Bruno wondered if the commissaire was putting too much faith in his technology and in the sheer number of cops and troops available. How would Bruno have planned this operation if he’d been in charge? Rather than put the thirty cops on the beach, he thought, he would rather have used them to increase the number of roadblocks. The thieves had to get the oysters to market, and Bruno suspected that meant getting the trucks onto the autoroute system as quickly as possible. Perhaps with millions of French families on the roads, going to or coming from family reunions, the commissaire had not been allowed to clog the autoroute access points. Could there be another bottleneck somewhere the police might use, Bruno asked himself, as the commissaire paused and lowered his voice, apparently coming to the end of his briefing. The man had been word-perfect so far; he’d evidently rehearsed his presentation.

“Seven tons stolen in Gujan-Mestras, another twenty tons in the Marennes Basin, more thefts off the Île de Ré—we are going to stop this theft, and we are going to stop it tonight,” the commissaire insisted. “And remember, we are dealing here not only with an important local economy but with the cultural identity of France. ‘To eat an oyster is to kiss the sea on the mouth,’ as one of our great poets put it.”

He paused and then asked, “Any questions?”

Another member of the top brass raised a hand.

“Sir, we know that the oysters have to be sluiced in clean water for a day or two to get the sand out after they are harvested. Presumably we know where all the sluicing points are around the bay. Why not monitor them?”

“Good question,” the commissaire replied. “We tried that last year and found that they weren’t using any of the ones around the bay. Oysters are raised all along the Atlantic coast up to Brittany and beyond, so there are hundreds of sluicing points available to them. That’s why we’re deploying these fake oysters with their transmitters. If we miss the hijackers on the bay, we’ll still be able to track them as they move out. Once we track the trucks, we can follow them all the way to the crooked wholesalers they are using and wrap up the whole operation.”

That made sense, Bruno thought. He saw heads nodding in agreement around him as the briefing ended and the meeting broke up. He checked his watch. Isabelle would be arriving in Bordeaux a few minutes after eleven. Then they would take the local train to Arcachon, for which he’d already bought the tickets, and arrive shortly before noon. There would be time for him to take her to lunch and then to spend the afternoon together before reporting for duty. The prospect of a weekend with her in a hotel paid for by the police budget had been too tempting to ignore.