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means doing your usual patrols and inquiries. You can probably combine some of the work, and I’m grateful for your help,” said Carlos. “I’m looking forward to spending some time in the district. I’ve seen our own prehistoric cave paintings at Altamira, so I’m hoping to see some of your famous ones while I’m here.”
    Bruno smiled to himself at the transparency of the old routine of hard cop, soft cop. But the Spaniard was playing it the wrong way around. It was the brigadier with whom Bruno had already built a relationship, consisting of a grudging respect on his own part, along with the kind of conditional trust that soldiers give to officers who know what they’re doing. But Bruno was less sure what the brigadier thought of him, beyond being a useful local tool and on occasion a reluctant subordinate. Carlos was a new factor in the mix.
    “What’s your own background, monsieur, if I may ask?” he said, with the blend of forthrightness and deference that he knew officers liked.
    “I’ve something in common with you,” said Carlos, looking Bruno in the eye. “I believe you’re an orphan, like me. I wentinto the military early, like you. I was a combat engineer and served a year with the Eurocorps in Strasbourg. That’s where I learned my French. Then I was attached to military intelligence when I was with the Kosovo force back in ’99. So we both served in the Balkans, and I got to know your old commander, Colonel Beauchamp. I transferred into counterterrorism after we were pulled out of Iraq.”
    “It sounds as though the brigadier has shown you my file already. So they brought you in after the dirty war?” Bruno asked. There had been a series of scandals followed by a massive purge of Spanish intelligence after state-sponsored death squads had been exposed for assassinating a number of Basque militants. Bruno was vague on the details, but he knew a lot of heads had rolled and a former interior minister had been jailed. He wanted none of that in St. Denis. It was bad enough thinking of that gangland-style killing back at the archaeological dig without contemplating some shadowy state officials plotting unlawful executions.
    “Long after,” said Carlos coolly. “Those GAL killings were back in the 1980s, even though the scandal broke later. Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación—we’re not like that now.”
    “The terrorists haven’t changed. ETA has killed over eight hundred people, half of them civilians,” snapped the brigadier. “If those Basque murder squads think they could take out a French and a Spanish minister with one attack, they’d take it, even if they do claim to be observing a cease-fire. That’s why it’s going to be top security here.”
    Bruno said nothing. The brigadier, he knew, was the kind of ruthless operator who would not shrink from putting a couple of ministers at risk if it meant luring a terrorist squad into the open. Carlos was an unknown quantity, but Bruno had few illusions about the way counterintelligence worked, andhe bridled at the prospect of this kind of danger being invited into St. Denis.
    “I’ll have to explain to the mayor about holding the summit here. Are you planning to announce it?”
    “Oh yes,” said the brigadier, almost casually. “There’s to be a press conference after the agreement, TV cameras present for the signing. You can’t keep that kind of thing secret. So we might as well make an announcement. It depends on today’s inspection whether the conference chamber and facilities will be ready.”
    The brigadier gestured to his security men to stay outside and led the way up the steps to the balcony, flanked by a long line of French windows. He tried several in turn, not sure which was the main door. He tapped on a window, and a man in painter’s clothes looked up, waved and came forward to open the last window in the row. The brigadier nodded thanks and shepherded them all inside, over the paint-spotted sheets. He stopped to