Chapter One
Paris, November 2005
Paris was muttering angrily.
A storm of indignation was shaking the entire city. The thunder of public rallies battered the fronts of Haussmann's buildings, echoing through the alleyways on the great boulevards, until it reached the ministers.
A leaden sky had lain across the roofs since the scandal began, strangling the capital like a too-tight scarf.
Never had France known a November like it: so icy and yet so electric.
The press had been dining out on it for the last three weeks; certain journalists went as far as stating that November 2005 would relegate May 1968 to the ranks of an anecdotal skirmish if things continued in the same way.
The newspaper stands flashed past like milestones in one of the rear windows of the powerful sedan, issuing their information in regular doses, vital for survival in a civilized environment. All the front pages gave details of the Affair as they saw it; there was scarcely any room for the rest of the news.
The sedan was running alongside a large truck.
Suddenly, the reflection of a face appeared in its rear window.
Marion flinched imperceptibly as she suddenly came face-to-face with herself.
Her face was a ghost's. Her pleasant features were not sufficient today to make her easy on the eye; she had grown too pale, her split lip divided her face like the comma in an eternally unfinished sentence, her sandy hair showed a few streaks of white, and, in particular, her eyes had lost all their brightness. The inquisitive, jade-green flame had given way to two dying embers.
She was approaching forty, and life had just presented her with a really great gift.
The leather squeaked as the man at her side leaned toward the driver and asked him to take a right. Marion blinked in an attempt to forget her face.
Three males, as virile as they were cryptic, were surrounding her in this silent car. Men from the DST.
Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire—the French equivalent of the CIA.
The acronym struck a heavy, slightly terrifying chord.
Especially for Marion, who had never had any problems with the law, who had only been stopped by the police once in her life for a routine identity check, and whose job as a secretary at the Médico-légal Institute and morgue in Paris was the only original thing about her—if indeed it was original.
She had always felt herself to be identical to the millions of other people she lived with in this country, caught up in the system of work, lifting her head a little higher after each year, so she could stay afloat and go on breathing.
Nothing in her life had prepared her to find herself one day in this car, heading for the unknown.
Until she'd returned from her holidays, at the start of October.
Until that morning, very early, when she had entered the cold autopsy room. Each detail was engraved on her mind. Even the stuttering of the neon lights when she pressed the switch. Once again she saw the flashes of white light reflecting off the tiles, the immaculate stainless steel of the dissection table. Her heels echoed at each step. The antiseptic smell hadn't completely masked the other, more acrid smell of cold meat. The only reason she was there so early that morning was to find Dr. Mendès, who was neither there nor in the adjoining storeroom.
Marion had turned around to walk back across the room.
Her eyes fell on it by chance, as though drawn to it.
It wasn't very eye-catching, hardly a cartoon strip.
But it had changed her life.
Until the DST came to see her and told her she was going to die.
Probably.
Unless she agreed to disappear. For a time at least, long enough for things to calm down, for a place to be found for her, for them to rely on her, for a system to be set in motion.
Everything had been so quick.
Paranoia is a virus. Transmit it in the right circumstances and it will develop all on its own. From that moment on, Marion had spotted shadows in her wake, individuals spending the night in darkened cars in front of the building where she lived, and her telephone sounded strange, as if it had been bugged.
Then the attack.
She swallowed, ran her tongue across her lips. The cut was still there.
A warning.
Marion had agreed to disappear.
Before the media discovered the identity of this woman, the initiator of the greatest scandal the Fifth Republic had known; before other people, dangerous in different ways this time, returned to attack.
The man from the DST who took charge of her case had told her just to bring warm clothes, and her most personal possessions, as she wouldn't be returning home for a long time; it could be a month, maybe a year. She knew nothing about her destination.
The vehicle with the darkened windows passed through La Défense tunnel, heading toward the A13 Autoroute, and in a few minutes disappeared toward the west, evaporating into the anger and the gray-white horizon that encircled Paris.
The smell of the sea gave Marion her first clue, but darkness fell too quickly for her to spot any landmarks as they passed by. She rested her head back against the seat, rolled up her window, and confined herself just to following the few lights with her eyes. For now, her future was nothing but a roar in the darkness, a doubt moving at eighty miles per hour, speeding toward the unknown.
She reopened her eyes to find that the car was climbing a forgotten road, with nothing on either side but emptiness. Marion sensed that they were almost there, and pressed her face to the glass like an impatient child in need of reassurance. The vehicle slowed down and turned left before coming to a halt beside a stone wall.
The front passenger immediately got out and opened the door so she could get out. Stiff after the journey, Marion had difficulty straightening her long legs. She stood up gently, numb with sleep. They were standing at the bottom of a steep hill.
Ancient structures rose up from the slope, forming a collection of fortifications and dwellings worthy of a medieval film.
Then the moon pierced through the low clouds, and trained its silver searchlight on the summit.
Out of the shadows loomed a colossal tower, dominating the entire bay, its foundations crushing all architectural pretensions for miles around.
Marion closed her eyes with a sigh.
Behind her, one of the men had just placed her two suitcases on the ground.
She had arrived at the bottom of what was going to be her retreat for the weeks, or maybe months, to come.
Mont-Saint-Michel.
As fleetingly as it had appeared, the summit sank back into the darkness, as the moon withdrew behind its nocturnal sieve, like an insect slipping away, sheltering from predators.
Copyright © 2005 by Maxim Chattam. Translation copyright © 2006 by Susan Dyson. All rights reserved.
