The Empire Of The Wolves

51

Mathilde Wilcrau had never been so near to a positron camera.

From the outside, it looked just like a traditional scanner: a wide, white wheel with a stainless-steel stretcher inside, equipped with various analytical and measuring instruments; nearby a stand supporting a drip; a small trolley covered with vacuum-packed syringes and plastic bottles. In the half-light of the room, it made for a strange construction. A sort of massive hieroglyph.

To get access to such a machine, the fugitives had had to go as far as the University Hospital in Reims, some sixty miles from Paris. Eric Ackermann knew the head of its radiology department and had telephoned him at his home. The doctor had immediately dashed out to welcome the neurologist effusively. He looked like a frontier officer, receiving the visit of a famous general.

For six hours, Ackermann had been slaving feverishly around the machine. In the control room, Mathilde Wilcrau watched him at work. Leaning over Anna, who was lying with her head inside the machine, he was giving her injections, checking the drip and projecting images onto a tilted mirror inside the upper reaches of the cylinder. And most of all, he was talking.

As she watched him through the window, running around like a mad thing, Mathilde could not resist succumbing to a certain fascination. This lanky, immature creature, to whom she would not lend her car, had pulled off a unique scientific experiment in a vicious political context. He had made a huge step forward in the understanding and control of the brain.

In other circumstances, this advance could have led to major therapeutic developments. It would have inscribed his name in the history books of neurology and psychiatry. Would the Ackermann method get a second chance?

The tall redhead was still busying himself and twitching nervously. Mathilde read between his gestures. Apart from the tension caused by this special session, Ackermann was drugged up to the eyeballs. He was hooked on speed or other uppers. In fact, as soon as they had arrived in the hospital, he had made a shopping trip to the pharmacy. Such synthetic drugs suited him perfectly. He was a thing possessed, living by and for chemical substances…

Six hours.

Lulled by the purring of the computers, Mathilde had nodded off on several occasions. Then she had woken up and tried to gather her thoughts. In vain. One idea blinded her, like a moth by the light.

Anna's metamorphosis.

The day before, she had picked up a vulnerable creature with amnesia, as fragile as a baby. Then the discovery of that henna had changed everything. The woman had crystallized around that revelation, like quartz. At that moment, she seemed to understand that the worst was no longer to be feared, it was to be sought-and confronted. It was she who had decided to take the enemy by surprise and trap Eric Ackermann, despite the risks involved.

It was she who was now in command.

Then, during the questioning in the garage, Sema Gokalp had appeared. The mysterious working girl, with all her contradictions. The asylum-seeker from Anatolia who spoke perfect French. The prisoner in a state of shock, whose silence and altered face concealed a different past… Who hid behind this new name? Who was this person who was capable of transforming herself utterly into someone else?

The answer would come back with her memory. Anna Heymes. Sema Gokalp… she was like a Russian doll, with layered identities, with each name, each appearance containing another secret.

Eric Ackermann got up from his chair. He removed the catheter from Anna's arm, pushed away the drip and tilted up the mirror in the machine. The experiment was over. Mathilde stretched, then tried one more time to put her thoughts in order. She just couldn't. Another image chased that hope away.

Henna.

Those red lines on the hands of Muslim women seemed to trace out an unbridgeable frontier between her Parisian world and the distant life of Sema Gokalp. A culture of deserts, arranged marriages and ancestral rites. A savage, terrifying universe born of scorched winds, predators and rock.

Mathilde closed her eyes.

Tattooed hands-the brown whirls curling around the palms of callused hands, about dark wrists and knotty fingers. Not an inch of virgin flesh: this red line was unbroken, it stretched out, unraveling, turning back on itself, in loops and curls, giving birth to a hypnotic geography…

"She's asleep."

Mathilde jumped. Ackermann was standing in front of her. His white coat was loose around his shoulders, like a flag. Beads of sweat winked on his forehead. Twitches and shakes racked his body, but a strange solidity also emanated from his figure-the confidence of know-how beneath the nerves of the addict.

"How did it go?"

He took a cigarette from the computer desk and lit up. He inhaled deeply, then replied through a tunnel of blue smoke. "I started by giving her an injection of flumazenil, the antidote to Valium. Then I wiped out the conditioning I had given her, by activating each zone of her memory using Oxygen-15. I retraced my steps precisely"

He sketched a vertical axis with his cigarette. "With the same words, and same symbols. It's a shame I don't have Heymes's photos or videos anymore. But I think most of the work has been done. For the moment, her ideas are rather muddled. Her real memories are coming back, little by little. Anna Heymes is going to disappear and leave her place to the initial personality. But watch out!" he said waving his cigarette. "This is purely experimental!"

A real loony. Mathilde thought. A mix of coldness and exaltation. She was going to say something, but another flash stopped her. Henna, once again. The lines on the hand coming alive. The hooks, whirls and twists slithering along the veins, curling up around the phalanxes, until they reach the nails stained with pigments…

"Right now, this won't be much fun for her," Ackermann went on, taking another drag. "The various levels of her consciousness are going to telescope. Sometimes she won't be able to tell the difference between what is true and what is false. But her original memory will slowly begin to dominate. With flumazenil, there are also risks of convulsions, but I've given her a little something to reduce the side effects…"

Mathilde pushed back her hair. She must look like a ghost. "What about the faces?"

He chased away the smoke with a vague gesture. "That should sort itself out, too. Her reference points are going to become more fixed. When her memory returns, her reactions should become more stable. But I repeat: all of this is extremely new and-"

Mathilde noticed a movement behind the window. She rushed at once into the room. Anna was already sitting on the table of the PET scanner, her legs dangling down, leaning back on her hands. "How do you feel?"

A smile flickered over her face. Her pale lips barely stood out from her skin. Ackermann came back and turned off the last of the machines. "How do you feel?" Mathilde repeated.

Anna glanced at her in hesitation. Mathilde understood at once. This was no longer the same person. Those indigo eyes were smiling at her from inside a different consciousness. "Got a cigarette?" she asked, in a voice that was seeking normal range.

Mathilde handed her a Marlboro. She looked at the slender hand that took it. It was almost as if she could see that henna as a filigree. Flowers, spikes and snakes curling around a clenched fist. A tattooed fist, holding an automatic pistol.

Behind the mist of smoke, the woman with the dark bangs murmured, "I would rather have been Anna Heymes."

52

Falmières railway station, six miles west of Reims. was a solitary building, dropped alongside the tracks in the middle of the countryside. A millstone building stuck between the black horizon and the silence of the night. Yet with its small yellow lantern and laminated glass umbrella roof, it had a reassuring look about it. Its slates, its walls divided into two blue and white bands and its wooden fences gave it the appearance of a shiny toy from an electric train set.

Mathilde braked in the garage.

Eric Ackermann had asked them to drop him off at a station. Any one will do, I'll manage."

Since they had left the hospital. no one had said a word. But the quality of the silence had changed. The hatred, anger and defiance had melted away, and a strange sort of complicity had even started up among the three fugitives.

Mathilde turned off the motor. In the rearview mirror, she could see the neurologist's pale face, like a shard of nickel on the backseat. They got out together.

Outside, the wind had risen. Violent gusts were slapping against the asphalt. In the distance, jagged clouds were drifting away like a battalion armed with spears, revealing an extremely pure moon-a large fruit with blue pulp.

Mathilde buttoned up her coat. She would have given anything for a tube of moisturizing cream. It felt as if each squall were drying her skin, digging deeper into the wrinkles on her face.

They walked as far as the flowered fence, still without a word. It made her think of an exchange of hostages during the Cold War, on a bridge in old Berlin there was no way to say good-bye.

Anna suddenly asked, "What about Laurent?"

She had already asked that question in the garage under Place d'Anvers. It was another aspect of her story: the revelation of a love that persisted despite such betrayal, lies and cruelty.

Ackermann seemed too tired to lie. "To be honest, there's little chance he's still alive. Charlier won't leave any traces. And Heymes was unreliable. He would have cracked as soon as anyone questioned him. He might even have gone so far as to turn himself in. Since the death of his wife, he…" The neurologist paused.

For a moment, Anna seemed to be standing up to the wind; then her shoulders slumped. She turned around silently and returned to the car.

Mathilde took a final look at the lanky frame, topped with a flaming red mane, awash in its raincoat.

"And you?" she asked, almost in pity.

"I'm going to Alsace, to lose myself amid all the other Ackermann." A sardonic laugh shook his frame. Then he added, in a lyrical gush, "And then I shall find another destination. The roving life for me!"

Mathilde did not respond. He swayed, hugging his bag against his chest. Just as he used to be at the university. He half opened his mouth, hesitated, then murmured, "Anyway, thanks…"

He flicked his index finger in a cowboy salute and turned around toward the isolated station, holding his arms up against the wind.

Where on earth could he go? And then I shall find another destination. The roving life for me! Was he talking about a place ()dearth or a fresh region of the brain?

53

"Drugs."

Mathilde was focusing on the white lines of the highway, which were shooting past rapidly. They flashed in front of her eyes, as some sorts of plankton shine at night in the wakes of ships. A few seconds later, she glanced over at her passenger. Her face was like chalk, smooth, inscrutable.

"I'm a drug runner," Anna went on in a neutral tone. "A smuggler. A supplier for the big dealers. A go-between."

Mathilde nodded, as though she had been expecting this revelation. In fact, she was ready for anything. There were no limits to the truth. That night, each new step revealed dizzying gulfs. She turned her attention back to the road. Several long seconds passed before she asked, "What kind of drugs? Heroin? Cocaine? Amphetamines? What?" By the time she had finished, she was almost yelling. She gripped the steering wheel. Calm down-at once.

"Heroin. Only heroin. Several kilos on each trip. Never more. From Turkey to Europe. On me. In my luggage. Or by other means. There are the tricks of the trade. My job was to know them. All of them."

Mathilde's throat was so dry that each breath was agony. "Who… who were you working for?"

"The rules have changed, Mathilde. The less you know, the better." Anna's tone was now strange, almost condescending.

"What's your real name?"

"I have no real name. That's part of the job."

"How did you work? Give me some details."

Anna remained silent for a long time, as impervious as marble. Then, after an extended pause, she went on. "It wasn't really an exciting life. Growing old in airports. Knowing the best stopovers. The least well guarded borders. The simplest-or else the most complicated-connecting flights. The towns where your bags are left on the runway. The customs posts where you're searched, and the ones where you aren't. The structure of holds. Places of transit."

Mathilde listened but paid attention mostly to the timbre of Anna's voice. Never had it rung so true.

"A schizophrenic lifestyle. Constantly speaking different languages, answering to different names, having several nationalities. And your only home the standard comfort of VIP lounges in airports. And always, everywhere, fear."

Mathilde blinked away the sleep. Her eyesight was getting hazy. The lines on the road were floating, drifting apart… She asked again, "Where are you from exactly?"

"I can't remember yet. But it will come back, I'm sure of it. For the moment, I'm concentrating on the present."

"So what happened? Why were you in Paris posing as a working girl? Why did you alter your appearance?"

"It's a classic story. I wanted to hold on to my last consignment. To rob my employers."

She paused. Each memory seemed to cost her an effort.

"It was in June, last year. I had a delivery to make in Paris. A special load. Extremely precious. I had a contact here, but I chose a different route. I hid the heroin and went to see a plastic surgeon. I think… yes, I think that at the time, I had a good chance. But during my convalescence, something unexpected happened. Something no one expected: the attacks on September ii. From one day to the next, borders turned into solid walls. So there was no way I was going to leave with the dope as planned. Nor could I leave Paris. I had to stay there and wait for the situation to calm down, while knowing that my bosses would do everything to find me… So I hid where, normally speaking, no one would look for a Turk who was hiding out: among the Turks. With the illegal immigrant workers in the tenth arrondissement. I had a new face, and a new identity. No one would spot me."

The voice faded away, as though exhausted.

Mathilde tried to revive the flame. "What happened then? How did the police find you? Did they know about the drugs?"

"That's not how things turned out. It's still vague, but I can just about picture the scene… In November, I was working in a laundry. A kind of underground dry cleaner's in some Turkish baths. A place you just couldn't imagine. At least not under a mile from where you live. One night, they came."

"The police?"

"No. Turks sent by my employers. They knew I was hiding there. Someone must have given me away. I don't know… What is sure is that they didn't know that I'd altered my appearance. Right in front of me, they jumped a girl who looked like I used to look-Zeynep something…

God save me, when I saw those killers arrive… all I can remember is a flash of fear…"

Mathilde tried to complete the story, to fill in the gaps. "How did you end up with Charlier?"

"I have no precise memories about that. I was in a state of shock. The cops must have found me at the baths. I can see a police station, then a hospital… Somehow or other, Charlier heard about me. An amnesic immigrant. With no work permit in France. The perfect guinea pig."

Anna seemed to be weighing up her own hypothesis. Then she murmured, "There's an incredible irony in all this. Because the cops never realized who I really was. Without meaning to, they protected me from the Turks."

Mathilde's guts were beginning to ache-with fear, worsened by fatigue. Her eyes were failing. The white lines on the road were turning into gulls, vague birds fluttering convulsively. At that moment, the signpost for the Paris bypass appeared. They were nearly back. She concentrated on the marks on the asphalt and continued. "Who are these men who are looking for you?"

"Forget about that. As I said, the less you know, the safer you'll be."

"I helped you," she replied, with gritted teeth. "I protected you. So come on! Tell me the truth."

Anna hesitated again. It was her world-a world she had surely never spoken about before.

"There's something special about the Turkish mafia," she said at last. "For their dirty work, they use political activists. They're called the Grey Wolves. They're nationalists. Extreme right-wing fanatics who believe in the return of Greater Turkey. Terrorists trained in camps when they're still children. Compared with them, Charlier's goons are just like scouts with Swiss Army knives."

The blue signs were growing larger: PORTE DE CLIGNANCOURT. PORTE DE LA CHAPELLE. All Mathilde wanted to do now was to drop this living bomb off at the first taxi stand, to go back home, to comfort and security. What she wanted was to sleep for twenty hours, to wake up and say, "It was only a nightmare."

She took the turning into Paris and said, "I'm staying with you.”

“No, that's impossible. I've got something important to do."

"What?"

"Pick up my load."

"I'll come with you."

"No."

A knot tightened in her belly, more of pride than courage. "Where is it? Where are the drugs?"

"In Père-Lachaise cemetery"

Mathilde looked over at Anna. She seemed wizened but also harder, denser-a quartz crystal compressed amid layers of the truth…

"Why there?"

"I had twenty kilos. I had to find some safe storage."

"I don't see any connection with a cemetery."

Anna smiled to herself dreamily "A little white powder amid all the gray powder…"

A red light brought them to a halt. After the intersection, Rue de la Chapelle turned into Rue Marx-Dormoy. Mathilde said, louder, "What's the link with a cemetery?"

"It's green now. Place de la Chapelle, then turn toward Place de Stalingrad."

54

The city of the dead.

Broad. straight alleyways, lined with imposing trees that certainly looked the part. Huge mausoleums, raised monuments, dark, smooth tombs. In the moonlight, this part of the cemetery was decked with generous flower beds-a luxurious, opulent distribution of space.

A hint of Christmas floated in the air. Everything seemed crystallized, enveloped by the dome of night, like in those small globes that have to be shaken to make the snow scatter across the landscape.

They had attacked the fortress via the gate on Rue du Père-Lachaise, near Place Gambetta. Anna had guided Mathilde along the gutter that bordered the entrance, then between the iron spikes on the wall. The descent on the other side had been even easier-electric cables followed the course of the stones at this point. They were now going up Avenue des Combattants-Etrangers. Beneath the moon, the tombs and epitaphs stood out clearly. A bunker had been dedicated to Czechs who had died in World War I. A white monolith stood in memory of the Belgian troops. A colossal spike with multiple edges. like a Vasarely painting, paid homage to the dead Armenians…

When Mathilde spotted the large building, topped by two chimneys, at the end of the slope, she understood. A little white powder amid all the gray powder. The columbarium. With a strange cynicism. Anna the smuggler had hidden her stock of heroin among the funeral urns.

Against the night sky, the building looked like a cream-and-gold mosque, topped with a broad cupola, dominated by its chimneys like minarets. Four long edifices surrounded it, one at each of the four corners.

Once inside the surrounding wall, they crossed the neat gardens with their thick, square hedges. Farther on. Mathilde could see galleries full of racks and flowers. They made her think of marble pages, encrusted with colored writing and seals.

The place was deserted. Not a night watchman to be seen.

Anna reached the end of the park, where the stairs of a crypt plunged down beneath the shrubbery. At the bottom of the steps, the cast-iron gate was padlocked. For a few seconds, they looked for a way inside. As though providing inspiration, a fluttering of wings made them look up: some pigeons were shuffling around in front of the grating of a small window, at a height of six feet.

Anna stepped back to gauge the size of the niche. Then she braced her feet on the door's metal ornaments and clambered up. A few seconds later, Mathilde heard the scrape of the grating being pulled away, then the short slap of broken glass.

Without a second's thought, she followed.

When she reached the top, she slipped in through the gap. She had just reached the ground when Anna put on the light.

The sanctuary was huge. Its straight galleries, arranged around a square shaft, were dug out in granite, stretching away into the darkness. At regular intervals, lamps diffused a glimmer of light.

They went over to the balustrade of the shaft. Three further levels lay beneath them, multiplying their tunnels. The ceramic basin at the bottom of this gulf looked tiny. It was as if they were at the heart of a subterranean city, built around a sacred spring.

Anna took one of the staircases. Mathilde followed her. As they went down, the humming of a ventilation system could be heard. At each landing, the feeling of being in a temple, or a giant tomb, became ever more crushing.

On the second level, Anna took an alley to her right, punctuated with hundreds of compartments with black and white tiles. They walked on for some time. Mathilde observed the scene with curious detachment. Sometimes she noticed a detail among the openings. A bouquet of fresh flowers on the ground, enveloped in aluminum foil. An ornament or decoration standing out in a niche, such as the silk-screened face of a black woman, her frizzy hair spilling across the marble surface. The epitaph read: YOU WERE ALWAYS THERE. YOU WILL BE ALWAYS THERE. Or, farther on, a photograph of a child with gray rings under its eyes, stuck on a plain plaster plaque. Beneath it, someone had written in felt-tip pen: SHE IS NOT DEAD BUT SLEEPETH. SAINT MATTHEW.

"Here," Anna said.

A larger niche stood at the end of the corridor.

"The crowbar," she ordered.

Mathilde opened the bag she had slung over her shoulder and took the crowbar out. At once, Anna stuck it between the marble and the wall and pressed down as hard as she could. A crack started to snake across the surface. At the base of the block, she applied the crowbar once more. The plaque crashed to the floor, in two pieces. Anna picked up the tool and used it as a hammer against the plaster wall at the back of the niche. Particles flew up, sticking in her black hair. She continued to bang stubbornly, without paying heed to the noise she was making.

Mathilde could no longer breathe. It felt to her as though these thuds were resonating as far as Place Gambetta. How long would it be before the watchmen showed up?

Silence fell once more. In a white cloud, Anna dived into the niche and removed the rubble. Large clouds of dust hit the wall.

Suddenly, a tinkling sound was heard behind their backs.

The two women turned around.

At their feet, a metal key was shining amid the plaster debris. "Try using that. You'll save time."

A man with short-cropped hair was standing at the entrance of the gallery, his figure reflected on the floor tiles. It looked as if he were standing on water. Lifting up his shotgun, he asked, "Where is it?"

He was dressed in a rumpled raincoat, twisted across his body, but this in no way lessened the impression of power that he radiated. Especially his face, lit to one side by the rays of a lamp, gave off a look of quite startling cruelty "Where is it?" he repeated, taking a step forward.

Mathilde felt like death. A stabbing pain was digging into her guts: her legs were giving way. She had to grab hold of the niche to stop herself from falling. This was no longer a game. This was not shooting practice, the triathlon, or any sort of calculated risk.

They were quite simply going to die.

The intruder kept coming. With a precise gesture, he aimed his gun. "For fuck's sake! Where's the fucking smack?"

55

The man in the raincoat caught fire.

Mathilde dived to the ground. At the moment she hit the floor, she realized that the flame had burst out of his gun. She rolled over the plaster rubble. At that instant, a second fact became clear to her. Anna had fired first. She must have hidden an automatic pistol in the niche.

More shots followed. Mathilde curled up, her fists clenched over her head. Niches were exploding above her, freeing their urns and their contents. When the ash started to fall on her, she screamed. Gray clouds rose up as the bullets whistled and ricocheted. In a fog of dust, she saw sparks flying from the marble angles, filaments of fire springing up across the debris, vases rolling onto the floor, then bouncing up with silvery glints. The corridor was like a starry hell, mingled with gold and iron..

She curled up tighter. The shots were smashing apart the niches, ripping up the flowers. The urns broke open, spilling their ashes as the bullets crashed through space. She started to crawl, closing her eyes, jumping at each explosion.

Suddenly, silence returned.

Mathilde stopped at once, waiting a few seconds before opening her eyes. She could not see anything. The gallery was covered with ash, as though after a volcanic eruption. The stink of cordite mingled with the cinders, worsening her sensation of asphyxia.

Mathilde dared not move. She almost called out Anna's name, but she stopped herself. She should not let the killer spot her.

While analyzing the situation, she examined her body. She was unwounded. She closed her eyes again and concentrated. Not a breath, not a sound anywhere near her, with the exception of a few pieces of rubble, which continued to fall with dull thuds.

Where was Anna?

Where was the man?

Were they both dead?

She squinted in an attempt to see something. Finally, two or three yards farther on, she noticed a lamp giving off a vague light. She remembered how they punctuated the alleyway about every ten yards. But which one was it? The one by the entrance to the corridor? Which way was the exit? To her right, or to her left?

She fought back a cough, swallowed her saliva, then silently picked herself up onto an elbow. She started crawling toward the left, avoiding the rubble, the shells, the spillage from the urns…

Suddenly, the fog materialized in front of her.

A completely gray figure: the killer.

Her lips opened, but his hand pressed hard over her mouth. In the bloodred eyes that were staring at her, Mathilde could read: One sound, and you're dead. The barrel of a revolver was rammed against her neck. She rapidly fluttered her eyelashes as a sign of assent. Slowly, the man removed his fingers. She gave him another imploring look, guaranteeing her total submission.

At that moment, a ghastly sensation hit her. Something had happened that made her feel even more awful than the idea of dying: she had dirtied herself. Her sphincter had loosened. Urine and excrement oozed between her thighs, soaking her tights.

The man grabbed her by the hair and dragged her across the floor. Mathilde bit her lips to stop herself from screaming. They passed through the clouds of mist, between the vases, flowers and human ash.

He prowled around the galleries several times. Still being pulled brutally, Mathilde slipped along in the dust, making a soft rustling sound. She kicked her legs, but the movement made no noise. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it. She was sobbing, groaning, whistling between her teeth, but the dust absorbed everything. Through her pain, she realized that this silence was her best ally. At the slightest sound, the man would kill her.

The advance slowed. She felt his grip loosen. Then the man grabbed her again and started going up stairs. Mathilde braced herself. A wave of agony ran from her skull to the base of her spine. It felt as if deadly clamps were pulling the skin of her face. Her legs were still kicking, heavy, wet, filthy with shame. She smelled the ghastly waste that was staining her legs.

Then everything came to a halt again. It lasted only a second, but that was enough.

Mathilde twisted around to see what was happening. Anna's form was standing out against the fog while the killer soundlessly aimed his gun.

With a wrench, she lifted herself up on a knee to warn Anna.

Too late. He pressed the trigger, causing a deafening crash.

But nothing happened as expected. The figure exploded in a thousand shards; the cinders changed into a lethal hail. The man yelled. Mathilde freed herself and rolled backward, down to the bottom of the steps.

As she fell, she realized what had happened. He had fired not at Anna but at a glass door, stained with dust, that was sending back his own reflection. Mathilde landed on her back and witnessed the impossible truth. Just as the back of her head hit the floor, she saw the real Anna, like a gray statue, crouching in the gutted window. She had been awaiting them there, as though floating above the dead.

At that moment, Anna leapt down. Hanging with her left hand from a niche, she swung her body as fast as she could. In her other hand, she held a spike of broken glass. Its sharp end stuck into the man's face.

By the time he had aimed his gun, Anna had pulled out the blade. The bullet flew through the dust. The next second, she attacked once more. The shard slid across his temple and sliced into his flesh. Another bullet went astray through the air. Anna was already crouched against the wall.

Forehead, temples, mouth. Back she came again and again. The man's face was being torn apart in bloody slices. Staggering, he dropped his gun, clumsily flapping his arms, as though pestered by killer bees.

At last, Anna went in for the kill. With all her weight, she leapt on him. They rolled onto the ground. The spike stuck into his right cheek. Anna kept up the pressure, literally slicing apart the flesh and exposing the gums.

Mathilde eased herself up the stairs on her back, pressing on her elbows. She was yelling, without managing to take her eyes off that savage combat.

Anna at last dropped her weapon and stood up. The man, gesticulating in a heap of ashes, was trying to pull the glass out of one of his eyes. Anna picked up the gun and pushed his hands aside. She grabbed the shard, twisting it around and pulling it out of the socket, with the red eye stuck on it. Mathilde tried again to look away but failed. Anna rammed the barrel into the gaping hole and pulled the trigger.

56

Silence again.

The acrid smell of ash again.

The overturned urns, with their sculpted lids.

The colors of the scattered plastic flowers.

The body slumped down a few inches from Mathilde, spraying her with blood, brains and pieces of bone. One of its arms was touching her thigh, but she did not have the strength to push it away. The beating of her heart was so feeble that each interval seemed to her to be the final one.

"We've got to go. The watchmen will be here soon."

Mathilde raised her eyes. What she saw tore into her heart.

Anna's face had turned to stone. The dust of the dead had gathered in the hollows of her features, changing them into cracked furrows, wrinkled gulches. In contrast, her eyes were bloodshot and raw.

Mathilde thought of the eye stuck on the point of glass. She wanted to vomit.

Anna was holding a sports bag, which she had presumably removed from the niche.

"The heroin's lucked," she said, "so let's not waste any more time here.”

“Who are you? For heaven's sake, who are you?"

Anna put the bag down and opened it. "He wouldn't have pulled any punches either, believe me."

She picked up the wads of dollars and euros, counted them rapidly, then put them back in the bag. "He was my contact in Paris. The person who was supposed to take care of the heroin in Europe. To handle the distribution networks."

Mathilde looked down at the corpse. She saw a brownish grimace, from which a single eye was staring up at the ceiling. As an epitaph, she wanted his name. "What was his name?"

"Jean-Louis Schiffer. He was a cop."

"Your contact was a cop?"

Anna did not reply. From the bottom of the bag, she produced a passport and flicked over its pages quickly.

Mathilde returned to the body. "You were, partners?"

"He'd never seen me, but I knew his face. We had a sign of recognition. A brooch shaped like a poppy. And also a kind of password: four moons.”

“What does that mean?"

"Forget it."

Kneeling on the ground, Anna continued her search. She came across several magazines for an automatic pistol. Mathilde observed her in disbelief Her face looked like a mask of dry mud, a ritualistic figure, frozen in the earth. There was nothing human left about Anna.

"What are you going to do now?" Mathilde asked.

The woman stood up and removed a handgun from her belt-no doubt the automatic she had found in the niche. She released the spring in the handle, removing the empty clip. Her confident gestures revealed reflexes born of training.

"Leave. There's nothing for me now in Paris."

"Where to?"

She slipped a fresh magazine into the gun. " Turkey "

" Turkey? But why? If you go there, they'll find you."

"Wherever I go, they'll find me. I have to cut out the source.”

“The source?"

"The source of this hatred. The origin of this vengeance. I have to go back to Istanbul. Take them by surprise. They won't be expecting me there.”

“Who do you mean by 'they'?"

"The Grey Wolves. Sooner or later, they'll discover my new face.”

“So what? There are thousands of places you could hide."

"No. When they find out what I now look like, they'll know where to find me."

"Why?"

"Because their leader has seen me, in a completely different context.”

“I don't get it."

"I repeat: forget it! They'll chase me till they find me and kill me. For them, this is no normal contract. It's a question of honor. I betrayed them. I broke my oath."

"What oath? What are you talking about?"

Anna slipped down the safety catch and put the gun behind her back. "I'm one of them. I am a Wolf"

Mathilde's breathing stopped; her blood seemed to slow.

Anna knelt down and took her by her shoulders. Her face was now colorless, but when she spoke, her pink, almost fluorescent tongue could be seen between her lips. A mouth of raw meat. "You're alive, and that's a miracle," she said gently. "When it's all over, I'll write to you. I'll give you the names, the circumstances, everything. I want you to know the truth, but later-when I'm ready to put an end to this story, and when you're in safety"

Haggard, Mathilde did not answer. For a few hours-an eternity-she had protected this woman as though she were her own flesh and blood. She had made her into a daughter, her baby.

And in fact, she was a killer. A being of violence and cruelty.

An unbearable sensation started up deep inside her. A shifting of slime in a decaying pond. The ghastly dampness of her open, slack entrails.

At that moment, the idea of being pregnant took her breath away. Yes, that night she had given birth to a monster.

Grabbing the sports bag, Anna stood up. "I'll write to you. I promise. I'll explain everything." She vanished into a screen of ash.

Mathilde remained still, staring into the empty gallery. In the distance, the sirens of the cemetery were blaring.