11:35 A.M.
There!”
Jipé points to two figures, one tall and one short, walking amid the sea of sand. In the next moment, the Eurocopter Colibri describes a brief arc then swoops down towards the volcano.
Aja’s hand tenses around the handle above the door. It has been a long time since she was last in a helicopter. Seven years and six months, to be precise: the day she found out she was pregnant with Jade. Jipé has insisted, several times since then, that this stubborn woman should go up with him again. Aja had known him at primary school in Plateau Caillou; a boy more often to be found perched in the tamarind trees or on the roofs of nearby buildings than in the school playground. He had founded Up and Away at the age of twenty, when Aja was studying law in France. Within a few years, helped by a network of friends, Jean-Pierre Grandin was able to offer the more daring visitor the whole range of island flyovers: by glider, microlight, hang-glider, paraglider, paramotor—and of course, the unmissable helicopter rides.
The Colibri suddenly veers to the right. Straight towards the Dolomieu Crater. Aja has never felt so in the grip of vertigo. Inside each volcanic chimney, she can make out incandescent depths, as if they were flying over a dragon’s lair, over Mordor, a forbidden territory from which a fatal burst of flame might leap out at any moment.
Jipé adjusts his sunglasses.
“No need to panic, Aja,” he quips. “The volcano’s still sleeping. But there is a lot of traffic around this morning . . .”
He points towards the three GIPN Ecureuils flying over the Plaine-des-Palmistes.
“I won’t be able to get very close. They’d be only too happy to take away my licence.”
Aja understands. Helicopter flights over the island are mainly offered by the two official companies who have a gentlemen’s agreement to charge exorbitant fares. More than a thousand euros per hour; the all-inclusive price of an unforgettable experience. Jean-Pierre and his association massively undercut those prices, although Up and Away is not strictly a commercial enterprise; Jean-Pierre is simply happy to take friends on island visits in his personal helicopter, the way others might use their car . . . friends who are members and donors to his association, which costs on average about a hundred euros. Despite the pressure exerted upon it by the official companies, who claimed that the competition was unfair, the court in Saint-Denis had found nothing wrong in Jipé’s activities. Up and Away is on good terms with the inhabitants of Les Hauts and their elected officials. During the most recent hurricanes, Dina and Gamède, Jean-Pierre Grandin was one of the few pilots to risk his life in order to take supplies to those living in the Cirque de Mafate, in the famous villages built miles from any tarmacked road, cut off from the rest of the world . . . at least if you disregard the incessant ballet of helicopters full of tourists staring down through their telephoto lenses.
“Shall I drop you at the Pas de Bellecombe car park, Aja? I get the feeling your friends are not going to wait for you before they launch their operation.”
The Colibri turns to the left.
Aja grits her teeth. The transparent sides of the helicopter’s cockpit enable an extraordinary, 360-degree view of their surroundings. Below them, five Ecureuil AS350s and four police vans are parked in the car park. A dozen armed men are moving around, while twenty others continue to spread out across the Plaine des Sables, slowly encircling the two fugitives. At the center of this circle, Aja sees Martial Bellion, leading Sopha by the hand.
“They’ve got no chance,” she mutters.
Although Aja has not forgotten the three murders committed by Bellion, she cannot help being touched by the escape attempt being made by this man and his daughter: like two exhausted gazelles surrounded by predators that have been cunning enough to drive them onto an exposed plain and then block every exit. The fugitives are still several hundred meters short of the first line of trees, where they might be able to hide themselves, but a barrier of twenty officers, all armed with long-range rifles, is blocking their way. All it would take to end this desperate flight is a single order from Laroche.
It’s just a question of seconds now, thinks Aja. Laroche isn’t stupid. He wants them alive.
She turns to the pilot.
“Game over, Jipé. Sorry to have bothered you for this, but I’d prefer it if you took me home. I don’t really feel like going down there just to congratulate that bastard of a colonel.”
“As you wish, honey.”
The helicopter begins to ascend again. Aja hangs on, cursing.
“All the same, it’s strange that Bellion should get caught out here, on the side of the volcano, in the middle of the Plaine des Sables . . . There are thousands of other places he could have hidden, vast forests, yet he chose the most exposed place on the entire island.”
Jipé smiles.
“Is this guy a tourist, or does he know Réunion?”
“Both, actually. But yes, according to his biography, he should know the area quite well.”
“You don’t say.”
The pilot lifts up his sunglasses and smiles with his pale blue eyes. Suddenly he seems highly amused, looking down at the figures of the man and his daughter with admiration.
“What do you mean?”
“If you want my opinion, your Public Enemy Number One has planned a very clever trap, and all the cops on the island have fallen into it.”
Aja scans the sides of the volcano. There are dozens of men in position, with Bellion and Sopha at the center. She doesn’t understand.
Jipé takes the helicopter up a little higher.
“Not above us, honey. Just behind.”
Aja turns her head. She sees the canyon of the Rivière des Remparts. Her gaze wanders down to the river’s mouth, the Pointe de la Cayenne, and the housing developments of Saint-Joseph that nibble at every bit of land between the ocean and the ravines.
Suddenly she understands.
She freezes, incapable of staring at anything but the bottom of the deepest ravine on the island, a drop of almost 2,000 meters.
Oh my God . . . Martial Bellion had it all worked out. The precise location. The precise timing of his escape. He has brought all the helicopters to the place he has chosen. He has lured all the cops on the island pursuing him to a single point. And that bastard Laroche fell for it, charged without thinking, him and his army of Zoreilles. Martial has been playing double or quits, but he is the only one who knew the rules.
In the cockpit, Aja shouts:
“We have to land, Jipé! We have to get down there right now and warn them.”
“Your wish is my command.”
The helicopter heads straight for the volcano. Aja tries to calculate in her head: how much time is left?
A few minutes at most.
And then, the trap Bellion has laid will close on Laroche’s men before they even have time to notice it.