“Where exactly did you say he lives?”
“Heas, it’s called. But it just a few houses with a shop and a church. You go south from Gedre. It’s on the map, on the way to the highest mountains around here. But you could go right past without noticing the village.”
Savary thanked the boy and gave him another ten-euro note. Two hours later he and General Jobert were driving along a slow, winding mountain road approaching the small town of Gedre along the tumbling Gavarnie River.
There was only one road out of the town, heading south toward the Spanish border, back into the highest peaks. Savary gassed up the car and noted the signpost, which said: Cirque de Troumouse. Underneath it was written, Heas 6km.
This was another mountain road even more twisting than the last. All around were great craggy escarpments, hardly any trees. It was grandeur rather than beauty. And this little road would eventually become almost a spiral as it headed up into the astonishing ten-kilometer wall of mountains that formed the Cirque de Troumouse.
Heas was the last stop before the big climb. The traffic to see the views was such that the French had shrewdly made the last part a toll road up to the edge of the Cirque, in the time-honored Gallic tradition of always making a buck when the chance was there.
Gaston Savary and General Jobert pulled into the village a little before three o’clock in the afternoon. They inquired at a shop about Monsieur Hooks and were told, politely, that he had gone into the mountains that morning with a coach load of schoolchildren and their teachers. He usually returned to Heas at around 4 P.M. Meanwhile they could certainly talk to Madame Hooks, who had just gone to meet the school bus from Gedre, and would certainly be home in a few minutes…four houses up the street, on the left. Number eight.
Savary thanked the shopkeeper and bought a couple of bottles of orange juice. He and Jobert sat on a wall outside in the sunlight and drank them, waiting for a lady with two children to come up the hill toward them.
They did not have to wait long. A slender, pretty woman, late thirties, appeared almost immediately, laughing with two young boys. General Jobert stepped forward with a cheerful smile. “Madame Hooks?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said carefully. “I am Madame Hooks.”
“Well, I am very sorry to startle you. But my colleague, Monsieur Savary, and I have come a very long way to see your husband on a most urgent matter.”
“What about?” she said. “You are looking for a guide through these mountains?”
“Not exactly,” said the General. “But we have something to tell him that he will most certainly find interesting.”
Madame Hooks appraised the two men, noting their excellent manners, their well-cut clothes and polished shoes, and indeed the big Citroen government car parked outside the shop. Every sense told her that these were men from the military, but she chose not to betray her thoughts. However, she knew better than to antagonize such people, so she said quickly, “Please come up to the house, and we will have some coffee…this is our son Jean- Pierre and this is Andre.”
The General held out his hand in greeting. “And this,” he said, “is a very important man from Paris: Monsieur Gaston Savary.”
They walked up yet another hill, about fifty yards, and entered through a gate into a small walled garden, which surrounded a white stone house with a red-tiled roof, a classic French Pyrenean building.
The living room was also classic French country style, large with a heavy wooden dining table at one end and a sitting area around an enormous brick fireplace at the other. The kitchen was separate, through a beamed archway, and all the furniture was of a high quality. There were some very beautiful rugs, possibly North African in origin, spread over the oak floorboards. A large framed photograph of Monsieur Hooks and his new bride, taken in 1993, was hanging on the wall beside the kitchen. General Jobert noted instantly that Monsieur Hooks had been married in the dress uniform of the First Marine Parachute Infantry regiment.
Madame Hooks took the boys into the kitchen. When she emerged, she was carrying a tray of four mugs, three of them full, plus a coffeepot. She asked the two men to call her Giselle. “Jacques will not be long,” she said. “That school bus he’s on is supposed to be back in Gedre by four o’clock.”
She was correct in that. Four minutes later, the door opened and Monsieur Jacques Hooks, a medium-size, bearded man, not one ounce overweight, walked inside. He was wearing leather work boots, suede shorts, and a T-shirt, with a green rucksack over his shoulder. Jammed into his wide studded belt was a large sheathed knife.
Monsieur Hooks was surprised, but mannered. “Oh,” he said. “I was not expecting visitors.
General Jobert was the first to his feet. “
Monsieur Hooks seemed to freeze. His face was expressionless. “I don’t suppose there would be much point in hiding my true identity from you,” he said. “I’m assuming you are both from some branch of the military, but I should warn you right away, I am retired. I have a wife and family, as you already know. And I have no intention of leaving my little mountain paradise.”
Gaston Savary held out his hand. “Colonel Gamoudi, I’m honored to meet you,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I’m head of the French Secret Service. And General Jobert here is Commander in Chief of the First Marine Parachute Infantry…your old regiment.”
“I’m afraid I knew precisely who General Jobert was the moment I walked in,” said Jacques Gamoudi. “I do stay in touch with a few old friends. And I most certainly would recognize my commanding officer.” He smiled gently, poured himself some coffee, and shook his head. “It’s been a while now,” he said. “But we’re very happy here in the mountains. It’s a good place to bring up a family. Clean, lovely, no crime, friendly people.”
“How about that very large dagger you carry with you?” said Savary, chuckling. “You expecting trouble?”
Gamoudi laughed. “No, but I work in some pretty desolate places with some pretty helpless people. These mountains are just about the last refuge of the Pyrenean brown bear. And he’s big and dangerous. This hunting knife is my last line of defense.”
“I’m not sure even a knife that size would fend off a Pyrenean bear,” said Savary.
“That depends on how well you know how to use it,” replied Gamoudi. “Most of God’s creatures lose heart for a fight with a knife this big rammed into their left eye.”
Savary thus ascertained that the Colonel was right handed. He stared at the heavy forearms, the bull neck, and the wide, swarthy face. He noted the jagged scar below Gamoudi’s right ear, the tight military-cut hair, the straight back of his natural stance, the hard brown eyes. Ex — Foreign Legion, ex — Special Forces, ex-mercenary in North Africa. Parachutist. Combat fighter.
“Before we start to talk,” Gamoudi said, “I should perhaps explain that I am not hiding in any way. But in my line of business one is apt to make a few enemies, and so I changed my name. I thought it wiser not to return to Morocco, since I was in North Africa on behalf of the French Republic for so long. But I always wanted to live in France, and the mountains suit me well. I can make a good living up here, so I changed our name, and we just vanished into the mists. Giselle’s parents live in Pau.”
“Did you meet her during parachute training with the Legion?” asked the General.
“Very perceptive, sir. Matter of fact, yes, I did. I was twenty years old. She was only fifteen. I had to wait for her to grow up.”
“She waited for you,” said the General. “Nine years, according to that photograph.”
“You don’t miss much, sir, I’ll say that.”
“In our business, Jacques, we can’t afford to, eh?”
“You have that right, General.”
Both men smiled, almost shyly, that most fleeting sign of camaraderie among combat soldiers.
“Now perhaps you should explain to me why you have traced me to my mountain lair.”
“I will let Gaston outline for you the background to our visit. It involves a foreign country, and indeed the President of France…”
And for the next ten minutes the Secret Service Chief outlined the interior problems of Saudi Arabia, the prolific spending of the royal family, the monumental cost of that family, the deep unrest within the kingdom, the
