Samir Aziz paced in the waiting room of the laboratory, ignoring the magazines, Le Monde, and the receptionist. It seemed small and chintzy for such a prestigious lab. It irritated him that these people, on whom he had pinned his hopes, had cheap furniture and cheap paintings.
Michelle sat on a chair and clasped his hand as needed. He was extremely anxious to know what was in the oil, why it worked, and whether it could be duplicated. He was not sure that he could stand to live without it in the shadow of an anxiety so powerful that it sapped all satisfaction from his life.
At last the door to the working portion of the lab opened and Monsieur Dupre entered and offered a firm handshake.
“I’m afraid we still can’t tell you much. There are organics. Complex molecules that are very hard to figure without a clue. There is nothing that would affect your state of mind by itself, so it must be working in combination with something else, and right now neither the lab nor your neurologist can imagine what that might be. Maybe they have genetically altered your brain, but we have no details. We don’t know how they would do that. The note is not enough. It could be anything. In that oil there is every herbal remedy known to man. There are trace molecules. It’s a stew. Eventually we’ll get it if we don’t run out of material.”
“So you will keep looking.”
“Oh, yes. But it would be helpful if you could talk with the manufacturer of the oil.”
“Yes,” Samir said.
“What are we going to do?” Michelle asked on the way out the door.
“My men have taken your son. That is a first step.”
Obviously shocked, she threw her arms around him in the parking lot. It was the desired reaction.
“When, where is he?”
“On his way to Lebanon. It was a bitch getting him into the country without a passport. But in three hours when we arrive back in my country he will be at your apartment in Beirut. I wanted to surprise you.”
“How did you do it?”
“By promising them I would deliver some software that Chellis won’t. The software will be no more difficult to obtain than the oil recipe. I had to get your son because Chellis and company are apt to suppose that you have turned on them.”
“You are not the man I thought you were,” she said. “Not at all.”
“No, I am that man. But you could say that I am adapting to your kindnesses. Or maybe that where you are concerned I envy all other men their power, and so I have moved to diminish it in order to enhance my own.”
“It is necessary for you to portray yourself so harshly?”
Samir’s cell phone rang.
“Yes?” he said, expecting one of his men.
“This is your new friend.”
“What new friend?”
“You know what new friend. The friend that will have the recipe to the oil and all you need of it for the rest of your life. And not the crap you’ve been getting, but good stuff that will get you back to normal. I know exactly what’s going on, and soon I will control Grace Technologies and all that it possesses.”
Samir hung up stunned, knowing that Gaudet would not be lying. Gaudet’s power was growing. Immediately he dialed the number of Chellis’s offices. When advised Chellis was out, he put one of his men on to getting hold of him.
Gaudet was a predator, and Samir had a growing feeling that he might be on the menu.
Thirty-five
Benoit was trying to train the hair on the back of her head into a more perfect wave while she rehearsed exactly what she intended. Marie had gone to Marseille with a friend, probably trying to forget what was happening. Given her knack for reality distortion, she would probably treat the events of this day as one of life’s unforeseen tragedies.
It wasn’t a bad day given the sunny wintertime weather and the elegant simplicity of their plan and the certainty of its execution, but it wasn’t a good day because the most difficult and personal part was yet to come.
Jacques had delivered the aerosol in a container with a crude label indicating that it was roach killer. Fitting, that.
Benoit dressed as if she were going to the company’s annual gala. Elegant and form-flattering, her gown was black, and slit up the front from floor to thigh. Although she wore a garter belt and old-fashioned stockings, she wore no undergarments. At about ten minutes to ten, as she dabbed perfume, the telephone rang.
“Yes,” she said, expecting Gaudet and trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“How is it going?”
“Fine.”
“Don’t deviate from the plan.”
“I’m not going to give him sex.”
“Unless you have to.” When he said, that it was as if her stomach were on an elevator. Not because she minded at all having sex with Chellis, but because for a few insane moments she had convinced herself that Gaudet cared. If he didn’t, she was in danger and she knew it.
“I won’t have to.”
“Good. Is the room completely ready?”
“Of course.”
“And you’re sure they can restore it to just as it was in a matter of hours?”
“Ten hours. Yes. I’m sure. The metal plates will remain in the walls and floor but nothing will be visible.”
“This is going to be smooth, perfect, actually.”
“How is your other thing going? Are you tracking Jason?”
“It is superb because I am in charge.”
“But you are not saying.”
“I am not. Trust me. I am Gaudet.”
To win Gaudet’s trust she had explained generally about Jacques’s research into the Nervous Flyer profile. It seemed to have worked with the exception of whatever secret angle he had going with respect to tracing Jason. Maybe it was nothing-just a ploy to make him appear invincible.
When Benoit heard the knock she took one last look at herself. As she walked past the Picasso she wondered why she felt no guilt whatsoever-it was, after all, an extraordinary treasure that DuShane had given her, and it was only one among many. Before opening the door she paused for a moment, knowing that nothing would be the same after today. As she unbolted the door for him she acknowledged to herself that it was something of a pity that they couldn’t just kill DuShane and be humane about the whole situation. There were, however, extenuating circumstances that they could not escape.
“Handsome man,” she said softly as he walked through the door.
From his eyes she could tell that he was excited in the way of a child utterly distracted by a rare treat. He wore a traditional deep blue blazer with a black turtleneck, and had been liberal but tasteful in his use of a men’s cologne.
“Wonderful style and very stimulating,” he said as he came through the door, admiring the dress or more probably her form beneath.
They went to the couch, where she poured him a glass of port.
“I can’t get this mess off my mind.” He took a sip. “I try to conceive of R and D without Jason and I can’t do it.”
“Gaudet will fix it. He is hard after them and will have Jason soon. They came to get Nutka as we knew they would.”
