Bred to Kill (31 page)

I
t was raining when the two ex-cops pulled up at a house located near a grain silo slightly outside of town. Beneath a gray sky with diffuse clouds, before a horizon of dull green and yellow fields, the dwelling looked like a sleeping, wounded animal. The garden had gone to seed, the paint was peeling from the walls in fat tongues, and some of the windows had been smashed.

An abandoned property. Sharko and Lucie shot each other a surprised glance.

The inspector parked the car at the end of a dirt road, behind an old Renault hatchback in a long-discontinued model. A man got out and came toward them. They shook hands.

The anthropologist Yves Lenoir, about fifty years old, seemed a plainspoken sort of fellow. Dressed unfashionably in brown suede trousers, red wool sweater, and a checked shirt, with a white beard and salt-and-pepper hair, he immediately inspired trust. His deep green eyes shone under the thick line of his light-colored eyebrows, osmotically reflecting all the jungles whose populations he had surely studied. Leaning on a cane—he had a pronounced limp in his left leg—he walked toward the carriage gate, which turned out to be unlocked and opened with a simple push.

“Clémentine told me how important this case was to you. I wanted to meet here, where Napoléon Chimaux used to live. In fact, this was originally his father's house.”

“Who's Napoléon Chimaux?”

“An anthropologist. I'm certain he's the one who shot the film Clémentine lent me. He's also the one who discovered the tribe on the DVD.”

Lucie's fists tightened. She had one immediate question:

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes, last I heard.”

They entered the house through a large glass door on the side, off of what must have been the living room. A few ghosts of furniture still lay around, armchairs with cracked plastic covers, layered with dust. Dampness had warped much of the woodwork. Not a single trinket or picture to be found; the drawers and doors were wide open, the cabinets completely empty. The light had dimmed, as if night had decided to fall earlier here than elsewhere.

“Everyone in the village must have been in here at some point or other. Out of curiosity. You know how people are.”

“I can see that they made off with everything,” said Sharko.

“Oh, well, that . . .”

Yves Lenoir walked up to a ruined table, blew off some of the dust, and set down his cane and a brown shoulder bag, from which he pulled the DVD.

“If possible, I'd like to keep a copy of this precious film and show it to various anthropological societies, especially in Brazil and Venezuela.”

Sharko now understood what the man was after. He was offering them a guided tour of Napoléon Chimaux's world, but in return he had a few requests of his own. The inspector decided to play along.

“Sure. You can have an exclusive on it when the time comes.” He saw a thrill flash through Lenoir's eyes. “But for now, I'll have to ask you not to breathe a word of this until we've finished our investigation.”

The anthropologist nodded and put the DVD in the inspector's outstretched hand.

“Of course. Forgive me for pressing the point, but . . . I'd love to know how you came by this extraordinary document. Where did it come from? Who gave it to you?”

Sharko reined in his impatience and briefly sketched out the broad strokes of the investigation, while Lucie looked around the room. Lenoir had never heard of Stéphane Terney, or Eva Louts, or Phoenix.

“Now we'd like to ask
you
a few questions,” Lucie interrupted, walking up to the two men. “We'd like to know everything you can tell us about Napoléon Chimaux and that tribe.”

Their voices echoed, while outside the rain drummed more and more insistently against the roof. Lenoir gazed at the sky for a few seconds.

“The tribe you're asking about is called the Ururu. An Amazonian tribe that remains largely unknown, still to this day.”

He took a book from his bag, along with a map that he unfolded. The book was thick and heavily thumbed through, its cover worn and faded. The author was Napoléon Chimaux.

“Napoléon Chimaux,” murmured Lenoir.

He had pronounced the name as if it were distasteful. He handed Sharko a color photocopy of the man's portrait.

“This is one of the few recent photos anyone has seen of him. It was taken secretly, with a telephoto lens, about a year ago in the jungle. Chimaux is the French anthropologist who discovered the Ururu in 1964, in one of the most remote and unexplored areas of the Amazon. He was only twenty-three at the time, which was during the darkest period of the Brazilian dictatorship. He was following in his father's footsteps. Arthur Chimaux was one of the greatest explorers of the last century, but also one of the most unscrupulous. When Arthur came back between expeditions, it was here, to Vémars. Despite all the marvels he'd seen, I think he appreciated the simplicity of a place like this.”

Sharko gazed at the picture. Napoléon Chimaux seemed unaware of the photographer. He was next to a waterway, makeup on his face and dressed in khaki like a soldier. Despite being nearly seventy years old, he looked a good ten years younger, with dark brown hair and a face as smooth and polished as steel. Sharko couldn't say exactly what it was about the photo that gave him the creeps.

Lenoir spoke with a certain amount of compassion and respect in his voice.

“Arthur Chimaux knew the Amazon very well. He was highly influential in political circles in northern Brazil and got a lot of support from people like the heads of mining concerns or prominent opponents of natives' rights. He died tragically in 1963 in Venezuela, a year before his son discovered the Ururu. He'd left him a huge amount of money.”

Lenoir picked up the book and handed it to the inspector.

“
Discovering the Savage Ururu
. It was the only book Chimaux wrote about them. He talks about his incredible expedition, all the times he barely escaped death, the horror of his first encounter with the people he calls ‘the last living group from the Stone Age.' He passes the population off as a living relic of prehistoric culture, capable of phenomenal violence. He says, and I quote: ‘Before me is an incredible picture of what life must have been like for a good portion of our prehistory.'”

Lenoir apparently knew the work by heart. Sharko leafed through the pages and stopped at a black-and-white photo of a native. A colossus with bellicose eyes and fleshy lips, completely naked, staring at the camera as if he were about to devour it.

Lenoir commented on the photo: “The Ururu have light skin and hazel eyes. Chimaux called them the ‘White Indians.' In 1965, he brought back skeleton fragments that suggested ‘Caucasoid' features.”

“Meaning that the Ururu originally came from Europe?”

“Like all the Indians native to America. They descended from the first hunters of the Paleolithic Age, who crossed the Bering Strait at least twenty-five thousand years ago. That said, they're most likely the only tribe to have remained morphologically and culturally similar to the Cro-Magnon.”

The inspector handed the book to Lucie. In silence, they exchanged a troubled glance, through which snaked the same incomprehensible path: Cro-Magnon, the Ururu, Carnot, and Lambert . . .

The chain of time.

Leaning on his cane, Lenoir began walking through the house toward the stairway, still pursuing his explanations:

“Chimaux isn't very kind to the Ururu in his book. He describes them as bloodthirsty, a horde of killers who constantly start tribal wars. Most of them are young, strong, and aggressive. They practice barbaric rites, culminating in a horrific death. Chimaux lays a lot of stress on his description of their extreme violence, the archaic and direct way they kill, which they learn at a very early age. If you look at the photos, you'll see that their tools and weapons are made of wood and stone. In 1965, the year his book came out, they hadn't yet discovered metal.”

Sharko, who had continued to leaf through the book, pointed at a photo of four Ururu men armed with axes.

“Come over here, Lucie. Look how they're holding their axes.”

Lucie went closer and, even before looking at the photo, knew the answer.

“Four men, three of them left-handed . . . Does Chimaux talk about that peculiarity?”

The anthropologist peered at the photo as if seeing it for the first time.

“Left-handed? Goodness, you're right. No, he never mentions it. It's strange there are so many of them.”

They went upstairs. The creaking steps reinforced the sense of violating someone's privacy. Lenoir had switched on a flashlight. On the walls, kids had left a bunch of messages along the lines of “Marc + Jacqueline” in a heart. Lucie felt profoundly uneasy in this silent, lifeless, pernicious house. They entered a small bedroom, its window looking out on the fields. A mattress lay on the floor next to its dilapidated box spring.

“This is where Napoléon Chimaux grew up with his mother.”

They could still make out the wallpaper of a child's room, its regularly repeating pattern of boats and palm trees. Foretastes of travel.

“In his book, Chimaux establishes a strict parallel between the structure of Ururu society and that of numerous primates. As with certain baboon troops, the villages split once they exceed a certain size. According to Chimaux, the ‘savages' are like those monkeys: Amazonian primates whose complete lack of morality turns murder and bloody rituals into tribal ideals.”

Standing in the middle of the room, Lucie looked through the book in turn, stopping at each photo. The Indians had terrifying faces, and some of them wore makeup. Lucie couldn't help thinking of the movies about cannibals she'd seen when she was younger, and she shuddered involuntarily.

“Where is he?” she asked. “Where is Chimaux today?”

“I'm getting to that, just let me finish. In 1964 and '65, Napoléon traveled the world, talking about his discovery and writing his book. He went to universities and research institutes with his photos and bone fragments. A number of scientists were interested in his findings.”

“Scientists? Why?”

“Because the ‘market value' of a tribal group rises depending on how remote or isolated they are. For scientists, biologists, and geneticists, blood from someone in those tribes is worth more than gold. The blood from another age has unique genetic properties, you understand?”

“I understand all too well.”

“But in neither his book nor his lectures did Napoléon
ever
divulge where in the Amazon the Ururu lived, so that no one could ‘steal' his population from him. Only he and his expedition crew—outlaws and gold diggers, whom he jealously protected—were able to retrace that path . . . In 1966, Chimaux suddenly disappeared from civilization. According to the locals, he only came back to this house now and then, and only for a few days at a time.”

“Nineteen sixty-six was the date of the film,” Lucie pointed out.

Yves Lenoir nodded, a somber look on his face.

“We know that for all these years he's been living in the largest of the Ururu villages, where apparently he reigns as supreme master over the entire population. You know, the passage of time has done away with virgin territories. Today, there isn't a square mile of this planet that hasn't been charted. Satellite photos, airplanes, increasingly lavish and well-financed expeditions. We now know geographically where the Ururu live; it's around the upper part of the Rio Negro. You can even get there relatively easily. But the Ururu are one of sixty Indian communities that have no contact with the outside world. For years, explorers were afraid to go there, because Chimaux's book had described them as being so vicious. But the spirit of adventure proved too strong, and there were more and more expeditions. Still, those who ventured into those regions to find the Ururu were driven out by force, with a clear warning from Chimaux never to come back.”

Each of his words was like a poisoned dart. The people and the area he described sounded like hell on earth. Still, Lucie was convinced that Louts had managed to get to Chimaux, and that she'd intended to go back again.

In the narrow confines of the room, Lenoir struck his cane against a wall, knocking loose a bit of plaster.

“We anthropologists couldn't figure out how Chimaux had managed to become so integrated into this population, how he'd been able to climb to the top of their hierarchy and impose his rule on them. Seeing your film, I now know the answer, and that's why this document is crucial. There's no question that Chimaux went back in 1966 with the measles virus in his bag.”

There was a silence disturbed only by the rain and wind. Sharko took a moment to absorb Chimaux's madness and cruelty.

“Do you mean that . . . that he brought it on purpose, like in a vial, specifically to wipe out some of the Ururu?”

“Precisely. Primitive peoples have their beliefs, their gods, and their magic. Carrying such a weapon of mass destruction, the anthropologist made himself look like a god or a demon, who could annihilate dozens without laying a hand on them. From then on, the Ururu must have worshiped him as strongly as they feared him.”

“That's monstrous,” murmured Lucie.

“And that's exactly why this film has to be shown to the anthropological societies. People need to know so that they can take the necessary action. Today, no foundation or NGO knows how to integrate the Ururu into the Amazon Indian populations. They're all afraid to go near.”

“It's certainly monstrous, but it doesn't explain the title ‘Phoenix number one,' which was written on the tape,” noted Sharko. “It's not just about measles. Phoenix suggests something bigger, something even more monstrous. That contamination was only the beginning of
something 
. . .”

Lucie took up the thread, on the same wavelength as her partner.