I Kill (60 page)

When he grabbed the handle and pulled, the door opened softly without a squeak, as they had all expected. The mechanism was obviously a simple one with perfectly working hinges. He opened the
door just enough to allow another soldier to throw in a tear-gas grenade.

Yellow smoke wafted out a few seconds later. Frank was familiar with tear gas. When it got in your eyes and throat, it was unbearable. If there was anyone inside the shelter, it would be
impossible to resist the effects. They waited a few endless seconds, but no one came out. Only the blasting music and the clouds of smoke that now seemed to be mocking them.

Frank didn’t like that. Not at all. He turned to Gavin and their eyes met through the gas masks. From his expression, Frank saw that Gavin was thinking the same thing.

Either there was nobody inside or else their man, knowing it was all over, had killed himself rather than letting them take him alive.

Or a third possibility: the bastard had a gas mask, too. This wasn’t science fiction – they had learned to expect anything from him. In that case, since only one man could get
through the door at a time, all the killer had to do was get under cover and he’d take more victims before they could shoot him. He was armed and everyone knew what he could do.

Gavin made a decision. ‘Throw in a stun grenade. Then we’ll take our chances and enter.’

Frank could understand the lieutenant’s point of view. On the one hand, he felt ridiculous in that situation, commanding a group of men in combat gear assaulting a door that might lead to
an empty room. On the other hand, he had no intention of losing any of his men in an unpleasant surprise. He knew each of them well and did not want to risk their lives.

Frank decided to allay his doubts. ‘After the grenade, I’m going in.’

‘Negative,’ responded Gavin sharply.

‘There’s no reason to risk any of your men uselessly.’

Gavin’s silence and look spoke volumes. ‘I can’t accept your offer.’

‘I have no intention of playing the hero, lieutenant.’ Frank’s answer was final. ‘But this is a personal affair between that man and me. I remind you that I am directing
this operation and you’re here in support. I’m not offering. That’s an order.’ Then he changed his tone of voice, hoping that, even through the gas mask and their limited
means of communication, the other man understood his intentions ‘If he had killed one of your best friends along with all the others, you’d do the same.’

Gavin nodded to show he understood. Frank walked over to the wall, pulled out his Glock and stood by the door. He waved when he was ready.

‘Grenade,’ Gavin ordered.

The soldier who had thrown the tear gas earlier pulled the tab of the grenade and tossed it in through the door. It was a device designed especially for that kind of assault. It was meant to
stun the occupants of a room without killing them.

There was a blinding light and the sound of an explosion, much louder than the one produced by the previous explosives. The blaring music pouring out of the shelter was suddenly in its element,
with coloured smoke and flashing lights. Not losing any time, the man on Frank’s right moved and open the door just enough to let him in. A puff of tear gas mixed with the smoke from the
grenade came out. It was still impossible to see what lay inside. Frank moved at lightning speed and slipped in with his gun aimed.

The others waited expectantly.

A couple of minutes went by, an eternity to each and every one of them. Then the music stopped, followed by an even more deafening silence. Finally, the door opened completely and Frank
reappeared, followed by a last wisp of smoke fluttering around his shoulders like a ghost risen from a tomb to show him out.

He was still wearing the gas mask and it was impossible to see his face. His arms were hanging down as if he had no energy left. He was still holding the gun. Without speaking, he crossed the
laundry room like someone who has fought a lifelong war and known only defeat. The men stepped aside to let him pass.

Frank went to the door in front of him and down the hallway. Gavin followed and they reached the garage where Morelli and Roberts were waiting, their faces flushed with adrenalin under their
masks. They went to stand in the square patch of sunlight that was coming through the raised garage door. Gavin removed his helmet and gas mask first. His hair was wet and his face dripping with
sweat. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his blue uniform.

Frank stood for a moment in the middle of the garage, between sunlight and shade, and then he, too, removed his gas mask. His face was deathly tired.

Morelli went up to him. ‘Frank, what happened? You look like you’ve been to hell and back.’

Frank turned to him and answered with the voice of an old man and the eyes of someone who could see no more reason in life.

‘Worse, Claude, much worse. All the devils in hell would cross themselves before going in there.’

Frank and Morelli watched the stretcher being carried out of the garage and their eyes followed the men sliding it into the ambulance. Lying there, covered with a dark canvas,
was the body they had found in the shelter – the wizened, faceless corpse wearing, like a mask, the face of a murdered man.

After Frank had come out of the shelter in shock, all the men, one by one, had entered the bunker, emerging with the same expression of horror. The sight of that mummified body lying in its
crystal case wearing the stiffened mask of No One’s latest victim was a sight that could stagger the soundest mind, a vision they would carry with them day and night.

Frank still found what he had seen hard to believe. He felt unclean and wanted to wash himself again and again as if to cleanse his body would disinfect his mind from the evil that hovered in
that place. He felt ill at the mere thought that he had
breathed
that air, as if it were saturated by a virus so contagious that it could infect anyone with criminal madness.

There was one thing Frank could not stop asking himself.
Why?
He realized that the answer was unimportant, at least for now, but the question continued to bounce around in his head.

He had gone into the bunker through the reinforced door, scanning the room from top to bottom as he advanced through the smoke, his gun in hand and his heart beating so fast that it kept him
from hearing the deafening music. When he turned it off, all that was left was the rasp of his breath inside the gas mask. Apart from the motionless presence of the body – displayed in its
monstrous vanity in a transparent coffin – all that he had found were empty rooms.

He had stood there looking at the corpse, mesmerized, staring at its pitiful nudity, unable to remove his eyes from that horrible spectacle. He had stared for a long time at the face covered
with its death mask, which with the passing of time was beginning to resemble the rest of the body. There were some clots of blood on the neck of the corpse that peeked out from beneath the torn
edges of the mask, proof of the difficult nature of that unnatural attempted transplant.

What was the point of the murders? All those people killed just to persuade a dead man that he was still alive? What kind of morbid pagan idolatry could inspire that kind of monstrosity? What
was the explanation, if ever there could be any logic to that funeral rite that had required the sacrifice of so many innocent people?

This is true insanity,
he had thought.
The ability to feed off oneself only to generate more insanity.

When he had finally been able to tear his eyes away from that sight, he had gone out to allow each of the men to enter in turn.

The noise of the ambulance doors slamming shut brought Frank back to the present, and he saw Roberts’s lanky figure coming towards him. There was a police car waiting with its engine
running and the door open. Roberts did not look like he wanted to linger there.

‘Okay. We’re done here,’ Frank said in an expressionless voice.

Frank and Morelli shook Roberts’s hand and said goodbye in the same monotone voice. The inspector found it hard to look them in the eye. Although he had lived through the affair on a more
marginal level, and although he was not as deeply involved from the beginning, Roberts now had the same look of profound weariness. He too, probably, couldn’t wait to go back to his routine,
to the stories of everyday poverty and greed, to men and women who killed out of jealousy or desire for money or by accident. Madness that was momentary and not for ever, madness that he would not
be forced to carry around in his memory for the rest of his life. Like everyone else there, all he wanted was to get away from that house as quickly as possible and try to forget that it ever
existed.

Frank heard the thud of the door closing and the sound of the engine, and then the car disappeared up the ramp that led to the street. Gavin and his men had already gone, as had Gachot with his
team. They had driven away down the road descending to the city, their blue vans loaded with men, weapons, sophisticated equipment, and the prosaic sense of loss that always assails armies, large
and small, after a defeat.

Even Morelli had sent most of his men back to headquarters. A couple of them were still there checking on final operations, after which they would escort the ambulance back to the morgue.

The roadblocks had been removed and the long line of cars waiting at either end was slowly clearing, thanks to a couple of policemen who were directing traffic and keeping curious onlookers
away. The traffic jam had kept the professional busybodies – the reporters – from reaching the house. When they had arrived, it was all over and, most importantly, there was no news:
the only thing the media could share with the police this time was disappointment. Frank had delegated Morelli to speak to them and the sergeant had got rid of them quickly and efficiently.
Actually, it hadn’t been too hard.

‘I’m going back, Frank. How about you?’

Frank looked at his watch and thought about General Nathan Parker waiting furiously at the airport. He’d convinced himself that he would appear before him wearing the relief of the
finished nightmare like a new suit. He had so wanted it to be all over, and instead it was endless.

‘Go on, Claude. I’m leaving now too.’

They looked at each other and the sergeant simply raised his hand. They said as few words as possible, because both seemed to have used them all up. Morelli walked away, up the ramp to his car.
Frank saw him disappear around the curve hidden by the trees.

The ambulance backed up and turned to leave the courtyard, and the man next to the driver gazed at him blankly through the window. He didn’t seem the least bit shocked by what they were
carrying in the back. They were just transporting corpses, whether they had been dead an hour, a year or a century. It was a job like any other. There was a folded sports page on the dashboard. As
the white van drove away, Frank could see the man’s hand reach for the paper.

He stood alone in the middle of the courtyard under the summer afternoon sun, unable to feel the heat. The air was filled with the listless melancholy of a dismantled circus, when the show must
move on. There were no more acrobats or women in colourful costumes, no more lights or music or applause. All that was left was a pile of sawdust strewn with sequins and excrement. And a clown with
streaked facepaint standing in the sun. The vision is gone and nothing is left now but reality.

Despite the thought of Helena waiting for him to come, Frank could not bring himself to leave the house. He felt that there was something he had mistakenly taken for granted. Like everything
that had happened up to then, it was a question of details. Tiny details. The detail of the record cover in the video, the reflection of Stricker’s message in the mirror, words turned upside
down that had turned out to have an entirely different meaning . . .

Frank forced himself to think rationally.

The entire time that Jean-Loup had been under police protection, there were men at the house day and night. How had he managed to evade them? How had he slipped away at night to stalk and
slaughter his next victim, then return unseen bearing his vile trophy?

On the left side of the property, by the gate, there was a sort of embankment that fell steeply away. It was too dangerous to negotiate, considering that he would have had to travel the road at
night and without a torch. Maybe he’d left through the garden. In that case, in order to reach the street he would have had to go out through the living room at the front of the house near
the swimming pool, climb over the fence, and cross through the garden of the twin house where the Parkers were staying.

If that were the case, someone would have noticed him eventually. On one side he’d had several well-trained policemen. On the other side had been Ryan Mosse and Nathan Parker, two men who
most certainly always slept with one eye open. He could have got away with it once, but sooner or later all that nocturnal movement would have been discovered. So that theory didn’t hold
water either.

Everyone had assumed that there was a second exit and the logic of construction said that there had to be one. In the event of a nuclear explosion, the house would cave in and the rubble would
close off every avenue of escape. Still, the meticulous search of the underground shelter had revealed nothing, not a trace.

And yet . . .

Frank checked his watch again, for the umpteenth time. He put his hands in his jacket pockets, feeling the car keys in one and the hard shape of his mobile phone in the other. It made him think
of Helena, sitting in the airport with her legs crossed, gazing around and hoping to see him in the crowd.

He thought of phoning her, in spite of Nathan Parker. He nearly gave in to the urge, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to betray Helena and alert the general. Instead, he
wanted him to sit there, furious with the entire world but unsuspecting, and wait.

Frank took his hands from his pockets and opened and closed his fists until he felt the tension ease. Then he turned and went back inside the shelter, stopping at the door and studying the
underground lair of No One. In the shadows he could see red and green lights and the displays of the electronic equipment. He suddenly remembered all the stories his father had told him when he was
a boy. Stories of fairies and gnomes and ogres who lived in terrifying subterranean worlds that they left to steal babies from their cradles and take them into their dens for ever. Except that he
was no child and this was not a fable. This was a story with no happy ending.