Aimée’s eyes widened as she saw a cross reference to Kaseem Nwar. That seemed odd.
Further on, records indicated that El Hechiri had been married to Kaseem Nwar from 1968 to 1979. Aimée peered closer, then scrolled back. Sidi’s records showed he’d been married to El Hechiri during 1968-1979, the same years.
Aimée sat back and whistled. He’d changed his name, and the computer hadn’t caught it—just cross-referenced it.
She remembered him appearing in the café, telling her how he’d brought food to the sans-papiers—why hadn’t he just said, “I saw my brother.”
Come to think of it, why hadn’t he admitted he sent Sylvie millions of francs and Lake Biwa pearls? But then she hadn’t asked him, either.
She scanned the Algerian project list, running her fingers over the names, ticking them off until she found a name that struck her.
Taking the list to her wall map of Algeria, she followed the course of the Atlas Mountains and pinpointed the area south of Oran. Once a rebel fellagha stronghold against the French, the area had then become a munitions-dump wasteland, now declared off limits by the military.
Staggered, she sat down. It was hard for her to believe what she’d discovered.
She knew what she had to do.
Her charged phone signaled several voice mail messages. She tried not to hope, wondering if Yves had left her a message. But when she listened, all three were from the same person.
“Aimée,” Samia’s voice, high, shallow-breathing. “Pick up!”
Again the same message. Samia’s voice rising, sounding frantic.
The last message just a phone number, mumbled quickly. Samia. Very frightened.
Aimée listened to the number several times to make sure she’d written it correctly. Had Samia come through with the explosives connection? And should she believe her? The last time she had, Aimée had been shot.
Aimée hit the call-back function. A woman answered, saying this was a pay phone in rue des Amandiers, but if Aimée would like to buy Ecstasy she’d give her a good price.
She hung up and dialed the number Samia had left.
“Oui,” a voice answered after six rings.
“Samia gave me this number,” she said, keeping it vague.
A pause. “Who is this?”
“Aimée. Is Samia there?”
Another long pause. “I expected her by now.”
“I’d like to come over.”
“Call back.”
The phone went dead.
No one answered on her next three tries.
Had Samia given her the number to the explosives? She recognized the phone number. In her bag she checked the folder—“Youssef’ was written above the matching phone number. Her heart raced. And she remembered Denet’s words. On her minitel she searched under EuroPhoto. She found the same number with an address for a lab on rue de Menilmontant. So now she knew that they connected.
She redialed the number. The same voice answered.
“Please don’t hang up, listen to me,” she said. “I think you have something I want to see.”
“Who are you?” the voice said.
“I found your name in the ‘ST 196’folder,” she said. “Did you take the photos?”
The phone slammed down.
She stuck the Beretta in her waistband, pulled on her gloves and long wool scarf.
In the hallway she climbed down the back fire escape and made her way to the Métro.
EURO PHOTO’S GRIMY lab entrance stood in the rear of a courtyard filled with trucks and vans.
Inside Aimée leaned on the Formica counter. She smelled the acidic photographic chemicals and heard the chomp of print machines. On the office walls hung huge photos of white marble mosques and shots of sugar-sand beaches with sapphire slivers of the Mediterranean.
Through an open grime-stained window, Aimée noticed a company van pulling into the courtyard.
“Dropping an order off?” asked a smiling dark-eyed young woman, her head covered by a scarf. From behind the counter she passed an order form toward Aimée.
Aimée returned her smile.
“Actually I need to talk with Youssef about some processing,” she said. “Does he have a moment?”
She backed up, shaking her head. “There’s no Youssef here.”
“But I talked with someone—”
“Orders come in all the time,” the woman said, turning away. “You must have misunderstood.”
This woman was scared, Aimée thought, hiding something.
“Yes, of course, you’re right,” she said, thinking fast, “I’m terrible with names. A man helped me, he seemed about my age. He limped.”
Loud buzzing erupted from the back of the lab. Lights blinked green. “You’re in the wrong lab, I think,” the woman said, gesturing toward the rear. “Try the one on rue de Belleville.”
The woman headed quickly toward the back.
“But please, can’t you—”
“Excuse me,” the woman said, her mouth tight and compressed. “I’ve got a production schedule to meet.”
By the time Aimée made her way toward the back near the van, she’d come up with a plan. She jiggled the van door open, grabbed some large boxes of photographic papers, then entered the back.
Loud arguing in Arabic reached her ears. The scarf-clad woman stood by another stocky woman, pointing toward the front counter. In front of Aimée a massive printing machine spat out large-format posters, shooting them onto a spinning wheel. Aimée knew she had to move quickly. The women would throw her out before she found Youssef.
Men filled cartons as the posters came off the wheel. None of them sported spiky hair like Denet had described, so she kept going. Mounting the spiral staircase in back, leading to more of the lab, she discovered a warren of cluttered offices.
“Youssefs supposed to check this order,” she mumbled to an older man busy working an ancient adding machine.
“Let me see,” he said, pushing his glasses up his forehead.
Aimée leaned the carton on the edge of his desk, making a show of how heavy it was.
The man’s phone rang; he picked it up and immediately began punching the adding machine.
“Sorry, but I’ve got more deliveries,” she said, tapping her nails on the box.
He looked up, then motioned Aimée toward a long hallway.
“Down there. I don’t recognize the order,” he said. “Check with me on your way out.”
Aimée shot ahead before he changed his mind. She figured that this nineteenth-century building joined apartments in the back. Below her the floor vibrated from the machines.
After checking four dusty offices in the next wing, she saw a figure hunched over a photo layout, marking shots with red pen.
“Youssef?” she asked, setting down the cartons.
A young short-haired woman in her mid-twenties looked up, her eyes unsure.
“I’m Youssefa,” she said. “What do you need?”
Now it made sense. No wonder the women downstairs had told her there was no Youssef here.
Denet had mistakenly taken Youssefa for a man in Eugénie’s courtyard. Youssefa looked young, Aimée thought. Her dark skin stood out against her chalk white hair. Half-moon scars crossed from her temple to her left eye.
“Where’s Samia?”
“She left,” Youssefa said, her look guarded. “Who are you?”
“Her friend.”
Youssefa’s eyes flicked over her outfit. “You don’t seem her type,” she said.
“Samia left a message. She sounded frightened,” Aimée said.
Youseffa shrugged.
“Can you tell me about the ‘ST196’photos?”
Youssefa’s brown face passed from curiosity to terror in seconds. She dropped the pen, backed into a chair.