electromagnetic rays from the HERF generator interfered with systems. Flattened them, he’d said. The electromagnetic fields were quite high due to all the unshielded equipment and the heavy iron reinforcement in the station walls. No reason it couldn’t do so now.
“Sardou,” she said, her voice certain and calm. “I know how to dismantle the bomb without touching the computer.”
BERNARD AIMED for the staircase, which tilted dizzily as he crawled toward it. His hand throbbed. Where had the little girl gone? Where was the gun?
The terrorist’s overalls clung to him. He shivered. If he could just get downstairs he’d pretend to be the other terrorist, wounded and unable to talk. He’d get Rachid by the window. With that thought, Bernard almost tumbled down the stairs headfirst.
And then the sun blazed for a brief moment as the clouds parted. Bernard smiled. The sun at last. He heard a zinging crack as a fine tinkle of windowglass powdered him. And then Bernard felt warmth on his face. The wonderful warmth, the heat from his childhood. Everything danced before him; his
RENE WALKED into the command center with a small shopping bag. He set the bag down and started pulling items out.
“Everything’s here,” he said, strapping on the Walkman-size HERF generator in his waist bag. With the power emanating from this he could knock out communications systems in the surrounding buildings.
Aimee helped adjust the antenna up his left sleeve so he could easily slide it out.
“From Simone’s conversation, we know one of the terrorists was knocked out,” Aimee said. “Rene resembles a child from this distance. If the doors Berge entered are closed, Rene can go to the window. Aiming the HERF gun at the device controlling the bomb, he shoots high-energy radio frequencies. He interferes with the detonation device, defusing the—”
Aimee never finished.
Sardou and every man wearing headsets rushed to the window.
“Green light,” someone muttered.
She saw a black-suited tactics team pause at the door, simultaneously heard the crack of rifles.
“Don’t do it!” she yelled. “The building will blow up.”
“They’ve got three to five seconds before the reaction time sets in,” Sardou muttered. “They better make it count.”
In stunned disbelief she watched the team enter the building. No explosion. More cracks from the rifles. She could see bullet holes pepper and shatter the glass.
Aimee gasped, “Please God keep the children and Anais away from the windows! What happened?” she asked, turning to Sardou.
“Three minutes ago Rachid agreed to the demands,” Sardou said. “We recorded him dismantling the wires. Your plan was backup.”
“Then why shoot him?”
Aimee’s knuckles whitened as her fingers clutched the win-dowsill; she still braced herself for an explosion.
“We’d taken out the other one,” Sardou said. “RAID doesn’t like taking prisoners.”
Sixteen children with their teacher and a shaking Anais holding Simone were led out through the courtyard. Relief flooded Aimee until she remembered.
“What about Bernard Berge?”
Aimee’s answer came as three bodies were rolled out into the cobbled courtyard: one burly man in his underwear, and two men in black jumpsuits.
Three terrorists?
The tactics team stripped off the ski masks of the other two.
One was a bearded man, a small black hole over his cranial vault. Dead instantly, she figured. A surgical shot to the skull, which wouldn’t have affected his nervous system and prevented him from tripping the wire. Bernard was the other, in a stained jumpsuit. A dark red spot, like a third eye, dripped down his forehead. His features were relaxed, and he looked at peace. Aimee felt the oddest sensation, as if Bernard’s soul fluttered on wings above the cobbled courtyard and toward the weak sun.
“Berge was expendable, wasn’t he?” she said, angry. “Guittard always planned to shovel him in the dirt, one way or the other.”
Sardou’s eyes glazed. He turned and walked into the courtyard. As the stretcher lifted Bernard’s corpse, Aimee whispered a prayer. Poor Bernard had been terrorist fodder.
Outside, Guittard was holding a press conference, so jammed with media that she and Rene had to wait near the SAMU vans where tearful relieved parents were hugging their children. Mar-tine had arrived, joining Simone, and was helping Anais to a temporary first-aid station at the rear of a fire truck.
Disheveled, Anais sat on the truck’s fender, her wounds receiving attention.
“We were going to dismantle the system, Anais,” Aimee said. “We’d figured it out.”
“I knew you could, why didn’t you?” Anais said, her blond hair matted to her scratched and swollen face. “My suit’s mined.”
Aimee saw Kaseem Nwar. He stood smiling, rocking on his heels, as Philippe hugged Simone.
And then Aimee knew.
Everything fit together. Philippe had made a deal with the grinning devil. Seething inside, she stared at Kaseem Nwar, who bent down and patted Simone’s head.
“Philippe gave in to Kaseem,” Aimee said, turning to wide-eyed Martine and Anais. “He funded the mission, didn’t he?”
Anais shrugged, then winced with pain as a paramedic swabbed her face.
Aimee shook with fury. For the second time she’d been about to save Philippe’s family but he’d dealt with the devil. The smiling devil who sold out his own brother, Hamid.
“The DNS knew the terrorist defused the bomb,” she said. “But they killed them anyway, even Bernard.”
Anais bit her lip as the paramedic treated her.
“What do you mean?”
“Kaseem held you and your daughter hostage until Philippe caved in,” she said.
Anger flashed in Anais’s eyes. Then she softened as she looked at Simone and her husband. “I didn’t know it was Kaseem, Aimee. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to find out who was blackmailing Philippe.”
“Maybe you could have helped me more, Anais.”
Aimee strode over to Kaseem and Philippe. Philippe ignored her, holding Simone tightly.
“I owe you an Orangina, Simone,” she said, keeping her voice even.
Simone nodded, her eyes serious. “A big one.”
“Let’s take Maman home, Simone,” Philippe said.
He didn’t look Aimee in the eye.
Simone pulled her father’s hand.
“It’s not over, Philippe,” Aimee said, through her clenched teeth. “I’m seeing to that.”
But Philippe and Simone threaded their way past the emergency crew toward Anais. Philippe enveloped Anais in his arms. For a moment the de Froissarts huddled. Then Philippe led them to the debriefing area.
“Let things go, Mademoiselle Leduc,” Kaseem said.
“You risked little children,” she said. “Before that you tried to have me killed at the
Kaseem shook his head. “No one believed in him anyway.”
Aimee felt pity for poor Hamid, starving himself for a cause to help immigrants. The irony being that Kaseem, his brother, supplied arms and assisted the massacres the immigrants had tried to avoid.
“The ‘ST196’photos—”
“Tell nothing,” Kaseem interrupted. “They’re just photos.”
