Children of War (20 page)

The newspaper’s headline was: ‘Europe to Washington: Thou Shalt Not Kill’. Asked to comment, the official spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department retorted, ‘In that case, we’ll settle for life in Guantanamo.’

Bruno followed the gathering media storm closely. A regional paper,
Le Républicain Lorrain
, close to the German frontier, gave the next new lead. They ran it as an exclusive on their website edition, not waiting for the next day’s newspaper. They quoted a returning French soldier that an Afghan in French uniform had been huddled, drugged and weeping, aboard his plane from Dushanbe. The soldier complained that he had lost part of his leave since their flight had unexpectedly landed at Évreux for unspecified security reasons. There had then been a special flight to Bordeaux for the Afghan.

Bruno decided not to answer several calls from Philippe Delaron, the local correspondent for
Sud Ouest
. Philippe was no fool. He knew that something unusual was under way at the château. Furniture and food had been delivered, military helicopters were coming and going and soldiers were guarding the gates. He also knew that Bruno had been viciously attacked at the
collège
in St Denis and would probably soon learn that the Muslim teacher, Momu, had taken a sudden leave of absence and disappeared, along with his Muslim wife. And Gendarmes
had turned Philippe away when he’d tried take a picture of the ruins of Le Pavillon and get more details of the mysterious propane gas explosion which had supposedly caused it.

‘I don’t think we have long, sir, before the media knows that the Engineer is here and that he has something to do with Momu,’ Bruno said.

Bruno and Nancy were in the Brigadier’s office, sipping some of their host’s Bowmore malt whisky. They were looking in something close to disbelief over the transcripts of that day’s session with Sami. He had identified over sixty photographs, remembered precisely where and when he had seen them and how often.

When Nancy brought out a map and asked him how he had got from the Toulouse mosque to Afghanistan without a passport, Sami had recounted his journey step by step, starting with a long car ride to Germany, a charter flight full of Turkish families going back to Ankara and another charter flight to Abu Dhabi. Finally a rusty merchant ship, flying Liberian colours, had taken him and his companions to the Pakistani port of Karachi. He remembered addresses, names of the couriers who had met his Toulouse group and handed them on to the next stage. He was proving to be an extraordinary source, and he took obvious pride in pleasing Nancy in being able to answer her questions.

‘I’d like to check these reports about his skills at electronics,’ Nancy said. ‘Can we learn how he turns cellphones into detonators? We can get it on video, send it to your guys in Paris and mine in Washington. I’d like to know if he was building these IEDs from scratch or just assembling them to order.’

Bruno made a note. Florence’s computer club had a box full of broken electronics awaiting repair. One of the Brigadier’s
staff was drawing up a chronology of Sami’s Afghan sojourn. His memory was uncanny. He remembered names, dates, times and places and cheerfully recounted them all. He rattled off radio frequencies and mobile phone numbers for remotely controlled bombs, and remembered the addresses on the packaging in which they had arrived. He recalled email addresses and credit card numbers he had heard being used. He seemed to have forgotten nothing he had seen or heard.

‘We knew this media fuss would happen,’ replied the Brigadier calmly. ‘That’s why we are here in the château, sealed off and guarded. The media may speculate but all inquiries must be made to the Interior Ministry in Paris.’

‘The White House press corps won’t swallow that,’ Nancy retorted.

The Brigadier looked at her patiently. ‘Is not our work here of considerable importance?’

‘You know it is,’ she replied. ‘This is the best intelligence out of Afghanistan I’ve ever seen. We’ve got teams back at Fort Meade correlating Sami’s names and dates to all the SIGINT in the databases. We’re getting voice prints, cellphone numbers, emails, connecting all manner of dots. It’s a gold mine.’

‘So our priority is to continue our work and not permit the media to distract us. Anybody who matters in Washington and Paris knows the value of what we are gleaning here. In the meantime our press officials will give full but empty answers to the media hordes; that is what they are paid to do.’

‘Washington doesn’t quite work like that.’

‘In that case, my dear Nancy, you have my profound sympathies. Paris, thank heavens, does work like that.’

*

Bruno knew that St Denis worked in a different way altogether, but even he was startled by the text message he received later that day from Gilles at
Paris Match
. He went straight to the Brigadier to warn him that the storm was about to break over their heads.

‘
Fabiola told me full story about Sami, Pavillon, chateau
,’ Gilles had texted. ‘
She insists Sami innocent victim and unfit to stand trial. On my way to St Denis. Will you call me or do I run the story?
’

‘I assume he’s going to run the story anyway whether you call him or not,’ said the Brigadier, once Nancy had been summoned to join them.

‘Probably,’ said Bruno. ‘I can try asking him to hold off, but Fabiola would just go to Philippe Delaron at
Sud Ouest
. And remember, Sami is officially her patient. I’m surprised she hasn’t turned up already, demanding to see him.’

‘Maybe there’s a way we can make this work for us,’ Nancy interjected. ‘We tell the truth. Sami is autistic, long since declared legally unfit to take care of himself. These jihadis viciously used this poor, pathetic boy, even whipped him to build bombs. Let’s spin this against the bastards.’

Bruno felt instantly that Nancy was right. The strategic objective was not simply to penetrate al-Qaeda, and not even to break open the network of European jihadis that funnelled young Muslims to the Taliban. These were simply tactical goals that did not address the fundamental issue of politics, religion and public opinion. The crucial task was to force a separation between the jihadists and the millions of peaceful Muslims all across Europe, by exposing their ruthless and cynical treatment of someone like Sami.

‘It’s a question of how we build the narrative. If we spin this right, we can make Sami into a hero,’ Nancy went on.

‘If we are going to build this story around Sami, it might help to offer some media access,’ Bruno said. ‘I’m thinking of photos of Sami playing with Balzac, some photos of the whipping scars on his back. Maybe
Paris Match
is the best vehicle for it.’

‘If we offer them an exclusive, we can keep some control of the story,’ the Brigadier said, thoughtfully.

*

The other two members of the medical tribunal arrived later that day. Under French tradition, a medical tribunal that seeks to establish the mental competence of someone charged with a serious crime consists of a psychologist, a psychoanalyst and a practising psychiatrist. Pascal Deutz, deputy head of the prison psychiatric service, fulfilled the last of the three roles. The psychologist was Bernard Weill, an eminent professor from Paris who had also taught in London and Chicago. In his sixties, Weill had a fringe of bushy white hair above his ears and the back of his neck, but his scalp was bald and suntanned. Bruno was surprised that someone whose life was spent probing the unconscious minds of unhappy people could look so cheerful. Weill’s dark eyes twinkled and his round face broke into frequent smiles. Bruno liked him at once.

The psychoanalyst was Professor Amira Chadoub, a plump and motherly-looking woman in her early fifties. She came from a family of Moroccan immigrants and had been raised as a Muslim. There was no sign of her Moroccan heritage in her clothing; she was wearing a blue linen dress, high-heeled shoes, a pearl necklace with matching earrings, and her grey
hair was pulled back into a neat bun. Usually such a tribunal was assisted by a secretary from the Justice Ministry, a role that in this case had been assigned for security reasons to the Brigadier.

Once his two colleagues had unpacked, Deutz introduced them to the Brigadier, who made brief welcoming remarks and offered them coffee or drinks. Nancy had made herself scarce. Bruno was described vaguely as the local policeman who had known Sami since he was a boy and was invited to join them. The Brigadier evidently wanted to set some ground rules.

There were two essential issues, he began. The first was whether Sami was able to distinguish right from wrong and be responsible for his actions. The second, equally important, was whether he was fit to stand trial, to be aware of the nature of judicial proceedings against him and able to be responsible for his own defence.

‘If we judge the answer to either of those questions to be No, then he will not stand trial and will remain under medical supervision. Am I right?’ asked Professor Weill. The Brigadier nodded.

‘Just one thing,’ Deutz said. ‘I’ve heard that the signs of whipping on this man’s body are being taken to mean he was under duress. That might not be right; self-flagellation is common among some Islamic sects.’

‘How much time do we have to spend with this young man before we decide?’ Chadoub asked, ignoring Deutz’s remark.

‘I’d like to say as much time as you need,’ the Brigadier replied. ‘In practical terms we are under some time pressure. Bruno, when we have finished our coffee perhaps you could find Sami and bring him to the main salon.’

Bruno set off to find Sami in the family rooms. He found Dillah, reading a magazine, who told him that Momu and Sami had decided to explore the château. He’d probably find them in the tower, she said. He climbed up the endless stone stairs but eventually found them by the austere battlements that ran from the tower the full length of the main building.

The view from this height was spectacular. He could see across the outer wall and down into the valley with a clear view of one of the long, slow bends of the river. Just beyond the stretch of water, glinting in the sunshine, were the pale grey cliffs of limestone that defined the region and had sheltered its human inhabitants for tens of thousands of years. When Bruno had first arrived in St Denis a decade earlier, he’d been told that humans had lived there for forty thousand years. Now the archaeologists said it was at least eighty thousand years, and some thought it was far longer, citing the flint tools found at Tayac near Les Eyzies that dated back over two hundred thousand years.

A map of the local area was spread out on the stone in the gap between the battlements before the two figures. Momu was pointing to the rounded hills that enfolded St Denis as Bruno approached. Sami had Balzac clutched to his chest as his eyes followed Momu’s pointing finger until Balzac’s puny bark alerted him to Bruno’s arrival. Sami put Balzac down and let him scamper to his master.

Sami grinned as he pointed out familiar places to Bruno and then located them on the map. Momu had been showing him the scale printed on the corner of the map and Sami was using the length of his finger to work out how far away each
place was from where he stood. At one point, as Sami leaned over the battlement, Momu gently pulled him back to safety, warning him of the dangers of the drop.

Sami was still wearing the army tracksuit in which he had been jogging that morning. He looked happy and very young. Just a few days of good food and medical care had done him good. The contrast was striking with the image of the fanatical and calculating professional bomb-maker presented in the media.

‘The tribunal is here, and they want to get started,’ Bruno told Momu, who sighed and began to fold the map. Looking disappointed that the map game was over, Sami shrugged and followed them down the stairs to the salon.

‘I think we only need Sami for this meeting,’ Deutz said firmly when Bruno showed Sami and Momu into the large room, well lit by four tall windows that opened onto the park.

‘Monsieur Mohammed Belloumi is Sami’s adoptive father and has been appointed his guardian by the courts,’ Bruno said. ‘There are no legal grounds to exclude him.’

‘This is a medical examination, not a legal proceeding,’ Deutz replied, turning to the Brigadier for confirmation.

‘I have no objection to the father staying,’ interjected Weill, and Amira agreed. Bruno drew up a chair for Momu and then left the room, pausing to give Sami’s shoulder a comforting squeeze as he passed. Nancy was hovering at the corner of the corridor and asked him to describe the other two members of the tribunal.

‘It’s smart to have a Muslim on the tribunal, even if she’s no longer religious,’ she said when he’d described them. ‘Washington had a query about the other boys who went jihad from
the Toulouse mosque with Sami. Do we know who they were, what happened to them?’

‘Momu is in with Sami. Let’s ask Dillah.’ Bruno led the way to the family rooms, but they were empty. Finally they found her in the grounds, sitting on a wooden bench that faced the château, some knitting on her lap that looked as if it would become a baby’s jacket. But her hands were still and her eyes blank, almost as if she were dozing. She jerked upright when Bruno called her name and then explained why he needed her help.

‘I’ve been thinking about those other poor boys,’ she said, and Bruno scribbled down the names she gave him. ‘Momu and I tried to get their parents to come with us when we complained to the mosque. But the first one, Kader, had a French mother, a convert to Islam. They’re always the worst. She said she was proud her son had gone jihad. The others were frightened of making a fuss. I think their immigration status was in trouble, or maybe it was asylum. Their son had already been in trouble with the police, so they put him in the madrassa.’

‘Tell me about this school attached to the mosque,’ said Nancy. ‘Was it specially for autistic boys?’

They had first heard of it from the social welfare office in Sarlat, Dillah explained, when they were told there were no schools in the
Département
suitable for Sami. They had said this mosque school looked after troubled boys of various kinds with specialist teachers and doctors for boys like Sami. The Imam was a respected figure and his deputy who ran the school was often on TV, speaking what she and Momu thought was sense
about the need for a European Islam, adapted to a modern democracy.