“Don’t be coy,” she said. “I’ve never forgotten.” She pulled his head down, shielding herself from view and started kissing him. She kept her eyes open, scanning the platform. Another of Dédé’s mecs had stopped by her elbow.
“You’re even better than I remember,” she breathed into the man’s ear, pulling his arms around her, and guiding him back into the tiled Métro wall. She saw the wedding band on his finger. “Let me enjoy it once more: Your wife will never know.”
“You know, you’ve got the wrong person …,” he murmured. But he didn’t pull away.
She pulled him tighter, edging toward the exit stairs, “I’ve heard that before. Play along with me, okay?”
His eyes crinkled in amusement. “Who said anything about stopping?”
“I’m going to slip away,” she said, walking backwards up the stairs. “Merci for your help.”
“Anytime,” he grinned, digging in his pocket for a business card.
But she’d gone.
TWENTY MINUTES later Aimée slammed her office door.
Startled, René dropped the book he was reading.
“You just missed Claude,” he said, shaking his head. “That man has unsettling eyes.”
She picked René’s book up off the floor. “Reading again?” she asked, looking at the title, Life with Picasso, by Francoise Gilot.
“Picasso appeared and disappeared in her life,” René said. “A stormy relationship.”
Aimée gave a wry smile.
“Like Yves,” she nodded. “Too bad he’s not around long enough for the stormy.”
She threw off her wet clothes and kicked the radiator to life. In the armoire she found wool tights, black skirt, ankle boots, and a striped silver ski parka to wear over a black sweater.
Back in the office she opened her bag, thrust some disks into René’s hand, and pulled out her laptop. Logging on, she glanced at the clock.
“Let’s get to work,” she said. “We may not have much time.”
“Are we catching a plane?”
“Dédé’s getting a little too close for comfort,” she said. She told him about the men watching her apartment and the Métro.
René climbed into his orthopedic chair, then logged onto his terminal. Aimée’s phone started beeping.
“Let me give you a proper battery, Aimée,” he said, handing her a new one. “Try that.”
“My phone has been messed up,” she said. “My watch, too. Ever since the EDF.”
He set the battery on her desk.
“Right now,” she said, “I want to know why Sylvie dealt with Dédé.”
“Figure this. If Dédé knows everybody in Belleville,” René said, “he might be the one people use to reach the Maghrébin network.”
“Good point,” she said. “But first we’ve got some bank tunneling to do.”
By the time she’d checked the links from Sylvie’s Channel Island bank, she’d found the money transfers.
“Look René, the deposits come from the Bank of Algiers,” she said, excited. “Several million each time.”
René pulled up the Bank of Algiers account on his screen then clicked away. “I found them,” he pointed. “Here, wire trans-fers come from AINwar Enterprises.”
Aimée peered at his screen, seeing a long list of wire transfers. She sat back down; something familiar tugged at her.
“Why would AINwar Enterprises pass amounts via the Bank of Algiers to a Channel Island account in Eugénie Grandet’s name,” Aimée said. She swiveled her chair to the office terminal and logged on.
“Smells bad to me,” René said.
“Guess it’s time to find out about AINwar.”
After she dug into an Arab net server, she’d discovered the company’s charter and by-laws of incorporation, required by the French government for any contract.
Nothing illegal in that.
Then it hit her. The night of the explosion. Philippe introduced her to Kaseem Nwar. Kaseem had been with Olivier Guit-tard, both intent on Philippe’s passing some project and humanitarian mission. She remembered Philippe’s strained reaction and how he got her out of there quickly. Then she’d seen him again in the café in Belleville. Was Kaseem Nwar part of AINwar?
She accessed the company records; Downloading took time.
Aimée thought back to those photos of people with numbers pinned to them. All Algerian.
Curious, on her office computer she started accessing information about AINwar while René concentrated on Philippe de Froissart’s account. She kept digging for the company structure, list of shareholders and employees. When she found them, she stood up and whistled.
“Kaseem Nwar’s the director,” she said. “Appears he’s into nepotism.”
“Why?”
“Most of the employees and shareholders are Nwars, too.”
“What kind of firm?” René asked. “Heavy machinery or something to do with oil?”
She shook her head.
“Jewelry importer,” she said. Odd. “How does that fit with a project in connection with humanitarian aid?”
“Pearls for the masses?”
“That’s it, René,” she said, grabbing his arm excitedly. “Pearls! The Lake Biwa pearl. I keep saying you’re a genius. And you are.”
He grinned. “I’m never one to refuse a compliment, but where does that fit?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m getting there,” she said, unable to sit down. She paced back and forth.
It was all there. Somehow. She had to piece it together. Figure out where the odd bits went. One big piece was Mustafa Hamid and the AFL; she felt they were part of it. In some way they belonged.
“AINwar sent huge sums to Sylvie,” she said. “Why? Were they bribes for Philippe so contracts went AINwar’s way?”
“But a jewelry business?” René” asked. “Unless AINwar fronts another kind of company?”
She sat back down and searched AINwar’s records. Two firms were listed as subsidiaries; NadraCo and AtraAl Inc.
But she could find nothing more.
René couldn’t break into the Banque de France. They were blocked at every turn.
He stood up and stretched.
“Aimée, if the bribes came in, they’re hidden,” René said, sucking air through his lips. “Takes time to unearth them. All my tools sit in my database at home.”
René left, promising to call her when he found anything.
Frustrated, she knew more information existed. How to find it was the problem.
Start simple. Go with what she knew.
She logged on to the Ministry of Defense. Using a secure government password, one of many René kept current, courtesy of his ever-changing connections, she found a list of ministry-funded projects. Then she refined her search to projects under funding consideration.
Hundreds.
She took a breath and narrowed her topic to those involving Algeria. The list slimmed down considerably. While the list printed out, she sat down at René’s desk.
On his terminal she accessed the National Fichier via Renéws connection, because if the government didn’t catch you when you were born, they always caught up when you checked out.
She knew that Algeria, at the time of Mustafa Hamid and his brother Sidi’s birth, was regarded by France as more than a colony. Even more than an extension of France across the Mediterranean—a department. However, this wasn’t reckoned with in actual voting terms. Unable to vote, Algerians belonged to the Republique like a member of the wedding but never the bride.
If Hamid or Sidi emigrated to France, she figured, they would probably have paid some application fee, surcharge, or tax.
In Hamid’s case she found his carte banccdre via his date of birth and Sécurité sociale. No names were listed as next of kin, only a Sidi, H., as father, and Sidi, S., for mother, both entered as deceased. She entered Djeloul Sidi’s name. His wife’s maiden name, El Hechiri, appeared.