Prof. Luc Simard, University of Bordeaux’. He had read it, sedulously, poring over the photos and absorbing the implications unfiltered by static from his staff.
After nine long years running Unit 70, this was his first bona fide crisis and it was stirring up mixed emotions. On one hand, it was a disaster, of course. The Unit’s sixty-five-year mission was threatened. If a major security breach occurred, there’d be hell to pay. His head would certainly roll, but not only his. Could the Minister of Defence survive? The President?
But the fear of bad outcomes was tempered by the perfumed whiff of opportunity. Finally, he would be front- and-centre in the Minister’s mind. His instincts were telling him to stir the pot. Get his superiors agitated, keep things hot. Then, if he was ultimately successful in keeping the lid on Unit 70, he’d surely be recognised.
Finally, a plum senior staff position at the Ministry was within his grasp.
He ran his finger over the clear acrylic cover of the dossier. Was this was his path to heaven, or hell?
Marolles came as summoned, standing at attention, his moustache twitching, waiting to be recognised.
Gatinois motioned for him to sit.
‘I’ve read it. Cover to cover,’ the general said evenly.
‘Yes, sir. It’s certainly a problem.’
‘A problem? It’s a disaster!’
The small man nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me, in the history of this unit, has anyone ever been inside that cave?’
‘No, no. I’ve checked the archives and Chabon queried Pelay. It’s been sealed since 1899. Certainly, we’ve always let sleeping dogs lie. And, to the best of our knowledge, no one from the outside has rediscovered it.’
‘Until now,’ Gatinois added coldly.
‘Yes, until now.’
‘What do we know about Luc Simard?’
‘Well, he’s a professor of archaeology at Bordeaux-’
‘Marolles, I’ve read his biography. What do we know about him? His personality. His motivations.’
‘We’re working up a profile. I’ll have it to you within the week.’
‘And what can we do to stop this before it starts?’ Gatinois asked with a calmness that seemed to surprise the colonel.
Marolles took a deep breath and delivered an unfavourable assessment. ‘I’m afraid the project has already attained a positive momentum within the Ministry of Culture. It will undoubtedly be approved and funded, I’m sorry to report.’
‘Who’s your source?’
‘Ah, one bright spot in a dark sky,’ Marolles said hopefully. ‘My wife’s cousin works in the relevant department. He’s an unctuous fellow named Abenheim. He’s always poodling up to me at family gatherings, making sly references to his belief I work in clandestine services. I’ve tried to avoid him.’
‘Until now, perhaps?’
‘Exactly.’
Gatinois leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially, as if someone else were in the room. ‘Use this man. Suggest to him that someone within the DGSE is interested in Simard and his work. Imply something negative but say nothing specific. Tell him to keep you informed of everything, to insinuate himself into the project as much as possible. Tell him if he does well that certain people within the state apparatus will be grateful. Keep it on that kind of level.’
‘I understand, sir.’
Gatinois leaned back, straightening his back to its usual position. ‘At the end of the day, you know, Bonnet will probably sort this out. He’s a ruthless bastard. Perhaps all we’ll need to do is sit back and watch the carnage.’
TEN
Luc had bypassed the usual channels and had gone straight for the top. The stakes were too high. If feathers were ruffled at his own university and with regional bureaucrats at the Department of Dordogne, then so be it.
The cave had to be protected.
He used the full weight of his academic position and his friendship with an important senator from Lyon to secure an immediate face-to-face meeting at the Palais-Royal with the Minister of Culture and her top antiquities deputies including the Director of the National Centre of Prehistory, a respected archaeologist named Maurice Barbier, who fortunately maintained a cordial relationship with Luc. The participation of Barbier’s Deputy Director, Marc Abenheim, was less fortunate. Luc had butted heads with Abenheim for years, and the two men had a mutual dislike for one another.
Working from a lavishly illustrated dossier replete with his photos, Luc requested an emergency protection order, an accelerated permitting process, and a sufficient allocation of ministry funds to secure the cave and begin its excavation.
Heeding advice from his senator friend, he glossed over the enigmatic Ruac manuscript to keep the high-level assembly focused on one issue at a time. And taking further advice, he liberally used the term, ‘Spectacular New National Monument’.
The importance of having another Lascaux and Chauvet from the perspective of international prestige and local economic development wasn’t lost on the group. Maurice Barbier was moved to a state of excitement that appeared to border on illness. Red-faced and nearly trembling, he declared that an emergency order would have to be immediately drawn up designating the cave a Historic Monument. A commission would be established to determine correct procedures and methodologies and to select the leadership of the excavation campaign.
At this, Abenheim, who had been silently scowling during Luc’s presentation, piped up and began to make the case for direct Ministry involvement, the implication being that he ought to head such a commission and personally take charge of the excavation of this new cave. Luc simmered at the unctuous performance. Abenheim was of Luc’s generation, a couple of years older, certainly as well credentialed in academic archaeology but, unlike Luc, he was not a field man. Luc viewed him as an autocratic bureaucrat, more like a pale, scrawny accountant than an archaeologist. Luc loved shovels and picks and the sun on his back. Abenheim, he imagined, had an abiding affinity to telephones and spreadsheets and fluorescent-lit government offices. Abenheim, for his part, undoubtedly saw Luc as a glory-seeking swashbuckler.
Barbier deftly deferred any discussion of leadership and urged the group to consider for now only the larger issues at hand.
The Minister took charge and crisply gave her assent to the protection order and the granting of emergency funds. She instructed Barbier to forward his recommendations on a commission and asked to be kept informed of all developments. And with that, the meeting was over.
Luc left the room whistling cheerfully through the marble corridors of power. Outside in the sunshine, he yanked off his necktie, tucked it into his pocket and went to meet Hugo near the Louvre for a celebratory dinner.
For a bureaucracy as Byzantine as the Ministry of Culture, the follow-through was executed at breakneck speed. Luc breathed easier when Barbier informed him two weeks later that the newly formed Ruac Cave Commission had designated Luc as the director of the excavation, with only a single dissenting vote. ‘You don’t have to guess who that was,’ Barbier joked, but urged Luc to try to keep Abenheim well informed and happy, if only to make Barbier’s life easier.
Then Barbier added in a tone panged with jealousy, ‘You’ll be made a Knight of Arts and Letters, you know. It’s only a matter of time.’
Luc replied sardonically, ‘If I have to wear a suit and tie for that, I’m not so keen.’
Within a week a military-style operation was loosed upon the Vezere valley. A detachment from the French Engineers Corps backed up by the local gendarmerie accompanied Luc to the Ruac cliffs where a massive bank- grade titanium gate was bolted into the rock face over the mouth of the cave. Power cables were dropped from the top of the cliff, closed-circuit cameras were installed, a prefab guard hut and Portaloos were placed in the woods
