Communist Party had been under orders from Moscow to accept the German occupation. So the brigadier saw nothing relevant from Vogelstern’s time in France. And although most of the Totenkopf division came from concentration camp guards, Horst’s father had come from a different unit, the SS-VT, or Verfugungstruppe, a special force that trained alongside Hitler’s Leibstandarte bodyguard. He had been a devoted Nazi from the beginning, but as a soldier, not in the death camps.
The brigadier looked up. “These German records are remarkably thorough. It makes me envious. Horst’s university hasn’t heard from him nor have his neighbors in Germany and there’s been activity on his credit cards…” The screen and the audio went blank and then cleared, and Bruno heard the brigadier’s voice, sounding distorted, saying “… because it seems like there’s no obvious connection. But we have to assume there is a connection here somewhere that could be relevant to our security mission. The coincidences are too strong.”
“I’ve got another coincidence for you,” said J-J. “I got the forensic report this morning on that unidentified corpse at our German professor’s dig. They did a DNA analysis and there’s a better than eighty percent probability that he was a Basque. Don’t ask me how they know, but apparently there are some distinctive genetics.”
“Anything on the identity?” asked Isabelle.
J-J shook his head, leafing through the file. “No, but they think he was shot sometime between 1984 and 1987.”
“And once again our German professor is the connection,” said the brigadier. “His brother, his dig and now his disappearance.”
“This Basque, the unidentified corpse, wasn’t he shot at the time of the dirty war?” Bruno asked the flickering video image, and then he turned to Carlos. “Remember, we talked about it the day we first met. If he was a victim of the dirty war, maybe there is something that could identify him in the Spanish records.”
“Not many records were kept, for obvious reasons,” Carlos said, scribbling a note to himself. “And then they were very thoroughly sanitized. The commission of inquiry in the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion had a terrible job trying to reconstruct it all. But I’ll check with Madrid, see if they have anything.”
“I’ll e-mail you the forensic report,” said J-J. “There’s some detail on the clothing, but nothing that really helps us beyond giving us a rough date, like the Swatch he wore. His nose had been broken in childhood, that’s about it. And the electric wire that was used to bind his hands was made in Germany, but it was on sale all over Europe.”
“And I’ll arrange a search of our own files,” said the brigadier. “A lot of those killings took place on French soil. I remember we even arrested four of your agents in Bayonne, Carlos, trying to kidnap somebody they claimed was the head of ETA. Some of their colleagues then kidnapped somebody else to secure their release.”
“Jose Mari Larraetxea,” said Carlos, his voice somber. “He was the head of ETA at the time. It was a very embarrassing operation.”
“Our German professor could be a kidnap victim,” said Bruno, thinking that nobody else seemed much concerned about Horst’s fate. “You saw my report on the scene at his house, the bloodstains and the marks of someone being dragged.”
“All that could have been staged,” said Isabelle. “But what worries me most about all this is our almost complete lack of intelligence on this ETA active service unit. It’s said to have been based in France for months now, and all we have is one name, Michel-I can’t pronounce this-Goikoetxea, and a photograph of him at age eighteen. He’s now what, almost forty.”
“Mikel Goikoetxea, he’s named after his father, one of the ETA leaders,” said Carlos, “killed by a GAL sniper in Bayonne in 1983. The son is forty next year, and we’ve never laid eyes on him, since he was arrested at a student demonstration. What can I say? They have very good security. It’s almost impossible for a non-Basque to infiltrate them.”
“And now we come to the latest drama,” said the brigadier. “Bruno, what do you know about this morning’s bombing? There was something on my car radio about a war on foie gras, but Isabelle e-mailed me that there could be a connection.”
“There’s certainly a connection with the dynamite theft from the local quarry,” Bruno replied. He explained that the dynamite that was used had come from the batch that was stolen the previous day and there was a scrawled slogan about animal rights on the side of the building.
“Is anything more known about any of these students?” asked the brigadier.
“We put through a routine inquiry to all the relevant foreign police, but nothing of significance came back,” Isabelle said. “I’ll do it again with a priority code, and with a special request under your name asking for a full security readout on the two students directly involved in the earlier attacks.”
“The Dutch girl was supposed to have been back home in Holland by the time the bomb went off,” Bruno said.
“We’ll get the Dutch police to do an eyeball, make sure she’s there.”
“What I really want to know is how and when the information about this summit meeting leaked out,” Bruno went on. “How did the ETA group find out it was taking place? If we’re sure they do know, that is.”
Isabelle and Carlos looked at each other, as if sharing something on which Bruno had not been briefed. But knowing the brigadier, he felt a suspicion begin to dawn.
“That comes under the category of need to know,” said the brigadier, his image flickering so that Bruno could not read his expression. But his words confirmed Bruno’s thoughts.
Bruno looked from the brigadier to Carlos and Isabelle at the table. A controlled anger was building inside him at the way these people worked, at the job Isabelle had chosen to do, the job that she had preferred to him and the life he offered in St. Denis.
“I think you leaked it deliberately, setting a trap for this ETA cell to fall into,” Bruno said, his voice deceptively calm and his manner as restrained and philosophical as he could conjure. “You’re using this summit as a lure. You’re putting my town at risk of a terrorist attack and you’re even using your own minister as bait.”
“Putain,” said J-J. “He’d better not be right about this. That’s two top ministers’ lives you’re playing with.”
“The ministers are in full agreement with this operation,” said Carlos.
“In the meantime, you all have your to-do lists,” said the brigadier, coldly. “And if you breathe a word of this to anyone outside that room, Bruno, I’ll have your job and your pension.”
He leaned forward and pressed something and the video screen went blank.
“A useful meeting,” Isabelle said briskly, gathering her files and folders. “I think it went well, considering. We all have our jobs to do and we meet again to report back at six. By then, let’s make sure we have some results, shall we?”
She began to stalk out, but her bad leg failed and she stumbled. Carlos steadied her by the arm and led her out, neither one of them with a backward glance.
“Putain de merde,” said J-J, looking after them as they left the conference room. “What do they do to these people?”
19
The text message that Bruno had ignored since the beginning of the security meeting had come from Annette. It was politely worded but uncompromising. His presence at the gendarmerie was required as soon as possible. On arrival he asked Sergeant Jules if he knew what she wanted.
“She’s been with Duroc in his office most of the morning,” Jules said, shrugging. “I know they went to Gravelle’s place to see the bomb damage and then I saw her give a radio interview outside.” He jerked his thumb at the small radio on the side of the counter, its volume turned low. “It hasn’t been played yet, but I’ll be listening.” He gave Bruno a quizzical look. “There’s a disposable razor and some soap in the shower room downstairs. I’d use it if I were you.”
Bruno took the advice, and a few minutes later, cheeks stinging slightly from the crude soap, he straightened his uniform, tucked his hat under his arm and knocked on Duroc’s door. Without waiting, he entered and greeted both him and Annette formally. She was sitting at the desk, a sheaf of what looked like witness statements before her, and Duroc rose quickly from where he had been leaning over her, his arm on her shoulder. He colored
