3.30 a.m.
There were four of them in the car, Attali driving. They stopped quietly in the driveway entrance, exactly opposite the Sobesky boutique. Parisot got out, opened the iron carriage entrance door. The car drove in and stopped at the back of the courtyard. Superintendent Raymond, who was in charge of the group, and Attali closed the carriage entrance door and hid behind it. At eye level there was a frieze of little openwork flowers cut in the metal. The ideal hiding-place, provided you didn’t move.
*
A strange place, between town and woods. To the right the last row of Parisian buildings, to the left the first trees of the Bois de Boulogne, planted in a straight line, unnatural trees. At the top floor of the block six big windows, brilliantly lit, some of them open. Music could be heard, almost continuous. Music unknown to Daquin, probably Iranian, and then jazz.
‘Keith Jarrett.’
‘What did you say, commissaire?’
‘It’s a Keith Jarrett record up there. Don’t you recognize the sound of the piano?’
The inspectors exchanged a glance.
Silhouettes near the Bois. Teenagers came soliciting the three men in the parked car. One of them, very thin, a mixture of provocation and anxiety. Daquin interested. Sol must have looked like that, in Istanbul. The two inspectors were uncomfortable.
‘Beat it, you silly lot.’
They watched the door to the building and the car-park exit. Daquin drank some coffee from the thermos flask he had brought. From time to time a couple, dark suit, long dress, came out, probably from Kashghuri’s place and walked away. In the avenue cars with solitary male drivers signalled by flashing their headlights, stopped, the men looked, waved, the cops sat motionless, the cars drove off again slowly. One inspector dozed off. Second coffee.
At 3.30 a girl in a long black dress, with a short white jacket, came out of the building. She looked right and left, then crossed the road. Daquin signalled to her. She came towards the police car and climbed in at the back, next to Daquin. Dorothée Marty, very pale beneath her helmet of black hair. The inspectors watched in the driving mirror.
‘Is he still up there?’
‘Yes, he waved to me from the door to the apartment a moment ago.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘He’s chatting, going from one person to another. He’s putting on the records.’
‘Is he smoking, drinking?’
‘No, he’s not doing very much.’ Hesitation. ‘He seems to be waiting. Waiting for you?’
4.13 a.m.
‘Bosphorus 2 to all Bosphorus groups: The two trucks have reached their destination. The unloading’s about to begin.’
4.30 a.m.
‘Bosphorus 1 to all Bosphorus groups: Warehouses under control. Dead calm.’
4.32 a.m.
Attali signalled to the Superintendent, they both went without a sound into the car-parked in the garage forecourt.
‘There’s an unexpected problem. I recognize most of the men who are unloading. They’re Turks whom we’ve got listed. So they won’t be at home when our men arrive at 6 o’clock. What should we do?’
5 a.m.
‘Bosphorus 1 to Bosphorus groups 6 to 32: Those who don’t find their targets soon should make contact with Bosphorus 2, and follow instructions.’
5.45 a.m.
Superintendent Nanteuil and Romero reached Boulevard Suchet outside Moreira’s home. Very modern luxury apartment block. Moreira lived on the ground floor in the rear building that looked onto the garden. Nanteuil and Romero paced up and down, waiting for the fateful hour of 6 a.m. A glance at the inspector who remained in the car, listening to the radio. Nothing to report. We’re going in.
House phone. Repeated ringing to wake up the caretaker.
‘Police. Open up. Quickly.’
The caretaker opened the door, looking terrified. The Superintendent showed his identity card. And they ran to the rear building. Ground floor left. Rang the bell. Nothing. Rang again.
‘What is it?’ said a sleepy woman’s voice.
‘Open up, madame. Police.’
A deathly silence behind the door. Romero listened, desperately tense. He heard the faint but distinct sound of a sliding glass door. Signed to the Superintendent: he’s getting away at the back.
‘Open up or I’ll shoot through the door.’
She opened the door. The cops pushed past her, ran through the apartment at the double, went through the sliding doors and raced across the garden. At the far end, a wall surmounted with a railing. Climbed over it. On the other side, in a deep cutting, a disused railway line. Recent traces of footprints over the slippery soil and to the right, the silhouette of Moreira, in a dressing-gown, running along the track in the darkness.
‘Is it him?’
‘Yes.’
They both slid down the bank. Hard landing.
‘Stop, police.’
Moreira went on running. In front of him, about fifty metres ahead, was a tunnel. The two cops rushed after him as fast as they could. Moreira kept ahead. The entrance to the tunnel came closer.
‘Stop or I’ll fire!’
A shot in the air. And then the Superintendent stopped, his knees bent, his arms stretched forward. Romero did the same. Three shots. Moreira collapsed, falling face down. Nanteuil and Romero, standing, sober now, revolvers in their hands, beside the body. Above the cutting, the silhouette of a woman, clutching the railing.
5.50 a.m.
It was still dark. The operation got under way. One inspector stayed by the radio, in the car. A small group watched the entrance to the car-park. Sixteen of them went into the building. Two inspectors entered through the back door, down a long corridor and out into the main courtyard. One never knows. Daquin remained by the elevator with two inspectors aged about forty, experienced in fighting, and the electronics expert who had already worked for him a fortnight earlier when he came to repair a convenient elevator breakdown. For more than an hour he carefully prepared new connections for the electrical circuits in the cabin, enabling it to go directly up to the fifth floor without the help of a key. All the other cops, about ten of them, went up the staircase, led by Lavorel.
Daquin and the two fighters exchanged a few words to pass the time and discovered that they all three of them played rugby. The walkie-talkie crackled.
‘We’re outside the door.’
‘OK.’
Daquin’s team blocked the entrance to the elevator. The expert got to work. He dismantled the cover protecting the electrical circuits. The conversation was still about rugby. One man was a forward, the other a half-back and Daquin a three-quarter. The expert made the connection and signalled to Daquin: OK. And came out of the elevator.
Walkie-talkie: ‘Ready down here, over to you up there.’
Lavorel rang the bell and knocked on the door.
‘Open up. Police.’
Hard to hear what was happening on the other side of the door, it was very thick. First a voice with a strong accent: ‘What do you want?’
‘Police. It’s a search. Open up.’
Walkie-talkie, quietly: ‘The elevator’s all yours.’
Daquin looked at his two helpers — go for it, scrum — and pressed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator began to go up. No door on the landing side. The two Iranians were probably armed. The tricky moment: the arrival of the elevator at Kashguri’s floor.
The group of inspectors outside the door went on ringing the bell, talking very loudly, knocking on the door more violently. They announced they were going to shoot through the lock. One of them took out a revolver …