Without warning

‘Excuse me, Caitlin. I am expecting someone… Yes, I am sorry – it is the continental way of narrative. Much more elliptical than your own. Let me “bottom-line” it for you, to borrow from your own vernacular. Since the accommodation in Algeria, there has been a school of thought, a quiet but powerful clique within the state, which has believed that accommodation with Islam is the only way forward. At first this group was centred on the Quai d’Orsay, here in Paris, and they applied their doctrine within their own sphere, often in conflict with other actors in the state realm.’

‘Okay, so your Foreign Ministry was rub-fucking the Arabs. I have to say, this isn’t breaking news.’

Rolland uncapped the brandy flask and took a swig for himself before offering it to Caitlin again. She joined him. The pills, whatever they were, had begun to smooth her rough edges and another drink seemed like a good idea. Sitting on this magnificent old sofa, drinking fine spirits and chatting with the handsome French officer, she finally began to get some distance on the horror of the previous weeks.

‘I believe similar tensions existed between your own State Department and the military,’ Rolland countered. ‘It is the usual way between peacemakers and war fighters. But here in France, there was a complicating factor, which grew more complicated with every year.’

Caitlin nodded slowly. ‘Your own Muslim population.’

‘Quite so. Just as your country found that certain questionable policies and state activities initially carried out beyond your borders, say, in South-East Asia, tended to return home in one form or another…’

‘We called it “blow-back”.’

‘How brutally elegant. Well, we too have discovered that a contagion, acquired in Algiers, transmitted itself to the body politic right here.’

‘Rolland, this would be a fascinating discussion if we were Jean-Paul and Simone sucking down Gitanes and black coffee in a Montmartre cafe. But how about you ditch all the context and sell me your pitch.’

The captain leaned back and blew twin streams of blue smoke out through his nostrils. ‘Betrayal, Caitlin,’ he replied. ‘I am talking about betrayal. The man who held you here, Lacan, did not do so on his own recognisance. Nor did he operate as part of a small, traitorous cell. I am afraid that Monsieur Lacan was part of a much larger, and very well organised network of state officials, the Algerian School, as we know them, who had determined that the only possible, rational option for dealing in the long term with the rise of Muslim power in the Middle East, and within France herself, was accommodation.’

‘Appeasement, you mean.’

‘Non, “appeasement” is not a strong enough word, Caitlin. To appease is simply to make morally compromised concessions in order to maintain one’s own tenuous status. That is not what the School’s philosophy now entertains. “Adaptation” is more apt. Although in your language it sounds rather bloodless, it is not. As practised by the Algerian School, it means to slowly adapt the French secular state to the brute realities of its future as an annexe to the dar-al-Islam, as a true Muslim power.’

‘To convert.’

‘Yes. To convert. And to that end they have allied themselves with the intifada, in which your target is a leading player.’

‘Holy shit,’ she said, impressed at last. ‘And the Action Division, how many of them were…?’

Rolland shook his head. ‘Enough. Perhaps one-third. The others were quickly dealt with in the first days of fighting.’

‘But you’ve got a civil war out there. Surely you can’t have whole army divisions who’ve gone over…’

Another headshake from the Frenchman. ‘No. There is fighting between many arms of the military and other organs of the state. But most of those involved see nothing beyond their gun-sights. An army regiment is ordered to put down a mutiny by the Foreign Legion, for example, and the individual soldiers do not understand they are fighting an engagement to suit the ends of the conspiracy. To them, it is just a civil war, and now it is so far advanced that chaos reigns. Accusations, counter-claims, propaganda – all is confusion.’

He leaned forward and stubbed the butt of his cigarette.

‘But this I do know, Caitlin. You can help stop it. Your target, Baumer, he is not the key, but he leads to the key – to the masters of the Algerian School. Take them down, and the intifada is leaderless, nothing more than a rabble. A huge rabble, yes – but not one that can match an army that is not divided against itself.’

‘You want me to kill your own people?’ she asked, still having some difficulty taking it all in.

A new voice spoke up from the doorway behind Rolland, startling her. An American voice. ‘That was always going to be your next mission. That’s why you were targeted.’

* * * *

‘Wales? Goddamn, Wales!’

As sick in body and soul as she was, Caitlin pushed herself up off the couch and ran over to hug Wales Larrison, almost knocking him off his feet as she threw her arms around his neck.