

  "She's escaped."

  "You're kidding!"

  "Does it look as if I am?"

  Schiffer did not know whether to laugh or scream. He sat back down, grabbing the paper knife that Charlier had just dropped. "Bloody incompetent, as usual. What happened?"

  "The aim of our experiment was to alter a personality completely. Something never attempted before. We managed to transform her into a middle-class Frenchwoman, married to a top civil servant. A simple Turkish girl, can you imagine that? There's now no limit to conditioning. We're going to-"

  "I don't give a shit about your experiment." Schiffer said, butting in. "Just tell me how she got away"

  The commissioner frowned. "Over the past few weeks, she'd been having attacks of forgetfulness, or hallucinations. The new personality we had given her was starting to break up. We were about to hospitalize her when she split."

  "When was that?"

  "Yesterday. Tuesday morning."

  Unbelievable. The target of the Grey Wolves was back on the streets. Neither Turkish nor French. With a mind like a sieve. From the bottom of this darkness, a light shone.

  "So her original memory is coming back?"

  "We don't know But she certainly didn't trust us anymore."

  "Where are your men at?"

  "Nowhere. They're searching Paris. And still haven't found her."

  It was the moment to play his ace. He stuck the paper knife into the wooden desk. "If her memory's returning, then she'll react like a Turk. And that's my area. I stand the best chance of copping her."

  The commissioner's expression changed.

  Schiffer pressed his point: "She's a Turk, Charlier. A special sort of game. You need someone who knows that universe and who will act discreetly"

  He could follow the idea that was making its way through the giant's brain. He stepped back, as though tak
ing aim. "Here's the deal: You give me twenty-four hours. If I find her, then I'll hand her over to you. But I get to question her first."

  Another pregnant silence. Finally, Charlier opened a drawer and produced a pile of documents.

  "Her file. She's now called Anna Heymes and-"

  In a single bound, Schiffer grabbed the cardboard folder and opened it. He flicked through the typed pages, the medical reports, and found the target's new face. Exactly as Hirsch had described her. There was not a single feature in common with the redhead the killers were tracking. From that point of view, Sema Gokalp had nothing more to fear.

  The antiterrorist warrior went on: "The neurologist treating her is named Eric Ackermann, and-"

  "I couldn't care less about her new personality or who did what to her. She's going to return to her origins. That's what matters. What do you know about Sema Gokalp? About the Turk she used to be?"

  Charlier wriggled in his chair. Veins were beating at the base of his neck, just above his shirt collar. "Nothing at all! She was just a working girl with amnesia-"

  "Did you keep her clothes, her papers, her personal effects?"

  Charlier swept the question away with his hand. "We destroyed everything. At least I think we did."

  "Check."

  "They were just scruffy rags. Nothing of any interest for-”

  “Just pick up your fucking phone and check."

  Charlier grabbed the receiver. After two calls, he groaned. "I don't believe it. Those useless asses forgot to destroy her clothes."

  "Where are they?"

  "In a deposit box at headquarters. Beauvanier had given her new threads. And the boys at Louis-Blanc sent the old ones to the prefecture. No one thought of going to fetch them. So much for an elite brigade…”

  “What name were they registered under?"

  "Sema Gokalp, of course. When we fuck up, we don't do things halfway." He picked up another form, this one blank, which he started to fill in. An open sesame to the prefecture.

  Like two predators sharing the same prey, Schiffer thought.

  The commissioner signed the paper then slid it across the desk.

  "You've got all night. If you fuck up. I'll call in the Special Branch." Schiffer pocketed the pass and stood up. "You won't saw off the branch. We're sitting on the same one."

  47

  It was time to come clean with the kid.

  Jean-Louis Schiffer went back up Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and turned onto Avenue Matignon, where he spotted a phone booth just by the traffic circle on the Champs-Elysées. His cell phone's battery was dead again.

  After just one ring, Paul Nerteaux yelled, "Jesus Christ, Schiffer. Where the hell are you?" His voice was trembling with rage.

  "In the eighth arrondissement, with the bigwigs."

  "It's nearly midnight. What on earth have you been doing? I waited for hours at Sancak's and-"

  "A crazy story but I've got plenty of news."

  "Are you in a phone booth? I'll find another one and call you back. My battery's dead."

  Schiffer hung up, wondering if the police might one day miss the arrest of the century because of a lack of lithium. He half opened the door of the booth-he was stifling himself with his own mint stench.

  The night was mild, with no rain or breeze. He observed the passersby, the shopping malls, the gray stone buildings. An existence of luxury, of comfort that had eluded him but was perhaps now back in his reach…

  The phone rang. He did not give Nerteaux time to speak.

  "Where are you at with your patrols?"

  "I've got two vans and three cars," he replied proudly. "Seventy patrolmen and officers from the BAC are combing the area. I've declared the entire neighborhood an emergency zone. I've given the Identikit portraits to all the commissariats and police units in the tenth. All the homes, bars and associations have been searched. There isn't a single person in Little Turkey who hasn't gotten the picture. I'm about to go to the police station in the second and-"

  "Forget all that."

  "What?"

  "This is no time to play soldier. We've got the wrong face.”

  “What?"

  Schiffer took a deep breath. "The woman we're looking for has had plastic surgery. That's why the Grey Wolves can't find her."

  "Do you… do you have proof?"

  "I've even got her new face. Everything fits. She shelled out several hundred million francs in order to wipe out her previous identity. She completely changed her physical appearance. She's dyed her hair brown and lost twenty kilos. Then she hid out in the Turkish quarter six months ago."

  Silence. When Nerteaux next spoke, his voice had lost several decibels. "Who… who is she? How did she get the money for the operation?"

  "No idea," Schiffer lied. "But she's no simple working girl."

  "What else have you found out?"

  Schiffer thought for a few seconds. Then he told it all. The raid by the Grey Wolves, who had grabbed the wrong target. Sema Gokalp in a state of shock. Her detention at Louis-Blanc, then admission to Sainte-Anne's. The kidnapping organized by Charlier and the grotesque treatment. Finally, the woman's new identity: Anna Heymes.

  When he stopped talking, Schiffer could almost hear the cogs turning at full speed in the young officer's brain. He imagined him completely stunned in a phone booth, lost somewhere in the tenth arrondissement. Like him. Two coral fishermen suspended in their lonely cages, in the middle of the ocean's depths…

  Finally, Paul asked skeptically, "Who told you all this?"

  "Charlier in person."

  "He confessed?"

  "We're old pals."

  "Bull shit."

  Schiffer burst out laughing. "I see that you're starting to understand what sort of world we're in. In 1995, after the explosion in the Saint-Michel RER station, the DNAT-which was still called the Sixth Division-was decidedly nervous. A new law allowed them to detain people longer, without charge. It was real hell. I know, because I was there. There were roundups all over town, in Islamist groups, and especially in the tenth. One night, Charlier turned up at Louis-Blanc. He was sure that he had the right suspect-a certain Abdel Saroui. He went at him with his bare fists. I was in the office next door. The next morning, the guy died of a ruptured liver in Saint-Louis Hospital. So this evening, I reminded him of the good old days."

  "You're so corrupt that you're almost coherent."

  "Who cares, so long as we get a result?"

  "I had a different idea of my crusade, that's all."

  Schiffer opened the booth door again and took a breath of fresh air. "So now," Paul asked, "where's Sema?"

  "That's the icing on the cake, son. She's just escaped. She lost them yesterday morning. She must have found out what they were up to. Her original memory must be coming back."

  "Shit…"

  "Exactly. There's a woman wondering around Paris right now with two identities, with two groups of bastards chasing her, and with us in the middle. In my opinion, she must be investigating her own past. She's trying to find out who she really is."

  Another pause from the other end of the line. Then: "So what do we do now?"

  "I've made a deal with Charlier. I convinced him that I was the best placed to find the girl. Turks are my specialty. So he's handed me the case, for one night. He's on a knife's edge. His project was illegal. And it could blow up in his face. I've got his file on the new Sema, and two leads. The first one's for you, if you're still in the race."

  He could hear the sound of pages turning. Nerteaux was taking out his notepad.

  "Go on."

  "Plastic surgery Sema paid big money for one of the best surgeons in Paris. We have to find him, because he was in contact with the real target, before her operation, before she was brainwashed. He must be the only person in town who can tell us anything about the woman the Grey Wolves are looking for. Are you up for it?"

  Nerteaux did not reply at once; he was presumably writing this down. "There must be hundreds of names
to go through."

  "Not at all. You have to go to see the best, the real virtuosos. And among them, the ones who lack scruples. Having your face completely redone is never innocent. You've got all night. At the speed things are going, we won't be alone on this lead for long."

  "Charlier's men?"

  "No. Charlier doesn't even know that she's altered her appearance. I'm talking about the Grey Wolves. They've been held in check for three months now So they're going to end up figuring out that they're not looking for the right face. Plastic surgery will occur to them, and they'll be looking for the quack. We're going to end up on the same track. I can just feel it. I'll leave you the girl's file at Rue de Nancy. with the photo of her new face. Go fetch it, then start working."

  "Shall I give the portrait to the patrols?"

  Schiffer broke into a sweat. "That's the last thing you should do. Just show it to the doctors at the same time as the Identikit. Got me?" Silence once again saturated the line.

  They were, more than ever, like a pair of divers lost in the deep. "What about you?" Nerteaux asked.

  "I'll take care of the second lead. Luckily enough, the boys from the DNAT forgot to destroy Sema's old clothes. They might contain a clue, an indication, something to lead us back to her former identity"

  He looked at his watch. Midnight. They did not have much time left, but he still wanted to make a final check: "So, nothing new your end?"

  "The Turkish quarter is being put to the sword, but now.."

  "And Naubrel and Matkowska still haven't come up with anything?"

  "No, nothing." Nerteaux sounded astonished by the question. The kid must have thought that the investigation into the high-pressure chambers did not interest him. On the contrary, this business of nitrogen bubbles intrigued him.

  When Scarbon had mentioned it, he had added, "I'm no diver." But Schiffer was. In his youth, he had spent ages exploring the Red Sea and the coast of China. He had even considered the idea of dropping everything and opening a diving school in the Pacific. So he knew that high pressure does not just create a problem of gas in the blood-it also leads to hallucinations, a state of drunkenness that divers call rapture of the depths.