Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

At last, Anna went in for the kill. With all her weight, she leapt on him. They rolled onto the ground. The spike stuck into his right cheek. Anna kept up the pressure, literally slicing apart the flesh and exposing the gums.

Mathilde eased herself up the stairs on her back, pressing on her elbows. She was yelling, without managing to take her eyes off that savage combat.

Anna at last dropped her weapon and stood up. The man, gesticulating in a heap of ashes, was trying to pull the glass out of one of his eyes. Anna picked up the gun and pushed his hands aside. She grabbed the shard, twisting it around and pulling it out of the socket, with the red eye stuck on it. Mathilde tried again to look away but failed. Anna rammed the barrel into the gaping hole and pulled the trigger.

Silence again.

The acrid smell of ash again.

The overturned urns, with their sculpted lids.

The colors of the scattered plastic flowers.

The body slumped down a few inches from Mathilde, spraying her with blood, brains and pieces of bone. One of its arms was touching her thigh, but she did not have the strength to push it away. The beating of her heart was so feeble that each interval seemed to her to be the final one.

"We've got to go. The watchmen will be here soon."

Mathilde raised her eyes. What she saw tore into her heart.

Anna's face had turned to stone. The dust of the dead had gathered in the hollows of her features, changing them into cracked furrows, wrinkled gulches. In contrast, her eyes were bloodshot and raw.

Mathilde thought of the eye stuck on the point of glass. She wanted to vomit.

Anna was holding a sports bag, which she had presumably removed from the niche.

"The heroin's lucked," she said, "so let's not waste any more time here.”

“Who are you? For heaven's sake, who are you?"

Anna put the bag down and opened it. "He wouldn't have pulled any punches either, believe me."

She picked up the wads of dollars and euros, counted them rapidly, then put them back in the bag. "He was my contact in Paris. The person who was supposed to take care of the heroin in Europe. To handle the distribution networks."

Mathilde looked down at the corpse. She saw a brownish grimace, from which a single eye was staring up at the ceiling. As an epitaph, she wanted his name. "What was his name?"

"Jean-Louis Schiffer. He was a cop."

"Your contact was a cop?"

Anna did not reply. From the bottom of the bag, she produced a passport and flicked over its pages quickly.

Mathilde returned to the body. "You were, partners?"

"He'd never seen me, but I knew his face. We had a sign of recognition. A brooch shaped like a poppy. And also a kind of password: four moons.”

“What does that mean?"

"Forget it."

Kneeling on the ground, Anna continued her search. She came across several magazines for an automatic pistol. Mathilde observed her in disbelief Her face looked like a mask of dry mud, a ritualistic figure, frozen in the earth. There was nothing human left about Anna.

"What are you going to do now?" Mathilde asked.

The woman stood up and removed a handgun from her belt-no doubt the automatic she had found in the niche. She released the spring in the handle, removing the empty clip. Her confident gestures revealed reflexes born of training.

"Leave. There's nothing for me now in Paris."

"Where to?"

She slipped a fresh magazine into the gun. " Turkey "

" Turkey? But why? If you go there, they'll find you."

"Wherever I go, they'll find me. I have to cut out the source.”

“The source?"

"The source of this hatred. The origin of this vengeance. I have to go back to Istanbul. Take them by surprise. They won't be expecting me there.”

“Who do you mean by 'they'?"

"The Grey Wolves. Sooner or later, they'll discover my new face.”

“So what? There are thousands of places you could hide."

"No. When they find out what I now look like, they'll know where to find me."

"Why?"

"Because their leader has seen me, in a completely different context.”

“I don't get it."

"I repeat: forget it! They'll chase me till they find me and kill me. For them, this is no normal contract. It's a question of honor. I betrayed them. I broke my oath."

"What oath? What are you talking about?"

Anna slipped down the safety catch and put the gun behind her back. "I'm one of them. I am a Wolf"

Mathilde's breathing stopped; her blood seemed to slow.

Anna knelt down and took her by her shoulders. Her face was now colorless, but when she spoke, her pink, almost fluorescent tongue could be seen between her lips. A mouth of raw meat. "You're alive, and that's a miracle," she said gently. "When it's all over, I'll write to you. I'll give you the names, the circumstances, everything. I want you to know the truth, but later-when I'm ready to put an end to this story, and when you're in safety"

Haggard, Mathilde did not answer. For a few hours-an eternity-she had protected this woman as though she were her own flesh and blood. She had made her into a daughter, her baby.

And in fact, she was a killer. A being of violence and cruelty.

An unbearable sensation started up deep inside her. A shifting of slime in a decaying pond. The ghastly dampness of her open, slack entrails.

At that moment, the idea of being pregnant took her breath away. Yes, that night she had given birth to a monster.

Grabbing the sports bag, Anna stood up. "I'll write to you. I promise. I'll explain everything." She vanished into a screen of ash.

Mathilde remained still, staring into the empty gallery. In the distance, the sirens of the cemetery were blaring.

"It's Paul."

A breath at the other end of the line. Then: "Do you know what time it is?"

He looked at his watch. Only just 6:00 AM. "Sony. I haven't slept." The breath changed into a weary sigh. "What do you want?"

"I just want to know if Céline got her candy."

Reyna's voice hardened. "You're sick."

"Did she get them-yes or no?"

And that's why you're calling me at six in the morning?"

Paul banged on the window of the phone booth. The battery of his cell phone was dead again. "Just tell me if she was pleased. I haven't seen her for ten days!"

"What really made her pleased were the men in uniforms who brought them over. She talked about that all day. For fuck's sake. All that ideological effort-to end up with pigs as babysitters.."

Paul pictured his daughter looking admiringly at the silver buttons, her eyes glistening at the candy the patrolmen had given her. It warmed his heart. Suddenly, with a cheerful tone, he promised. "I'll call back in a couple of hours. Before she leaves for school."

Without a word, Reyna hung up.

He left the booth and took a deep breath of night air. He was on Place du Trocadéro, between the Musée de l'Homme, the Musèe de la Marine and the Théatre National de Chaillot. It was drizzling on the central square, which was surrounded by fences and was clearly being renovated. He followed the planks, which formed a corridor and crossed the esplanade. The drizzle was creating a greasy film on his face. It was far too warm for the season, making him sweat in his parka. This humid weather matched his mood. He felt dirty, worn out, empty. There was a taste of papier-maché in his mouth.

Since Schiffer's phone call, at 11:00 PM, he had been following up the plastic-surgery lead. After digesting this new twist in his investigation-a woman with a new face, being chased by both Charlier's men and the Grey Wolves-he went to the headquarters of the French Medical Association on Avenue de Friedland, in the eighth arrondissement, in search of doctors who might have had some dealings with justice. As Schiffer had put it, having your face completely redone is never innocent. So he had to find a surgeon with no scruples. His initial idea was to look for those who had police records.