“Edmond,” he said. “Release our guest.”
“Boubilas?” asked Colonel Edmond Courtois, commandant of Mortier Caserne. “You’re joking. Let me work on him tonight. The lawyer won’t stay much longer. She was just saying she’d sleep here to piss you off.”
“Trust me, mon vieux. Release him. I guarantee you that tomorrow he will wish that he were still your guest.”
“It is all right?”
“Call Gadbois if you want.”
Courtois laughed gruffly. The mention of the spy chief’s name was enough. “Need any help?”
“Have Schmid and Guillo meet me here at midnight at the Casern.”
“Should they bring any kit?”
“Their hands will do.”
Leclerc slipped on his helmet, lowered the mirrored visor, and started the engine. The Ducati growled magnificently. Goosing the bike, he turned toward downtown and headed into the city. Traffic was already thinning, and he needed only a quarter of an hour to reach Sûréte headquarters on the Rue Lamartine.
“What do you mean, I can’t get into the bank?” Adam Chapel sat on the edge of Giles Bonnard’s desk, arms raised in exasperation. “It’s barely nine o’clock. Someone has to be there.”
“It’s not a question of time,” Bonnard explained. “Their computers are down for the night. The ISM manager told me their central database is backed up each evening between eight and three. During that time, no queries can be entered. He can interrupt the backup, but it will take him longer to reset the system than if you just waited it out.”
An hour ago, Chapel had called Leclerc, and he imagined Leclerc had called Gadbois, and Gadbois, the minister of defense, and so on up the line until someone had called the president of Bank Montparnasse and informed him that his bank had given comfort and solace to a known terrorist who the day before had killed three American law enforcement agents and a member of his own country’s espionage service. The bank president had thereupon pledged his immediate and total cooperation. The chain of command, precarious as it was in international investigations, had functioned perfectly. And now, all of it was being foiled by the very technology they were relying on to succeed.
“You’re to go to the bank’s admin center at six tomorrow morning,” Bonnard went on. “They’ve promised to have all of Mr. Daudin’s records waiting for you then.” When Chapel didn’t budge, Bonnard grew angry. “Christ, man, be happy with what you’ve got. You picked up an important lead, and God knows, it’s a miracle Montparnasse is cooperating with you. Adam, they are literally opening the doors for you. Three hours early, I might add!” He rolled back his chair and stood up. “Sarah, I’ll let you tell him that he looks like shit. Get some sleep, Adam.”
Bonnard stalked from the office.
Chapel shook his head at his colleague’s behavior. “We’re the ones who should be ticked off.”
“He did his best and you didn’t even say thanks.”
“Thanks? I’m supposed to say thanks? Oh, that’s right, I’m in Europe. Excuse me, I best mind my manners.”
Sarah ambled toward the door. “It’s not just a question of manners; it’s a question of class. Now come on, let’s get something to eat. I’m famished.” In the hallway, she looked over her shoulder. “You coming?”
Chapel hadn’t budged from his perch on Bonnard’s desk. “Yeah.”
Sarah raised a finger and shot him a cautionary glance. “This is Paris. Don’t say you want a hamburger or I’ll kill you.”
On the third floor of Sûreté headquarters, Leclerc ran straight into Franc Burckhardt, the beer-bellied Alsatian whose sworn duty was to misplace, falsely tag, or steal every valuable piece of evidence the police collected. He’d known Burckhardt for ten years, but he flashed his military identification all the same. It was procedure, and cunning pricks like Burckhardt thrived on it. “I need to see the items from the Cité Universitaire.”
“Already taken to the labs for analysis.”
“I know, but I heard they’d left behind the computer.”
“A wreck. A husk. Half of it is melted. Worthless.” Burckhardt spat out his words like pistachio shells, with a little spit, to boot.
The Sûreté had one set of computer technicians, the prefecture of police another, and the DGSE, a third. Each thought its own group the most competent. Leclerc thought they were all a bunch of amateurs. He had his own resources and knew just the man to have a look at the PC. He offered Burckhardt a cigarette, but Burckhardt turned it away, as if he couldn’t be bought by such cheap favors.
“Do you mind if I take it with me? The boys at the Caserne are drooling to have a go at it.”
“No problem,” said Burckhardt. “Give me a four-oh-three and it’s yours.” That was the official document number affixed to a transfer of evidence form.
“I’ll go you one better.” Leclerc handed Burckhardt a sheet issued by the chief of the Paris police calling for all members of the force to offer their complete and unremitting support to all those investigating the bombing at Cité Universitaire.
“Impressive.” Burckhardt picked at his teeth as he read. “Just missing one thing-a four-oh-three. Sorry, my friend. Nothing leaves without a paper.”
“Call Gadbois.”
“You call him. I’ll call Mr. Chirac, the President of the republic, and you still won’t be any closer to taking the computer out of here. Four-oh-three. That’s the magic number. I refuse to be busted in rank because a hotshot from the Action Service needs a favor. I’m sorry, Captain.”
Leclerc knew better than to be angry. The infighting and bureaucratic wrangling that went on inside the country’s varied law enforcement agencies was old news, but something no one discussed aloud. If the public ever learned about all the fraternal competition, they’d fire the lot of them-the cops, the detectives, the spies-all of them, and start over from scratch. There was, of course, the option of actually obtaining a 403. First he’d have to find a form, then have the chief investigative officer sign off on it, then have the form countersigned by the chief of police, whose office was across town, before bringing it back to Burckhardt no less than twenty-four hours from now. Leclerc had other ideas.
“Mind if I take a look at it, at least?”
“You?” Burckhardt seemed to find this amusing. Shrugging, he opened the mesh gate and walked into the bowels of the evidence locker.
What remained of Mohammed al-Taleel’s personal computer rested on a silver trolley cart. It was a Dell desktop. Besides being charred and warped, it looked like someone very strong and very angry had taken a sledgehammer and beaten the living shit out of it. Leclerc circled it, as if eyeing roadkill. The CD-ROM drive protruded from the casing like an impetuous teenager’s tongue. The housing was cracked, chunks missing helter-skelter, like one of the skulls the Leakeys had found at Olduvai Gorge. The motherboard was broken into a hundred pieces, much of it pulverized into a fine green dust. Maybe tech services had gotten it right for once.
“May I?” he asked Burckhardt, indicating he wanted to pick it up and look at it. The effort at politeness nearly killed him.
“Be my guest.” A buzzer rang, signaling the arrival of another client. Throwing his elbows around, Burckhardt saddled up his pants and offered an admonishing glance. “But leave it here, eh? I’ll be back to check.”
Leclerc nodded, suitably cowed. Finding a screwdriver, he opened the back of the computer, wrenched the casing off, and set it on the floor. The hard drive was destroyed, bent in two, chips of the silicon memory disk falling into his hand, skittering onto the floor. He dropped them into his pocket, then tried slipping the rectangular disk housing into his jacket, seeing if it was noticeable. Right side. Left side. Either way, the bulge was too noticeable.
Leclerc made a note of the serial number. Odds were the unit was stolen or secondhand. All the same, he would have someone in intelligence phone Dell Europe and get the sales info on the unit. Dell computers were purchased online or over the phone, credit card only, and he wanted to know just whose had done the trick. Setting down the computer, he left the evidence locker, waving Burckhardt a disgruntled good-bye.