Sohlberg and the White Death (46 page)

“I told you to kneel.”

“No,” said Chief Inspector Sohlberg. “If I die . . . I die standing up . . . on my feet.”

“Get down on your knees.”

Sohlberg gripped the rail on the bridge and watched the river flow past him. “No.”

“Shoot him now,” said Ishmael. “Finish him.”

At the end all will be clear. All will be revealed. Sohlberg knew this and he was at peace.

“You always have to do things your way,” said his friend, colleague, and betrayer. “Okay . . . we’ll do it your way . . . but this will be the last time you get what you want.”

“Enough chitchat. . . . Kill him now.”

The stars lit the moonless night. A luminescent arc shot out of the horizon where the Milky Way littered the night sky with billions of distant suns. Sohlberg leaned forward on the rail.

“Sohlberg . . . if you’re going to be the big hero then turn around and look at death in the face. I dare you.”

Sohlberg turned. Death smiled.

At the end all will be clear. All will be revealed.

Lightning flashed. Tiny rain drops wetted Sohlberg’s face. A thunderbolt roared and it shook him. An eerie still silence of sudden deafness left him disoriented. Thunderclouds and electrical storms are common in the foothills of the Alps specially after a hot summer day like that day. But Sohlberg did not remember seeing any clouds in the sky above—or nearby—when they parked in front of the bridge.

Did the steel trusses of the bridge attract lightning?

Laprade fired the second round of his .38 Special revolver into Domenico Pelle. This time the lethal plug of lead plunged not into Pelle’s skull but into his heart. A third bullet ripped through the liver and kidney of the stunned
consigliere
who dropped dead on the concrete floor. Laprade flung the gun into the river and said:

“C’mon on. Help me pick him up.”

Sohlberg touched his face and realized that the rain drops on his face were actually the fine mist of blood and cerebral matter that exploded out of Domenico Pelle’s head with the first shot from Laprade. Sohlberg was drenched in blood droplets from head to toe thanks to the geyser that erupted out of Pelle’s chest with the second shot into his heart. At point-blank range Domenico Pelle had become a living fountain of blood. The metallic smell of iron in Pelle’s blood stayed in Sohlberg’s nose for months.

“Sohlberg . . . snap out of it! . . . Help me pick him up.”

Robotic thinking propelled Sohlberg. He began lifting. Laprade flipped the heavy corpse into the river. Sohlberg look around for witnesses. None.

~ ~ ~

Laprade drove under the speed limit. They reached the barn and stable with the tired deliberateness of all the other French peasants who had labored in the fields all day.

The commissaire splashed gasoline into a rusting old barrel and lit a roaring fire. “Get naked. Drop all your clothes in the barrel. Shoes. Everything. Go to the stable. There’s soap and a water hose . . . shower thoroughly and come back and get dressed.”

“Why? . . . Why did you do it?”

“He had it coming. The son of a bitch was always going to try to destroy us. He was well on his way to frame you for murder and set me up for bribery . . . we faced long prison terms . . . if that torture didn’t pan out then . . . sooner or later . . . he’d have us killed.”

“But—”

“Sohlberg . . . don’t you understand? . . . It was him or us. Don’t be naive. Domenico Pelle was also going to go after your wife Emma. Do you think he was going to let her go if he couldn’t get you convicted for the murder of Azra Korbal?”

“This is not the way to do it.”

“Not the way? . . . What are you talking about? You agreed that this was the way.”

“When?” shouted Sohlberg. “When did I agree?”

“Right after we met with Pelle in Old Lyon. You and I went to Chez Patrick. . . . We left the bar and walked up to my car . . . we stood right in front of the Guignol Theater. One of the puppeteers was out on the street with some puppets that looked like Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette. You said that Ishmael was going to be trouble for us. ‘
Lots of it. Count on it.
’ Does that sound familiar?”

“Vaguely.”

“I then told you that I was not afraid of Domenico Pelle or any lowlife. You said that we had to be careful. ‘
Very careful.
’”

The memory was now crystal clear.

“Sohlberg . . . I then said . . . ‘
I’ll take all appropriate measures.
’ That’s what I said.”

A wave of nausea rocked Sohlberg.

“Do you remember what you then said? Do you Sohlberg? . . . You said, ‘
Good.
’”

“I never meant—”

“You never meant for me to kill Domenico Pelle? . . . You knew I would. I told you I would. You went along.”

Sohlberg shook his head.

“What the hell did you think I was talking about? . . . We only talk about matters of life and death. We’re not children. This is not a game. What the hell did you think I was talking about when I said I would take
all appropriate measures
?”

Sohlberg admitted defeat. His zombie legs carried him to the stable.

A shower in freezing water brought him back to life. The bracing baptism cleansed him of all illusions. The brutal law of survival in the mean streets of life had once again prevailed. Everything else meant nothing. His refined education and manners—nothing. His law degree—nothing. His police training and advanced investigative techniques—nothing. His experience and cleverness and hard work as a detective—nothing.

Yes, he thought. It took the ignorant brute of Laprade to see
everything
as it really is and not as I wish crime and criminals to be. Interesting. I never thought that I belonged to the majority of people who have so many illusions about the world and those around us.

Laprade washed in the stable while Sohlberg shivered before the burning barrel. The men’s clothes and belts and shoes and berets were incinerated into fine ash along with Domenico Pelle’s blood and tissue.

“We,” said Laprade, “should be back in Lyon in four or five hours.”

“Why so long?”

“We need to make sure we have a good clean burn. And when that’s done . . . it’s home sweet home. I’ll finally get to sleep like a baby. So should you.”

The French detective drove the Citroen out of the barn and the Fiat back inside. The two men splashed gasoline and kerosene inside the Fiat and the barn. This time Laprade left the barn door wide open for maximum ventilation and combustion.

One hour later the red embers of the barn glowed in the darkness. Laprade started the Citroen and said:

“He had it coming.”

No one noticed or reported anything odd that night. The bonfire of the barn and Fiat segued into the countryside where other farmers were burning deadwood and weeds.

“I’m done,” said Sohlberg. “Finished. I hate this job. I never thought Locust would turn out to be such a failure . . . a black hole . . . destroying everyone.”

“Nonsense. You’re going to make your presentation to the Select Committee in a few days and everyone will vote for each country to issue arrest warrants. You’ll soon be posting Interpol
Red Notices
for the arrest of these gangsters everywhere and anywhere in the world.

“But—”

“But nothing. No one will know what a dirty stinking mess we had to clean up. . . . But there’s a downside to all this.”

“What?” said Sohlberg.

“All the credit will go to your favorite nitwit . . . the Secretary General . . . Ron Noble . . . will retire from Interpol in a cloud of glory. All thanks to you . . . the man who hates him.”

“The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.”

“Tell that to Domenico Pelle.”

BOOK FOUR: NO DOUBT DESERVED

I no doubt deserved my enemies,

but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

— Walt Whitman

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

— Gen. George S. Patton, U.S. Army

Injustice in the end produces independence.

— Voltaire

Chapter 28/Tjueåtte

LYON AND CHALLEX, FRANCE:

SEPTEMBER 23 AND 25, OR FIVE

MONTHS AND 11 AND 13 DAYS

AFTER THE DAY

Laprade and the dying soldier had spoken as they always spoke—mostly in silence. The detective looked out the window. A rainbow curved out of the early morning rainclouds. Laprade turned to look at his friend. But his comrade was gone.

Death had finally arrived as an angel of mercy.

Laprade thought about all the times that he had seen Death in its many forms. Death as the angel of retribution. Death as the mindless butcher that careless politicians let loose on a Nation’s cannon fodder during futile wars. Death as the necessary outcome for the foolish who tempt the Devil. Death as the lonely journey that everyone will undertake sooner or later.

Laprade closed his friend’s eyes and walked out of Hôpital de la Croix-Rousse.

~ ~ ~

The green clock on top of the third floor roof struck noon just as Laprade walked out of one of the older buildings on the south side of the hospital campus. He looked around for Marine Venner. The young woman had recently graduated from the police academy. She had been assigned to a six-month stint with Laprade in her starting rank as a First Year Peace Guard—
Gardien de la Paix Stagiaire
.

“Ah,” said Laprade. “There she is.” He was glad that Marine Venner had taken the initiative to drive around several times before finding a spot in the small parking lot in front of the building’s entrance.

All sixteen parking spaces had been full when she had dropped him off. She was parked in the far right corner. Marine Venner had backed into the space so that she could see Laprade through the windshield when he walked out of the building.

The commissaire waved at her. He was in a rush to get back to the office. Laprade wanted to avoid the slow traffic at the main gate of the hospital campus. He knew a shortcut through a back street that led straight out to Rue Hénon.

Marine Venner nodded and started the engine in Laprade’s Peugeot. She died instantly.

A powerful fireball sent a killer shockwave that lifted and shredded parked vehicles. The high-tech scythe of death cut down two nurses who were walking past Laprade. The explosion also sliced into a driver who was driving behind Laprade’s car after picking up his elderly mother.

The building’s windows shattered. A deadly cloud of shrapnel blew out of Laprade’s car at speeds of 3,728 miles per hour. The cloud carried ball bearings and screws that had been embedded in Demex 400 explosive under the gasoline tank of Laprade’s vehicle. The RDX-based plastic explosive was made exclusively by Royal Ordnance Factories for the British army and it had been stolen a year ago by a lance corporal with an expensive daily habit of premium cocaine and high-grade marijuana.

The shockwave knocked down Laprade like a rag doll. Ball bearings and screws and pieces of shredded cars flew into and past him. He was a bloody mess. Bruno Laprade escaped grievous and fatal injuries thanks to a solid row of cars between himself and his
Gardien de la Paix Stagiaire.
His worst injury was a lacerated scalp that required twelve stitches.

~ ~ ~

Sohlberg rushed in a taxi cab to Hôpital de la Croix-Rousse. Meanwhile the bomb squad was inspecting his Volvo. The entire block around Sohlberg’s apartment had been evacuated and cordoned off for two hours. At midnight Sohlberg brought the bandaged detective back to his home after the commissaire refused to spend the night at the hospital.

“Under observation for what?” yelled Laprade at the doctors. “To watch me die? . . . You’re going to have to a wait a long time for that!”

~ ~ ~

Emma Sohlberg made a woozy Laprade his favorite dinner:
sallade aux pardons
. She had arrived the day before. Fru Sohlberg crisp-fried thick slabs of bacon strips and blotted them with paper towels before cutting them into small cubes that she tossed into the endive lettuce and minced shallots. She added olive oil, white-wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper to the bacon drippings and heated the mixture. Emma drizzled the warm sauce into the salad where three poached eggs were nestled on top of the greens.

Laprade ate, downed a brandy, rejected all painkillers, and was soon snoring in the guest bedroom when Sohlberg’s work cell phone buzzed.