Read Chapter 17: THE FIFTH HAND

Luc returned to the beginning.

Girard's contaminated fuel filter. Lemaire's loose aileron guard. Vautrin's fuel union. Adrien's oil blockage. The washer in the elevator linkage.

Different methods.

Different access points.

The signatures blamed Besson, Luc and other mechanics.

Roche had forged paperwork. Fournier had technical knowledge. Cazeneuve admitted interference. But the latest sabotage happened while Roche was missing and Fournier imprisoned.

Someone else had touched Adrien's aircraft.

"Who was on duty before dawn?" Luc asked Perrin.

They reconstructed the shift.

Marchal fuelled the aircraft. A young rigger named Colin checked wing tension. Armourer Denis loaded belts. Sergeant Perrin inspected general condition. Bellon posted a guard from military police.

And Besson's replacement, Claude Martel, had signed the tail inspection.

Except the sheet no longer showed Martel's name. It showed Luc's.

Martel was twenty-nine, quiet, competent, transferred from another squadron after the relocation order. Luc knew almost nothing about him.

"Where did he come from?"

Perrin searched personnel papers.

"Escadrille C.46. Before that, depot work near Paris."

Luc checked the dates.

Martel had arrived two days before the hangar fire.

"Find him."

They discovered his bunk empty.

His kit remained, but his boots and coat were gone.

Bellon ordered the field sealed.

A sentry reported seeing Martel drive a motorcycle toward the old aerodrome shortly after the German raid began.

Luc and Vautrin followed in a staff car whose steering wandered badly to the left.

"This vehicle needs repair," Luc said.

"There is a mechanic beside me."

"He is busy catching murderers."

They found Martel's motorcycle abandoned near the ruined chapel.

Footprints led toward the cemetery.

Between the leaning crosses stood a man with a shovel.

Martel.

He was digging beside a grave marked JEAN MARTIN, CUISINIER, 1883–1917—the cook killed during the bombing.

"Stop," Vautrin called.

Martel ran.

He crossed the cemetery wall and sprinted toward a drainage trench. Luc chased him, surprised by his own speed. Vautrin took a wider line.

Martel reached the trench, slipped in mud, recovered and pulled a pistol.

Luc threw himself behind a shattered tree.

Vautrin fired once into the ground beside Martel.

"Next one is higher."

Martel dropped the pistol.

Inside the grave, they found a metal tube wrapped in oilcloth. It contained letters from Fournier, money, and instructions using code names.

Martel had been planted as a mobile saboteur months earlier, moving between units whenever suspicion grew.

Bellon questioned him for six hours.

At first he said nothing.

Then Fournier, confronted with the letters, blamed Martel for the deaths.

Martel answered with fury.

"You gave the orders!"

"Orders to delay aircraft, not kill men."

"You wrote 'remove adverse testimony.'"

"That meant transfers."

"Liar."

The conspiracy began devouring itself in the interrogation room.

By midnight Bellon had statements linking Fournier, Roche, Cazeneuve and Delorme to different parts of the scheme. No single man had ordered every death. That made the truth uglier, not cleaner.

Each had created conditions in which another believed murder would be useful.

Luc sat outside with Vautrin.

"You wanted one killer," Vautrin said.

"Machines are simpler."

"Because broken parts do not make excuses?"

"Because a cracked bearing does not blame the oil pump for giving it ideas."

A motorcycle arrived from the south.

The courier carried a message for Bellon.

Their evidence packet had reached aviation headquarters.

An inspector was coming at first light.

Delorme had been detained at group headquarters.

Luc allowed himself one breath of relief.

Then Bellon emerged from the farmhouse.

"Roche has taken a reconnaissance aircraft from the old field," he said. "A two-seater. He has a pilot with him. They are heading west."

"Toward Paris?" Vautrin asked.

Bellon shook his head.

"Toward Savarin's factory test field."