Angelo Farentino had once known courage. He had worn it as lightly as one of his expensive suits. For countless years he had championed and supported those who roamed the world reporting dangerous practices that could wreak havoc with the environment.
And then one night he awoke-a frightened man. He could no longer endure the intimidation and threats of the destroyers. The realization came that he could survive, be protected and become wealthy. All he had to do was betray those who trusted him implicitly.
Like a deep-seated disease, the seeds of deception had started months, perhaps even years, earlier. It was caused, he realized some time later, by pain and jealousy. Of being denied something he could not have. A woman. His anger, like the claws of a beast, had torn something from his heart. And weakened him.
His courage had never truly returned, but his sense of survival was intact. Which was why he had argued with Tishenko. Less an argument, perhaps, more an impassioned plea. What Tishenko wanted could cost Farentino his life.
“You want me to go to England and speak to Tom Gordon?”
Tishenko had no lips-they had been scorched from him when the lightning struck him as a boy-but the gap that was his mouth widened into a grin. “We know where he is. And we know his mind is as fragile as a kite in a storm.”
Farentino sipped the drink Tishenko had put into his hand. Drinking and listening allowed him to avert his eyes as often as possible. Tishenko’s appearance had always given him a shudder of revulsion. For a man who cherished art and beauty as much as Farentino, the grotesque Tishenko was an affront.
Tishenko took his drink through a straw. “You know his boy, Max. He has become involved in something quite extraordinary. He has slipped past my people, and he has discovered information that could cause me damage if anyone had the understanding and the knowledge to study it carefully,” Tishenko said quietly.
Farentino had once tried to have Tom Gordon killed and Max had been caught up in that assault as well. He knew the boy, all right.
“Why is Max Gordon involved?” Farentino asked.
“I am uncertain whether he stumbled upon the information I need by accident or his father has something to do with it.”
“Tom Gordon would never deliberately send his son into anything dangerous. That’s ridiculous,” Farentino protested.
“There has been contact between father and son. If Tom Gordon knows anything about my plans he could cause me trouble. He could stop everything. My destiny will not be thwarted by a teenage boy and a man who has lost his mind.”
“And I am supposed to walk in on Tom Gordon and ask him if he is involved? He would kill me. On the spot. He would kill me!”
Tishenko watched the sun rise across the Alps. The ball of fire threw spears of light through the jagged peaks. The fiery orb gave life, but it would pale into insignificance if his plans succeeded.
He kept his gaze on the sunrise, its warmth lighting the sky. “Tom Gordon does not know who he is most of the time. He has only fragments of memory. But if he has instigated an investigation, using his son as an unofficial source of information, then he would be in command of his faculties-at least for these recent events. I don’t care how you do it, Farentino. Go and speak to him. Convince him you are still his friend.” Tishenko turned and stared at the subdued Farentino. The disfigured face smiled. “And then you can enjoy the act of betrayal yet again.”
After an hour’s driving, while Max slept, Abdullah had pulled into the crease of a hillside, the darkness cloaking the Land Cruiser’s bulk. He wanted to make sure they were not being followed. If word of their escape had somehow got out of the city there might also be ambushes in place. To learn patience was to survive. Besides, Sophie’s friend was sick. Abdullah had stopped twice to allow Max to vomit. It was the monkey bite. Now he lay in a deep sleep, sweat dappling his face. But Abdullah didn’t want to wait too long-the boy would need medical attention.
While Max slept, Sophie clambered into the backseat and used the vehicle’s first-aid kit to clean and dress the bite on Max’s arm. As the desert’s night chill penetrated the Land Cruiser, she pulled a rug across them both. Abdullah and his man would stay on guard.
Max felt marginally better when daylight came. He had barely moved all night. It seemed obvious that all his recent exertions had been responsible for accelerating the infection from the bite. The glands in his neck and under his arm were swollen, and his stomach muscles still hurt, but the giddiness had gone. His arm, though, was stiff and felt numb. Once he’d checked the dressing he realized it must have been Sophie who had cared for him. She lay curled across his lap, still sleeping. He gulped from the bottle of water Abdullah’s man offered him to ward off dehydration from vomiting. The day was going to be hot, so he needed liquid more than food right now.
Sophie moved slightly. Uncertain what to do about the sleeping girl, he decided to leave her undisturbed.
As the sun threw its light across the landscape, the richness and beauty of the mountains and valleys surprised him. In the distance, to the west and south, a rugged, stone-flecked desert leveled out across the horizon-a shimmering warning that a harsher terrain was not far away. The Land Cruiser gripped the dirt track that led through the mountains and their snow-capped peaks that sucked in the orange warmth.
The 4?4 hit a deep rut, jolted and righted itself. Sophie was wide awake in an instant. She looked at Max, gazed through the windshield, then licked the dryness from her lips. Max gave her the bottle of water. She drank thirstily and handed it back.
“Are you all right?” she asked Max.
He nodded. “Thanks for doing my arm.”
She shrugged. “It needs attention. My father will look at you. He knows about these things.”
“If it lives on the face of the earth it has probably bitten Laurent Fauvre,” Abdullah said.
They could see from his eyes in the rearview mirror that he was smiling.
“And probably died from blood poisoning as a result,” Sophie said as she pulled her fingers through her hair.
“Sophie, go easy on your father. Show some respect, yes? He lives a hard life,” Abdullah said gently.
“And it takes a hard man to live it,” she said to no one in particular.
Abdullah shrugged. He knew about the friction between father and child. Max felt the tension. Sophie and her dad clearly had problems. What was he getting into?
“Is it much farther?” he asked.
Sophie nodded towards the front of the vehicle. “It’s there.”
Max squinted through the dust-smeared windshield. The low morning light gave a distorted reflection on the dirty glass. Across the distant, bare valley were what looked to be rows of hewn sandstone boulders, standing rigidly together like dominoes. They were almost indistinguishable from the mountains rising behind them, whose torn skirts of rock diffused the land’s harshness with light and shadow.
Once Max focused more clearly he could see the tips of date palms, and for a brief moment the glint of reflection as the low sun caught a slick of water tumbling down the mountainside.
“It looks like a town,” Max said.
“You’re right. It’s called Les Larmes des Anges,” Abdullah said. “It was once the toughest Berber stronghold in these mountains. Then, when we fought the French, they held it for years-I’m talking back between the world wars, 1920s. There was vicious fighting here. Neither side would think of surrender. It’s the only walled town around here. During the final battle a rainstorm swept across the mountain between the sun and desert. The raindrops were lit by the sun’s rays. Les Larmes des Anges-‘the Tears of the Angels.’ They blinded the defenders. The French garrison died where they stood. Now, when the wind comes down from the mountains, it is said you can hear the cries of the dying.”
The Land Cruiser left a wisp of dust behind it as Abdullah accelerated towards the ancient town. Sophie fell silent, gazing straight ahead at the crumbling walls and the place where her father waited.
Once they were closer the size of the walled town became more apparent. The walls had to be thirty, forty meters high. Two huge, iron-studded doors began to swing open as the Land Cruiser approached. Max wondered what was waiting for him as they drove beneath the entrance arch into the town the French had named the Angels’ Tears.
There was in fact very little left of the town; it was mostly perimeter walls and a few other buildings that remained. The whole inside area was like a massive zoo. Huge, scooped-out troughs of earth, some filled with water, served as drinking holes for the animals. Others were natural enclosures for the assorted creatures. The thick walls stretched for as far as he could see, until they buttressed the mountain’s skeleton fingers that stretched down to touch the fortress town.
Towards one side of the wall Max could see cavelike openings, beneath which some craters dropped away. Twisting in his seat, he looked back as he caught a glimpse of deep orange and dark stripes. A tiger was climbing an old tree trunk conveniently laid against the face of the rock, allowing access to its lair. Fur and muscle glistened, rippling like oil on water as the huge cat, carrying a dead goat in its jaws, sprang and disappeared into the darkness of its lair. But more awesome was the tiger that watched it. A big male reclined on a rock ledge, indifferent to the female’s activities. The massive head turned its attention towards Max. Amber eyes, impassive but watchful, followed him.
“Did you see the tiger?” Max blurted out. “It was huge. What is this place? It’s like a safari park.”
Abdullah swung the Land Cruiser around the edge of another crater. Manmade obstacles, like an assault course, mixed with boulders and dead trees created a perfect haven for monkeys.
“That’s the best way to describe it, Master Gordon,” Abdullah said, easing the big 4?4 towards a more open area where a gantry of iron platforms broke the skyline. “Those big holes? They’re bomb craters. They’re perfect for a lot of the animals here. Don’t forget, many of these are protected and endangered species. By good fortune, war and destruction gave these animals the chance to survive. The town was flattened, but they could not breach the walls. Sophie’s father redirected the water from the mountains and created natural watering holes. The animals are as safe as they can be. Ah! There’s Laurent.”
It was already getting hot in the shelter of the walls as Max stepped out of the Land Cruiser. They had stopped in front of the gantry, which Max could now see was scaffolding built as a trapeze platform straddling another crater. The steel bars reached up twenty-five meters or more and Max’s eye was drawn to the figure swinging across space, gripping a trapeze bar.
Max shielded his eyes. He could see it was not a young man on the trapeze-his gray hair caught the sunlight; but despite the man’s age, Max could see his upper body was bulked with muscle stretching through the gymnast’s cutaway vest. An Arab boy, dressed in white cotton shorts and T-shirt, stood on the opposite gantry-and swung another trapeze bar into the void. Max saw the man’s biceps bulge with exertion as he hoisted himself into position, torsioned his body and let go in midair.
There was a moment, like a plane stalling, when he was motionless in the air. If he did not turn in time he would miss the approaching trapeze. He twisted, his hands slapping the approaching bar at just the right moment. With practiced ease he swung across to the boy, who caught the trapeze. Laurent Fauvre sat on the support platform, dusted his hands with talcum powder, gripped a rope and slid down to the base of the tower.
Abdullah nudged Max, flicking his head towards the base of the trapeze, a scooped-out crater like the others, but this hole was full of jagged rocks.
“No safety net,” Abdullah whispered. “He falls, he dies.”
Max followed Abdullah as he strode towards the scaffolding. Bad enough that Laurent Fauvre took his life into his hands every time he went up onto the trapeze, but now Max saw that he had lowered himself down the rope and placed himself into a wheelchair.
Fauvre dabbed his face and draped the towel around his neck. Abdullah bent down, kissed his friend’s cheeks, shook his hand and held it for a moment in the warmth of friendship.
“Allah the Merciful keeps you safe, my friend,” Abdullah said.
“You’ve obviously put in a good word for me.” The Frenchman grinned.
Laurent Fauvre looked towards Sophie. Max hung back. Fauvre had already cast a glance in his direction and seemed to dismiss him immediately.
“Sophie,” Fauvre said, the love for his daughter obvious. The etched lines in his face, like worn leather, creased into a smile. She kissed him.
“Papa.”
She smiled, but Max could see it was not genuine. And Fauvre knew it. A shadow of sadness clouded his face for a moment, but left as quickly as it arrived. He nodded.
“Thank God you’re safe,” he said gratefully. “You cause me more worry than these animals I care for.”
“Don’t start, Papa,” she said quietly.
Her father was going to say more but thought better of it. He looked at Max.
“And this is the boy who helped you?” He extended his hand to Max, who stepped forward and shook it. Fauvre’s grip was firm, but there was no attempt to crush Max’s hand in a macho show of strength.
“You are welcome.”
“Monsieur Fauvre, thank you. But I think I’m the one being helped now.”
Fauvre nodded, held Max’s eyes a moment longer, then pressed the buttons on his wheelchair. “We’ll have breakfast once you’re settled. Abdullah, let’s talk. Sophie, show young Mr. Gordon his room.”
The wheelchair purred away and for the first time Max noticed that wherever he looked an undulating track had been built around all of the animal pens. Laurent Fauvre could go anywhere he wished in his own walled town.
Max watched him leave. As Fauvre and Abdullah moved past an iron cage that enclosed a platform built above a cavernous gully, a male lion lunged at the bars. Teeth bared, its belly-growling roar caused monkeys to chatter in fear and Abdullah to jump back, hand on his heart. The surprise attack had no effect on Fauvre.
He shouted at the lion, “Don’t do that! You frightened Abdullah!” He reached through the bars, scratching the snarling jaw. The lion grunted and flopped down on his stomach, like a house cat content with the attention.
A car door slammed. Max turned. Sophie had grabbed their backpacks.
“Don’t ever try that. That lion is a killer. All the big cats here are, except my father doesn’t believe it. One day they’ll take him. Come on, I’ll show you your tent.”
Max took his backpack and followed her. Now he was going to sleep in a tent? Better hope Laurent Fauvre didn’t put the cats out at night.
He looked at the ancient fortifications. It would take a couple of hours to walk through this sanctuary. And anyone foolish enough to enter uninvited could end up as breakfast for at least a dozen wild animals. No point in having a BEWARE OF THE DOG sign on the gate; BEWARE OF THE CAT would be more appropriate.
Max would use the day to rest and then he would question Laurent Fauvre. Behind these vast walls, he felt a sense of safety for the first time in ages. The fragmented clues were coming together in his head. He realized that the friendship and association between Zabala and Laurent Fauvre were vital to everything. When Max had laid the drawing of the triangle on the atlas, it was as if its longest side were showing him the way to this desolate place. And Zabala would not have brought the inheritor of his secret out into the middle of nowhere without a reason. It had to be this middle of nowhere. Max hoped that Laurent Fauvre was the reason.
Behind a ruined section of the town, where gardens had been established over the years in the Moorish tradition of creating tranquillity with the gentle sound of moving water, three or four tents stood under shady clumps of date palms. Max took it all in. This was an oasis. Not your average backpacker’s tent, either. More like a Bedouin tent. Like a small circus tent, like a … well, it wasn’t exactly luxury, but the layers of material, the pitched roof, the carpets on the floor, all made it look a bit Lawrence of Arabia-ish. All that was needed now was a camel and a-
The braying gasp of a camel stopped the thought there and then. He turned. Not ten meters away behind a thorn tree, a camel stuck its spit-slicked tongue out at him. He was about to return the compliment when Sophie pulled back the tent’s flap.
“This is yours, Max.”
He stepped inside. The Berber tent was made of camel hair, goat’s wool and canvas, and, as in the others, hand-woven rugs, cotton pillows and cushions were scattered across the floor. The coolness was immediately apparent. Max dropped his backpack on the bed.
“It is basic, but I hope you will be comfortable. Your toilet and shower are through there. My father doesn’t have many staff, they’re here mostly to feed and care for the animals, so you will have to ask for your washing to be done.”
“This is luxury compared to the tents I usually sleep in,” he said.
She was fairly close to him and reached out a hand to brush the hair from his face. He instinctively pulled his head back. What was she doing?
She sighed. “For heaven’s sake, Max. Don’t be childish.” And she put the palm of her hand on his forehead. “You’re still running a temperature. I’ll tell Papa.”
“Don’t make a fuss. I’ll be OK.”
He turned away, feeling the heat creeping up his neck and the increase in his heartbeat. He really was feeling sick, but what he felt now had nothing to do with running a temperature. He unpacked his change of clothing. Everything had been pressed and cleaned by the riad’s staff. Wear one, wash one was Max’s policy. Time to get back into shorts and shirt. Time for small talk.
“Do you have a tent as well?” He regretted saying it the moment the words slipped past his lips. It sounded as though he was inviting himself.
She raised an eyebrow, then smiled. “I have a room in one of the old houses. I need a greater sense of permanence than a tent.”
Now she was closer again. He tried to put a serious look of concentration on his face. These shorts definitely needed to be laid out on the bed a certain way. She touched his shoulder.
Smile bravely, Max. Look cool. Don’t get flustered here. She’s just a girl.
“What is that?” she asked, touching the pendant.
Like a feral cat enticed out of danger by a plate of food from a kindly person, he was still on his guard. And if the wildcat ate, it did so with one eye on the person feeding it, alert to anyone making a sudden move to trap it. One false step and the cat would bolt.
Max felt the bristle of danger tickle the back of his neck.
“It’s something I picked up along the way. A friend gave it to me,” he said as casually as he could.
“But it’s unusual,” she said, her eyes studying the pendant.
She had tried to look at it when Max was asleep in the Land Cruiser, but the way his body had been lying meant the pendant itself was caught beneath his clothes and the fold of his shoulder.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s anything special,” Max bluffed.
“Can I see it?”
“Sure.” He fumbled with the cord, but sweat had tightened the leather thong. He couldn’t undo it and he couldn’t get it over his head. “Well, maybe not.”
“That’s OK. I was just being nosy.” She gave him a smile that could have charmed a monkey out of a tree. But not this monkey, Max thought. “See you outside when you’re ready. Papa will look at your arm and then we’ll eat,” she said.
The tent’s flap dropped back, and Max was alone. Flexing his arm, he felt the pain creep up into his shoulder. The nausea persisted, but he was sure he could shake it off. He had to. This place of safety suddenly felt like a cage.
“The wound must not be closed up. So no stitches for you,” Fauvre said as he swabbed the monkey bite on Max’s arm. The wound was looking bad, with veinlike tendrils creeping upwards beneath the skin.
Fauvre now wore a cool, loose-fitting white shirt, and his withered legs were covered by white trousers. Max thought the clothes made him look a bit like a doctor, but that didn’t offer much comfort.
“It hurts?” Fauvre asked as he eased the wound open.
“A little,” Max replied, wishing the probing fingers and stinging antiseptic would stop their pulling and squeezing.
“The infection is still there, and you have some blood poisoning. It might be advanced. I cannot say, but that’s what those red lines are going up your arm. When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
“Couple of years ago, I think.”
“Right. Tetanus and penicillin for you. I will also give you a multivitamin shot. Help boost your system. Those injections hurt more than the others; they feel like soup being injected. I hate them, but I give myself one once in a while.”
“Then I’d rather take a pill.”
They were in a small examination room, which Max reckoned Fauvre used for looking after animals. Fauvre turned the wheelchair and reached for a small fridge. Max noticed all the cupboards were at the same height, designed to allow the disabled man to live his life as easily as possible.
“Of course you would rather take a pill. That’s the easy option, and about as useful as sucking a sweet in these circumstances. Besides, handing out pills is not as much fun.” Fauvre smiled. “For me, that is.”
He took the small glass bottles of medicine from the fridge and drew the liquid into the hypodermics. “Animal bites and wounds can be hell,” he said as he unceremoniously jabbed the needles into Max’s arm.
Max winced. He hated injections, and this had been done with less finesse than a vet jabbing a cow.
Fauvre seemed to read his mind. “No nice nurses here, only me. And I don’t have much of a bedside manner.” He cleared the used bits and pieces away.
“That’s all right. You weren’t too bad. Thanks.”
Fauvre seemed amused. “You lie very well, Max. It hurt like hell, the injections felt like snakebites and I have as much compassion as a charging bull elephant.”
“You save endangered species. You can’t be that bad, Monsieur Fauvre.”
“That’s not what my daughter thinks. And call me Laurent. You’ve earned it. Can you drive?” Fauvre asked.
“Yes,” Max replied.
“Then you are my chauffeur this morning, young man,” Fauvre said as he held one more hypodermic.
“What’s that?” Max asked.
“You thought we were finished? No, no. This is the soup. And multivitamin shots go …”
He pointed at Max’s backside. “Drop your shorts and think of England.”
Max eased himself gently into the driver’s seat of the golf buggy. That last jab had felt as though Fauvre were using a screwdriver on him.
“We are feeding some of the animals. So let us go,” Fauvre said, pointing out the direction.
Obviously, Max realized, the “we” meant the staff were feeding the animals. Perhaps it was this autocratic manner of her father’s that Sophie disliked so much.
The golf buggy’s canopy shielded Max from what was fast becoming a very hot day. Fauvre indicated the direction and Max pressed the accelerator down. Nice and easy, take your time, look around, get your bearings. Was there anything obvious that told him why Zabala had led him here? As his eyes scanned the jumbled ruins, he knew he was looking for more than just clues-if things go bad here, how to escape?
The old town looked as though it held plenty of caves, cut deep into the walls. Most of the big cats would be sleeping, but there were obviously many smaller creatures that had both shelter and plenty of room to roam once they ventured out and went down into one of the huge pits that had been torn from the ground. At the far edge of the town, unnoticed at first because of the backdrop of the mountain, was a vast aviary, almost obscured by the irregular shape of the netting. It dipped and stretched, pulled this way and that by jutting support poles. The birds could fly almost as if they were free.
That could be one way of escape. Climb that netting, clamber onto the walls and down the other side. Max knew how to survive in the desert.
“You ask no questions,” Fauvre said.
“Just getting my bearings, I suppose.”
“Like one of my big cats looking for a way out of its pen.” Fauvre smiled. “You are safe here. You saved my daughter’s life. I am in your debt.”
“She’s helped me as well. There’s no debt as far as I’m concerned, sir. I mean, Laurent.”
Fauvre nodded. “Most teenagers I have known either sulk and mumble like a constipated camel or ask endless inane questions that an encyclopedia couldn’t answer. You do neither.”
Max did not like being patronized or having unwarranted praise put his way, but he was uncertain if that was what Fauvre was doing. It seemed to him that Sophie’s dad had very little experience with teenagers, despite having one as his daughter.
Change the subject. Find out more.
“How long have you been here?” Max asked, keeping his eyes on the curving route towards wherever it was Fauvre wanted him to go.
“I started looking for a place fifteen, twenty years ago. I ran the Cirque de Paris. I knew back then what was happening to animals in the wild. Already I was sickened.”
“And you were the trapeze artist?” Max said.
“And ringmaster with my big cats. I trained them.” Fauvre’s hesitation made Max glance at him. “I love them,” Fauvre muttered.
Max guided the golf buggy along the curved pathways. A broken wall gave way to what looked like an old arena. Nothing as grand as a Roman amphitheater, but the tumbled-down buildings around the space had created false tiers, like a small grandstand. Red, compacted dirt and sand made it look like a circus ring, except this space gave the appearance of an abandoned building site. Rusted steel girders lay at different angles, toppled against scaffolding; some lay smashed across old cars. Broken, low walls crisscrossed the space, while poles and ropes took a third of the area over on the western edge of the sand ring. It reminded Max of an army assault course set up for urban warfare. Fauvre indicated to Max to pull into the shade of a ruined building.
Abdullah sat in an overstuffed armchair, a canvas awning sheltering him from the heat as he sipped from a tall glass with sprigs of mint among the crushed ice. A cooler nestled at his side.
“Bravo! Bravo! Ma petite princesse! Encore!” Abdullah cried as he clapped.
Max raised a hand to shield his eyes. A puff of dust alerted him as the shadow that had been absorbed by the side of a wall sprang into life. It was Sophie. Like a marathon runner, she wore well-fitted shorts, tank top and cross-trainers. Dirt and sand caked her sweaty back-she’d obviously been training for some time. She kicked against an oil drum, leapt onto the back of an old donkey cart, flipped in the air and ran with aggressive determination at a rust bucket of a car. Max heard her grunt with effort as she threw her body across the hood, seemed destined to smash into a pile of dangerous scaffolding, but instead twisted her body, caught the layers of pipework in two hands and, with a gymnast’s skill, swung the weight of her body, using the momentum of her speed, to curl upwards and grasp one of the steel girders. She clambered like a monkey, using toes and fingers to grip the edge of the girder.
Ten meters up, the steel beam ended in space. Without hesitation she somersaulted into the air. Only then did Max realize a small hill of dirt was beneath her. After five meters she landed on her feet, opened her stride and raced to the bottom.
Finally, hands on knees, she bent over and sucked her recuperating lungs full of air. Sweat ran from her face, puckering the sand. Max hadn’t taken his eyes from her. Her slight frame belied her skill and strength. Fauvre glanced at him.
“Young women today are so independent. Stay clear of them is my advice. They can be the cause of great pain.”
Was that a warning from the unsmiling Fauvre? Telling Max to stay away from his daughter? Max brushed the sweat from his face.
“You are all right?” Fauvre said.
Max nodded.
“Then drive. Over there.” An edge had crept into his voice.
Perhaps, Max thought, there was a darker side to this man’s personality.
Max spun the wheel, wishing he had been honest and told Fauvre that he felt too ill to go on a sightseeing tour. But then he would have missed the incredible display Sophie had just given.
They drove towards an enclosure. Fauvre pointed at different caves and pits, the subject of his daughter replaced by that of his passion for the animals.
“It is mostly the big cats the collectors and hunters seek out. We rescue many of them and reestablish them around the world. I’ve had servals, ocelots, tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, leopards … and bears as well. They’re a favorite for the scum who trap and trade them. I’ll tell you something not many people know: A European monarch, only a couple of years ago, paid a fortune to a Russian peasant so he could shoot the village bear. The bear liked to drink beer. It would sit in the square and sleep, like an old man. And one day this king, this high-and-mighty person, arrived and shot it point-blank. He needed a bear to add to his trophy collection.”
Fauvre closed his eyes for a moment, as if the pictures in his mind had hooks in his heart.
The image of the brown bear that attacked Max on the mountain leapt into his memory. The power and fury of the huge creature still awed him. More than that-it was an affinity-complete awareness of what that bear’s existence was about. Smell is a powerful association for recall, and he could almost taste the wet-fur odor at the back of his throat.
Fauvre sighed. “The Chinese torture bears, did you know that? They keep them in bamboo cages, in a space they cannot even turn around in. Barbaric. They use their gall bladders for medicine. And we call ourselves the highest of the species.”
Max glanced at the man’s face. It was twisted in disgust.
“So I found this place. It took ten years of my life to get it like this.”
Max didn’t know how intrusive he could be with his questions, but if he didn’t start being pushy with this strong-willed man, he wasn’t going to get any closer to Zabala’s secret.
“Have you always been in a wheelchair?”
That drew a sharp look from Fauvre. “No. A tiger did this to me. My favorite tiger. He is called Aladfar.”
“That sounds Arabic,” Max said.
Fauvre nodded. “It’s the name of a star. It means ‘claws.’ From Arabic astronomy. Do you know anything about astronomy?”
The question was like a hypodermic being pushed into his chest. A sharp pain that went straight to the root of the disease eating away at him-that determination to find the final pieces to Zabala’s secret. And his killer.
So, Fauvre was playing games.
“I’m learning as I go along,” Max said noncommittally. “How did the accident happen?”
Fauvre let Max sidestep his probing question. “He is the perfect tiger. Three meters long, three hundred kilos. One day he decided to show me just who was in charge. He played with me as a cat plays with a mouse. He tumbled me and clawed my back. He broke my spine.”
“Was he shot?”
“Aladfar? I would kill the man who laid a finger on him. He is magnificent-and now we understand each other.”
Max knew that Aladfar was the massive tiger he had seen when he first drove into the Angels’ Tears. And it seemed the beast’s pit was where Fauvre now guided him.
Where was the connection Max searched for? When did Fauvre first come into contact with Zabala?
“So was that when you brought your family here?” he asked.
“My animals are my family,” Fauvre said without emotion.
The blunt response silenced Max. Not much you can say to that. No wonder Sophie felt alienated.
Obeying Fauvre’s hand signals, Max pulled up next to a walled crater. Two men stood by a handcart and were unloading a basket of old vegetables and fruit.
Fauvre spoke to them in Arabic and they stopped. “Have a look,” he said to Max as he leaned across the low parapet.
The fever made Max’s legs tremble. He needed shade and water, but he wasn’t going to show Fauvre any sign of weakness if he could help it. He blinked away the sweat and carefully peered over. The crater’s walls were almost sheer. It looked like the other animal pens. The sort of place Max could imagine bears living in captivity. Plenty of space, natural water, a shelter, good daylight and keepers to supply food. But for a moment he saw nothing except the wall at the other end of the crater, where iron bars divided this pit from the next.
Max realized where he was. He’d come to the other side of the tiger’s pit. On one side of the bars the massive, hungry-looking tiger prowled backwards and forwards. It wanted whatever was in this crater below Max.
Then he saw movement along the dark side of the wall directly below him, where the sun had not yet reached. Two men stepped out and raised their hands-begging. They looked weak and unkempt. How long had they been trapped in this pit?
Max looked at Fauvre. The dispassionate expression scared him for a moment.
“Why are you doing this? Who are these men?”
“They came to steal. I have small animals worth a fortune. These creatures thought they could get away with it.”
“You’re going to feed them to the tiger?” Max said incredulously.
“They think they are going to be fed to Aladfar. When I release them they will go back to whatever stone they crawled from under and tell others that you do not enter the Angels’ Tears unless you are prepared to die.”
“That’s sadistic,” Max said.
“It would be sadistic if I took pleasure in it. Which I do not. I am virtually alone here. I fight my enemies as I see fit, by any means at my disposal. And fear is the greatest weapon I have.”
Fauvre nodded to his staff, who tipped the basket of rotting fruit. The men below scrambled for the scraps. Clearly they had not eaten for some time.
Despite his feelings, Max knew Laurent Fauvre was a vital link in helping uncover Zabala’s mystery. The information had to be dug out of this man, but he was afraid that it might prove more difficult than excavating one of these craters from the rock face. What Max needed was something explosive to tear Fauvre open.
“Did your wife die here?”
That got through, Max could see Fauvre’s jaw clench. His mouth pulled down as if he’d bitten into a sour lime.
“Is that what my daughter told you-that my wife died?”
Now it was Max’s turn to try and hide his shock. Fauvre was hitting back just as hard. Max nodded.
“My daughter lives in a fantasy world. Do not believe anything she tells you.”
Trust no one! Max’s mind yelled at him.
“My wife went off with another man when my back was broken. I lay helpless and she ran off. It’s the law of the jungle, Max. Nature always wins in the end.”
“And your son? Did he continue to run the circus?” Max was grasping for any thread of truth that might help him-anything that stopped the gnawing doubt about Sophie.
“My daughter has a deep-seated anger because I trusted a wild animal and barely escaped with my life. She blames me for everything-even for her mother’s abandoning us. So she seeks danger and, along the way, someone she can love, like a brother, and who can protect her. Perhaps you are that person.”
Max winced.
“Then Adrien is dead?”
“Sophie went to Zabala because he had information about the animal smugglers-and something else that was important, I don’t know what. I argued with her, but she was determined to go. She defied me at every turn.” Fauvre hesitated. “Do you really want to know the truth?”
Max felt a sudden desperation. The truth? That always hurts.
“I do not have a son, Max. He is a figment of Sophie’s imagination.”
Like a solid punch, the words shattered him. Everything was a lie. He felt as though he were going down. Focus! Who are these crazy people? Don’t give in! He fought the nausea, wiped the sweat from his eyes and steadied himself against the wall. If Fauvre knew about his daughter’s emotional instability, did he suspect anything worse of her? Could she have killed Zabala? Was she so determined to gain the secret information Max now held? Jumbled, erratic, nonsensical thoughts blustered through his mind like the desert sirocco wind, suffocating rational thought. Must think straight. Have to shake off this fever.
Fauvre had a mean streak in him, Max could see that. He cared little for others’ feelings, even less for anyone who got in the way of his animals’ welfare. Sympathy welled in Max. Sophie needed help. There seemed to be no doubt she had emotional problems.
“Now,” Fauvre said quietly, “why don’t we stop playing games? My daughter is only a small part of this. Arab culture demands honor from a host towards his guest. Even an enemy under your roof is accorded the privilege of safety. But I am not Moroccan.”
Max wanted to run right then. But he could feel the strength seeping out of his body. Tough it out! Fauvre stared at him, his voice somber and authoritative.
“I want to know why you are here. What it is you hope to gain. What you think is hidden here. You wear my friend’s pendant. As far as I am concerned, there is enough evidence to convince me that you could have murdered Brother Zabala.”
Max’s head spun. The fever gripped him.
Fauvre’s men had turned and stood ready to do as he commanded. Aladfar roared and the vibration shuddered through the dry, hot air. A snarl exposed the curved canines-those jaws would crush and those teeth would rip. Max glanced nervously down. It wouldn’t take much to be thrown over the edge. The tiger would kill him in seconds.
Fauvre stared hard at Max. “You have already absolved me of my debt. So why should I not avenge my friend and let nature take its course?”