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It signaled she did not need to impress anyone. Eugénie Roquebrune could be, would be, herself.
The article said that she ran a corporation with engineering projects around the world. But the point of the article was that, because of global unrest, they’d just bought a boutique security and intelligence firm. Which was recruiting.
SecurForte.
His eyes widened. Wasn’t that the one George V used? And the one that cop mentioned?
Jean-Guy stared at the insignia on the screen. He recognized the design. He’d seen it on the uniform of the guard Loiselle.
The emblem was unmistakable because it was unusual. It was delicate, even pretty, and looked like a snowflake.
It wasn’t the sort of macho, aggressive insignia you’d expect with a private security contractor. Screaming eagles. Pouncing panthers. A death’s-head skull.
This was the logo equivalent of the CEO’s hair. The message being, SecurForte was too powerful to need to impress.
Besides, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who’d grown up in Québec winters, knew that a snowflake might look harmless, but it was a harbinger, a warning, of worse to come. The snowflake-like emblem of Secur-Forte was in fact quietly terrifying. Mostly because it wasn’t trying to terrify.
Was GHS using its security company to gain access to competitors’ files and projects?
What corporations, what hotels, restaurants, clubs, might it work for? What information could it collect, both professional and personal?
Is that what Stephen and Plessner had discovered? A vast network of industrial espionage? Even blackmail?
Jean-Guy leaned forward and began digging again. Digging deeper.
Armand picked up the screw, examined it, then replaced it in the box.
“Those were in the desk, I imagine,” said Claude, watching his host.
“On the desk, yes. Thank you for bringing the box. Have you found anything?”
“No, though the password for this”—Claude held up Stephen’s laptop—“would help.”
“And I happen to have it.” Armand retrieved his notebook, and, writing the word down, he ripped the page off and gave it to Claude, who read it with surprise but without comment.
Lutetia.
“Merci.” Claude Dussault put the paper in his pocket.
“Aren’t you going to try it?” asked Armand.
“Non. It’ll take hours to go through the laptop and analyze what’s on it. I’ll hand this over to Fontaine.”
Armand went back to the box and brought out the GHS annual report. The first page had a greeting accompanied by a photo of the president, Eugénie Roquebrune, as she nursed peregrine falcon chicks. And another of her releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean.
Madame Roquebrune, even in these rustic surroundings, managed to look elegant, with her perfect, and lightly applied, makeup, and her beautifully done gray hair. Not unlike, he thought, Reine-Marie.
Though these photos were filled with artifice. Reine-Marie had none of that.
Then he turned to the list of board members and raised his brows. “Impressive.”
“Incredibly so, oui,” agreed Claude. “Do you mind?”
He indicated his jacket, and Armand said no. It was indeed quite warm in the apartment.
Armand scanned the rest of the report while Claude got up and took off his jacket, then wandered the room, examining the paintings on the wall and the books on the shelves. He drifted, apparently aimlessly, over to the tall windows and, pulling aside the lace curtains, looked down onto the street below.
The annual report was upbeat in its broad statements about the financial success of the past year. It described the engineering giant’s ongoing commitment to the environment. To improving lives in developing nations. To equality. Sustainability. And to profit.
