Cara Black - Murder in Belleville

Aimée gasped, “Please God keep the children and Anaïs away from the windows! What happened?” she asked, turning to Sardou.

“Three minutes ago Rachid agreed to the demands,” Sardou said. “We recorded him dismantling the wires. Your plan was backup.”

“Then why shoot him?”

Aimée’s knuckles whitened as her fingers clutched the win-dowsill; she still braced herself for an explosion.

“We’d taken out the other one,” Sardou said. “RAID doesn’t like taking prisoners.”

Sixteen children with their teacher and a shaking Anaïs holding Simone were led out through the courtyard. Relief flooded Aimée until she remembered.

“What about Bernard Berge?”

Aimée’s answer came as three bodies were rolled out into the cobbled courtyard: one burly man in his underwear, and two men in black jumpsuits.

Three terrorists?

The tactics team stripped off the ski masks of the other two.

One was a bearded man, a small black hole over his cranial vault. Dead instantly, she figured. A surgical shot to the skull, which wouldn’t have affected his nervous system and prevented him from tripping the wire. Bernard was the other, in a stained jumpsuit. A dark red spot, like a third eye, dripped down his forehead. His features were relaxed, and he looked at peace. Aimée felt the oddest sensation, as if Bernard’s soul fluttered on wings above the cobbled courtyard and toward the weak sun.

“Nom de Dieu!” Sardou snorted, looking at Berge. “Berge will go from sinner to saint all in one day!”

“Berge was expendable, wasn’t he?” she said, angry. “Guittard always planned to shovel him in the dirt, one way or the other.”

Sardou’s eyes glazed. He turned and walked into the courtyard. As the stretcher lifted Bernard’s corpse, Aimée whispered a prayer. Poor Bernard had been terrorist fodder.

Outside, Guittard was holding a press conference, so jammed with media that she and René had to wait near the SAMU vans where tearful relieved parents were hugging their children. Mar-tine had arrived, joining Simone, and was helping Anaïs to a temporary first-aid station at the rear of a fire truck.

Disheveled, Anaïs sat on the truck’s fender, her wounds receiving attention.

“We were going to dismantle the system, Anaïs,” Aimée said. “We’d figured it out.”

“I knew you could, why didn’t you?” Anaïs said, her blond hair matted to her scratched and swollen face. “My suit’s mined.”

Aimée saw Kaseem Nwar. He stood smiling, rocking on his heels, as Philippe hugged Simone.

And then Aimée knew.

Everything fit together. Philippe had made a deal with the grinning devil. Seething inside, she stared at Kaseem Nwar, who bent down and patted Simone’s head.

“Philippe gave in to Kaseem,” Aimée said, turning to wide-eyed Martine and Anaïs. “He funded the mission, didn’t he?”

Anaïs shrugged, then winced with pain as a paramedic swabbed her face.

Aimée shook with fury. For the second time she’d been about to save Philippe’s family but he’d dealt with the devil. The smiling devil who sold out his own brother, Hamid.

“The DNS knew the terrorist defused the bomb,” she said. “But they killed them anyway, even Bernard.”

Anaïs bit her lip as the paramedic treated her.

“What do you mean?”

“Kaseem held you and your daughter hostage until Philippe caved in,” she said.

Anger flashed in Anaïs’s eyes. Then she softened as she looked at Simone and her husband. “I didn’t know it was Kaseem, Aimée. I’m sorry. I just wanted you to find out who was blackmailing Philippe.”

“Maybe you could have helped me more, Anaïs.”

Aimée strode over to Kaseem and Philippe. Philippe ignored her, holding Simone tightly.

“I owe you an Orangina, Simone,” she said, keeping her voice even.

Simone nodded, her eyes serious. “A big one.”

“Let’s take Maman home, Simone,” Philippe said.

He didn’t look Aimée in the eye.

Simone pulled her father’s hand.

“It’s not over, Philippe,” Aimée said, through her clenched teeth. “I’m seeing to that.”

But Philippe and Simone threaded their way past the emergency crew toward Anaïs. Philippe enveloped Anaïs in his arms. For a moment the de Froissarts huddled. Then Philippe led them to the debriefing area.

“Let things go, Mademoiselle Leduc,” Kaseem said.

“You risked little children,” she said. “Before that you tried to have me killed at the cirque. You sabotaged the AFL and your own brother Hamid’s cause!”

Kaseem shook his head. “No one believed in him anyway.”

Aimée felt pity for poor Hamid, starving himself for a cause to help immigrants. The irony being that Kaseem, his brother, supplied arms and assisted the massacres the immigrants had tried to avoid.

“The ‘ST196’photos—”

“Tell nothing,” Kaseem interrupted. “They’re just photos.”

Aimée shuddered. His cruel arrogance unnerved her.

“Piles of bodies in the desert,” he said. “So what. That’s been happening for years. Since the eighties. No one cares about Algerian infighting.”

“There’s a difference when surplus French weapons are responsible and French taxpayers foot the bill,” she said. “At least, the French might think so.”

Kaseem buttoned his wool coat; he snapped his fingers at a man leaning against a car. “The ministers turn a blind eye. So should you. You know, I enjoyed being with you. We could—”

“This whole thing was a hoax,” Aimée interrupted. “Sylvie discovered what ‘ST 196’ meant so you killed her, meanwhile Philippe cut the funding. Philippe hid Anaïs, so you used your brother Hamid. You engineered a hostage situation blaming the AFL. All this to pressure Philippe so he’d give in, fund the mission because his daughter was inside. Then Anaïs checked herself out of the clinic, a bonus for you. And no one would know. No one would put it together. But I did.”

“I’ll take that for a no to dinner.” Kaseem smiled and didn’t blink once. “Theorize all you want. You can’t prove it.”

Powerless, she wanted to nail him there on the spot. His patronizing smile got to her.

“You’re a wannabe general, aren’t you, playing with the big military boys,” she said. “As long as you supply the weapons, you get to play. Without toys from Philippe’s funding you’re just a maghour holding up the dusty wall!”

His eyes flashed.

She knew she’d hit home.

“Say what you like,” he said. “I’ve got what I want.”

And then he was gone.

The cobbles glistened below her, slick and gummy, as the panier á saktde, the van to carry out the dead, pulled up. Kaseem was right, and he made her sick. The bad guys had won. And she’d thought she could stop them.

As they loaded Bernard’s corpse onto the stretcher, she whispered a prayer.

There had to be some way to get Kaseem. Discredit him.

By the time Martine had joined her, she’d figured out a way.

“Kaseem’s not your favorite, I see,” Martine said. “What are you going to do about him?”

“Make him very uncomfortable,” she said. “With your help I can do some damage.”

“How?”

“Let’s go back to your office for a start,” Aimée said. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

“Not if this involves Anaïs,” Martine said.

“Don’t worry,” Aimée said, pulling out her laptop. “The big fish will get caught, hook, line, and sinker. Not only that, you’ll sell more papers with my insider report. I’ve got the negatives to prove it.”

“Point me to the newsroom,” Martine said, flipping open her cell phone. “I’ve got a firsthand hostage report to write.”