Free Camille by Pierre Lemaitre Page A

the simplest solution. Shooting up an ambulance is a breach of the Geneva Convention – unless, that is, you don’t give a flying fuck. The C.C.T.V. cameras over the entrance are useless: they’re there to deter any prospective criminals, but there’s nothing to stop someone from shooting them out before getting down to serious business. Morally, it’s a no-brainer. Technically, it’s not exactly rocket science.
    No, the only snag with his option is logistical: the security barrier at the ambulance bay creates a bottleneck. Obviously it would be possible to put a bullet in the security guard, break through the security barrier – there’s no mention of security guards in the Geneva Convention – but it’s hardly an elegant solution.
    The second possibility is to wait until the ambulance clears the security area. There’s a brief window of opportunity here, since it will be forced to turn right and wait for the traffic light on the filter lane to turn green. Though it might arrive with sirens blaring and tyres squealing – after all, it has urgent deliveries to make – the ambulance will be a little less pressurised when it leaves. While it’s waiting at the lights, a determined shooter could step up behind, and in three seconds – one second to open the tailgate, one to aim and one to fire – leave the paramedic and any bystanders shitting themselves so much he’d have more than enough time to jump back in his car, floor the accelerator, drive forty metres against one-way traffic before reaching the dual carriageway and the Périphérique . Piece of piss. Job done. Everything back on track. I can almost smell the money.
    Both options mean waiting for her to leave, either to be discharged or transferred to another hospital. If that window of opportunity doesn’t open up, I’d need to look at other possibilities.
    There’s always the option of making a home delivery. Like a postman. Like a florist. Just go up to the room, knock politely, enter, deliver my bouquet and leave. It would mean a precisely timed operation. Or alternatively, going in with all guns blazing. Each strategy has its advantages. Option one, the clean kill, would require more skill and be more satisfying, but it smacks of narcissism, it’s more about the killer than the victim, it shows a lack of generosity. Firing at random on the other hand is much more generous, more magnanimous, it’s almost philanthropic.
    In the end, events usually make the decision for us. Hence the need to assess the situation. To plan ahead. That was the Turks’ big mistake – they were well organised, but when it came to planning for all eventualities, they screwed up. When you leave some godforsaken country to go and commit a crime in a major European capital, you plan ahead. Not them. They just showed up at Roissy airport, scowling and knitting their bushy eyebrows so I would think I was dealing with big-time gangsters. Jesus Christ! They were cousins of some whore at Porte de la Chapelle, the biggest heists they’d been involved in were robbing some shop in Ankara and knocking over a petrol station in Keskin . . . Given what I needed them to do, it’s not like I had to recruit top-flight specialists, but even so, hiring dumb fucks like them was almost humiliating.
    Forget about them. At least they got to see Paris before they died. They could have said thanks.
    It seems good things come to those who wait. I’ve just spotted the little policeman scuttling through the car park on his way into the hospital. I’m three steps ahead of him, and I plan to keep it that way. I can see him standing at the reception desk. Whoever is behind the desk probably only sees his bald patch looming over the surface, like the shark in “Jaws”. He’s tapping his foot, he’s clearly on edge. He’s gone around the back of the desk.
    Short but sure of himself.
    It doesn’t matter, I’ll take him on his home turf.
    I get out of the car and go for a scout around. The key