The Tenth Chamber Read Online Free Page B

vast budgets and manpower, stood toe-to-toe with their counterparts in the CIA and other intelligence agencies worldwide and held star status within their ranks, his unit paled in comparison. It had a comparatively small budget, only thirty employees and Gatinois worked in relative obscurity. Not that he ever lacked for resources – it was just that the amount of funding he required was dwarfed by the Action Division, for example, with their global network of spies and operatives. No, Gatinois achieved what he required on a fraction of what other groups needed. In truth, much of his unit’s work was accomplished by contractors in government and academic labs who had no idea what they were actually working on.
    Gatinois had to be content with the knowledge, reliably passed to him by his superior, the DGSE director, that the Minister of Defence, and indeed the President of France himself, were often more interested in updates about Unit 70 than any other matter of state intelligence.
    Unit 70 had its suite of rooms in a nineteenth-century block within the complex. Gatinois favoured it over the other modern cookie-cutter buildings and always resisted relocation. He preferred the high ceilings, intricate mouldings and wainscoting of the quarters even though the toilets were bulkier than their modern equivalents.
    His conference room had grand proportions and a brilliant crystal chandelier. Following a brief visit to his personal bathroom to adjust his grooming, he swept in, nodded to his staff and took his place at the head of the table where his briefing papers awaited.
    One of his rituals of self-importance was to keep his people waiting in silence while he scanned their weekly status report. Each department head would deliver a verbal summary in turn, but Gatinois liked to know what was coming. His principal aide, Colonel Jean-Claude Marolles, a short, haughty man with a careful little moustache, sat to his right, rolling the barrel of his pen back and forth between thumb and forefinger in his typical skittish fashion, waiting for Gatinois to find something to criticise.
    He didn’t have long to wait.
    ‘Why wasn’t I told about this?’ Gatinois asked, peeling off his reading glasses as if he intended to fling them.
    ‘About what, General?’ Marolles replied with a touch of weariness that set Gatinois off into a rage.
    ‘About the fire! What do you mean, “about what?”’
    ‘It was only a small fire at the abbey. Nothing at all happened in the village. It doesn’t appear to have any significance.’
    Gatinois was not satisfied. He let his unblinking eyes settle on each of the men around the table in turn until he found Chabon, the one in charge of running Dr Pelay. ‘But, Chabon, you write here Pelay told you that Bonnet himself attended the fire and mentioned that an old book was found inside a wall. Is that your report?’
    Chabon replied that it was.
    ‘And what was this book?’ he asked icily.
    ‘We don’t know,’ Chabon replied meekly. ‘I didn’t think it had relevance to our work.’
    Gatinois welcomed the opportunity for histrionics. He took his inspiration from the chandelier, which reminded him of a burst of fireworks. Often, their work had the quality of watching paint dry. It was easy for them to get complacent. It was easy for him to get complacent. It had been a solid six months since the last noteworthy breakthrough and his frustration at the torpid pace of his assignment and his long overdue advancement to a larger ministry job was ready to boil over.
    He started softly, seething, and let his voice rise in a smooth crescendo until he was bellowing loud enough to be heard down the corridor. ‘Our job is Ruac. Everything about Ruac. Nothing about Ruac is unimportant until I say it’s unimportant. If a kid gets chicken pox I want to know about it! If there’s a power cut in the café I want to know about it! If a goddamn dog shits on the street I want to know about it! An old book is found