Murder in Belleville

Bernard paused on the landing. Where were the children? His arms ached from being raised; blood had trickled down his white sleeves, but he was afraid to let them down. The foyer led down a high-ceilinged hall, narrowing to another wing. He paused. Muffled noises came from behind a door labeled ART ROOM. Should he enter?

He hesitated before turning the cracked porcelain doorknob. All of a sudden he felt hands grab him from behind.

“Rachid,” he sputtered. “Talk to me.”

His shoulders were harnessed in strong arms, his eyes covered, and a loud tearing reached his ears. A sticky band was taped over his mouth. He heard guttural words in Arabic, glottal and harsh.

His last conscious thought was of an ethery smell as the damp cloth covered his face, reminding him of when he’d had his tonsils out.

Sometime later, he didn’t know how long, Bernard’s mind unwrinkled, as if each tissue papered layer of consciousness re-linquished its grasp with an effort. His eyes opened, and he became aware of silvery bubbles rising to the surface by his nose. He realized he was eye-to-eye with a gurgling fish tank, his back supported against a wall. He was breathing, but he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

Opposite him on the floor a masked figure in black, with sticks of dynamite ringing his girth, built Legos with a little girl wearing pink tights. The masked face looked up.

“Welcome to school, Monsieur Berge,” the man said, his black ski mask unmoving. “Merri for these releases. However, new issues have cropped up, and we’d like your help in fixing them.”

Bernard realized that his short breaths and gasps meant he was hyperventilating. “I can’t breathe!”

“Calmez-vous; we’d like to request a few concessions when you’re more tranquil,” Rachid said. He barked something in Arabic to another masked man clad in a black jumpsuit emerging from an alcove, a machine gun slung over his chest.

“We’ll release the three youngest children to show good faith, Monsieur Berge. But you must stay and help work on our demands.”

Bernard nodded. “I’m authorized—”

“Right now you’re authorized to listen,” Rachid interrupted.

OUTSIDE CAFE; Tlemcen the drizzle had grown into a downpour, wind whipping the leaves and twigs into a frenzy. They stuck in Aimee’s hair. She set down the radio antenna on the table and spread her wet coat over a clump of chairs. Rene’ and Gaston huddled over the architectural drawings of the ecole matemelle on the round cafe table.

“Aimee, good news. The icole matemelle has a computer,” Rene said. “Ready for the bad news?”

She groaned.

“The computer’s down,” Rene said.

Computers going down weren’t the end of the world; they both knew that.

“But that’s never stopped us before, Rene,” she said. “Just a little work and some time.”

“Time is something we don’t have,” he said, his voice lower.

She heard the shift in his voice and worried.

“Tiens, has something else happened?”

“You could say that,” he said. “The building’s security system has been wired to the human bomb! Check out this map, Aimee.”

While sheets of rain fogged up the cafe windows, she stared at the map revealing the building’s structure. The only entrances or exits in the building plans were connected to the main system. How could she get in there?

Aimee paused and pointed her finger to several XXX’s by the old sewer lines.

“Can you decipher those, Rene?” she said.

He nodded. “Old sinkhole shafts,” he said, peering closely at the plans. “Bricked up.”

“Sinkhole shafts to where?” she asked.

“A tributary to the nearby canal,” he said. “Boulevard Richard Lenoir is the paved continuation of Canal Saint Martin.”

Aimee quelled her rising excitement. “Any idea when these were bricked up?”

Rene scanned the plans, “My guess would be when the canal was paved over. Let me check.” He clicked several keys on his nearby laptop. Aimee watched as a nineteenth-century structure grid was superimposed over a modern-day Belleville map on his screen. She stared transfixed. “What kind of magician are you, Rene?” she said.

“Just a new program I found.” He chuckled. “The best is yet to come.”

The crystal-clear resolution highlighted narrow lanes and streets cleared by Baron Haussmann in the nineteenth century to become the broad, clear boulevards and avenues of today’s Belleville.

“Incredible!”

His eyes lit up as he hit more keys. “There’s more.”

A below-ground system of streams and tributaries to the Seine, like branches from a tree, spread in varying colors. “That thick blue line indicates the old tributary to Canal Saint Martin, those green ones are the old springs in Belleville.”

Aimee’s heart jumped. “If we could get in somehow, how navigable is a sinkhole?”

Rene shrugged. “Since it’s porous ground composed of old river silt, who knows? The ground settled, then sank. Old sinkholes exist all over Paris especially in the Tenth, Eleventh, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Arrondissements. Everybody forgets.”

Aimee paused. “Belleville is where they all meet, isn’t it?”

“Looks like there’s a bricked sinkhole in the cellar,” he said. “Leading from the ecole matemelle into the street. The Belleville reservoir and water towers are only a few blocks away.”

His eyes widened. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“We enter via that sinkhole,” she said, punching the spot on the laptop screen map. “Power up the computer, hook the bomb wiring from the security design to the computer, transfer the connection, and enter the blocking code,” she paused and took a breath. “All that’s left is to shepherd the kids from the sinkhole.”

“Whoa, Aimee!” he said. “Great logic if the computer functioned. How this theory would play in practice is another story.” He hit Print. “No one knows what it’s really like down there.”

She pulled out her cell phone from her waistband. She tried to hide her shaking hands from Rene.

“Sewer rat isn’t my style. I didn’t like it last time in the Marais, either,” Rene” said. “Children and unstable underground holes weren’t involved either.”

She studied the map and kept her shaking hands in her pockets.

“Think of the concept, Rene,” she said. “Simulate the computer connection, fool the system, and enter the security-blocking code.”

Rene’s brows knit together. “Aimee, I’m worried—there’s no guarantee that way.”

“No guarantee exists, Rene. But if we disable the explosive device, Anais and those kids have a chance. With RAID’s sharpshooters, I’m afraid they could be machine-gun fodder.”

Rene shook his head. “We can’t do it alone.”

Her heart hammering, she watched the underground plan emerge from Rene’s printer.

“The question is do we enlist help or do it ourselves?” she said.

Rene rolled his eyes. “I’m too short for those commando outfits. Besides, my plumbing source moved to Valence. We’d need dynamite.”

“Gaston’s a military man, aren’t you?” she said, turning to Gaston. “And you’re handy with a plunger.”

“Apprenticed with the Army Corps of Engineers,” he said. “Before I chose intelligence.”

“Perfect,” she said.

“Bombs make you nervous, Aimee,” Rene said, concern in his voice. “Let the big guys get us in. Then we’ll have a better chance.”

Before she could reply, they heard a gunshot in the distance.

“You might have a point, Rene.” She grabbed the wet raincoat and opened the cafe door.