“You have my word, stud. Didn’t we behave well in your absence? Did you receive any complaints about us?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Can we bring Leila?” Matilde asked.
“No. I want Diana and Sándor’s attention to be on you without any distractions. We’ll take Leila to my mother’s party, if that would make you happy.”
“Yes, that would make me very happy.”
“Everything makes you happy,” Juana teased her.
Mike, Tony, Alamán and Peter were waiting for him at the George V offices, anxious to share their news. Over lunch in the conference room, the ambush in Beirut was the main topic of conversation.
“As soon as Peter told us about what happened at the Summerland, we put the five who took part in drawing up the plan under surveillance.”
“What happened with Masséna?”
“We did as you told us. We called Zoya and explained our plan. She booked a trip to the Caribbean and invited Masséna. He asked for two weeks of vacation. He left on Wednesday.”
“Who did you assign to trail him?”
“Derek Byrne,” Ramsay informed him. “We worked together in The Firm. He was in the Belfast unit. He’s one of my most capable men.”
“Did you tell him to ensure Zoya’s safety?” Al-Saud worried. “Masséna could hurt her if he finds out about the role that she played in all this.”
“When he went in to put microphones in their hotel room, Byrne checked it for weapons. He assured me that Masséna didn’t have one, not even a razor blade.”
“All the same, I want Byrne to be alert.”
“He’s in the connecting room in the hotel. He listens to them constantly and follows them when they go out. We’re doing everything we can.”
“In any case,” Mike added, “we put Stephanie”—Masséna’s head assistant—“in charge of systems. If she was surprised when I asked her to change all the access passwords for the entire staff and to restrict Masséna to the level of an ordinary user, she didn’t show it. That girl is made of ice.”
“We know that Masséna could hack our system from any beach in the Caribbean,” Al-Saud declared. “We should improve the security measures.”
“Stephanie is monitoring the system twenty-four-seven,” said Tony.
“We don’t even know for sure that it’s him,” Mike Thorton reminded them. “Masséna, I mean. There were four other suspects that participated in the plan for the ambush in Beirut.”
“It’s him,” Tony reckoned. “I never liked that rodent.”
Peter’s cell phone rang, and he moved away to answer the call.
“Have you found anything out about the death of Matilde’s ex?” Tony wanted to know.
“Nothing,” said Al-Saud. “I think the police have reached a dead end. I’ll talk to Edmé de Florian later, we’ll see what he says. Did it show up in the news?”
“Not a word. What they did at thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres to stop it from leaking to the press is beyond me.”
“It’s a delicate subject. It could just be some nut who’s acting alone or we could be facing—”
“Eliah!” Peter interrupted, looking worried. “It’s Amburgo,” he said, and handed him the phone.
“Amburgo,” pronounced Al-Saud.
“I’m somewhere in Seine-Saint-Denis,” he said in a whisper, “in an abandoned factory. I intercepted a call that one of the Iraqis received this morning.”
“Did you record it?”
“Of course,” he said, still whispering. “A guy with a distorted voice summoned them here. He spoke about this location in Seine-Saint-Denis as if they knew it. I followed them here. I don’t think I’m far from Le Bourget Airport. They went into the factory and I went after them. They met this guy, he’s huge. I have photos. They argued. He knocked all three of them out and, when he had them on the ground, put on a gas mask that he had hidden under his jacket and sprayed them with something. He watched them as they struggled and left once they were unconscious. I didn’t dare to go near them because I didn’t want to inhale whatever that son of a bitch sprayed on them.”
“Amburgo, hurry, get out of there. Right now. Be very careful. This guy could still be in the area. Can you give me your coordinates?”
“One minute.” Amburgo consulted his electronic compass with built-in GPS and gave his position to Al-Saud. “Four, eight, five, eight, one, five north. Zero, two, two, one, three, seven east.”
“Come to the George V. I want to develop those photos as soon as possible and hear the recording.”
Al-Saud used the secure line in his office to talk to Edmé de Florian.
“Take down these coordinates,” he ordered him. “Four, eight, five, eight, one, five north. Zero, two, two, one, three, seven east. Send an ambulance immediately. It’s in Seine-Saint-Denis. Three unconscious males inside an abandoned factory, they were probably sprayed with a nerve agent. I repeat: a nerve agent may have been deployed at the location. Do it now. I’ll wait on the line.”
Al-Saud listened to his friend as he connected to the emergency services in Seine-Saint-Denis. When he was finished, he picked up the phone again.
“What is all this, Eliah?”
“Do you remember the Iraqis who attacked me on Rue Vitruve?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s them. I had them followed after Dussollier released them. They were summoned by someone, probably the same person who assassinated Blahetter.”
“What are you talking about? What does Blahetter have to do with these Iraqis?”
“I don’t know yet, Edmé. It’s just a hunch. If, as I believe, the three Iraqis are already dead, I want to know the results of the autopsy. Have they made any progress in the Blahetter case?”
“Nothing relevant. The Identi-Kit the head nurse provided us isn’t very clear, so it doesn’t help much.”
“And what about the security cameras at the hospital?”
“Nothing. The guy obviously avoided them.”
“No finger or footprints?”
“Nothing. The bastard is a professional.”
Amburgo Ferro arrived at the George V offices an hour later. Medes was sent to Vladimir Chevrikov’s apartment to develop the photographs, while Alamán downloaded the recording of the phone conversation captured by Amburgo’s mobile interceptor.
“The voice is distorted by an apparatus or some kind of software,” he said.
“No,” said Eliah. “That’s his voice.”
“What do you mean his voice? It sounds like a robot. It’s clearly distorted.”
“When I interrogated the Iraqis at thirty-six Quai des Orfèvres, I asked them to describe the man who had hired them. They said that he had a very strange voice, with a metallic or electronic sound. They were standing right in front of him, and he didn’t have any voice distortion device. They said to me, ‘That’s just how he talked.’”
“An ex-colleague from the SAS,” Hill said, “had his throat slit in a mission in Sierra Leone and his vocal cords were cut in two. He was in hospital for about two months and when he finally got out, he spoke through a very expensive palladium device that had been installed to replace his vocal cords. When he spoke, he definitely sounded like a robot. His new voice was very unnatural, but at least he could speak. Otherwise he would have been mute.”
“You can’t get technology like that just anywhere,” Alamán said. “There must be very few businesses around that can manufacture a wonder like that. I can only think of two.”
“Could you investigate?” Al-Saud asked him.
His brother agreed and checked the time. “I’m leaving.”
“I’ll go with you,” Eliah said, walking next to Alamán with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground.
“Are you going to Mama’s party?”
“Yes, I’m planning on it.”
“Are you going with Matilde? Mama was interrogating me.” Eliah brought his hands to his face and rubbed it. “I kept my mouth
shut, but Yasmín was more than ready to talk about her. Are you bringing her?” Eliah nodded and Alamán raised his eyebrows. “So it’s getting serious, I see. Well, now that you’re deserting this wonderful state of bachelorhood, I’ll have to put up with Mama and Nonna’s sermons about the sanctity of marriage on my own.” Eliah laughed and shrugged wearily. “See you at the house.”
Francesca flitted between the guests with a grace that had only been enhanced by the years; she talked a little with each group, made sure glasses were full and plates laden with food, and gave orders to Bershka, the housekeeper. Every now and then she would seek out Kamal with her gaze, smile at him and wait for his wink; lean down over Antonina, her mother, who was ensconced in a chair near the fireplace, and ask her if she needed anything; kiss her stepfather Fredo on the forehead or answer questions from her friends Sofía and Marina, who were intrigued by the news: Eliah, tough, impassive, practical and entirely unsentimental, was, according to Yasmín, mooning around like a teenager in love.
“And I haven’t even told you what Lafére, our dealer, told us. Apparently, Eliah brought him a painting by your sister, Sofi, of Matilde, so he could fix the frame. The painting is apparently highly coveted by lovers of Enriqueta’s work and worth a lot of money. The thing is, Eliah told him that the girl in the picture is his woman.”
“His woman?” Sofía was shocked. “This is just unbelievable. Aldo’s daughter with your son, Fran! It’s like a Mexican soap opera.”
“What’s Matilde like?” Marina asked impatiently. “She must be very special to have conquered our Eliah.”
“She is,” Sofía promised. “You’ll see her soon. She’s tiny and beautiful. And above all, she’s a good, charitable soul, and they’re difficult to find. Like my Amélie.”
“Oh!” Marina sighed. “What does Kamal say? Aldo’s daughter!”
“Kamal met Matilde at Sofi’s house. He thought she was charming.”
“I’d like to meet the person who didn’t find her charming,” said Sofía.
Francesca checked her watch. It was after nine thirty and her third son hadn’t yet appeared. Had he changed his mind? Even when he was little, he had been zealous about his privacy. Perhaps, after thinking about it, he had decided that he didn’t like the prospect of exposing Matilde to so much scrutiny.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the hall. She was anxious to see him. She had been in Paris for a week and they had only exchanged a few words over the phone. As if he had heard her call, Francesca saw Eliah appear under the arch that led into the room. She noticed his sturdy posture and square, firm shoulders that looked impeccable in a dove-gray suit. She smiled out of pure happiness, in spite of the way her son frowned as he scanned the party with those eyes, which were a different green than those of his father. Kamal’s were like jade; Eliah’s, on the other hand, were an emerald color that he had inherited from his grandfather Abdul Aziz. She was distracted by Eliah’s hand, which was resting on Matilde’s shoulder, though it wasn’t really resting, rather protectively clutching the delicate bone peeking out from under the translucent gauze of her dress. She directed her attention to Matilde, who was dwarfed by Eliah and quietly and expectantly gazing at the room full of people. She remembered her hair; the long, blonde ringlets had disappeared that night to become an impressive cloak of hair that hung all the way down her back. Matilde’s beauty radiated toward her like the warmth of the sun on a cold day. She could have spent hours looking at her, hypnotized but not blinded by the glow of her skin, her implausibly silver eyes and her cloak of hair. She wondered, Is this the angel who will heal my son’s broken heart? And felt the warmth of a hand on her waist. She didn’t need to turn around to know that it belonged to her husband. As if Kamal had read her mind, he whispered: “Inshallah, habibi ya, nour al ain” (“God willing, my love, light of my eyes”).
Matilde saw Madame Francesca and Mr. Kamal approaching and got nervous. A few minutes before, driving along in the Aston Martin, listening to Beethoven’s seventh symphony and laughing at Juana’s wisecracks, she had felt serene and happy, with Eliah’s hand on hers between gear changes. Before they left, in the entrance hall of the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus, she had spun around in the light to show herself off to Eliah in her elegant Gucci dress, shaking out her straight hair because she knew how much he liked it. She asked him if she looked pretty and, his lips pale with excitement and eyes black with lust, he had seized her sharply by the waist and pressed his body against her. They had gazed at each other. He held her in half profile in his arms as she held her breath, not knowing what to expect.
“I’m not just saying this, Matilde: you’re the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“And have you seen many things in your life?” she flirted, twirling her finger in the dark tuft of hair that peeked out from his lavender shirt.
“You have no idea how many,” he said in a way that made her look up.
She was unsettled by the intensity of his look and what it awakened in her. She touched her pearl necklace from Tiffany & Co. and smiled at him, the corners of her mouth trembling.
“Thank you for the marvelous presents you brought me. I’ve never had so many beautiful things before. Thank you!” she exclaimed, suddenly bouncing back. She threw her arms around his neck and, on tiptoe, said into his ear, “You are the most beautiful thing life has given me.”
“No, stud!” Juana stopped him as she came down the stairs. “No kisses on the mouth or you’re going to mess up her lipstick. Doesn’t she look splendid in that fuchsia gloss? The lady at the makeup counter at Galeries Lafayette told her that with eyes that color, she always has to have fuchsia lips.”
“As long as you’re with me,” Al-Saud declared, not smiling at all, his eyes clamped on Matilde’s heart-shaped lips.
“Oh, your Arab soul is coming out, Al-Saud!” Juana teased him. “What do you think of me? I’m not as beautiful as your woman, but I’m not so bad either, eh?”
Al-Saud went to the foot of the staircase and held out his hand.
“You’re the most beautiful brunette in Paris.”
“Morocha, that’s what we say.”
“Leila’s not coming?” Al-Saud asked.
“No,” Matilde answered. “She wanted to stay here and play checkers with Peter.”
“Please!” Juana complained. “Before we worry about getting her to talk, we need to teach this chick how to appreciate the finer things in life. Playing checkers with an old man like Peter!”
“Peter’s not so old. He’s barely fifty.”
“He’s a dinosaur!”
“And he’s in very good shape.”
“That’s true,” Juana admitted, and she didn’t mention that on more than one occasion she had surprised herself by studying him. He had a kind of Gregory Peck air, with bushy black eyebrows that framed his blue eyes, giving him an intelligent, incisive look.
So they had arrived in high spirits at the Al-Saud house on Avenue Foch. As soon as the black, forged-iron gates opened, Juana let out a long, high-pitched whistle, not just at the grandeur of the small palace, but at all the men in dark suits with earpieces milling around.
“Ooh la la! It’s like we’ve just arrived at the White House. Do your parents really have this much dough, stud?”
“Juana!” Matilde scolded, and she saw how the guards greeted Eliah. He rolled down the window, stuck his arm out and shook hands in a friendly, informal way with one of them. They spoke in a language with hard, short, guttural sounds.
“It’s Arabic,” whispered Juana, who didn’t speak the language but understood it from growing up with her Syrian grandfather.
Matilde was indifferent to the grandeur of the Al-Saud house—she had been born in one that was just as enormous and grandiose—and the number of bodyguards, but she was upset by the realization that she had made a mistake and that, at this point, she couldn’t turn back. What was she doing at Eliah’s parents’ house? What foolish idea had made her accep
t the invitation? What was she thinking? Visiting them? How would Eliah introduce her? Ma femme? The possibility made her tremble.
She tried to conceal her concerns, because she didn’t want to ruin the party, and fixed a pale smile on her face as the Al-Saud couple came over to welcome them. Francesca hugged and kissed her on the cheek; it wasn’t a social kiss, the kind in which you just bump cheeks. Instead, Madame Francesca kissed her properly, putting her lips right on her inevitably blushing cheek. Only Matilde could hear what she said: “Darling, you’re simply gorgeous.”
And in that kiss and the tender way she smoothed a lock of her hair, Matilde found out how much this mother loved her son. She loved her for that, for loving Eliah, for giving him life and making him into such a magnificent man. She was always moved when she saw the immensity of a mother’s love. Dolores didn’t love her, not in the way that a mother loves a child, unconditionally, with absolute devotion. Aldo had come between them, because Dolores had even been jealous of little Matilde, who had become the center of his attention. According to her psychologist, rather than Matilde having to overcome the Electra complex, the roles had gotten mixed up and Dolores had ended up competing for the attention that her husband lavished on their youngest daughter on the rare occasions when he was at home. Her psychiatrist told her that it was this unresolved triangle between her father, her mother and herself that laid the foundations for the trauma that prevented Matilde from falling in love or having sex.
Mr. Kamal was more formal, though she detected a grain of intimacy in the way he looked at her and told her how beautiful she looked. She found that this man with a shock of white hair and jet-black eyebrows knew how to get along with people. His jade-green eyes emphasized his Middle Eastern features, perhaps because they shone from within a setting of dark skin, just like Eliah’s, though they weren’t very similar in other ways. Perhaps there was a resemblance in the thick, black eyebrows, or the shape of their faces, but she could see Francesca’s legacy in Eliah’s lines, softening some of his features, especially his mouth.