2
Monday

 

 

Paris, Place Vendôme, 10:30 a.m.

Thanks to his earphone, John was listening to Victoire while looking at the latest news site photo of Geraldine Harper on his smartphone. Fermatown was putting a complete file together before he met her. He crossed the Place Vendôme without noticing the city’s heat and humidity. Victoire had a gift for synthesis and clarity. A real Ecole Normale Supérieure graduate, thought John.

“Geraldine is Canadian. She brought to the marriage a fortune in Alberta oil sands and the technology that allows shale gas to be extracted at a competitive cost. She’s the one who saved North Land from bankruptcy. Abraham, her husband, is American and twenty years older than she is. He has a reputation for being tough in business. Watch out. They’re a pair of predators.”

“Thanks.”

John walked through the revolving door of the Ritz with a burning desire, despite everything, to keep his big chance from slipping away. A client like North Land wouldn’t come within Fermatown’s reach twice. He headed to the left with a decisive stride and entered the bar, which was populated with a few zealous Asian businessmen and a romantic couple who were letting themselves be lulled by a woman playing a harp. In the garden beyond the picture window, marble nudes were sweating in the tropical light, which, for days now, had made Paris feel like Bangkok.

On a discreetly placed television, a news show was covering the collapse of Greenland. John paid it no mind and smiled as he ordered a bottle of sparkling water. The bar, basking in the soft glow of brass, had a patina lent by generations of demanding clients rolling in dough.

“Ice?”

“Yes, please.”

The bartender slid the glass along the zinc counter.

“Ice is going to be hard to come by, with what’s happening at the North Pole.”

John turned to the screen, where the topic was the polar bears on the Bouc-Bel-Air.

“That ship isn’t going to help France’s image,” the bartender said. “Some people reckon it’s the ship that caused the catastrophe in the first place.”

“People will say anything,” John replied. “A boat can’t bring on the collapse of a continent all by itself,” John replied.

“Yet that’s what the Inuits are claiming. I don’t understand why Terre Noire called its boat the Bouc-Bel-Air. Really, a name that means ‘nice-looking goat.’ Nothing like that to bring bad luck.”

“True, some names are pretty fateful.”

John agreed with everything the man said while watching the wreck crawling along, between chunks of Arctic ice. Geraldine Harper was going to ask him to look into Terre Noire. Be that as it may, he’d refuse to spy on a French firm, even for a hundred thousand euros. Fermatown would stay poor but would not betray its own country. Clean hands and head held high! Everything depended, though, on what you meant by spying. Part of him was ready to deal with the devil. It was time to get out of the fiscal rut.

Divided between the poles of his conscience, he swallowed a mouthful of water. In the mirror behind the bar, he spotted Geraldine Harper as she came in. With her black hair pulled back in a chignon at the nape of her neck, Madame Harper looked exactly like the photo in her company’s last annual report. She was wearing pearls and a suit in North Land’s colors, blue and white. The colors didn’t soften her eyes, which had the penetrating look of an oil drill. She was walking toward a table in the middle of the room.

“I’m going to join that lady. The check’s mine.”

“I’ll bring you your mineral water.”

John crossed the immense stretch of wall-to-wall carpet and caught up with the woman, who had just taken a seat in one of the armchairs surrounding a table decorated with flowers. A card marked “reserved” had been placed next to the bouquet. He introduced himself and sat down. Geraldine Harper threw him a vague smile and gave herself a few seconds to scan the room. Abraham’s wife was wearing her fifty-odd years well. Sure of herself, she turned to him with the kind of look a surgeon gives an open wound. John saw himself back on the slab after his accident.

“I’d been told you were a good-looking man, and that was no lie. Tell me about yourself, Major Spencer Larivière. Where did you get those looks of yours?”

“From my American ancestry.”

“Now that’s a good start,” Geraldine Harper replied.

“I know you’re the wife of Abraham, the head of North Land. Terre Noire is your main competitor. I have to tell you that as a Frenchman.”

Disarmed by Geraldine’s smile, he stopped dead.

“Monsieur Spencer Larivière, I haven’t come to ask you to spy on your compatriots or betray your country. I know you wouldn’t do that, not a man like you. Isn’t that so?”

“Never.”

“Let’s not go overboard. Never say never. Especially not in your field.”

She nodded at another table.

“I’d feel more comfortable under that painting over there.”

John turned to look at the Flemish painting beneath a wall lamp. The rural landscape overlooked a round table. He followed her to it, turning over contradictory feelings. Geraldine Harper was acting like a professional: last-minute meeting, precautions to avoid any listening device that might be planted under a table. No point in playing the big shot. She knew what she was doing. He sat in an armchair and listened humbly. She’d mentioned his rank in the army and had to have a substantial file on him.

At the start of the climate upheaval, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had come out from under the thumb of the CIA. The top of the world had become the future of humanity, and the Canadian service was now one of the most fearsome intelligence agencies on the planet. John suddenly realized that Geraldine and Abraham had to have their sources in Ottawa, as well as in Washington, and he tensed up.

“It was Abraham Harper, my husband, who advised me to meet you.”

John raised his eyebrows. Never for a moment had he crossed paths with the founder of North Land.

“I know you don’t know him, but he seems to know you. I’d go so far as to say that’s he’s not mistaken,” Geraldine declared in a firm voice softened by the amused expression on her face.

How was he to interpret the sparkle that was lighting up the eyes of the queen of the oil sands of Alberta? The waiter put down the jasmine tea and the bottle of sparkling water and then disappeared, leaving them alone. The harp struck up a familiar tune.

“My husband and I hope you’ll provide surveillance and protection for our daughter, Mary. She’s studying geology at L’École des Mines in Paris.”

John fell down to earth with a thud, like the helicopter he’d crashed when the Taliban hit it. The geostrategic mission he’d been expecting had been reduced to a babysitting job. He shrank in his armchair, humiliated, but not letting a hint of his feelings show. The pain flared around the skin grafts he had gotten after the crash. He took a long swig of sparkling water and felt his stomach turn again. Yet another illusion to pack away in the attic of the house between the Rue Deparcieux and the Rue Fermat.

“I’m sure you’ll get on well with Mary when you see her. She’s a delightful young woman. A bit capricious but adorable. The spitting image of her father.”

“It’s possible.”

“We want someone for Mary who has not only competence in the field, but also an understanding of the power struggles among the governments of this world and multinational companies. Mary and her brother, Harold, are heirs to an empire. North Land has perfected technologies that will allow the mineral and oil resources of the North Pole and Greenland to be exploited. These innovations interest a lot of people. I think you follow the news and grasp the situation. We want to ensure our daughter’s protection with a Frenchman who’s capable and well-connected but has no ties to our rival, Terre Noire. We’ve checked.”

John saw the steel in Geraldine’s eyes. The situation he’d imagined had been turned on its head. North Land wasn’t asking him to spy on Terre Noire, but to protect its heiress. The North American oil- and gas-exploration company was turning to him because he had no connection to Terre Noire. Unexpected, but damned effective. Who better than a former agent to protect a young student in Paris?

“Abraham was once a student at L’École des Mines himself, and our daughter dreamed of Paris. It goes without saying that the means you bring into play to ensure Mary’s surveillance and protection will be reimbursed over and above the one hundred thousand euros that I mentioned. That’s just an advance.”

The sparkling water suddenly tasted like champagne. Geraldine Harper took a cell phone out of her handbag, along with a credit card, and placed them on the table between the water and the tea.

“This card will allow you to settle all expenses incurred, no matter what the sum. As for the phone...”

“Yes?”

“It will allow you to listen to all our daughter’s conversations and familiarize yourself with her relationships. That way, you’ll be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. Since we’re asking you for surveillance, we might as well simplify things. My husband is a direct man, one who gets up at four in the morning and goes to bed at nine every night.”

“I read that in the newspaper.”

“He hardly ever eats out.”

“I don’t quite see the connection with the phone.”

“I meant that Abraham’s a practical man. If Mary is to be under surveillance, you might as well do it properly and thoroughly from the beginning.”

“Meaning?”

“We wanted a Frenchman who knows Paris and has relationships within the French intelligence agency.”

John felt the cold air of Canada descend on his shoulders. Fermatown clearly held no secrets for Geraldine Harper. He felt unmasked and exposed and had to make an effort to swallow his pride, which had already been seriously dented in Afghanistan.

“Aren’t you worried that I might inform the agency about this surveillance?”

“Abraham thinks you’ll be forced to talk to them about it. Actually, that seems to reassure him. Naturally, you’ll do whatever you think you have to do. You’re the boss.”

Geraldine’s look obviously contradicted what she’d just said. He was on the verge of dropping the whole thing and taking his leave. He was nothing but a mercenary and a go-between now. But he calmed down, thinking that, for the Harpers, Fermatown was, in essence, a private extension of Méricourt’s agency, as it was being cunningly suggested that he inform them. He swallowed his pride and his flag and toyed with the phone Geraldine had just entrusted to him. He turned it over and read the number and the letters written on a sticky note.

“That’s the code that will give you access to the different functions. I’ll show you. It’s not complicated.”

Geraldine took the phone and ran her fingers over the keys.

“Thanks to the code, you’ll find a whole host of applications, such as one that diverts all calls sent to and received by our daughter.”

“I assume Mary doesn’t know about this.”

“Neither Mary nor her brother, Harold. This device, as you can imagine, was developed in cooperation with America’s National Security Agency, where my husband has a number of contacts.”

John nodded, as though this was all obvious.

“Harold is ten years older than his sister. You’ll have to get used to the family. We’ve rented an apartment for Mary on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, just opposite L’École des Mines. That will make life easier for you. My dear John Spencer Larivière, do you agree to protect Mary?”

Geraldine Harper gave him a calculated warm and maternal look. The whole thing reeked of fraud and manipulation. A reasonable man would have fled.

“I agree.”

“Bravo. There’s just one little hitch.”

“I thought there might be.”

“My husband disappeared three days ago. We’re very anxious. Mary’s going to go look for him. I’d like you to meet her ASAP and help her find Abraham. The last time Mary had her father on the phone, the call came from the Great Wound of the Wild Dog.”

“The Great Wound of the Wild Dog?”

“It’s a geological phenomenon in the Avannaa region of north Greenland.”

“Near the ice shelf that just fell into the ocean?”

“A few miles away.”

“I sense I’ll be getting frostbite.”

“My husband was right. You’re a well brought-up man, Monsieur Spencer Larivière. It goes without saying that Abraham’s disappearance is totally confidential information that you must not reveal to anyone, not even to your agency friends.”

“You can count on me.”

“When people ask you what you’re doing in Greenland, you’re to say that you were hired to assess North Land’s image up there. Your room’s already booked at the Hans Egede, the best hotel in the country.”

Le Havre, 11:30 a.m.

Isabelle Le Guévenec lived in a big, sad, functional apartment on the fifth floor of a building that had been rebuilt after World War II. Through the windows, Luc could see the cement curves of the Maison de la Culture, the city’s community center, and hear the cry of the seagulls. His night at the Mercure with Connie Rasmussen had reconciled him to the frozen expanses of Greenland and the saga of the Vikings.

The Inuits’ legal representative had talked to him about Erik the Red and other Danish conquerors when Greenland was a vast green prairie. Exhausted by his work obligations and stupefied by the Swedish Flaggpunsch liqueur, he had fallen into a deep slumber between the sheets and almost missed his meeting with the captain’s wife. Since joining Fermatown, Luc was finding that there was much more to life than reading blue screens, role-playing, and gossiping on Facebook. Over the phone, John had congratulated him on the hundred thousand euros promised by Connie Rasmussen and asked him a multitude of questions about Greenland.

Luc turned toward Isabelle Le Guévenec, who was coming into the living room with drinks on a tray. She was dressed in a pencil skirt and a white blouse that showed off her voluminous bust. She didn’t look forty-five, or truly anxious—more curious.

“You say Loïc’s going to pull through?”

“Absolutely.”

“What can I offer you?”

“Some mineral water. I’ve had a long night.”

Luc added a bunch of ice cubes to his glass.

“It’s really kind of you to come all this way. You couldn’t say Terre Noire has actually spoiled us with their concern. Who do you work for at the Champs-Elysées office?”

“Employee health and safety,” Luc replied carefully.

Isabelle Le Guévenec poured herself a slug of port and sat down on a leather sofa that looked new. It showed off her black eyes and chestnut-colored hair. Madame Le Guévenec looked taller than her husband, even though he’d never seen the man. It was a curious impression. The woman was obviously smart. He took the initiative before she could unmask the hoax with questions as orderly as the apartment.

“Did your husband express any particular fears before he left?”

“What fears are you thinking of?” she asked with a fake look of surprise.

“I’m thinking of Greenland, of course.”

“Loïc knew, as everyone else did, that Greenland was on the brink of catastrophe. He got the order to go there just as he was leaving the Barents Sea and coming home to Le Havre.”

“On Nicolas Lanier’s orders?”

“I’m amazed you’re not up to date.”

“We really aren’t kept abreast of day-to-day operations,” Luc said. “Terre Noire doesn’t like to disclose much about the company, even to its own employees. Actually, my department is more like a fifth wheel on the chariot.”

“That hardly surprises me. Terre Noire’s obsession with secrecy is really annoying.”

“You’re telling me!”

“Loïc is a real seaman. The ocean doesn’t frighten him. Actually, I’m wondering what would frighten him.”

Isabelle Le Guévenec crossed her legs again as she brought the glass of port to her lips. She put it down gently on a doily made of lace from Calais, where the Nord-Pas Mining Basin had just listed as a world heritage by UNESCO.

“It’s not Greenland that worried Loïc, but Christophe Maunay, the new human resources manager. He’s a graduate of L’École des Mines, the prestigious engineering school. He was posted to Gabon with Terre Noire before this. You know him, surely.”

“Who doesn’t!” Luc bluffed, telling himself she’d no doubt just seen through him.

“Christophe Maunay wanted Loïc to tell him exactly what the scientists on the Bouc-Bel-Air were doing.”

“What’s so odd about that?”

“That young man’s predecessors had never asked for so many details about the geological surveys. Normally, those matters are confidential. The scientific research department and Romain Brissac handle them. But it appears that this Maunay is Nicolas Lanier’s confidant. They’re said to be very close.”

“Why does that worry your husband?”

Isabelle Le Guévenec lowered her voice as if she feared being overheard by someone hiding in the background.

“Before collecting samples of ice in Greenland, the Bouc-Bel-Air was working with the Jacob Smirnitskyi, a Russian exploration ship, on the methane vents of the continental shelf off the coast of Siberia. So why’s this little creep interfering in things that are no concern of his, I ask you.”

“Methane vents?”

“I can see you need a chemistry refresher,” Isabelle replied, moving in even closer. “Methane vents are forming all over the Arctic. As the atmosphere and ocean currents warm up, the permafrost and seabeds are releasing more and more methane. That gas is going to produce a greenhouse effect twenty times more powerful than carbon and speed up climate change. The thirty billion tons of CO2 that rise into the atmosphere every year will be multiplied by a factor that’s unknown but hair-raising.”

“So?”

“Onboard the Bouc-Bel-Air, as on the Jacob Smirnitskyi, scientists have measured very precisely what’s going to happen to us, and which corners of the world humanity will be able to survive in. They know all about it. This Christophe Maunay is meddling in something that’s none of his business. There’s something fishy about it. On the Bouc, it’s Romain Brissac who’s in charge of the Terre Noire team. Have you heard anything from him?”

Isabelle’s face suddenly became agitated. She was wringing her hands. Luc’s instincts told him that Madame Le Guévenec was not indifferent to Brissac’s fate.

“I’m expecting to hear from him any moment now.”

Isabelle gazed at the impeccably clean windows of her childless and husbandless apartment.

“What about the Norwegians in all of this?” Luc asked innocently.

“What do you mean, the Norwegians?”

“They were saying on television that the Bouc-Bel-Air had teamed up with the Norwegians.”

“That’s understandable, since the Jacob Smirnitskyi was entirely refitted in Tromso by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. Russia and Norway have signed an agreement on oil exploitation in the Barents Sea. You have to understand that right now, everyone’s flocking to the North Pole. The disappearance of the ice shelf is going to free up sea routes for gas and oil companies. Gas and oil stir up greed. But there’s more.”

“There’s more?”

“Terre Noire discovered an immense deposit of rare metals in Qaqortoq, in the south of Greenland. As a joke, Greenlanders call this the Banana Coast.”

“You don’t hear much about it in France.”

“Strategic issues don’t excite the French.”

“It can’t be easy extracting rare metals up there.”

“You have to guess exactly where they are first.”

“How’s it done?”

“That’s where Romain comes in.”

“The Nobel Prize winner?”

“Yes, he and his team have developed Gaia, which is computer analysis software that lets us get a better handle on complex geological structures. Gaia has analyzed over a hundred years of mining operations all around the globe. The program doesn’t always work, but it saves a lot of time. After the discovery of the Qaqortoq deposits, Gaia allowed Terre Noire to tell the Norwegians and the Russians what was under the North Pole and precisely where it was.”

“So it’s Terre Noire that facilitated the agreement between the Russians and the Norwegians?”

“They signed, thanks to us. That brought us enormous amounts of money, along with worldwide fame. We already had Romain, with his Nobel Prize. Now there’s Gaia.”

“I suppose our rivals would love to get their hands on Gaia.”

“They’d do anything to buy or steal it from us, especially because they can’t come up with a replica.”

“Why?”

“Because Gaia isn’t just a software program. It’s the memory of all geological exploration in the world. Nicolas Lanier had a stroke of genius when he took the helm of Terre Noire.”

“Oh?”

“Nicolas used the assets his predecessors had accumulated to buy up the archives and files of exploration expeditions all around the world that never got anywhere. Ironically, this data gave us a tremendous advantage. Gaia is based on the stuff our partners and rivals threw in the trash. Lanier also had his people interview all the engineers and prospectors who’ve been pensioned off by their respective companies. He realized that they have a wealth of experience that has a bearing on the future of the planet, Right now, we’re quizzing the engineers and technicians who were handling the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In the near future, we’ll know how to avoid that kind of catastrophe. Nicolas calls it risk management.”

“I haven’t seen the chairman at the Champs-Elysées office much. I’m new, but everyone says he’s a great guy.”

“He’s a good listener.”

“A very rare quality.”

Luc could feel Isabelle Le Guévenec warming up. The captain’s wife seemed to have an even more strategic role in the company than her husband. Certainly more ambiguous, in any case. She stared at him with suspicion in her eyes.

“You’re getting me to say quite a bit. Maybe that’s part of the job of counseling women in distress. Am I a psychological risk?”

“We’re very concerned about the welfare of Terre Noire wives. We’re a family, you know. That’s very clear from listening to you. We need to give meaning and a human dimension to what we do. That’s how I see my mission.”

Luc feared he’d overdone it but was immediately reassured. Isabelle Le Guévenec got off the sofa and sat down beside him. She placed a scented hand on his arm. Her milky skin and black eyebrows made her very appealing, and he felt a sudden surge of tenderness, mixed with strong attraction.

“I’m sure you haven’t had lunch. You must be starving.”

“I have to get back to Paris.”

“Not before tasting Loïc’s favorite dish.”

After an exhausting night in the company of a Nordic Valkyrie, Luc felt himself go limp before the Calais lace and middle-class order that was crying out to be messed up, ever so gently. Of course, he’d Googled Isabelle on his cell phone before ringing her bell. The captain’s wife, aided by Romain Brissac, presided over an association in Le Havre that was dedicated to the protection of wildlife. Luc suddenly remembered seeing a news clip about polar bears being onboard the Bouc-Bel-Air.

“I understand you’re the head of a foundation sponsored by Terre Noire. Are you interested in bears?”

“Bears and other animals.”

Paris, Metro Line 1, 11:55 a.m.

John got off at the Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau metro station and took Line 13 as far as Duroc. The man was still following him. He zoomed along various corridors to get to Line 10. The guy must have tailed him when he came out of the Ritz. It was the first time since he had gotten back from Afghanistan that he had experienced any real danger. This invigorated him. Forced into physical confrontation, he rediscovered the reflexes that he thought he’d lost in the musty setting of Les Invalides. He got into the subway car, pretending not to be interested in the man on his tail. Muscles tensed, he prepared himself for combat while scrutinizing faces. The theory mill was going full bore. He couldn’t see Geraldine Harper being behind such a pointless and crude exercise. Fermatown held too few secrets for her. This man had something Nordic about him, and his bearing was paramilitary. A Russian or Scandinavian mercenary came to mind. Western firms working in Iraq and Afghanistan employed guys like this. Maybe a French rival of Fermatown had taken umbrage at his meeting with Geraldine. News traveled fast in the private intelligence market in France. A lot of people would like to work for North Land. A foreign agency could very well have commissioned some den of spies from Paris or Geneva. With the melting of the North Pole, strategic balances were going to be redefined. The spectrum of possibilities was immense.

Not knowing whether he had lost his tail, John got out at the Sèvres-Babylone station and headed for the Bon Marché grocery store. Fermatown was out of California chardonnay. He walked down the aisles of the store, waiting for Victoire to answer his call. He regretted sending Luc to investigate Terre Noire and Lanier. The escapade in Le Havre was now pointless. In front of the whiskeys, he checked the reflections. The man was standing between the freshly made pastas and the Italian hams.

John didn’t like his style and could sense the cold, metallic menace in the killer’s hand, out of sight under his jacket. He randomly chose a bottle with a tall neck that could serve as a handle. Effective for slashing someone’s throat quickly and mercilessly. It was a nocturnal habit he’d left behind in the mountains of Central Asia. Here, he’d have to act in broad daylight among all the yuppies. Chaos in full view. Victoire wasn’t picking up. A recovery operation always took time. He imagined her panic-stricken and anguished, getting the car ready in the garage, and he swore through his teeth. Under that serene appearance she’d inherited from her Cambodian ancestors, Victoire was a bundle of nerves and almost morbidly sensitive.

He regretted dragging her into this business and headed for the flower stand, where he chose the most extravagantly beautiful bunch—both to keep his enemy off balance and to seek forgiveness from Victoire if he managed to escape his pursuer unharmed. Stealing a glance at his stalker, he got the impression that there was a certain loosening between the shoulder blades. He didn’t look as stiff. He imagined his hand was lighter on the grip. A foreigner in Paris, the man was there for a quick mission. Finally, Victoire called.

“Leave the grocery store and head for the intersection opposite the Hôtel Lutetia. I’m coming down the Boulevard Raspail.”

John stared at the Bon Marché florist, who was winding a ribbon around the bouquet. The young woman’s eyes met his, and she read there what others had detected before her. The man she was giving those flowers to had killed people. John picked up the change and left the frightened shop assistant.

He walked off, trying to avoid any reckless move. Passersby were stooped under their umbrellas in rain that was as hot as a monsoon. The asphalt gleamed in the headlights of the cars. He crossed the Rue de Sèvres, checking the shop windows to see how close the other man was. His grip on the neck of the bottle instinctively tightened. A taxi was parked on the pavement outside the Lutetia. He crossed and opened the door of the Mercedes.

“Good afternoon. Take me to La Motte-Picquet.”

He slid into the seat and looked back down the Boulevard Raspail. Victoire was just arriving, a marvel of precision and cool-headedness. She was less than ten yards behind his taxi. He hugged the bouquet.

Paris, Sèvres-Babylone intersection, 12:15 p.m.

Per Sorenson was surprised by the reaction of his target, who had just dived into a taxi with his bouquet of flowers. He felt like John Spencer Larivière had just clocked him. Furious, he crossed the street and hailed the first taxi coming down the boulevard. He opened the door and shouted.

“Follow that Mercedes.”

“A pal of yours?”

“Hmm.”

Per Sorenson grabbed a laminated advertisement lying on the seat and nervously tossed it aside. The driver was a woman and Asian, to boot. She complied without making a fuss and wove her way through the traffic on the trail of the Mercedes. He suddenly noticed a big ball of white wool on the front seat.

“That’s my cat.”

“Hmm.”

The Mercedes was turning onto the Rue de Varennes. Victoire slowed the car to make the turn. With a sinking heart, she saw the man give her a challenging look and pick up the advertisement again. Had he guessed the trap she’d just set? She gripped the steering wheel with sweaty hands and tried to make small talk, both to calm herself and to put the guy off-scent.

“My sister breeds Persians at a place in Beaumont. If you like, I can put you in touch with her. All you have to do is leave me your e-mail address.”

“Hmm.”

Stop dreaming, she told herself. You don’t expect him to leave you his business card and his address on top of his fingerprints on the advertisement, do you? After the Rue de Varennes, the Mercedes ferrying John toward the fifteenth arrondissement went past the illuminated Invalides and took the road to La Motte-Picquet.

“Where’s your pal going?” Victoire asked with a lump in her throat.

“Just follow.”

The man spoke with a thick Nordic or Slavic accent. The Mercedes turned onto the Avenue de Suffren and then slowed and stopped at Number 77.

“Drive past, and let me out farther up the road.”

Victoire did as she was told and dropped her client a hundred yards or so from the spot where John’s taxi had stopped. She turned around, smiling, and announced the fare.

“Twelve euros, twenty centimes.”

The passenger took out a twenty-euro note, and she immediately gave him his change.

“Sorry. It’s the end of my shift, and I’ve only got loose change left.”

“That’s fine.”

The man slipped his change into a pocket of his jacket and got out without saying another word. In her rearview mirror, Victoire saw him slowly approach Number 77. She took off again and turned right at the first intersection. Some two hundred yards down the street, she picked up John, who was waiting at the agreed-on spot in the shadow of an apartment building, an enormous bouquet in his hand.

Still in shock, they were silent for a good ten minutes as they drove toward the Seine.

“How do you feel?” John asked.

“Better now.”

She parked their fake taxi behind a tourist bus, put on the hand brake, and leaned her head on his shoulder. He saw a tear welling in her eye. They sat like that for a long while.

“I don’t want to lose you. Don’t go. Luc rang me from Le Havre. He had a long talk with Isabelle Le Guévenec. We’re about to be caught between two dangerous forces. The stakes are colossal. Don’t go near Terre Noire.”

“It’s not what we thought. The Harpers are asking me to babysit their daughter. And to find her father.”

“So why was that guy following you?”

“There must be something else. We have to figure out what it is.”

“I’m scared.”

“Too late now. We have to find out how the guy knew about the meeting, and why he followed me here.”

He took her in his arms, eyeing the rearview mirror all the while. The bouquet reminded him of a smell he’d long ago forgotten. He, too, had skeletons in the closet.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 8:30 a.m.

“Good morning, Captain. You look like you’re in better shape today.”

Le Guévenec nodded and thanked Lanier for sending someone to Le Havre to reassure his wife.

“It made her happy. I wanted you to know.”

Lanier, balanced precariously in the middle of the cabin, looked at him with a stunned expression. The efficiency of his employee health and safety team was both welcome and suspicious. He’d check that out later. Le Guévenec was an unfathomable man who had been seasoned by the oceans. His wife and he had been of immense help to Terre Noire without realizing it. By becoming the mistress of the most celebrated climatologist on the planet, Isabelle Le Guévenec had boosted Romain Brissac’s morale. Like most of the Brissacs, he had doubted himself. As for the Le Guévenec marriage, every union had to navigate unpredictable waters.

Transporting the Nobel laureate to the American military hospital in Thule in the far north of Greenland was a fresh source of anxiety. Lanier turned to his captain.

“Did you go through his pockets and check his bags?”

“Yes,” Le Guévenec replied sharply.

“I’m sorry, but I’m suspicious of Americans. They’ve got a strategy regarding the transformation of the pole. They won’t lose an opportunity like this. Romain mustn’t take anything with him concerning the ice samples, the Qaqortoq ores, Gaia, or the data on the Barents Sea.”

“I’ve checked. He’s got nothing on him.”

“They’ll try to quiz him and get him to talk any way they can. The American military has its own intelligence and is hand-in-glove with the CIA and the NSA.”

“We can’t treat him on board.”

“I understand that, Captain, but a hundred and thirty-one thousand years of climate change are going to take off with Brissac when he enters that American hospital. It makes me sick.”

“That information isn’t necessarily any safer on the Bouc-Bel-Air. Who was Rox Oa, the boatswain you sent me, working for? He’s the one who loaded the cognac on board and hid the black box I gave you.”

“We’ll have to get to the bottom of that mystery,” Lanier replied.

“Who’s to say there aren’t other hostile agents who’ve managed to sneak on board?”

The two men stood for a moment, with their hands in their pockets, gazing at the inclined floor. Each wondering what secrets the other was still hiding. Lanier was puzzled by the story about his employee health and safety department calling on Isabelle in Le Havre. It felt like one more oddity in the waking nightmare of the past week. A strong wave threw him off balance and brought him back to the present.

Le Guévenec’s measured voice broke the silence. “Romain Brissac will be the first person to be put in the helicopter, just as you requested.”

“You’ve done well, Loïc. Come back and see me when all the wounded have taken off.”

That Lanier had used his first name didn’t register with Le Guévenec. He left the cabin and headed toward the back of the ship. Because of the boat’s tilting, his lower back was killing him. His hip was hurting, too. Gathering the wounded together had taken a lot of time. Romain Brissac had been a taciturn but attentive companion during the campaign in the Barents Sea and over the continental shelf of Siberia. Le Guévenec, the cuckold, surmised that Brissac wanted to be forgiven.

The botanist and three members of the crew whose injuries required hospitalization would follow Brissac. In just under two hours, the wounded from the Bouc-Bel-Air would be at the military hospital attached to the big American base in Thule. The Americans had offered to look after the victims even before Terre Noire’s employee health and safety department had called him from Paris. Unbelievable!

Wracked with warring feelings, Le Guévenec made it back to the bridge just as the blades of the helicopter were starting to rotate. The strident noise of the turbines soon drowned out the roaring bears.

“They’ll soon be in Thule,” he told the few sailors at his side.

The watch officer nodded and put his hands over his ears to safeguard his hearing. The Eurocopter, with its nose up because of the list, rose in an infernal din. Thanks to the skill of the pilot and the power of the two engines, it managed to rise straight up in a perfect maneuver.

But when the helicopter was about sixty feet above the deck, a sailor next to Le Guévenec started shouting and waving his arms. The steel cable that had secured it to an air vent on the ship was stretched taut like the string of a bow. Before stupefied eyes, the Eurocopter was yanked out of its ascent. The pilot made a desperate attempt to escape the deadly trap by veering to the side, but he couldn’t break the cable. The Eurocopter spun around on itself like a top, spitting black smoke. The rotation sped up in an terrifying ballet.

Le Guévenec watched as the pilot frantically tried to save the helicopter and its passengers. It was too late. The nose of the machine struck the platform violently, and the tail snapped in two. A thick cloud of black smoke enveloped the keelson and obstructed the skyline of drifting icebergs. Then there was an explosion, followed by an orange fireball.

Two sailors had just unhooked a fire hose. But the heat of the blaze forced them to remain at a distance, powerless. Someone had forgotten to untie the helicopter. Forgotten? Really?

In a measured voice that belied his feelings, Le Guévenec gave the crew his orders. His face was black with smoke, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the blaze. Long minutes passed before he started toward the first mate’s cabin to tell Lanier the tragic news about Romain Brissac. The head of Terre Noire stared at him for a long while and made him repeat all the details of the accident twice.

“Find the bastard who’s killed Romain.”

Paris, 18 rue Deparcieux, 10:10 p.m.

John helped set the table in the media room. Keeping his hands busy helped him think. The three of them were dining on the second floor, rather than in the kitchen, which was on the floor above. The two houses that Alicia Spencer had joined together to form a studio and exhibition rooms that were worthy of her genius didn’t function well as a home. Seated in her armchair, Victoire, wearing a bolero and copper stress-relieving bracelets, was observing the two men in her life. John had the blond good looks of an actor who could have been a hero in a ninteen-forties French Foreign Legion movie. Luc had black eyes and dark hair, a lock of which curled over his forehead. He had an adolescent’s face that was as pleasing to men as to women. Their almost identical height was the one thing they had in common. Victoire garnered smiles from onlookers whenever she strolled the streets of the Daguerre village with both of them at her side.

Luc stroked the Persian cat as he recounted his amorous adventures in Le Havre. The other two sat entranced.

“Connie Rasmussen and Isabelle Le Guévenec were both dying to spill the beans,” he concluded. “I didn’t have much trouble.”

“Don’t be so modest!”

John summed up the tailing episode and told Luc how he’d shaken off the man, thanks to Victoire and their rigged-up taxi.

“You were fantastic. He put his head in the lion’s mouth the very minute he got in the car with you.”

Ignoring John’s compliment, Victoire raised her fork over the small round chavignol while John opened the chardonnay.

“That guy followed you from the Ritz because someone told him you were there. Who was in the know?”

The parquet floor creaked under John’s two hundred pounds of muscle as he went over to the French windows to take in the nighttime scene. The neon lights of La Bélière lit up the corner of the Rue Deparcieux and the Rue Daguerre. A jazz tune was spilling out of the piano bar. He recognized the melodies of Théo, the musician who could single-handedly make the neighborhood come alive. But the atmosphere tonight was heavy. He owed it to himself to take things in hand again. In any case, the wine had been decanted, so to speak. It was too late to backtrack now. He was doomed to go through with it with his two cohorts at his side. He tried to be persuasive and reassuring as he reasoned out loud.

“Geraldine Harper wouldn’t entrust her daughter’s welfare to me and then put me down like a dog, especially not after giving me a company credit card and a phone to eavesdrop on Mary.”

“She gave you a credit card and a cell phone so they’d be found on your corpse, and you’d be under suspicion,” Victoire declared.

“For what? For being interested in the daughter with the mother’s phone on me? You’re wrong.”

“John’s right. There’s something we’re not getting,” Luc said, making the cat purr.

Victoire, who was straightening up the table, interrupted the conversation and pointed to the touch wall. A signal had just appeared on one of the screens. The GPS system camouflaged in the euros she’d handed the man tailing John was indicating that he had reached the Rue de Richelieu in the second arrondissement.

“What the hell can he be doing there?” asked John.

“I don’t see what there is on the Rue de Richelieu,” Luc said.

Victoire zoomed in on the map of Paris. In a double click, she brought up the exact spot where the man was.

“He’s at the Hôtel Louxor. Five stars.”

“He’s not on a fixed-term contract, our killer,” John observed.

“I can’t see Geraldine skimping on a killer’s pay, considering what she’d give a babysitter,” Luc said, trying to defuse the atmosphere.

“You’ll pay for that,” John shot back, glaring at him. “The Harpers head an internationally recognized firm. They’re not going to take the risk of blowing us away at the very moment they’re asking us to protect their heiress. That’s absurd.”

“What do we do?” Luc asked, nibbling tortilla chips.

John went back to studying the Rue Deparcieux. A bunch of kids were emerging from La Bélière. Nothing looked suspicious.

“Tomorrow morning, I’m going to call Mary Harper and arrange a meeting with François Guerot. We need to alert the agency, without telling them everything, obviously.”

“You’re going to warn the agency?” Luc asked.

“Yes. In any case, the Harpers predicted we would. I even wonder if that’s why they chose us. Whether I take the assignment or turn it down, the guy who wanted to waste me will try again. This is the only way we can protect ourselves.”

“And what if Mary goes to Greenland to look for her father at the Great Wound of the Wild Dog?” Victoire asked, looking at him with anguished eyes.

John smiled and went over to take her hand. Her fingers were extraordinarily supple and summed up her whole being. He took them between his hands and touched his forehead to hers.

“I’ll go, too.”

“Really?”

“If there’s any danger, we need to identify it as quickly as possible. I know you understand me, my love.”

John saw tears run down her face and fall onto her bolero. He knew she would withdraw. Victoire was capable of wrapping herself in silence for hours. Deciding to let her be, he took Geraldine Harper’s phone out of his pocket. He punched in the code and began listening to Mary’s conversations while Luc finished clearing the table. Student chatter of no interest. The last conversation was interesting, though. Mary had called her brother Harold in Montreal.

“Can you imagine. Mom has dumped a guardian angel on me. She wants me to be nice to him. One John Spencer Larivière, an ex-army major, a sort of warden. Can you believe it!”

“An American?”

“A Frenchman.”

“Amazing. Have you heard anything about Dad?”

“Nothing. I called our subsidiary in Nuuk. No one’s seen him. I’m worried. How are you?”

“I’ll survive. The doctor says I’m making progress.”

“Good. Okay, I’ll leave you. Big hug.”

“Ciao.”

This intrusion made John uncomfortable. Mary’s elder brother sounded fragile and sick. The voice gave it away. He used the speakerphone and played the conversation for his two associates. Victoire gave a feeble smile and reacted.

“If I get it right, you roam around with an NSA telephone specially made so that the Harpers can quietly spy on their family. It’s lunacy. Who says that the phone won’t be used by the NSA to know where you are at any time, like our coins in your killer’s pocket.”

“That’s true,” John replied. “Abraham Harper is on intimate terms with the NSA and no doubt the CIA. He’ll know exactly what we’re doing and if we’re really protecting his daughter. In a way, that’s reassuring.”

Luc shook his head. Baffled, Victoire stared at John.

“If the Harpers’ phone is bugged, the CIA already knows that you weren’t blown away, and we’ve spotted the killer. They know that Luc slept with Greenland’s lawyer and with the wife of the captain of the Bouc-Bel-Air. And they suspect we’re about to put the agency in the loop. The whole thing’s crazy! Who are we really working for?”

“You’re right,” John said. “There’s a hitch somewhere. Who says that the killer really wanted to kill me, anyway?”

“You’re annoying me. I’m going up to bed.” Victoire gave her long black hair a toss and headed toward the stairs.

Luc, peeling one of the pears that he bought on Sunday mornings at La Bonne Ménagère on the Rue Daguerre, spoke in a low voice.

“Do you really think he didn’t intend to kill you?”

As a former military officer, John had no illusions about the true intentions of his tail.

“No, I said that to reassure Victoire. It’s too late to backtrack now. We have to know where this mercenary comes from and find out who he works for and how he was told about my meeting with Geraldine. Have you cleaned up recently?”

Luc regularly checked Fermatown’s walls and furniture for any surreptitiously planted listening devices. All the computers and cell phones in use or ready for use were regularly neutralized and wiped clean. To do this, he had the latest Chinese counterespionage technologies available on the Internet and in the shops of the main Paris Chinatown. The technologies were the ultimate in cybersecurity and dirt cheap there.

“I swept everything last week. Your mobile’s clean. Did you give your number to anyone between last Thursday and today?”

“No, Geraldine Harper called me on the landline listed on our website.”

“So, the leak doesn’t come from her. I’ve just thought of something.”

“What?”

“North Land is big in Greenland, same as Terre Noire. Lanier’s firm, thanks to Brissac and his software program, is going to play a considerable role.”

“You think Terre Noire might have a grudge against us?”

“I don’t know. I looked at Nicolas Lanier’s biography. There’s hardly anything in it. We know almost nothing about his private life or his career. He heads Terre Noire, thanks to the shares his mother left him in her will. There are hardly any photos of him. All we know is that he taught in Copenhagen and Oslo. The guy who followed you looked Scandinavian.”

“You don’t seriously think that Terre Noire would have me taken out because I’m protecting the heiress of its rival!”

“No, but for something that we don’t know about. And Terre Noire is every bit as Danish as it is French. Who really directs the firm?”

“Check with your conquests in Le Havre. We need tip-offs. They’re becoming vitally important.”

“I’ll bait the lawyer,” Luc said. “I’m going upstairs to do an article for future-probe.com on the sister ships.”

“The sister ships?”

“I learned that the Bouc-Bel-Air and the Marcq-en-Barœul are twin ships,” Luc said. “That’s a good start for an article on the wife of a seaman and a legal advocate for the Far North. Moreover, I have the feeling that they’re both playing a role in events we don’t know anything about. They both have strong personalities. I’m going to paint a pretty picture of them on future-probe.com. If we don’t get a few secrets after that, I’ll go and become a whirling dervish in Alaska.”

“Good,” John said. “I’m going upstairs to tinker with my laptop. I’ve got an idea I think you’ll like. I’ll come and see you shortly.”

“You know you can come any time.”

“Cretin.”

John laughed as he went up the stairs that led to the studio adjoining the workout room. He chose a laptop that looked right for what he had in mind. A well-crafted Toshiba, ordinary but solid. He plugged in the USB flash drive. An Israeli engineer in Haifa’s Silicon Valley had given it to him in exchange for a microscopic Russian GPS tagging device that couldn’t be detected in seaports or airports. After plugging in the flash drive, he found his digital bomb camouflaged in a file on the Museum of Celtic Civilization in Mount Beuvray. He launched the application. A few minutes later, the dialogue box confirmed that the installation of Boomerang had been successful.

The risk of starting up Boomerang was not negligible. But if it went well, the outcome would largely compensate for his stress. Danger, no matter what they said, excited him. Those waiting for him around the bend wouldn’t see him looming up behind them.

Nuuk International Airport, 6 p.m.

Lars Jensen looked out the window at the slice of coast to the north of Nuuk. In less than a fortnight, the white part had receded another few miles. The jet had taken a bit more than three hours to get from the American base at Thule to the capital. The plane was filled to bursting. He thought back to the work he had done on the slopes of Haffner Bjerg and once again gave up trying to understand why his employer had asked him to saw up the victims, especially the dogs. Lars loved animals.

He looked once more at the photo of his next victim, who was expected to arrive in two days. According to his employer, John Spencer Larivière was a French agent working undercover in a sort of private-investigation firm on the Left Bank of the Seine. Unlike the Haffner Bjerg targets, Spencer Larivière was a professional, an opponent who was his match. One last time, Lars went over the file on the former military officer and government intelligence agent. JSL, as the Americans had nicknamed him, had served in Somalia and Afghanistan. He had become a sort of legend after slitting the throats of two Taliban soldiers who were threatening to stone to death two nurses accused of blasphemy. He had been badly injured when an unidentified group shot down his helicopter, and he had spent several months recuperating at Les Invalides before leaving public service.

Lars Jensen thought back to his own stay in Bagdad in the service of American firms that paid him handsomely to do the dirty work the United States Army didn’t want to take care of. That’s where he’d met Omar Al Selim, who later introduced him to his current employer. Lars carefully reread the reports that Spencer Larivière had sent his superiors after each mission. In the showdown to come, the slightest detail could make a difference.

The Frenchman had reactions and obsessions that were uniquely his. Every man in combat took advantage of the surroundings and the weather in his own way. It was useful to be able to read the enemy’s thoughts. Lars then looked at the photos of the two people likely to accompany him. Luc Masseron and Victoire Augagneur didn’t look dangerous. Per Sorenson, in Paris, would take care of them. Nevertheless, he dived into their files before fastening his seat belt for the landing and giving the flight attendant a smile.

The Greenland Airways A320 skidded along the runway and came to a stop outside Terminal 2, which the Chinese had completed just hours before starting construction on Terminal 3. Nuuk was spreading outward faster than global warming. He grabbed his travel bag from the overhead bin and, being careful not to jostle anyone, took his place among fellow passengers impatiently waiting to disembark and tread the soil of Greenland.

“Have a good stay in Nuuk.”

“Thank you. Lunch was excellent.”

“We hope to see you again soon.”

Lars Jensen retrieved his suitcase from the carousel and went through customs without a hitch. He then headed to the car-rental agency, where a car had been booked for him under one of his assumed names. He left the airport and soon found himself on a road too narrow for the traffic. In spite of global warming, Greenland’s nouveaux riches were rolling along in arrogant and polluting Chinese SUVs.

When he got to a rocky ridge, he turned off toward a wasteland cluttered with bulldozers. The sky hanging over Nuuk was incredibly blue and unperturbed. There was no hint of the catastrophe that had just unfolded a few hundred miles to the north. Lars pulled out the map of the town and a pair of binoculars to observe his future hunting grounds.

He began by observing the port, which was choked with a multicolored armada that was heading into the fjord. He then studied the office block that housed the North Land headquarters. The Canadian-American company owned the top two floors and overlooked the town from a balcony. Lars then spotted the more modest building housing the Terre Noire offices. The firm had two ground-floor rooms in the building. He took in the strategic buildings linked to his mission, starting with the Katuaq, the cultural and political center of Greenland, then the Conference Hall of the Northern Peoples, two hundred and twenty yards away, and last, the Hans Egede Hotel, a pearl of well-heeled tourism that saw all the ministers on the planet in quest of climate legitimacy pass through its doors.

He swung his binoculars toward the fjord, which was clogged with drifting chunks of ice. The quaint wooden houses staggered over the two banks evoked images of fishing and kayaking. He easily spotted the house that belonged to North Land. Another quarter turn of the binoculars, and there was the mountain, looming over the town with its black peak shaped like a rhinoceros horn.