But Anais’s eyes had closed. Little whistles of sleep escaped her lips.
As Aimee walked into the cold Paris night she wished she felt it was true that Anais was safe.
HAMID STARED AT THE torn green-and-white Algerian flag.
“Where did this come from?”
“Discord within the AFL mounts. If you don’t comply…” Walid left the rest unfinished. He pointed at the broken red crescent moon enfolding a star. Walid, another
Hamid’s years of work, the ties he’d established, the movement he’d created—all would be sabotaged if he didn’t comply with his enemy. Such a close enemy. The French had no idea.
Hamid gently fitted the sickle-shaped red moon on the green-and-white cloth, then folded the pieces together. If only he could weave his people together so easily.
He nodded at Walid; he couldn’t ignore the warning. “I must rinse my mouth; please pass me water.”
After he partook from the beaten bronze bowl and washed his face, he prayed, for the first time, that the
AIMEE COULDN’T SLEEP.
From outside her bedroom window came the low hum of a barge, its blue running lights blinking on the Seine. Reflected in her bedroom’s mirrored trench doors, she saw the dark rooftops of the Marais across the river.
Her laptop screen, perched on her legs as she sat propped up in bed, held a jumble of numbers. Sylvie/Eugenie’s Credit Lyon-nais balance.
She’d been trying to make sense of the withdrawals and deposits, but her eyes blurred.
The courtyard, overlooked by her other window, held the pear tree’s budding leaves and bird’s nests. Miles Davis curled in the bed beside her, growling in his sleep. His white fur chest rose and fell in the midst of an intense dream.
With her other laptop on top of the large medical texts she used as a night table, she’d been online for hours searching for links to the Credit Lyonnais account. She’d entered the account number, then checked it for links corresponding to other bank accounts, a tedious job. So far she’d tried fifteen banks and found no connections.
The money had to come from somewhere, and she knew Sylvie banked on-line. The Minitel had paved the way for that. She had narrowed her list of banks to those who had client online capabilities. But since all French banks were regulated by the Banque de France, she didn’t see how Sylvie could launder or obtain money without its knowledge.
Dejected, she had only two more numbers to check when a routine thousand-franc deposit responded to her link query. Immediately a series of numbers appeared on her screen.
Of course, this had to be interest paid into the account!
She sat up excitedly, pushing the goose-down duvet to the side. Following the number source to a transit account, she found a thread to the Bank of Commerce Ltd., headquartered in the Channel Islands. A convenient offshore account destination, Aimee thought. Nice and anonymous. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
She dug deeper and accessed the Channel Island account. Three large cash infusions had swelled the Bank of Commerce balance since last September. But like the ebb and flow of the tide, as a significant amount was withdrawn another would replace the void. However, the current balance of nearly five million U.S. dollars—or roughly three million pounds sterling—stood out. Aimee gasped. No wonder Sylvie could afford Biwa pearls and to throw away Prada shoes.
Surprise mingled with a feeling of being in over her head. Something smelled very dirty. She scrolled back, checking the deposit amounts over the past twelve months. Several large deposits had brought the amount, at one time, to twenty million dollars.
The phone rang, startling her. Miles Davis snorted awake.
“Aimee,” Rene said, his voice tight with excitement. “Hold on to your laptop.”
“Did you find out what I just did?” she asked.
“Sylvie was born in Oran,” he said. “That’s why the identification from the
Surprised, Aimee hit Save on both her laptops, then stroked Miles Davis.
“Bravo, Rene,” she said. “Go on.”
“Get this,” he said. “Her real name is Eugenie Sylvie Cardet, her family left Algeria at the exodus. She ended up at the Sor-bonne, in one of Philippe’s classes.”
“I’m impressed, Rene,” she said. “Did you crack the
“A few hours ago,” he said. “They’re a storehouse of information. Seems she joined the Socialist Party then the Arab Student League, which according to my Arab friends on the net later became the AFL.”
Aimee grabbed her notebook. She filled the gridblock sheet diagramming Sylvie’s connections to Hamid and Philippe.
“So there’s her connection to Hamid,” she said. “She’s known him since the late sixties. Her address is 78 Place du Guignier, right?”
“Fast work, Aimee,” Rene said. “But the most interesting item was her father,” Rene said. “Leon Cardet, a
Miles Davis nestled in the crook of her arm, his ears perking up at Rene’s voice. She sat up straighter.
“
“One of many attempted coups.” Rene chuckled. “But you’re right, Cardet got caught. Very nasty
“So if Sylvie had a father like that and joined Hamid, then became Philippe’s mistress, she could have been rebelling against her father and what he stood for,” she grew excited. “Sylvie could have been helping the underdog!”
“Exactly,” Rene said. “Seems Cardet and his OAS cronies liked the Canal Saint Martin for body dump-offs in the sixties.”
Aimee shivered. She pictured the narrow tree-lined canal, the metal locks, and eddying scum on the surface.
“There’re some problems with that theory, ReneY’ she said. “Gaston told me that warring Algerian factions dumped bodies there. Those helping the French or not contributing to the FLN got a watery grave.”
A pause on the other end.
“Cardet could have played both sides,” Rene said slowly. “Or he used the cover to dispose of OAS targets, attributing them to the FLN.”
“Good point,” she said. “You could be right.” She remembered the grainy photos of Cardet at his trial, a sneering arrogance even on sentencing. “But if Sylvie was helping Hamid, why does she have millions in an offshore account?”
Rene whistled when she told him what she’d found in the Channel Island account. Miles Davis yelped at the sound.
“Wait a minute,” Rene said. “What if Sylvie received funds in an offshore account in the Channel Islands and passed it to the AFL?”
“Hold on,” Aimee paused. “The AFL connection isn’t clear,” she said, racking her brains to think of what was eluding her. “The AFL seems more of a grassroots, shoestring operation. They address issues of all immigrants, not just those from Algeria.”
She stepped into her black leather pants, “Rene, let me try something. I’ll call you back.”
