Private Paris (Private 10)

“Were you involved in the death of Millie Fleurs?” Fromme pressed.

Haja almost laughed. “I can honestly say I never heard a thing about her being a target. Jacques Noulan? Maybe. But not Millie Fleurs.”

“You’re again saying another cell was responsible?” Fromme insisted.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” she replied. “And I need more water.”

Neither magistrate nor investigator moved a muscle.

“You deny me water?” Haja asked. “That’s torture. That’s what that is.”

Hoskins’s lower lip curled inward. She stood, poured Haja more water, and held the cup out to her. As Haja sipped through the straw, I started thinking about how she had been angry, not religious, and apolitical when Michele knew her.

What had turned her to this? When was that moment?

Hoskins set the cup on the bed stand and sat back down, asking, “You regularly attend services at the mosque in Barbès?”

“Not regularly,” Haja replied. “But at times.”

Fromme asked, “Is the imam part of AB-16?”

She didn’t answer at first, but then said, “Al-Moustapha? Of course he’s part of it. And Firmus Massi. How do you think we communicated? Through FEZ Couriers. We’re all part of AB-16. We’re all out to change France. And we’re all willing to spend time in jail because we know it won’t be long before the prison doors are thrown open and we are rescued by the mob.”

“Ali Farad of Private Paris?” the magistrate asked. “He in AB-16 too?”

“A great soldier of the revolution,” Haja said.

I didn’t know why, but in my gut I didn’t buy it. Then again, I didn’t have to buy it. A jury did, and on these counts Haja sounded confident enough to convince one. One thing was sure now: Ali Farad faced life in prison.

La Roche returned to the observation booth, and his partner filled him in on what Haja had said. La Roche glanced at me and Louis as if trying to decide whether to kick us out. Guilt by association.

Instead, he said, “Nothing on the phone, Morgan. They found both pieces, but no SIM card.”

Frustrated, I forced my attention back to the interrogation, wondering once again about the source of Hamid’s anger during her time at the academy of fine arts. If she was a terrorist from the beginning, a sleeper sent to France, was showing anger back then carelessness on her part? Or an inability to mask her hatred of France?

Then again, Michele had said she believed Haja’s anger was personal. Was the anger connected to her willingness to join AB-16? If yes, I decided, the source of her anger had to be deep and violent.

Back in Africa, back in Niger, did someone French murder someone close to her? A sibling? Or was Haja raped at some point? By a Frenchman? Was she beaten or had she watched someone close to her beaten? Was she…?

Stark images from the week before flickered in my mind.

Now that would be enough to make her angry, wouldn’t it?

I thought so. Very angry. Spitting angry. Maybe in a constant rage at what life had done to her. But is it true? Simple test, right? But say it is true. How does that translate into her being willing to spend her life in prison for the…

It dawned on me then.

“What if there’s another explanation?” I asked Louis and the intelligence officers. “What if we have this all wrong?”

“What are you talking about?” Louis said.

“Text Hoskins and Fromme,” I said to La Roche. “Tell them to come out.”

Ten minutes later, we were all gathered down the hall from the interrogation room, and I was finishing up explaining my theory and the evidence that supported it.

The French intelligence officers looked skeptical at best, but I could see that Fromme was chewing it over, and Hoskins was keeping an open mind.

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” the magistrate said at last. “It’s either true or not, and she sure can’t hide a thing like that.”