Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

The voice faded away, as though exhausted.

Mathilde tried to revive the flame. "What happened then? How did the police find you? Did they know about the drugs?"

"That's not how things turned out. It's still vague, but I can just about picture the scene… In November, I was working in a laundry. A kind of underground dry cleaner's in some Turkish baths. A place you just couldn't imagine. At least not under a mile from where you live. One night, they came."

"The police?"

"No. Turks sent by my employers. They knew I was hiding there. Someone must have given me away. I don't know… What is sure is that they didn't know that I'd altered my appearance. Right in front of me, they jumped a girl who looked like I used to look-Zeynep something…

God save me, when I saw those killers arrive… all I can remember is a flash of fear…"

Mathilde tried to complete the story, to fill in the gaps. "How did you end up with Charlier?"

"I have no precise memories about that. I was in a state of shock. The cops must have found me at the baths. I can see a police station, then a hospital… Somehow or other, Charlier heard about me. An amnesic immigrant. With no work permit in France. The perfect guinea pig."

Anna seemed to be weighing up her own hypothesis. Then she murmured, "There's an incredible irony in all this. Because the cops never realized who I really was. Without meaning to, they protected me from the Turks."

Mathilde's guts were beginning to ache-with fear, worsened by fatigue. Her eyes were failing. The white lines on the road were turning into gulls, vague birds fluttering convulsively. At that moment, the signpost for the Paris bypass appeared. They were nearly back. She concentrated on the marks on the asphalt and continued. "Who are these men who are looking for you?"

"Forget about that. As I said, the less you know, the safer you'll be."

"I helped you," she replied, with gritted teeth. "I protected you. So come on! Tell me the truth."

Anna hesitated again. It was her world-a world she had surely never spoken about before.

"There's something special about the Turkish mafia," she said at last. "For their dirty work, they use political activists. They're called the Grey Wolves. They're nationalists. Extreme right-wing fanatics who believe in the return of Greater Turkey. Terrorists trained in camps when they're still children. Compared with them, Charlier's goons are just like scouts with Swiss Army knives."

The blue signs were growing larger: PORTE DE CLIGNANCOURT. PORTE DE LA CHAPELLE. All Mathilde wanted to do now was to drop this living bomb off at the first taxi stand, to go back home, to comfort and security. What she wanted was to sleep for twenty hours, to wake up and say, "It was only a nightmare."

She took the turning into Paris and said, "I'm staying with you.”

“No, that's impossible. I've got something important to do."

"What?"

"Pick up my load."

"I'll come with you."

"No."

A knot tightened in her belly, more of pride than courage. "Where is it? Where are the drugs?"

"In Père-Lachaise cemetery"

Mathilde looked over at Anna. She seemed wizened but also harder, denser-a quartz crystal compressed amid layers of the truth…

"Why there?"

"I had twenty kilos. I had to find some safe storage."

"I don't see any connection with a cemetery."

Anna smiled to herself dreamily "A little white powder amid all the gray powder…"

A red light brought them to a halt. After the intersection, Rue de la Chapelle turned into Rue Marx-Dormoy. Mathilde said, louder, "What's the link with a cemetery?"

"It's green now. Place de la Chapelle, then turn toward Place de Stalingrad."

The city of the dead.

Broad. straight alleyways, lined with imposing trees that certainly looked the part. Huge mausoleums, raised monuments, dark, smooth tombs. In the moonlight, this part of the cemetery was decked with generous flower beds-a luxurious, opulent distribution of space.

A hint of Christmas floated in the air. Everything seemed crystallized, enveloped by the dome of night, like in those small globes that have to be shaken to make the snow scatter across the landscape.

They had attacked the fortress via the gate on Rue du Père-Lachaise, near Place Gambetta. Anna had guided Mathilde along the gutter that bordered the entrance, then between the iron spikes on the wall. The descent on the other side had been even easier-electric cables followed the course of the stones at this point. They were now going up Avenue des Combattants-Etrangers. Beneath the moon, the tombs and epitaphs stood out clearly. A bunker had been dedicated to Czechs who had died in World War I. A white monolith stood in memory of the Belgian troops. A colossal spike with multiple edges. like a Vasarely painting, paid homage to the dead Armenians…

When Mathilde spotted the large building, topped by two chimneys, at the end of the slope, she understood. A little white powder amid all the gray powder. The columbarium. With a strange cynicism. Anna the smuggler had hidden her stock of heroin among the funeral urns.

Against the night sky, the building looked like a cream-and-gold mosque, topped with a broad cupola, dominated by its chimneys like minarets. Four long edifices surrounded it, one at each of the four corners.

Once inside the surrounding wall, they crossed the neat gardens with their thick, square hedges. Farther on. Mathilde could see galleries full of racks and flowers. They made her think of marble pages, encrusted with colored writing and seals.

The place was deserted. Not a night watchman to be seen.

Anna reached the end of the park, where the stairs of a crypt plunged down beneath the shrubbery. At the bottom of the steps, the cast-iron gate was padlocked. For a few seconds, they looked for a way inside. As though providing inspiration, a fluttering of wings made them look up: some pigeons were shuffling around in front of the grating of a small window, at a height of six feet.

Anna stepped back to gauge the size of the niche. Then she braced her feet on the door's metal ornaments and clambered up. A few seconds later, Mathilde heard the scrape of the grating being pulled away, then the short slap of broken glass.

Without a second's thought, she followed.

When she reached the top, she slipped in through the gap. She had just reached the ground when Anna put on the light.

The sanctuary was huge. Its straight galleries, arranged around a square shaft, were dug out in granite, stretching away into the darkness. At regular intervals, lamps diffused a glimmer of light.

They went over to the balustrade of the shaft. Three further levels lay beneath them, multiplying their tunnels. The ceramic basin at the bottom of this gulf looked tiny. It was as if they were at the heart of a subterranean city, built around a sacred spring.

Anna took one of the staircases. Mathilde followed her. As they went down, the humming of a ventilation system could be heard. At each landing, the feeling of being in a temple, or a giant tomb, became ever more crushing.

On the second level, Anna took an alley to her right, punctuated with hundreds of compartments with black and white tiles. They walked on for some time. Mathilde observed the scene with curious detachment. Sometimes she noticed a detail among the openings. A bouquet of fresh flowers on the ground, enveloped in aluminum foil. An ornament or decoration standing out in a niche, such as the silk-screened face of a black woman, her frizzy hair spilling across the marble surface. The epitaph read: YOU WERE ALWAYS THERE. YOU WILL BE ALWAYS THERE. Or, farther on, a photograph of a child with gray rings under its eyes, stuck on a plain plaster plaque. Beneath it, someone had written in felt-tip pen: SHE IS NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPETH. SAINT MATTHEW.