Curious, she went back to her room and looked through the window that opened onto a narrow balcony. She went out there, walked along above the arches, and peered down. Their official vehicle was parked immediately beneath her. Jason Bull sat behind the wheel and Dupree was in the shotgun seat. There was no sign of Charbou.
She gave up and went back inside. She was ready for breakfast.
Reports from the National Weather Service crackled loudly from the old transistor radio the Dauphine owners must have fished out of storage. They’d placed it beneath the television screen, on which could be seen the inevitable image of the hurricane’s advance.
Crossing the hotel patio to the glassed-in café corner, Amaia felt a warm, gentle breeze ruffle her hair, almost as if someone were blowing discreetly in her ear. She paused, pulled an elastic from her wrist, and put her hair up.
Bill Charbou watched her with a smile as he helped position a sandbag atop the half dozen already piled against the door. “Good morning, Assistant Inspector.”
“Good morning, Detective.” She glanced toward the street entrance. “Why are you here?” Dupree was alone with Detective Bull. She wondered if Charbou knew it.
He gave her a charming smile. “I was hoping you’d have breakfast with me.”
She nodded to the Dauphine proprietor and stepped around the pile of sandbags, ignoring the woman’s knowing smile.
She served herself scrambled eggs and coffee. She took her time at the toaster, hoping Johnson or Dupree would turn up, but at last she couldn’t put it off any longer. She went to the table. “Your partner’s not here this morning?”
“Sure, he’s in the car, on the phone with his family. He really loves his kids.”
“Of course.” She saw Charbou believed what he was saying.
“And his wife,” the detective added with a smile.
She made no comment.
“Sometimes I really envy him,” the detective added pensively.
Amaia took a big bite of toast, determined not to make it easy for him.
“Having a wife, I mean. You know, someone to share things with.”
She acknowledged that with an ambiguous nod. So that was going to be his approach. She’d heard of men who brought up the subject of marriage during their first encounter with a woman, but she’d never had to deal with one. They—and Charbou—were about as interested in getting married as in having a root canal.
She chewed slowly, watching him. Today Charbou wasn’t wearing the bulletproof vest he claimed never to be without. He must have left it in the vehicle. Instead, he was wearing a snug-fitting T-shirt that showed off his muscular chest and arms. His big brown eyes radiated sincerity. He was handsome and he knew it.
He leaned over the table as if to confess. It was so obvious that she couldn’t help smiling, and that put him momentarily off his stride. “I know from experience it’s hard to find someone who’ll put up with our schedules, the way we live . . .” He looked down and then up again to project heartfelt sincerity. “The way it winds up affecting everything we do.”
Amaia grinned. She was entertained, despite herself. Bill Charbou took her reaction as an invitation to continue.
“Assistant Inspector—can I call you Amaia? I noticed you’re not wearing a wedding ring. Are you married?”
Her colleagues appeared in the doorway. She waved and beckoned to them.
“Salazar,” she said.
Charbou looked a bit confused.
“You may address me as Assistant Inspector Salazar.”
One of the proprietors of the Dauphine came running through the café toward the back, holding the TV remote control high above her head. When she got close enough, she pressed the volume button so hard that her fingertip went pale. It was just before nine in the morning, and Mayor Ray Nagin was about to hold a press conference to declare the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.
The plan Dupree and the police commander Forneret had worked out, Operation Cage, was to go into effect as soon as Katrina passed. They would establish tight control of the main traffic arteries, the train stations, buses, and airports, and keep a close eye on all persons arriving or departing by air, including by military aircraft. They’d also monitor emergency personnel. They aimed to identify the Composer, whether he arrived alone or as part of a team.
They were placing their faith in the witness’s conviction that he’d been wearing a badge of some sort. Keeping that in mind, as soon as they received any report of a crime that fit the parameters, they would keep it out of radio crosstalk, maybe even impose strict radio silence to avoid signaling their own movements. They’d do their best to keep him bottled up in the city.
Dupree was certain the man they were looking for was already holed up somewhere close by, waiting for the weather to wreak havoc. The FBI was holed up too. They’d chosen the emergency operations center on the third floor of a building close to the lake as their shelter from the storm. The firefighters occupied the lower two floors. The administrator had given the team a disused conference room. He’d provided everything the FBI required, including whiteboards, computers, landline connections, and half a dozen camp cots, since they’d be spending the night. The building was a massive edifice of reinforced concrete that had withstood previous storms. The third-floor operations center next door had thirty workstations, only a third of which were currently occupied. Each had a computer screen and a multiline phone console. A huge screen with a computer-generated map of the city dominated one wall; the software was capable of marking the map with points of concern of all sorts, from traffic jams to bar fights, from electrical system failures to buildings on fire.
Dupree and the team spent time briefing each of the operators about what kinds of reports to relay immediately to the FBI agents next door: a series of gunshots, four, five, or more in rapid succession; all members of a single family killed by gunshots inside their residence; or all bodies grouped in one room.
They’d have to be prepared for anything after the call came in: flooded streets, blocked doors, fallen trees, and downed electric lines. They’d count on the firefighters for transport if the streets proved impassable for ordinary traffic.
In the early afternoon, Dupree suggested to Amaia that they make a tour of the city, escorted by Bill and Bull. They were enveloped in unexpected quiet as they crossed the parking lot. Rain began to fall. The shower was surprisingly gentle, considering the threatening gusts that had gathered force in the course of the morning. The interior of the vehicle was silent except for radio reports updating the command center on earlier incidents. Out in the city, they found that the cars previously parked on both sides of the streets had disappeared overnight. From the vantage point of Poydras Street, they saw crowds streaming toward the Superdome’s access ramps. Many were senior citizens on crutches or in wheelchairs. Some in the crowd carried infants, and others had arms full of blankets and pillows to spend the night in the stadium.
Dupree was dismayed by the crowding outside the entrances. He wondered if Nana was out there. He said nothing, but the others noticed his worried look.
“They started arriving last night,” Jason Bull explained. “Officers in the stadium report there are ten thousand inside already, and more keep coming.”
No one said anything. Bull switched on a commercial radio station, perhaps to break the silence.