Obsession (Year of Fire) (74 page)

“
C’est pour moi
.” He answered the call, and, in a different tone, asked, “Fauzi?”

“It’s me. Do you have something to write with? Dr. Salim bin Qater is waiting for you at his house. It’s number twenty-three Rue de Meaux, on the third floor, apartment fifteen.”

“Rue de Meaux,” Jürkens repeated, ignoring the tremor in his hand as he wrote. “
Shukran, sadik
.” He said, “Thanks, friend,” and hung up, not wanting to prolong the communication and risk global wiretaps recording a word that might catch their attention.

Gérard Moses pointed the remote control at the television and turned it off. He stared fixedly at the black screen. The Identi-Kit that had been splashed across the news all evening had a surprising similarity to Udo. He stood up and hurled the remote, which ricocheted off a wall and fell to the floor. He shouldn’t get worked up or his heart rate would shoot up and he would get an attack. He walked through the empty, dark, cold and silent house. In the kitchen, he rummaged in the cupboards looking for something to eat; he hadn’t eaten for three hours. He found some dry biscuits that tasted of dust and a small tin of pâté de foie, which he washed down with a cup of coffee. It didn’t take him more than fifteen minutes to eat this meager meal.

He needed to sleep. It was four in the morning, and Udo hadn’t shown up. In the morning he would travel to Hamburg to acquire some special parts for the prototype of the centrifuge. This mess would complicate things.
Damn the moment I sent him after that bitch!

The service door opened, and Udo Jürkens limped in. He stopped dead when he saw Moses sitting at the kitchen table.

“The Identi-Kit I just saw on television isn’t very flattering.”

“Boss…”

“What the hell happened?” Moses exploded and jumped to his feet, which made him dizzy.

“Boss! Do you feel all right?”

“Of course not! Your Identi-Kit—very lifelike, I have to admit—has appeared on every television channel since this afternoon. It’s four in the morning and they’re still showing it on the cable channels.”

“I know. I saw it. Let me explain.”

“Oh, you’ll be doing that, believe me. But now it’s urgent for you to leave the city. All the highways are probably being watched, as are the train stations and airports. We’ll have to change the way you look.” He remembered Anuar Al-Muzara’s suggestion that he get Jürkens to have plastic surgery. “Later, we’ll send Antoine out for a box of hair dye. You’ll put cotton between your gums and your cheeks to make them bulkier. And you’ll wear glasses as though you’re shortsighted. There’s nothing else we can do right now. The best thing would be for you to take a train and meet up with Al-Muzara at the coordinates he sent you.”

“I’m not in a fit state to do that now, boss. I was shot in the leg. I’ll need a few days to recover.”

“Fine, but you won’t do that here. You’ll have to leave. I think Herstal would be best.”

“Did you decipher Al-Muzara’s instructions?”

“Yes, La Valeta again.”

“What’s going to happen with Al-Saud’s woman?”

The expression “Al-Saud’s woman” grated in Moses’s ears, and worsened his bad mood.

“Al-Saud’s whore, you mean! Thanks to your incompetence, we’ll have to leave that matter for now. The truth is that we have more important matters at hand. We’ll take care of her, don’t worry about that.”

At eight in the morning, Yasmín asked at the reception of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital where she could find the patient Sándor Huseinovic. She waited on tenterhooks, because she was afraid they would say he was still in the intensive care unit.

“Room one thirty-four, miss,” the employee informed her, and showed her how to get there.

She walked quickly, coming up with explanations for her visit as she went, giving some to herself, rehearsing others for Sándor. She spun on her heels and retraced her footsteps, heading toward the exit.
This is insane
, she reproached herself. What was she looking for? She stopped, did a U-turn and went back. She wanted to see him, she was sure of that. She wanted to make sure that he was all right. She hesitated in front of the door. She didn’t dare to face him. She was afraid that he would treat her as coldly as he had the day before. She knocked on the door. She repeated the quiet knock a little harder. Then she poked her head in. From there she could only see the foot of the bed. She went in.

Her pulse started racing, and a feeling of tenderness filled her eyes with tears when she saw him sleeping, half upright in the orthopedic bed, covered in blankets to the waist and with his torso wrapped with a white bandage to support his broken ribs. She tiptoed over to him, because the heels of her Louboutins sounded like gunshots in the silent room. As the heating in the room was set very high, she took off her coat. This reassured her—it was cold outside, and Sándor was half-naked. Standing without moving at the head of the bed, she looked down at him, almost in fear. Her jugular was throbbing almost painfully in her throat. What would it have been like if Sándor had died? She clenched her hands into fists, trying to repress her anxiety. She inhaled deeply and let the air out of her mouth. Calmer, she studied his physiognomy; he had guarded her for months, but she hadn’t often allowed herself to observe him.

Unlike his sisters, Sándor had dark skin and dark-brown hair that wasn’t as black as hers. Her friends said that the Bosnian’s features were crude and revealed his Slavic origins. Still, they were always staring and flirting with him, which he had responded to with sensual smiles and the manners of an English lord, even though he knew that his behavior drove her crazy. It was the first time that she had seen his hairy arms and chest. His left shoulder was swollen and bruised, but she could see the shape of his well-defined muscles under the skin, even in repose. She was overcome by an urge to tangle her fingers in the mat of hair peeking out from under the bandage. She stretched her arm out as she debated whether to leave or give in to the impulse. She was accustomed to the latter.
Eliah said that their father had spoiled her until she became a brattish, selfish person who hurt people without compassion. Maybe he was right. She had hurt Sándor by treating him indifferently and sometimes disdainfully, and making herself a difficult person to protect. How she regretted it! What if Sándor had died? She continued to torment herself.

She brushed the thick hair above the bandage, a slight contact that became an energy that rushed up through the nerve terminals in her hand, giving her goose bumps on her arm, and ended up as a tickle in her throat. She closed her eyes and buried her fingers in the mat of hair until she reached the warm, hard skin. She didn’t dare to open her eyes when she felt his hand close around her wrist, and she stifled a moan when she realized he was kissing the veins and running the tip of his tongue up her palm, tracing out her lifeline.
Sándor!
she exclaimed to herself, surprised and frightened by what this man could provoke in her with a simple caress. She was throbbing between her legs, she didn’t know if she would be able to walk normally.

“Yasmín,” he whispered. “
Regarde-moi, s’il te plait.
”

She opened her eyelids fearfully. Sándor’s sky-blue eyes were shining through a web of little red veins under the thick, black eyebrows. Her desire for him confused her, and she wasn’t able to say a word. The invented explanations became worthless as she suddenly realized that they were the fruit of her immature personality. She lifted her left hand, the one he wasn’t holding, and brushed back the hair that had drooped down over his forehead.

“Sándor,” she mumbled, “forgive me.”

He gave her a smile that made her legs tremble. No smile had ever caused her this sensation of weakness or the burning that lashed at her skin under her Lycra tights.

“That must be the first time you’ve ever apologized,” he commented without bitterness, and she smiled, ashamed but also happy to hear his thick, slightly hoarse voice, and his clumsy pronunciation. “I’m flattered.”

Diana, Leila and Eliah came in without knocking, and Yasmín gave a start and wrenched her hand out of Sándor’s grip. He held it for a second and then let go with an accusing look.

“What are you doing here?” Al-Saud wondered. “Where are your bodyguards?”

“I told them to wait for me in the car.”

“Yasmín! After what you went through yesterday, why are you still pushing your luck?”

“Oh, Eliah, quit bugging me!” She flounced over to the seat where she had left her coat and purse and went back to the bed. “I’ll see you later, Sándor. I’m happy to see you looking better.”

“See you later, Miss Yasmín.”

“Let’s go.” Al-Saud hustled her out. “I’ll walk you to the car.”

“What was she doing here?” Diana asked impatiently once Eliah and Yasmín left the room. “How can she still be bothering you?”

“She came to see how I was. Hello, Leila,” he said, and his sister smiled and gave him a conspiratorial look that bore no resemblance to her childishness of the last few years.

“Hello, Sanny,” she answered him in the end, and Sándor reached out his hand until Leila held it. Diana came over and put her hand on top of those of her siblings. Nobody spoke.

CHAPTER 20

As the days passed, Eliah Al-Saud observed Matilde’s progress after the attack in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. Just as the bruise on her cheek changed colors as it healed, her spirit also passed through different stages. At first she was overcome by panic; she startled easily, woke up in the middle of the night, was afraid to go out and didn’t argue when Eliah told her that she couldn’t return to the institute until Markov, the bodyguard banished by President Taylor, got to Paris to replace Sándor.

Markov’s skill was guaranteed. As an ex-member of the Spetsnaz GRU, the elite Russian military intelligence service, feared for the ferocity of its selection process—it was rumored that several recruits died during the months of training—he possessed superior skill and knowledge. Alamán and Peter showed him photographs of Udo Jürkens and got him up to date with what they knew about him, from his preference for weapons used in war to his taste for shooting dumdum bullets and his passion for chemical weapons, so the Russian was forewarned about the caliber of enemy he was facing.

Diana hadn’t forgiven herself for having failed in hand-to-hand combat with Udo Jürkens, so she went out to the estate in Rouen, where she spent several days training with Takumi sensei until Al-Saud ordered her to return to Paris, because Markov, her new colleague, was ready to take over the job. Diana had hoped that Dingo would be assigned to guard Matilde, and was as distant, unfriendly and cold toward the ex-Spetsnaz GRU officer as possible.

One morning Matilde woke up crying from a nightmare and Al-Saud held her until she calmed down.

“Please try and stay calm. The broadcasts of the Identi-Kit on the news bulletins must have sent him running. There’s nowhere in France that he wouldn’t be in danger of being recognized.”

“They might send someone else to kill me,” she suggested, and Al-Saud told her that that wouldn’t happen, although he admitted to himself it was perfectly plausible.

In spite of the anxiety demonstrated by her statement, that night Matilde started to recover her equilibrium. Al-Saud felt a great relief, because the idea that Matilde would have to seek treatment from Dr. Brieger, Leila’s psychiatrist, had been in his mind for the last few days and depressed him; he didn’t want her to need medication to help her sleep or lift her spirits. Resuming her classes at the institute helped, as routine helped to bring order to her life and emotions. Little by little, she started to leave the house, smile, speak in a firmer voice without mumbling, cook with Leila and eat with more of an appetite. Her paleness disappeared with the bruising, and the violet circles around her eyes grew fainter, giving way to her habitual translucent brilliance. As Matilde and Juana had fallen behind after missing a week at the institute, they had to redouble their efforts to catch up with their colleagues and this also helped to distract them.

Four days after the attack, on the morning of Tuesday, March 3, Sándor was discharged and settled in the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus so that Leila could take care of him. Matilde wasn’t surprised that Yasmín suddenly became an assiduous visitor, even though she hadn’t come once the whole time she had been cohabiting with Eliah. Nor was she surprised by Yasmín’s change in attitude. In the past she had been aggressive and haughty, but now she displayed a sweet, kind personality. Matilde noticed that the change reached even the most profound aspects of her personality; she seemed more timid, less rebellious, more thoughtful and perhaps even a little sad and depressed.

The impact in the media caused by Lars Meijer’s article took on unexpected dimensions. The international community was shaken by the revelations in the article published on Wednesday, February 25. Political television and radio programs, magazines and newspapers solicited
interviews from the Dutch journalist, who was fielding daily offers to take a post as a correspondent at many different publications. Meijer sensed that he was at the height of his success and fame and yet wasn’t able to enjoy it. It was urgent that he finish the investigation, but he needed the material that Al-Saud had promised him. Demonstrating the existence of toxic substances during the Bijlmer disaster had become a personal quest for him. He wondered what information he would be given and when. Although he had tried to get in touch with Al-Saud, he turned out to be elusive—he generally didn’t answer his calls or e-mails and his secretaries rejected Meijer’s inquiries.