6
Friday

 

 

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 1:10 p.m.

Victoire was wringing her bandaged hands. Why hadn’t Luc come back? She would never forget Per Sorensen’s gory, grimacing head. Luc had pried it out of the gutter and shoved it into a garbage bag, along with the rest of the body. It would take quite a few storms to remove the traces on Fermatown’s roof tiles.

John’s absence was becoming unbearable. What she’d just read about him in the Greenland intelligence archives had outraged her. Those people made it up as they went along, constructing a surreal scenario based on appearances.

Paralyzed and alone in the garage, she once again checked their house-cleaning efforts in the flickering florescent light. They could wash and scrub all they liked for weeks on end. There would always be a trace of blood somewhere. She heard a scraping sound. Luc was finally home.

“Where’d you put the body?”

“With Sartre and Beauvoir,” Luc replied. “No one will go looking there.”

“How’d you manage to lift the marble slab?” Victoire asked, astounded.

“With jacks from the studio. No one saw me.”

Familiar with Montparnasse Cemetery, thanks to his excursions into the catacombs, Luc even had a duplicate key to the gate on the Rue Froidevaux side. For him, getting in and out of the cemetery was child’s play.

“John sent a message,” she said. “He says you can publish the article.”

“Good. Then I’ll be able to call Connie to find out why she’s so keen on the world knowing that Lanier’s on the Bouc.”

“I’d wager she doesn’t have the best interests of Lanier or Terre Noire at heart,” Victoire said. “John also wants you to go to the Morvan and identify the chalet Mary Harper keeps calling.”

“I know, but I can’t leave you alone in your state. Doesn’t he realize what you’ve been through?”

“No, you should go to the Morvan. You’ll be doing a better job of protecting me by finding out what’s going on there. I called Guerot—without telling him about Sorensen, obviously. I told him I was frightened. He promised to send additional security.”

Luc knew that insisting on staying with Victoire was pointless, so he went upstairs to his room.

“I’m going to sleep for a bit before I go.”

Just then his phone started ringing. He recognized Connie Rasmussen’s voice trying to make itself heard above the noise of the Bouc-Bel-Air’s engines.

“Good evening, Luc. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all.”

“What about my article on Lanier?” Connie asked.

The time had come to find out why the Danish woman wanted it to be published. Luc made himself sound warm but insistent.

“It’ll be online in less than five minutes. Why are you so keen for the world to know that the head of Terre Noire is on the Bouc-Bel-Air?”

“Because I find it totally shocking that the two chief executives who are in the best position to let us know what’s going to happen are apparently in hiding and aren’t saying a word. Don’t you find that shocking?”

“I agree,” replied Luc, who didn’t believe a word of what she’d just said.

Connie Rasmussen might well be gearing up to pull a dirty one on Terre Noire, but her argument was irrefutable. Who were the good guys and the bad guys in this ecological disaster? Victoire, by his side, looked puzzled.

“How do you assess the potential damage if the experts are nowhere to be found? We need all the experts, both the researchers and the heads of these companies.”

“I see.”

“Lanier and Harper have to come out in the open and answer the planet’s questions,” Connie continued.

“You’re right, Connie.”

“Have you heard anything about pretty boy?”

Luc hesitated for an instant and cast an apologetic glance at Victoire.

“Do you mean Spencer Larivière?”

Victoire frowned.

“Yes, the creep who hit on me on the plane,” Connie replied. “That guy’s unbearably arrogant. He says he’s an image consultant for North Land. I don’t believe a word of it.”

“I have some well-placed contacts, and I’m conducting a discreet investigation,” Luc answered cautiously.

“I’ve learned that he heads some Paris outfit called Fermatown, a more or less disreputable outfit that’s into shady ops,” Connie said. “I can’t figure out what he’s up to. He’s also implicated in the murder of a Terre Noire exec. And there are rumors that he’s chasing after Geraldine Harper. What on earth can Mary Harper be doing with a peacock like that?”

“I have no idea, Connie. I’m asking myself the same question.”

“The Harpers know everyone there is to know in Paris,” Connie went on. “They don’t need this clown. Unless...”

She didn’t finish her sentence.

“Unless what?” Luc pressed.

“Unless there’s something that stinks. Whatever the case, I remember our night in Le Havre. We’ll have to get back to that as soon as I’m in Paris. I’m still all excited. What do you say, Luc?” she asked, as smooth as gravy.

Victoire, who’d heard everything, shot him a look. He was reminded of his teacher at Croix-Rousse primary school in Lyon, who would glare at him the same way when he misbehaved on the playground.

Luc cleared his throat, turned down the volume on the speakerphone, and walked away to avoid further humiliation. He knew what Victoire was thinking: So, two women in the same port.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 2:15 p.m.

Connie Rasmussen walked along the gangways that led to the boatswain’s cabin. She had to ram her shoulder against the door to get it to open. The shock of the tidal wave had affected everything on the ship. Half of the doors no longer shut, and the other half were hard to open. Much of the equipment either didn’t work or worked tentatively. But no one was in a fit state to fix anything anymore. Connie shut the door of the cabin as best she could. She didn’t want to be spotted going through the former boatswain’s things. Why had Sylvain Velot asked her for the key to the cabin, she wondered, opening one drawer after another. No doubt he had been told to retrieve any compromising objects.

Reflecting, Connie looked under the bunk. She could see things better now. Before killing the bears at the opportune moment to destroy Terre Noire’s image, Velot had been recruited by the boatswain on the instructions of Christophe Maunay, the Terre Noire manager who had been chopped to bits at the Hans Egede. The three men had been part of the same team. She had to act fast. The Bouc-Bel-Air had been tampered with behind the back of its captain, a decent guy a thousand leagues from the intrigues of the Far North. He was a character straight out of Jules Verne, the French writer who had captured her imagination as a little girl and colored the sorry beaches of Jutland.

She opened the closets and threw their contents on the floor. She went through the pockets of all the clothes before taking a breather and rubbing her lower back. The boatswain had a workbench, and she examined every drawer. She found nothing and was becoming increasingly fearful. At any moment, someone could burst in. In the bathroom, she inspected the washbasin, the cabinets, and the shower—nothing suspicious. She went back to the bed. The seaman hadn’t left anything even slightly embarrassing, either in the mattress or under the bunk. She stood motionless in the middle of the cabin, trying to think. Had Le Guévenec cleaned up? Back in front of the metal closet, she tossed the underwear around and slid her hand into the boots and shoes. Nothing.

All that remained were a dozen pairs of socks, which she desperately started picking through. She felt something hard in a red wool sock. She stuck her hand in the sock and pulled out a Smith & Wesson, fitted with six cartridges, and a new smartphone. That’s what Sylvain Velot had wanted to retrieve after the death of his master and protector. Now she really had to tread carefully.

Connie left the cabin, concealing the sock and its contents under her oilskin. A few steps down the gangway, she stopped dead in her tracks. Petrified, she stared at the spectacle. The moon had lit up a sea bristling with gleaming knives of ice. The gigantic shards seemed to reach into the sky. The huge pressure exerted by the ice cap was spawning icebergs no one could have imagined in their wildest dreams. Despite the risk of being found out, Connie remained rooted to the spot, both fascinated and appalled. As it died, Greenland was slicing into the sea and sky with blades of crystal such as the world had never seen before.

Avannaa, 6:30 a.m.

Rudely jostled in the sled, John was beginning to regret that he had come. Sakaeunnguaq, the hermit of the Humboldt Gletsjer, was leading the way, driving the first dog team toward the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. They’d been on the trail for a good while. Saké raised his arm and gave the signal for a pause. John felt Qaalasoq’s maneuver behind him as he drove the brakes into the snow. Even after an hour’s run, the dogs’ fury hadn’t abated. Slowed down, then stopped in their headlong surge, they were steaming like gas flares. Several of them rolled on the ground, rubbing their backs on the ice, which was now flooded with their urine.

John got off the sled and took a few steps. Saké came to meet them. Qaalasoq’s dogs calmed down as soon as they saw him. The last king of Thule had a sort of power over animals. John grabbed his thermos and swallowed a slug of tea before passing the cylinder to the two Inuits. After the barking and the noise of the sleds, the relative silence of the pack was like a balm. The transparent blue sky shone on a desert of ice marked in the distance by a few mist-covered mountains. Saké pointed southward.

“We’re less than a mile from the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. You must watch out—it has been in flux lately. Since the collapse of Lauge Koch Kyst, we’ve intercepted messages saying that the scientists manning the international stations are leaving.”

John listened in silence while noting that the hermit spent his time listening to the radio traffic on the ice sheet. Funny kind of shaman. Saké drank some more tea and exhaled a cloud of condensation that was immediately whipped away by the wind.

“We’re going to head for Raphaelle, the closest Terre Noire station, which has probably been evacuated by now,” their guide continued. “After that, we’ll go on to the spot where Abraham Harper made his last call, all right?”

The two Inuits turned to John, seemingly awaiting his instructions. He pictured himself back at the Ritz with Geraldine. Five days earlier, he couldn’t have imagined himself in a position of authority in such an alien land.

“Okay,” he replied to his two companions’ great satisfaction.

Qaalasoq gave the thermos back to him, and the convoy regrouped. They raced for twenty minutes over a trail that was almost smooth and finally approached the Great Wound. Suddenly, John felt as though he had happened upon another geologic era. Standing in the lead sled, Saké had slowed the first dog team. A crevasse a few yards deep and the width of a country road appeared on their right. John scanned the formation. Greenish striations scored the bottom and ran up the sides like huge varicose veins.

The sleds climbed a small rise. And then other rifts—each new one bigger than the last—appeared. Carving up the icy landscape, the fissures stretched far into the distance. The three men were moving across a plateau now, and they had the eerie sense that they were approaching some sort of void.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the edge of a vast basin. They cast their eyes over what looked like a sort of lunar crater dotted with little blue lakes that glistened in the sun. They moved down a broad trail and soon found themselves surrounded by what looked like the ridges they’d left behind. John had the awful sensation that he was at the bottom of an immense circular trap.

Suddenly, they heard the rotors of a helicopter. An enormous red and black Eurocopter rose from the horizon. It was flying at a low altitude. John saw that at the end of a cable it was carrying a mobile home characteristic of the scientific stations found in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Terre Noire was evacuating Raphaelle, just as Saké had said.

The sled thumped over a series of mounds and ruts. John spotted a burst of light just over a snowdrift less than a hundred yards away. Then he felt heat in his shoulder. In the sky, the helicopter hovered. The racket was deafening. Qaalasoq shouted at the dogs, and the team bounded ahead. Something must have happened that only the Inuit understood.

Fifteen minutes later, they reached Raphaelle. The base had half a dozen mobile homes painted in the red and black company colors. John could see the empty spot once occupied by the one dangling from the helicopter. The labs and dwellings surrounded a limpid blue pond. The presence of a body of water as vast as the ornamental lake in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris gave the place an unreal aura. John felt as though he had arrived in another world, one that already was no longer Greenland.

Saké stopped the convoy near one of the houses sporting French and Danish flags. A few human figures, hooded and dressed in red bodysuits, were busy packing the premises up and ignored them. Everywhere, motorized machines attested to the orderly retreat. John got out of the sled, relieved that the jerky ride over the unforgiving terrain had ended.

It was at the edge of the water that the pain stabbed his shoulder. He felt under his anorak, and it was burning and wet. John quickly removed his outerwear to take a look. There was a bleeding graze where something had plowed along the muscle. John raced back to the sled and studied the place where he’d been sitting a few moments before. He didn’t have to look long before he found the depression that the bullet meant for him had made.

Someone knew he was going to Raphaelle and had chosen that moment to bump him off.

“Something wrong?” asked Saké.

“Someone just tried to kill me.”

“Hardly surprising!”

“I saw where the shot came from,” Qaalasoq added.

He removed his sunglasses and pointed to the trail.

“The man was hidden behind a snowdrift. He fired the moment the big helicopter flew by, but he missed you. Greenland saved you.”

“How’s that?” John asked, looking skeptical as he put his outerwear back on.

“Because the trail is so contorted.”

With his arms, Qaalasoq demonstrated how the sled had slipped into a deep rut at the moment of impact.

“If it hadn’t been for that, the bullet would have hit your heart, not your shoulder. John scanned the landscape, searching for his assassin.

“The guy’s still there. He’ll try again. He has to be killed now.”

“Let’s not stay here,” Qaalasoq said. “Let’s take cover. You’re with your compatriots here. That’s a good thing.”

“I hope so,” John grumbled, telling himself his “compatriots” wouldn’t necessarily be overjoyed to see him. Everyone on the shores of the Arctic knew that North Land had entrusted its image to a Frenchman—and an unscrupulous mercenary who had gotten the Harper women, mother and daughter, into his bed.

Paris, Quai d’Orsay, the Foreign Office, 9:30 a.m.

Victoire hadn’t seen Hélène Monties since they were at L’École Normale Supérieure on the Rue d’Ulm. Their careers had diverged, but they’d had occasion to correspond and send each other e-mails when Hélène was working in Cambodia. Back from Asia, the diplomat had joined the Foreign Office’s Department of Economic Intelligence, a job she’d volunteered for.

She didn’t make Victoire wait and offered her coffee and croissants. Nicknamed “First Light,” Hélène had the reputation of being a workaholic, up every morning at five and at work in the Foreign Office on the Quai d’Orsay by half past six.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you, calling you so early,” Victoire apologized.

“Darling, you never disturb me. I’ve gone over all your questions. You’re working on something we’re particularly interested in. I’ve even put a little dossier together for you. I haven’t forgotten how you helped me understand Asia. Without you, I would have been taken for a ride in a rickshaw. I’m not too sure what you’re up to, but I’m excited. I just hope it’s not too serious.”

Hélène looked at Victoire’s bandaged hands.

“A clumsy maneuver with a can of Danish pet food.”

“I have everything ready for you.”

Victoire smiled despite the fatigue and the frazzled nerves from the previous night. She glanced at the red cardboard file on the table.

“Shall we begin?” Hélène suggested.

“Let’s.”

The diplomat put her coffee down and opened the file.

“All right. Christophe Maunay first: he joined Terre Noire right out of L’École des Mines. He spent a year at the Champs-Elysées headquarters, where he cut his teeth, and then he was transferred to Gabon. You know it’s one of the places where Terre Noire has been prospecting for a long time. For France, they’re a strategic partner. For Christophe Maunay, it should have been a launching pad.”

“But it wasn’t. Why not?”

Hélène Monties lowered her voice. “Because your dear little Maunay got caught with his pants down, if I may put it that way. He was said to be involved in a large pedophile ring active in France and Africa. He claimed he was innocent. According to our embassy, one Omar Al Selim stepped in and bailed him out.”

“Who’s he?”

“A rich Qatari businessman who puts money from Middle Eastern financiers into luxury apartment buildings in Europe, Africa, and now Greenland. He secretly fixed things for Maunay, who wound up back in Paris. Maunay became HR manager of Terre Noire after a stint in the personnel department in Le Havre. I heard that he was found butchered in a hotel room in Nuuk. Is that true?”

“It’s true.”

“An act of revenge by one of his victims?”

Victoire hadn’t imagined this possibility. She’d gotten as far as a ritual slaying in the Far North. But now that Hélène had brought it up, she remembered that Maunay’s genitals had been cut off. The photos came back to her, and she started feeling woozy. All those mutilated body parts made her nauseous and reminded her of Per Sorensen on the roof of Fermatown.

“You could be right.”

“Shall I go on to the next one?” Hélène asked.

Victoire nodded. Her prodigious memory was recording all the details. But she was still feeling sick. Hélène tackled the second file.

“Connie Rasmussen is the great-granddaughter of the famous Knud Rasmussen. In 1933, a few months before he died, Knud Rasmussen, who was a Danish ambassador, defended his country at the International Court of Justice at the Hague against the Norwegian government. Norway had claimed sovereignty over the east coast of Greenland. History just keeps repeating itself.”

“Who won the lawsuit?”

“Denmark. The Norwegians and the Danes have been rivals since the Middle Ages. In recent years, relations have been smoother, but faced with the planned end of oil-and-gas production in the North Sea, Norway is eager to strengthen its presence in Greenland. And it’s not just about raw materials. With the melting of the ice, new shipping routes are going to open up on the Russian side, as well as on the Canadian side. Northern Greenland is becoming strategic. The Russians and the Norwegians have just formed an alliance to exploit the Siberian seaway together. The route will halve the cost of shipping between northern Europe, China, and Japan.”

Victoire nodded. The stakes were enormous.

“What about the Harper family?” Victoire asked.

Hélène Monties turned a few pages and pulled out a brief history of the Canadian-American family.

“The mother and daughter finance Laura Al-lee-Ah’s exhibitions and those of her Greenland friends. Since independence, that woman’s star has risen. She’s at all the international conferences. Having no official position in the government of Greenland has given her even more clout. She’s a sort of conscience of the Arctic. We ourselves have asked for her help in our dispute with Canada over the continental shelf around Saint Pierre and Miquelon. France is the second-biggest world maritime power. Don’t forget that our domain extends equally into the Pacific, the Southern Ocean, and the Indian Ocean, to say nothing of the Caribbean. That is, we have a lot of methane hydrate, a gas found at the bottom of the ocean. As you know, we think it could partly replace oil, in combination with solar energy.”

“I see.”

Victoire picked up her cup with both injured hands and brought it gently to her lips. As she’d expected, Hélène Monties knew the dossier through and through.

“And you,” Hélène asked. “You’re not too bored in the private sector?”

“No, the private sector is fine,” Victoire replied.

In forcing her to kill the Dane on the roof of her house, the crisis in the Arctic had served as a form of therapy—or exorcism. She felt a lot better. It would be hard to explain that to Hélène.

“I feel like you’re more relaxed than when you worked at Les Invalides.”

“Maybe I am,” Victoire replied.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 7:50 a.m.

Connie Rasmussen opened her eyes and realized that she had fallen asleep fully clothed on the bunk in her cabin. She reached for the smartphone she’d discovered in Rox Oa’s cabin. In the flickering light that was all the Bouc could produce, she started exploring the device. He hadn’t input any telephone numbers or e-mail addresses. It contained a single encrypted folder titled “Le Guévenec.” She got up to rummage in her sports bag for the decryption system that would allow her to decode the files about the captain of the Bouc-Bel-Air.

The decoding took a good quarter of an hour and allowed her to establish that the dossier was regularly updated. The phone hadn’t been switched off since its owner’s death. She recharged it and brought up the mailbox to get into the new documents. The last one dated from the day before and had been sent from an anonymizer no doubt tasked with protecting the identity of the sender.

She was finally able to open the first file, which consisted of a few notes in French and a series of photos. She recognized Isabelle Le Guévenec in the company of Romain Brissac in Le Havre, Paris, and Oslo, and then on the terrace of a chalet surrounded by fir trees. Other files contained bank statements for Loïc Le Guévenec at the Crédit du Nord bank. He was not very flush. Madame was spending her husband’s money and that of the wildlife-protection foundation she headed.

The boatswain also had his boss’s medical file and a list of prescription medications. A hip operation had been postponed because the Bouc had been rerouted to Greenland. The mysterious sender had even forwarded Le Guévenec’s file to the personnel manager of Terre Noire at the Champs-Elysées headquarters.

Christophe Maunay had refused the captain of the Bouc-Bel-Air a loan of fifty thousand euros for the purchase of an apartment at La Rochelle. Connie couldn’t get over the way the French treated their executives. Terre Noire’s working environment was as bad as North Land’s.

The last file really threw her. Apart from her penchant for Nobel laureates, Isabelle Le Guévenec had a thing for young men.

“The bastard!” she cried, recognizing Luc Martinet. “He jumped straight from my bed to hers!”

Sitting up in her bunk, she stared at Luc Martinet and Isabelle Le Guévenec making love. When her journalist had described “the key women in the Arctic” he was talking from hands-on experience.

Connie picked up her cell phone and called her favorite freelancer.

“Hi, Luc. It’s Connie. I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“Never, Connie.”

“I really wanted to thank you for the article about Lanier being on the Bouc-Bel-Air. Your site is truly awesome. You must get lots of information.”

“We have thousands of new hits a day.”

“You also promised to put me in touch with Isabelle Le Guévenec. She’s a passionate woman, going by what you write. It’s obvious you know her well.”

“Does she really interest you?”

“I’m thinking of asking her to Nuuk. She could give Inuit women an idea of what life’s like in a company like Terre Noire. After the killing of the two bears and the murder of the HR guy, I thought her presence might help.”

“Help what?” Luc asked.

“Help the image of the ship. It will be arriving in Nuuk, and the welcome won’t exactly be wildly enthusiastic. It’s bearing all the sins of global warming.”

“I’m surprised the Congress is so interested in Terre Noire’s image.”

“The Northern Peoples don’t want to put all their eggs in the one basket. North Land’s also taking care of its image. They’ve even hired a playboy to do the job. Speaking of which, have you made any headway on Spencer Larivière?”

“I’m working on it, Connie.”

“Could you give me Isabelle Le Guévenec’s phone number?”

“Do you have a pen?”

Connie Rasmussen put the speakerphone on and added the number Luc Martinet gave her to her list of contacts. When she hung up, she got up to attack the most decisive day of her career. She took her clothes off and stood under the trickle of hot water that the Bouc could still provide its few passengers. She might as well make herself beautiful, if she was going to die on a French ship in distress. She had a free hand and now knew what she needed to do.

Raphaelle, 9:30 a.m.

John stared at the portrait of Romain Brissac that had been hung on one of the walls in the common room. A black mourning band ran across it. The death of the Nobel laureate added to the gloomy ambience, but it was hostile, as well. The busy scientists turned their heads away when John and the two Intuits crossed paths with them. Everyone knew of John’s affiliation with North Land and the obscure role he was playing. Rumors ran like wildfire on the ice sheet, but the atmosphere could not have been chillier. Who said the climate was warming?

The threat that had materialized with the attempt on John’s life did not seem to stir the guy in charge of the move.

“There’re only seven of us left on the base. I’ll inform the others. If he gets too close, we’ll spot him. Why does someone want to kill you?”

“I’m looking for Abraham Harper.”

“He disappeared, too?”

“Yes,” John replied.

“Well, you won’t find him here.”

Escorted to the mobile home that served as a common room, the three visitors had been told to look after themselves until Paul Gessen, Terre Noire’s scientific director for the Arctic and one of Brissac’s former students, got there. Qaalasoq and Saké had gone back outside for the luggage. John acquired three red bodysuits from one of the scientists, so they could blend in with everyone else and lessen their chances of being spotted by the sniper prowling around Raphaelle.

“How long can a shooter last out there?” John asked Saké.

“Weeks, if he has a tent, good equipment, and a good supply of food. If he’s trained, that is.”

John stepped outside to survey the horizon all around him. He found himself standing in the middle of a deserted landscape full of small hills and snowdrifts that offered an experienced hunter an abundance of hiding places. Fortunately, the area around the base was as flat as a board with a slight dip in the center, and any hunter could be spotted as soon as he ventured out of his hiding place. A few fundamental questions remained. Who knew that he was at Raphaelle? Who had given him away? Why did someone want to kill him?

Protected by his red bodysuit, John approached the pond. Bubbles were bursting on the surface and making a sinister gurgling sound. With one eye on the horizon and the other on this phenomenon, he walked all around the little lake. The wind let up a bit, and he inhaled something that smelled like rotten eggs.

“That water stinks,” he said, rejoining Qaalasoq and Saké.

Qaalasoq replied that the phenomenon was identical to what they were finding at the North Land bases.

“They’re outlets. The ice cap is rotting from below and, in some places, breaking down a layer of permafrost several thousand years old. Methane is rising to the surface. The gas uses wells between the bottom and the top to come up in ponds like this one.”

Saké lit a cigarette and threw it in the water. An orange flame over six and a half feet high shot into the air. The flame turned mauve and then blue before the icy water sucked it under. More than any long lecture, Saké’s demonstration proved just how sick Greenland was.

“It’s the same everywhere else,” he said. “Sometimes worse.”

John was beginning to see why the Lauge Koch Kyst region had broken away from the great island five days earlier.

The noise of rotors made them look to the north. The helicopter they’d passed was coming back toward them. Relieved of its load, it touched down a hundred yards or so from the base. The moving blades sent snow swirling into the air, producing a rainbow. The roar of the rotors gradually dwindled to a metallic meowing.

A man in a red anorak got out of the machine and walked over to a snowmobile. A few moments later, Paul Gressin was in front of them. The Raphaelle leader took off his tinted glasses. He was a tall, dark-haired man with a weathered face. He looked to be in his early fifties. John felt his piercing brown eyes studying him, as well as the two Inuits.

“Are you John Spencer Larivière?”

“I am,” John answered, shaking the ungloved hand held out to him.

“You’ve come at a bad time. We’re evacuating all our bases along the Great Wound. Come in. We’ll get you warmed up.”

Gressin led his visitors to the mobile home, which was now even more deserted than it was an hour earlier. Someone had taken down the portrait of Romain Brissac. The four men sat down at a table. Gressin didn’t beat around the bush.

“I’m told Nicolas is on the Bouc-Bel-Air. It’s been published online.”

“It’s true,” John confirmed.

“How can journalists who aren’t even here know that kind of thing?”

John looked evasive and said he had no idea.

“How is Nicolas?” Gressin asked.

“I have no way of knowing. I’ve never met the man.”

“I believe you work for North Land,” Paul Gressin suggested.

“Yes.”

The scientific director nodded, though his look was impenetrable. Saké and Qaalasoq didn’t say a word. They were happy to let the Frenchmen do the talking. Gressin looked at John again and went on.

“We’re all traumatized by the collapse of Lauge Koch Kyst. Then there was Brissac’s death, and now Maunay’s murder in Nuuk. You’ve confirmed that Nicolas Lanier is on the boat, yet I haven’t managed to get hold of him since last Sunday. I absolutely cannot understand his attitude. It’s unbelievable!”

Gressin counted on his fingers. “It’s five days since he answered his phone. What’s going on?”

“I don’t have any specific information about your boss,” John replied. “But his disappearance has to be connected in some way with the disappearance of Abraham Harper. I’ve been hired by his wife to find him. The two men with me are also looking for him. Do you have any idea where he is?”

Gressin gave John and then the two Intuits a long, hard look. He couldn’t conceal a sort of hesitation that didn’t sit well with him. By nature, he was a self-assured leader. He decided to jump right in and get it off his chest.

“He set down here last Saturday on a company Eurocopter with Nicolas Lanier. They had both come from the American base in Thule. It was the first time I’d seen Abraham Harper and Nicolas together. I got the impression that they were cooking something up. There was an odd complicity between them.”

“What did they do?” John asked.

“They spent the night here in one of the mobile homes and left at dawn the next day for Josephine.”

“Where’s that?”

Paul Gressin got up and removed a map of Avannaa from the wall. He laid it on the table and pointed at an area with a red ring around it.

“That’s our second base in Avannaa. It’s fully automated. The area’s dangerous. It’s on the slopes of Haffner Bjerg, a mountain that’s 4,865 feet above the ice cap. We use the granite slope to go under the ice layer and take samples very deep down. Lanier must have wanted to show Harper something.”

“How did they leave?” asked Saké.

“By helicopter,” Gressin said.

“The kennel’s empty. Where are Utunak’s dogs?” Saké asked.

Gressin looked at the Inuit, and John realized that the two men knew each other. It was hard to tell whether they trusted each other or not.

“Half an hour after the helicopter took off, Utunak, the base’s dog handler, got a call from Lanier asking him to join them at altitude 112—that is, halfway between here and Josephine.”

Gressin pointed at a spot on the map.

“Why didn’t they go all the way to Josephine by helicopter?”

“Too dangerous. Ten days ago, an American helicopter from the base in Thule was flying over the region. It burst into flames when it passed over methane emissions from the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. The engine nozzles ignited the gas, and the machine didn’t have time to land. It blew up in flight.”

John thought back to the cigarette Saké had flicked into the pond. A lot of frightening things were happening on the ice cap. He wondered what could possibly have motivated the meeting of the two world rivals.

“Have you made any startling discoveries lately?” John asked.

“Yes,” Gressin replied. “Romain Brissac had a unique theory about the end of Greenland that some people didn’t like.”

“What theory?”

“According to him, it was going to implode, rather than explode.”

Gressin cast a suspicious eye on the two Inuits, who were silent and still. He switched from English to French. He, too, seemed to know a thing or two about the subterranean rivalries of the Arctic.

“The theory of explosion and ensuing tidal waves promotes speculation in real estate and finance,” he went on. “You’ll see next week. Whole neighborhoods in US and European coastal towns will change hands because of the exaggerated flooding risk. Some people will be ruined, and others will wind up making a fortune. Brissac and Lanier talked about the inevitable manipulation of real estate values.”

“The movement of Lauge Koch Kyst would seem to support the explosion theory,” John said.

Gressin responded, “There will be phenomena of the kind, but they will be the exception that proves the rule. According to our calculations, Greenland will dissolve from the inside—it will melt—without causing a cataclysm. And I should remind you that the flooding in New York was much less serious than anticipated.”

John thought about it.

“You think that Brissac’s theory might embarrass someone?”

Gressin nodded in agreement.

“Both Terre Noire and North Land work for groups invested in clean energies like solar, as well as those with real-estate interests, so there are financial stakes involved. The two companies needed to agree on a strategy to stop real-estate speculation in coastal areas, especially after recent violent storms. They were aware that some people would speculate on climate upheaval the same way people have always speculated on financial upheaval.”

“Do you have a particular group in mind?” asked John.

“I’m just a scientist, but I assume Lanier and Harper have a pretty good idea.”

John was getting a glimpse of the hidden face of atmospheric warming.

“That might explain last Saturday’s meeting. Did Lanier warn the French authorities that a huge number of coastal holdings could change hands?”

Gressin looked skeptical. He spread his hands on the table and leaned toward John. “I’m not sure. It all seems so outrageous,” he said. “And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“The warming will probably be preceded by a sudden cooling, though not enough to stop Greenland’s melting. The drop in temperature will collide head-on with the tax policies put in place by various governments to limit CO2 emissions. With energy-related interest groups claiming that global warming is a hoax, there will be enormous pressure to reverse those policies. We risk political chaos. Romain had predicted this cooling amid the warming. He didn’t die by chance.”

“What’s going to happen now?” John asked.

“The spot we’re sitting on is collapsing because the ice cap is melting sixty-five hundred feet below us. The ice basin where we established Raphaelle was ten feet deep six months ago. Today, it’s sixty-eight feet deep. Since Sunday, we’ve been losing eight inches a day. We’re like rubber ducks bobbing on top of water that’s draining out of the tub.”

No doubt about it, Gressin knew how to scare a person.

“How many days do we have left?” John asked.

“We don’t know for sure.”

Gressin changed his tone and the subject.

“I was told that someone tried to shoot you,” he said.

“He missed because of a dip in the trail. But he’s still out there.”

“Do you know how to use a gun?” Gressin asked.

“Yes,” John answered, seeing no need to disclose his service in the military. Gressin stood up and disappeared behind a door. He returned a few minutes later with a rifle and a box of ammunition.

“It’s not state-of-the-art, but it could come in handy.”

“Thank you.”

John took the rifle as the two Inuits looked on with some interest.

“Come outside with me, and try it.”

Gressin took his guest outside the mobile home and walked about fifty yards beyond the station’s perimeter. John loaded the rifle and positioned it against his right shoulder. He looked for the silhouette of the sniper. Failing to spot him, he aimed at an abandoned snowplow. The two shots shattered what was left of the plexiglass windshield.

Gressin looked worried. “I wanted to talk to you away from the two Inuits.”

John sensed that he had even more trouble on his hands. He turned to the chief scientific officer.

“You don’t trust Qaalasoq or Saké?”

“I don’t trust anybody, not even on the base. I wanted to tell you something in private.”

John thought back to his ominous conversation with Christophe Maunay. Private conversations with the executives of Terre Noire generally didn’t augur well.

“I’m listening.”

“Yesterday, we moved our computers, and I saw that mine had been hacked into.”

“Someone stole scientific data from you?”

“Yes, but they also went through the e-mails I exchanged with Nicolas Lanier and Abraham Harper that laid the groundwork for their secret meeting last Saturday.”

“Did you tell Lanier?”

“He’s not answering his phone.”

“What about Geraldine Harper?”

“I was counting on you, because in an e-mail dated Friday, Nicolas Lanier advised Abraham Harper to hire a certain John Spencer Larivière to handle security for his daughter, Mary. I thought that might interest you.”

John thought back to what Victoire had just e-mailed: Per Sorensen, the Danish killer, had photographed their house even before he’d met Geraldine Harper at the Ritz. So the leak obviously had to come from Greenland.

“Thank you. Who do you suspect?”

“The hacker could be here or at Terre Noire headquarters in Paris, North Land, or the American base in Thule. They intercept everything. It could also be an intelligence service in Greenland, Denmark, or Norway. I think you’re in a better position than I am to find out. That’s sort of what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

John nodded. Once again failing to find his assassin in his line of sight, he blew out the windshield of a second snowplow, which was slumped against a snowdrift over three hundred and thirty yards away.

“Bravo! I see that Lanier wasn’t wrong to have you brought up here.”

John smiled. His hands and his reflexes were doing the thinking for him. He had, in fact, been programmed by Abraham Harper and Lanier to confront another sniper here. Who and why remained to be seen.

Dun-les-Places, Burgundy, France, 11:35a.m.

Luc rode through the village of Dun-les-Places in the heart of the Morvan. The motorcycle’s headlight lit a misty landscape dotted with stone houses and steeped in the scent of wet ferns. He had covered a good mile before finding the sign indicating L’Huis-Laurent. The muddy forest road forced him to slow down. After skidding a couple of times, he crossed a rotting wooden bridge. The forest was feeling increasingly dense and oppressive the farther he went. The chalet finally appeared, surrounded by fir trees, just as it was in the photo. Straight ahead, at the end of the road, was the place Mary Harper had called several times since her father had vanished.

There was nothing extraordinary about the house, apart from the wild and grandiose setting. The Morvan provided Europe with its Christmas trees and wreaths, and the hills around the house had a thick growth of firs. Luc parked the motorcycle some two hundred yards away and took off his helmet. Smoke was coming out of the chimney, but the harsh north wind was forcing it toward the ground instead of toward the sky. He positioned himself behind a tree and pulled out his binoculars.

Luc could see a light in one of the windows. He could also make out a fire in the fireplace. His phone vibrated. He answered and recognized Isabelle Le Guévenec’s voice.

“Luc, I’m calling about Romain Brissac. Someone said he died on the Bouc-Bel-Air and someone else said it was on a helicopter. Do you know what happened?”

There was something suspicious about Isabelle Le Guévenec’s call. Luc suspected that the captain’s wife had checked with Terre Noire and learned that he had never been a company employee. He decided to catch her at her own game.

“Have you called the Champs-Elysées?”

He sensed a hesitation at the other end of the call. Isabelle had obviously called headquarters. Why was she playacting with him?

“I’ve never trusted headquarters. Besides, I don’t know anyone there. And what I’ve just learned isn’t about to make me want to call them. It seems the HR manager was murdered in Greenland. My husband hated him, reckoned he was a pedophile. And Maunay refused to give him a loan for a house.”

Sly creature, Luc thought, ducking under the branches of a big conifer to stay out of the rain that had begun falling.

“Listen, Isabelle, I don’t have time to get back to Le Havre at the moment. We have to take charge of the wounded from the Bouc-Bel-Air who are arriving at Roissy Airport sometime today. We also have to make arrangements for Romain Brissac’s body. He died on a helicopter that was taking off from the Bouc-Bel-Air. It was an accident.”

“No, Little Luc, it was no accident. It was murder.”

Luc looked at his cell phone. Isabelle Le Guévenec had suddenly dropped the bantering tone and was trying complicity. Intrigued, he took the bait.

“What are you saying, Isabelle?”

“I’m saying that a well-brought-up young man like you deserves to make it to the top of Terre Noire. Now that that ghastly Maunay’s dead, there’s an empty position ready and waiting. But only if you don’t die an idiot like he did. You know what really happened on the Bouc-Bel-Air. I might remind you that I know someone on board. I don’t think you’d be wasting your time if you came to see me.”

Luc told himself that he could try his luck, and if he was as cunning as a snake, he might get something. But first he had to clear up the mystery of those phone calls Mary Harper made to the chalet here in the Morvan. After that, he’d leave for Le Havre.

“All right, Isabelle, I’ll finish making arrangements for the wounded and come to see you as soon as I’m done.”

“You won’t regret it. Speaking of which, Luc, there’s just one small thing.”

“Yes?”

“I’m not in Le Havre. I’m at my holiday house.”

“Where’s that, Isabelle?”

“In the Morvan, at Dun-les-Places. Go past the church, and take the forest road toward L’Huis-Laurent. The chalet’s just a mile beyond that. You can’t miss it. It’s a bit wet, but I have a fire going.”

Caught off-guard by this most unexpected news, he almost dropped the phone.

“Right, Isabelle, I’ll let you know when I get to the Morvan.”

Luc ended the phone call and leaned against the trunk of the fir tree. Less than a hundred yards away, Loïc Le Guévenec’s wife was fanning a fire in a chalet where Mary Harper, heiress to the North Land empire, was desperately trying to get hold of someone important. Unbelievable.

Icy rain and fog soon replaced the mist. Luc gave himself some time to think and ducked farther into the forest to go around to the back of the house. The idea that there could be such a close connection between the two women completely threw him.

Dun-les-Places, L’Huis-Laurent chalet, 12:15 p.m.

Isabelle Le Guévenec put another log on the fire and called Connie Rasmussen. It had taken her awhile to digest what the legal advocate for the Northern Peoples Congress had sent her. She had occasionally run into the Danish woman in Le Havre and Oslo. The two women had hit it off without actually becoming friends. They really didn’t have much in common, but Isabelle had no reason to dislike her. Once her anger had died down, Isabelle gathered her wits and thought long and hard, studying the information Connie had retrieved from the boatswain’s phone.

Someone had gone through her private life with a fine-tooth comb. She’d been photographed in Oslo, Paris, and Le Havre in the company of Romain Brissac, her lover. Even her fling with that sly dog Luc Martinet had been photographed. Nicolas Lanier had asked her to leave Le Havre and go to this chalet, where she could lure Little Luc to see what he was made of. She speed-dialed the Danish woman’s number.

“It’s me, Connie. I’ve just read the file you sent. I’m alarmed. Why did Rox Oa have all that information?”

“He was keeping the documents in reserve to put pressure on the captain.”

“Put pressure on him for what?” Isabelle asked.

“I don’t know yet. The Bouc-Bel-Air is carrying the archives of the past in its womb, which means the future, in climate terms. The documents are a sort of club to hold over the captain.”

Isabelle looked at the flames rising higher and higher. She didn’t know what attitude to adopt with Connie Rasmussen.

“But why did you send them to me?”

“So you’ll speak to your husband when the time comes and because I’d like to invite you to the Nuuk Cultural Center.”

“But why on earth would you want to do that?”

“I think Terre Noire’s image is suffering badly in Greenland. I think you could do some good by coming here and speaking on behalf of your foundation. I read Luc Martinet’s article on the future-probe.com website.”

“Luc Martinet?”

Something came together in Isabelle Le Guévenec’s overheated mind. The fake member of Terre Noire’s employee health and safety team could be a very real journalist.

“You haven’t read the article he wrote about the two of us?” Connie asked.

“Of course I have. What’s he like, this Luc whatever?”

“Tall, dark-haired, on the slim side, a bit moody. Pretty seductive. He’s very interested in the Inuits and the Bouc-Bel-Air.”

“And he has a butterfly tattoo on his stomach,” Isabelle stopped herself from adding. What Connie Rasmussen had just told her was reassuring and alarming at the same time. She quickly ended the call, telling Connie that she would be happy to go to Nuuk and talk about her work defending blue whales and polar bears.

Standing at a window overlooking the sodden forest, she slowly gathered her wits. Then she called Nicolas Lanier. She took more than a bit of pleasure in knowing that she was one of the few people on earth who had direct access to the man whose advice many governments were ready to pay a fortune for. She didn’t have to wait for it to ring twice before hearing his voice.

“It’s Isabelle.”

“Well?”

“I’m at the chalet. The young man who came to see me in Le Havre and passed himself off as one of your employees is named Luc Martinet. He’s a freelance journalist with future-probe.com. He’s making believe that he’s in Roissy collecting Romain’s remains. He’ll be here shortly.”

“Thanks, Isabelle. You’re amazing. Entertain him, and get him talking. We’ve got to find out who he’s really working for. Trap him.”

Isabelle Le Guévenec watched the rain fall. Romain’s death had taken her to a very dark and lonely place. She patted the USB flash drive on which the Nobel laureate had safeguarded the latest data on global warming and its consequences. She was the only person Romain had trusted. Since receiving the flash drive, she had carried it inside her bra. An exploding pinecone on the fire made her jump. The chalet in the forest was beginning to feel just a bit threatening.

Indiana Club, Montparnasse

Victoire looked up at her ex-colleague. Sébastien Le Gall was grinning from ear to ear. The noise and gesticulations of the players around the pool table were the best guarantee against fixed and directional listening devices. Sébastien Le Gall, an experienced analyst with Hubert de Méricourt’s agency, had ducked out of Les Invalides to answer his old colleague’s questions. Over the years, he’d acquired a solid reputation as an expert in the field of energy. Le Gall drew up scenarios and theories at Les Invalides, which everyone did their best to promptly ignore, because they were so disturbing. Like many other members of the service, he had been sad to see Victoire and John leave. After reminiscing for a moment, he came straight to the point.

“What do you want to know?”

“Terre Noire and North Land. What do you know about them?”

“Terre Noire owns all the scenarios having anything to do with the Anthropocene.”

“What is the Anthropocene?” Victoire asked.

“The new climate era, ushered in by man-made pollution, specifically carbon emissions. At least, that’s the dominant view. Terre Noire’s at the center of current studies regarding oil and other energies, thanks to Gaia, their software for studying geological nappes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Lanier knows exactly when the oil wells will start drying up, and when that happens, there will be great demand for any oil, wherever it can be found. Mind you, oil reserves are enormous, but the cost of extracting the stuff can also be enormous. But once there’s a shortage, all the work that Terre Noire and North Land have been putting into energies will take on colossal value. The two companies stand to make a fortune that’s far greater than what they’ve amassed so far. In fact, they could be the world’s chief power brokers. North Land isn’t as well tooled in this domain. On the other hand, they’re unbeatable in tar sands and shale gas.”

“So you could say that the two firms are at the center of the strategic stakes?”

“Yes, you could even say that Lanier and the Harpers hold the key to all the transactions of the coming energy crisis—and the related crises in finance, real estate, and politics.”

“People would kill for that?”

“Millions of people.”

“Have you written anything about this?”

Despite the racket they were using as cover, Sébastien lowered his voice.

“I’m retiring in six months. I want to live in peace. In any event, there’d be no point. We never met, and this conversation never happened.”

“I know how it goes. Thank you anyway. It’s been lovely to see you again.”

“Give John a hug for me. Tell him we miss him.”

“Thanks.”

Victoire planted a kiss on her former colleague’s cheek. She left the club and headed toward Fermatown, taking the Rue Froidevaux along the Montparnasse Cemetary. It would be a five-minute walk. John’s absence was tying her stomach in knots. Familiar places were feeling foreign. She turned around several times, thinking someone might be behind her. She’d never seen the clouds so low. The weather was bizarre. No doubt it was the start of the Anthropocene. Arriving at Fermatown, she climbed the stairs to the media room and stood at the touch wall.

During her interlude at the Indiana Club, the search engine had paved the way for her. The system had gone through all the media sites and real-estate registries on both sides of the Atlantic. Omar Al Selim, Christophe Maunay’s protector, was a specialist in making property investments for Saudi princes, African heads of state, and oil magnates in the Persian Gulf. She scrolled down the list of luxury hotels and historic buildings he’d played a part in buying. As a director of Equinoxe, he’d bought the Hôtel Louxor in Paris three years earlier. That pivotal place was less than two hundred yards from the Greenland House. Victoire took a deep breath and sat at the oak table to think. Omar Al Selim owned the Paris hotel where the man who had tried to saw her to pieces had stayed. Despite her disgust, she once again brought up the images of the mutilated body in Greenland. For the moment, the Qatari businessman was the sole link between the murder attempt in Paris and the slaying in Nuuk.

She logged onto the database run by the European Bureau of Civil and Commercial Information in Décines, near Lyon. It was the ultimate in economic information. The bureau’s megaengine hummed for a few seconds after she entered the name of Omar Al Selim’s company. Then it provided the answer: Equinoxe, a Norwegian real-estate development company, was headquartered in Oslo.

It was what followed that floored Victoire. The sovereign wealth funds of Qatar owned forty-nine percent of the company. Fifty-one percent was owned by Arctoil, the Norwegian oil company that had commissioned Terre Noire, along with the Russians, to examine the gigantic oil deposits in the Barents Sea.

Victoire logged back onto the bureau’s database and tried to find out who represented Arctoil on Equinoxe’s board of directors. A name popped up immediately: Thor Johannsen. The man who had tried to kill her had come from a hotel in Paris owned by the biggest oil company in Europe.

Victoire called Luc to press him to get information out of his Dane.

“You have to keep asking Rasmussen about Thor Johannsen.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s on the board of the company that owns the Louxor.”

“I knew there was a connection. Send me photos.”

“How’s it going in the Morvan?” Victoire asked anxiously.

“Le Guévenec’s wife is in the chalet that Mary Harper has been calling. It’s completely screwy. I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

Raphaelle, 4:30 p.m.

John raised his arm and gave the stop command. The two dog teams, which were barreling ahead side-by-side, did as they were told. Saké got off the sled and joined them. John pointed to the snowdrift where he’d seen the blast from the gun.

“The sniper was over there, less than three hundred and fifty yards away.”

“That’s right,” Saké said.

The Humboldt Gletsjer shaman returned to his dogs and untied the leader of the pack. He whispered something in his ear and took him to the edge of the trail. Kneeling close to his animal, Saké rubbed the dog’s back while the others rolled in the snow. He pointed out the snowdrift, and the leader of the pack bounded ahead. Saké returned to his team and untied the other dogs, which raced off behind the leader.

“If the killer’s still there, he’s a dead man.”

Jealous and yapping, Qaalasoq’s dogs watched Saké’s pack running over the snow. The shaman asked Qaalasoq to tow his sled. The two men worked in silence, economizing their movements according to the age-old rites of their people. The operation took less than five minutes.

“Let’s go.”

Qaalasoq, driving the sled with John in it and towing Saké’s sled, raced after the freed dogs. John cocked the rifle Gressin had given him. They were approaching the snowdrift at a dizzying speed. They skirted the drift and found the dogs distressed and confused.

No one. The sniper hadn’t waited for them, naturally. Qaalasoq got off the sled and examined the traces left on the ice.

“He has a Canadian snowmobile.”

“Who uses that kind of snowmobile?” John asked.

“Everyone,” answered Qaalasoq.

Saké indicated an invisible point above the horizon.

“Our man left that way. He was heading south, toward Haffner Berg. He must be waiting for us somewhere between Raphaelle and Josephine.”

Saké took the leader of his team to the crest of the snowdrift. The dog sniffed and then retraced his steps. With his fur steaming and his tongue hanging out, he studied the snow, looking for a clue. He circled around the traces left by the snowmobile’s tracks. All of a sudden, he dashed southward, and the others ran off behind him.

Saké rejoined John and Qaalasoq, and the dog team resumed its course. High in the sky, they saw a helicopter transporting yet another mobile home. They finally caught up to the freed pack and after half an hour’s run came across a spectacle that threw them completely off.

The traces of the snowmobile’s tracks in the snow had disappeared beneath a sheet of water that stretched far into the horizon. They were at the edge of a vast tipped basin. On one side of the basin, the water was relatively shallow. On the other side, beneath a wall-like incline, it was much deeper. The blue sky and clouds reflected in the water gave the impression of a formidable depth.

Qaalasoq untied the harpoon attached to his sled. He drew closer to the edge of the unforeseen lake that five hours earlier hadn’t been on any map of the Avanaarsua. The Inuit stretched his arm back and hurled the harpoon with all his might. John saw the hasp and its steel point rise into the transparent sky before it curved out over the water and fell down vertically into the lake. The black line sank and disappeared.

They then measured the incredible depth of the water that separated them from the killer. John did a quick calculation. It had taken only a few hours for a lake to form and halt their pursuit of the enemy. The bastard who’d tried to kill him was profiting from Greenland’s final agony.

Saké ran his eagle eyes over the ominous bank. The water stretched for miles to the right and the left, serving as an insurmountable barrier. The most horrible part was the silence of the dogs, which were lying on the snow with their ears pricked, listening.

“What will we do?” Qaalasoq asked.

“We’ll have to go back to the base and use the inflatables, if it’s not too late,” John replied.

Saké took out his phone and rang a number before passing the device to John, who recognized Gressin’s voice.

“There’s a lake blocking our way. We need two inflatables. Do you have any?”

“You’ll find them behind the last hut. I’ll leave you a computer and a generator next to the mobile home we spoke in. Good luck.”

The return of the two teams to Raphaelle was marked by a feeling of failure and growing fear. Far in the west, dark clouds weighed down the air. It wouldn’t be long before the sky came down on their heads. And under their feet, the world was caving in.

Dun-les-Places, Yorévé Dolmen, 12:50 p.m.

Luc had found refuge under a rock formation. The heavy cold rain fell without letting up, sending down streams of pine needles and slivers of wood. The weather was all out of whack. Luc hugged himself to stay warm. A few hundred yards away, the chalet was exhaling blue smoke that was immediately pelted by the downpour.

The situation was becoming as tumultuous as the weather. By giving Isabelle Le Guévenec’s number to Connie Rasmussen, he had put his two one-night stands in touch with each other—one of them a passenger on the Bouc-Bel-Air, the other, the captain’s wife. He was clearly walking on a basket of crabs. Was he a genius, or had he just done something really stupid? A violent clap of thunder made him jump before it rolled away over the hills.

He took out his phone, wondering if the ambient electricity would interfere with his call. The little jewel was working. He brought up the photos of Thor Johannsen, the Norwegian from Arctoil who also presided over the Hôtel Louxor. It was time to find out a bit more about him. Luc pressed the little green icon.

“Hi, Connie, it’s Luc. How are you doing?”

“We’re having crappy weather. I’m wondering if we aren’t going to sink.”

“It’s lousy weather here, too. Were you able to get in touch with Isabelle Le Guévenec?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Do you remember I asked you about Thor Johannsen?”

It was quiet on the other side. Had his question embarrassed the lawyer?

“I’m sending you some pictures. What can you tell me about him?”

Luc sent the shots that Victoire had taken from the annual reports of Arctoil and Equinoxe. There was another silence at the other end, and he told himself he’d no doubt put his wet feet in it yet again.

“How did you get these photos?” Connie Rasmussen asked. Her voice was shrill with fear.

“From my editors at future-probe.com. Thor Johannsen does live in Paris, at the Hôtel Louxor, doesn’t he?”

Still another pause at the other end, then forced joviality.

“Little Luc, you’ve hit a home run.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Thor Johannsen is none other than Laura Al-lee-Ah’s husband. Didn’t you know that?”

“Your boss’s husband?”

A shorter pause than the previous ones.

“Yes, Luc. Johannsen moves between Paris, Copenhagen, and Oslo. He has a suite in a hotel next to the Greenland House, but you didn’t hear that from me, right?”

“Of course not.”

Luc ducked when he heard the smack of thunder accompanying a nearby lightning strike. Certainly Connie had heard it too.

“Where are you, really?”

“In a storm in the Morvan,” Luc answered, immediately biting his lip.

This time, he really had said something stupid, revealing his whereabouts in Dun-les-Places.

He ended his call with the Dane and sat down on the pine needles. As the water flowed over the granite of the Morvan, the realization seeped into Luc’s brain. Thor Johannsen was connected to Greenland through his wife and to Terre Noire through Christophe Maunay, whom his friend Selim had rescued in Gabon. It was an extraordinary network of influence.

Arctoil’s Norwegian board member was the hidden center of gravity in this whole affair. He alone linked the economic, political, humanitarian, and ecological aspects related to the end of the world. Luc called Aimé Toussaint, the lifeguard to whom he’d entrusted the mission of identifying Per Sorensen’s contact at the swimming pool of the Saint-James.

“Hi, Aimé, it’s Luc.”

“I was going to call you. Tonight I’ll be seeing the waiter who was at the Saint-James when that meeting took place. I’ll show him the photos you sent me.”

“Look at your cell phone. I’m sending you a photo of a Norwegian guy by the name of Thor Johannsen. I’ll double the stakes if you get me any additional information on this Viking.”

Aimé Toussaint burst out laughing.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you! I’ll call you this evening.”

Luc looked at his watch. It was still too early to turn up at the chalet.

He took advantage of a temporary letup in the rain and decided to survey the surroundings. He cut through a clearing about half a mile above the chalet. A vast boggy area full of ferns stretched out before him. All of a sudden, the dirt track he was walking on widened into a major road. Surprising.

A few hundred yards away, on his right, the trees parted, hinting at a gap in the forest. A sort of empty space over which a solitary black buzzard was soaring. On a tree charred by lightning he saw a rusty metal sign: “Terres Noires–Black Lands.”

Driven by curiosity, he took the direction indicated by the sign and set out for the Black Lands. His temples started throbbing when, a bit farther along, he encountered an entirely different climate zone.

On the other side of a fence topped with barbed wire, Luc gazed at a vast expanse of black dirt that looked like a dried-out sponge. Stunted bushes of broom grew here and there. The impression of dryness in the middle of the ambient wetness made Luc almost dizzy. He had never before seen anything like it. He stepped closer to the fence that divided the two worlds and read another sign: “Terres Noires–Black Lands, Private Property, Danger of Death.”

A nudge of the shoulder got the better of the rusty iron gate, and he slipped through to the other side. Fear was now merging with curiosity. He took out his phone and called Victoire.

“Could you see if the Black Lands of the Morvan played any role in the history of Terre Noire? After all, the name’s the same.”

“I’ll have a look,” Victoire replied. “Did you manage to get hold of Connie Rasmussen?”

“Yes. Thor Johannsen is Laura Al-lee-Ah’s husband. He’s Norway’s oil man and the Russians’ partner in the Barents Sea. He’s the one who sent the killer from the Saint-James’s swimming pool to the Rue the Deparcieux to kill us. I’m sure of it. The agency has to send someone around to protect you inside the house.”

“I’ll have to clean up a bit more first.”

“Don’t play the heroine. You should have called Guerot by now. I don’t know how long I’ll be stuck in this godforsaken hole.”

Luc ended the call. He was working with two crackpots. He smiled, telling himself that he was just like them. In any event, the world as they knew it was about to end. Might as well have some fun before the final chaos set in.

The Great Wound of the Wild Dog, 10:10 a.m.

John saw the helicopter hauling away the last of Raphelle’s mobile laboratories. The sky had suddenly turned black, and Terre Noire’s scientific team hadn’t wasted any time getting out of the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. John and his companions were now on their own. The dogs were running in silence. Their tails were down, as if they sensed an unfamiliar danger.

All that remained of the station were the two mobile homes. The rest had been taken away. On the snow, John could still see where everything had stood. The circular pond, an unreal blue under the black sky, seemed to be glowing from within. John got off the sled and headed toward the hut. He found the two boxes, each of which held an inflatable Zodiac H308 with an automated inflation system and all the accessories. Made of extremely heavy-duty material, the Zodiac could carry a snowplow or a van. It was exactly what they would need. Four cans of gasoline were off to the side. Faced with the deterioration of the Great Wound, all the stations in Avannaa were equipping themselves with Zodiacs or kayaks to explore the new inland seas of the terminally ill country.

After checking the state of the buoyancy tubes, as well as the motors, he retraced his steps and examined the surface of the pond, which, like an eye, was staring up at the sky. His feet, fitted with fur-lined boots, promptly sank when he was a few feet from the edge. Horrified, he had enough strength in his lower back to leap back before being sucked down. Enormous bubbles of gas were bursting at the surface of the immense pupil, giving off a pestilential odor. John felt a presence behind him and swiveled around. Qaalasoq and Saké were weeping.

Embarrassed, he left them alone to deal with their pain and went back to the sled. He picked up his luggage and walked up the steps to the common room. Everything had been taken away and cleaned up. All that remained was the map of Avannaa pinned to the wall with a sticky note in the middle. “Good luck!” read the message from Paul Gressin.

John took out his phone and familiarized himself with the information gathered by Fermatown. After the Per Sorensen incident, Luc had the bright idea of suggesting security inside the house too. John was annoyed with himself for not thinking of it earlier. How had Victoire gotten rid of the killer? He didn’t want to ask for details, even though he was sure their exchanges were leak-proof. John was proud of Victoire and grateful that he could call her his own. She was a fabulous woman, the right woman for him. They probably wouldn’t grow all that old together because of their jobs, but they really were made for each other.

Luc had just made an amazing discovery. As soon as the Lauge Koch Kyst catastrophe had made the news, Mary Harper had called the landline at a chalet in the Morvan where Isabelle Le Guévenec was staying. That the heiress to the North Land empire might have a relationship with the wife of the captain of the Bouc-Bel-Air seemed less surprising now that John was aware of the meeting between Abraham Harper and Nicolas Lanier.

Thor Johannsen’s involvement in his being tailed from the Ritz and the attempted murder in Fermatown were beginning to make more sense. This could explain why Gressin’s computer in Raphaelle had been hacked into. The big oil companies were known for the efficiency of their private espionage. North Land or Terre Noire—or both of them together—could undermine the joint interests of the Norwegian Arctoil and the Russian Gazprom.

John leaped to his feet and went to the window of the mobile home. Yes, the two companies could get in their way, separately or together. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? From the very beginning of this affair, he’d felt torn between Terre Noire and North Land. Yet there was no evidence of any hostility between Abraham Harper and Nicolas Lanier.

How, on the other hand, could you explain Christophe Maunay’s desire to defect from Terre Noire and join North Land? Maunay didn’t hold a crucial scientific position at Terre Noire. As the HR man, though, he would have known certain things.

John sat down again to send a message to Victoire. He wanted her to get more information as quickly as she could. Why had Maunay been killed?

Back at the window, he watched the Inuits take care of the dogs and shut the kennel. Then he became aware of something that until that moment had been unthinkable. Drops of water were sliding down the pane of glass. It was raining.

Saké and Qaalasoq came back at the same time. They looked somber and outraged.

“It’s raining!” cried Saké.

“Wasn’t it supposed to snow?” John asked.

“At this hour and in this season, it never rains,” replied Qaalasoq.

The two Inuits collapsed on the bench seats. There was no point in quizzing them about what they were feeling. John could plainly see in their eyes how powerless they felt in the face of the forces of nature that had been unleashed. He gave them the silence they needed and watched the rain fall. The drops let up and then stopped. Snowflakes finally appeared.

Driven by hunger, John went behind the counter to see what was left in the fridge. He pulled out an enormous rabbit terrine and one of three bottles of champagne that had been left for them. As a commando leader, he’d led his men into combat in conditions that were tougher but not as scary. Maybe he didn’t know how to talk to women, but he did know how to deal with men. He poured the bubbly into three plastic cups. The first bubbles had trouble going down their demoralized gullets. By the second bottle, the out-of-whack climate looked a bit more bearable, if only temporarily. Tongues loosened under the effects of the alcohol. Half an hour later, John took the tupilaq out of his bag and placed the horrible polished-stone monster on the table.

“Now you can tell me how this hideous beast is going to help us.”

Saké took the statuette in his hands and looked at John before he spoke.

“The tupilaq is a monster made of human and animal flesh stitched together. On its master’s command, it hurls itself into the frozen immensity to find and kill the enemy. Then it comes home.”

“That’s scary.”

“It gets even scarier when it encounters an enemy who’s stronger than it is. That enemy becomes the new master,” Saké said somberly.

John grabbed the statuette and guessed the rest. “And the tupilaq comes home to kill its former boss.”

“Right,” said Qaalasoq.

“And me, in all that, I’m the tupilaq, aren’t I?” John concluded, thinking of the way he had been stitched together with skin grafts.

“Maybe,” Saké said. Qaalasoq nodded in agreement.

A strange commonality linked him to this Greenland myth. By the third bottle of champagne, John was actually feeling sorry for the tupilaq staring at him with dilated pupils. Four human arms, ending in bear claws, were stuck on the body of a dog.

John tried summing up. “If I’m playing the role of a tupilaq, the problem is knowing who sent me, and who the enemy is.”

“That’s exactly it,” Saké confirmed.

“The woman who sent me is named Geraldine Harper. She’s your boss.”

“It’s not her,” Qaalasoq said, emptying his cup.

“Well, then it’s her husband, the man we’re looking for. You told me so the other day.”

“He doesn’t know you. He’s only a bridge between the sender and the sent,” Saké said.

John thought of Lanier, but if that were the case, who had given his name to the Terre Noire boss?

“Then who sent me?”

Qaalasoq put his cup down and replied. “You’re the one who’ll tell us by devouring your enemy, by tearing him apart with your claws. Like the tupilaq.”

“This thing of yours is weird. I can tell you don’t drink champagne very often.”

John put the statuette back in the bag. It was up to him to take charge.

“We’ll sleep for a bit before getting back to the lake and setting off on the water. I’ll pilot the Zodiacs.”

The three men found places in the mobile home to spread out their sleeping bags. Lying across the doorway, John took out Geraldine Harper’s phone and listened to Mary’s latest calls. A conversation between the mother and daughter interested him the most. Mary was recounting her meeting with Laura Al-lee-Ah.

“Laura has all the police reports. But she thinks they’re useless. She wants me to ask Spencer Larivière about his conversation with Christophe Maunay. Don’t forget, they’re both French. Laura thinks that before he was killed in the Hans Egede, Maunay told my babysitter things that would interest Greenland security. She wants to know what he said. She’s on tenterhooks and following everything very closely. She’ll probably have him arrested before he finds Dad. What do I do?”

The mother gave her a clear and succinct answer. “Stay out of it! Above all, don’t disturb Spencer Larivière. Your babysitter wasn’t asked to work for Terre Noire. Leave him alone. If he learns things of interest to Greenland security, I can assure you, he’ll inform me immediately—and first. He knows it!”

Geraldine’s instructions were clearly meant for him. She knew he’d be listening in, as per his job. John closed his eyes. Outside, the wind was becoming increasingly violent, causing the odds and ends of sheet metal that hadn’t been well secured to bang around.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 11:10 a.m.

Connie Rasmussen studied the surreal horizon. Orangish clouds lit up a metallic sea filled with icebergs in shapes that had never before been seen. It was an unbelievably beautiful and rattling spectacle. The ship groaned under the ocean’s onslaught as it tried to avoid the mountains of ice. In the distance, the distress signals from the shipwrecked sailors of the Narvik and its flotilla illuminated the sky.

The most disturbing thing in all this was the piecemeal entry of the French in this Arctic game. Luc Martinet was steaming full-speed ahead. That hunk was moving too fast.

The answer to her question was not long in coming. “Luc Masseron, aka Luc Martinet, is a former hacker who works for Fermatown, a little private espionage outfit run by John Spencer Larivière, a former member of the French intelligence agency.”

The French were sticking their mitts in the cookie jar, causing trouble. Their presence was more disturbing than global warming. It absolutely guaranteed chaos. That’s all they needed. Connie thought about Luc and John. Then about the rest. A violent wave forced her to worry about more immediate things.

On the captain’s orders, the Bouc-Bel-Air was about to give the shipwrecked sailors a hand. There would be confusion at sea, as well as on board. The remaining able-bodied men on the Bouc were gearing up for rescue maneuvers. But many of them feared they would need to be rescued themselves. The captain was far more courageous than most of his crew.

Connie came out of her lair to return to Sylvain Velot’s cabin. She’d only just made it to the corridor when she bumped into the Inuit bodyguard made available to her at Laura Al-lee-Ah’s instructions. The man had never sailed before and was terrorized by the heavy weather and the dull thuds rising from the bowels of the boat. Connie overcame the smell of the vomit splattered on the floor and told her bodyguard to go rest.

“Are we going to sink?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

The man disappeared immediately. Connie knocked loudly to make herself heard above the din.

“Who is it?” the bear killer yelled.

“Connie Rasmussen.”

The sailor cracked the door open cautiously and looked behind Connie with suspicion in his eyes.

“I’ve got your key,” Connie said, showing the object and then slipping it into the pocket of her red oilskin.

“I’d given up expecting you,” Velot declared.

“Le Guévenec wasn’t easy to convince. He’s very busy with the storm and the rescue of the Narvik.”

“It’ll be rescuing us.”

The sailor opened the door wide and let Connie in. Through the portholes, she could see the ailing Narvik and, a stone’s throw away, the Copenhagen. Fighting to keep his balance, Sylvain Velot pulled on a wool sweater. The inclination of the ship was becoming alarming and the cold unbearable. The Bouc’s heater had just gone on the blink yet again.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Connie followed the man toward the gangways that led to the upper deck. They struggled up the steps and came out on a deserted corridor. Velot made a gesture that confirmed it was, indeed, here that Nicolas Lanier had gone into hiding. Walking along the gangways was beginning to require the skill of an acrobat. But they finally made it to the boatswain’s cabin. Connie put the key in the lock, and when the door resisted, she invited the French sailor to take over.

Sylvain Velot got the better of the problem with a simple shoulder butt, and they both found themselves inside the cabin. The sailor closed the door and carefully examined the room where the seaman had bunked before getting himself skinned alive. Connie had the phone containing the report on Isabelle Le Guévenec and her husband hidden in the pocket of her oilskin. Velot would, without fail, head for the closet to retrieve his accomplice’s weapon. She dreaded his reaction.

But to her surprise, he dashed into the shower room. He opened the glass door and, with the aid of a screwdriver, removed the bolts that held the shower in place. What on earth could he be looking for under the stainless-steel floor? The scenario she’d imagined went down the toilet. In this affair, nothing was going according to plan. She looked on, her heart beating hard and her forehead breaking out in sweat.

Velot picked up the metal shower base and asked her to get it out of the way. She swung it behind her. From out of the cavity underneath the shower, the Frenchman took two round metal discs as thick as the Breton custard tarts known as fars.

“Be careful. They’re heavy,” he said.

Connie seized the first one by the handle and felt her arm sag under the weight. She put it down in the cabin and came back for the second one. Velot had just taken two timebombs out of their hiding place. Connie realized that he intended to sink the Bouc-Bel-Air. No one had envisaged this kind of situation. She’d have to improvise, and fast.

“What are these?” she asked innocently.

“Scuttling cartridges. They fit into the circular slots in the hull in the engine room. We’re going to sink this wreck and Lanier with it.”

Connie just nodded. Sylvain Velot had received instructions to finish the dead boatswain’s mission. She now had to find irrefutable proof. Once out of the boatswain’s cabin, she let Velot get ahead of her before calling Laura Al-lee-Ah and recording their conversation.

“Hello, Laura, it’s Connie. We’re out of the cabin. It’s done.”

“Thank you. When you’ve disembarked in Nuuk, you’ll give me back the phone. I assume you saw what was on it?”

“Yes,” Connie replied, dreading what would follow.

“There’s no point in the French getting their hands on that report. I wasn’t in favor of it. I detest these things. But, well, Greenland’s a small country, and we have to be well-informed to keep from getting gobbled up.”

“There was also a revolver,” Connie added.

“Put it back where you found it. We’re not interested in weapons.”

Curious reaction, thought Connie. She might not be interested in weapons, but that hadn’t stopped her from giving Velot the order to send the Bouc-Bel-Air to the bottom, along with Lanier and the rest of the crew.

“What about the two cartridges Velot found in the bathroom?” Connie asked, referring to the bombs.

“Throw them into the sea. I’ll call you again when the Bouc-Bel-Air’s docked.”

Laura ended the conversation. Connie had just accomplished the first part of her mission. She knew that Laura Al-lee-Ah had hired Velot and Rox Oa to spy on the Bouc-Bel-Air and its captain, but definitely not to sink the ship and probably not to kill Brissac. The phone contained that irrefutable proof. The Greenlanders had been outwitted by powers smarter than they were. She immediately thought of Thor Johannsen, who had married the conscience of the Arctic. Norway was once again trying to expel Denmark from Greenland. There was nothing new under the sun—except that today, the Norwegians were using French sailors.

She went to the sailor’s cabin, where he’d just placed the two bombs on a table. Velot turned to her.

“Now I need the plans for the engine room so I know where the scuttling slots are. Do whatever you have to to get them from Le Guévenec.”

“I’ll go and see him right away,” Connie said.

“That’s it. Go and talk to the silly old fool.”

Raphaelle, 12:35 p.m.

The barking of the dogs awakened John and the two Inuits. He rushed to the front steps of the mobile home and understood. The station was covered with water. A lunar sun surrounded by a black halo was reflected in the lake like a threat. It was a scene from hell. He went down the steps and stuck his hand in the icy water. The snow had turned to sludge and dissolved between his fingers a couple of inches below the surface. The main thing was not to panic, even though they were about to be swallowed alive.

Saké put his boots on and ran to the kennel, driving icy sprays of water before him to get to his dogs and free them. Alert and terrorized, the animals stopped barking and started to whine.

John turned to Qaalasoq, who was also gearing up, and told him what to do. “Gather all the material we’ll need. I’ll go and get the Zodiacs and bring them around to the front of the house.”

John slipped on his boots and circled around the building. With his feet submerged in the water, he pulled out the first inflatable. The pressurizing system was automatically triggered, and the first H308 inflated in a matter of seconds. He fixed the motor to the back on its steel mounting plate. Then he threw the ropes and all the navigation aids between the tubes. The bottom was still too high to allow the engine to float, and it took a superhuman effort to get the Zodiac to the front of the mobile home. Saké came to meet him with the dogs from the first team. With Qaalasoq’s help, they attempted to get the first sled onto the Zodiac. But their feet sank in the muck, sabotaging their efforts. The situation was dire. John remembered his training stint in the 501st tank regiment and signaled to Qaalasoq to follow him inside the house. He grabbed the fire ax, which was still hooked to the wall, and started smashing the benches and demolishing the walls. After a few minutes, they had enough debris to extend the load-bearing surface under their feet and slide the sled onto the Zodiac.

John raced back behind the house. The water was rising. He triggered the automatic inflation of the second Zodiac. But his legs gave way under him, and he found himself with the tube opposite him at chest level. He clung to the ropes and hauled himself into the dinghy, using the strength of his arms alone. Sitting up, he saw that the house was sinking a bit more every second. He seized the oars and rowed around to the front.

By the time Qaalasoq emerged from the building, the water was up to his waist. He threw all the material he had been able to retrieve into the inflatable. John had to use all his strength to pull him on board. Out of breath, they turned around, only to see Saké disappear before their eyes. The second sled was pulling him under, along with his team of dogs.

Saké raised his arms above the water. Armed with a knife, the old man cut the last leather towline holding the dogs and then smiled before letting himself sink below the water. The dogs, though freed, were terror-stricken. They swam to John and Qaalasoq, who saved them all, one after the other. Only the leader of the pack returned to his master and went down with him. The water bubbled for a few seconds and then that was that. The dogs on the Zodiac barked and then howled, like wolves baying at the moon.

“Take your clothes off, dry yourself off, and put on some dry clothes.”

John did as he was told, watching the demise of Rapaelle all the while. Every trace of the base had vanished. It was as if nothing had ever been there but an immense sheet of water. John would never be able to forget Saké’s peaceful, almost complicit face as he went down, like a god of Greenland meeting his fate. Beside him, Qaalasoq spread rugs and dry clothes around them. John put on new garments and helped the Inuit rub down the dogs. An hour later, the starry vacuum of space didn’t look like anything they’d ever known. The lake lit up the sky. John was sailing across a mirror dividing two realms of hell.

He took binoculars out of their case and began studying the white barrier far away that split the universe in two. His eyes lingered on something on the shore of the inland sea that had risen up beneath them. A rocky outlet with a tongue of ice that descended into the water would serve as a landing beach. He studied the expanse around them, looking for possible methane emissions that would rule out starting the motor on the front Zodiac in which they’d taken their places, along with the dogs.

“Do you think we can get there?” John asked.

Qaalasoq studied the water for a long while, searching for the slightest bubbling that would reveal the deadly fumes. Starting the gasoline-fueled motor could turn the inflatables into a fireship. The dogs scented danger and yelped like frightened puppies. After a few minutes, they calmed down and lay on their stomachs. Qaalasoq finally took his eyes off the depths. The Inuit smiled as if he’d come back from some other world. John knew he’d been communing with Saké. Qaalasoq realized John understood and grinned.

“We’re okay,” he said. “You can fire up the engine. The methane’s no longer evaporating.”

John picked up the first can of gasoline and started pouring the contents into the tank. He immediately stopped. Someone had replaced the gasoline with water. They were prisoners of the new waters of the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. To be sure, he checked the other cans. They didn’t have the tiniest drop of gasoline either.

“Someone sabotaged the reserves.”

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 4:40 p.m.

Victoire was looking for the cat. Caresse had vanished yet again. She called and felt her heart throbbing all the way to her fingertips. Per Sorensen’s execution had drained her, and the aftershock was only now making itself felt. The slightest thing made her jump. The Persian reappeared, leaving wet paw prints behind her. Victoire felt calmer.

“There you are at last!”

Reassured, she resumed her investigation. The touch wall displayed one part of the puzzle. Thor Johannsen was prominently featured in the center. The Norwegian controlled not only Equinoxe, the real-estate company that owned the Louxor, but also thirty-three percent of Dan Energy, a Danish geological prospecting company that specialized in renewable energies and held forty-seven percent of Terre Noire. That was enough to give him right of scrutiny over Terre Noire, even if he wasn’t an official part of the day-to-day operations.

Victoire brought up a breakdown of Terre Noire’s shareholders’ agreement: Nicolas Lanier, single, no children, twenty-eight percent; Romain Brissac, divorced, two children, twenty-five percent; Dan Energy, forty-seven percent. Thor Johannsen, as the biggest shareholder in Dan Energy, sat on the board of directors, along with the Danes and the Frenchmen, Lanier and Brissac.

Victoire could understand why Johannsen might have wanted to kill John, via Per Sorensen. John was working for his rival, North Land. But why butcher Terre Noire’s HR manager, who was one of his own employees? Christophe Maunay and Thor Johannsen must have crossed paths several times. If it wasn’t in Oslo or Copenhagen, maybe it was at the Louxor with Omar Al Selim. The protagonists in this case were coming out of the shadows.

The past could often shed light on the present, John liked to say in his more philosophical moments. Victoire, intrigued by Luc’s discovery in Dun-les-Places, reread the story of Terre Noire’s origins.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Mathurin Lanier, a blacksmith in Dun-les-Places, was intrigued by the radioactive properties of a certain mineral, autunite. Rocks containing this mineral were abundant in the region. When the disappearance of a number of local sheep and a handful of visitors to the Terres noires, or Black Lands, area aroused concerns, he explained that a geological accident several million years earlier had resulted in the development of quicksand that had swallowed the humans and the animals. His fame spread. Lanier’s forge gradually became a mining and geological-exploration business. It grew rapidly in the twentieth century. Mathurin Lanier’s sons bought more property in the Black Lands, with the aid of the Brissacs, who were prosperous bankers from Dijon. After that, successive generations of the two families would guide the fortunes of the business, which became Terre Noire. In the nineteen twenties, the company diversified into oil and then gas exploration.

Terre Noire experienced serious financial difficulties in 2008, because of the sudden drop in oil prices. Major companies all over the world froze their exploration operations. Lanier and Brissac joined forces with Dan Energy, a Danish company specializing in offshore wind farms and the processing of methane hydrates found in the ocean floor. Terre Noire was saved and became a key European operation, thanks to the Danes.

Victoire shivered. They had tried to kill her to stop her from seeing what was right in front of her. She grabbed her phone and called Guerot at Les Invalides.

“I’d like to see you, François.”

“What about?”

“I’m anxious about my security, but more than that, I have things to tell you.”

“I’ll be right there, but don’t be afraid. We’re protecting you.”

The Great Wound of the Wild Dog, 1:10 p.m.

John had been rowing for a good hour in the front Zodiac. At his feet, the prostrate dogs exhaled clouds of condensation that immediately dissolved in the air. The second Zodiac, tethered to the first by a rope, was making slow headway. It carried Qaalasoq, the rest of the dogs, and the sled they had rescued from Raphaelle. Stroke by stroke, the oars broke the surface, which was as smooth as an ice rink. Losing the gas reserves had slowed them, but they’d found a rhythm. The two boats were going faster than John had thought they would. From time to time, they passed bubbling methane that wafted the smell of rotten eggs.

The orphaned dogs pricked their ears, hearing the voice of Saké calling to them from the depths. From time to time, one of them barked in the direction of that unknown world. At any moment, they could all be joining him there, men and dogs.

John felt his arms tiring and asked Qaalasoq to take over. They managed the transfer from one Zodiac to the other without difficulty. The Inuit occupied the rower’s seat at the front and got to work, smiling sadly. Qaalasoq was in constant touch with Geraldine Harper and regularly informed her of their progress without going into too much detail. He, too, had learned to live with the constant risk of phone tapping.

The hope of finding Abraham Harper alive had yielded to the desire to understand what had happened. No one at the heart of North Land was really under any illusion that their founder was still alive. John stroked one of the dogs, which seemed to be dying from the methane, and then stretched out on the sled while Qaalasoq led the convoy to its destination.

He took out his smartphone to look at the latest news from Fermatown and was relieved to learn that Guerot was seeing to it that the woman he loved was properly protected. The idea that Thor Johannsen was the linchpin of the attempts to kill them from the very beginning seemed increasingly credible. Russia, Norway, and Iceland were pitted against Denmark and France, partners in Terre Noire. Canada was clashing with the United States at the very heart of North Land. The geopolitical situation was starting to yield certain keys. The role played by Connie Rasmussen, caught between Denmark and Greenland, was still unclear, but the game among the nations seemed obvious.

John was impatient for Luc to verify that the man who’d met Per Sorensen in the bar of the Saint-James swimming pool was, in fact, the Norwegian, in which case, a lot of things would start to be readable. An alliance between Norway and Greenland embodied by Thor Johannsen and Laura Al-lee-Ah opened up new horizons. John now believed in the role he’d been assigned. He received confirmation from Victoire that the warrant for his arrest had been signed and that a team of Greenland police was coming by helicopter to take him into custody. Norway and Greenland most likely did not want the world to know what had happened to Abraham Harper and what Christophe Maunay had almost revealed.

He shut off his phone and stared at the vast space around him. The staccato sound of the oars plunging into the cold water seemed to energize Qaalasoq as he followed the traces of Abraham Harper. The dogs appeared to be lying in wait, watching like hawks, as if some monstrosity was about to surge out of the water. John tried not to think too hard about what was happening sixty-five hundred feet below. But more foul-smelling bubbles were bursting on the surface and releasing multicolored entrails. The bottom of the ice cap was being subjected to some large-scale torture caused by colossal forces. Now appalling sounds were coming up from that icy hell, causing circular shockwaves here and there that shook both the Zodiacs. The phenomenon seemed to be intensifying.

John counted the minutes separating them from their landing spot. He sensed that at any second they could be swallowed up. He saw one of the dogs lean over the water to drink and pulled him back.

To keep himself from going crazy with worry, John pulled out Geraldine’s phone and listened to the latest of the heiress’s conversations. The most surprising one was the call she had made to Isabelle Le Guévenec. The two women knew each other, having met several times at social functions and scientific gatherings.

She opened the conversation by telling Isabelle that her husband was a true hero who would be remembered with honor, despite the flak he was taking now. According to Mary Harper, Terre Noire and North Land were caught in the same storm. They would have to pull together.

She apologized for disturbing her in Le Havre, which Isabelle didn’t bother to correct, even though she was a long way from her apartment. Mary Harper wanted more information about Christophe Maunay.

“What did your husband think of him, Isabelle?”

“Loïc has always thought he was a creep, and Lanier was wrong to keep him on.”

“Do you know a John Spencer Larivière?”

“The name doesn’t ring a bell,” Isabelle Le Guévenec replied.

“Maunay wanted to reveal something sensational to that guy. Do you have any idea what he wanted to tell him?”

“None.”

Mary Harper wasn’t following her mother’s orders to be careful. Isabelle Le Guévenec and Mary promised to keep each other informed. A lot of people were interested in the secrets Maunay had almost divulged to John. And some of them wouldn’t be long in concluding that John had actually heard those confidences.

John heard a familiar flapping sound and sat up. Qaalasoq, with the help of the plastic their reserves of food and water were wrapped in, had just hoisted a makeshift sail above the front Zodiac.

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 6 p.m.

Victoire jumped when she heard the doorbell ring and raced to the window. She was relieved when she recognized Guerot.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking around.

“Come in. I’ll explain.”

The deputy director was carrying a sports bag. They went through the garage, heading toward the stairs. Victoire saw Guerot glance at the damaged tarpaulins covering Fermatown’s cars. She shuddered at the idea that he might find some trace of Per Sorensen’s execution.

She used her warmest voice. “François, up here, please. I’ve got news that’ll be of interest to you.”

Victoire showed Guerot the stairs and took him to the salon. “Let’s sit in the confessional.”

“The confessional?”

She bit her lip and could have kicked herself. Only the team called the salon where they met clients the confessional. John would have been annoyed with her. He didn’t think much of Guerot, who was cold and uptight, ready to do anything to please whoever was in power. The errand boy, as Luc had nicknamed him.

“That’s just a name we call it among ourselves. And you’re part of the family, François.”

The deputy director sat down in the same armchair that he’d taken on his last visit and narrowed his eyes on Victoire.

“You’ve hurt yourself.”

Victoire forced a smile.

“I tried to put a dish in the oven, forgetting that I’d just taken it out five minutes earlier.”

“What were you making?” Guerot asked, suddenly interested in the culinary talents of the young woman sitting opposite him.

Victoire was stumped for a second. The question had caught her off guard. “A gratin dauphinois,” she replied. I dropped it on the floor and had to throw it out.”

“That’s a shame,” Guerot replied. “In any case, we’ve had security officers here since Tuesday, as we said we would. They’re on the Rue Fermat and the Rue Deparcieux. It’s a discreet team. They haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

Victoire smiled her thanks. Per Sorensen had no doubt expected this, and that’s why he had used the rooftop.

“Has John been able to get anything new on Christophe Maunay?”

Victoire leaned toward him and said in a confidential tone, “Believe it or not, just before he was killed in his hotel room, Maunay told John that he wanted to defect to North Land, lock, stock, and barrel.”

Guerot went white, and Victoire took malicious pleasure in dragging out the suspense. She recounted Christophe Maunay’s offer to help John. Guerot stopped looking at her hands and listened carefully. The defection plan was obviously fascinating him. This was a way to transfer intelligence that couldn’t be prosecuted as corporate espionage.

“And that’s not all, François.”

“What else is there?”

“Maunay wanted to flee France. He promised John that he’d reveal terrible secrets about Terre Noire if Geraldine Harper could get him a new identity and a Canadian passport.”

“What terrible secrets?” Guerot asked, looking stricken.

Victoire took a deep breath and caught a whiff of chlorine. Caresse had most likely knocked over a bottle of bleach in the kitchen. She continued her story.

“He didn’t have time to say. They were interrupted by Qaalasoq, one of the Inuits with John. Maunay died that night, butchered.”

Victoire closed her eyes momentarily, remembering the Dane she had decapitated. Guerot was looking at her as though she had just fallen to earth. Maunay’s defection would have been a great blow to him. Guerot surely had given the Terre Noire HR manager a secret defense clearance, considering the strategic stakes and the major intellectual property the company dealt in. Guerot was going to be in hot water down at Les Invalides. He’d backed the wrong horse, big time. Victoire could already see the smirking faces of his colleagues.

For a few moments, they sat in silence. The deputy director conceded in a barely audible voice, “That’s frightening.”

Victoire nodded in agreement. “I learned that a Qatari, Omar Al Selim, who’s a grand officer of the Legion of Honor, got Maunay out of trouble once. Al Selim turns up in a lot of real-estate deals in Paris. Do you know anything about him, François?”

Guerot was staring grimly into space. Victoire had the feeling that he was no longer there. She tried to bring him back to earth.

“If you want to know more about Maunay, you should contact this Omar Al Selim.”

“We know him well, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Guerot replied. “Why don’t you go see him? I have so few good people left who can do the type of intelligence gathering that’s required in this kind of situation. We’ve got good cops and good engineers, but when it comes to politics and world strategics, it’s beyond our capabilities these days. A formidable guy like Al Selim needs to be handled by someone sharp and intelligent.”

Victoire appreciated the compliment and smiled.

“Tell him that you work for North Land. You’re investigating the murder of an executive in a hotel in Nuuk. You’ve learned that he knew him. That’ll sound credible for starters. Al Selim is used to talking with top-tier investigators. He’s worked with us in the past as a go-between in financial and political matters. I can’t tell you any more than that. We need him, and he needs us.”

Victoire was seduced by the idea, but showed him her bandaged hands.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I was forgetting that you can’t drive because of your hands. I’ll send an unmarked car to take you to Deauville, where Al Selim rents a suite year-round at the Hotel Normandy. The officer can take care of your security at the same time. After you come back, you can tell me what he knows about Maunay. We’ll finally find out what he wanted to reveal.”

Victoire smiled.

“You think Al Selim will agree to talk to me?”

“We’ll see to it that he does,” Guerot replied. “Speaking of which, how’s John?”

“Good, but someone tried to kill him.”

“No!” Guerot exclaimed.

Victoire told him about the bullet that grazed John’s shoulder shortly before they arrived at Raphaelle. Guerot asked for details, but she couldn’t provide them. John hadn’t told her.

“What about your Little Luc?” the deputy director asked, watching the cat that was ignoring him as she sauntered past. “Where is he?”

“In the Morvan,” Victoire replied. “You won’t believe it, but Mary Harper from North Land has made several calls to a chalet there that belongs to Terre Noire!”

“Really?” Guerot asked, moving forward in his seat.

“Yes,” Victoire said, taking pleasure in his reaction. “Mary Harper was no doubt trying to get in touch with Lanier after the collapse of Greenland.”

“Why?” Guerot asked, disconcerted.

“We think that after that catastrophe, North Land wanted to get Terre Noire’s advice on the causes and consequences of the cataclysm,” Victoire replied.

“You think?”

“Of course!” she declared. “Now Mary Harper knows that Lanier’s on the Bouc-Bel-Air.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“We have confirmation,” Victoire replied.

“From whom?”

“Connie Rasmussen, the legal advisor for the Northern Peoples Congress.”

Guerot tapped his fingertips together, looking thoughtful.

“The Luc Martinet who published the article that mentioned Lanier—he’s your Luc, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Victoire admitted, hoping to be forgiven that little secret. She immediately added, “Connie Rasmussen really insisted that he publish it, and John got the green light from North Land.”

“And you agreed?” Guerot said with a hint of a reproach.

“You’d like information about Lanier, wouldn’t you? Connie happens to be on the same ship. She promised to keep us informed in exchange for publishing the article. You know better than I do how it works.”

Guerot nodded as an affirmation. Intelligence was an ecosystem in which nothing was traded without something in return.

“What exactly is she looking for, this Danish woman?” he asked.

“We don’t know.”

Guerot observed the cat at Victoire’s ankles. He roused himself from his thoughts and posed the awkward question she’d been waiting for.

“What’s John doing on the ice cap twelve and a half miles from Haffner Bjerg? Why is he in that part of Greenland?”

Victoire noted the precision and remembered that John had given Guerot the means of tracking him all over the planet, thanks to the three little balls he’d had grafted onto his ear.

“He’s looking for Abraham Harper, North Land’s CEO.”

“I don’t get it anymore,” Guerot replied sharply. “He spoke to me about protecting the daughter, not the father. Is this new?”

Victoire sensed that Guerot didn’t appreciate being kept out of the loop. She replied, trying not to lie too much.

“He was hired to protect the daughter first, and then he was asked to find the father. One thing led to another. We hadn’t expected the second assignment.”

“And the father, where’s he?”

“Somewhere in the Great Wound of the Wild Dog.”

“Tell John that I’d like to hear from him more often. Just because he left Les Invalides, that doesn’t mean he should be hiding things from us. His safety depends on it. I really don’t want to have to come back here to find out what’s going on.”

“I’ll get on him,” Victoire replied, trying to smile as persuasively as possible.

Guerot got to his feet and picked up his sports bag.

“Thanks for the security,” Victoire said. “And for the driver.”

She showed him out.

“An officer will call you on my behalf. He’s one of our most trustworthy men. Your case is starting to cost us dearly, but I sense we’re about to discover some interesting things. We’ll cover expenses, but you’ll give me the receipts, right?”

“Of course, François.”

The Terres Noires in the Morvan, 6:45 p.m.

Luc put the phone away after his conversation with John. It was time to leave the Black Lands behind and get closer to the chalet where Isabelle Le Guévenec had taken refuge. The wind had blown away the mist, revealing patches of wet vegetation. He retraced his steps, taking care not to get lost, and went back to the dirt track.

Before staging his fake arrival, Luc followed John’s advice: “Whenever you enter a new place, locate the exits first.” John had taught him everything—how to spot the hidden hands, how to pick up smells in the air, how to look for cameras and bugging devices, how to determine shooting angles, and how to spot killers behind a secluded window. Moving upwind, he approached the chalet on tiptoe. He circled the house and located the kitchen. He studied all the windows. The attic overlooked a rotting haystack. A shed next to the chalet housed an old tractor.

He silently returned to his motorcycle. To give Isabelle Le Guévenec the impression that he’d only just arrived, he ran with the cycle for a few hundred yards before kickstarting the engine. He accelerated when he saw the chalet and pulled up at the front steps. Isabelle Le Guévenec opened the door and came out on the veranda.

“I wasn’t expecting you so early, Little Luc.”

“It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to transfer the wounded Bouc-Bel-Air mates. The whole crew was fantastic. And I drove fast.”

Isabelle Le Guévenec seemed more distant than in Le Havre. He went up the steps and contented himself with a peck on each cheek. The atmosphere had changed.

“Have a seat.”

He sat down in a rocking chair opposite the fireplace where the fire he’d seen from outside was burning. The main room served as both a living room and a dining room and was furnished in a rustic style in keeping with the rugged region. On the sideboard, photos in leather frames had been turned around to face the wall. Isabelle didn’t want him to see her family mementos. He was just a passing fancy, a breath of fresh air in a very full life.

“I’ve got some tea in the kitchen. Can I tempt you?”

Luc nodded and waited. Isabelle came back with the cups and a pitcher of milk. She put the tray on the coffee table in front of the fireplace and got straight to the point.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth in Le Havre?”

“What truth?” Luc replied innocently, wondering what particular lie he would have to wriggle out of.

“You’ve never worked for Terre Noire. You used a false identity to come and interview me. Why didn’t you tell me you were the Luc Martinet who writes for future-probe.com?”

“Because you wouldn’t have been yourself, Isabelle. I needed the truth.”

“You’ve got some nerve, talking to me about truth!”

“Didn’t you like my article about the two women of the Arctic?”

“It’s very good, but you gave us a fright. With all that’s going on, my husband’s worried. Nicolas Lanier asked me to get out of Le Havre because of you and take refuge here. You’re a monster.”

“What is here, exactly?” asked Luc, as though he was starting another interview.

Isabelle Le Guévenec served the tea and put another log on the fire before she answered.

“Here is the Terres Noires, the Black Lands. This is where it all began at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Lanier and Brissac families discovered and explained a geological phenomenon that still amazes newcomers. There’s a huge patch of quicksand a mile away. I don’t know much about it, but I do know that the solid ground has yellow broom growing on it, and the quicksand has dark broom. Don’t ask me why.”

Luc didn’t give a damn about the plants. What he had in mind was John’s question about the revelations Christophe Maunay had very nearly made before he died.

“Isabelle, I’d like to do a story on your husband for future-probe.com. That guy is incredible.”

“Really, writing profiles is an obsession with you!”

“Le Guévenec is a one-off. The Arctic falls on his head. He loses half of his crew. Then the bears attack the survivors. Lanier comes aboard—no one knows how. A helicopter crashes on his ship, killing Romain Brissac. Now he’s off rescuing the shipwrecked victims of the Narvik under the hostile gaze of the legal adviser to the Northern Peoples Congress. You’ve got to admit, that’s a lot for one man!”

Isabelle began to sob. Luc had just put both feet right in it.

“You can cry, Isabelle. Your husband’s a fantastic guy.”

“I was thinking of the helicopter. Of Romain.”

“Ah, him too, obviously.”

Luc had forgotten about Isabelle’s liaison with the Nobel laureate and felt like a dolt. He spotted a box of tissues and handed her one. Then he tried clutching at straws. “Romain Brissac had some specific theories about the end of the Arctic and Greenland,” Luc ventured cautiously. “His death might have been quite convenient for some people.”

Isabelle looked up at him, the tears streaming down her face, and her hands clasped together on her knees. Luc felt that the moment had come.

“I’m sure Brissac’s death is related to Maunay’s,” he declared earnestly.

Isabelle Le Guévenec walked over to the window and stared at the rain, which had started falling again. Then she spun around.

“You mean that creep Maunay might have sabotaged the helicopter that was supposed to evacuate Romain to the American base in Thule?”

“I’m afraid so,” Luc confirmed. “The guy was a sleaze. From what I hear, he had to be hustled out of Gabon because of something he had gotten himself into. I think Maunay had his own men on the Bouc-Bel-Air and in Raphaelle. You have to ask your husband for the names of crew members who were in direct or indirect contact with him.”

“Loïc would never give me such a list. He has never kept me abreast of his affairs,” Isabelle confessed with bitter regret in her voice. “He’s always taken me for a half-wit.”

Luc took Isabelle’s hands in his own.

“The person who murdered Romain is on the Bouc-Bel-Air.”

“Do you really think so?”

“We ought to do it for Romain, for his memory.”

Isabelle let another tear escape. It was followed by a sob.

“All right, I’ll call Loïc. But I can’t talk to him in the state I’m in. Have some cake. I’m going to freshen up.”

Luc turned away. Outside, the weather wasn’t getting any better. Forecasters had just placed the whole northern half of France on red alert.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 2:50 p.m.

Loïc Le Guévenec felt a shooting pain in his lower back when he turned around to make sure no one was following him. Stuffed with analgesics and morphine to relieve the pain that just wouldn’t go away, he was starting to lose all sense of time and space. He knocked the agreed number of times and waited. Nicolas Lanier finally cracked open the door.

The stench in the Terre Noire chairman’s cabin was unbearable. Le Guévenec didn’t know if he’d be able to carry on a conversation. What foul play was forcing Lanier to stay holed up in his cabin when the whole world knew he was on board? Ever the loyal captain, Le Guévenec avoided asking. Only one thing obsessed him: to take the Bouc back to Nuuk and then to Le Havre.

“So, Captain, where are we?” Lanier asked, motioning to the chair where he could sit.

“Not far from the shipwreck. But the sea’s too strong. We’re pitching too much to be effective.”

“Still, it’s good we could drag ourselves this far.”

“I’d like to set a course for Nuuk.”

“Go ahead, Captain,” Lanier said, sounding exhausted.

“There’s something else,” Le Guévenec said.

He wasn’t in the habit of mixing private matters with his official duties. Telling Lanier about the conversation he had just had made him very uncomfortable. But because Isabelle was in his boss’s country house, he had to overcome his embarrassment.

“My wife just called. She’d like me to send her the names of the crew members who were connected in any way with the boatswain and Christophe Maunay. I know that might seem odd.”

Le Guévenec registered Nicolas Lanier’s surprised silence. Looking agitated, the head of Terre Noire stood up and went to the porthole. Then he turned around. “Do you have the list?” Lanier asked.

“After the boatswain’s death, I went to retrieve his papers. I found a notebook with phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Some of them belonged to sailors on the Bouc and the Marcq-en-Barœul, such as Velot. There were also the names of other people, addresses, plans, and numbers.”

“You never told me about this notebook.”

“I only made the connection between Maunay, the boatswain, and Velot after the helicopter carrying Brissac was sabotaged. There was also a smartphone in the head seaman’s cabin with a report about me and my wife. I put it back in its place to see whether someone else would come and get it.”

“And someone else was interested in it?”

“Yes. Connie Rasmussen. She stole it. So she has to be linked to the boatswain in some way. I’ve unmasked her. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“What have you done?”

“Nothing for the moment. I wanted to see you before I did anything. We’ve got her for theft. I can arrest her without further ado and put her in irons. I’m awaiting your instructions.”

Looking at the boss of the Bouc with admiration, Lanier stroked his beard. The old sea dog was obviously wilier than he looked. He had underestimated him.

“Don’t do anything about Connie Rasmussen for the moment, and send a copy of the notebook to your wife.”

Le Guévenec struggled to get up. His hip would have been operated on by now if Lanier hadn’t sent them to Greenland. The idea that Isabelle might know more about this than he thought forced him to sit down again. He was short of breath.

“You don’t trust your wife?” Lanier asked.

“Of course I do. But, well, I don’t get it. How could she know?”

“Do what I tell you.”

“What about the Danish woman?”

“Don’t put her in irons. She could be useful.”

For some days now, Le Guévenec had felt all of his certainties shatter, one by one. That the chairman of Terre Noire could provide Isabelle with ultraconfidential documents and forbid him to arrest Connie Rasmussen for stealing those same documents was throwing him completely.

When the time came, he’d vent his bitterness over the loan that Terre Noire had refused him for the purchase of the apartment in La Rochelle.

“I know that appearances can be misleading, but I’m like you, Captain. I’m steering Terre Noire through troubled waters. I’m skirting icebergs. Only I can’t see the tips of mine. And as for radar, I’m forced to tinker. Maunay was supposed to be my radar. That’s why I’m still lying low here like an animal. As long as I haven’t identified the iceberg that’s going to sink Terre Noire, I’ll be your passenger. I can eat pasta and rice every day for as long as it takes. Don’t fret about that. I have total confidence in your wife. She’s a good person.”

Le Guévenec nodded. Lanier was talking about a world he hadn’t really mastered. Now he had to bring up one more disagreeable request.

“Connie Rasmussen has asked for the ship’s plans. She wants to inspect the ship with Velot, the one who killed the bears. I’ve categorically opposed it, but like Isabelle, she knows you’re here and has asked me to talk to you. You’d think they’d agreed on it together. What’s more, there’s a story on them on the Internet: ‘The women of the Arctic.’ Can you imagine?”

Nicolas Lanier ran a grubby hand through his hair. The captain’s physical and mental state worried him. He was beginning to look like a bogeyman who’d been pulled out of Alberta’s tar sands. “You handle ice better than women, Le Guévenec,” he replied after a few seconds of silence.

“That’s true,” the seaman agreed, trying to smile.

“Give Connie Rasmussen the plans. In any case, we can’t do anything else. Greenland is standing behind this lawyer. Maybe there’s something else standing behind her, as well,” Lanier added with a strange look.

“But, for heaven’s sake, you’re handing secrets over to the enemy!”

“Greenland isn’t an enemy, Captain. It’s a client. As for secrets, they’re in the samples of ice this ship is carrying. Never has a ship carried knowledge so vital for humankind.”

Le Guévenec made a painful effort to get up and walk to the door. He was clutching his back. Lanier stopped him just as he was leaving.

“Don’t worry about your loan. I’ve issued instructions. You can buy whatever you like in La Rochelle, Loïc.”

“Thank you…Nicolas.”

The Great Wound of the Wild Dog, 3:15 p.m.

John stopped rowing a hundred yards from their landing spot. They hadn’t sunk, and the lake hadn’t opened and pulled them to the bottom. But the invisible menace was still there. The smell of gas was coming off the water again and making their heads spin. Two of the dogs were lying on their sides, panting and vomiting. And the methane emissions were beginning to make the other dogs sick, as well. Qaalasoq didn’t say anything, but he was already the color of a corpse. John knew they couldn’t stay on this deadly lake much longer.

What they were about to confront was just as unforeseeable as the dying of Greenland. The killer was probably waiting for them behind one of the snowcapped hills overlooking the ice they were going to land on. He would have no trouble picking them off one by one, like the tin ducks in a carnival shooting game.

With the help of his binoculars, John assessed the enemy’s possible shooting positions. The bastard would kill them just before they landed, when they were still grouped together and vulnerable. That’s what he, as a sharpshooter, would have done: destroy the enemy on his landing craft. Plan B was not landing in this place, but choosing a higher spot to the left or the right that would shield them from view. Then they’d have to do some climbing and take the enemy from the rear. Risky with just two exhausted men, sick dogs, and a sled they’d be forced to leave behind.

John analyzed his options: death by gas or death by gunfire.

“Can the dogs serve as infantry like they did in Raphaelle and attack first to flush out the enemy?” John asked Qaalasoq, who was lying on his stomach beside him.

“I think it’s possible. With a bit of luck. But we can’t stay here any longer. They’ll die one by one. And we will too.”

John realized that the sniper was most likely thinking the same thing.

“If I were in his place, I wouldn’t let us land with the dogs ahead of us. I’d shoot now.”

Qaalasoq reflected for a few seconds.

“He didn’t see the dogs race off in pursuit at Raphaelle. I don’t think he’s an Inuit. I don’t think he’d be expecting the dogs to attack.”

“Let’s go,” John commanded.

Lying next to Qaalasoq, he took the old Remington that the Raphaelle leader, Gressin, had given him, and aimed it at the coast. The Inuit took the oars and paddled through the water at a clipped pace. Around them, the dogs that were still fit sat alert, like marine commandos ready to leap onto the beach and grab the enemy by the throat.

With his hand tight on the butt, John watched as the coast swiftly loomed closer. His heightened senses picked up the imminent danger. But it wasn’t the one he had expected, and it was too late to change the plan and backpaddle. The first Zodiac ran aground on the tongue of ice, followed by the second. John and the dogs charged ahead, running to a sort of escarpment in the form of a snowdrift.

He realized too late that he’d landed in a trap as deadly as the gas chamber they’d just left behind. The sea of ice, weighed down with rocks, was hurtling into the lake at frightening speed. The ground under his feet was taking him back to the place where he’d landed. The killer hadn’t run the risk of sitting in a defensive position on such shifting terrain. Hidden on the granite peaks of Haffner Bjerg, he was waiting for nature to do the job for him. John ran to Qaalasoq and helped him pull the sled off the Zodiac with the help of the dogs that were still able. Men and dogs pulled the load. John felt like they were going up a down escalator.

They managed to move ahead, leaving the sick animals behind. But exhausted by the crossing and the gas emissions, John knew they wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. In a few minutes, they’d be swallowed up on the very spot where they had landed. To the left and the right, unmoving rocky slopes framed the enormous escalator that was taking them back to the lake. Salvation lay there. The enemy lay there, as well. Six hundred and fifty yards of moving ice divided the two walls. The killer was on one of them. John didn’t want to get it wrong.

While pulling on the rope like a maniac, John assessed the enemy’s strategy. If he’d been the sniper, he’d have made sure he had the sun at his back. So the killer was on the left, between them and the dying light of the sun. He chose to go right and get out of the firing line, praying he was making the right choice.

“This way!” he yelled to Qaalasoq.

Men and beasts managed to reach a patch of ground on the side of the enormous tongue that wasn’t moving as quickly as the middle. They made enough progress to get away from the lake and finally reach ice that seemed to be stable.

“One more effort,” John said.

They hoisted the sled and its load over a gigantic granite ridge. On the other side, they were shielded from the line of fire. Exhausted, they stretched out with the dogs on a rock formation that was warmed by the sun. Slowly, they stopped panting. And then they felt it: the ground beneath their shoulder blades and their shattered backs was shaking.

Behind them, the glacier shrieked as it hurled itself into the lake. The sound of rocks being ground and ice being crushed accompanied the roar of the vast bloodletting that was putting Haffner Bjerg to death. Even in Afghanistan, John had never heard the mountains cry out.

On the bridge of the Bouc-Bel-Air, 3:35 p.m.

Connie Rasmussen made headway by clutching the handrails. Through his binoculars, the stooped captain was watching the rescue operations on the ships in the Narvik’s flotilla. The wind was blowing across the patched-up bridge. The roiling sea was making the ship pitch. In the distance, low clouds were flowing over the water. Le Guévenec turned around, grimacing with pain.

“Madame Rasmussen, you didn’t tell me the Northern Peoples Congress had chartered Norwegian ships.”

“I didn’t know, Captain. I’m just a lawyer, and maritime chartering isn’t my responsibility.”

Le Guévenec stopped watching the rescue operation for a second and turned to the Valkyrie disguised as the Little Red Riding Hood of the Arctic.

“What’s your game, Madame Rasmussen?”

“A dangerous one, Captain.”

“I’m sure.”

Connie held on tight. The Bouc had just taken a breaker on the starboard side. Big waves came crashing down on the foredeck. Le Guévenec, imperturbable, looked at the stern once more.

“We won’t be taking part in the rescue,” he said with a hint of regret. “Your friends are taking care of it. We’re in too bad a shape. I’m setting a course for Nuuk.”

“Do you have the plans I asked you for, Captain?”

Le Guévenec brought his hand down to a built-in drawer and took out a blue plastic pouch, which he held out to Connie without letting go.

“If it were just up to me, I wouldn’t give you these.”

“I know. But you’ve spoken to Lanier, and he ordered you to. Those around you think very highly of you, Captain. You’re one in a million.”

The captain of the Bouc-Bel-Air, troubled and exhausted, felt himself go weak. He replied in an almost inaudible voice, “Why do you need the plans?”

“So as not to get lost on board. I’m sailing in troubled waters. I’m like you.”

Le Guévenec pulled up the collar of his battered pea jacket. They could talk about global warming all they liked, but here the air was getting colder. This was yet another mystery he couldn’t fathom. Connie Rasmussen took the pouch containing the ship’s plans and planted a kiss on the captain’s cheek. She left the bridge before Le Guévenec, scuppered by her lipstick, could change his mind and take them back.

She found Velot in his cabin and gave him the plastic pouch. The Frenchman took out the plans and hastily unfolded them over the bunk. He turned the sheets over, one by one, until he located the ones for the engine room.

“Here are the slots for the scuttling devices.”

Connie leaned over the drawing and saw, under the sailor’s filthy finger, the two circles in the hull on each side of the drive shaft where the explosives would go.

“How long till we’ve left the rescue zone?” Velot asked the lawyer.

“Half an hour,” Connie replied.

“This stinking tub will go down before that,” the Frenchman said with a nasty smile. “It’s going to take Lanier and that old goat Le Guévenec on a voyage to the bottom of the ocean. There’s a Zodiac in the shed on the foredeck. That’ll do for the two of us and your Inuit bodyguard.”

Things were taking a nasty turn. Velot folded up the engine room plans again and put them back in the pouch. Then he addressed Connie.

“Is your bodyguard armed?” he asked.

“I have no idea. Why do you ask?”

“There’s still an engineer in the engine room. We’ll be forced to get rid of him. I can do it with my bare hands, but a weapon would be better.”

“Indeed,” Connie.

Velot straightened and went to the porthole to watch the launches from the Copenhagen that were assisting the shipwrecked Narvik. Then he turned around.

“I know where there’s a weapon.”

“Where?” asked Connie.

“In the boatswain’s cabin.”

“Where in the cabin?” she asked, her heart beating like the damaged boiler of the Bouc-Bel-Air.

“In one of the closets. Maybe with the underwear. Let’s go.”

Connie nodded and spun on her heels. She’d go whole hog to gain control of the situation.

Dun-les-Places, L’Huis-Laurent Chalet, 7:55 p.m.

Luc couldn’t believe his eyes as he copied the message Isabelle had received on her phone. What Le Guévenec had found when he went through the boatswain’s things was extremely interesting. The list of addresses in Oslo, Copenhagen, Nuuk, Paris, and Le Havre attested to powerful logistics. He recognized the numbers for the Hôtel Louxor and the bar of the Saint-James swimming pool. The numbers in Nuuk had to correspond to places John had visited. Per Sorensen, Rox Oa, and Sylvain Velot were just the tip of the iceberg. Luc had no way of knowing who the other numbers belonged to. He checked to see if the number of the chalet in the Morvan was on the list and was relieved when he didn’t find it. Fermatown had just put its finger on a powerful international network of swift and dirty killers.

“This is fascinating,” Luc said.

Isabelle Le Guévenec looked at him with a strange smile. It was a look he hadn’t seen on her before.

“I suppose you’re going to ask me about the connection between Terre Noire, which owns this chalet, and Mary Harper, who tried to get hold of someone here. Because you haven’t come all this way just to see me, have you?”

Luc was about to answer when the door handle moved slightly. A shadow passed in front of the window. Isabelle stiffened in fear. Luc quickly signaled the plan.

“The attic!”

He took her by the hand and pulled her toward the stairs that led to the top of the chalet. They’d just reached the last step when the thunder of automatic rifles split their eardrums and shattered doors and windows. Luc secured the hatch.

He gestured to the opening and pointed to the black plastic tarpaulin covering the haystack. They held hands and jumped. After running across the wet grass, they penetrated the forest, heading in the direction of the Yorévé dolmen. It was impossible to retrieve the motorcycle. The enemy had blocked off the road to Dun-les-Places. Leaping over ferns and bushes. Luc told himself that Isabelle was hiding something important, all the same, something that might explain why they’d come to kill him.

Who knew he was in the Morvan? He quickly went through the possibilities while he was running. Then he had to stop and catch his breath. The weapons had gone silent. Exhausted and bathed in sweat, Luc asked Isabelle if she was all right. She nodded. She, too, had to be asking herself a whole heap of questions. What if the killers had come for her? What secret was this woman carting around? No longer winded, they ran another hundred feet or so before diving into the trees again.

It was Isabelle who now guided their escape. They crossed a clearing and soon came within sight of the Yorévé dolmen. No one seemed to be chasing them. When they were only a few dozen yards from the dolman, Isabelle stopped and cocked her ear. Nothing.

A minute later, they were sitting side by side under the huge stone table. The rain had started falling again. He wrapped his arms around her and scanned the forest. Like an imbecile, he’d left his gun in the motorcycle. The killers had burst in just when she was about to tell him something that John absolutely had to know. He pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, “You were going to tell me about Terre Noire and Mary Harper.”

“Abraham Harper is Nicolas Lanier’s father. Mary is Nicolas’s half sister.”

“You’re joking! How do you know?”

“Lanier told Romain Brissac, and he told me. Nicolas and Romain had no secrets from each other.”

“And Abraham’s paternity makes the situation tricky?”

“The trouble started when Mary Harper learned at L’École des Mines that the man she’d fallen in love with was her half brother.”

“Geraldine Harper knew?”

“She’d known for a long time. Abraham used to go to a lot of international conferences on scientific prospecting, like the one today in Nuuk. He met Emmanuelle Lanier at one of them. One thing led to another, and soon enough, he had fathered a child with her. I’ve always wondered if it was out of love or if it wasn’t a kind of investment. Abraham’s a funny coot. He’s a hard man, but also a visionary who’s always been twenty years ahead of everyone else. You’ve never met him?”

“I’ve only seen him in photos,” Luc replied.

“Harold, the Harpers’ son, has a degenerative brain disease that means he won’t be taking over for his father at the helm of North Land. I think Abraham found that very painful, and he decided to form an alliance with Terre Noire before one actually existed by making a son at the company he didn’t have the means to buy out. It was sort of an investment in the future.”

“Why do you say an alliance before it actually existed?”

“Because North Land and Terre Noire were supposed to announce their merger at the meeting on global warming in Nuuk.”

“Romain Brissac was for it?”

“Romain and Nicolas have always done everything together. They both supported the merger.”

“Why are they trying to kill us?”

“Together, the two companies hold such a reserve of knowledge, they’re close to becoming the planet’s most formidable decision makers. Not everyone’s happy about the merger.”

“Notably the Norwegian, Thor Johannsen, and his Russian and Icelandic allies, right? They don’t want France, Denmark, and Canada to have a monopoly,” Luc said, proud of his political science.

Isabelle gave him an admiring look.

“You understand almost everything, Little Luc.”

“Why do you say almost?”

“There’s also the thing Maunay wanted to talk about—that’s why Lanier’s still hiding on the Bouc with Loïc. How are we going to escape this trap?”

“I’ll just get out the Yellow Pages.”

The Great Wound of the Wild Dog, 4:10 p.m.

John advised Luc to call the police. Honestly, you had to explain everything to these young people. Then he turned to Qaalasoq, who was lying at his side on the rocky slope. The Inuit looked as far away as the sky above their heads. Behind the ridge that was shielding them from the killer, the ice kept plummeting into the lake, making the mountain tremble. A hundred and twenty feet below, the alarming surface of the new Dead Sea stretched to infinity.

John had to shout to make himself heard. “Did you know Abraham Harper was Nicolas Lanier’s father?”

Yes,” Qaalasoq replied without moving an inch.

“Does that pose a problem?”

“It has posed a problem ever since Mary found out that Lanier is her half brother. She found out a month ago.”

John saw himself at the Ritz with Geraldine, who seemed strangely satisfied with his looks and his bearing even before he’d uttered a word. Mary’s words at L’École des Mines came back to him. “My mother chose you so I’d sleep with you, but there’s no chance of that.”

“Basically, Geraldine Harper chose me so Mary would get interested in someone other than her brother! I’m a way of taking her mind off things. I’m the rabbit they pulled out of the hat to keep the little one amused.”

Qaalasoq sat up and smiled.

“Don’t be annoyed.”

“I think you’ve spent a lot of time and money for me to come up here and risk my neck just to distract a kid who spends her time avoiding me like the plague. It’s pretty dumb, your little ploy, even if it pays well.”

Qaalasoq cautiously climbed to the top of the ridge to see if the killer was attempting a crossing. Reassured, he turned to John.

“You’re not here just to play babysitter or Romeo. There are more serious things awaiting you. I think you’ve figured that out.”

“Yes,” John replied grumpily.

The noise of an engine made them lift their heads. A helicopter had emerged from behind a cloud on the horizon and was heading toward them. John tightened his grip on the rifle and watched closely, ready to fight for dear life. He was scarcely reassured when Qaalasoq shouted, “It’s one of ours.”

John recognized the national colors of Greenland on the fuselage. The machine stabilized, hovering six hundred feet above them. Then it launched a missile straight at them. The object, as big as a football, bounced several times on the slope of Haffner Bjerg before stopping a few yards from their position. It exploded like a grenade, releasing a stream of red smoke into the air.

“They’re marking us,” John shouted. “They’re measuring the direction and the speed of the wind. It’s the police. They’ve come to arrest us for the murder of Christophe Maunay. We’ll never know what happened to Abraham Harper.”

John was frustrated but also relieved. They would escape the killer and the deadly geological traps of this country. Long live the police, he told himself. The Sikorski was too heavy to touch down on the steep slope. It descended and then hovered about forty feet above an area of gravelly rock. A man in uniform appeared at the door and signaled to them to climb toward a sloping ledge that was out of sight less than a mile away.

“He wants us to go up,” John shouted. “He can’t put down here. The slope is too steep.”

Qaalasoq nodded to indicate that he understood and started to climb. With the help of the dogs, they pulled the sled over the rocks. John realized there was no point now in wearing themselves out with the sled. He signaled to Qaalasoq to abandon it and its load. The Inuit started waving his arms and shouting in the direction of the helicopter. John immediately understood and started shouting with him. The Sikorski started to bank over the lake.

“No! No!” they shouted.

John tried desperately to get the pilot to understand that he was heading straight for death. The machine had already executed half an elegant turn over the water when yellow and bluish sparks escaped from the jet pipe. Oblivious to the danger, the pilot calmly began circling back.

The methane in the lake burst into flames in one big whoosh. John and Qaalasoq watched as the pilot tried to gain speed to escape disaster. It was a fatal mistake. The acceleration of the turbines only spiked the heat. A blue-tinged halo surrounded the Sikorski. It was like a pot on the burner of a malfunctioning stove. A fireball lit up the interior of the cabin, imprinting the blackened silhouettes of the pilot and copilot against an orange background. Then came the explosion and the crash. The impact only intensified the blaze. John and Qaalasoq took in the scene. The fire was setting mile after mile of water ablaze.

A gigantic flare rose into the sky, blocking the horizon in a wall of fire. Very quickly, it seemed to suck up all the air. They had to climb to the peak of the crest to breathe. Stumbling over the rocks, they got themselves and the dogs to the sloping ledge that the crew of the Sikorski had signaled them to go to. Drained and sweaty and their skin burning, they dropped to the ground and lay with their faces against the rock. The biggest firewall the world had ever known slowly settled down and finally went out.

And finally, they dared to raise their heads and get to their feet. What they saw terrified them more than ever.

The lake had dropped a good hundred or so yards in a few minutes, boring an immense circular crater. The void that the fire had left was a vision of horror. Behind the ridge, the sea of ice had turned into a roaring waterfall. They were standing above an unimaginable underworld. John sat down again and placed his gloveless hands on the burning-hot rocks. It was the dogs that understood first. Leaping and whining, they warned the men of the new danger.

John felt a dampness and then water running under his fingers. The thin trickle became heavier, as though a stream was springing up beneath their feet. John and Qaalasoq turned around at the same time to look at the mountain peak. A wall of mud was coming down the slopes of Haffner Bjerg toward the lake. The hideous mass, the khaki-brown of an Alpine hunter’s outfit, was sending rocks in all directions.

They abandoned everything and raced with the dogs to the ridge that divided the sea of ice from the river of mud hurtling toward them. With undreamed-of strength, they managed to climb the few dozen yards to the top of the ridge. John turned around and couldn’t believe his eyes. The mudslide, as wide as a river in the tropics and about twenty feet high, now covered the spot where they’d been only a few seconds before. A dog that had injured its leg had stayed behind. He looked up at John. Too late. The terror he read in the dog’s eyes was too much to bear. John looked away. The mud swept everything away in a frightening din. He saw the sled, crushed like a wisp of straw, disappear, along with their equipment.

Clinging to the ground with the surviving dogs, they lay motionless and mute, beyond thought.

Paris, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 8:35 p.m.

Despite her bandaged hands, Victoire was back to brushing Caresse. The familiar chore was a balm for her nerves.

“Don’t worry, baby, the brutes are busy elsewhere.”

She finally released the Persian and went back to analyzing the boatswain’s notebook. The extracted data was displayed on the wall. In less than ten seconds, the software that connected them to another database had drawn up a logistical map of the network that was seeking to wipe them out.

The targets and potential meeting places appeared on GPS surveys and geographic maps. Victoire immediately recognized the square formed by the streets around them—Deparcieux, Fermat, Daguerre, and Froidevaux—and felt acute fear at her fingertips. Thanks to the program, she identified Isabelle Le Guévenec’s apartment in Le Havre, the chalet in the Morvan, the Hôtel Louxor and the Saint-James Club in Paris, an isolated house on the edge of a fjord in Nuuk, Connie Rasmussen’s cottage on the coast of Denmark, Terre Noire’s headquarters on the Champs-Elysées, and North Land’s base in Montreal. And last, Mary Harper’s student digs, on the Boulevard Saint-Michel. The bastards were also interested in the North Land heiress.

Rox Oa must have shared with the other members of the network a series of objectives that covered targets to be eliminated or hideouts to lie low in. Half a dozen maps resisted her efforts to identify them. Too many possibilities. Nothing looked more like a fashionably leafy Australian suburb than a housing development in Montigny-le-Bretonneux.

She tried one last time and relaunched the program. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw the photo identifying one particular address. The touch wall brought up the façade of a glass building that was all too familiar. She recognized the Hôpital Léopold-Bellan at 21 Rue Jean-Zay in the fourteenth arrondissement. What connection could there possibly be between these assholes and that establishment, less than five minutes from her door? Driven by fear and curiosity, she left the house, coming out at 9 Rue Fermat. After crossing the Avenue du Maine, she found herself outside the hospital entrance. She strode confidently inside.

The smiling authority, which she used to cover massive fear, worked like a charm, as usual. The young woman at the reception desk responded to her smile. Victoire pushed one of the doors open with her elbow and found herself in a corridor enveloped in semidarkness. Without knowing exactly where she was going, she strode on purposefully. Passing a laundry room, she grabbed a pink patient’s gown and slipped it over her clothes. She then saw that it was her bandages, not her assumed authority, that made the task easy. She felt a bit annoyed about that, but only briefly. Her killer had done her a favor by forcing her to walk around with wrapped hands.

With its discreet architecture, the Léopold-Bellan hospital was in a neighborhood of modern buildings between the Place de Catalogne and the Gare Montparnasse. Victoire had walked past it several times without realizing what it was. She stopped in front of a map beside the elevator and examined it. For want of knowing what she was actually looking for, she decided to go to the top of the building and come down again, inspecting each floor along the way. When she reached the sixth floor, she completed her disguise by slipping her arm into a sling plucked from a storage room. She quietly opened the door of the first room and apologized to the woman, who was half asleep.

Going from room to room, she realized that the sixth floor was reserved for women. When she got to the fifth floor, Victoire came upon a door code that barred access to a security wing. She took out her smartphone, activated the touch-wear detection app, and directed the camera to the keypad. In less than ten seconds, the software suggested six codes in order of diminishing probability. The second attempt was a success. Victoire pushed the door, looking at the floor to avoid leaving her portrait in the security camera’s field. She had no choice, anyway. She had to clear up any doubt about the threat lurking less than five hundred and fifty yards from Fermatown.

In the middle of the corridor, two rooms with walls of glass faced each other. Victoire immediately thought of the isolation wards for patients with serious infections. She advanced cautiously and saw that the room on the right was occupied. An old man in pajamas was lying in bed with an oxygen mask over his face. Sitting next to him, another man wearing a surgeon’s mask seemed alert and on guard. Victoire stood on tiptoe and saw that he had both hands in a plastic bag. No prizes for guessing he was a bodyguard hiding a weapon in the biodegradable bag from the local bookstore.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She stepped back down the hall and took the call.

“It’s Thomas,” the caller announced.

“Thomas?”

“I’m down below at your place. François Guerot sent me.”

Victoire suddenly remembered the driver who was supposed to take her to Deauville to grill Al Selim.

“I’m coming right away,” she replied.

She was sure, though, that she had buried an image or a memory of the Léopold-Bellan somewhere in her brain. Fear and fatigue were dulling her faculties—even her limbs. Her legs could hardly carry her. Victoire dumped the patient’s robe and sling in a laundry cart and went down the stairs. She reached the bottom floor and left the building. Outside she waited for the light to change and crossed the Avenue du Maine.

Dun-les-Places, Yorévé dolmen, 8:50 p.m.

Luc called the Château-Chinon police again to find out where they were. The officer on duty told him that the patrol car had gotten stuck on a forest road and then had blown out two tires on the dilapidated wooden bridge that crossed the torrent.

“We can’t possibly send a helicopter in this weather. We’ll see what we can do, but the weather’s only getting worse.”

Luc and Isabelle were caught between forbidding topography and weather and killers who’d stop at nothing. He realized that he should never have used his phone. John had taught him that any smartphone, even when switched off, could be used to locate the user. Ever-cheaper software enabling this sleight of hand was available on the Internet. They might not be able to decode his conversation, but they could find him. Suddenly, yellow light pierced the darkness between the bushes. The big flat stone over their heads blew apart under a burst of semiautomatic fire. Petrified, her face covered in blood, Isabelle huddled against him. He grabbed her by the arm and started running headlong into the darkness.

Ferns as sharp as knives cut into their skin. They nearly slipped several times on the moss and the thick carpet of wet pine needles. All Luc knew was that they were going down a slope. Isabelle took over.

“This way.”

He let himself be guided, lungs on fire, to a sort of path surrounded by menacing shadows that suddenly loomed taller. They were going down, toward the edge of a shoulder. As Isabelle instructed, they leaped into a void and fell on top of each other. They were on the forest road.

“Over there,” Isabelle pointed.

They reached a boggy area, and Luc recognized the barbed-wire fence. Fully exposed, they followed the rusty enclosure and came under another burst of semiautomatic fire just as they were stepping inside the gate. The enemy had spotted them but was still a way off and was aiming badly. The wire fence whined and shook as the bullets hit it. Isabelle ripped up the “Danger of Death” sign, and they kept going.

“Follow my footsteps exactly.”

Luc did so without protest. Isabelle was racing ahead on a kind of natural checkerboard full of broom. In the moonlight, he noticed the differences in the color of the bushes. It came back to him. Certain bushes spelled death, and others salvation. His heart stopped beating when Isabelle hesitated between two paths in the middle of the Terres Noires.

“If I get stuck, you step back right away.”

Luc’s body ached from the tension. They crouched with the third burst of gunfire. The bullets hit the moss not far from their feet and made sucking and gurgling noises as they sank into the ground. Isabelle set off again. They reached an embankment and began to climb it, with Isabelle in the lead. Then came the fourth burst of fire.

“Over...”

Luc saw the blood spurt from Isabelle’s back before she crumpled to the ground. He gathered her up and finished the climb to the top of the embankment, where he gently laid her on the ground. Isabelle Le Guévenec was smiling, amazed and at rest. He hugged her body and cried. She had gone without a word, like a cut flower. When he raised his head over the ridge again, he saw the men running toward him. He’d fight with his bare hands and die, too, like a soldier. John would be proud of him. The two killers bounded forward to attack the hundred or so yards between them and the slope.

Suddenly they were sinking between two clumps of broom. They looked at each other in shock and disbelief, as though it was some kind of joke. But for a million years, the Terres Noires of the Morvan had been no laughing matter. The two men didn’t really grasp what was happening until their legs had completely disappeared in the mossy muck. Desperate, they grabbed what they could to save themselves. All they found was lichen.

Luc watched in the cold moonlight from the top of the embankment as the two men frantically tried to hoist themselves out of the abyss that was sucking them down faster and faster. Soon all that remained were their two panic-stricken faces. Then they disappeared in a gurgling of mud bombarded by the rain, which was coming down harder. Soaked to the bone, Luc returned to Isabelle, who was waiting for him on the other side, in a new world.

All of a sudden, he heard the improbable sound of a harpsichord and leaned over her body. He took the phone out of the last dress Isabelle Le Guévenec would ever wear, and the screen lit up with a message: “I’ve just got my loan for La Rochelle. Now that Romain has gone, I’m wondering if we might not be able to start fresh. Your Loïc.”

Luc switched the thing off and closed Isabelle’s eyes with infinite tenderness. The rain was coming down harder still. He wept like a child.

Josephine, 5:55 p.m.

John and Qaalasoq were now within sight of Josephine, after an exhausting trek over the slopes of Haffner Bjerg. They stopped a hundred yards from a pyramid made of plastic, reinforced along the ribs with steel plates. A greenish light coming from the depths lit up the mouth, which was ten feet high and as wide as a road. Around it, the deformed icy landscape resembled the canyons of Colorado.

“What’s the green light coming out of that hole?” John asked.

“Algae.”

John nodded and studied the area. To their left, the summit of Haffner Bjerg was lost in the mist. Behind them, the ice cap was now just a jumble of drift ice and methane eruptions. Rifle in hand, he studied every detail of the terrain for a long while. The killer was waiting for them behind the misty mountain slopes or in the bowels of the ice, behind the opening. Qaalasoq crouched and stroked the rocks. He stood up and delivered the verdict.

“There was still ice here two hours ago.”

“What does that mean?”

“The land is changing from minute to minute.”

“Is this really where Abraham Harper made his last phone call?” John asked, trying to guess where the attack would come from.

Qaalasoq pointed to the way they had just come. “Abraham made his last call from the sled a mile before he got here. That was last week. There was still ice here then, and snow.”

“He was heading here, wasn’t he?”

“Of course.”

Qaalasoq lowered his eyes and observed the scrawny dogs lying on the snowless rocks. He finally lifted his head and said in a low voice, “I have faith in you.”

“It’s not going to be easy.”

John couldn’t take his eyes off this portal that opened into the world below. He knew he wouldn’t escape and felt something like rage. They couldn’t go back. They’d come to the end of the road.

“I assume Abraham went in. Do you think he’s still alive?”

“An Inuit hunter could last a week without eating in those depths. Abraham Harper, despite his age, is a force of nature. He could still be alive and waiting for us.”

“Have you been here before?”

“Yes. There’s a tunnel that slopes gently down to two thousand feet. The station’s fully automated. Down there is where Terre Noire gets its ice core samples measuring tens of thousands of years of cooling and warming.”

John was a soldier by training, but courage had its limits. The idea of taking a bullet to the head with his first few steps inside didn’t really thrill him.

“Send out a dog as a scout,” he suggested.

Qaalasoq untied the fittest of his faithful huskies and spoke in his ear. The dog ran over the rocks and disappeared into the green glow that marked the entrance to Terre Noire’s last subglacial base. The seconds passed, then minutes. Then the wait became unbearable. Around them, the surviving dogs growled and bared their fangs, eyes glued to the entrance.

“They can smell something,” Qaalasoq said.

“Me too.”

The dog reappeared at the entrance and ran back to them, throwing panic-stricken glances all around. He went to his master and lay at his feet, whimpering. Qaalasoq bent down and gently lifted his head. John saw terror in his eyes. Then the dog raised himself to the attack position.

“Get the dogs in formation, and keep your distance from me. If you hear shots, get down. Wait for orders. Don’t be a hero.”

All it takes is one idiot, John thought.

As if they’d understood the maneuver, the dogs lined up between the two men. At the signal, they all advanced in orderly fashion toward the plastic pyramid. Chests and muzzles gave off curls of condensation. No barrage of artillery interrupted their march over the loose stones. The closer they got, the more unbearable the atmosphere became. They were thirty yards from the door. The moment to close ranks was approaching. But grouped together, they’d be more vulnerable. John decided to compensate for that weakness by acting quickly and ordered the assault. Man and beast hurtled forward, and together, they dove into the tunnel.

The tunnel was big enough to accommodate two trucks side-by-side. They raced ahead, ready to fight, then stopped, mesmerized by the spectacle. Green algae was clinging to the ice. Much of it was dead on the ground, giving off a stench that recalled the gas emissions they’d breathed earlier. Facing them, a transparent cabinet six and a half feet tall and twenty inches deep housed a whole high-tech system in working order. Computers and screens blinked behind dark bulletproof glass. Cables of every color ran out of the cabinet and into the ground and the ceiling. Humidity sensors, seismographs, and barometers sat cheek by jowl with tape recorders and supercomputers.

“This is where your compatriots study the causes and effects of the Anthropocene,” Qaalasoq said.

John decided to put off till later any explanations regarding the latest climate age of humanity. None of what he could see could have frightened the scout dog so dramatically. The tunnel extended beyond the cabinet. On either side, a thin trickle of water ran down toward Greenland’s sick insides. They advanced cautiously and, after a hundred-yard bend, came upon the unthinkable.

John saw the two human heads first, blackened by cold and death. The two pairs of eyes were watching a camera mounted on a tripod three yards from the monstrous assemblage. The murderer had filmed the scene and left a sentinel behind. There were dogs, too. The severed limbs of the men and the dogs formed the eight legs of this hideous montage that pushed the limits of barbarity way beyond madness. Around them, the frightened dogs barked and fled, abandoning them to their fate.

The tortured faces were unrecognizable. White stones had been stuck in the eye sockets, replacing the victims’ ripped-out eyes. It was impossible to know whether they were Abraham Harper and his guide.

Feeling sick, John thought back to the tupilaq Qaalasoq had given him.

“Is it them?”

Qaalasoq had fallen to his knees.

“So this is a real tupilaq?”

Qaalasoq turned to him.

“The tupilaq is a myth. There has never been such savagery in Greenland. That was actually why we got you up here. Only a foreigner could understand. A barbarian.”

The click made them jump. The camera had just done a half circle on its tripod and was filming them. Someone, maybe on the other side of the planet, was fabricating a story after having dreamed up a monster. They were trapped. John turned toward the entrance of the tunnel and knew he hadn’t gotten it wrong. One of the dogs came back to them, breathless and bleeding from the mouth.

“The bastard’s killing the dogs. He’s poisoning them!”

Mad with rage, Qaalasoq rushed toward the mouth of the tunnel to save his dogs. “No!” John yelled. “That’s exactly what he’s waiting for!”

It was too late. The force of the bullet spun the Inuit around. The second shot went through his head and took off the back of his skull. Blood and brains spilled over the curved ice walls. There was nothing left to do now but try to survive.

John crouched behind the glass cabinet and pointed his rifle at the exit. He was on his own now on the dying ice cap, with only a child’s toy to defend himself against his enemy’s powerful weaponry. The echoing shots had blasted open a technical data file at the back of his brain. The demonic piece of shit waiting for him on the other side was armed with an FR F2 precision rifle that fired 7.62-caliber bullets that were no doubt grooved to increase the damage. It was a French weapon the Taliban had gotten hold of, thanks to oil money.

Lying on his back, eyes wide open, Qaalasoq smiled, finally at rest.

On board the Bouc-Bel-Air, 6:40 p.m.

Connie Rasmussen took her courage in both hands and knocked on the door. Sylvain Velot appeared. The Inuit bodyguard was standing behind the sailor.

“Well?” the Frenchman asked.

“I went through everything, but I didn’t find anything. Le Guévenec must have cleaned up and confiscated the gun.”

She tried to smile stupidly, overcoming the fear that was gnawing her guts. She could feel the steel revolver against the small of her back, where she’d slipped it between her shirt and the belt of her pants. Velot and the bodyguard looked worried. The time had come to pose the question that most interested the Danish government.

“I’m not sure that Laura Al-lee-Ah is okay with this sabotage.”

“Laura’s not the one who gives the orders. It’s her husband.”

At last Connie had the answer, duly noted on the recorder she was carrying in one of her pockets. She followed them closely and saw that they were armed with iron bars. Knowing what they intended to do was making her sick.

It seemed like every piece of metal in the Bouc-Bel-Air was groaning as the vessel braved the increasingly heavy waves. The vessel was also shaking badly. Suddenly Connie knew. They were going to sink the ship off the coast of Sondre Stromfjord, a chasm over sixty-five hundred feet deep.

They didn’t see anyone. The few members of the crew who were still able-bodied were with the captain or in the hold, trying to secure a snowplow that had broken its moorings in the rough sea. It was rocking back and forth like a battering ram with each rise and fall of the ship and would surely punch a hole in the hold if it continued. Given everything that was happening, maybe Velot wouldn’t need the scuttling cartridges. Three years before, during a secret briefing at the Kastellet fortress in Copenhagen, Hanne Jorth, the charismatic head of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service, had been very clear. “Connie, I want you to infiltrate Greenland’s inner circle and find out what the new government is up to. I expect the same kind of excellent work that you did when you penetrated that neo-Nazi cell, Club 88. This time, it’s more serious and more dangerous.”

Thanks to her cover as a legal adviser and to her great-grandfather’s prestige, she hadn’t had any trouble winning Laura Al-lee-Ah’s trust. Also, the new government was aware of its vulnerability and didn’t want to burn its bridges with the country that had bestowed such lavish subsidies on the new republic.

With the financial crisis and the consequences of global warming, things had taken an unforeseen turn. The Norwegians, who were allies of the Russians and the Icelanders, had gained the upper hand over the supporters of Denmark and Canada. Laura Al-lee-Ah and Thor Johannsen had largely contributed to this development, even if the couple had come apart at the seams. Had she contributed to that by chasing Thor Johannsen, even though nothing had happened between them?

For a few months now, Denmark’s economic and political interests had been melting as fast as the ice sheets of Siberia and Greenland. The French couldn’t be trusted, even though there were allies within Terre Noire. According to Hanne Jorth, the French just weren’t reliable, prone as they were to internal disagreements that made relations with Paris fraught. At Kastellet, contact with Hubert de Méricourt’s agency was Hanne Jorth’s responsibility.

As she moved past the kitchens, Connie slipped on garbage that had been knocked over, and she almost fell. She tried to grab whatever she could for support. Then a wave hit the ship, and she was thrown against a wall. Connie felt the gun ram her spine and knew she would have a bruise. The descent into the bowels of the Bouc was interminable, but finally they made it to the last gangway. Velot punched the code and opened the door of the airlock. All three went in. The sailor closed the door behind them before unlocking and opening the second door giving access to the platform. They were now thirteen feet above the engine room.

“I’ll go down first,” Velot said.

Ever since he had killed the two bears, Velot had become popular with the crew. Of course, shooting the animals had been premeditated. It was meant to weaken Terre Noire’s image and foil the merger with North Land. Good manners among the economic and political players in the Arctic Circle were a thing of the past.

Connie followed the two men down the ladder and onto the waterlogged floor of the engine room. They were heading toward the man in blue overalls, the chief engineer, who was watching over the only engine in working order. He glanced at the three visitors, his face smeared with oil and grease. Connie thought she detected a vague smile on his lips. She didn’t have time to do anything.

The two iron bars came crashing down. Blood spurted over the tubes and apparatuses that measured fluids and pressure. The chief engineer’s face was soon no more than a bloody pulp. Connie watched as he collapsed at the foot of his machine. His legs stirred and then stopped after one last convulsion. Connie was stunned and petrified by the speed and brutality of the attack. She could not force herself to use the gun. When would she have the courage to shoot the two agents from the Russian-Norwegian alliance? All of Denmark was behind her.

Velot and the Inuit bodyguard had moved closer to the hull. Thanks to the plans, the Frenchman had located the first circular slot. She watched as Velot put the explosive device into the cavity and fiddled with the detonator. She absolutely had to gather her wits and keep these bastards from sending the Bouc to the bottom of the sea. She managed to take her eyes off the victim and rejoined the two men as they were installing the second device on the starboard side.

“How long?” she asked, trying to hide her rising panic.

“Half an hour,” Velot replied. “That’ll give us plenty of time to go back down and put the Zodiac out to sea.”

Connie nodded, trying to look pleased and keep them off guard. She intended to act with the same brutality that they had shown and blow them away without pity. The unconscionable murder of the engineer had finally wiped away any of her remaining qualms. She was on her own, and she had free rein as the custodian of Denmark’s interests. She’d kill them on the gangway between the aftercastle and the forecastle. That was the best place, because the gangway was long. The main thing was to follow behind them. She’d shoot the guy in front of her, and, right after that, she’d take aim at the other one. Then she’d alert Le Guévenec and have a conversation with Lanier, which would certainly be stimulating.

“You coming?” Velot asked, giving her a look she didn’t like one bit.

“Let’s go.”

Sweat broke out on her forehead when the two assassins planted themselves in front of her. These two bastards were going to make her go out first. Maybe they’d guessed what she was cooking up. Velot probably suspected that she had the revolver. A thundering bang made them look up. It was followed by a horrible cry, which was swiftly drowned out by the noise of the storm. The wild snowplow had most likely killed one of the last sailors of the Bouc-Bel-Air.

Connie saw the panicked look on the face of the Inuit, who had begun climbing up the ladder. She sensed that Velot feared his acolyte would do something stupid. He trailed behind him. She took up the rear. When he reached the platform, the Inuit stepped aside to let the Frenchman unlock the door. She let the two men pass in front of her. Velot turned around to close the door behind them and then went to open the next door. Why was the piece of shit grinning? Connie had a bad feeling and let the two men exit the airlock in front of her so that they could get well ahead. Which they did without any fuss.

When the hatch promptly shut again, she realized, too late, that she’d just allowed herself to be trapped in the airlock without any hope of escape. She heard the sound of the bolts shooting home in the steel and started screaming like one of the damned and banging on the metal wall. She was caught like a rat in a trap on a ship that was about to be wrecked.

Autoroute A6, 10:55 p.m.

Crouched on his Harley, Luc was driving through the wind and icy rain toward Paris. Speed put distance between him and the bloody images he was bringing home with him. It forced him to focus on the road. He would never erase Isabelle Le Guévenec’s eyes as she lay beside him, dead. The captain’s wife had given up her secrets with grace. Luc felt even more enraged at the bastards, who had deserved a death more horrible than the one they had met in the Terres Noires of the Morvan.

He slowed down only when he saw the Porte d’Orléans and was amazed that he hadn’t gotten a ticket. He still had a driver’s license more because of his talents as a hacker than because of his respect for speed limits.

Obsessed with Thor Johannsen, Luc drove along the Avenue du Maine to Montparnasse and then crossed the Seine at the Pont Alexandre III before heading to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. He parked his motorcycle on a deserted street and joined Aimé Toussaint at the bar. He couldn’t wait to nail the Norwegian. The more he thought about it, the more Laura Al-lee-Ah’s husband looked like the guy who’d met Per Sorensen at the poolside bar.

“Well?” he asked the tall black lifeguard built like a breaststroke champion.

“Come on. He’s waiting for us.”

Luc tucked his helmet under his arm and followed Toussaint. They crossed the street and entered one of the most fashionable and stylish dives in the capital. The contrast with the Morvan was striking. Toussaint was a regular visitor and led him over the carpet and then up the marble stairs to the elevator that would take them to the subterranean swimming pool. Everything in this hushed palace exuded luxury and tastefulness. They walked past fitness rooms and met figures cloaked in white bathrobes discreetly embroidered with the club’s logo.

“Here, people eat and swim any hour of the day, all year round. But even here, business never sleeps.”

“So I see.”

They passed a table where an overfed Middle Easterner was sweating at a computer. Luc thought of Omar Al Selim. The man looked up and gave Luc a unequivocal wink. Too fat, Luc thought, noting that he couldn’t be the Qatari.

Aimé Toussaint took them to a cloakroom that smelled like tropical flowers laced heavily with chlorine.

“Follow my example.”

Luc hung up his leather jacket and stowed his helmet in one of the lockers. He slipped a pair of disposable plastic shoe covers over his feet and draped a bathrobe over his arm.

“Let’s go.”

Aimé opened another door, and they were standing on the tile floor of one of the most luxurious swimming pools Luc had ever had the good fortune to see in his short life. The reflections of Roman columns and marble statues quivered on the surface of the pool, where a couple was swimming. A tray holding two flutes of champagne awaited the happy pair. Feeling like a fool in his plastic booties, Luc followed Aimé to the bar, which was shimmering under invisible spotlights. Then he laid eyes on the most irresistible barman he’d ever seen, dressed in white and as handsome as a newly minted god.

“Let me introduce you to Gabriel,” Aimé said in a voice dripping with innuendo.

Luc remained speechless and confused.

“Gabriel was here the day Per Sorensen met the man you’re interested in. He’s seen all the photos.”

Gabriel glanced at the pool and took out the packet of photos.

“Well?” Luc asked, trying to concentrate.

The archangel Gabriel spread the full set of pictures over the marble-topped bar and smiled apologetically.

“The man I saw with Per Sorensen is not in any of these photos.”

“But that’s not possible!”

Luc moved the photos around, looking for shots of Thor Johannsen. He stuck the face of the Norwegian oilman married to Laura Al-lee-Ah under the barman’s nose.

“What about this one?”

“Your man was younger and darker. He comes here from time to time.”

“What’s his name?” Luc asked, crestfallen.

“I have no idea. I’ve only been here six months, and I don’t have access to the client files.”

“What does he look like?”

“I’d say he’s discreet. Just about fifty or so. Maybe less. Medium height and a good swimmer.”

Luc was devastated, gutted, lost. All his certainties about the role of the Norwegian and Arctoil were melting like the ice shelf in the sun’s rays. He turned around to contemplate this display of wealth and told himself that, from the very beginning, they’d all missed something crucial. They were being taken for a ride. The angel, too, seemed sorry.

“Can you do me a favor?” Luc asked Gabriel.

“Sure.”

“I’ll send you a software program that lets you sketch a picture of the guy. Aimé will help you. I’ve got to go.”

Luc thanked them and headed for the exit, leaving the two men behind at the bar. All that was left for him to do was go home and hack into the Saint-James database to identify Per Sorensen’s Paris contact. He cursed the time lost, retrieved his helmet and his leather jacket in the cloakroom, and found himself out on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. His phone vibrated just as he was about to start his Harley. He recognized Connie Rasmussen, though her voice was breaking up.

He thought he made out that the Bouc-Bel-Air was in trouble and that something had happened in the engine room. She was calling for help. Then the conversation was cut off. On the off-chance, he called Terre Noire headquarters on the Champs-Elysées and tried to get put through to the crisis unit.

“We don’t have such a thing, monsieur.”

“I’m calling about the Bouc-Bel-Air. Get me someone in charge!”

“There’s no one here at this hour.”

“You’ve got a ship that’s sinking. The entire world is watching you, and you can’t even be fucked to put a crisis unit together.”

“I haven’t been given any orders. I’m just on night duty.”

“Get hold of Le Guévenec, the captain of the Bouc-Bel-Air. It’s a matter life and death, and tell him there’s a problem in the engine room and that someone’s calling for help.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

Furious, Luc ended the call. He straddled his motorcycle and headed for Fermatown.

Josephine, 8:05 p.m.

Lying on his stomach behind the glass cabinet, John was watching the tunnel entrance. With the small amount of energy remaining in his phone battery, he tried to text message Geraldine Harper to tell her the desperate situation he was in. He composed a text message and pressed the key. The answer came instantly: no service. Trapped in the disintegrating bowels of Greenland, he was dogless, friendless, and now disconnected.

The cold was beginning to stiffen Qaalasoq’s body as he lay on the ground, his face looking up at the archway. One hand was open against the icy floor. Behind him, the horrible assemblage of sawn-up bodies guarded the entrance to a postglacial world like some demonic multiheaded Cerberus. An endless moan was rising from the bowels of the ice cap. A closer, more familiar sound made him lift his head. Drops of water were falling from the ceiling and bouncing onto the Inuit’s cupped hand.

His false refuge was rapidly melting. And the camera was filming the scene. The piece of shit had only to wait on the slopes of Haffner Bjerg in front of his screen. The enemy was both in front and at the rear, watching his every move. It was hard to imagine a more catastrophic situation.

The computers and measuring tools were blinking away, safely protected in the glass cabinet. The system that sounded the ice cap had to be connected to one of Terre Noire’s seaborne or land-based sites. He was looking at a source of energy. If he could just tap into it, he could possibly recharge his phone and contact the company’s scientists. But the damp and insidious cold were acting like a sleeping pill. He had already lost feeling in his lower limbs. Time was running out.

He used what strength he had left to crawl back to the tripod supporting the camera and knocked it to the ground. Rid of the intrusive eye, he rushed to one of the cases of equipment and lifted the lid. Nothing of any use there. He crossed the tunnel to a metal trunk. Instead of the ax he was hoping for, he found an old American shovel. He went back to the cabinet to break the glass. The first blow scarcely made a dent in the bulletproof glass. He was about to strike a second time when one of the lights went out at the same time as the soft humming of the computers. He found himself standing between the dead cabinet and the rotting tupilaq, which reeked like an anal cavity. Abraham Harper, assuming it was he, was no more now than a decaying carcass.

It was the silence that alerted him to the danger. Someone was walking in his direction. His instinct told him to flee. Despite the lack of sensation in his feet, he managed to hurl himself toward the bend. When he looked back, he saw the archway crash down over the very spot where he’d been lying just seconds earlier. The roar was like an explosion of dynamite. The blast split his eardrums and dashed him against the curved wall before sucking him down.

But instead of winding up in the darkest depths, he found himself on his haunches in the middle of a fissure. In caving in on itself, the ice cap had destroyed the tunnel. He was in one of the horrible cracks they’d seen around the entrance to the underworld when they’d gotten to the base. As Qaalasoq had foreseen, the landscape was evolving at distressing speed. The dynamite had just sped up the process.

He reached for the rifle and was appalled to realize that he’d lost it in the explosion. Panic replaced the numbness. He was without a phone, a weapon, or provisions at the bottom of an unworldly abyss. Then the sky above him suddenly lit up in gigantic waves of color that passed at dizzying speed. Intense greens gave way to oranges, pinks, and purples. A storm of lights that had escaped from an invisible sun nailed him to the spot. Terror gave way to a sort of pernicious enchantment. John’s first aurora borealis couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Pain wrenched him away from the light show. When he was blasted out of the tunnel, he’d torn something between his shoulder blades. John knew the other guy would not be long in surging, and he had to act fast. Lit up by the fireworks setting the sky ablaze, he dragged himself along the bottom of the fissure and discovered, on his right, the entrance to another seam that was at a ninety-degree angle to the one he was in but not as wide. He turned into it before falling upon another fissure, which was a few yards in and parallel to the first.

He was in the middle of a vast labyrinth of crisscrossing crevasses that looked like giant claw marks. He looked up and saw the black tip of Haffner Bjerg caught in a silent storm of lush colors that had descended from another world. The mountain had grown even taller.

In the midst of all this, his thoughts turned to Victoire.

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

Back in the Daguerre village, Luc parked his Harley on the sidewalk between Fermatown and La Bélière. The rain had turned from glacial to tropical. These days, the weather could go from winter to monsoon season in a few hours. Luc felt a sudden foreboding and looked up at the windows. On the third floor, the lights in the kitchen were on, and he made out the shadow of a tall man. Luc took off his helmet and decided to approach the house via the Rue Fermat.

The blood in his veins turned to liquid air. He pushed open the gate to 9 Rue Fermat and ran along the waterlogged garden path before entering the vast garage. He took off his shoes and raced up the stairs in his socks, his muscles tensed. On the second floor, he crossed the hall that separated the confessional from the room with the touch wall. A glow from the kitchen on the third floor spilled downstairs. Victoire’s high-pitched laugh startled him. His nerves really were in a bad state.

Luc pushed open the door and found a tall guy standing by the window. He had frizzy ginger-colored hair and hazel eyes. And he was drinking milk from Luc’s favorite cup. Luc was seized with a fit of jealousy. Victoire did the introductions. “This is Thomas Curvien, who works with our friend François Guerot. He’s keeping an eye on me.”

Luc nodded and held out his hand to the colossus, who promptly crushed his fingers.

“Hi, pleased to meet you. Victoire has told me great things about you. It seems you’ve just come back from the Morvan. Beautiful place, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Luc replied, his eyes fixed on his prized porcelain cup. He was in the grip of a feeling he couldn’t quite hide. It was bringing out the boy in him, envious of the stranger who was trying to bed his mother. He really hated the “old guys” in the agency.

“I’ve got to talk to Victoire.”

The bodyguard threw a look at the mistress of the house, who smilingly let him know she welcomed a tête-à-tête with Luc.

“I’ll be down on the street,” the bodyguard said. “I’ll get the car ready.”

He put Luc’s cup on the oilskin tablecloth and headed downstairs. Luc closed the kitchen door and turned to Victoire. They were alone at last.

“Where are you going with this guy?”

“To Deauville to meet Omar Al Selim. Don’t look at me like that!”

“Are you mad?”

“I’ve been mad with anxiety ever since I lost contact with John. I have to do something. I can’t just sit here anymore. The agency knows this Omar Al Selim. I’m going to talk to him about Christophe Maunay. Maybe he’ll tell us what Maunay wanted to reveal to John before he was murdered. He’s definitely got things to tell us about Thor Johannsen.”

Victoire recounted her visit to the Léopold-Bellan hospital.

“There’s a guy there who could turn out to be Abraham Harper or Thor Johannsen, which would undermine a lot of our assumptions, again.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I saw white hair and a bodyguard. Bellan is known for respiratory diseases. According to what I’ve read, both Harper and Johannsen are smokers. I’ve got a bad feeling we’ve been taken for a ride since the very beginning.”

“I’ll look into it,” Luc replied.

“How did it go in the Morvan?”

“Badly.”

Luc told her about Isabelle Le Guévenec’s death and the fitting demise of the two killers in the quicksands of the Terres Noires. He also explained his disappointment that Thor Johannsen was not the guy who’d been seen at the swimming pool at the Saint-James.

“Yet I was sure the Norwegian sent Per Sorensen after you, just as he sent the guys who shot Isabelle and the one who tried to kill John on the ice shelf.”

“There’s something we’re still not seeing,” Victoire replied. “But I’m sure that the people who killed Christophe Maunay tried to kill us for the same reasons. Maunay knew things that we’re on the brink of finding out. There’s something wrong with the way we’re looking at the problem. That’s why I want to meet Omar Al Selim.”

“What does Guerot think?”

“He agrees, as long as I don’t go on my own. That’s why he assigned me the bodyguard down below. Don’t be jealous. Please, try to reach John.”

“I promise I will.”

Luc watched Victoire go downstairs. Outside, the slamming of the car doors made him jump. He saw Isabelle’s face again in the rain and rushed to the window to make sure Victoire had reached the car safely. He verified that she was okay and noticed that she was about to leave town in a Mercedes. For once, the agency wasn’t skimping. He crossed the hall to the other room to review the boatswain’s notebook. The notion that Abraham Harper, whom everyone was looking for at the North Pole, might actually be lying a few yards from their place intrigued him. But why would Geraldine and Mary Harper have played along with such a stupid masquerade? Why would the people who killed Brissac and Isabelle Le Guévenec be carrying around the address of the hospital harboring Abraham Harper? This mystery had to be solved.

Standing in front of the touch wall, he ran his hacking program to break into the hospital and encountered a highly effective security system. All his Trojan Horses, worms, and other spyware were detected and rebuffed in a matter of seconds. It was light-years ahead of government-style security. The discreet hospital was as well protected as the Jupiter PC of the Elysée Palace, where the French president lived.

Luc peered at the touch screen. The more progress they made, the more they were led back to their own neighborhood. The invisible enemy had just successfully rejected his assault. And no doubt he’d been spotted in spite of all his precautions and his network of anonymizing sites. This kind of resistance spelled deep pockets. He was anticipating a devastating reply. Luc went to the window and scrutinized the Rue Deparcieux, expecting to see killers loom. All he saw was the unmarked car of the agency surveillance team, and he felt reassured.

He left the house, started his motorcycle, and headed toward the Montparnasse Cemetery. In less than five minutes, he was outside the hospital, intending to physically break down the digital wall that had just resisted him. Who was in the isolation ward on the fifth floor?