5
Thursday

 

 

North Land’s private residence, 6 a.m.

John awoke with a start and, in his mind’s eye, saw the scene clearly. One of the barrels under the house had been moved. He leaped out of his sleeping bag and raced outside, screwdriver in hand. The sky was a transparent gray. He rapped the barrel and smelled the gasoline. The traces on the ground were unequivocal. Someone had set a trap for him. It had failed. He was wondering if he would make it to Qaanaq. What could he do in that hole of a place anyway? The whole thing was just a pretext to get him here and kill him. Why? How was he more useful dead than alive?

When he spotted the North Land SUV at the end of the road, he went back inside to gather his things. The climate could warm up all it liked, but he could still catch pneumonia. Mary Harper and Qaalasoq were waiting for him in the hall when he came back down the stairs. The ambience had never been so gloomy.

The North Land heiress had to be angry with the Inuit for not telling her where he was. Certainly, Mary had to be feeling foolish after winding up in Christophe Maunay’s room. The Terre Noire HR manager had probably confessed his reasons for his next act of betrayal. And no doubt, he had gotten some bad news.

“Is your luggage ready?” asked Qaalasoq.

“I just have to pack my sleeping bag,” John said.

The Inuit looked down and realized that the Frenchman had spent the night on the floor. Qaalasoq kept a granite-like silence, and Mary Harper was sulking. He picked up his suitcase and was about to step outside when Qaalasoq stopped him in his tracks. The Inuit was pointing to the tupilaq.

“You take it with you,” he said.

John thought he had misunderstood, but the faces of the two visitors confirmed that he had heard correctly. He went to the little beast and picked it up.

“You want me to lug this abomination all the way to the North Pole?”

“Yes.”

“But it weighs a couple of pounds at least. Do we need the extra weight?”

“Two pounds is nothing.”

The urge to chuck it on the ground and smash it to smithereens was strong, but John thought of Victoire and Luc. He would play the buffoon right to the end. It had become his way of loving them.

“Take it, for heaven’s sake,” Mary Harper whispered.

With her sullen look and downcast eyes, he felt sorry for her. He slipped the obnoxious critter into the leather suitcase he had bought at the shopping mall, thanks to the mother’s credit card, and turned to the daughter.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “You look terrible.”

“You’ll understand when you get in the car. Come on.”

John descended the front steps and caught Qaalasoq glancing at the space under the house where someone had moved the barrel that was supposed to turn him into barbecued meat. The expedition to the Far North looked like it would be painful.

18 Rue Deparcieux, 10:10 a.m.

Victoire put her coffee down on the table and went to the window to check the entry to 9 Rue Fermat and do some hard thinking. John’s absence was distracting her, and because of that, she also felt an urgent need to pay attention. The motionless presence of Per Sorensen at his hotel obsessed her.

“It’ll all work out. Don’t worry,” Luc said, combing Caresse’s fur and diligently untangling the Persian’s knots.

“I’ve told you not to brush her in the kitchen. Her hairs are even in the fridge!”

“It’s the only place she’ll let herself be brushed. And anyway, it relaxes me.”

Victoire shrugged and looked down at the street. She wouldn’t hear from John during the flight from Nuuk to Qaanaq. The sudden rising of Greenland was all over the news, and it alarmed her. For the first time, humanity was measuring the physical effects of global warming on the Earth’s crust. According to a Chinese scientist, this geological event had imperceptibly altered the Earth’s orbit, causing global warming to speed up. The climate was having an effect on the trajectory of the planet, which was, in turn, affecting atmospheric phenomena. A vicious cycle.

For indigenous people, man was a parasite that the planet would end up vomiting out. Global warming was a fever secreting antibodies designed to repel the aggressor. In the Cambodia of her childhood, the elders used to speak of the planets as living people with bodies and souls. Victoire regretted her contempt for legends. The elders were right. The Earth was sick with a deadly virus that had mutated two million years earlier and was walking around on two legs. A monster.

“Don’t worry,” Luc murmured as he walked over. “John’s pulled through much tougher missions.”

“It’s not the mission itself that worries me. It’s the context. Nothing’s clear. I can feel death stalking. I sense huge confrontations coming on. I think we’re more involved than we imagine. And I don’t know why. It’s making me sick.”

Luc put the cat down on the tile floor.

“I can hear an alert.”

They left the kitchen and went down to the second floor. The touch wall was displaying photos from Greenland that immediately dragged them into hell. It looked like someone had taken an ax to a corpse. Body parts were arranged over the bed and other furniture in what appeared to be a fairly luxurious hotel suite. A scalped head with its eyes gouged out had pride of place on a table next to a bouquet of flowers. The software fanned the shots out, one after the other, in a rainbow over the touch wall. One of them showed a business card beside the head and the message “The calissons d’Aix have arrived. Please forgive me, Mary Harper.”

Victoire screamed like a madwoman and took her head in her hands. Luc, paralyzed by the methodical butchery, tried to stop the parade of photos but could not. The photos captured the severed calves and thighs, placed with care on chairs and a bureau. Detached arms had been laid on a windowsill. And the macabre scene went on from there.

Trapped between the hell on the wall and the wailing at his back, Luc felt like he was losing it. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, and he took in the nude torso, which was propped in an out-of-place crib. The penis had been cut off, leaving a hideous wound.

The author of this vile bit of staging had arranged the corpse as though he worshipped some bloodthirsty divinity. Each part had been carefully washed and made ready for some monstrous act of reassembly. The penis finally turned up in the bathtub. The sight of the remnant of flesh, placed between the legs of a plastic baby doll, was beyond unthinkable.

“Who is it?” screamed Victoire. “Please, tell me it’s not John.”

“I don’t know,” Luc said, trying to breathe.

Victoire, unable to look at the screen any longer, ran from the room. Her shrieking filled the house. Luc went back to the photo of the torso and enlarged it. He studied the abdomen and went back to the thigh, which he carefully inspected. Then he shouted, “It’s not him!”

He went up the stairs, two steps at a time, and took Victoire’s hand as she stood sobbing. He forced her to go back downstairs and look at the wall.

“See. There are no scars.”

Victoire moved closer to see for herself and then collapsed on the floor.

“What is this horror?” she groaned, relieved that John had been spared but still appalled. “What’s happened?”

Why, Luc wondered, had their information system just opened the doors of this abominable cold room for them?

“Our intruder program has captured Greenland’s intelligence and police photos. We’re getting all the documents related to this crime that they have in their possession. Thanks to Boomerang, we have access to files being read at this moment by Greenland security officials who are interested in John. The program read Mary Harper’s name on the business card and alerted us while we were in the kitchen. It’s brilliant.”

“It’s awful. How can you say something like that?”

Luc took Victoire in his arms.

“Everything’s going to work out fine. Calm down. John’s alive.”

Nuuk road, 6:35 a.m.

Sitting in the back of the SUV, John put the newspaper down. He had been reading about an especially brutal murder. The victim, Christophe Maunay, a French executive with Terre Noire, had been killed and carved up in a soundproof suite on the top floor of the Hans Egede. It was the suite he was supposed to be in. There was just one photo with the story. John looked at it closely and recognized the red frieze on the wall at customs.

Maunay had been photographed upon his arrival in Nuuk, just as he himself had been. The press was getting its information from the very heart of Greenland security. He shivered and felt his muscles tighten. Cold determination took over the place in his skull reserved for combat, and something furious rose inside him. He turned to the somber North Land heiress, who was sitting beside him.

“What do they call a ritual slaying in this country?”

“I’ve got no idea,” Mary Harper replied.

Qaalasoq emerged from his silence while overtaking a truckload of Chinese workers. “We don’t use the expression ‘ritual slaying’ up here. It’s Western. It comes from your part of the world, that business. The people from around here would never dare.”

John put the paper on his knees and turned to Mary.

“I met Christophe Maunay last night. He wanted to leave Terre Noire and join North Land. He said he had serious things to reveal to you. Did he?”

“No.”

“You never met Maunay?”

“Never,” Mary replied.

The young woman opened her eyes wide, questioning what he was trying to get at. John was looking for logical explanations.

“You didn’t go the hotel last night?”

“No, I phoned ahead, and they told me your room was taken by someone from Terre Noire. I was disappointed. Who are you really working for, Monsieur Spencer Larivière?”

“I’m not the one who decided I’d spend the night above the fjord in that house. I’m amazed you weren’t informed.”

Mary Harper hunched her shoulders and seemed to be in the grip of a painful thought. John pursued his line of reasoning.

“Christophe Maunay was murdered last night at the Hans Egede, in the room your mother reserved for me. I’m wondering if I should thank you or if I should be worried.”

Gripping the wheel, Qaalasoq was not missing a word. Mary Harper seemed completely thrown. John added, “In any case, thank you for the flowers and the kind note. Pity that someone else got them.”

Mary Harper turned to him and asked in an anxious voice, “What was Maunay getting at when he said there were serious things he wanted to reveal to us?”

“I have no idea. He offered to bring you the results of Terre Noire’s research in the Barents Sea and Siberia. He wanted to reveal something shocking to your mother in exchange for a new identity and a Canadian passport. I suggested that he meet you this morning at the airport.”

“Was he killed so he couldn’t meet me?”

“Maybe. And that would mean that hanging around you worries some people.”

Mary Harper ignored the implication and looked back at the road. Qaalasoq’s presence no doubt was keeping her from speaking. Once they were on the plane, John would find a way to pick up the conversation. The car went around a bend and pulled up to a barrier blocking access to the airport. Qaalasoq held out a laminated card, and the guard opened the gate. They drove for about five hundred yards and found themselves facing the brand new airport. They loaded their bags onto trolleys and headed to the departure lounge for domestic flights.

The three of them presented themselves at the company counter and took their place in the line of passengers departing for Thule. Air Greenland Flight 76 linked Nuuk to the airport of the big American base charged with watching the top of the world. Washington was falling over itself with goodwill toward the new Greenland administration, now that the island had gained independence and opened sea routes around the pole. Thule had become the most important military base in the northern hemisphere. John noted that his two travel buddies were as quiet as mice. You could have cut the atmosphere between the daughter and the mother’s right-hand man with a knife. He prepared himself for a particularly bumpy ride.

They had just gotten their boarding passes when two uniformed officers and a man in civilian dress approached them. John sensed that he was about to wind up in an interrogation room again. No doubt, the alcohol-laced evening with Christophe Maunay had drawn attention to him. He was actually one of the last witnesses to have seen the victim alive.

The plainclothes cop stopped in front of Mary Harper. John recognized him. He was an officer who had questioned him at customs.

“Miss Mary Harper?”

“That’s me.”

“Follow me, please.”

Mary Harper picked up her suitcase and followed without protest, as if the arrest was a release, a way of getting out of flying to Thule. Maybe it was staged. John raced after her, but the officer intervened.

“Mary,” he shouted. “I’m coming with you.”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Votre place est dans le Grand Nord. Il n’y a que vous qui puissiez découvrir qui est derrière tout ça. Partez, je vous en supplie,” she said, begging him to go to the Far North and find out who was behind everything, using French so the Greenlanders wouldn’t understand. “Go, please!”

The police officers firmly ordered him to stay where he was. Disconcerted by what Mary had just said, he just stood there like an idiot. When he turned around, Qaalasoq was as white as the ice sheet.

“What is this farce?”

“Do what she says.”

Qaalasoq understood French perfectly. Did Mary Harper know that? Regardless, he was going to rip the veil off this affair and get at the truth.

Air Greenland Flight 76, 7:45 a.m.

Seated by the window, John stopped gazing at the scattered fragments of the ice shelf and turned toward the cabin. Qaalsoq’s eyes were closed. The Inuit hadn’t said a word since takeoff. The seat that Mary Harper would have occupied was between them, and John couldn’t stop thinking about her. The Harpers’ daughter had let herself be arrested without making a fuss and had begged him to fly to the Far North. Qaalasoq hadn’t flinched or uttered a word of protest.

“Why didn’t you say anything when Mary got arrested?”

Qaalasoq opened an eye.

“Because there was no point.”

“Why didn’t they take me? There’s something fishy going on. I was in the Hans Egede with Christophe Maunay. He was found in the room meant for me, which you canceled to take me to the fjord house. Why am I free?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll soon find out. Abraham and Geraldine Harper hired you for that reason.”

“You mean the Harpers offered me this contract to find out why I wasn’t arrested by the Greenland police at the same time as their daughter?”

“Among other things.”

A number of passengers had begun to move around in the cabin, which was irritating the buttoned-up flight attendants in orange and white uniforms, the colors of the new nation. The captain’s voice rang out. “I must ask passengers to stay in their seats. We’ll soon be banking and flying over the Bouc-Bel-Air at low altitude. You’ll be able to take all the photos you like without having to change seats.”

The Airbus began its descent toward the sea and came closer to the black waters of Baffin Bay. After a minute, the plane pivoted to the right, and John could see the red and black hull of the Bouc-Bel-Air and, beside it, the Copenhagen. The two ships were heading south.

“Did you know that Connie Rasmussen is probably on board the Bouc-Bel-Air?” John watched for Qaalasoq’s reaction.

“I know,” Qaalasoq replied without looking at him.

“Before getting himself killed, Christophe Maunay was also thinking about getting on the ship. But your compatriots wouldn’t let him board the Narvik to reach the Bouc-Bel-Air. Maunay identified himself as a high-up Terre Noire official. He may have died as a result.”

Qaalasoq listened intently and then leaned over the empty seat. His black eyes shone with savage intelligence. A true hunter, John thought.

“If I’ve got this right, only after he was refused permission to board the Narvik did he propose going over to North Land,” the Intuit said, suddenly talkative.

“Yes,” John answered, looking his neighbor straight in the eye.

“What happened that evening while you were with him?”

“Ah, well, we talked.”

“You have uncommon powers of persuasion, Monsieur Spencer Larivière.”

“Except that I didn’t try to recruit him,” John replied.

Qaalasoq smiled. John looked back at Baffin Bay and thought about all that he had been through since his arrival. He had been credited with playing a central role that went way beyond protecting Mary Harper. He discreetly took out his cell phone and looked at what Fermatown had sent him. The remains of Christophe Maunay nearly made him gag. Ritual slayings might have been unheard of before, but there was definitely a monster haunting the place now. He deleted the images and cleared his mind by gazing at the ocean. Qaalasoq, to his right, had gone to sleep and was snoring away like a seal.

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

Le Guévenec used his mug of coffee to warm his hands as he quizzed Lanier in the first mate’s cabin.

“What do you think?”

Lanier read the last paragraph again and put down the article that had been downloaded on one of the Bouc’s computers that was still working. Le Guévenec had jury-rigged a printer to copy the article.

The Terre Noire chief was deeply troubled by the slaying and mutilation of Christophe Maunay.

“I’m the one who summoned him to explain how the boatswain and Sylvain Velot got on this ship. I had him sent up from France to account for the treachery of those two men. And doubtless his own.”

Despite his suspicions about the HR manager, Le Guévenec was floored. Lanier went on. “Christophe Maunay was killed by people who didn’t want the three of us to have a conversation in this cabin. Even if he’d set foot on the boat, I’m not sure he’d have made it this far alive. Maunay knew too much. We’re in trouble, Loïc.”

“I’d figured that much out.”

Nicolas Lanier turned his gaze to one of the portholes. Another plane was circling overhead. Helicopters and planes of all kinds had been filming the side-by-side ships for hours. The Bouc, a victim and protagonist of the disaster, had turned into the freak with two heads. Another fleet led by the Narvik was sailing toward them. The situation was about to become untenable in the face of demands for transparency from the Congress and the international community.

Le Guévenec interrupted Lanier’s thoughts.

“Connie Rasmussen told me about a certain John Spencer Larivière, who’s some sort of image consultant for North Land. As such, he could do further harm to our own image. What should we make of him?”

Lanier looked distraught. “Why did she tell you that?” Lanier asked.

The way Lanier was looking at him gave Le Guévenec the feeling that he was talking to a third person in the cabin. Le Guévenec almost looked around to see if someone else had come in.

Le Guévenec wondered if his boss wasn’t starting to crack up. That’s all the expedition needed. He transferred his weight to his other leg to ease the pain in his hip, which was becoming more severe. The list, meanwhile, was compressing his lower back.

“How long are you planning to stay shut up in here?” Le Guévenec asked.

“Until the truth comes out.”

“What truth?”

“There’s an alliance that’s out to get us. I want to know who’s behind it.”

Le Guévenec looked aghast. “The crew’s beginning to ask questions about your presence in this cabin. They saw a passenger disembark from a helicopter, and they know someone’s here. Tongues are starting to wag. In Paris, reporters are asking about your absence. The vice president won’t be able to fend off the questions much longer.”

“He’s a diplomat. He’s in the habit of lying. That’s what I pay him to do. Don’t feel sorry for that bureaucrat—he earns more than you do. And that’s a mistake I’m going to correct. If I come out of this cruise alive, I’ll fix that, I tell you.”

“I won’t mind if you do.”

“What’s Connie Rasmussen saying?”

“She asked me who the anonymous passenger was. Velot, the guy who killed the two bears, must have told her some bullshit. Now she says she wants humanity to finally know what happened on board the Bouc-Bel-Air.

Nicolas Lanier looked appalled. But then the distress morphed into a giggling fit. He’s sinking into madness, just as my ship is threatening to sink into the sea, Le Guévenec thought. After a moment, Lanier apologized and composed himself, wiping the saliva off his beard.

“Give her some kind of answer, but be careful. We can’t have the Congress on our backs. The whole planet is watching us. And look at the state we’re in, Loïc!”

Lanier stretched out his arms to call attention to their decrepit faces and shipwrecked clothes. He burst out laughing. And now the reserved captain joined him. He belly laughed so hard, his hip felt like it was about to buckle. The world was going mad. And so were they. Their laughter rattled the walls, unsettling the remaining able-bodied men on the Bouc.

Air Greenland Flight 76, 9:45 a.m.

John could feel the plane losing altitude and came out of his half-sleep. Qaalasoq had moved into the empty seat between them.

“We’re flying over the Great Wound of the Wild Dog,” the Inuit said.

John saw a vast white expanse studded with pools and little lakes. Greenish filaments that looked like gelatin joined the blue lakes here and there.

“What’s that?”

“That’s the algae your French friends invented to keep the ice cap from sliding into the ocean. It’s from Brittany, it seems. But it didn’t work. You’ll soon see for yourself.”

The plane banked to the left and headed northeast. John registered shock—which was shared by all the passengers on Flight 76—as they flew over the Lauge Koch Kyst site. The breach was stunning. Directly beneath them stretched an expanse of black granite as vast as a French province. Like some moon blackened by a blowtorch, the surface was lacerated with cracks and crevices. Chunks of trapped ice and strewn boulders showed how violent the separation had been. The bleakness exceeded anything of the kind that the planet had ever come up with.

“Do you know what the locals call this new space?”

“Terre Noire,” John replied. The answer seemed so obvious: Black Land.

He sensed amazement mixed with respect in the look the Inuit gave him.

“You can divine names. That’s a good sign for what comes next.”

“It wasn’t hard.”

“Don’t be modest.”

John accepted the compliment, worrisome as it was. Fifteen minutes later, they were flying over bristling ice fields that looked like daggers hurled chaotically on top of each other. Rivers and inland seas were choked with drift ice from the dislodged Lauge Koch Kyst, now separated from the continent. A deathly silence pervaded the cabin. The plane headed north.

They touched down on the runway of the brand-new civilian airport, built at a distance from the military base. Thule, the mythical city of the Northern kings, was letting the United States eavesdrop nonstop on everything in the sky and at the bottom of the ocean.

Before getting out of his seat, Qaalasoq turned to John. “After World War II, the Americans drove us from this land, with the complicity of the Danes,” he said. “We were forced to move to Qaanaq.”

“I hope the Americans are paying you a decent rent.”

“It’s like drawing blood from a stone. But ever since the government let them know that the Chinese are offering us double, things have been getting better.”

John said nothing and took his place among the disembarking passengers. As he stepped out of the plane and started down the steps, he took in the American, Danish, and Greenland flags flapping and crackling above the spanking-new terminal. Once inside, they walked down a corridor and retrieved their bags without any trouble.

Then two men in uniform approached John.

“Are you John Spencer Larivière of North Land?”

“Yes.”

“Please follow us.”

Qaalasoq stood between them but was abruptly put in his place.

“We’ll call you. Stay here.”

Offended, he stiffened but obeyed.

As John walked toward a sliding door, he mentally prepared himself for a fresh striptease and another round of interrogation. He was invited to sit at a table in front of two officers, one in American uniform and the other in Greenland uniform. He immediately thought of Geraldine’s phone and the NSA’s big ears. Thanks to him, the Americans knew all about Mary Harper’s conversations and the details of his mission.

The Greenland customs man spoke first.

“We’d like to question you about the murder of Christophe Maunay, a French citizen and HR manager of the company Terre Noire.”

John slumped, expecting the worst.

“You had reserved the room that was finally taken by Monsieur Maunay. Don’t you find that strange? Terre Noire and North Land in the same room?”

John sensed that the American was on high alert, and he wanted him to show his cards first. Experience had taught John to wait for questions before replying.

“Did you want to leave North Land and join Terre Noire?” the American officer asked. “After all, you’re French. It would be understandable. Maybe you wanted to go back home?”

This is the dizzy limit, John told himself, thinking of Christophe Maunay’s proposal to join North Land. Did it look like it was actually the other way around—that he wanted to leave North Land for Terre Noire?

“I’ve never considered leaving North Land and joining Terre Noire.”

The man in US Air Force uniform opened the file in front of him.

“I see you have dual nationality—French and American. Spencer is your mother’s name, isn’t it?”

“I was born in Paris, but I spent my childhood in Princeton, New Jersey.”

John told himself that, yet again, he was going to have to clarify his origins. For years, he had been forced to explain himself to military and administrative officials in both countries. How could he make this Yankee bureaucrat believe that it was Maunay who wanted to betray his firm?

“Yet you did reserve the room.”

“North Land reserved it. Not me.”

“We’ll check. You had a long conversation with the victim last night at the Hans Egede.”

“I did.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Global warming and the new diseases it could lead to.”

“Have there been any exchanges between your two companies on the subject?”

“We spoke only in very general terms. We’re not scientists, and, for my part, I don’t have access to technical dossiers.”

“Where were you last night between midnight and three in the morning?”

“In a house that belongs to North Land,” John replied in a calm, confident voice.

“Is there a witness who can confirm that?”

“Qaalasoq, the man with me.”

The American scribbled a few words in his notebook and let his Greenland colleague take his turn.

“Mary Harper is in custody in Nuuk and is also being questioned. She claims that the business card that she used to thank the sender for the calissons d’Aix was meant for you. Is that true?”

“That’s right.”

“Why did she have flowers delivered to you? For a man, that’s odd.”

“Out of sympathy, I assume,” John replied without smiling. “It’s something people do in France. We send each other flowers and plants for our balconies. The bees are fleeing the countryside because of pesticides and taking refuge in Paris. Mary Harper has an apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, just opposite the beehives in the Luxembourg Gardens.”

“What is there between you and Miss Harper?” the Greenlander asked.

John knew he was on slippery ground and gave himself a few seconds to think. The American looked tense. John saw him glance at the three steel balls in his earlobe. The two civil servants no doubt knew more than they were letting on. Who was working for whom in this business? Rival governments were sometimes forced to become temporary allies. John had seen this more than once.

“There’s nothing between me and Mary Harper.”

“Yet she writes on the business card that she hopes you’ll forgive her. What did she do that needed forgiving?” the Greenlander asked.

“She might have thought that her behavior was a little chilly, which would explain the flowers at the Hans Egede,” John said.

“Because normally your relationship is warmer?”

“No.”

“Where did you meet?”

“In Paris.”

“What are you doing in Greenland, Monsieur Spencer Larivière?”

His face was expressionless.

John repeated word for word what he had told the customs officers in Nuuk.

“Do you belong to Greenpeace?”

“No.”

“What’s your religion?”

“Catholic.”

“Do you intend to commit acts of terrorism against the United States in Greenland?”

“No.”

“You have nothing else to declare?”

“No.”

The two men walked out of the room and left him on his own, without even a glass of water. Minutes passed. The dumb story about the flowers made him think of Victoire and how much he loved her. The door suddenly opened, and the two uniforms came in.

“You can’t leave Greenland without advising the police. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Tell the man with you to come in here.”

John rose and left the interview room. He had dodged the land mines—for now, at least—and he was starting to earn his fee.

Paris, Hôtel Louxor, Rue de Richelieu, 3:30 p.m.

Per Sorensen left the hotel, holding his red-and-black-wrapped package with great care. Ever since he had failed to execute John Spencer Larivière outside the Hôtel Lutetia, he had been confined to his hotel room, waiting for new instructions. The meeting in the bar at the Saint-James’ swimming pool with the person who ordered the hit had brought clarity.

He avoided walking in front of the Greenland House, which, since the catastrophe, had seen endless comings and goings of journalists and politicians desperate for news on global warming. There was something he didn’t get, in any case, in the choice of hotels. Why had his employer picked a place so exposed? He reached the taxi stand and took a seat in the back of a Mercedes.

“The Eiffel Tower. But drive slowly. I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

Per Sorensen put his money where his mouth was and dropped a one-hundred-euro note on the front seat. The car pulled out slowly. On the radio, there was nothing but talk of Greenland.

“It’s terrible, what’s happening up there.”

“Yes, dreadful.”

Per Sorensen couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Inside. The muscles of his face weren’t fit for that kind of exercise.

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 3:35 p.m.

Standing in front of the touch wall, Victoire and Luc were trying to figure out how the others could have gotten wind of John’s meeting at the Ritz with Geraldine Harper. No hypothesis was satisfactory.

“Apart from us, no one knew about Geraldine’s phone call,” Victoire said.

“Yet Per Sorensen was in place before John arrived,” Luc replied.

“So the leak came from Geraldine or her daughter. And they were in Paris that day.”

Luc brought up photos and the latest information they had gleaned about the two women.

“I can’t believe it’s the mother,” he said. “And I can’t imagine it’s the daughter, either. Why would they kill a man they’re paying to protect them? I can’t see them murdering the Terre Noire guy, either, even if he was a rival. It doesn’t stack up.”

Victoire was thinking.

“Let’s expand the circle of nearest and dearest who might have been aware of the meeting at the Ritz.”

“Abraham Harper had to be in the know,” Luc said. “That guy seems ready for anything. He’s eliminated practically all of his rivals.”

“He’d already disappeared in Greenland when the meeting took place,” Victoire responded.

“Yes, but before disappearing, he’d authorized Fermatown to protect his daughter,” Luc said. “So he knew his wife was about to meet John at the Ritz.”

“Still, he doesn’t have a serious motive,” Victoire said. “Why order a hit on John when he’s never been involved with Greenland or North Land before in his life?”

They were going around in circles. Luc went on. “What if Abraham Harper mentioned the meeting to someone who deliberately or accidentally betrayed him?”

Victoire was good at the game of Go and was able to apply the strategy to situations beyond the board game.

“Yes, I think we’re getting closer to the truth.”

She tried to imagine Abraham Harper at the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. Talk about a sinister name. The truth probably lay there. She was sure of it, even. She pointed at the northern part of the great island.

“This is where Abraham was betrayed by someone he was talking to.”

“Or by someone who heard something about the meeting at the Ritz.”

Luc had obtained photos of the region around Lauge Koch Kyst, which had just broken away from Greenland. In a few hours, John and Abraham Harper would be face-to-face at the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. While they were thinking about this encounter in Greenland, a touch wall alert brought them back to Paris.

“Per Sorensen just left his hotel.”

“He’s probably gone to hook up with his contact at the Saint-James again.”

“I’m outta here.”

When Luc had gone, Victoire buried herself in news accounts, looking for a clue. The Harpers rarely appeared in public. Victoire brought up what few photos she could find. The couple was sometimes in the company of their daughter, Mary. It was a long while before she found something of interest. It was on a Canadian newspaper’s website: “Among those attending the ceremony at the Oslo Opera House honoring Jean-Claude Possin, the latest Abel Prize winner for mathematics, were Abraham Harper of North Land and Romain Brissac, the Nobel laureate for chemistry, of Terre Noire.” A few minutes later, the visual recognition software allowed her to complete the list of those who were at the ceremony, based on numerous photos available on blogs and websites around the world. Victoire started. The woman sitting next to Romain Brissac at the opera house was none other than Isabelle Le Guévenec.

She went up to the kitchen to make herself some tea before going on with her investigation. Maybe she had a lead. Then she decided to make coffee instead and allow herself a slice of cake. Just one slice.

Paris, Champs de Mars Esplanade, 4:10 p.m.

Per Sorensen got out of the taxi and merged into the crowd milling under the Eiffel Tower. He spotted a group of Chinese tourists getting ready to join the line at the southwest pillar. A young woman stuffing souvenirs into a canvas bag drew his attention. The ideal carrier. He moved closer to start up a conversation and deftly slipped the euro coins that had betrayed him into her bag. Spencer Larivière had obviously spotted him and somehow slipped him the coins fitted with transmitter microchips. He’d been had like a beginner.

His employer, whom he’d met at the Saint-James swimming pool, had seen him at the hotel to explain the new instructions. Now he had the upper hand. He gripped the chain saw in its cover, flagged a taxi and asked to be taken to the Rue Froidevaux. There, he would find a modern apartment building facing Montparnasse Cemetery. According to the map, the building ran between the Rue Fermat and the Rue Deparcieux. It overlooked the smaller houses on those streets, where his targets lived. He could gain access to the roofs and would not be seen.

Thule Airport, 10:55 p.m.

John saw Qaalasoq’s stocky figure finally emerge from the interrogation room. The Inuit’s face was devoid of all expression. The guy was a muscle-bound taciturn enigma. John was sure that he had given them a run for their money, unless he was in on a mise-en-scène aimed at getting John to swallow a new chapter of this Arctic soap opera.

“They kept you a long time,” John said.

“They wouldn’t believe that I was the one who made the reservation at the Hans Egede and then canceled it. And yet it’s the truth,” Qaalasoq said with a sly smile.

“If you say so,” John replied.

Qaalasoq seemed ready to talk.

“They didn’t believe that you spent the night in the blue house at the fjord, either. It took me awhile to convince them.”

“How did you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

John was trying to discern any lie in what Qaalasoq was saying. He tried to look affable, almost uninterested.

“I called Geraldine Harper,” Qaalasoq said. “She spoke to them and gave them proof that you weren’t lying.”

“What proof?”

“I don’t know, but the American whispered something in the other one’s ear. You didn’t tell me everything about your relationship with Geraldine Harper. There are things I know nothing about that I’d like to learn before I die.”

John very nearly lost his cool. He was being attacked for hiding things from a bunch who had been taking him for a ride from day one in Paris.

“I get the impression it’s you, not me, who hasn’t been disclosing everything.”

John picked up his bags. He followed Qaalasoq to the other end of the airport and out to the helicopter that served the neighboring villages. Fifteen minutes later, they were buckling their seat belts aboard a Sikorski in North Land colors. The machine rose quickly and headed toward Qaanaq sixty miles north, at the far end of the old hunting grounds of the polar Eskimos, as they were called at the beginning of the twentieth century.

As they flew, Qaalasoq drew John’s attention to a patch of ground.

“That’s where an American atomic bomber crashed on January 21, 1968. It took years to persuade the Air Force to clean up the area and more years on top of that to get precise information about what happened. The former Danish government did nothing. The place is cursed. We’ve been driven away. We’ve been radiated. We’ve been polluted. We’ve been turned into alcoholics, and we’ve been drugged. Now we’re about to be looted.”

“Yet you work for North Land,” John said. “This helicopter, the fjord house—all of it belongs to a Canadian-American company.”

“North Land doesn’t exploit Greenland directly. Abraham Harper drills the ground to find out what’s under it, but after that, it’s the mining companies and the agricultural developers that step in. The Chinese have already bought up over twelve thousand square miles of land that’s still frozen. They’re storing up the land to pay for the retirement of future generations.”

Qaalasoq had never let himself go as much as he was now. But the infernal racket of the rotor arms was bringing back bad memories for John. Ever since his crash in a tribal area of Afghanistan, John had loathed helicopters. The memory of the accident was inscribed in the grafted skin on his body. Whenever he got emotional, the grafts would swell and could turn blue. The pain was bearable, but the feeling of being an assemblage undermined his morale. He suddenly realized that the tupilaq in his bag, like him, was made of bits and pieces. The similarity scared John. Did the Harpers have access to his medical files? Nothing would be spared him in this crusade.

Qaalasoq interrupted his thoughts and raised his voice above the noise of the chopper.

“Here, no one can hear what I’m saying. I can talk freely.”

“It’s about time! Tell me frankly what I’m being used for.”

“Abraham Harper is counting on you to find out what’s really going on.”

John felt humiliated by this unscrupulous oligarch who had chosen him according to criteria that were obscure, to say the least. He had become no more than a gadget on the economic warfare shelf, disposable, just like the Danish killer he had escaped from in Paris. He would die in combat without knowing why.

“I’ve never seen your Abraham Harper.”

“I can’t believe that,” Qaalasoq replied.

“And yet it’s the truth.”

“But I’m sure that you’re going to help us,” said the Inuit, who seemed sincere.

John shook his head, conveying that he was having a hard time understanding anything that was going on. They were alone in the cabin of the helicopter, which smelled of motor oil and burned scrap metal. It was time this ended, one way or another.

“How long before we reach Qaanaq?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 5:05 p.m.

Victoire was at the touch wall, looking for information regarding the Harper couple’s relationship with their daughter, Mary, as well as Geraldine’s relationship with Abraham. News stories hinted that Geraldine and Abraham had differences of opinion. Victoire sensed that family dynamics had something to do with John’s mission. And now the daughter’s protection and the father’s disappearance in some remote hole in the Far North were taking on a whole new light. Had Fermatown been pulled into a family squabble? Harper versus Harper? Or, more seriously, was it Canada versus the United States? The warming of the pole and the opening up of new sea routes were turning Canada into one of the giants of the twenty-first century. Victoire paused for a few minutes and drew up a list of key words: Geraldine Harper – tar sands – technologies – Canada – United States – patents – oil – gas.

Fermatown’s semantic analysis program brought up several documents and posted them before her eyes. One of them was a report published on the website of the Centre d’Etude et de Prospective Stratégique, the CEPS. The French NGO involved in long-term planning and economic forecasting shed a harsh light on the geostrategic context into which they were being propelled like a moraine pushed along by a glacier. North Land started off mining Alberta’s oil sands, but then invested in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract shale gas. The company had made great strides using extraction systems that required massive volumes of water, according to the report written by Tribot la Spière.

To release the gas trapped in rock, North Land injected water mixed with sand and chemicals into boreholes at very high pressure. Once the rock was fractured, the sand filtered in, the injected water was pumped out, and the gas rose to the surface, facilitated by microscopic vents in the sand that allowed it to come up naturally.

The chemicals used included agents designed to improve the yield and keep the gas in suspension, along with anti-microbials to prevent the proliferation of organisms at bore level and acids to dissolve certain materials.

North Land closely guarded the exact composition of the mix. The patents belonged to a small research consultancy. Geraldine Harper owned fifty-one percent of the consultancy, and the state of Alberta owned the other forty-nine percent. For several years, United States authorities had been discreetly pressing for a merger of the consultancy and North Land Holding. The United States, via Abraham Harper, owned forty-three percent of the holding company’s capital. It was rumored that Geraldine Harper didn’t intend to go along with the merger, which meant that the Canadian government would have greater bargaining power in relation to the United States in Greenland.

Victoire brought up the map attached to the report, which showed the areas in Greenland where shale gas extraction looked conceivable. Canada did seem to have a strong presence. This could explain the close ties between the Harper women and Laura Al-lee-Ah. These three women perfectly embodied the Canada-Greenland axis. With a bit of chutzpah and a dose of cynicism, you could even see Abraham Harper’s disappearance as a weakening of America’s position. The logic was irrefutable.

Too good to be true, Victoire said to herself.

Victoire looked at her watch. John would soon be landing in Qaanaq. She pictured him on board the helicopter, reliving the accident that had nearly cost him his life in Afghanistan. John would go to any lengths to match his father’s fearlessness. John Larivière, the father, was a high-mountain guide who had vanished in the Andes when his son was only two years old. John, the son, relished rock climbing, whether it was in Fontainebleau or the American Southwest. He did it to commune with his father, but he seldom talked about it with Victoire, because she had her own ghosts. Her Cambodian mother had escaped from the Khmer Rouges, but died without ever having spoken about her ordeal. Luc, who hung out in the Montparnasse catacombs, had once called John and Victoire “memory levelers.” Their medicine cabinets held the same anti-depressants. In establishing Fermatown, John and Victoire had discovered the lightness of being and a certain nonchalance, thanks to Luc. The big kid was almost like a son. Where was he, anyway?

She moved back to the big oak table that occupied the middle of the media room. Per Sorensen’s portrait stood out from the others. He had a sinister mug. Why hadn’t Luc called?

She felt something rub against her ankle and found Caresse. The Persian raised her head and meowed. Victoire bent down to pick her up. Suddenly, she spotted a shadow on the wall, cast by the sun coming in from the windows along the Rue Fermat.

Someone had forced entry into their home through the roof and was coming downstairs to the second floor. In a nanosecond, Victoire realized that any attempt to flee would fail. The man was about to surge up in front of her. There was only one place to hide in this big room. She hoisted herself under the top of the oak table. Pressing her hands and feet against the apron that ran all the way around under the table, she watched as the sneakers went right by her and stopped at the touch wall.

Per Sorensen got a shock when he saw his portrait on the wall amid people he had never laid eyes on. He placed a finger on the photo, and more pictures came up. He saw himself in the back of the taxi that had taken him to the Sèvres-Babylone–La Motte-Picquet intersection. The man who hired him had not been spinning tall tales. He then looked for the portrait of his boss and could not find it. The enemy did not know who his employer was. That was good, but he had no time to lose.

Per Sorensen turned around and saw a steaming cup on the table. He gently put the chain saw on the table and thought. When he had passed through the workout room on the fourth floor, where one of the skylights was open because of the heat, he had not seen any equipment that could be used to make fake euro coins. The taxi had to be in the garage that opened onto Number 18, Rue Deparcieux.

Victoire’s muscles were burning and would soon give out. The man had probably spotted her hot coffee, which betrayed her presence. He had just put down something heavy above her head. She could feel the sweat running from her scalp and her armpits. The first drop fell on the tile floor, making a quiet plop that sounded deafening to her. Terrified, she pressed against the wooden rim like one of the damned, regretting that she had not confronted the invader when she was still in full possession of her faculties. It was a dreadful strategic error. In a few seconds, she would be nothing but an exhausted and vulnerable rag doll. Drops were falling, one after the other. Plop, plop.

Fascinated by his image on the wall, Per Sorensen registered the sound of something dripping. It made him think of leaking water in the basement. He grabbed his chain saw and headed for the stairs that went down to the garage.

Paris, The Eiffel Tower, 5:45 p.m.

Luc stared at the tourists on the second-story platform of the Eiffel Tower. None of them resembled Per Sorensen, not even remotely. He checked the manual receiver indicating the presence of five coins less than ten yards away and walked toward a young Chinese woman who was captivated by sight of the Arc de Triomphe. Rarely had he felt so stupid. Per Sorensen had hoodwinked them. Terrified, he raced toward the elevators. They had just been cordoned off, thanks to a bomb scare.

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 5:50 p.m.

Bent over, Victoire was catching her breath and wiping away the sweat stinging her eyes. She took off her shoes and crossed the tile floor to the hall. The stranger had gone down to the garage. She put a toe on the first step and crept down, trying not to hear the heartbeats that were turning her rib cage into a Bronx drum.

Like an idiot, she had forgotten, after parking her taxi, to reactivate their system devised to trap burglars. Security tarps, approved by the European Commission and certified ISO 28000 by Orca Security, were all the rage in home security circles, especially with owners of vacation houses. They were popular among wealthy Chinese who had lavish seaside retreats. Fermatown had purchased one for its primary residence. Victoire thought she might be able to reach the manual controls on the wall halfway up the stairs.

In the garage, Per Sorensen looked over the fake taxi that had snared him outside the Hôtel Lutetia. He pictured the woman at the wheel. Then he remembered touching the laminated ad extolling the merits of Persian cats. It had mentioned a breeder in Beaumont.

Not only had the bitch made him look like a fucking idiot, she also had lifted his fingerprints and no doubt a bundle of epithelial cells. Now they probably had his DNA too. On top of being the source of a lot of frigging hassles, these French guys were diabolical. He put the chain saw on the floor and examined the interior of the locked car. No doubt about it. A white cat on the laminated advertisement taunted him from behind the window, waiting to snatch the fingerprints of other unwitting passengers in the fake taxi.

“The bitch!” he muttered.

A noise like the squeal of a bat made him lift his head. Before he knew what was happening, he grabbed his chain saw. Too late to escape. A mass dropped from the ceiling, enclosing him in sticky, smelly darkness.

Victoire’s jaw dropped in shock. She had never seen anything like it in her life. The tarpaulin, attracted by the heat source, had fallen from the ceiling and tightly wrapped itself around the stranger. The intelligent fabric spread an anaesthetizing solution over the skin that was designed to minimize the captive’s stress and keep him hydrated. Injections of vitamins and glucose made up for the lack of food. The European Commission had stipulated that any captive had to be able to survive under the sheet for forty-eight hours. France had demanded even more survival time, and regulations required biological sensors and a system to alert the nearest police station and ambulance service.

Victoire’s vague feeling of guilt turned to out-and-out terror when she heard a motor whining inside the tarpaulin, shaking the cement floor under her bare feet. The teeth of the chain saw chomped through the fabric, spitting fibers and droplets of moisture. A hideous steel tongue was slicing the tarp in two. Per Sorensen’s crazed eyes appeared in the shadow of the ruptured husk.

The killer pointed his power tool at her. Like an insect that had escaped from a honey pot, he dashed after her, laughing. Incorrectly dosed tarpaulins could induce fits of euphoria.

Unable to get to the garage door, Victoire raced up the stairs, hoping to reach the top-floor workout room before her pursuer. Even doped with vitamins and rehydrated with organic substances, the killer would be hard-pressed to catch her. She got there first, leaping atop the pommel horse and gripping the edge of the skylight the man had gotten in through. In a matter of seconds, she was on the roof.

He arrived, yelling over the roar of the chain saw, which he threw to the floor. He climbed onto the pommel horse and started to hoist himself through the skylight. Precariously balanced on the burning roof tiles, Victoire knew she couldn’t get far in bare feet. She gave up the notion of fleeing and swapped fear for rage. She would face the bastard. The hideous snout emerged from the workout room. She skirted the square skylight and slammed it on her would-be executioner. The glass broke over Per Sorensen’s skull, causing blood to gush. He swore, calling her a filthy Chinese. Doubly wrong and very insulting. She grabbed the skylight’s rusty frame and managed to yank it out of the casing. Per Sorensen, blinded by his blood, didn’t realize what was happening.

Using what remained of the metal and the shards of glass stuck to it, Victoire started hacking at her pursuer’s neck. Blood spurted everywhere. With a rage only she and her Cambodian forebears could understand, she kept hacking away at anything jutting out and bleeding. She stopped only when she could no longer breathe. By the time she had caught her breath, Per Sorensen’s head, severed from his torso, had rolled into the gutter and lay staring up at the sky. The chain saw, abandoned while it was still going, had finished the job. Human pulp, mixed with pieces of green tarpaulin, awaited her below. Hellish housework, she thought. Lucky John couldn’t see it.

Luc burst into the house, exhausted after racing back from the Eiffel Tower. He ran up the first flight of stairs and saw her coming down with a blood-covered chain saw in her hand and dragging long blood-soaked tatters of some kind of material behind her. David had just killed Goliath.

“Victoire?”

“Victoire!”

On the bridge of the Bouc-Bel-Air, 12:10 p.m.

Le Guévenec gave up gazing at the coast of Greenland. A catastrophe even more enormous than the first was gathering momentum under the mantle of ice. What they had gone through was just a warning, the first act in the demise of the northern hemisphere. The ice cap had been destabilized by the collapse of Lauge Koch Kyst and was greatly weakened. A wall up to sixty-five hundred feet high in places and stretching for thousands of miles could crash into the ocean at any moment.

In his spare time, Lanier had taught at L’École des Mines in Paris and Beijing. He had been very clear. “Picture the Alps dropping into the water!” Depending on whether it tipped to the east or to the west, the ice cap would, according to the software on board the Bouc, produce a tidal wave that would reach as far as Western Europe or the East Coast of the United States.

The nations that had spawned the industrial age were at risk of being swept away by the consequences of their own inventions. That was assuming that the planet’s most developed nations were the cause of this disaster. Brissac had had his doubts, but the outcome would be the same, regardless of who bore responsibility. Le Guévenec thought of his apartment in Le Havre and saw the ocean covering the town and Isabelle with it. He would still have to phone home, all the same, before the end of the world.

He put down his binoculars. A more immediate danger awaited him. Connie Rasmussen was also watching the horizon.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Do you have your gloves?” Le Guévenec asked.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

The Dane followed the captain—the sole master on board, apart from God—and went down to the lower deck and into a maze of tilting gangways cluttered with detritus of all kinds. Since she had boarded the Bouc, she had come to appreciate the virtues of this straightforward, thickset man, unjustly suspected of being responsible for the world’s woes. Le Guévenec had had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was starting to have powerful and troubling feelings for him. Thanks to Luc Martinet, it would not be long before she knew more about this honorable survivor of another age.

They went down another ladder and wound up in the main galley. Two men balanced in front of a stove that was still working were preparing some steaming grub, with victuals supplied by the Copenhagen. They saluted the captain.

“We put the boatswain’s body in the cold-storage locker.”

“Not very hygienic,” Connie Rasmussen pointed out.

Le Guévenec almost said something nasty but remembered Lanier’s instructions. This woman was the legal conscience of the Arctic. He opened the hatch and stepped aside to let a glacial mist escape. Le Guévenec removed the sheet covering the seaman’s body. Dressed in his uniform, Rox Oa was on his back, his color livid and his eyes registering the horror he had witnessed before dying. Connie turned her head away.

“Help me,” the captain asked.

Using an iron bar, Le Guévenec attempted to peel the corpse off the frozen metal table. Finally, it came loose with a sinister cracking sound. Le Guévenec turned the corpse over and held it firmly to keep it from falling off the table because of the ship’s incline. Connie Rasmussen examined the seriously mauled back. Under the exposed vertebrae, she could see the man’s lungs. The boatswain had clearly been a victim of the bears.

“The male or the female?” Connie asked.

“The female,” Le Guévenec replied, giving her a nasty look, full of meaning.

“May I?”

The lawyer took off her gloves and pulled a small camera out of her anorak to photograph the victim’s back.

“Where did he come from?”

“Terre Noire’s HR manager sent him to me.”

“The one who was murdered in the Hans Egede last night?”

“Yes.”

“It seems he wanted to board the Bouc. Do you know why?”

“Make yourself useful, and give me a hand,” was all that Le Guévenec was willing to say.

Connie Rasmussen put her camera away and helped the captain turn the corpse back over. They were leaving the cold room when a dull thud made them turn around. The corpse had fallen off the table.

“Leave him. He won’t be going anywhere.”

Le Guévenec closed the hatch once more and went back along the gangway. Connie Rasmussen followed, bracing her arms against the wall to avoid falling.

“You didn’t answer my question about Christophe Maunay. Why did he want to board the ship?”

“I have nothing more to say,” Le Guévenec answered sharply.

Back in the cabin the captain had assigned to her, Connie called Laura Al-lee-Ah.

“Hello, the bears did, in fact, kill the boatswain.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why did Christophe Maunay want to board the ship?”

“I don’t have the answer yet,” Connie Rasmussen replied.

“There’s a rumor in Nuuk that the clandestine passenger on board the Bouc-Bel-Air is none other than Nicolas Lanier. I need to know.”

“I’m looking into it, Laura.”

Connie ended the call. She gazed at the Copenhagen through the porthole. The Danish ore carrier had moved away a little after the transfer of the wounded. She had never played a game with stakes this high before. The “coincidence” that had placed this ship in her path would not occur twice. She waited another few minutes and observed the poop deck. The searchlight went on and off a few times. Connie had learned Morse code when she was barely five on a beach in Jutland, where the Rasmussens had a country home less than sixty miles from the Danish capital.

If everything went well, in a few hours she would be back in control—on the condition that she knew which side John Spencer Larivière was playing on. What was a guy built for hunting bears doing in this game of poker? Why had Geraldine Harper decided to launch him onto the ice shelf at the risk of wrecking everything? There had to be compelling reasons for getting him involved in the already complicated playoff for the Far North. Geraldine and North Land had to have some idea in the back of their minds that she had yet to fathom. She thought again about the captain and about Luc Martinet. Really, the French caused trouble wherever they went.

Qaanaq, 12:50 p.m.

John smelled the kennels well before he laid eyes on Qaanaq. Huts yellowed with urine extended on both sides of an empty lot covered with snow. There were dogs everywhere and a few human figures hunched over in the wind. Around these solitary figures were parked snowplows. The wind barely covered the barking from behind the wire fencing. The Bleak Pole.

The snowmobile stopped outside a building that was bigger than the others. A battered sign in Danish was nailed above the door. This was nothing like the opulence of the American Thule.

“The Rasmussen Hotel,” Qaalasoq yelled, getting off the snowmobile.

“Magnificent!”

John managed to extricate himself from the synthetic furs Qaalasoq had thrown over him before they set out. He stretched his badly jarred back. The Far North no longer fooled around with bear skins, now that the bear was an endangered species and a god in peril. He dragged his leather bag up the steps and entered the building. The silence hit him first. Then the heat and the alcohol. In the vast smoky room, a few Inuits and Greenlanders stared at them before returning to their beer and the television, where scientists gathered in Nuuk were offering their analyses. The atmosphere was as light as a sandbag in front of a trench.

Qaalasoq spoke to the Inuit woman who presided over the destiny of the Rasmussen, “Tooky, let me introduce you to John Spencer Larivière. He’s French, but he works for North Land.”

“They’re all crooks, anyway. They’re poisoning us now, after having irradiated us. The French are no better than the rest of them. Let their ghosts wander over the ice for millions of moons. What would you like to drink?”

“I don’t drink anymore.”

“That so? I forgot, with all that’s going on. The dogs barked all night. They say the moon’s getting closer.”

“It may well be.”

“What are you doing here with the Frog?”

“He wants to visit the Great Wound of the Wild Dog.”

Tooky looked at John as though he were tainted meat to be thrown in the garbage.

“They destroy the planet. Then they come and measure the damage. They call that responsible tourism. Responsible, my ass!”

The sound of smashing bottles made heads turn. John saw that one of the Inuits, dead drunk, had slid to the floor, knocking over the whole lineup of Corona bottles that he had just downed. Judging by the stares, John’s presence wasn’t appreciated. Qaalasoq whispered in impeccable French, “Don’t look at them. Otherwise, they’ll have your hide.”

John followed the advice and concentrated on the television screen. The television was showing images of New York. Fifth Avenue was now no more than an enormous mudslide traversed by a long line of bulldozers. The secretary general of the United Nations and a spokesman for the G20 announced the umpteenth world conference on global warming. This one would take place in Oslo. John recognized the glass façade of the Opera House, where the last-ditch meeting was to take place in less than a week. The disappearance of Lauge Koch Kyst had quickly elevated the conscience of the planet. Shouting shot through the smoky room, immediately followed by the noise of breaking plates and chairs being overturned. Two Inuits were plowing into a third, who was armed with a broken bottle. Qaalasoq took a key hanging from a hook. He pulled John behind the bar and then to a door that opened onto a hallway. A series of bungalows was connected to the back of the Rasmussen Hotel.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s a Red who misses the days of the Danish. The Blues want to polish him off. They may well kill him.”

“The Blues? The Reds? What are you talking about?”

“The Blues support the Norwegians and the Icelanders.”

“Explain it to me.”

“The Wall Street crash ruined Iceland. A lot of people from Reykjavik and Isafjordur came here looking for work. There were also a lot of Norwegians.”

“What about you? Are you a Red or a Blue?”

“I’m from the Wild Dog clan, a son of the land of Ellesmere, unjustly claimed by Canada. I’m fighting for all the peoples of the Arctic.”

“So, you’re on the side of the Northern Peoples Congress and Laura Al-lee-Ah?”

The Inuit didn’t reply and slid the key in the lock. He opened the door and introduced John to his new abode.

“I advise you to rest here and await my return. Tokmingwah will bring you a piece of seal. You should get some sleep and put on a bit of fat. You’re going to need it.”

“What about Abraham Harper?”

“I’m about to find out the latest. I couldn’t broach the subject with you near me.”

“It must embarrass you, lugging a Frenchman around,” John said with a halfhearted smile.

“A lot less since Paris has taken issue with Ottawa over the continental shelf around Saint Pierre and Miquelon. We may be primitive alcoholics and smokers, but that doesn’t stop us from being well-informed.”

“I bet you’ve had access to my computer, thanks to your little pals at the airport. Where’d you learn French?”

“In Paris, at the Greenland House. You know it?”

John reeled with the blow and didn’t answer. Qaalasoq disappeared, and he was left alone in a room that had a small shower and a sort of storage room, where he put his bag. A window with small square panes looked out over the sea, which was choked with ice chunks as big as dolmens.

He took out his computer and established contact with Luc, only to learn that the Per Sorensen case had been “dealt with once and for all.” In Nuuk, Mary Harper’s interrogation had ended happily with her release. John was alarmed, though, by an internal message sent to the Greenland police demanding clarification of his “relationship” with Mary. On board the Bouc-Bel-Air Connie Rasmussen was looking into the death of the Bouc-Bel-Air’s boatswain, and she had informed Luc that Nicolas Lanier was hiding on the ship. She was urging him to publish the news on future-probe.com. John answered, using the keyboard.

“Why?”

“She wants to draw attention to how silent the heads of both companies have been. She thinks they should enlighten the world concerning what’s in store for the planet, since they seem to be playing a pivotal role. She also thinks that Maunay’s murder is directly linked to Lanier’s disappearance. She’s wondering who this intriguing John Spencer Larivière is. Furthermore, she’d like info on Le Guévenec and wants me to get his wife to talk.”

John turned toward the flat, misty horizon that stretched beyond the windows of the Hotel Rasmussen. The line between the sky and the ocean looked as blurry as the one that separated information from disinformation. All these people were pursuing objectives he couldn’t quite decode. The fact that Lanier and Harper were nowhere to be seen was a legitimate concern. The Danish woman was right to raise the issue. Why were these two men lying so low? Was the situation that catastrophic? John bent over his keyboard once more.

“Why doesn’t she turn to her pals in the Northern Peoples Congress? She doesn’t need us.”

“She’s got a crush on me,” Luc replied from his cell phone.

“It’s not normal for her to rely on a freelance journalist she hardly knows to pass on information of that caliber,” John wrote. “Get her to talk. She’s trying to use us. I wonder if she didn’t see through you.”

“I don’t think so. We had a really nice night. She knows we’re on the same page, and that excites her. She confessed that she’d never met a real French investigative journalist who was willing to dig into the strategic and financial stakes in Greenland.”

“She’s flattering you. Don’t fall for it. Take the lead again. How’s Victoire doing now that the Per Sorenson problem has been solved?”

“She’d doing well. Don’t worry about the consequences. We’re on it.” John ended the encrypted connection and moved from the written word to the spoken word, using his babysitter phone.

The most interesting call was the one Mary Harper had made to Laura Al-lee-Ah to thank her for her intervention. The artist and Congress president had put pressure on the police to let Mary go. The most frightening bit was Laura’s reply to a question about the meaning of Christophe Maunay’s ritual slaying.

“They’re saying the body was cut up. What does that mean?” Mary had asked.

“It’s a pagan rite that originated in the lands of Ellesmere,” Laura answered. “Whoever did it wants the victim to turn into a tupilaq, that is, a monster made up of human and animal flesh, a cursed creature doomed to wander over the ice and snow looking for victims to carve up in turn.”

“So it’s an Inuit who killed Nicolas Lanier’s HR guy?” Mary asked.

“Maybe.”

Several seconds of silence followed. Laura Al-lee-Ah resumed the conversation. “Where’s John Spencer Larivière, the guy who’s supposed to be looking after your image?”

“In Qaanaq with Qaalasoq.”

“Come over to the house this evening. We need to talk.”

John listened to the recording again. Then he took the horrible tupilaq out of his bag and listened to the recording once more. Laura Al-lee-Ah gave the impression of believing what she had said. Surprisingly, Mary Harper also seemed to swallow the fable. Qaalasoq came from the land of Ellesmere, like all the Inuits since the Middle Ages, John reflected. And his badly healed wounds made him a sort of tupilaq. He was about to wander over the snow-covered ice. Who was it that he was looking for? And for whom?

Paris, Rue de Richelieu, 10:50 p.m.

Luc had incredible trouble getting into the Hôtel Louxor’s database. The establishment had such outdated digital architecture that the hypersophisticated intruder tools invented to circumvent the most elaborate defenses gave up, baffled by the absence of any serious security. He had to dumb down his tools. Unbelievable.

He walked into the hotel lobby with one of Victoire’s handbags and remembered with a knowing smile the object of his visit. The woman’s clothes he was wearing and the carefully applied makeup won over the night porter. Victoire had phoned the hotel reception desk a few moments before to pave the way.

“I’ve come to see Monsieur Per Sorensen.”

“Good evening, Madame. Room 212. The elevator is to your right.”

“Thank you.”

Luc fluttered his eyelashes at the young man, who ran an appreciative eye over his slender form. Flattered, Luc made it to the elevator without twisting an ankle in Victoire’s heels. He gave his skirt a little swish as he got in.

The room Per Sorensen had booked was at the end of the corridor. He stuck a biometric sensor behind one of the console tables that served as decor. Then he placed a microcamera on the back wall, which would display on the screen of his watch any nuisance that might turn up.

Luc took the magnetic key found on the dead Dane and opened the door. After a few seconds of silence, he took off his shoes and circled the room. It was a luxurious room with a marble bathroom and a teak closet. The window overlooked an interior courtyard.

There had to be some connection, though, between the hotel and the Greenland House. It was bugging him that he had not found it yet. He thought back to Laura Al-lee-Ah’s husband, whom he also hadn’t managed to identify. Nothing on Google. No trace on the social networks. No response to the thousands of requests launched on the web. An incredible black hole. He would ask Connie Rasmussen who this mysterious husband was. Per Sorensen’s attack had caught them off guard and slowed things down. He went through the night table and then looked under the bed, thinking of all the visitors who had stayed in this room with its retro wallpaper.

Maybe he was not a magician, which he had dreamed of being when he was little, but thanks to John and Victoire, life was never boring. These days, it had even taken an operatic turn. He thought of the opera house in Oslo, which had no doubt hosted the fleeting love affair of Isabelle Le Guévenec and Romain Brissac. It was yet another lead that he hadn’t had time to explore. He couldn’t do everything.

After examining the sheets and the carpet, he concentrated on the closet. He photographed the clothes so that he could put everything back in place before leaving. Per Sorensen might have had a mistress or a male lover who would try to find him. It was hard to get neater than this guy. Luc started with the suits. The Dane wore the great couturiers. Paris, Oslo, Copenhagen. All that was missing was Greenland. Wearing latex gloves, Luc went through the pockets systematically without finding anything, apart from a cloakroom ticket from the Saint-James.

He went on to the shirts and then the underwear, which was neatly stacked on the closet’s mahogany shelves. He found a few stylish ties, but for the most part, the Viking didn’t go in for anything fancy.

After that, he attacked the armoire, and that’s where he found what he was looking for. Per Sorensen’s notebook computer was a current model. He booted it up and plugged in the USB key containing the scan-and-save program for encrypted files. The hard disk didn’t contain much, apart from some images in a file named “vacations.” He opened this without any trouble and went from one surprise to another.

The first series of photos showed a beach filmed from a boat. Behind the beach were houses and a skyline densely planted with wind turbines. Then the photographer had gotten interested in a cottage with white walls and red shutters. He zoomed in to show the details and then the silhouette of a woman. Luc recognized the woman. He was looking at a report devoted entirely to Connie Rasmussen. Why had Per Sorensen spied on her when he already knew her from the neo-Nazi club? John had taught Luc not to jump to hasty conclusions. Nothing could lie like a photo.

Qaanaq, Hotel Rasmussen, 4:05 p.m.

The sound of someone knocking woke John, who had nodded off. He jumped off the bed and cautiously approached the door, asking who was there. Qaalasoq identified himself, and John let him in. The Inuit looked vexed but began with good news.

“Mary Harper was released.”

“They didn’t really think she’d killed her rival’s HR guy, did they?” John said, shrugging.

“Greenland’s independence is very recent,” Qaalasoq answered. “Justice is still in its infancy.”

“So I gathered.”

Qaalasoq went over to the tupilaq and picked it up gently, as though it were a tiny baby.

“I see you’ve taken it out.”

“I thought a little fresh air would do it some good. You really think this little atrocity is going to help us?”

“In cutting Christophe Maunay’s body up with a chain saw, they were trying to turn him into a tupilaq. For us Greenlanders, it’s a message,” Qaalasoq said, looking dark.

John thought of his meeting with Maunay and felt the anger rising over all the two-faced bastards in Greenland with hidden agendas. He remembered that Qaalasoq had learned French in Paris. The choice of Fermatown by the Harper clan was apparently motivated by something other than what John had thought. And where was all this taking him? Victoire and Luc had just risked their lives for him. His feelings of guilt were very unpleasant.

According to Victoire, who had called him on the encrypted phone, the relationship between Geraldine and Abraham Harper was not clear. On several occasions, the couple had not shown up together at official festivities. John promised himself that he would bring it up with Qaalasoq.

“Where are we going now?” John asked Qaalasoq.

“To see a friend. Put it back in your bag,” the Inuit replied, handing him the tupilaq.

He told John to follow. They went into the corridor, and then crossed the big room full of Greenlanders, who were still riveted to the television. John thought he had to be dreaming when he saw a slot machine. He had not noticed it when he arrived. Tooky, the cantankerous boss, let them pass through without saying a word. John found himself on the windy front steps, facing a pack of dogs that reeked of urine.

“The man we’re going to see doesn’t like snowmobiles,” Qaalasoq said. “You’ll sit in the sled. I’ll drive.”

John released a cloud of condensation and went down the steps. He inspected the eleven wild and smelly dogs in the team. They were nothing like the lapdogs of Daguerre village. He got in the sled and pulled the cover up to his chin. One brief command and a crack of the whip threw him backward. The few dilapidated houses of Qaanaq disappeared on either side of what looked like the main road. In the pale light, the riotous dogs attacked a huge hill at the top of which John felt like he could reach out and touch the sky.

After that, they descended on a broad trail bordered with snowplows and abandoned vehicles and left Qaanaq behind. The sled was heading for a horizon of shimmering ice fields interrupted by black mountains that looked like chopped-off pyramids. He read a half-erased number on a sign pointing to the Humboldt Gletsjer. Qaalasoq was yelling to urge the dogs on. The trail rose without slowing the team. On the contrary, the tougher the slope, the harder the dogs mushed on.

After an hour, they reached the edge of a plateau, beyond which an immense field of fissured ice stretched. Now the mountains looked bigger. Between each dark mass a white tongue ran down toward the frozen plane that was spread at their feet. Qaalasoq asked his passenger to climb off the sled.

John got off the sled and wordlessly questioned his guide. They were alone in the middle of nowhere. The other man could give the dogs a command and abandon him to die of cold and hunger.

“The house is over there.”

Qaalasoq pointed to a passage between two snowdrifts. John had missed it, the brilliance of the snow having blurred his vision. A well-wrapped shadow, hunched against the wind, was heading toward them.

“That’s Navarana, Sakaeunnguaq’s wife. They’ll be putting us up for the night. She’ll look after the dogs and see to our bags.”

John greeted a pair of mischievous eyes hidden under a fur of an indeterminate color. He followed Qaalasoq between the snowdrifts and came to a space occupied by two huts identical in size that reminded him of the houses of Qaanaq. A satellite dish indicated that the hermits living here were not cut off from the rest of the world. Qaalasoq climbed the steps and knocked on the door, which was promptly opened. They were welcomed by a wave of heat and a man who was elderly but apparently robust. He invited them to sit on fur pelts draped on seats around a rug with a circle of white wool in the middle. Animal skins, harpoons, and hunting weapons, all smelling of rancid oil and seal meat, were hanging on the walls. On a table, a computer in sleep mode gave the room a totally out-of-place blue tinge.

“John, this is Sakaeunnguaq, who lives here with his wife, Navarana.”

John bowed his head respectfully. The wrinkled seal hunter had almond eyes that sparkled with intelligence. He stared at John with amused curiosity. The Inuit must have been between sixty and seventy years old. He was taller and thinner than the average Inuit. He radiated wisdom and a kind of nonchalance that was not devoid of nobility.

“You can call me Saké—everyone else does,” he said in perfect English before pulling a bottle and two china cups from his fur. He filled the cups halfway.

John took the appearance of the bottle as a sign. He saw himself back in the Bon Marché grocery store a few days earlier, buying the same brand of whiskey to cut his possible stalker’s throat.

“Here’s to you.”

“Cheers.”

John observed the local custom and emptied his cup with the same enthusiasm as the man offering him hospitality.

“Who do you think will win the Tour de France this year?”

Saké’s question left John speechless for a few seconds. His notion of the Nordic shaman huddled in an igloo had just taken a hit.

“I have no idea.”

Qaalasoq told John that that Saké had correctly predicted the winner of every Tour de France for the past twenty years.

“Then you know a lot more than I do,” John replied politely. “Do you also pick trifectas?”

The two Inuits burst out laughing. Then Qaalasoq became serious again.

“Saké will take us to the Great Wound of the Wild Dog tomorrow to look for Abraham Harper.”

“You know where he is?” John asked.

“No,” Saké replied. “I’ve never seen him, and I have no connection to him, unlike you. I don’t know what’s happened and don’t believe for a second all the stories about geological exploration that my friend Qaalasoq is wallowing in. But I can take you wherever you tell me to.”

Saké emptied his cup and looked at this Frenchman who had crossed the ocean and all of Greenland to get to him. John wondered what planet he had landed on and said, “I’m way behind you when it comes to knowing where Abraham Harper is. I’m no shaman.”

Saké smiled.

“But you are—you just don’t know it. Hold your hand over the rug.”

John did as he was told and held out his right hand. Saké pulled seven greasy knucklebones from the fur he had been sitting on and put them in John’s hand.

“Throw them on the circle.”

John, hovering over an unfamiliar world, felt stupid.

“Don’t be scared. Throw them.”

Annoyed, he threw the knucklebones on the circle of wool. Two of them rolled out of the circumference and lined up, one behind the other. Saké leaned over and observed them for a long time. Then he looked up at his guest and declared, “You’ve already encountered two murders in the case you’re handling.”

John realized the man opposite him was right. Saké had visualized Victoire killing her pursuer. He also had seen the butchered body of the HR manager in the hotel room intended for him. There were effectively two corpses in this case, one in Paris and one in Nuuk.

“For the moment, we know about only one,” replied Qaalasoq, who had no idea of the events that had unfolded at Fermatown.

“There is another one,” John said with an unintentionally mysterious air.

“Who?” asked Qaalasoq.

“I can’t tell you just yet.”

It was his turn now to keep secrets. The two Inuits looked at the Frenchman with respect. Outside, the dogs had fallen silent. The wind was blowing through the wooden ceiling planks. Saké picked up the two knucklebones that had gone outside the circle and contemplated the five others that had stayed inside the circle. John took his cue from the Inuits. Something inside him was a loosening up. Sensations and smells buried since childhood were floating back to the surface. He felt his stomach unknot and remembered the words of some Eastern sage, “Things don’t change. Change your way of seeing them. That is all you need to do.” He understood that now.

“The five that are in the circle are the deaths in the helicopter on the Bouc-Bel-Air,” John declared with a conviction that surprised him.

“Accident or murder?” asked Saké.

“Murder,” John replied, persuaded that he knew the truth.

“You see it’s not witchcraft, becoming a shaman,” Saké joked, filling their cups again.

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 11:55 p.m.

Still in shock after committing her first murder, Victoire did not really hear what Luc was saying. Beheading Per Sorensen had brought about a radical change in her. In vanquishing her enemy, she had risen up for her victimized Cambodian family. An overwhelming feeling of release had dissolved the shame of not having been there when they died. Victoire could finally breathe.

“I killed him with my own hands,” she said, displaying her bandages. “Do you realize? It’s appalling!”

“You looked murder in the face,” Luc said. “It’s no longer an abstraction. It’s your enemy’s corpse, and it smells good. The guy got what he had coming.”

“But I enjoyed it!” Victoire cried.

“I damn well hope so. After all you’ve suffered, you should take it as a gift. You needed to go through this. You made a sacrifice on your family’s altar. You’re amazing.”

“But the body. All the same...”

“I’ll take care of it. Think about something else.”

Victoire smiled.

“Thank you.”

Luc took her to the touch wall.

“I want to show you something that’ll surprise you. Look what I found on Sorensen’s computer.”

With his index finger, he brought up the series of photos. The strange landscape looked like something out of a Discovery Channel show on alternative energy. A house appeared at closer and closer range. And Victoire recognized Connie Rasmussen.

“That guy was one step ahead of us all the way. Who was telling him about our comings and goings?”

Luc sped up the photos. The shots of Connie Rasmussen on the North Sea coast were soon followed by photos of the legal advocate at various cocktail parties. The photographer had tailed his subject everywhere. Why?

“You should have gotten him to talk,” Luc joked.

“I’d like to have seen you do it!” she shot back.

She recognized the interior of the Oslo Opera House, having seen shots of it on the websites she had consulted. Connie Rasmussen, flute of champagne in hand, was talking to Romain Brissac.

“She knows all the big names in the Arctic,” Victoire said.

“She’s a lawyer and a union rep. That’s what she’s paid for.”

“Go back,” Victoire demanded. “There’s a guy I’ve seen somewhere.”

Luc spread the photos over the touch wall again. Victoire asked him to stop on a shot of Connie Rasmussen talking to a good-looking man with a magnificent white mane.

“That’s him.”

“Who is it?” asked Luc.

“His name’s Thor Johannsen, and he is a director of Arctoil, the Norwegian North Sea oil company that finances the Abel Prize. The Norwegians created the award because there’s no Nobel Prize in mathematics.”

“Why not?” asked Luc.

“Because the woman Alfred Nobel was in love with chose a celebrated mathematician over him. Since then, math wizards have been frowned upon in Stockholm.”

Luc didn’t spend a day with John and Victoire without learning something. His real family was here, between the walls of the Rue Fermat and the Rue Deparcieux, streets named after two other mathematicians whose discoveries Victoire had told him about—and he had promptly forgotten. He shuddered at the thought of what could have happened if she hadn’t had the presence of mind to confront the killer at the right place and at the right time. Her courage and humility impressed him.

He selected all the photos showing the lovely Rasmussen conversing with Thor Johannsen, the Norwegian oil man. The Danish woman was clearly making eyes at the old rake.

“Second-biggest market capitalization on the European stock exchange,” Victoire said, unable to keep herself from smirking. “Your girlfriend doesn’t waste her time.”

In the following photos, Connie Rasmussen was having breakfast outside a café with the same man. This time, the Eiffel Tower replaced the wind turbines of Jutland and the mirrors of the Oslo Opera House. Luc stepped back to get some perspective.

“A Danish killer who spends his time photographing a Danish lawyer he met in a neo-Nazi club who’s chasing after a Norwegian oil magnate—what’s that?”

“A bad business,” Victoire replied, looking at her bandaged hands. “But go on. It’s just starting to get interesting.”

Luc obliged and continued. He blushed when he saw the port of Le Havre and the red and black hull of the Marcq-en-Barœul.

“I can see you!” cried Victoire.

He was transfixed by the photos. In one, he was rescuing Connie Rasmussen from the eco-warrior demonstration. Other shots showed him at the hotel and then outside Isabelle Le Guévenec’s apartment building.

Victoire flinched. “He didn’t let you out of his sight.”

“He must have been in the building opposite us. He shot my interlude with Isabelle.”

“Go on.”

They stepped back when they found the entrance to 9 Rue Fermat and the entrance to 18 Rue Deparcieux in the next shots.

“He reconnoitered before he came here,” Victoire said. “He avoided the street so the security officers wouldn’t spot him. Who gave him our address? Look! He climbed onto the roof and photographed the skylight! Go back.”

Luc went back to a shot of the entrance to 9 Rue Fermat. A city garbage truck was in the photo.

“He photographed the house last Friday, I think,” cried Victoire. “That’s when they pick up the garbage.”

Luc held his breath and made a quick calculation.

“That means he identified us three days before John met Geraldine Harper at the Ritz. How did they know we’d get the job of protecting Mary three days before it happened?”

“Because there was a leak or a betrayal.”

Victoire brought her injured hands to her forehead. New photos appeared.

“That’s John!”

She saw John outside the Ritz in the Place Vendôme.

“Last photo,” said Luc. This showed John carrying a bouquet.

“That’s the bouquet he bought me at the Bon Marché to throw the Dane off,” Victoire explained.

Luc and Victoire stood there for a long while without reacting. What they saw on the wall frightened them. A few notes rose up from La Belière. But the Daguerre village suddenly felt far away—very far away. Luc tried to sum up what they knew, which was not a lot. Victoire remembered that they had a corpse on their hands. They couldn’t call the police. John didn’t want them to. He had told them by encrypted message.

“I haven’t got the strength to go up and look for his head on the roof,” Victoire said. “How are we going to get rid of the body?”

“Victoire, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it,” Luc said. “I’ve got an idea. You get some rest.”

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 7:30 p.m.

Connie Rasmussen allowed her Inuit bodyguard to open the cabin door. Sylvain Velot, the man who had murdered the two bears, wanted to see her. She discreetly turned on the tiny recorder that would assist her when the time came to write her report. The French sailor waited until they were alone.

“I know now that I can trust you,” Velot said. “I’ve got something important to tell you.”

“I’m listening,” Connie replied.

“Nicolas Lanier, the head of Terre Noire, is on board the Bouc-Bel-Air. In the first mate’s cabin.”

Velot watched for her reaction.

“That’s incredible! I’ve just been talking to several members of the crew. They don’t seem to be in the loop. When the Terre Noire Eurocopter landed, no one got a good look at the passenger. The pilot didn’t tell anyone, and then he died in the crash. How do you know it’s Lanier?”

The sailor let a few seconds pass. Then he lowered his voice as if he risked being overheard. “I received information from you know who. I have a mission to carry out. You’re here to help me, aren’t you?”

Connie nodded and refrained from questioning him any further. Simple astonishment or any hint of reluctance could turn her into a tupilaq.

“How can I be useful to you, Sylvain?” she asked in a honey-coated voice.

The sailor didn’t hesitate for a second. “I need to get into the boatswain’s cabin, but Le Guévenec has the keys. You’re the only one who can help me.”

“What do you want to do in the cabin?”

“Retrieve something.”

Connie gave him a conspiratorial smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

And she left the cabin, using the walls for support. Once on the bridge, she pulled out her cell phone and went over the latest news bulletins. No one was saying anything yet about Lanier being on the Bouc-Bel-Air. She called Luc Martinet in Paris.

“Hi, Luc, it’s Connie. I wanted to hear your voice.”

“Really? I’m flattered. How’s it going in Greenland?”

“As well as possible. Luc, I have some information that might interest you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I can confirm that Lanier is actually on board. You can run with the story without fear. Don’t hesitate.”

“You’re brilliant, Connie!” he exclaimed. “Speaking of which, you wouldn’t happen to know a certain Thor Johannsen, would you? He’s a Norwegian in North Sea oil.”

Connie reeled. This two-bit journalist was moving way too fast. A red alert went off in her brain. She calmed her breathing and replied as naturally as she could. “He’s one of the big boys in Arctoil, the Norwegian oil company.”

“Do they have interests in Greenland?”

“They have interests everywhere, my dear Luc.”

Connie cut him off, saying the captain wanted to speak with her. Then she speed-dialed Laura Al-lee-Ah’s number.

“Hello, Connie, I was waiting for your call. Did you see the seaman?”

“He’s just spoken to me. I suppose...”

“It’s fine. Do what he tells you.”

“What’s going on?” Connie asked in as calm a voice as possible.

“I’ll call you back,” Laura Al-lee-Ah replied sharply and ended the call.

Connie stared at her cell phone. Ever since she’d met Thor Johannsen, Laura’s husband, her relationship with the muse of the North Pole had become strained. A shadow had come between the two women. Connie felt absolutely no attraction to the oil magnate or his money. Only Denmark’s interests mattered to her. It was hard to tell Laura Al-lee-Ah that.

She retraced her steps, musing on the way she would proceed when the time came. The best thing to do right now was to let things take their course. She headed for the captain’s cabin, again bracing herself against the wall. Le Guévenec unbolted his door and grumbled when he saw her.

“What do you want from me now?”

“I need the key to the boatswain’s cabin.”

“And why’s that?”

“I have to take photos of where he lived for my report. You can come with me, if you’d like.”

“I don’t have time,” Le Guévenec said. “We’ve just learned something awful.”

The captain seemed extremely agitated. He retrieved the key from his cabin.

“Here.”

Connie thanked him and looked at the door of the first mate’s cabin, where Lanier was holed up.

A few minutes later, Le Guévenec left his cabin and climbed up to the bridge, where they’d just learned of a second catastrophe. The Narvik and the flotilla that had been chartered by the Congress had been swept off the coast of Aappilattoq by a huge swell that was washing icebergs along with it. The sudden collapse of one of the biggest glaciers in Greenland was now barring their way to Nuuk.

“We’ve received several SOS calls,” the watch officer said.

“Steer a course for the Narvik and its escort,” the captain commanded.

As a man of honor, Le Guévenec couldn’t imagine for a second abandoning the Narvik to the icy waters of Baffin Bay. The Bouc would go at its own pace, but it would not shirk its duty. Despite or because of what he’d just been through, he was beginning to understand these Greenlanders, victims of a civilization that they hadn’t chosen. He, too, was starting to wonder how any of this made sense. Weird ideas that would never have crossed his mind before this cruise were germinating inside his brain like so many poisonous, intoxicating, flowers.

“Raise the Breton flag!”

“Yes, Captain.”

Humboldt Gletsjer, 10:05 p.m.

While John and the two men were enjoying their meal, Saké’s wife, Navarana, came and went between the kennel and the house. When she was finished tending to the dogs, she joined them, taking off her anorak and revealing the body of a young woman. Her embroidered wool dress was short and tight enough to inflame any man’s imagination. She smiled at the three men and went over to the computer.

“Saké has a gorgeous wife, doesn’t he?” Qaalasoq said.

“But I don’t lend her to anyone,” the old man replied. “You shouldn’t believe all you hear about those you call Eskimos.”

The three men laughed. John felt it was time to take his leave and let Qaalasoq escort him to the other house. A strawberry-colored cloud lit up the night with sublime clarity. The field of ice looked like a carpet of diamonds. In the distance, the topless black pyramids blocked the horizon. The dogs were yelping in the kennel, and John’s boots made a crunching sound on the luminous snow as he made his way.

“But I had heard that the Inuits lent their wives,” John said when they reached their destination.

“Certain hunter clans used to—in very specific circumstances,” Qaalasoq answered.

The Inuit opened the door and showed John the place intended for him. The nocturnal brightness lit up a bed and a table. A washbasin and a doorless toilet completed the accommodations.

“It’s rustic, but you’re a soldier, right?”

How did Qaalasoq know about his military past? John found his luggage tidily stowed and saw that Navarana had carefully made up the bed.

“I’ll be sleeping on the other side of the hall,” Qaalasoq said. “I’ll wake you.”

Once he was on his own, John took out his computer and acquainted himself with the latest news. Luc had sent him the photos discovered on Per Sorensen’s computer. John reeled when he saw that the killer had been on their tail for some time. Luc wrote, “Connie Rasmussen is asking me to publish the attached article confirming that Nicolas Lanier is on the Bouc-Bel-Air. The article’s ready, but I’ll wait for the green light from you before doing anything with it. I don’t trust Connie. I’m wondering what she’s after.”

John read the article that Luc had written. It was mainly about the Lauge Koch Kyst catastrophe. The role of the ship was mentioned in passing, and the presence of the Terre Noire head was just touched on. “Nicolas Lanier boarded the ship following the news of a helicopter crash that killed five crew members of the crew and the scientific mission, including Romain Brissac.” The mainstream media would definitely pick up the information. And the news would ignite a powder keg when readers joined the dots between Lanier’s disappearance from the public spotlight and the simultaneous disappearance of Abraham Harper, the other great man of geological prospecting.

John then went on to read the Greenland police and intelligence reports and nearly fell over when he saw the memorandum sent to the Greenland government:

Suspicious activities—John Spencer Larivière

Report NK 2089—FR USA

Mary Harper, heiress of the Canadian-American company North Land, founded by Abraham and Geraldine Harper, was seduced in Paris by John Spencer Larivière and has since become his mistress. This former soldier in the French Army was obliged to leave the intelligence agency directed by Hubert de Méricourt at Les Invalides for unknown reasons. The agent is pursuing a goal that is believed to be linked to differences that pit France against Canada in relation to the continental shelf off Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Spencer Larivière is in possession of the Canada Geological Survey report. Considering this agent’s dual French and American citizenship, it is reasonable to assume that he is hiding ties to the CIA. We know that Abraham Harper, an American, also has close ties to the CIA. Spencer Larivière has been seen on several occasions with Geraldine Harper, a Canadian and the mother of Mary Harper. Spencer Larivière has also seduced Geraldine Harper. In addition, he is implicated in the murder of Christophe Maunay, a French citizen, from the company Terre Noire, North Land’s rival. Spencer Larivière is currently under very close surveillance in the province of Avannaa, and he is considered a threat to Greenland’s sovereignty.

How could anyone write such lies? John was flabbergasted. So that was the sort of stuff the Greenland intelligence agency was serving up for government leaders: impressions sprinkled with the malicious slander and ulterior motives of bureaucrats eager to shine for the top brass. The great island was getting off to a bad start. Once his anger had subsided, he told himself that all intelligence agencies did this, including the one he had left.

He stopped reading to listen to Mary’s phone conversations. None of it was of any interest. But then he heard something disturbing. Laura Al-lee-Ah was talking about him.

“You didn’t tell me that the Frenchman had left to look for your father up at the Great Wound of the Wild Dog.”

“I thought Geraldine was keeping you up to date.”

“Since independence, your mother’s been snubbing me. It’s the last straw.”

“She doesn’t want to look like she’s influencing you. You’ve become an influential politician. We don’t want to embarrass you.”

“In any event, you could have asked the Nuuk police to help you find your father instead of calling on a French mercenary. It seems he doesn’t have much of a reputation. And tongues are starting to wag about the two of you. They’re even saying he’s got his eye on your mother.”

“We thought about calling on the police here, but Mom doesn’t trust the Danes. They’ve still got a lot of influence in the administration. You ought to know.”

Mary Harper was obviously alluding to Connie Rasmussen. John noted Laura Al-lee-Ah’s silence.

“Where’s your father?”

“We have no idea,” Mary answered.

“How long ago did he vanish?”

“A week ago. His last call was from the Great Wound.”

“I’ll step in and see that he’s found. Get your mother to call me.”

“I’ll get on her right away.”

After her conversation with Laura Al-lee-Ah, Mary had once again called a number in the Morvan backwater. Incredible. She had let it ring for a long time and called again five minutes later without an answer. John went back to the computer and asked Luc to find out what he could. They had not given this mystery the priority it deserved. What obscure role could this rather austere and little-known part of France be playing in the planet-spanning tragedy?

“Check on the spot right away. Something’s going on in Burgundy.”

John left his room, crossed the hall, and nudged the partly open door. Qaalasoq looked up from his sleeping bag.

“Could you ask Geraldine Harper if she’d issue a statement confirming that Nicolas Lanier is on board the Bouc-Bel-Air?”

“He’s alive?” Qaalasoq asked, looking stunned.

“Yes,” John replied. “Does that surprise you or sadden you?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Luckily, you’re paying me well. Otherwise, I’d be asking myself questions.”

Qaalasoq seemed dazed by the efficiency of “the French mercenary.” John went back to bed, convinced that Geraldine and Abraham Harper would soon be commenting on the discovery of Nicolas Lanier on the Bouc-Bel-Air. He didn’t know why, but he was sure. I’m turning into a shaman, he told himself, half-convinced.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 11 p.m.

Connie Rasmussen stood at Le Guévenec’s side on the bridge, watching the Copenhagen sail away. A milky night hung over the black ocean waters. Le Guévenec had called the captain of the other ship to inform him of his change of course. It was his duty to rescue any ship in distress. The Bouc-Bel-Air was about to find itself alone again. Connie had taken the news like a punch in the gut. The sudden collapse of the Upernavik Gletsjer into Baffin Bay and the dispersal of the Narvik flotilla were forcing her to change her plans.

“When will we be there?”

“Tomorrow, during the day. Maybe around noon.”

Clutching the key to the boatswain’s cabin in her pocket, Connie looked at the iron man. She reluctantly left the bridge. Returning to Sylvain Velot, she put on a dismayed look.

“Do you have the key?” the sailor asked.

“Le Guévenec was about to give it to me when we received an SOS from the Narvik. He sent me packing. He’s very worked up. It seems a new piece of Greenland has just broken away.”

“I know. I absolutely have to have that key.”

“I’ll try again.”