Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

“I’ll even teach you,” René said, his smile widening. He looked around. “First we need an outlet so you can see how surge protectors work. I’ll show you in a moment.”

Aimée stuck the new cell phone René had given her on her waistband.

Something didn’t add up.

“I have a terrible feeling,” she said, explaining about her conversation with Philippe. “He denied nothing, just looked beaten.”

“So you think this is another blackmail route?” René asked.

“His daughter’s in there, René,” she said. “And his wife.”

“But how?” asked Gaston. “Haven’t the AFL claimed credit?”

“Mafoud and the AFL are grassroots, cranking out leaflets, organizing soup kitchens and child care for strikers,” she said. “Hostage seizure isn’t their style. Even though this Rachid claims it is.”

René clicked Save on his laptop and looked up. “Rachid could be a loose cannon. What if his baguette’s sliced a little thin and he decided to carry the cause further?”

“Sliced a little thin …?” Gaston winced.

She could see Gaston didn’t like the implication. She didn’t either.

“Quite possible, René,” she said. “But I’d say he’s smart and with some kind of explosives training.” She paused. “He’s got about two hundred police, including sharpshooters and the RAID squad, in a holding pattern, so his baguette can’t be sliced too thin.”

“You’ve got a point, Aimée,” Gaston said. He leaned against the zinc counter, wiping it with a wet rag. “Perhaps he trained in the army.”

Outside the café windows rain glistened on a grime-encrusted banner with BIERE FORMENT in block letters rustling in the wind. The Arab trio moved into another doorway to conduct business as a postman cycled by.

She nodded. “Do you remember last year when some young Moroccans with French passports, trained in Afghanistan, were sent first to fight in Bosnia, and then told by their bosses to ‘go to Morocco to kill a few tourists’ because this would destabilize Morocco?”

René and Gaston both nodded.

Aimée stared at the frayed photo wedged in the mirror frame and thought about all the things that didn’t add up. Or did they? Hadn’t Berge been dispatched to the site with authority to offer guarantees of residence status to the immigrants?

“Go on,” René said as they both watched her.

“Seems similar. Kind of the same off-the-wall rationale,” she said. “I think they’re hired hands.” She shrugged. “Just a feeling.”

René’s brows furrowed. “I trust your intuition, Aimée.”

“The Battle of Tlemcen attests to that,” Gaston said, reaching for tissue. Tears slid down his cheeks.

“What’s the matter, Gaston?” Aimée asked.

“A medical problem,” he said. “My tear ducts dilate and I spurt at the slightest occasion.” He winked. “Gets me an extra half kilo of melon at the market.”

“There’s another thing,” she said. “What if he’s not alone?”

“Of course he’s not alone,” René said. “Teachers, children—”

“He has to eat and defecate, right?” she said.

“He’ll make someone test his food,” Gaston said. “Pull one of them to the bathroom with him.”

“True, Gaston,” she said. “More important, he’ll get tired. Of course it depends on how long he holds them hostage—but he’ll have to sleep.”

“So what are you saying, Aimée?” René’asked.

“He’s got an accomplice,” she said. “And unless he’s on a suicide mission, he’s got an escape route.”

René nodded. “Let’s get to work.”

BERNARD BERGE stared at his bloody hands—the blood of little children on them. Why? he wondered. Bluebottle flies buzzed over dark red clumps on the marble stairs. Viscous and smeared, emitting the sweet stench of meat gone bad. Bernard gasped and turned away.

He saw the velvety gray ear stuck between the thick banister. Poor Loulou. But at least the blood belonged to a rabbit, not a child. He wiped his hands on the marble and climbed.

“Monsieur Rachid, the immigration releases are in my pocket,” he said, his voice cracking. “As soon as the children are released, the CRS will escort everyone to a processing site for residence papers, I promise you!”

Bernard’s steps echoed off the marble. No other sound reached him but the distant buzzing of the flies.

“Please, we’re meeting your requests, Rachid.” He kept speaking as he mounted the once grand staircase, now with traces of crayon and signs pointing “Silkworms to Butterflies group every Friday,” “Mademoiselle Mireille’s Gazelles in Motion on Tuesday mornings.”

Bernard paused on the landing. Where were the children? His arms ached from being raised; blood had trickled down his white sleeves, but he was afraid to let them down. The foyer led down a high-ceilinged hall, narrowing to another wing. He paused. Muffled noises came from behind a door labeled ART ROOM. Should he enter?

He hesitated before turning the cracked porcelain doorknob. All of a sudden he felt hands grab him from behind.

“Rachid,” he sputtered. “Talk to me.”

His shoulders were harnessed in strong arms, his eyes covered, and a loud tearing reached his ears. A sticky band was taped over his mouth. He heard guttural words in Arabic, glottal and harsh.

His last conscious thought was of an ethery smell as the damp cloth covered his face, reminding him of when he’d had his tonsils out.

Sometime later, he didn’t know how long, Bernard’s mind unwrinkled, as if each tissue papered layer of consciousness re-linquished its grasp with an effort. His eyes opened, and he became aware of silvery bubbles rising to the surface by his nose. He realized he was eye-to-eye with a gurgling fish tank, his back supported against a wall. He was breathing, but he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

Opposite him on the floor a masked figure in black, with sticks of dynamite ringing his girth, built Legos with a little girl wearing pink tights. The masked face looked up.

“Welcome to school, Monsieur Berge,” the man said, his black ski mask unmoving. “Merri for these releases. However, new issues have cropped up, and we’d like your help in fixing them.”

Bernard realized that his short breaths and gasps meant he was hyperventilating. “I can’t breathe!”

“Calmez-vous; we’d like to request a few concessions when you’re more tranquil,” Rachid said. He barked something in Arabic to another masked man clad in a black jumpsuit emerging from an alcove, a machine gun slung over his chest.

“We’ll release the three youngest children to show good faith, Monsieur Berge. But you must stay and help work on our demands.”

Bernard nodded. “I’m authorized—”

“Right now you’re authorized to listen,” Rachid interrupted.

OUTSIDE CAFÉ; Tlemcen the drizzle had grown into a downpour, wind whipping the leaves and twigs into a frenzy. They stuck in Aimée’s hair. She set down the radio antenna on the table and spread her wet coat over a clump of chairs. René’ and Gaston huddled over the architectural drawings of the école matemelle on the round café table.

“Aimée, good news. The icole matemelle has a computer,” René said. “Ready for the bad news?”

She groaned.

“The computer’s down,” René said.

Computers going down weren’t the end of the world; they both knew that.

“But that’s never stopped us before, René,” she said. “Just a little work and some time.”

“Time is something we don’t have,” he said, his voice lower.

She heard the shift in his voice and worried.