Black Diamond - Martin Walker [79]
“So the trouble we’re seeing is not some Chinese-Viet ethnic conflict but something between criminal gangs?” Bruno asked. He had trouble thinking of Vinh as any kind of criminal, far less a gang member. “And why would they want to kill Hercule?”
“Hercule was killed because he was a symbol. He was an important friend to the Vietnamese. And then he’s French, a top man in intelligence. They wanted to intimidate, to show how far their arm could stretch. And when you say ‘gangs’ you can miss the point. These are old organizations, more like clans. Membership has to do with family and heritage. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.”
Bruno got the impression Savani was talking about himself. He looked quizzically at the brigadier.
“Family traditions work in different ways,” the brigadier said, trying to refill Bruno’s glass. But he put his hand over it, knowing he’d had enough. “The Savanis have always been helpful to the French state. Or at least, there has always been one wing of the family that played that role.”
“It goes back to Napoléon,” Savani explained. It had taken a while, but Bruno began to suspect that he was in the presence of a leading figure in the Union Corse, the oldest network of organized crime in France. “We were cousins with the Bonapartes.”
“I think I’m out of my depth here,” Bruno said.
“It’s very simple,” Savani said. “We Corsicans ran the French empire in Indochina. Hotels and casinos, rubber plantations, the civil service and the colonial police and military. Hercule worked for my father in Vietnam. They were friends. So when Hercule started recruiting barbouzes to go after the OAS killers, he turned to my father, who knew where to recruit even better killers. Most of the real barbouzes were Corsicans.”
“And very grateful we were too,” the brigadier said. “So was de Gaulle, after they saved his life a couple of times.”
“Where do the Fujian Dragons get involved?”
“For their own reasons, the Dragons killed Hercule. He was a good friend to us and the Vietnamese, so there’s a feud. And the Chinese are attacking the Vietnamese here in France, which means they’re attacking the Binh Xuyen, with whom we have an old alliance. We help our friends. It’s tradition.”
“One of the reasons why the Viets are seeing us this evening is that Paul here smoothed the way,” the brigadier said.
“It would have happened anyway,” Savani said. He took a thin cigarillo from his breast pocket and began to light it, ignoring the DÉFENSE DE FUMER signs all over the mairie. Without a word, the brigadier leaned across to unlatch the window and threw it open. Savani spoke again. “Your old army friend Tran is well respected, and right now the Viets need all the help they can get. They called me last week, when all this trouble began. So I called the brigadier.”
Bruno studied the two men. Every time he met the brigadier, he had a sense of some looming secret government of France, operating behind the façade of politicians and media. It troubled him.
“Paul also helped broker the truce last year between the gangs in Marseilles,” the brigadier said. “You know about that?”
“Only what I read in an old Paris Match while waiting at the dentist,” said Bruno, looking sideways at Savani. “They said it was a war over drugs.”
“Paris Match had it mostly right, even though they kept Paul’s name out of it,” said the brigadier. “They had twenty killings in less than a month. Chinese against Viets, Viets against Corsicans, Corsicans against Chinese. But it wasn’t just about drugs; it was about who got to control the port. Paul brought the leaders together and helped broker a deal. We’re going to do the same thing here.”
“Does that mean you’ll be joining us in Bordeaux?” Bruno asked Savani.
“Not this time. And I have to get back to Ajaccio.”
“Paul kindly flew me down from