‘If we act now, we’ll never incriminate Perrot and Pama.’
‘I don’t see it that way. Listen carefully. Ballestrino, Perrot and Thirard are part of Jubelin and Pama’s entourage, where we also find Nicolas Berger and Annick Renouard. The detective’s ABC tells us that such coincidences are no accident. Right. But we don’t know how these different pieces fit together. For the time being we have hardly any evidence to implicate all these good people, and, as they are cautious, we won’t easily find anything. Our only chance is to take the initiative and force them to react. Which we will do in bringing down Transitex. Convinced, Lavorel?’
‘Not really.’
‘Too bad, I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind. We’ll review the situation afterwards. The delivery should take place during the coming week, but we can’t be sure of the date. So we’ll keep Transitex under surveillance. And if the vet puts in an appearance within the expected time frame, we’ll pounce. Now, open your notepads, we’re going to organise this down to the last detail.’
Thursday 19 October 1989
Amelot and Berry have been taking turns to watch Transitex round the clock for a week. This morning, the vet arrives at eight o’clock, parks his Golf and vanishes into the office. Amelot calls Daquin: ‘He’s here.’
‘OK, let’s go.’
When the refrigerated lorry emerges from the hangar, around midday, Romero and Amelot set off in pursuit, following it on its delivery round in the Val-d’Oise, then on the road to Chantilly. Shortly after Beaumont, Romero overtakes and cuts in front.
‘Police.’ Climbs in next to the driver. ‘Follow that car.’
The driver, stunned, anxious: ‘What have I done, what’s going on?’
Romero, aloof, no explanations: ‘You’ll find out.’
The car and the lorry move off and pull into the yard of the nearest gendarmerie. There, Daquin, Lavorel and Berry are sitting on the bonnets of their cars waiting for them. Arms folded and grim faced. Uniformed gendarmes everywhere. The driver’s stomach lurches. Romero and Amelot stand either side of him.
‘Stay there and keep quiet.’
Lavorel slips a long white coat over his clothes, puts on a pair of rubber gloves and opens the rear door of the lorry. There are only five cases of offal left, to be delivered to Chantilly. Romero helps Lavorel lift them and carry them into a small room off the yard, followed by the whole group surrounding the driver. Heavy, very heavy these cases. They put them down on a long table where a whole set of nickel-plated instruments has been carefully laid out. It’s important to set the scene, Daquin always insists. The driver is torn between panic and curiosity. Lavorel opens a case, pushes aside the hearts and other offal, and pulls out a strong plastic sachet full of compressed white powder, wrapped in bloody intestines. Around twenty kilos in weight. Relief. After all, it might not have been there. Don’t give anything away. The driver thinks he’s going to pass out. Each case in turn delivers up its packet of cocaine. Around a hundred kilos in total.
‘Weigh them exactly,’ says Daquin. ‘You never know. Thirard might be helping himself to some of it on the way.’
Romero grabs the driver by the arm and drags him into an adjoining room, and Lavorel sets to work. After carefully washing a packet of cocaine, he makes a little incision in the sealed edge of the bag. With surgical tweezers, he inserts a bug deep inside the packet, while removing an equivalent volume of powder. He puts it carefully aside, it might always come in useful. Quick flashback to Romero-Tarzan and his mate Blascos. Come back whenever you like, guys. Repeats the operation on the other packets. Then he seals them again, as neatly as possible with the bag sealing machine brought along specifically for that purpose.
In the neighbouring room, Romero taps the driver amiably on the shoulder.
‘Doesn’t look good, my friend.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me. I had no idea there were drugs on board. I’m just the driver, that’s all.’
‘That’s what they all say. And you’re going to have plenty of time to prove it. If it’s true, of course. Meanwhile, you’ll be banged up. Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘You cooperate with the police.’
‘Hold on, I keep my nose clean and I have a family. With all they say about drug dealers…’
‘There’s no risk attached to the offer I’m making you. You’re simply going to make your delivery as though nothing had happened.’
‘And then?’
‘And then you’ll drive the lorry to a police garage at an address we give you, and you’ll stay there until tomorrow morning. That’s all.’
‘Looks like I don’t have any choice.’
‘I’m fixing a microphone to the inside of your overalls. While you’re making your delivery, we’ll be listening to everything, and we won’t be far away. So no funny business. Don’t try and switch it off, either. If there’s the slightest break in communications, you’re going straight to jail, and for several years. If everything goes smoothly, tomorrow you go home and you’ll never hear from us again.’
Half an hour later, the carefully reconstituted cases of offal are delivered to Thirard by a nervous, mumbling driver, to whom nobody pays the slightest attention. Daquin and his inspectors concealed in the forest a few hundred metres away check the presence of the bugs on their control monitors. Phone call to the Drugs Squad. Phase one accomplished. Embark on phase two.
Night of Thursday 19 October 1989
At 10 p.m., the bugged horse lorry leaves Thirard’s stable. Romero, Daquin and Le Dem, who has come to join them after work, follow it at a distance as it heads for Paris. Lavorel stays in the vicinity of Thirard’s place, and the new boys return to HQ.
The lorry turns onto the Paris ring road at Porte de la Chapelle. Takes the exit for the motorway to the south. Two Drugs Squad cars join the one being driven by Romero. They drive in convoy, keeping a good distance. Speed between ninety and a hundred kilometres an hour, two men in the lorry, nothing to report.
At thirty-five minutes past midnight, the lorry turns into a service station, heading for the petrol pumps. Now’s the moment. Bullet-proof vests, guns at the ready. This is it, thinks Le Dem, it’s war. I can’t do this. I’m scared, but it’s exciting, for sure. One of the Drugs Squad cars drives past the service station and positions itself so as to block off the exit onto the motorway. The other two cars drive slowly onto the forecourt. The lorry pulls up by a diesel pump, a man gets down and starts filling up. Romero draws up alongside the lorry on the other side of the pump. The third car screeches to a halt under the nose of the lorry, blocking its path. It’s the signal. All the inspectors leap out brandishing their guns. Romero points his gun at the man standing by the pump, Daquin just has time to open the passenger door and fling the man to the ground, when a third man whom nobody had spotted – he’d probably been sleeping in the back – begins spraying the cops’ cars with a submachine gun in one hand, while with the other he wrenches the gears into reverse and the lorry roars off with a screech of tyres. The cops shoot at the lorry, causing it to sway. The horses are whinnying and kicking against the sides, the lorry accelerates, leaving behind it rivulets of blood on the road. Diesel gushes from the blasted pump, spreads on the asphalt, stinking, slippery. And flammable. Total bedlam. Vehicles damaged, two cops wounded, one of the crooks lying on the ground, the other takes to his heels. The lorry gathers speed and – instinct or quick thinking – reverses back up the slip road instead of heading for the exit. Daquin lets out a yell and rushes after the fugitive. A shadow running, too far away. He pulls out his gun from deep in his jacket pocket. Just the time to think one day this thing’s going to go off in my face, and he shoots. The shadow vaults the fence and disappears. Daquin spots a dark stain on the asphalt, feels it with his fingertips, it’s wet and sticky, sniffs. Fresh blood. A piece of luck, he’s wounded, definitely not by me. Walks up to the fence, which is sagging a little. On the other side, a ploughed field. He goes back to the service station. Le Dem drags the wounded men out of range of the diesel jet. The third team pursues the lorry on the motorway, shooting at the tyres and bursting two. The lorry swerves and crashes into the central reservation. Barely slowing down, the cars and HGVs weave around them to avoid the shooting and the accident. In the service station, the drivers who’ve stopped to refuel see the bullet-riddled cars, two injured men and another in handcuffs lying on the ground, stare round-eyed and drive off without pausing. The service station manager has switched off all the lights.