Syndrome E

47

Reeling from these revelations, Lucie sat on a bench in a tree-lined park across from the archives. In the early evening, the place was empty, and it exuded an Olympian calm despite the big city surrounding it. She rested her backpack on her knees and massaged her face.

The Central Intelligence Agency, involved in this business. What could that mean? What did the American government have to do with patients interned in Canadian hospitals?

Through his own research, Vlad Szpilman had stumbled onto something—Lucie was sure of it.

She tried to draw the connection with her investigation, to add pieces to the puzzle. Naturally, she thought of the filmmaker Jacques Lacombe, who went to Washington in 1951 under peculiar circumstances. The starlet Judith Sagnol had mentioned a contact abroad, someone who’d wanted to work with Lacombe. Who? Then Jacques Lacombe arrives in Montreal in 1954.

And what if Lacombe were involved with the CIA? What if his modest job as a projectionist had only been a cover?

So many questions, turning over and over and over in her head…

Impatient, Lucie looked at her watch: 7:10. Patricia Richaud was supposed to meet her there in the park in twenty minutes, once she’d closed the office and seen to some routine duties. She was going to give her at least the start of an explanation of her claims about the involvement of American intelligence in experiments on human beings.

Too absorbed in her thoughts, Lucie didn’t hear the man walking up behind her. He quickly sat down next to her and pulled a revolver from his jacket.

“You will stand up and follow me without making any trouble.”

Lucie went pale. The blood seemed to drain from her body.

“Who are you? What—?”

He jabbed the gun barrel deeper into her side. His forehead was sweating. One wrong move and he’d shoot, Lucie was sure of it.

“I won’t say it again.”

American accent. Broad shoulders, at least fifty years old. He was wearing generic sunglasses and a cap that read NASHVILLE PREDATORS. His lips were thin, sharp like a palm leaf.

Lucie stood up; the man took up position behind her. The cop looked around for pedestrians, witnesses, but no luck. Alone and unarmed, she was helpless. They walked about a hundred yards without encountering a soul. A Datsun 240Z was waiting under the maples.

“You drive.”

He pushed her roughly into the car. Lucie’s throat was knotted and she was finding it hard to stay calm. The faces of her twins swam before her eyes.

Not like this, she kept thinking. Not like this…

The man took a seat next to her. Like a pro, he quickly patted her pockets, thighs, and hips. He took out her wallet, removed her police ID—which he looked at carefully—then turned off her cell phone. Lucie spoke in a slightly shaky voice:

“No need—it isn’t working.”

“Drive.”

“What is it you want? I—”

“Drive, I said.”

She started the car. They headed out of Montreal due north, via the Charles de Gaulle Bridge.

And left the lights of the city far behind.