“That your mother’s a convicted terrorist, served time in prison until your father worked a deal?” he said. “Deported. Banned from France. The rest she did herself. She picked the wrong horse. Had to ride it.”
Little details, pieces fit together. “What if she’s playing both sides?”
Morbier averted his eyes.
“Maybe she had to. And won’t anymore.”
“If I tell you, will you leave it alone?”
He expected a promise? But she nodded.
“She’s gone rogue.”
Aimée had expected anything but that. “Rogue?” Was he lying? “That’s what she meant in the letter?”
“She doesn’t want you in danger. Or under pressure to reveal—”
“You think I’d turn in my own mother?”
“Politicos, drug lords, arms dealers, old terrorists. Her speciality. Let’s call it her area of expertise, Aimée.”
“Why can’t she tell me in person?” He glanced at his cell phone.
“She’s going to call?”
“Alors, Leduc, you wouldn’t believe it, like another letter from your brother. Typical Company tactic.”
“My brother … the Company, the CIA? That’s all made up?” Morbier checked his phone again. Took her hand. “Listen, it’s important. She wants you free, not making the mistake she did. A mistake she’s had to live with. The only other choice was to compromise you. And she cared too much to do that.”
Aimée’s hand trembled on the wineglass. Was that the real reason? “But you’re using the past tense, Morbier. You’re talking like she’s dead.”
He glanced at his watch. “She was supposed to call ten minutes ago. Confirm. Speak with you.”
“You mean …?”
He shrugged. Looked away. Then leaned forward, intent.
“Don’t believe the DST, DGSE, or Interpol,” he said, his voice urgent. “Just asses with tails between their legs. When you go rogue, no one’s in your corner.”
The chandelier’s crystals reflected the candlelight, the hushed service. The hypocrisy of the three-star clientele. “Doesn’t the smell of what human beings do to each other get in your nostrils, Morbier? Doesn’t it bother you?”
His shoulders sagged. For a moment he looked like the old man he was. “In my business, I never get rid of it.”
He took her hand. Held it tight. “You have to watch your back. She disowned you so they couldn’t use you to get to her.”
A tidal wave hit her, all the old hurt surfaced. She didn’t know which way was up.
A patsy. Desperate, she’d fallen for it.
“But they did, Morbier,” she said. “I took their bait.”
“Spit it out, Leduc.” Morbier shook his head. “Or do you want to be under surveillance all your life?”
No way in hell that would happen.
She grabbed Morbier’s phone. Scrolled down the last calls received. A UK country code. “She called you, didn’t she?”
The couple at the next table stared.
She punched the call return. And waited the longest minute of her life: the ringing, the slow motion of Morbier’s pained expression, the clink of cutlery, more ringing, the long-ago image of her mother’s face floating in front of her.
Ringing, ringing. A click. Her heart leapt.
“Maman?” she breathed.
“The number you’ve reached is no longer in directory service,” a clipped British accent informed her. “Please check the—”
She put the phone down.
“They got her, Leduc,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Who’s they?” She stifled a sob.
He turned away. “Does it matter?”
She flung her plate at him. Stood. At the couple’s table, she emptied the bottle of Vouvray over their laps, drenching their high-end satellite phones. Out of commission. For a little while.
She ran past waiters with plates of food who scattered in her path, meeting the maître d’, who blocked her exit at the door. “Mademoiselle, please sit down, restez tranquille …”
A hard kick to the shin sent him reeling into an arrangement of white roses. She was out the door, running under the vaulted arcade. Her heels clicking, tears streaming down her face, freezing on her cheeks.
It all reeled in front of her. Her mother, the DST, Samour’s murder, Meizi, the attack that almost killed her last night, the alchemical formula, the secret to the fiber optics. She grabbed the freezing stone arcade, racked by sobs. Shaking, trying to draw strength from the ancient stone. She forced herself to take deep breaths of slicing cold. Again and again, until determination surfaced. Her mind cleared in the crystal night. Now, she knew what she had to do.
“STORM PREDICTED, ma chère,” the homeless man said.
Thunder shook the sky. Strains of the weather channel came from the vent under his mound near the sleeping bag. Her shoulders shook. “Too bad I don’t have my raincoat,” she said, scanning the area around the Carreau du Temple.
“Have a dinner date?” His gaze ran over her outfit.
“Past tense. I didn’t care for the company.” She pushed down her emotions. An entwined couple stood in front of Café Rouge by the rue de Picardie door to the courtyard of the tower.
“Fifty francs for you if you keep an eye on them,” she said. “Another fifty if you go along with me when I get back.”
“But ma chère, I have a new radio,” he said.
“Then something for your daughter, eh?”
He grinned.
She pulled her copper-colored coat tighter, kept to the shadows. Within five minutes she had entered the courtyard and unlocked the door of Samour’s tower room.
Saj sat on the floor surrounded by burning candles and several laptop screens.
“Meizi’s dead, Saj,” she said, her voice cracking. If only she’d protected Meizi. Hadn’t failed René.
“Mon Dieu. That’s terrible.” He shook his head. “How’s René?”
“He won’t leave the hospital.”
Another shake of his head. “We have to let him grieve in his own way, Aimée,” Saj said. “You know we’re missing a piece, don’t you?” Saj hadn’t looked up from the screens, his eyes darting from one to another. “That’s what I’ve been trying to find.”
“Whatever Meizi had, it’s gone.”
He nodded. Took a deep breath. “Samour left a trail of crumbs.”
“You think so?”
Saj sat up. “Wouldn’t a brilliant mind with his skill set back up the steps of his fiber-optic process? His notes, his formulas? He’d store it away like a squirrel.”
Made sense. “But on Friday he was desperate, he tried to contact Coulade—”
“Coulade’s hard drive’s a wash,” Saj interrupted. “Nothing.”
Her mind went back to Coulade’s words in his office. “Samour left his last message for Coulade at five P.M.,” she said. “At seven P.M. Samour passed Chez Chun on his way to meet his killer.”
“Et alors?”
“What did he do in those two hours?”
Saj hit a few keys on Samour’s keyboard. “His laptop shows no activity,” he said, “so he didn’t come here.”
“Pull up the diagram copy René made.”
Saj stared, his eyes widening. “That’s it.” More key clicks and it popped up on the screen. “See? We need to think in two directions, not just the one.
“What?” Aimée said, frustrated. “I still don’t get it.”
“This tower, his flat, and extend the line.”
She took a deep breath so she wouldn’t shout. “What do you mean?”
“Pascal followed the diagram—that’s his message. Followed it to the other end of this line. That’s where the rest of the manuscript lies. And it looks to me like …” Saj superimposed a clear street map over the diagram and traced his finger. “Here.”