Page 26 of The New Girl

“Because His Royal Highness told my minister that his daughter’s abduction was not the work of terrorists.”

“How could he have known that so quickly?”

“You’d have to ask him. But the logical explanation is—”

“He already knew who was behind it.”

They were gathered around a stack of files piled on Rousseau’s conference table. He opened one and removed a single photograph, which he placed before Gabriel and Sarah. A Range Rover riddled with bullet holes, a smashed Mercedes Maybach, a crumbled Citroën estate car. The corpses of the dead Saudi bodyguards had been removed. Their blood, however, was spattered over the interior of the Range Rover and the Maybach. There was a lot of blood, thought Gabriel, especially in the backseat of the limousine. He wondered whether some of it had been shed by the princess.

“There was at least one other vehicle involved, a Ford Transit van.” Rousseau pointed toward the grassy verge along the D14. “It was parked right here. Maybe the driver was looking under the hood or pretending to change a tire when the motorcade approached. Or maybe he didn’t bother.”

“How do you know it was a Ford Transit?”

“In a minute.” Rousseau pointed toward the smashed front end of the Citroën. “There were no witnesses, but the tire marks and the collision damage paint an accurate picture of what happened. The motorcade was heading west on the D14 toward the crown prince’s château. The Citroën was headed north on the D38. Obviously, it didn’t stop at the intersection. Based on the tire marks, the driver of the Maybach swerved to avoid the collision, but the Citroën struck the driver’s side of the limousine with enough force to damage the armor plating and force it off the road. The driver of the Range Rover slammed on his brakes and came to a stop behind the Maybach. In all likelihood, the four bodyguards were killed instantly. The ballistics and forensic analysis indicate the gunshots came from the direction of both the Citroën and the Ford Transit.”

“How did they get the girl out of an armor-plated car with bulletproof windows?”

Rousseau removed a second photograph from the file. It showed the passenger side of the Maybach. The armor-plated doors had been blown open—rather expertly, thought Gabriel. The Office could not have done it any better.

“I assume your forensics experts analyzed the blood inside the Maybach.”

“It came from two people, the male driver and the female bodyguard. Like the four bodyguards from the Range Rover, they were killed by nine-millimeter rounds. The markings on the shell casings are consistent with an HK MP5 or one of its variants.”

Rousseau produced another photograph. A Ford Transit, light gray. The photograph had been taken at night. The flash of the camera had illuminated a small patch of dry, rocky earth. It was not, thought Gabriel, the soil of the north of France.

“Where did they find it?”

“On a deserted road outside the village of Vielle-Aure. It’s—”

“In the Pyrenees a few miles from the Spanish border.”

“Sometimes I forget how well you know our country.” Rousseau pointed at one of the van’s tires. “It was a perfect match for the tracks found at the scene of the kidnapping.”

Gabriel studied the photograph of the van. “I assume it was stolen.”

“Of course. So was the Citroën.”

“Was there any blood in the storage compartment?”

Rousseau shook his head.

“What about DNA?”

“A great deal.”

“Any of it belong to Princess Reema?”

“We asked for a sample and were told in no uncertain terms we couldn’t have one.”

“By Khalid?”

Rousseau shook his head. “We’ve had no direct contact with the crown prince since he left France. All communication now flows through a certain Monsieur al-Madani of the Saudi Embassy in Paris.”

Sarah looked up suddenly. “Rafiq al-Madani?”

“You know him?”

Sarah made no reply.