Baland met the recently elected president of France for the second time at 11:34 that evening. The leader of the republic looked weary as he wandered the room shaking hands and gathering the latest information. France was under siege, and while there had been an executive briefing an hour ago, the president evidently felt a need to visit the command center—a show of support for the troops, if thirty technicians and senior officers could be referred to as such.
When he reached Baland, the balding and thickly built president said in his famous baritone, “I have great confidence in you and your department, Zavier.”
“Thank you, sir. We will not rest until France is secure.”
Baland felt a supportive hand on his shoulder, and could not deny a brief jolt of exhilaration. How far I have come, he thought. The hand pulled away, and after a few words to the woman next in line, the president excused himself, Baland was sure, to retire to his private suite in the adjacent wing of the Élysée Palace.
The room regained its momentum, everyone going back to keyboards and phone calls. A third attack had only recently been interdicted: A suspicious young man seen loitering outside a Jewish community center in Montparnasse had been confronted by a pair of policemen. He’d tried to run, but was quickly caught, and within the hour an unarmed suitcase bomb was uncovered in a nearby apartment, along with two other suspects. All in all, a noteworthy victory for good police work.
Baland was increasingly struck by the dichotomy of his position. His mission for the last fifteen years had been to stop this very kind of thing, and he’d taken to it wholeheartedly. He’d earned the trust of coworkers and had a family to protect. But now? Now he had personally given the enemy a target list that was playing out before his eyes. If this had to happen, he thought, at least it is happening to the Jews. They will never be my countrymen.
But how many more attacks would there be? He began doodling on a scratchpad the names of possible targets from the report he’d given Malika. He came up with almost thirty that had not yet been struck, but certainly there were more. He’d already seen a preliminary download of the personnel list brought out by Uday, and those numbers were staggering: over three hundred individuals and small cells across France, and half again as many in nearby Belgium. He supposed there was some mathematical model to calculate the permutations. The more critical estimate, however, was far more simple. How long until it is all brought back to me?
He’d been lucky so far. The exclusivity of Jewish targets had not been an absolute, thanks to the bombing at The Peninsula that he himself had coordinated. Baland had intended that most of his problems would be resolved in one cataclysmic moment. The men he’d hired for the job were no more than thugs, and he’d expected they would perish in the blast. Both had unfortunately survived, and one was already in custody—unconscious, but expected to recover. One more loose end in his fast-fraying existence. All thanks to one man.
Slaton …
Baland’s errant thoughts were interrupted when an Air Force colonel stepped to the front of the room. He began a briefing on a mission under way from a forward air base in Turkey, and Baland listened with great interest. He was suppressing an urge to ask the colonel for targeting details when Charlotte LeFevre, who would soon head up his technology division, rushed into the room and made a beeline for him.
“Sir, I have news on another case.”
“Not now,” said Baland, as he decided to engage the colonel privately after the briefing. “What we are doing here takes absolute priority.”
“But this is very unusual,” LeFevre said.
Baland felt her insistence as she stood by his shoulder. “Does it relate to this woman who tried to kill me? Or one of the recent attacks?”
“Actually, both.”
He finally gave LeFevre his undivided attention.
She handed over a report titled “Lab Analysis,” along with a case number. “What is this?” he asked, waving the paper at her.
“The lab report on the woman who killed Director Michelis. We recovered DNA material from the apartment she was using as a safe house.”
Baland looked at the bottom of the page. “This says there was no match to any of our databases.”
“Which was true when the report was drafted.”
He looked at the date. “That was only yesterday.”
LeFevre produced a second lab analysis. “This is a report on the remains of the bomber from Grenoble. It also had no match in our database.”
Baland’s impatience got the better of him, and he barked, “Tell me what you’re trying to say!”
“These two samples have an unusually high degree of commonality. We think it very likely they are brother and sister.”