Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

“If he’s wired with dynamite,” Bernard paused, “won’t the building explode if he’s shot?”

Sardou watched Guittard. So did Bernard.

“Not if you disconnect him, talk him out of his plan,” Guittard smiled grimly.

“Excuse me, minister, it’s not quite that simple,” said the bomb squad commander stepping from behind Sardou. “Berge must look for a dead-man switch. It’s something the man would hold all the time. So if he lets go, the circuit completes.”

Bernard’s eyes widened in fear. Sweat beaded his upper lip.

“However, a command detonation is different,” the commander continued. “Usually it’s a pair of wires with a handle, maybe a red button. Like a bike handle, with wires and dangling switch. Something he’d have to signal manually.”

Bernard knew he would die.

He hoped that his underwear was clean and that he’d updated his will. Most of all he hoped his mother would bury him in a Christian cemetery.

“Look on it as a typical ministry meeting,” Guittard said, slapping Bernard’s shoulder in bonhomie. “Like when you have to handle an upstart. It’s the same principle, Directeur Berge. Bonne chance!”

Minister Guittard whisked past the group and down to the waiting crowd of reporters eager for an update.

Monday Early Afternoon

AIMÉE LOOKED DOWN FROM the broad first-floor window, trying to figure out how to get into the school. Scurrying figures entered a mobile truck on the street. They emerged wearing jackets, carrying weapons.

She edged backward; none of Sardou’s men paid the slightest attention to her. But if anyone noticed, she’d say she was trying to find the bathroom. Behind her lay several wood-paneled doors, housing utility closets and garbage chutes. She gripped the brass handle in the door closest to her, pulled it open, and felt cool air. She prayed she’d gotten lucky. Once inside she saw a curving narrow staircase and sighed in relief. She had.

Going down the stairs, she figured Anaïs must have been trying to tell her something—but what?

She didn’t know how to get Simone and the children out—the area teemed with antiterrorist squads, trucks, and equipment.

Worried, all she knew was that Anaïs counted on her.

Again.

The paramilitary RAID was notorious for blazing its way in, fudging the body count later in hostage situations, only intent on neutralizing its target. Judging by Bernard’s appearance, the goose brought in by helicopter, that could make sense. Maybe Anaïs felt that Aimée was the only one who had a real chance. Or, knowing Aimée, would be crazy enough to try.

“Keep moving,” said a helmeted figure, motioning her toward the barricades blocking narrow rue Friedel.

The first step would be to access the building adjoining the ecole maternelle, get inside, and find a way from there into the school. She flashed the CRS badge, then sidestepped through the colonnade to a group of about ten hastily assembled CRS and flks. With any luck the plan she’d started hatching in her brain would trap the terrorist.

“Inform me on the latest—have demands been made in the hostage situation?” she said to a guard.

The guard hesitated, then jerked his head toward several figures bent over a police car’s hood. “Talk to LeMoine, chief of operations.”

Next to them stood the open van lined with black jumpsuits and flak jackets. Inside the van a stocky woman chewing gum ticked off items from her clipboard. She nodded when Aimée flashed her badge, then gestured toward the rack, “One size fits all, Captain. I suggest rolling up the cuffs and sleeves.”

Aimée lifted the light swat suit, which crinkled in her hands.

“Fabric seems flimsy, Lieutenant…?”

“Lieutenant Vedrine.” The policewoman winked. “Use the resistant liner.” She handed Aimée an aqua Goretex-type gunny-sack. “You might want to slip off that skirt and shimmy this on.”

“How long has the situation existed?” Aimée asked as she stepped into the outfit, snapped the Kevlar vest, and zipped the black jumpsuit.

“No one briefed you?” Lieutenant Vedrine’s gum popped constantly while she helped Aimée.

Aimée thought quickly.

“They paged me during my anniversary dinner with my husband.”

“C’est dommage! How many years?”

“Five, and it was the first time we’d had a babysitter in ages—give me the quick and dirty.” Aimée inspected the contents of various flaps and panels on the jumpsuit.

Lieutenant Veldrine helped Aimée into the flak jacket. “A disgruntled tearoom employee from the Mosque Paris went ballstique when his sans’papiers sister got bused to prison. He joined the AFL.” She shrugged, intelligence and humor behind her gaze. “Pretty routine operation. If you’re lucky, shouldn’t be long.”

Aimée covered her surprise. What about the children? But maybe everyone figured the units were biding their time until RAID marksmen got their shot. Aimée pointed toward the rack of locked low-light sensor rifles.

“Weapons authorization number?” Lieutenant Vedrine asked opening her weapons log.

Aimée racked her brains for Morbier’s number—what was it? Creature of habit that Morbier was, he usually picked his birth-date for such things, at least he had for his apartment digicode entrance and his office locker. She forgot if he was a year or two years older than her father.

“It’s 21433. Listen, I know one of the hostages.” Aimée took a deep breath. “We were in the lycée together. Her sister’s my closest friend.”

Lieutenant Vedrine paused, her mouth still.

“Who’s that?”

“Anaïs de Froissart, wife of the minister.”

“I’ll check that.” Lieutenant Vedrine bent and talked into her collar radio. “Confirm identity of hostage.”

The static from the radio competed with the sirens from another arriving bomb-squad truck. Blue flashing lights swept the streets.

Lieutenant Vedrine touched the headphone to her ear, straining to hear. Then she nodded to Aimée, chewing again in a deliberate fashion, looking impressed.

“From what command gathers, about twenty children and two teachers could be in either of three classrooms facing south,” she said. “Marksmen are positioned on rooftops lining the street.”

Aimée broke into a sweat. She had to find those children!

Lieutenant Vedrine activated the mobile radio linking Ai-mée’s unit to the others. She handed Aimée earphones and clipped a tiny microphone to her jumpsuit collar.

Aimée’s gut told her that this was her one shot in hell and she’d better take it.

If she didn’t find them, the body count would be higher and the bodies smaller. She joined the others quickly assembled on rue de PErmitage.

“We make a sweep of next door,” the sergeant said. “Make sure of total evacuation before sharpshooters lock these windows in their crosshairs, eh?”

Most nodded or murmured assent. As the group moved for-ward, Aimée sidled near a pillar and melted into the ranks. They entered the older building, an elder-care facility. Private and posh, by the looks of it, much more upscale than a maison de retreat retirement home.

Inside, members fanned out, and Aimée headed across an empty dining room; the tables were set with half-empty glasses of wine and plates of food were still warm. She entered the kitchen, which had stainless-steel counters, a jalousied grille scalloping the window.

Smoke and burning onions filled the stovetop area, making her cough. Copper pots simmered with soup stock on the blackened industrial stove, but the culprit was a large frying pan sizzling with rapidly deteriorating clumps of onion. Careful to avoid the searing-hot handle, she killed the fire, then lifted the frying pan with a towel into the sink of water. The hiss and smoke billowed, but she was already past the sous-chef’s butcher block littered with chopped vegetables and crushed garlic.