The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,193

I’m a reliable guy, very efficient. I finished the cleanup all by myself, and Le Grand’s back in order, thanks to me. And I’m waiting for their instructions.”

“Not a bad story, but they won’t buy it just like that.”

“True, and that’s why tomorrow we’re going back to Le Grand. We’ll take photos to submit with my report, and then we’ll do what Dominic is going to claim he did, in case they decide to visit or send somebody to check it out.”

“Okay,” Bull admitted, still not convinced. “But what will that get us? They’re not going to spill the beans about their gang to the first person who picks up the phone.”

“Of course they won’t. I’ve thought about Samedi a lot over the years, and I know we won’t be able to understand them without getting up close and personal. We can’t do that unless we join—or unless we seem to join—their structure. We need Samedi to believe we belong to Samedi. You heard Dominic: they have people in the police. Maybe really senior people. There’s no other way to explain how they’ve managed to keep active but out of sight all these years.” He exhaled sharply. “It has to be done this way, because neither you nor I will ever get the authorization to go undercover.”

“They won’t agree to meet you for no reason at all.”

“You’re forgetting about the girls. Samedi knows the two girls from NOLA are alive, because Len told him so. They’ll tell Dominic to take them someplace, just the way they were planning.”

“And what if they send someone to pick up the girls instead?”

“That’s a risk we have to take.”

“All right, suppose they agree and set up a rendezvous. If we’re planning to arrest whoever shows up, perfect, no problem, but you’re talking about infiltrating the gang. What’s going to stop them from putting a bullet in your brain as soon as they see you don’t have the girls? Why would they trust someone who shows up empty handed?”

Dupree stood grimly silent for several seconds before answering. “You’re right, Bull. That’s why I’m going to hand over the girls.”

72

THE FOURTH DAY

New Orleans, Louisiana

Thursday, September 1, 2005

Getting back to the city was easier than escaping it, but finding the way to their destination was another matter altogether. They came back across the Westbank, crossed the Mississippi at Bywater, and from there, proceeded eastward on foot to get to Jackson Square. Their route, sometimes across highway bridges, other times through chest-deep water, got more and more complicated.

The greatest difference between the city Amaia left and the one she found on their return from the swamp was the sense of absolute desperation.

People had been numbed by shock immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit. It’d been evident from the disbelief in their faces, their incredulity at the sheer brute force of nature. The waters rose throughout that first night, so the day broke to catastrophe. People were initially in a stupor, but the progressive deterioration of the situation established a cycle in which each day, the unprecedented disaster became even worse than the day before.

The third day dawned with no significant change. The flood seemed to have reached its maximum level, though there was still the possibility another levee might give way. Even that wouldn’t change things much. Eighty percent of the 170 square miles of New Orleans’ terra firma was underwater. The power was out and municipal water plants had shut down. No shops were open. There was no air-conditioning in a city where daytime temperatures regularly broke ninety degrees. Nights weren’t much cooler.

The third day was one of hopelessness. Children and the elderly remained on highway overpasses, huddled together or passed out under the cruel sun after three days without food or potable water. Rumors of impending rescue passed from mouth to mouth, fed by reports via the few functioning transistor radios, but no help came.

By the fourth day, madness reigned. The team came back from their time in the swamp to a changed city.

Amaia, Johnson, and Charbou trudged along a highway at five in the afternoon. The sun shone as mercilessly as at noon. Under those brilliant, gleaming skies, the city stank of feces and death. It seemed totally absurd that only a few miles away, international flights were departing on schedule, evening newscasters were prepping to go on the air, and some people were luxuriating in long, hot showers and others were making love.

The great mass of NOLA city dwellers, whose initial reactions to this unthinkable