The Empire Of The Wolves Read online

  The Empire Of The Wolves

  Jean-Christophe Grangé

  The international sensation – a riveting and electrifying blend of mystery, terror, and tense, violent action

  Anna Heymes fears she is losing her mind. The wife of a top-ranking Parisian official, she suffers from amnesia and terrifying hallucinations – a living nightmare made more horrifying when psychiatric testing reveals that Anna has undergone drastic cosmetic surgery… though she cannot recall when or why.

  In the tenth arrondissement of Paris, a rookie police inspector and a seasoned veteran called out of retirement investigate the horrific murders of three anonymous young women – illegal Turkish aliens who could not have deserved such a brutal, inhuman death.

  From the murky night streets of clandestine Paris to the teeming fleshpot of Istanbul, two bizarre and terrible stories will become one – as prey and predator, manipulated and manipulator come together in a storm of blood and fury… in the hideous shadow of the wolf.

  Jean-Christophe Grangé

  The Empire Of The Wolves

  Translated from the French by Ian Monk

  For Princilla

  PART I

  1

  "Red."

  Anna Heymes was feeling increasingly ill at ease. The experiment was danger free, but the idea that someone could read her mind at that very moment deeply disturbed her.

  "Blue."

  She was lying on a stainless-steel table, in the middle of a shadowy room, her head inside the central opening of a white circular machine. Just above her face was a mirror, fixed at an angle, with small squares being projected onto it. All she had to do was announce what color they were.

  "Yellow."

  A drip was slowly pouring into her left arm. Dr. Eric Ackermann had briefly explained to her that it was labeled water, allowing blood flow to be located in her brain.

  Other colors appeared. Green. Orange. Pink… then the mirror went dark.

  Anna remained still, her arms by her sides. as though in a coffin. A few yards to her left, she could make out the vague, aquatic glassiness of the cabin where Eric Ackermann was sitting beside her husband, Laurent. She pictured the two men staring at the observation screens, observing the activity of her neurons. She felt spied on, pillaged, as though defiled in her closest intimacy.

  Ackermann's voice echoed in the transmitter fitted in her ear: "That's fine, Anna. Now the squares are going to start shifting around. You just have to describe the movements. Just use one word at a time: right, left, up, down. ."

  The geometric shapes immediately started moving, forming a brightly colored mosaic, as vibrant and fluid as a school of tiny fish. Into the mike attached to her transmitter she said, "Right."

  Then the squares rose to the top of the frame.

  "Up."

  The exercise went on for a few minutes. She spoke slowly, monotonously, feeling more and more drowsy, the heat from the mirror adding to her torpor. She was about to drift off to sleep.

  "Perfect," Ackermann said. "This time, I'm going to present you with a story told in a variety of different ways. Listen to each one carefully.”

  “And what am I supposed to say?"

  "Nothing. Just listen."

  A few seconds later, a female voice echoed in her receiver. It was speaking in a foreign language, with an Asian tonality.

  A short silence followed. Then the story started again in French. But the syntax was all wrong. The verbs were all in the infinitive, the articles did not agree, the liaisons were incorrect…

  Anna tried to decipher this pidgin, but then another version started up. This time, nonsense words cropped up in the tale… What did it all mean? Suddenly, silence filled her ears, making the cylinder feel even darker.

  After a time, the doctor said: "Next test. When you hear the name of a country, give me its capital."

  Anna was about to agree, but the first name was already ringing in her ears: " Sweden." Without thinking, she replied: " Stockholm.”

  “ Venezuela."

  " Caracas."

  " New Zealand."

  " Auckland -no, Wellington."

  " Senegal."

  " Dakar."

  The capitals came to mind easily. Her answers were automatic, and she was pleased with the result. So her memory had not been completely lost. What could Ackermann and Laurent see on the screens? Which zones were being activated in her brain?

  "Last test," the neurologist announced. "Some faces are going to appear. You must name them as quickly as you can."

  She had read somewhere that a simple sign-a word, a gesture, a visual detail-could trigger a phobia. It was what psychiatrists called an anxiety signal. Signal was the right word. In her case, the very word face was enough to make her uneasy. She immediately felt she was suffocating. Her stomach became heavy, her limbs stiffened, and a burning lump filled her throat…

  A black-and-white portrait of a woman appeared in the mirror. Blond curls, sultry lips, beauty spot above her mouth. Easy.

  "Marilyn Monroe."

  An engraving replaced the photograph. Dark look, square jaws, wavy hair.

  "Beethoven."

  A round face, as smooth as cellophane, with two slanting eyes. "Mao Tsetung."

  Anna was surprised that she could recognize them so easily. Others followed: Michael Jackson, the Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein… It felt as though she were looking at the bright projections of a magic lantern. She replied unhesitatingly. Her uneasiness was receding.

  Then suddenly, a portrait brought her to a halt. A man aged about forty, but with still-youthful looks and prominent eyes. His fair hair and eyebrows added to his look of an indecisive teenager.

  A sensation of fear went through her, like an electric shock. Pain pressed down on her chest. The face looked familiar, but she could put no name to it. It evoked no precise memories. Her head was a dark tunnel. Where had she seen this man before? Was he an actor? A singer? An old acquaintance? The picture was replaced by a long face, topped with round glasses. Her mouth dry, she answered, "John Lennon."

  Che Guevara then appeared, but Anna said, "Eric, wait…"

  The show went on. A self-portrait of Van Gogh glittered with its sharp colors. Anna gripped the microphone. "Eric, please!"

  The image froze. Anna felt the colors and heat refract on to her skin. After a pause, Ackermann asked, "What?"

  "Who was the person I didn't recognize?"

  No reply. The differently colored eyes of David Bowie glimmered on the angled glass. She sat up and spoke more loudly. "Eric. I asked you a question. Who was it?"

  The mirror went black. In a second, her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. She saw her livid, bony reflection in the titled rectangle. A death's-head.

  The doctor finally replied. "It was Laurent, Anna. Laurent Heymes. Your husband."

  2

  "So how long have you been having these lapses of memory?"

  Anna did not reply. It was almost noon. She had been having tests all morning: X-rays, scans, the MRI and, finally, those tests in the circular machine… She felt empty, worn out, lost. And this office made her feel no better. It was a narrow, windowless room, too brightly lit, with stacks of files everywhere, in the metal cabinets, on the floor. The pictures on the wall depicted open brains, shaved scalps with dotted lines, as though ready to be cut up. That was all she needed…

  Eric Ackermann repeated: "How long, Anna?"

  "For over a month."

  "Be more precise. You can remember the first time, I suppose?" Of course she could remember. How could she ever forget?

  "It was on February fourth. In the morning. I was coming out of the bathroom and I bumped into Laurent in the corridor. He was on his
way out to the office. He smiled at me. I jumped. I didn't know who he was.”

  “Not at all?"

  "Not at that moment. Then everything came back together again in my mind."

  "Can you describe exactly what you felt at that moment?"

  She shrugged in hesitation under her black-and-bronze shawl. "It was a weird, fleeting sensation. Like something I had already experienced. But it only lasted a moment." She clicked her fingers. "Then everything went back to normal."

  "What did you think at the time?"

  "I put it down to tiredness."

  Ackermann jotted down something on the pad in front of him. "Did you tell Laurent about it that morning?"

  "No. I didn't think it was serious."

  "When did the second lapse happen?"

  "The following week. It happened again several times."

  "Always with Laurent?"

  "Yes, always with him."

  "But every time, you ended up recognizing him?"

  "That's right. But as time went by, it seemed to take longer for the penny to drop…"

  "Did you tell him about it then?"

  "No. I didn't."

  "Why not?"

  She crossed her legs and laid her slender hands on her dark silk skirt, like a brace of pale birds.

  "I thought talking about it would make the problem worse, and then…"

  The neurologist looked up. His red hair reflected in the rings of his glasses. "Then what?"

  "Well, it isn't something that's easy to admit to your husband. He…" She felt Laurent's presence. He was standing behind her, leaning on the metal cabinets.

  "Laurent was becoming a stranger to me."

  The doctor seemed to sense her uneasiness. He changed tack. "Have you had the same difficulty recognizing other faces?"

  She hesitated. "Sometimes. But it's extremely rare."

  "Who with, for example?"

  "In the neighborhood shops. At work, too. I don't recognize some of the customers, even though they're regulars."

  "What about your friends?"

  Anna gestured vaguely. "I don't have any friends."

  "And your family?"

  "My parents are dead. I just have some uncles and aunts in the southwest. But I never see them."

  Ackermann continued writing. His face gave nothing away. It looked as though it were set in resin.

  Anna hated this acquaintance of Laurent's. He sometimes came to have dinner with them, but he always remained as cold as ice. Unless, of course, the conversation turned to his field of research-the brain, cerebral geography, the human cognitive system. Then there was a transformation: he became animated, enthusiastic, beating the air with his long brown arms.

  He resumed questioning. "So it's Laurent's face that poses the biggest problem for you?"

  "Yes. But then he's also the closest to me. The person I see most.”

  “Do you have any other memory problems?"

  Anna bit her lip. Once again, she hesitated. "No."

  "Problems of orientation?"

  "No."

  "Of speech?"

  "No."

  "Do you have difficulties making certain movements?"

  She did not answer. Then she smiled weakly "You think I have Alzheimer's disease, don't you?"

  "I'm checking, that's all."

  It was the first explanation that had occurred to Anna. She had gathered information on the subject and consulted medical dictionaries. Failure to recognize faces was a symptom of Alzheimer's.

  As though talking to a child, Ackermann added: "You're not nearly old enough. And anyway, I would have noticed at once during the tests. A brain afflicted with a degenerative disease has quite a specific morphology. These are just questions I have to ask you if I'm going to make a full diagnosis. Do you understand?" Without waiting for a reply, he went on. "So do you or do you not have difficulties making certain movements?"

  "No"

  "Any trouble sleeping?"

  "No."

  “Any inexplicable weariness?"

  "No."

  "Do you get migraines?"

  "Never."

  The doctor closed his notepad and stood up. This movement always created the same surprise. He stood at almost seven feet but weighed just one hundred forty pounds. A beanpole in a white coat that looked as if it had been slung there to dry.

  He was a real, flaming redhead. His wiry unkempt locks were the color of burning honey. Ochre freckles covered his skin, even his eyelids. His face was angular, decked with metal glasses as thin as blades.

  His physiognomy seemed to have removed him from time. He was older than Laurent, about fifty but he still looked like a young man. Wrinkles had formed on his face, but without attacking the essential: his eagle-like features, sharp and inscrutable. Only acne scars marked his cheeks, giving him real flesh and a past.

  He paced up and down in his tiny office for a moment in silence. The seconds ticked by. Anna could take no more. She asked: "For God's sake, what's wrong with me?"

  The neurologist fiddled with a metallic object in his pocket. Presumably his keys. But it was the sound that seemed to set him talking at last. "Let me start by explaining the experiment we've just conducted."

  "It's about time."

  "The machine we used is a positron camera. What specialists call a PET scan. It uses positron emission tomography, or PET for short. It allows us to observe zones of mental activity in real time by localizing concentrations of blood in the brain. I wanted to conduct a sort of general checkup on you, by looking at several large areas of the brain that have been positively localized, such as vision, language and memory"

  Anna thought back over the various tests: the squares of color, the story told in various ways, the names of capital cities. It was easy to see how each exercise fit into the context.

  But Ackermann was off: "Take language, for instance. Everything happens in the frontal lobe, in a region that is itself subdivided into subsystems devoted to aural comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, meaning, prosody…”He pointed at his skull. "It is the association of these zones that allows us to understand and use language. Thanks to the various versions of my little tale, I stimulated each of these subdivisions in your brain."

  He continued to pace up and down his tiny room. The pictures on the wall appeared and disappeared as he moved. Anna noticed a strange engraving of a colored monkey with a large mouth and huge hands. Despite the heat of the strip light, her spine was frozen.

  "And so?" she murmured.

  He opened his hands in what was meant to be a reassuring manner. "So, everything's fine. Language, vision and memory. Each region was activated normally"

  "Except when I was shown the portrait of Laurent."

  Ackermann bent down over his desk and turned his computer screen around. Anna discovered the digital image of a brain. A luminous green, transverse section. The inside was totally dark.

  "This is your brain when you were looking at the picture of Laurent. No reaction. No connections. An empty image."

  "What does it mean?"

  The neurologist stood up and put his hands back into his pockets. He stuck out his chest in a dramatic manner. The moment had come for the verdict. "I think you have a lesion."

  "A lesion?"

  "Which is specifically affecting the zone dealing with the recognition of faces."

  Anna was stupefied. "There's a zone… for faces?"

  "That's right. There's a specialized neuronal system for that purpose, in the right hemisphere, at the back of the brain in the ventral temporal cortex. It was discovered in the 1950s. People who had suffered from a vascular incident in that region could no longer recognize faces. Since then, thanks to PET scanning, we have localized it even more precisely. For example, we know that the region is particularly highly developed in people who watch the entrances of nightclubs and casinos."

  She broke in. "But I recognize most people's faces. During the tests, I identified all of the portraits…"

  "
All except the one of your husband. And that's a vital indication." Ackermann placed his two index fingers on his lips in a sign of deep thought. When he was not icy cold, he was expansive.

  "We have two sorts of memory. There are the things we learn at school, and the things we learn in our daily lives. And they don't use the same path in the brain. I think you're suffering from a faulty connection between the instant analysis of faces and their comparison with personal memories. A lesion must be blocking the route to this mechanism. That's why you can recognize Einstein but not Laurent, who belongs to your personal archives."

  "And, is there a cure?"

  "Indeed there is. We can move the function to another healthy part of your brain. Adaptability is one of the mind's strong points. To achieve this, we'll have to conduct some therapy. A sort of mental training, with regular exercises backed up by the right medication."

  The neurologist's grave tones undermined the good news.

  "So what's the problem?" Anna asked.

  "Where the lesion came from. There I have to admit that I've drawn a blank. There's no sign of any tumor or neurological anomaly. You haven't have any head injuries or suffered from a stroke, which could have stopped irrigation of that part of the brain." He clicked his tongue. "We'll have to carry out some further, more detailed tests in order to diagnose the origin."

  "What sort of tests?"

  The doctor sat down behind his desk. His glassy stare fell on her. "A biopsy. A tiny sample of cortical tissue."

  It took Anna a few seconds to understand, then a wave of terror crossed her face. She turned toward Laurent but saw that he was already looking in agreement at Ackermann. Her fear was replaced by anger. They were in it together. Her fate had been decided. Probably that very morning.

  Words trembled out from her lips. "No way"

  For the first time, the neurologist smiled. The smile was meant to be reassuring but looked totally false. "There's nothing to worry about. We'll perform a stereotaxic biopsy. It's just a little probe that -"