The Crowded Grave

impressed. The sergeant ran a good unit.
    “Let’s get a spade and lever it up,” said Bruno. “It’s meant to be opened so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
    It took two spades, even though the cement in the square proved to be a thin skim over a wooden trapdoor that opened to reveal a hole about three feet square and half that in depth. There were three bundles inside wrapped in plastic.
    “Careful,” said Bruno. “Take a good look for any wires. It could be booby-trapped.”
    After a thorough search with flashlights, they swept off the coke dust and took the bundles outside. The first contained a well-oiled Heckler & Koch submachine gun with four magazines taped alongside the barrel and a nine-millimeter automatic in a separate plastic wrapping with a box of cartridges, a cleaning kit and a spare magazine. The second bundle contained a wooden box which bore NATO and German markings. It held twelve compartments, four for fragmentation grenades, four for smoke and three for CS gas. The twelfth compartment contained blasting caps wrapped in steel wool. The final bundle was the lightest, and Bruno recognized it as soon as the final layer was unwrapped revealing the familiar waxed paper.
    “Plastic explosive,” he said. “Enough to blow up a château.” He leaned down for a closer look, but the waxed paper was blank. Still, he was pretty sure of the make and so was the sergeant.
    “Semtex?” the sergeant asked. Bruno nodded.
    But for Bruno, the real mystery was why this cache of arms and explosives was still here. If Jan was working with the Basques, this was exactly the kind of malleable and easily controlled explosive they’d need, rather than the crude dynamite that had been stolen. But the trapdoor under the coke had not been disturbed for years. The coke dust on the wrapping testified to that. So why had the Basques not taken the Semtex? Perhaps they had been in too much of a hurry and had to leave it, planning to return for it later. Bruno made a mental note to keep the place guarded, even though he’d take the guns and explosives. But that meant someone must have warned them a search was coming. Or maybe not, thought Bruno. The coke fire of the smithy had been cold, dead for at least a day. They would have had plenty of time to remove the arms cache. That raised another question: Was Jan really working with them? Might he be acting under duress, with his brother as hostage? And where was he now?

24
    The sergeant had left two men on guard at Jan’s smithy, waiting for the forensics team to arrive. On the unlikely chance that the Basques might return, Bruno had decided against wrapping the place in yellow crime-scene tape. Now in his car, Bruno led the way back to the château, checking his watch to see if he’d be in time for the evening security meeting.
    On his radio, tuned to Radio Périgord, he heard the familiar tones of Montsouris, the only Communist on the town council, defending foie gras as the luxury the working man of France had always been able to afford, and denouncing foreigners and “city-slicker animal rights fanatics” for daring to question France’s culinary heritage. He switched to France Inter and heard the mayor saying much the same, except that he denounced “a biased young magistrate with the ink still wet on her diploma who calls us barbarians for making France’s favorite delicacy.” On Périgord Bleu, Alphonse the Green was explaining why his party supported “the wholesome and organic foie gras of the region.”
    As he turned the corner at the church in St. Chamassy, the clatter of a helicopter, almost certainly the one carrying thebrigadier, began to drown out the voices of the council members of St. Denis. He glanced up to see the familiar silhouette of a Fennec, the unarmed model the French army used to transport its top brass. It was time for the brigadier to take charge, Bruno thought. The summit was just two days away. The chopper would certainly beat him to the château.
    When Bruno pushed open the door to the conference room, the brigadier looked coldly at his watch. But then his expression turned to astonishment as Bruno held the door for the sergeant and two troopers, their arms filled with the weapons from the arms cache. The big box of grenades made a satisfying thud as Bruno signaled one of the troopers to put it on the floor rather than damage the grand antique table.
    “You could have called to tell me about this, Bruno,” said Isabelle. “You