“Maybe an asset if Al Zakiri is our man,” Hugo said. “Which he isn’t.”
“Then who is?” Holmes colored. “Some random guy who magically appeared in the same cemetery as them? You have no fucking idea who killed my boy, do you?”
Taylor walked farther into the room, like a referee coming between two fighters. “Senator, I think that’s Hugo’s point. If we don’t know who did it, we might not want to start pointing fingers just yet.”
“And as I said to your precious chief of security, even if Al Zakiri didn’t do it, what the hell’s the harm in finding the son of a bitch? He’s a terrorist for fuck’s sake.”
A voice from the doorway. “Which is precisely why peckerheads like Marston shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near this operation.”
Three heads turned to see Tom leaning against the jamb, hands in pockets and large black circles under his eyes.
“What operation?” Ambassador Taylor asked.
Tom shrugged. “Fucked if I know. But if Al Zakiri’s in France you can bet your last French franc that several intelligence agencies know where he is, why he’s here, and what’s he’s doing while you’re all standing around here comparing dick sizes.”
Holmes took two steps toward him. “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
Hugo bit back a smile. “I’ll answer that, Senator. He’s a consulting analyst with the CIA who knows what he’s talking about, even if he doesn’t quite know how to say it politely.”
Holmes glared at Tom. “You’re telling me that my son wasn’t killed by Al Zakiri? That it was pure coincidence he died on foreign soil in the company of a woman who came to this country with a known terrorist?”
“No clue,” said Tom. “Missed my briefing this morning.” Hugo thought he saw a shadow of regret on his friend’s face. “Point is,” Tom continued, “we need more answers before we go around flinging poo like drunk monkeys.”
“What answers?” Holmes demanded.
“I’d like to hear more about the second break-in.”
“Me too,” said Ambassador Taylor. “Hugo?”
“I’d planned to meet with Capitaine Garcia this morning, still will if I can. I think they are connected, I’m just not sure how yet.”
“Jesus, people.” Holmes threw up his arms. “I don’t give a shit about a bag of old bones from that goddamn cemetery.”
“Maybe you should,” said Tom. “Because my pompous big friend is usually right. Whoever stole those bones also killed your son. And I know you care about that.” He slouched to an armchair, impervious to the senator’s furious gaze, collapsing into it and closing his eyes with a sigh of relief.
“I can do this press conference whether you like it or not,” Holmes snapped.
“Not here, you can’t,” Ambassador Taylor said. “Not in my embassy.”
“You would fight me on this?” Holmes said, incredulous.
“My interest is in maintaining good relations with our French cousins. Setting off a manhunt for the wrong man doesn’t further those goals. But,” he held up a finger, “I also don’t believe we need to harbor terrorists, or risk harboring them.” He turned to Hugo. “Get me something, Hugo. Twenty-four hours. Get me something solid in twenty-four hours or I’ll give the good senator here the backdrop of the US Embassy to make whatever announcement he pleases.”
The three men looked at Holmes.
“I’ll wait that long,” the senator said. “But not a moment longer.”
Garcia picked up the phone on the second ring and Hugo breathed a sigh of relief. This was no time to be playing phone tag.
“Sorry for the late call,” he said. “Emergency at the embassy.”
He filled Garcia in on Holmes’s plan and heard the air whistle through Garcia’s teeth.
“Merde,” the capitaine said. “You stopped the press conference?”
“The ambassador did. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we have twenty-four hours to show we’re getting somewhere.”
“Twenty-four hours?”
“Oui.”
“Bon. Then we have time for coffee. Café Panis is between us, do you know it?”
“I do.”
“Half an hour. See you there.” Garcia hung up without waiting for an answer.
Chapter Thirteen
Garcia sat back and looked at Hugo. “Maybe it’s not such a big deal. He’s a grieving father, so let him issue his press release, it’s just a piece of paper.”
“No, it’s not.” They were sitting under the awning of the café, watching the lines of camera-toting tourists stream toward the Cathedral of Notre Dame. “Look at all those people. You think they’ll want to visit your precious monuments if they know a terrorist is on the loose?”
“Ah, maybe not.”
“And even more importantly, it will shut down any investigation not related to Al Zakiri.”
“You think?”
Hugo gave a wry smile. “A terrorism investigation is as much politics as it is crime prevention. Here’s what will happen: someone will be put in charge of finding Al Zakiri and his little band of bomb-throwers. That person will be able to demand all the resources he wants, and believe me when I tell you that once he has them, he won’t let them go. We get another killing that looks even slightly related to Père Lachaise, it’ll be roped into the Al Zakiri hunt and fuel the terrorism paranoia.”
Garcia nodded. “And because you think Al Zakiri has nothing to do with this, the real killer gets away.”
“Right. And a killer who gets away with it has no reason to stop.”
“Attends, you think it’s a serial killer?” Garcia scoffed. “That seems like a stretch. To go from two random killings, maybe some bone snatching, to a serial killer?”
“That’s the point,” said Hugo, his voice hard. “We have no idea who he is or what his motives are. Should we just assume he’ll melt into the night never to harm anyone again?”
“No we should not. But it’s your twenty-four hours, what do you suggest?”
“Start by telling me where we stand.”
“D’accord.” Garcia ran a fingertip over his pencil-thin mustache, nodding as he organized his thoughts. “Like you, we were assuming that the person who killed those young people is the same person who broke into Jane Avril’s tomb. We found out this morning for sure.” He took out a photograph and showed it to Hugo. “This is a picture, what we found is being processed by our evidence people.”
“Is that a dung beetle?”
“Exactement. Known to Egyptians as a scarab beetle. One was found at each crime scene, small, green, and made of glass.”
Hugo stared at the picture, a smile creeping across his face. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Maybe, but we still have no idea how he got in or out. After the murder, we increased security at Père Lachaise. We thought about how best to do that and we decided that we couldn’t effectively police the inside of the cemetery. That place is more than a hundred acres in size, with seventy thousand monuments. We’d need hundreds of men to have enough eyes to be sure we had the place covered.”
“Hardly practical at short notice.”
“Especially in the summer. You may have noticed that we take our vacations right about now, police officers included. But in any event, not practical as you say.” Garcia held up a finger. “But, this is the twenty-first century and we are learning to make the most of its technology. We fixed the broken cameras and made sure we had at least one looking up and down every stretch of the cemetery’s wall. Not an inch was out of our view. We watched those walls in real time every moment and even played the tapes back after Tuesday night’s break-in, again in real-time speed.”