“Go on!” Bernard snarled, raising his eyes and scanning the windows.
The little boy stood up and stumbled but made it to the concierge’s loge. From the corner of his eye Bernard saw the RAID man scoop the boy up.
Bernard entered the long classroom, edging past white walls plastered with children’s watercolors, a sand table littered with wooden shovels and an empty rabbit cage with
He passed through a yellow-tiled bathroom, stools set in front of washbasins and tiny toilets, into a darkened room filled with nap cots. Where should he go now?
He knelt down, feeling his way past the cots toward a double door. Something wet and sticky clung to his fingers, and fear shot up Bernard’s spine. He didn’t want to look.
In the crack of light from the door he saw the blood on his hands. Bernard gasped. A vision of his little brother, Andre, came to him, his small face floating in the village well. Bernard didn’t try to wipe his hands. Now he knew he’d never get the blood off them.
“NICE LITTLE stunt, Leduc!” Sardou said. “You’re banned from the area.”
The RAID man had escorted her back to the command center. Her grim feeling was highlighted by sobbing parents waiting on the periphery.
“The bomb unit has set procedures,” Sardou said. “We will not put anyone in jeopardy.”
“But look at Berge,” Aimee protested. “Standard procedure wouldn’t put—”
“Him inside?” Sardou interrupted. “Of course not! But the hostage taker set the rules, since Berge was responsible for the deportations.”
She struggled to make Sardou understand. “The AFL wouldn’t do this,” she said. “A radical faction took over. The real reason is the funding loss for the humanitarian mission.”
“You’re banned from this area,” Sardou said again, nodding to a nearby CRS, who escorted her to the barricade.
Her heart sank. How could she get them out? She didn’t trust RAID, Guittard, or the sharpshooters. ‘Trigger-happy’ took on a new meaning with highly trained marksmen who ached to take out suspects quickly. Bombs and hostage situations had become too common in Paris.
Defeated, she walked down rue de l’Ermitage. She slumped on the curb, oblivious to the stares of passersby. If something happened and she did nothing, she’d never forgive herself. Anais had said she knew how to do it… but how to do what?
She had to get them out.
Aimee noticed the pearly pink oil rivulets snaking through the cobble cracks, pooling in slick puddles. She glanced at her watch from force of habit. Her dead Tintin watch.
She stood up, called Rene from the nearest phone, asking him to gather equipment and meet her at Gaston’s cafe, four blocks away. Then she started running.
“MAY WE use your cafe as headquarters, so to speak, Gaston?” she said. “I’ve got a plan to disarm the bomb.”
“If you let me watch you use one of those,” Gaston said, pointing to the laptops Rene began unpacking on the glass-ring-stained tables.
“I’ll even teach you,” Rene said, his smile widening. He looked around. “First we need an outlet so you can see how surge protectors work. I’ll show you in a moment.”
Aimee stuck the new cell phone Rene had given her on her waistband.
Something didn’t add up.
“I have a terrible feeling,” she said, explaining about her conversation with Philippe. “He denied nothing, just looked beaten.”
“So you think this is another blackmail route?” Rene asked.
“His daughter’s in there, Rene,” she said. “And his wife.”
“But how?” asked Gaston. “Haven’t the AFL claimed credit?”
“Mafoud and the AFL are grassroots, cranking out leaflets, organizing soup kitchens and child care for strikers,” she said. “Hostage seizure isn’t their style. Even though this Rachid claims it is.”
Rene clicked Save on his laptop and looked up. “Rachid could be a loose cannon. What if his baguette’s sliced a little thin and he decided to carry the cause further?”
“Sliced a little thin …?” Gaston winced.
She could see Gaston didn’t like the implication. She didn’t either.
“Quite possible, Rene,” she said. “But I’d say he’s smart and with some kind of explosives training.” She paused. “He’s got about two hundred police, including sharpshooters and the RAID squad, in a holding pattern, so his baguette can’t be sliced too thin.”
“You’ve got a point, Aimee,” Gaston said. He leaned against the zinc counter, wiping it with a wet rag. “Perhaps he trained in the army.”
Outside the cafe windows rain glistened on a grime-encrusted banner with BIERE FORMENT in block letters rustling in the wind. The Arab trio moved into another doorway to conduct business as a postman cycled by.
She nodded. “Do you remember last year when some young Moroccans with French passports, trained in Afghanistan, were sent first to fight in Bosnia, and then told by their bosses to ‘go to Morocco to kill a few tourists’ because this would destabilize Morocco?”
Rene and Gaston both nodded.
Aimee stared at the frayed photo wedged in the mirror frame and thought about all the things that didn’t add up. Or did they? Hadn’t Berge been dispatched to the site with authority to offer guarantees of residence status to the immigrants?
“Go on,” Rene said as they both watched her.
“Seems similar. Kind of the same off-the-wall rationale,” she said. “I think they’re hired hands.” She shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
Rene’s brows furrowed. “I trust your intuition, Aimee.”
“The Battle of Tlemcen attests to that,” Gaston said, reaching for tissue. Tears slid down his cheeks.
“What’s the matter, Gaston?” Aimee asked.
“A medical problem,” he said. “My tear ducts dilate and I spurt at the slightest occasion.” He winked. “Gets me an extra half kilo of melon at the market.”
“There’s another thing,” she said. “What if he’s not alone?”
“Of course he’s not alone,” Rene said. “Teachers, children—”
“He has to eat and defecate, right?” she said.
“He’ll make someone test his food,” Gaston said. “Pull one of them to the bathroom with him.”
“True, Gaston,” she said. “More important, he’ll get tired. Of course it depends on how long he holds them hostage—but he’ll have to sleep.”
“So what are you saying, Aimee?” Rene’asked.
“He’s got an accomplice,” she said. “And unless he’s on a suicide mission, he’s got an escape route.”
Rene nodded. “Let’s get to work.”
BERNARD BERGE stared at his bloody hands—the blood of little children on them. Why? he wondered. Bluebottle flies buzzed over dark red clumps on the marble stairs. Viscous and smeared, emitting the sweet stench of meat gone bad. Bernard gasped and turned away.
He saw the velvety gray ear stuck between the thick banister. Poor Loulou. But at least the blood belonged to a rabbit, not a child. He wiped his hands on the marble and climbed.
“Monsieur Rachid, the immigration releases are in my pocket,” he said, his voice cracking. “As soon as the children are released, the CRS will escort everyone to a processing site for residence papers, I promise you!”
Bernard’s steps echoed off the marble. No other sound reached him but the distant buzzing of the flies.
“Please, we’re meeting your requests, Rachid.” He kept speaking as he mounted the once grand staircase, now with traces of crayon and signs pointing “Silkworms to Butterflies group every Friday,” “Mademoiselle Mireille’s Gazelles in Motion on Tuesday mornings.”
