At last they moved from Namur to where the communication centre had been established, along the Gembloux road. Although the cars were obviously unmarked they still staged their arrival to avoid the appearance of a convoy to any participant on his way to the chateau.
Blake, Harding and Rampling were in the lead car, anxious to reach the electronics expert whose scanner had picked up the mobile conversation from the gatehouse to the chateau at the first arrival, the Citroen with the French registration.
It was an American technician, a fat, bearded man named Marion Burr who wore a check shirt and cowboy boots and emerged from the vehicle smoking a small cigar. A Europol technician flown in that morning from The Hague took over the scanner inside the truck. Another FBI man replaced McCulloch.
Burr’s accent was strongly Southern. ‘It’s a man, speaking French. Good job I come from good old Louisiana. We’ve counted fifteen through so far. He says different things at different times, with no reason why as far as I can see. Sometimes it’s “How does your garden grow?” Other times it’s “With silver bells and cockle shells.” And then there’s “pretty maids all in a row”, whatever the hell that all means.’
‘The rest of Felicite’s original nursery rhyme,’ identified Blake at once.
‘Jesus, what a sick, screwed-up bitch!’ said Harding.
Blake disagreed. ‘No. It means something. It’s us who’re screwed unless we work out what it is.’
‘Who responds to the man in the gatehouse, male or female?’
‘A man,’ said Burr. ‘Always a man.’
‘The same man?’ pressed the CIA chief.
Burr hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re sure? It’s important.’
‘Always the same man,’ insisted Burr.
‘And we got the first call, so it has to be Lascelles,’ said Harding. ‘Sneaky bastard hid his car away in a garage.’
‘Why are the phrases different?’ wondered Blake.
Burr shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘What’s the response from the chateau?’ asked Blake. Behind him other cars began arriving. He moved to the side of the road to allow them to pass out of sight further along the tree-canopied track. Hillary McBride was in the last vehicle, with Ulieff and Sanglier.
‘Not much. “Thank you,” mostly. Sometimes just “I understand” or “That’s good.”’
Ulieff, Sanglier and Hillary came up to join them.
‘What’s happening?’ demanded Sanglier. Things were moving of their own volition and he knew he’d made the right decision about telephoning the chateau from Namur. It was important to go on giving the impression of still being in operational charge.
‘We don’t know,’ replied Rampling, honestly but unhelpfully. At once he said: ‘It’s some sort of identification. It’s got to be.’
‘You’re not making sense,’ said Sanglier.
Rampling shouldered his way past the man, towards the communications van close to which Burr and McCulloch stood. Inside, at McBride’s demand, McCulloch’s replacement increased the volume for the discussion to be relayed to Brussels.
‘Fifteen cars?’ he demanded.
‘Fifteen that made uncertain turns towards St Marc, as if they were strangers to the area looking for an unfamiliar address, and fifteen telephone intercepts,’ answered McCulloch, ahead of the other man with whom he’d shared the communication vehicle.
Blake smiled doubtfully. ‘And each time you logged the registration, French or Dutch?’
‘To trace the identity of the owners,’ agreed the Texan.
‘And additionally those you think carried children?’
‘Yes,’ replied the man, curiously. ‘Three, to my count.’
Blake switched to the scanner technician. ‘And you recorded each line of the nursery rhyme against each arrival?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me see the sheets,’ demanded Blake. Around him everyone was quiet, no one understanding except Rampling. Blake didn’t have to go further than the first comparison. ‘The first car was a French-registered Citroen, possibly with a child.’ He looked at McCulloch. ‘There was a child.’ He went to Burr. ‘You didn’t tell us that sometimes there were two lines recited to the mansion. There’s two on that first message, but they’re not consecutive: between “How does your garden grow?” there’s a line missing before “And pretty maids all in a row.”’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ demanded Hillary.
Blake continued comparing the two record sheets for several minutes before looking up. ‘“How does your garden grow?” identifies the French group. “With silver bells and cockle shells” is the Dutch identification. “Pretty maids all in a row” designates cars carrying a child.’ He offered the papers generally. ‘It’s all there. Felicite knows she hasn’t got anyone coming. Lascelles has a count of his people. So has whoever’s organized the French. If the count doesn’t tally, they’ve got trouble.’
‘Brussels wants to talk to you,’ called the liaison man from inside the van.
Blake put on the headphones to hear Claudine say: ‘You’re right! That’s how I read it!’
‘I know I’m right,’ said Blake.
‘Be careful. No kamikaze stuff.’
‘Speak to you later.’
He emerged to hear Harding, forgetting Hillary’s presence, say: ‘So how the fuck do we get past that barrier?’
Blake went back to the scanner record. ‘“Not much longer,”’ he read aloud.
‘That was the last reply from the chateau,’ said Burr.
‘They haven’t all arrived!’ declared Blake. He jerked hurriedly round to Ulieff and the local police chief. ‘We want cars, with French plates. They must be French because if Lascelles is talking to the gatehouse he’ll know how many of his own people to expect: they might all have already arrived. And Felicite hasn’t included any of hers.’ He gestured towards the main road. ‘Stop anyone. Persuade them, pay them, arrest them, whatever. Just get cars.’ He included Sanglier. ‘We can’t see the gatehouse from the road, which means the gatehouse can’t see the road. Any vehicle on that road from now on gets stopped and the occupants arrested. The party’s over for them.’
At Ulieff’s shooing gesture the local police chief moved off towards the main road, beckoning Namur officers to follow.
‘It’ll work,’ agreed Rampling. ‘There’s a lot of people ahead of us so there’ll be a lot of movement inside the house. And let’s not forget as we did in Namur that we’re all strangers. Once we’re out of the car the Dutch will think we’re French and the French will think we’re Dutch and Felicite will think we’re one or the other. It still won’t give us much time but we’ll be inside.’
Harding looked at McCulloch. ‘You’re aboard because you’re the biggest bastard we’ve got. You don’t move away from the front door once we’re through it. You’ve got to keep it open for everyone who’s going to come behind us…’ The American came to a halt, belatedly remembering jurisdiction. To Sanglier he said: ‘That would be my suggestion, of course. I understand the planning has to be yours.’
Another easy decision, thought Sanglier. ‘You, Blake and Rampling in charge, in the lead car. Choose your own people to follow.’
‘We’ll be wired,’ said Blake. ‘Our getting inside the house is the signal to put everyone in, from every direction.’
‘We don’t worry about the perverted fuckers: Felicite Galan even,’ suggested Harding. ‘We just get the kids: find them and get them out. Including Mary Beth there’s four. There could be more, so we go on looking even after four. Leave everything else to back-up.’ It had become a discussion between themselves, the rest excluded. ‘Anything else we need to talk about?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Rampling.
‘Let’s go,’ said the FBI chief.
For the first time it had been possible to hear most of the briefing verbatim in the Brussels embassy. At Harding’s final remark McBride said to Harrison: ‘You got a helicopter ready?’
‘Waiting,’ said the other man.
As the ambassador rose, Claudine said: ‘We don’t leave until we hear Mary Beth – all of them, I hope – are safe.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?’ demanded McBride.
Looking steadily at the ambassador, Claudine said: ‘I’m the person, if anything goes wrong, who’s going to tell the world that scoring points off each other was more important to you and your wife than getting your daughter back.’
McBride sat down again. It was nine forty-five.
Thirty minutes later no French-registered car had gone in either direction along the Namur to Gembloux road and the local police chief had radioed Namur for any French car to be seized there.
At ten thirty a Dutch-licensed Ford was stopped on the narrow feeder road to the chateau. The Amsterdam tanker pilot angrily maintained that he was a lost tourist until a Namur constable found a bag containing a devil’s costume, complete with mask and whip, and two child sex videos in the boot.
Ten minutes later the message came from Namur that two French cars, both Citroens, were on their way and Rampling said: ‘We’re going to miss Felicite’s deadline.’
‘They’ve still got to have their party,’ said Blake.
‘Maybe they’ve already started,’ said Harding.
‘She won’t have done, not until she’s spoken to McBride,’ said Blake.
At five past eleven the cars arrived. Neither police driver turned his engine off when he got out. There were two plainclothes Namur detectives in the four-man backup car.
The man at the gatehouse was small and hunched, with a profusion of dark hair worn long and falling over his face, a curtain through which he watched them drive up. He said: ‘You’re late.’
‘Traffic,’ said Harding.
‘It’s going to be a good party.’
‘I’m looking forward to it.’
Felicite’s call came precisely on time.
‘Have you done what I told you to do?’
‘Yes,’ said McBride.
‘You got a pen?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want the money wired to account number 0392845 at the Credit Suisse bank on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse. You got that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Read it back to me.’
While he was doing so Claudine pushed a prompt note sideways to McBride. ‘What about Mary Beth? How am I going to get her back?’
‘You’ll be told when the bank transfer goes through. Not before.’
‘But you-’ McBride started to protest but Felicite cut him off.
‘When I know the money has been sent! Is Claudine there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Put her on.’
‘What do you want?’ said Claudine.
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Who won!’
‘You did,’ said Claudine.
‘Say it!’
‘You won. But we need to know how…’ But Claudine was talking into a dead phone.
‘You’ve got to send the money,’ insisted Claudine. ‘It’s the kidnap evidence. And she’ll probably check.’
‘We’ll do it on the way to the NATO base,’ said McBride, hurrying up from his desk.
‘There’s nothing for me to do here,’ Rosetti said, to Claudine. ‘I’ll go on back.’
‘To Brussels? Or Rome?’
‘Rome.’
Felicite had telephoned from the upstairs bedroom directly opposite that in which she’d locked Mary Beth. She remained there for several minutes, undecided whether to have the Luxembourg lawyer check the Swiss deposit before tossing the mobile telephone on to the bed beside a still closed cardboard box. They’d have made the deposit: been too frightened not to. It didn’t matter any more. She was still standing there, arms tight by her sides, hands clenched, when Lascelles came into the room.
‘You all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here.’ There were three pills in the palm of his offered hand.
‘She won’t feel anything?’
‘Nothing. Almost everyone’s arrived. I’m going down.’
‘Yes.’
There was only one small sob after he left. Quickly Felicite regained control, breathing in deeply and squaring her shoulders before picking up the box.
Mary Beth looked up at her entry. ‘Are we going now?’
‘When I’ve dressed.’
‘What are you going as?’
‘You’re the fairy, I’m the fairy godmother.’
Mary Beth sniggered.
‘What are you laughing at?’
It was the hard voice Mary Beth didn’t like. ‘Nothing.’
Briefly Felicite stood naked in front of the child before putting on the dress. ‘Zip me up, darling.’
Mary Beth did, awkwardly.
‘Do you think I’m pretty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You’re very pretty.’
Felicite put the pills in a tiny handbag, hesitating. ‘Look!’ she said, taking something from it. ‘The lucky stone you gave me by the river. I said I’d always keep it, didn’t I?’
‘Can we go to the party now?’
‘Yes,’ said Felicite.
‘You haven’t put any u.p.’s on.’
‘I’m not going to.’
The last message Harding got from the communications vehicle before disconnecting his earpiece outside the chateau was that the scanner had monitored the conversation between McBride and Felicite.
They carried overnight grips and bags that could have held masks or fantasy clothing and once away from the cars didn’t stay together. Instead they straggled towards the huge entrance, heads lowered, strangers about to meet strangers. The door opened to Harding’s knock and at once he pushed through, Blake and Rampling now tightly behind him.
The man just inside was small and thin, blinking behind thick-lensed spectacles. In French he said: ‘Who are you with?’
Harding continued walking, bringing the man further into the huge hallway guarded by two pedestalled sets of armour and frowned down upon by the mounted heads of stags and boar and antelope. Behind, those in the second car, including the two Belgian detectives, followed smoothly but didn’t come deeply into the hall. Instead they went immediately sideways, in both directions. Harding said: ‘I didn’t think we spoke of who we were with. You heard from the gatehouse, didn’t you?’
Blake said: ‘I’d like to change. Where can I do that?’ and before the man could answer Rampling said: ‘Yes. Where can we go?’
Both started moving away, in opposite directions. There was a lot of noise and music coming from a room at the end of the hall and two men, one dressed as a clown, the other as a harlequin and both masked by their make-up, turned from the bottom of the stairs towards the sound.
‘I took the call,’ said a voice.
Harding turned, guessing the figure to be Lascelles from the physical description they’d got at Eindhoven, although the man was wearing a tight, face-fitting mask.
‘And that’s why I was at the door,’ said Georges Lebron.
Harding started back towards the small man but saw a fairy-dressed Mary Beth descending the stairs, holding Felicite’s hand. The child immediately recognized him. She smiled and said: ‘Hello! Have you come to take me home?’
‘Yes,’ said Harding. He surged forward, spread-eagling Lebron as he pushed the French priest aside. Harding felt Lascelles’ groping hands on his back but jerked free, continuing on.
‘POLICE!’ screamed Lebron, still on the floor, and pandemonium erupted.
Blake and Rampling ran towards the noise further along the corridor. Shouts and screams burst from other rooms and from upstairs there was a gunshot. From outside came the sound of over-revved cars slewing across the gravelled forecourt to block in already parked vehicles. And then helicopters, deafening, thunderous helicopters descending so close to the house the gravel and grass and plants were hurled against the windows in a man-made hurricane. Men and women flooded into the house.
Throughout those first few moments Felicite Galan remained frozen, disbelieving, as the chaos exploded around her in what seemed a slow-motion tableau. Harding was already climbing the stairs before Felicite grabbed out, enveloping Mary Beth. ‘NO!’ came out as a screaming wail. So tightly was the woman clinging to the child, holding her against her own body, that Harding couldn’t immediately get his arms between the two, to pull Mary Beth away. He drove first his right then his left hand into them, careless of hurting either, at last dragging Mary Beth partially free.
The child was screaming, in pain from being pulled between two adults and fear at all the noise and people. As she began to lose her grip on Mary Beth, Felicite freed her right hand and clawed out, hysterically shouting: ‘Mine! She’s mine!’ She missed gouging Harding’s eyes by a fraction too difficult for surgeons later to calculate, but still marked him for life, so deeply did she rake her nails down the American’s face from cheek to chin. The agony drove Harding back, making him loosen his hold, but only by one hand. Which he smashed, as hard as he could, into Felicite’s face only inches away, feeling and hearing the sharply defined nose crush under his fist. The woman gurgled, falling backwards, finally releasing Mary Beth.
A green-masked man wearing a matching green tunic that ended at his waist, below which he was naked, ran towards the main door yelling: ‘It’s a trap! It’s a trap!’
McCulloch said: ‘I know. I’m part of it,’ and doubled the man up with just one forearm side-swipe.
‘Let me out!’ wheezed the man.
‘I will if you tell me where all the children are,’ said McCulloch.
‘In the party room,’ groaned the man. ‘Two upstairs, in the first bedroom.’
‘I tell lies,’ said McCulloch, hitting him again although not intending to break the man’s jaw, which he did. He fractured two of his own knuckles as well. Wim no need any longer to keep the door open the Texan took the stairs two at a time, leaping over the moaning Felicite, and found a boy and a girl dressed as wood nymphs cowering in the first bedroom. ‘We’re going home,’ he said, scooping them up. Both began to fight him. The girl wet herself.
McCulloch held one child under each arm as he plunged back down the stairs. The groaning Felicite made what could have been a gesture to trip him but McCulloch kicked past.
Only when he got out into the forecourt was it established that the children he had rescued were Robert Flet and Yvette Piquette, the two snatched in Eindhoven. Blake had found a boy, later identified as Jacques Blom, a nine-year-old who had disappeared the previous day in Lille, in the party room. He, like the other two, was dressed as a wood nymph. All three were immediately handed over to a combined Belgian/American medical team.
Hillary McBride was refusing to surrender Mary Beth. She knelt in the very centre of the forecourt, crying and repeating: ‘Oh, my darling! My own darling!’
What else she said was drowned by the arrival of another helicopter, although it landed further away from the chateau than the others had done. McBride ran from it, arms in the air. He threw himself down to the kneeling woman and child, embracing Mary Beth as best he could without including Hillary. ‘I got you back, darling! I got you back.’
From between her parents Mary Beth said: ‘I want to go back inside and take this silly costume off. It’s got her blood on it, I’ve got some new clothes. I like them.’
Claudine was at the entrance to the chateau when the swollen-faced, bloodied woman was led out. She said: ‘You didn’t win after all, Felicite. You were never going to. I was never going to let you.’
Felicite took away the surgical dressing she had pressed to her face and spat, bloodily, but it missed.
‘Christ, you’re ugly,’ said Claudine.
A total of thirty-three men, including the man at the gatehouse, were arrested at the chateau and three more at the outside road block. Felicite Galan was the only woman. Among them were two tax inspectors, unknown to each other, another priest and a police inspector, from Lille. The gunshot had been an attempt by an airline pilot to kill himself. He failed but the bullet lodged in his brain, destroying the left lobe and his mentality.
The finding of the medical team, later confirmed at Namur hospital, was that none of the children had been sexually abused, although all of them, apart from Mary Beth McBride, were severely traumatized.
‘Makes you believe in miracles, doesn’t it?’ said Blake.
‘Only just,’ said Claudine. ‘They’ll still need a lot of counselling.’
‘Bastards!’ said the man. ‘At least we got them.’
‘There’re still too many left,’ said Claudine.