Louis ignored him and said, “Tell us what you know about-”
“I said enough!” Grande roared just before the door flew open, and Investigateur Hoskins and Juge Fromme stormed in.
The crippled magistrate pointed his cane at Farad and said, “Take that man back to his cell. Now. And put these two under arrest for obstruction.”
“Obstruction?” I said, getting to my feet. “We’re part of his defense team. We have the right to-”
“What do you know of rights in France?” Fromme thundered. “You, Monsieur Morgan, have no rights here. And I’m going to make sure you’re deported in the morning.”
“You let them in here?” Hoskins asked Grande.
“They said they were working on another case,” the captain sputtered. “Nothing to do with AB-16.”
I expected Louis to jump in, but then I glanced back and saw him talking fast and low to Farad, and I knew I had to stall.
“That is one hundred percent true,” I said. “It’s a missing persons case involving the granddaughter of one of my oldest clients back in California.”
Completely unconvinced, Fromme said, “Her name?”
“Kim Kopchinski,” Louis said, standing up from the table with a nod to Farad. “She’s a U.S. citizen, and we believe she is being held by someone involved in a murder here in Paris a few days ago-someone who is also of great interest to the judicial police in the south of France. Isn’t that right, Ali?”
Farad nodded. “You can call my former partner, Christoph Le Clerc, if you don’t believe me. He’s been working to put this guy away for years. It would be a great coup if he were taken down.”
The magistrate looked as though he wanted to break his cane over his knee, but then said, “Out with it. Everything.”
It took us about fifteen minutes to explain to the judge about Kopchinski, the lighter, the memory stick, and the connection to Marseille. When we were done, you could tell he didn’t like it, but he said, “You have this memory stick?”
“We have the data on it,” Louis said.
“We just want to make sure Ms. Kopchinski is returned safe and sound to her grandfather,” I said. “That’s all this discussion was about.”
The magistrate glanced at Hoskins, who shrugged.
“Fine,” Fromme said. “You are not under arrest. But you are leaving, right now, and Monsieur Farad is going back to his cell.”
“Keep the faith,” I said to Farad as officers led him out. “Private Paris is behind you one hundred percent.”
“This is a miscarriage of justice,” Louis told Fromme and Hoskins after Farad had gone. “There is nothing concrete that I know of that links Farad or the imam or Firmus Massi to the AB-16 murders.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Louis,” Hoskins said sadly. “We do have such evidence.”
Fromme nodded grimly. “When we searched the mosque we found crucifixes taken from Henri Richard, René Pincus, and Lourdes Latrelle.”
I said, “How can you be sure that-”
“They’ve all been positively identified by next of kin, Monsieur Morgan,” Hoskins said firmly. “There is also preliminary DNA evidence that puts the imam and Firmus Massi at the scene of Guy LaFont’s murder last night, and other DNA material that puts your employee, Monsieur Farad, inside the restaurant the night Chef Pincus was murdered.”
Chapter 70
Montfermeil, eastern suburbs of Paris
10 p.m.
MONITORING A PARIS news station and the police scanner, Émile Sauvage remained in disguise and waited patiently in the dark apartment, looking out the window and monitoring the street and sidewalks around Les Bosquets.
In the past two hours, the bands of immigrant youth roaming the area had been getting larger and angrier. The stolen van was brought out and lit on fire in the middle of the boulevard. When police arrived, rocks and bottles had flown in their direction.
That had prompted the cops to retreat two blocks from the housing project and call for reinforcements. Satellite news trucks were already on the scene, and the major was pleased when several rioters responded by spray-painting a crude version of the AB-16 symbol on the road near the burning van.
Based on radio reports and the scanner, in response to the arrests and riots in Barbès, similar mobs were forming and causing destruction in other Parisian suburbs with large immigrant populations. Surprisingly, there had been no reports of shots fired.
That’s about to change, the major thought coldly as the scanner lit up with word of riot police heading toward the housing project.
Sauvage got out a pocketknife and cut the strings that bound the rug. Grasping the fringe, he unrolled the cheap Oriental slowly, until he saw the edge of a five-by-seven-foot silver fire blanket wrapped inside.
He kept on unrolling the rug until he’d freed the fire blanket and a loaded Swedish-made AT4 shoulder-mount rocket grenade launcher.
“Alert,” Epée said into his earbud’s microphone.
“Confirmed,” Mfune said.
“Confirmed,” Sauvage said, and picked up the fire blanket, which he draped over his head and about his shoulders like a hooded robe.
At sixty inches long and eighty-four inches wide, the blanket more than covered him from the back when he took a knee so he could see further down the boulevard.
Two white Mercedes-Benz Unimog police trucks pulled behind the patrol cars. The Unimogs were equipped with antiriot gear, including water cannons and a front blade used as a battering ram. Riot police poured out the backs of the trucks. Wearing helmets, visors, body armor, and carrying Plexiglas shields, they quickly assembled in a tight line that spanned the boulevard.
An officer used a bullhorn to tell the rioters to disperse and return to their homes or face arrest. That only seemed to incense the mob. Molotov cocktails spun through the air, burst, and burned on the street.
Sauvage smiled when some in the crowd of immigrant youth began to chant, “AB-16! AB-16!”
On a shouted order, the riot police raised their shields and began to advance down the boulevard. The major waited until they were half a block closer before he pushed up the window and reached for the rocket launcher.
The AT4 was green, forty inches long, and fourteen pounds when loaded. A single-shot, recoilless weapon, it featured a hollow fiberglass barrel that was open at both ends. Sauvage pulled out a cotter pin, which unblocked the firing rod. Then he pushed the cocking mechanism up and over the barrel, locking it on safe with a red lever.
The major put silicone plugs in his ears before shouldering the weapon and settling in behind the simple iron sights, gloved left hand resting on the red safety lever, and gloved right thumb on the button trigger. Watching the police march steadily forward, he noted that the antiriot trucks were trailing them closely.
Thud. Thud.
Canisters of tear gas flew from behind the shields and burst in the street.
“On my mark,” he muttered into the mic.
When he was positive that the police and armored trucks were well within the launcher’s three-hundred-yard effective range, he whispered, “Now.”
Mfune cut all power to the apartment building.
Shouts and curses echoed out the windows of the housing project. Sauvage released the rocket launcher’s safety lever, swung the sights over the heads of the advancing police, and steadied his aim.
He punched the trigger.
There was an initial thumping sound like a bass drum being struck. The rocket blew a plume of intense pressure and fire out the rear of the launcher. The flames and blast waves bounced off the apartment walls and pummeled the blanket and Sauvage from behind like a crashing wave of fire.
Despite the heat and force of the backblast, the major never lost sight of the contrail of the 86-millimeter rocket, the warhead of which contained 440 grams of Octol, a substance so volatile that it’s also called HEAT, for high-explosive anti-tank.