All Cry Chaos (27 page)

    By 8:30, Poincaré had checked into his room at Hotel SainteAnne and found Paolo sitting in the breakfast room with a plate piled high with cheeses, smoked meats, and pastries, reading
Le Soleil
de Québec
. Poincaré sat and Paolo said: "So you've given up on sleep entirely? You're a medical wonder."

    "It's good to see you, too." Poincaré pointed to the newspaper. "Anything interesting?"

    "Same old mayhem. The ILF issued a report last night accusing the G-8 nations of promoting a new colonialism. The phrase is getting some play." Ludovici cut into a particularly ripe goat cheese and smeared it on a crust of bread. "Aside from that, the usual wars and famine. How was Boston?"

    "Useful."

    Ludovici arched an eyebrow. "I heard you had an adventure. Stay here, and I'll get you some food."

    "I'm not a patient anymore. I'll get it myself."

    "Sit!"

    Poincaré unfolded a napkin and contemplated their day ahead as Ludovici worked his way through the buffet line. Quito was scheduled to speak at a rally across a park from the Frontenac. After that, they would meet and Poincaré would ask him about Chambi.

    "Two of everything," Ludovici said, returning with a plate piled as high as his own. "Eat, so you don't faint with the news I'm about to tell you. And remember: it's poor form to kill a messenger."

    Poincaré worked a spoon into a poached egg.

    "Well, don't you want to know?"

    Poincaré set down the spoon. "I can guess."

    "You've been promoted, Henri. Congratulations. Out of the field, to an administrative spot being created just for you. You're off the ammonium perchlorate case."

    "Last I checked, the file name read F
enster."

    "Come on, Henri. Since when did Interpol care about the death of a single person—even someone with Fenster's résumé? We're not equipped for that. Our interest begins and ends with keeping a recipe for souped-up rocket fuel from the marketplace. Those are my instructions. I'm your replacement, by the way."

    "A man died in that hotel room."

    "True—and that's going to go unsolved unless the Americans invest some resources. But whatever they do, we will find the source of that explosive. What part of this surprises you?"

    "None of it," he said. "Nothing. You're right."

    As Poincaré ate, Ludovici explained how the axe finally fell on Albert Monforte and how the new director—an American from their Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—was instituting a policy to retire all field agents older than fifty, effective immediately. In Poincaré's case, an offer was being made to fill a newly created post: "Something like Senior Mentor to Field Operatives," said Ludovici. "You'll be the Uber-Op. The director texted me this morning and asked me to ask you how your heart is holding up. They received a message from a hospital in Boston, and he's pissed he can't get hold of you. Have you tried turning your phone on?"

    "It's on."

    "And you didn't take his calls?"

    "I'm busy when he calls," said Poincaré. "And my heart is fine."

    "Except that it puts you in the hospital. This new guy—Felix Robinson—isn't taking chances. He knows what happened to your family. He heard how you took a beating from Banović's wife in The Hague and wondered what the hell you were doing there in the first place, which I defended as proof of your professionalism—some bullshit about your commitment to justice. As if that could explain your sitting in the gallery with a gun—which, by the way, Robinson doesn't know about. Maybe I
should
have told him you intended to kill Banović. And now a heart attack? You're falling apart—and you had better quit before you embarrass yourself or this agency. His words, not mine."

    "It wasn't a heart attack."

    "He doesn't care if it was a hemorrhoid. You're gone in a week. He wants you in Lyon on the 23 to turn over your credentials and firearms. He wants you home with your family, and he's willing to set you up with a secure line to Fonroque where you can be a resource to reckless people like me. This will be perfect—you sipping bad wine, dispensing wisdom."

    Poincaré had to admire the new director. Termination by promotion was clever. "So I'm to think of this as my final assignment."

    "I'd say the winding down of your final assignment, because if you haven't cracked this case in three months, you're not going to crack it in a week. Maybe it's for the best, Henri. Maybe it's time to stop."

    "You think so?"

    "I don't know."

    "I'll stop when I catch Chambi," he said.

    "You'll stop on the 23
^rd
. I'm to meet you in Lyon, and you're to hand over everything you have."

    Poincaré set down his fork and knife. "She was in Amsterdam, Paolo. Gisele confirmed that Chambi left the day of the bombing. She was too nervous to discuss Fenster's murder when I questioned her in Boston. Now she's dropped out of sight."

    Ludovici rolled a slice of ham. "Not enough," he said, stuffing his mouth. "You want to find her because of Chloe, not Fenster or the rocket fuel. The new director agreed with Monforte on that point, at least. He's made finding Chambi a priority—but that's an altogether separate case. Interpol
will
find her. Let it go. It's clouding your judgment."

    "The cases are connected."

    "Ho
w?"

    "I don't know yet."

    "Well, there you go."

    "It's called an
investigation
, Paolo. You begin with questions, not answers."

    "So
that's
how this job works? Now you tell me . . ."

    "She's implicated. Of all the people to attack Chloe, it was James Fenster's assistant?
I'm
the link. I was investigating Fenster. Somebody wanted me off the case because I was too close to something, and I don't know what that is."

    "And I'm supposed to chase this woman's shadow around the world based on your intuition? When the case is mine, I'll start at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and run down the chemical signature of that bomb, then I'll figure out how Madeleine Rainier, an antiques dealer, managed to dust her clothes with ammonium perchlorate. If you're going to search for anyone, search for her."

    "I'm already on that," said Poincaré. "I'll be at the Jet Propulsion Lab in two days, and tonight I'm on my way to Minneapolis, where Rainier was born. I'll leave my notes in the file."

    "Go back to France, Henri. Take the week off. Relax for once in your life."

    "No, thank you."

    "Suit yourself. I'll be at Fort Benning in the meantime."

    "Georgia? Doing what?"

    "The International Sniper Competition, at the army base. I'm thrilled."

    "Give it a r
est
. You use your brains in this job, not guns."

    A waiter filled their water glasses. "What's it to you? I'm taking a week's vacation, and I have the honor of being the only non-military member on the Italian team. Look, I was never any good at soccer. But this? I can make Italy number one in the world."

    "Doing what, exactly?"

    "Aerial shooting, convoy live fire, night shooting, anti-sniper ops, and who knows what else—shooting the fuzz off peaches at three hundred meters. Thirty marksmanship teams compete, including the US military, and the winner gets bragging rights for a year. The individual points leader wins a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots. I intend for the Italians to win, and I intend to wear those boots."

    "Excellent," said Poincaré.

    Ludovici snapped a breadstick. "Spare me. You make bad wine. I've got this—" He held up the trigger finger on his right hand. "Which is a God-given talent."

    "I mean it," said Poincaré. "Go win the competition. You're the best marksman I know. As for handing over this case, I'm glad it will be to you." He set a fork on the rim of his water glass, and they both watched it teeter, then balance. "I'm also glad you're here today. You're the only one I could have called."

    Ludovici put a napkin to his lips.

"It's OK, Paolo."

    "I'm not going to let you die out here, Henri. Go back to France."

    "No one's dying. Not yet."

    "Then finish your damned breakfast. The ILF Summit concludes with the rally near the Frontenac. Twelve hundred delegates flown in from around the world—with what, for money, I couldn't tell you. But they're here and they've been protesting the G-8 non-stop. I saw Quito yesterday at a smaller rally near the Parliament Building and passed him a note, just as you asked. He told me he was looking forward to the meeting."

    "He said that—those words?"

    "He wants to express his condolences personally." Ludovici tapped the table to get the waiter's attention, looking in every direction but Poincaré's. He took another sip of coffee. "What's next for you?" he finally asked. "After Interpol, I mean. What will you do?"

    "That depends."

    "On what?"

    "On whether or not I find Dana Chambi this week."

When Poincaré arrived at the rally site, he found rented propane cook stoves, portable sanitation stalls, and gas-powered generators for a sound system and lights—the cables for which had been carefully laid and secured. He also saw a first-aid tent and a raised platform that offered the press corps good angles across the crowd to the speaker's dais and the Chateau Frontenac beyond. It was an impressive show of logistics. Drummers were in place, pounding out rhythms unheard in Québec since the time of Champlain.

    The delegates mingled, the mood festive but also tense; for on the far side of a barricade stood a police line in full riot gear. Between the police and the Chateau, army regulars patrolled a small park with automatic weapons slung across their shoulders. A helicopter hovered nearby; men in sunglasses and bulky jackets worked the edges of the crowd, speaking into their lapels. The Canadians would allow freedom of assembly because not to would make them look like Soviet-era thugs in full view of the international press. But the freedom would extend to speech, not movement: no one from the ILF side of the barricades would be allowed to approach the Chateau.

    Apart from Quito, in a fashion. Poincaré watched the president of the Indigenous Liberation Front, this once-modest herder turned economist, ascend a portable platform erected as a kind of forward battlement. The moment he stepped to the microphone, one eye cocked on the cameras, Poincaré understood: Quito would use the technology of the West against itself, just as he had appropriated the Internet to assemble a virtual nation from across the globe. He spoke simply and briefly. He was addressing the world.

    He reached into a large earthenware bowl and produced what looked to be a pebble, the size one shakes from a shoe. He held the pea-stone aloft for all to see, turned, and heaved it over the barricades at the police line. It clinked off the riot shield of an officer who could not have been more than a year out of the academy. Quito turned and helped an old woman to the stage. She was dressed in leather leggings and a leather parka lined with white fur that fluttered in an updraft off the river. "Mother," he said. "Speak." She did. And so did man after woman after man. A reindeer herder from Lapland; a bushman from the Kalahari; a Lakota Sioux; a Kaiapo shaman from the Amazon. Slowly and without direction, hundreds of men and women formed a queue that snaked through the rally grounds to the makeshift stage. Each, in turn, told a story of a world undone, then held a pebble to the crowd and hurled it at the police. Many wept; now and again, someone raised a keening cry. All the while, drummers kept their rhythm.

    Poincaré's cell phone rang. The number showed Lyon, and he ignored it. The phone rang again and he turned it off. By 3 PM, he sensed agitation among the police, who endured one pebble after the next clinking off their riot shields. Mounted security had begun to restrain skittish horses. Not only had Quito outmaneuvered the Canadians, he was baiting them. The vigil was now being broadcast to the world, bounced off satellites and doubtless across the park to the presidents and prime ministers who sat, so well guarded, in the Chateau.

    Evening fell. Organizers had set up food stations, but local vendors from within and without the walls of Old Québec had begun arriving with sandwiches and encouragement, shouting V
iva la mani
festation!
A crowd of onlookers swelled and began jeering the police. Poincaré had not anticipated such a long rally, but Quito had: cooks began dispensing soup and coffee; chairs were being set out for the elders; marshals with signs kept orderly queues. One speaker followed the next when Poincaré noted a short man with a broad face and chocolate skin stepping to the microphone. The gesture is what caught Poincaré's eye. Before speaking, the man raised his arms. "Brothers and Sisters!" he cried:

"I am of the Pitjantjatjara people from the Western Desert of the land invaders call Australia. When I was six, agents of the occupying government stole me and a whole generation from our homes to be raised in mission settlements. To civilize us. To make us serve them. I ran at the age eight, and they caught me and beat me. I ran two years later. I ran for good at the age of twelve to drink whiskey and wander. The old ways are lost. The new ways are empty. My parents died not knowing what became of their children. I am a Pitjantjatjara from the Western Desert of the land invaders call Australia."