Obsession (Year of Fire) Read online

  “Regarde-moi, Matilde.”

  She looked up and did as he asked: she stared at him. The brilliance of her silver eyes took his breath away; it was a supernatural sight. He saw her rise up on her knees on the mattress. He writhed and breathed irregularly as she clutched his penis to guide it inside her. He watched in fascination as her tight, hot flesh devoured him entirely. She rode him with a slow rhythm. His hands weren’t guiding her, instead they held her breasts, coaxing stifled exclamations from her every time he massaged the sensitive skin around her nipples with the rough pads of his thumbs. Al-Saud’s eyes roamed away from Matilde’s face, transformed by desire, to the point where their bodies met. Her white, hairless vulva, rocking against his dark, hirsute pelvis, was the most erotic sight Al-Saud had ever seen. He wanted to say so many things to her—that he loved her like no one else; that she was the most perfect creature he had ever known; that he would never abandon her—but, breathless, it was difficult to speak.

  The next morning, Al-Saud appeared in the kitchen for breakfast and bumped into Juana.

  “Good morning, stud! Where’s Mat?”

  “She’s sleeping. I want her to keep resting.” He said to Marie and Agneska in French, “Don’t make noise on the first floor. Matilde is sleeping.”

  “Stud, I’ll eat breakfast but I won’t impose any more. First I want to thank you for yesterday. You really saved us.”

  “I don’t want you to go back to Rue Toullier alone. I’ll take you. Juana, I want you both to move in here, with me. The apartment on Rue Toullier isn’t safe anymore.”

  “Pour moi, enchantée, stud! But I don’t think Mat will want to.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you first, so you can help me to convince her.”

  “What makes you say that the apartment’s not safe anymore?”

  “Because those guys who attacked you yesterday weren’t just casual criminals. They were looking for Matilde. It’s something to do with the key that that idiot Blahetter gave her the night of the party at Trégart’s place. If those guys knew you went to the institute, it’s very likely that they know where you live.”

  On Rue Toullier, Al-Saud signaled to Juana that she should stay behind him as they went up the stairs. He stopped and held out his arm to keep her away when he saw the destroyed lock and half-open door of Enriqueta’s apartment. Juana let out a yelp of surprise, and Al-Saud put his index finger to his mouth, telling her to be quiet. He drew his Sig Sauer nine millimeter before pushing open the door with the toe of his boot. He went inside and checked room by room. No one was there.

  “Juana, the place is clean. You can come in.”

  “My God, stud! I feel like I’m living in a thriller. How the hell did they destroy the lock? Wouldn’t a neighbor have heard them?”

  Al-Saud studied the doorjamb.

  “They used a silent explosive.” Inside, he thought, My God! They’re professionals and they’re after Matilde.

  According to Juana, who checked the rooms, the only thing out of place was the frame of the portrait of Matilde when she was five, which had been thrown to the ground, the gold-leaf frame broken and the plywood snapped on all four sides. They hadn’t taken the painting, only the part behind it. He remembered that Blahetter had recovered it and returned it to Matilde. What had he hidden between the canvas and the back panel?

  “Juana, throw some clothes for you and Matilde in a bag and let’s get out of here. We’ll come back later for the rest.” Al-Saud went out to the stairwell to talk to Peter Ramsay. “Peter, it’s me. I need you and Alamán to come to number nine Rue Toullier. Yes, Matilde’s apartment. Someone blew out the lock and entered. I need you to change the locks and put in security measures, the best. Plus I want to see the videotape. I’d guess that whoever it was came in between seven at night and six in the morning.”

  As soon as he hung up on Ramsay, another call came in. It was Edmé de Florian. “Hello, Edmé.”

  “Eliah, they just found a Renault Laguna in Bois de Boulogne. It had a body in it, with its left ear blown off. This is clearly the same guy who attacked you yesterday. You know where they put the bullet? In his right eye.”

  “Just like the bellboy at the George V,” Al-Saud thought out loud.

  “The impact left a hole the size of a fist. I think it was the same type of projectile that killed the bellboy.”

  “A hollow-point bullet? A dumdum?”

  “Could be.”

  “Did you find the shell?”

  “Not yet. Forensics are combing the Renault and the area. I’ll let you know as soon as I get the report from ballistics.”

  Another dumdum bullet and in the right eye again. Though it might be a coincidence, the affair was beginning to look very murky indeed.

  “Ready, stud,” said Juana.

  “Let’s go then.”

  Before they left the apartment, Al-Saud picked up the painting.

  “Matilde.”

  The whisper drifted into her dream. She looked through a crack in her eyes and it took her a few seconds to recognize that it was Leila kneeling near the head of the bed.

  “Bonjour, Matilde.”

  It was a strange feeling, to be half-asleep and feel your heart jump. She kept her head still on the pillow like someone afraid of scaring off a little bird. She struggled to answer, her voice hoarse with sleep.

  “Bonjour, Leila.”

  The girl smiled and stroked her cheek with the back of her fingers until she stood up, left the plinth and headed toward the flower room, where she set out the teacups for breakfast on the table where they had eaten dinner. The smell of fresh coffee mingled with that of warm croissants, but Matilde didn’t notice it. She remained immobile in bed. Leila had just spoken to her. She regained some of her composure and, pretending that everything was normal, pulled on her robe and went to the bathroom. When she came back, Leila was sitting at the table smiling. Matilde spoke to her in French without receiving a response. They ate breakfast conversing in the normal way: Matilde’s words and Leila’s smiling silences.

  Al-Saud found them in the flower room. Leila jumped out of her seat and ran to him. She had gone back to being a little girl. Al-Saud hugged her and winked at Matilde, who smiled at him from the table. Leila pulled away from Al-Saud and, with signs, asked him if they were going to the market. Matilde was amazed that she had remembered it was Tuesday, market day at Place Maubert.

  “I can’t go with you today, sweetie. I have too much work. I’ll ask Medes to take you. Now go down to the kitchen, because Marie and Agneska want to know what you’re making for lunch.”

  Matilde approached him in silence. She put her hands under his jacket and squeezed his waist. The cold from outside still clung to his body; she didn’t understand why he would go out so underdressed on a frozen morning like this. She buried her nose in the part of his chest left uncovered by the shirt, where a tuft of thick, black hair peeked out, and inhaled the Givenchy Gentleman.

  Al-Saud put his thumb under her chin and lifted her face.

  “What’s going on? Why these tears?”

  “Eliah,” Matilde said, choked with emotion. “Eliah, Leila just spoke to me.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. She said ‘Matilde,’ and then ‘Bonjour, Matilde.’”

  Al-Saud tightened his embrace and rested his face on the top of her head.

  “It had to be you,” he said in French. “It had to be you to rescue her. Matilde, my love.”

  “That’s all she said. And for a moment she behaved like a girl of her age. Then she shut herself away again in her little girl Leila persona. How can we help her?”

  Without letting her go, Al-Saud led her to the armchair and sat her on his lap.

  “Matilde. I have to give you some bad news. Don’t be scared. Nothing happened, but I shudder to think that you might have been there.”

  “Eliah, for the love of God, tell me what happened.”

  “This morning I took Juana to the apartment on Rue Toullie
r. We found the lock destroyed and the door open.” Matilde clutched at her throat, stifling a scream. “Juana says that they didn’t take anything. They didn’t destroy anything, except for your painting, the portrait of you. They didn’t ruin the canvas, fortunately, but they did destroy the frame and the back panel. They cut it open as though they were looking for something hidden behind it, something that son of a bitch Blahetter obviously hid there.”

  “My God, Eliah! I’m scared. What’s going on?”

  “Matilde, I want you and Juana to live here, with me. It’s the safest place for you.” Faced with her worried expression, he insisted, “My love, it’s obvious that this idiot Blahetter has gotten you into a huge mess. Let me protect you! Please! Don’t be stubborn about this.”

  “Fine, yes, yes. We won’t go back to Rue Toullier until this mess is all cleared up. But I have to take care of fixing the lock and arranging…”

  “Forget it. I’m taking care of everything already. Matilde,” he said, cradling her face in both hands, “I don’t want you going back to that place for any reason. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  “Also, neither you nor Juana can go anywhere without an escort. Nowhere.”

  “Eliah, please!”

  “Matilde, wasn’t what happened last night enough to show you? These guys aren’t messing around. They’re professionals. Don’t make things difficult for me. I’m only asking for your cooperation. I already talked to Juana and she’s fine with everything.”

  “Obviously,” she muttered ironically. “Whatever the stud says is gospel.” Al-Saud laughed softly and kissed her on the lips. “Thank you for looking after us, Eliah. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

  “You can’t go to the institute until I can organize bodyguards for you. Don’t look at me like that, it’ll just be for today. Maybe tomorrow. Now I have to leave you. I have a lot things to do and meetings waiting for me at Mercure.”

  “Yes, yes, don’t waste any more time.”

  “Matilde, this is your house. You’re its mistress from now on. You can do whatever you want. I’ve already told this to Marie and Agneska.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  * * *

  * * *

  CHAPTER 15

  * * *

  * * *

  “Congratulations, Udo,” said Gérard Moses. “You’ve done a good job.” He was going over Blahetter’s plans for the centrifuge, so he didn’t see the German’s exultant face. “Even though you let Blahetter escape, you got the plans, and that’s enough. “C’est incroyable!” he exclaimed under his breath when he saw how Blahetter had resolved a problem with enriching uranium that had kept him up at night. The Argentinean nuclear engineer’s intelligence knew no bounds. Atomic physics hadn’t seen a revolutionary advance like this since Einstein. How he would have enjoyed working with him! He would have persuaded him to switch his research to nanotechnology, which he thought was the science of the future.

  Now he would concentrate on building a prototype of Blahetter’s centrifuge. He had to stop calling it Blahetter’s centrifuge. The Moses centrifuge, he thought, though he immediately rejected the name because he wasn’t going to use his father’s surname. He would use Wright, which was how he was known in the worlds of academia and weaponry alike. Orville Wright. The name wasn’t just a whimsical choice—Orville Wright had been one of the Wright brothers, the inventors of the airplane. When they were kids, Eliah and he had always played at being the Wright brothers. He, Gérard, was always Orville. Eliah was Wilbur.

  He made an effort to get Eliah’s face out of his mind and return to the plans for the centrifuge. He would study them in depth, read Blahetter’s notes and thoroughly analyze the formulas. Then he would construct the prototype before going to Iraq and giving the sayid rais—Saddam Hussein—his grand invention. It would make the country great among the nations of the world; it would restore pride to the Iraqi nation and allow them to destroy the enemies that had humiliated them. They would be wiped from the face of the Earth with Iraq’s new nuclear arsenal, his father and brother, Shiloah, among them.

  “Sir,” Udo said, “it won’t be difficult to find Blahetter.” Gérard looked up from his scrutiny of the plans. “When I had him in my power, I took this card out of his jacket.” He handed it over, and Moses read it: Ezequiel Blahetter. Mannequin. 29 Avenue Charles Floquet, troisième étage. “I’ll stand guard at this address. Sooner or later, I’ll get him.”

  It was imperative to find him. They had to get rid of him. The prospect made him so sad! Getting rid of Blahetter was undoubtedly a waste. Still, Blahetter had to disappear, because there wasn’t enough room in the world for the both of them. Blahetter would expose his theft of the invention, and, if it went to international court, Gérard would be ruined.

  “Take care of finding Blahetter. That’s your priority now. I think the plans are complete, but I have to study them to be sure. If they end up being incomplete, we’ll need him to give us the missing part. Udo,” he said, changing his tone, “how would you feel about getting back in the ring, like old times? The commando raids you were so good at?” The German stared at him, his eyes wide. “Al-Muzara has asked for you. He says that you’re the only one who can properly plan an attack on OPEC.”

  “OPEC,” Jürkens repeated, stroking his chin. “It won’t be easy, but I could do it. Carlos the Jackal did it successfully in 1975. I was with him at the time.” He was pleased by the shocked look on his boss’s face. “Yes, I was one of the men who raided the OPEC headquarters with Carlos. What is the objective of the attack?”

  “Al-Muzara wants to kidnap a few oil ministers and a prince from the house of Al-Saud, Kamal Al-Saud. Yes, yes, he’s related to my friend Eliah. He’s his father. He wants to demand a ransom. It’s for the money.”

  “Just as Carlos’s raid was.”

  “He’ll pay you well, Udo, if you accept the job. Al-Muzara promised. Seven percent of the haul will be for you.”

  “I accept,” Jürkens responded, with enthusiasm, though he had some qualms. “Who will I be working with? Where will I get the weapons?”

  “Al-Muzara will answer all your questions in his own time.” Gérard stood up to leave the study. He stopped before he got to the door. “Udo, now that we’re done with the plans, we need to talk about another matter: Eliah’s new woman.”

  “Blahetter’s wife, the one that had the key.”

  “Yes, that same one. I need to know everything about her. You’ve found out that she’s Blahetter’s wife. Now I want more information.”

  “Sir, you just told me that my priority is to locate Blahetter again.”

  Gérard suffered an instant of confusion and then shame. His memory was starting to fail him, his thoughts were getting jumbled. Sometimes he would catch himself in the middle of doing something stupid, like putting toothpaste in the bath instead of bath salts. The porphyria was advancing, and it didn’t look as though the cure was close at hand. His anger disguised his embarrassment.

  “The fact that I gave you priorities doesn’t mean that I can’t tell you everything that needs doing!”

  “Of course, sir. I apologize.”

  “Find Blahetter, don’t forget that we lost him due to your incompetence. Then investigate the girl.”

  Gérard went up to the roof of his house on Quai de Béthune. He found young Antoine feeding the pigeons. They all looked healthy and beautiful. He surveyed Al-Muzara’s stock and found a pigeon that inspired special affection in him.

  “Antoine, get Aladdin ready. The release will be in three hours.”

  He went back to the study to write the coded message in which he confirmed that Udo Jürkens would lead the attack against OPEC.

  This time Al-Saud had no problem getting into room 304 at the Hospital Européen Georges Pompidou. A fleeting glance at Blahetter was enough to see that he was depressed. Ezequiel had probably already told him about the disappearance of the key.

  “T
omorrow you’ll have the documentation you asked for,” Roy said, his head still on the pillow, not making eye contact with Al-Saud. “The contact at my grandfather’s company got everything in less time than expected. He’ll overnight them today through Federal Express.”

  “Piece of shit,” Eliah spat, and Blahetter whipped his head around. “I want you to tell me right now what mess you’ve gotten Matilde into. You must have already heard from your brother that four men attacked her yesterday to get the key that you gave her. And today we found the lock to her aunt’s apartment destroyed. The portrait of Matilde as a little girl was torn up.”

  Blahetter slowly let his eyelids droop shut and let out an anguished moan.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, without opening his eyes. “I’m so sorry. It seems as though I always do everything wrong.”

  “To hell with your excuses! I want you to tell me what’s going on. I need to know what I’m facing so I can protect her. You’re in this state because of the key, aren’t you, and you told them that Matilde had it?”