‘I see that Sara and I have been inconvenient for you.’
‘Inconvenient. Yes, a good word, but somewhat understated,’ he said, waving the hand clutching the blood-stained handkerchief. ‘Your discovery of the cave was a disaster for us, and maybe for mankind. Can you understand this? These plants are everywhere. Anyone with a saucepan can make the tea. Can you imagine what would happen if thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people started taking the Ruac tea? For the sake of your little sliver of prehistory study, you wouldn’t want to bring chaos to the world, would you? Millions of stoned, licentious, violent characters, creating havoc? It’s a scene from a horror movie, no? So we kept it contained within Ruac. Imagine if the genie were out of the bottle for ever. No, it’s up to us to protect the world from this.’ His voice rose. ‘Once we’ve found a safe way to exploit R-422, then France will own it, France will control it and France will do what is right for mankind.’
Luc went silent.
Gatinois stooped over the detonator and pulled the broken wire through Bonnet’s dead fingers. ‘They gave you the tea tonight?’ he asked Luc.
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve shown no signs of it. Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe we should study you too,’ Gatinois chuckled. He told one of his men to shine a torch on the detonator while he carefully inspected it.
‘What are you doing?’ Luc called at him.
Gatinois stood and rubbed the dirt off one of his knees. ‘It should work well. Bonnet had some men from the old days, good munitions men. If they said they could blow up the cliff, then they could blow up the cliff. We’ll see.’ He called one of his men forward by name. ‘Captain, get everyone back a few hundred metres and set off the charges.’
‘You can’t do that!’ Luc screamed. ‘This is the most important cave in the history of France! It’s a crime of immense proportions!’
‘I can do it,’ Gatinois said evenly. ‘And I will do it. We’ll blame it on Bonnet. By the time the sun rises we’ll have a credible story for everything that happened tonight. Bonnet, the dealer in stolen Nazi loot. Bonnet, the protector of Ruac’s war crimes. Bonnet, willing to murder to keep the archaeologists and tourists out of his hair. Bonnet, the hoarder of huge quantities of old unstable wartime picratol. It will be fantastic, but partially true and the truth makes for the best stories.’
Luc challenged him. ‘What about me? What about Sara? You think we’re going to go along with this?’
‘No, probably not, but it won’t matter, I’m sorry to tell you. But you knew that already, didn’t you? We’ve got to finish the job Bonnet started. That was always going to be the way this ended.’
Luc lunged forward, determined to try to smash the man with his fist. He wouldn’t let them do this to Sara. Or to him. Not without a fight.
A rifle butt struck his back. He felt a rib snap and he collapsed in agony, struggling to catch his breath. When he was able to speak again, he felt the edge of the manuscript through his shirt, the silver corners biting into his skin. ‘And what about the Ruac Abbey manuscript?’ he asked, wincing through the pain.
‘I wanted to ask about that,’ Gatinois said. ‘We looked for that in Pineau’s factory but never found it. What was it?’
‘Nothing important,’ Luc grimaced. ‘Only the entire history of the tea and its recipe, written by a monk in 1307. It makes for fascinating reading.’
Gatinois’s confident expression sloughed off his face. ‘Marolles! Why don’t we know about this?’
Marolles was tongue-tied. He wilted under Gatinois’s withering gaze. ‘I’m at a loss. We monitored, of course, all the communications between Pineau and Simard, between Mallory and Simard. Nothing. We saw nothing about this.’
Luc smiled through the lancinating pain. ‘The manuscript was in code. Hugo had it broken. If you’d been looking at his incoming emails you’d have seen that.’
There were sirens in the distance.
They all heard them.
‘I called the gendarmes,’ Luc said. ‘They’re coming. Colonel Toucas from Périgueux is coming. It’s over for you.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re wrong,’ Gatinois said with some strain in his voice. ‘Marolles will have a word with them. We’re on the same team as the gendarmes, but somewhat higher on the feeding chain. They’ll stand down.’
Pelay, who had been quiet for a time, began loudly moaning again, as if he’d lost, then regained consciousness.
‘My God!’ Gatinois said. ‘I can’t even think with this noise! Marolles, go and finish him. Maybe you can do that properly.’
As Luc propped himself onto his knees, he saw Marolles march over to Pelay, and without a second of hesitation fire a single round into his head. When the percussive sound of the shot faded, the circle was quiet again – except for the sirens in the distance.
‘You’re nothing but a murderer,’ Luc hissed at Gatinois.
‘Think what you like. I know I’m a patriot.’
Luc got himself upright and used the solidity of the hidden book to splint his chest by pressing it against his ribcage with his elbow. ‘I’m not going to debate you, you son of a bitch. I’m only going to tell you that you’re not going to kill Sara and you’re not going to kill me.’
‘And why not?’ Gatinois asked defensively as if sensing Luc’s confidence.
‘Because if something happens to me, the press will get a letter. Maybe it won’t have anything in it about you, but everything else is there. Ruac. The tea. The murders. And a copy of the Ruac manuscript with its translation.’
The sirens were getting closer, piercing the air.
‘Marolles,’ Gatinois ordered. ‘Go and deal with the gendarmes. Intercept them. Keep them well away from the village. Go, and don’t screw up.’ Gatinois slowly walked to Luc, close enough for either man to strike each other. He stared at him for a full fifteen seconds without uttering a word. ‘You know, I’ve read your profile, Professor. You’re an honest man and I can always tell when an honest man is lying. I believe you’re telling me the truth.’
‘I believe I am,’ Luc replied.
Gatinois shook his head and looked skyward. ‘Then I suggest we find a solution. One that works for me, works for you but most importantly, works for France. Are you willing to do a deal, Professor?’
Luc stared back into the man’s cold eyes.
Gatinois’s phone rang. He pulled it from his trouser pocket. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, on my authority, proceed.’ He pocketed the phone and addressed Luc again. ‘Just wait a moment, Professor.’
First there was a flash.
It was so bright it was as if day had come to night, a premature sunrise, blazing and incandescent.
Then came the sound. And the rumbling sensation.
The shock-wave travelled through the ground, rattled the gravel and for a second made everyone sway.
Gatinois said simply, ‘It’s always been a contingency. Now was the time to end it. Our work continues, but Ruac is gone.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
In the morning drizzle, the crater that had been Ruac village reminded Luc of pictures he’d seen of Lockerbie after the Pan Am crash.
There was no main street. There were no cottages, no café, only a vast black, rubble-strewn, car-filled chasm, weeping charcoal-coloured smoke. The firemen were spraying their hoses down onto flaming spots along the length of the trench but due to fears of instability, they weren’t permitted to get close enough to be effective. The fires would have to burn out on their own.