‘Evidently more than you. What about Captain Lamy — was he part of this, too? Another parachute regiment sympathiser?’
‘Lamy?’ Saint-Cloud looked puzzled, then waved a hand. ‘Lamy was an opportunist who blew with the wind. He even thought he could take my job. He knew about my affiliations with past members of the regiment and threatened to tell the authorities. I had to get him out of the way.’
Massin recalled what Santer had told him about the attack at Guignes, and why Lamy had been involved. ‘You set him up. You used his brother and Delarue to get him on board, then fed the group false information about the car. They thought the president was on board because you told them he was. Just to get rid of Lamy.’
‘Prove it.’
‘Put down the gun, Colonel,’ Massin said softly, and raised his own weapon. His hand was shaking, but even he couldn’t miss from here.
But Saint-Cloud moved even quicker, stepping right up to Massin and raising his own gun. He placed it against Massin’s forehead, between his eyes.
As the cold, hard tip of the gun barrel ground into his skin, Massin felt his every nerve screaming at him to move away from what was surely coming. But he couldn’t. He was rooted to the spot. He wondered, was this what real terror was like? Bringing you to a point where you accepted death because you couldn’t do anything else?
Instead, he found his voice and said, ‘Put it down, or I will shoot you.’ And took up the slack in his trigger.
Saint-Cloud laughed out loud, a fine spray of saliva touching Massin’s face. Up close, his eyes looked distanced, somehow, as if seeing things from a long way away, and Massin realised the man had lost his mind. ‘You haven’t got the courage, Massin. You’re a sheep. You won’t shoot me.’
‘He might not, but I will.’
It was Rocco, standing at the end of the corridor, tall, dark and resolute, his eyes as cold as death. Behind him stood Desmoulins and Dr Rizzotti, their expressions deep in shock at what they had heard.
‘You’re no longer the presidential security chief, are you?’ said Rocco. ‘You haven’t been for a while. Put the gun down.’
‘He’s what?’ Massin blinked hard.
Saint-Cloud turned his head, his concentration broken. He frowned as if unsure of what had just happened, then looked back at Massin.
But the commissaire had stepped sideways and was now pointing his gun at Saint-Cloud’s head, his face set.
The former security officer was stranded and knew it. He must have also known that his last words had been perfectly audible to the three men at the end of the corridor, and he had no way out.
Slowly, he lowered his pistol. ‘So be it, gentlemen.’ He looked at them one by one and said contemptuously, ‘The game is played, it seems. Forgive me if I do not stay to sing “La Marseillaise”; I wish you well in your rotten Utopia.’
He gave a final withering look at Massin, then turned and walked away down the corridor, back rigid, his gun held down by his side. When he reached the office he’d been using, he stepped inside and closed the door.
Rocco started along the corridor after him, but Massin stopped him.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I will do this-’
The gunshot was shockingly loud, sending a tremor through the glass panels in the office doors. A pigeon clattered away from the window sill in Massin’s office, and someone shouted in the distance. Booted feet began pounding up the stairs towards them.
Rocco breathed deeply and looked at Massin. ‘So he gets away with it. What’ll it be — a military funeral with full honours?’
Massin shook his head and waved back two officers who appeared at the far end of the corridor with drawn weapons. ‘He gets away with nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘Nor will any of the others involved in this business, including the criminal, Delarue. I will personally see to that.’
There was something in Massin’s tone that Rocco hadn’t heard before, and he wondered what had taken place here between the two officers before he, Desmoulins and Rizzotti had arrived.
He would probably never know. He watched as Rizzotti, accompanied by Desmoulins, walked past and opened the door to Saint-Cloud’s office. After a few seconds, Desmoulins came out again and shook his head.
Rocco decided to make his escape for a while. He said to Massin, ‘Do you need me for anything? Only I could really do with a strong coffee and cognac.’
‘Of course. You deserve it.’ Massin gestured at the radio loudspeaker chattering away quietly in his office and said, ‘I understand the man Calloway is talking.’
‘Yes. I think he knows a lot more than he’s saying. He’ll try to barter his way out of trouble.’
‘That might prove useful. At least you managed to bring one of them back alive,’ Massin ghosted a smile, ‘which is somehow reassuring.’ He turned to go, then said, ‘When you come back, perhaps you could step in to my office and collect your badge and gun. You’ll be needing them.’