“Such as?”

“Large shipments are inherently dangerous.”

“Because they’re easier for the authorities to find?”

“Obviously.”

“What else?”

“I was concerned we would saturate the market.”

“And thus drive down the price of oranges in Western Europe.”

“Supply and demand,” said Martel again with a shrug.

“And when you raised these concerns?”

“He gave me a very simple choice.”

“Take it or leave it?”

“In so many words.”

“And you took it,” said Rousseau.

Martel was silent. Rousseau tacked abruptly.

“Shipping,” he said. “Who’s responsible for the shipping?”

“Mohammad. He puts the package in the mail and we pick it up at the other end.”

“I assume he tells you when to expect the package.”

“Of course.”

“What are his preferred methods?”

“In the old days he used small boats to bring the merchandise directly across the Mediterranean from Morocco to Spain. Then the Spaniards tightened things up on the coast, so he started moving it across North Africa to the Balkans. It was a long and costly journey. A lot of oranges went missing along the way. Especially when they reached Lebanon and the Balkans.”

“They were stolen by local criminal gangs?”

“The Serbian and Bulgarian mafia are quite fond of citrus products,” said Martel. “Mohammad spent years trying to devise a way to get his oranges to Europe without having to go through their territory. And then a solution fell into his lap.”

“The solution,” said Rousseau, “was Libya.”

Martel nodded slowly. “It was a dream come true, made possible by the president of France and his friends in Washington and London who declared that Gaddafi had to go. Once the regime crumbled, Libya was open for business. It was the Wild West. No central government, no police, no authority of any kind except for the militias and the Islamic psychos. But there was a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The militias and the Islamic psychos,” said Martel.

“They disapproved of oranges?”

“No. They wanted a cut. Otherwise, they wouldn’t let the oranges reach the Libyan ports. Mohammad needed a local partner, someone who could keep the militias and the holy warriors in line. Someone who could guarantee that the oranges would find their way into the bellies of the cargo ships.”

“Someone like Khalil?” asked Rousseau.

Martel made no reply.

“Do you remember a ship called the Apollo?” asked Rousseau. “The Italians seized it off Sicily with seventeen metric tons of oranges in its holds.”

“The name,” said Martel archly, “rings a bell.”

“I assume it was your cargo.”

Martel, with his expressionless gaze, confirmed that it was.

“Were there other ships before the Apollo that weren’t intercepted?”

“Several.”

“And remind me,” said Rousseau, feigning bewilderment, “who bears the expense of a seizure? The producer or the distributor?”

“I can’t sell the oranges if I don’t receive them.”

“So you’re saying—and please forgive me, Monsieur Martel, I don’t mean to belabor the point—that Mohammad Bakkar personally lost millions of euros when the Apollo was seized?”

“That’s correct.”

“He must have been furious.”

“Beyond,” said Martel. “He summoned me to Morocco and accused me of leaking the information to the Italians.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I was opposed to the large shipments in the first place. And the best way to make them stop would be to lose a ship or two.”

“Were you responsible for the tip that led the Italians to the Apollo?”

“Of course not. I told Mohammad in no uncertain terms that the problem was at his end.”

“By that,” said Rousseau, “you mean North Africa.”

“Libya,” said Martel.

“And when the seizures continued?”

“Khalil plugged the leaks. And the oranges started to arrive safely again.”

And there it was again. The name of Mohammad Bakkar’s aggressive new partner. The man whom Paul Rousseau had been avoiding. After a prolonged pause to load and light another pipe, he wondered when it was that Jean-Luc Martel had first met this Iraqi who called himself Khalil. No family name. No patronymic or ancestral village. Only Khalil. Martel said it had been in 2012. The spring, he reckoned. Late March, perhaps, but he couldn’t say for certain. Rousseau, however, would have none of it. Martel was the lord of a vast criminal enterprise, the details of which he carried around with him in his head. Surely, insisted Rousseau, he could recall the date of such a memorable meeting.

“It was the twenty-ninth of March.”

“And the circumstances? Were you summoned, or was it previously scheduled?”

Martel indicated that his presence had been requested.

“And how is that done generally? It’s a small point, I know, but I’m curious.”