The disorganization of law enforcement caused by the power outage allowed criminals to act shamelessly in broad daylight. During the first night without electricity, the Nanterre barracks suffered significant damage in a fireworks mortar attack. The walls and windows bore witness to the violence of the assault. Fortunately, it had been short-lived as the attackers quickly ran out of ammunition.
Karima Ali arrived by bike with her two colleagues the next morning and discovered a scene of war. Several cars had burned, trash cans were overturned, and windows were shattered. Fortunately, no bodies lay on the cold asphalt of the street. It wouldn't have been surprising given the situation.
Karima and her two companions were welcomed as heroes by Captain Ollivier as he was their direct superior. However, he was not the highest-ranking officer in the barracks since it housed the first infantry regiment with a headquarters and three security and honor companies.
Captain Ollivier was a tall man with blond hair, blue eyes, and a face as tough as that of a soldier returning from the front. Karima reported to him verbally, and during that time, he didn't utter a word. One of his first decisions, after inspecting the building to ensure there were no fires caused by the mortars, was to lower the national flag in memory of the crash victims.
A few hours later, she took the opportunity to exchange with her colleagues, especially to find out more about what had happened during her absence. The one she sought out was named Françoise Jacob, one of the few women in the barracks. More than a comrade and colleague, she was a friend. Karima often discussed and trained with her. Françoise had a very elongated face, a small upturned nose, slightly drooping green eyes, thin lips, and beautiful red hair. Despite her unattractive face, she was very gentle and caring.
"Everyone is on edge, Karima," Françoise began. "Since the communications were cut off, each barracks is isolated. Everyone is lost and divided on what to do."
"And the officers? What do they think?"
"I'm not sure. They spend their time discussing among themselves and sometimes they give orders. I think they are as lost as we are."
"I can understand. It's unprecedented, I think. We really weren't prepared for this?"
"Apparently not. We sent guys to organize us with the police forces. Everyone is very worried, some are seriously thinking of leaving. Others are about to crack."
"In which sense?" asked Karima, dreading the worst.
Unfortunately, suicide in law enforcement was very common. They were targeted all day long, insulted, and encouraged to end their lives. Plumbers, mailmen, or mechanics didn't receive such treatment, so why them? It was profoundly unfair!
"If this continues, we'll have to use our service weapons to defend our lives and restore order," Françoise murmured, her hands trembling, still shocked by the events of the previous day. "We were trained to keep our cool, not to panic, but now..."
Karima placed a friendly hand on her friend's shoulder, who seemed on the brink. Using a firearm, just pulling it out of its holster, wasn't a trivial act. Many serious consequences could stem from this simple gesture, not only for the offender. How many good cops had lost everything just for trying to do their job?
"Yesterday, I almost did it, Karima. I could have killed several of them. They were shooting at us with their mortars as if it were just a game to them. They didn't give a damn. They just stood in front of our gates to shoot at us. They could have hurt someone, Karima, or worse! It didn't matter to them!" she exclaimed, finally breaking down in tears. "I joined to protect people! And is this how they thank us?! Why?! What did we do wrong! We're just doing our job, damn it! Targeting cops is like... like tormenting a little animal! It's a damn game! And we risk our necks for these people?!"
Karima embraced her friend, who let her. She had a lot on her mind, and like everyone else, they had counted on her a lot. She was exhausted in every sense of the word.
"Do you know that Corentin used his gun?"
The young gendarme silently nodded. They had indeed told her this story. He was a young recruit with only eight months of service. He had pulled out his gun during the attack and opened fire without aiming at anyone. This simple gesture showed the state of mind they were all in. He couldn't go home, hadn't seen his family, didn't know if they were okay, had barely slept for several days because of a terrible case of reprisals between two rival gangs, was worried about the future of his country not to mention all the things that had been bothering him before the power outage.
"He's the one we punished, you realize? The officers blame him for using his gun while defending the barracks! Supposedly because an incident might attract media attention on us if not that of the neighborhood residents! Damn it! They attacked us and they were hundreds!"
Karima wasn't surprised. To prevent herself from saying something she might regret later, especially as a candidate to become an officer, she bit her lower lip. Indeed, it was likely that if a shot rang out and there was a death, these "youths" as they were so often called, as if to excuse their bad behavior, would come down on them. If they were lucky enough to go to trial, they would be accused of using their firearms when facing unarmed individuals.
It's ridiculous! What are they afraid of?! Chaos in the neighborhoods?! Are they blind or what?!
A deep and long rumbling echoed and made the two young women smile. Without their cell phones and watches, it was impossible to know what time it was. It could be noon or it could be one or two in the afternoon. The gendarmes hadn't taken a break to eat because there was too much to do.
Order was clearly collapsing in the city. Looting was rampant in all neighborhoods, and despite the presence of an infantry regiment at the Rathelot barracks, several hundred trained men, they were far from numerous enough to prevent or pursue all the thieves.
A gendarme had left on a bike just before dawn, as the sun began to lighten the sky, towards Issy-les-Moulineaux, southwest of Paris, to receive orders from the DGGN, the general directorate of the national gendarmerie. Almost all the services and directorates of the gendarmerie were concentrated there. Consequently, the highest-ranking officers were also there. However, it was necessary to take into account that, following the roads, there were nearly fifteen kilometers between them and the DGGN headquarters! Even by bike, it was a significant distance! The captain had given him a paper map and some water for this journey. With any luck, he would soon return with fresh news and precise orders.
The day before, they had sent someone to the Mont-Valérien fortress, in Suresnes, in the hope of getting answers to their many questions from the colonel of the 8th communications regiment. Unfortunately, he couldn't communicate with anyone. This regiment was as isolated and helpless as they were.
Karima Ali was sent on patrol with four other gendarmes in the city, with no specific target in mind, to prevent riots and looting. She quickly found a sensitive spot. Positioned at the entrance of an Intermarché, she confronted a young man whose shopping cart was filled with clearly stolen products, mainly household appliances and high-tech items. It didn't take a genius to deduce that this man intended to resell all these items later when electricity was restored. The problem was that for every arrest they made, at least five others managed to escape with their loot.
Karima and her colleagues were more than frustrated; they were disgusted.
Damn it! We're not helping anyone here! And we don't have an unlimited supply of handcuffs! We look ridiculous! What do we do with all these thieves?
As she handcuffed the looter, a young man with hollow cheeks and a light beard, another passed right by her with his arms laden with a huge TV that must have been worth nine hundred euros, without anyone saying anything to him or lifting a finger to stop him.
Not only young people were helping themselves in the store. Indeed, Karima had seen men and women belonging to the same generation as her mother. Unlike the younger ones, they had clearly focused on the food aisles to stock up on water, milk, eggs, flour, oil, glass jars, and canned goods, not to mention the sandwich loaves that would last much longer than other types of bread.
"Adjudant-chef Ali! The maréchal des logis-chef Thomas has returned from the DGGN! We have received orders from General Prigeant!"
"Ah! What are the orders?" the young woman asked eagerly.
"We have been ordered to focus on protecting citizens and the institutions of the Republic! The colonel has been called in with intervention squads to protect the Republic!"
"And-and what about the looting?"
"T-the general said to let it happen as long as citizens' lives are not threatened, Adjudant-chef, he... he also said..."
"What?!" exclaimed the young gendarme, unable to believe her ears. "What else did the general say?"
"He said that all gatherings and demonstrations are now prohibited, we can carry out searches without limits as long as the person represents a threat. And imposition of a curfew. H-he also added that we can use our service weapon! The situation is so chaotic that, according to him, we must show no sign of weakness in the face of troublemakers and enemies of the Republic! Several gendarmes have been killed since the power outage! It seems that some were burned alive with fireworks or riddled with bullets during patrols! A state of emergency has been declared!"
"Oh my God," one of the gendarmes who accompanied Karima paled.
"Damn it!" exclaimed the young gendarme with rage.
"Shit hits the fan, huh, adjudant-chef?"
"Language!" she said, turning sharply towards the crude gendarme. "But I agree. Well, shall I release this man?"
"Yes, adjudant-chef, and the others. We can't arrest everyone, we don't have enough staff, handcuffs, or prison space."
"Am I really free to go?" asked the young man who had just been handcuffed, not quite believing it, and hadn't missed a word of their conversation.
"You heard right," Karima said, glaring at him. "You're lucky, it seems. Come on, get out of here!"
Karima released the man, who hurried away, but not without taking his precious loot. Karima's face was hideous with disgust. The thief even smiled at her before leaving with what he had stolen, which was like a stab in the heart for her, who loved justice and order so much. She was in such a state that she felt like vomiting in a corner and going home.
This is disgusting! I didn't sign up for this!
As if her body was trying to tell her that her chaotic emotions were bad for her health, she felt a wave of itching all over, especially on her neck, arms, and back. It was as if she had been tickled with nettles.
Still smoldering with anger and frustration, she returned to Rathelot barracks, where Captain Ollivier, naturally informed of Brigadier General Sylvain Prigeant's orders, gave her new orders. He decided to send her with four of her colleagues to the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture, which also housed the judicial court.
The prefect, Jeanne Leroy, held a strategic position at the departmental level. It was normal to protect the place and her person, as she was the representative of the State, the Prime Minister, and the other ministers. She was therefore responsible for ensuring the protection of property and persons, ensuring that the law was properly applied wherever her authority extended, preventing discrimination and exclusion, ensuring that the administration in general functioned well, and ensuring that the department developed economically.
On the way, she encountered several scenes that seemed to come from a bad apocalyptic novel. People seemed to have lost their minds. Fortunately, not everyone was like that: she had no doubt that many citizens were hiding at home, waiting for this historic crisis to pass. After all, it hadn't been twenty-four hours since everything had stopped working.
The Hauts-de-Seine prefecture was a complex of buildings centered around a tall tower pierced with a multitude of windows. It was over fifty years old and it showed. The architecture was as cold as all the towers and apartment blocks nearby. The carefully maintained green areas around the site failed to make it any more welcoming.
Adjudant-chef Ali found the prefect leaving a meeting with her team, at least those who had come in these troubled times. She was a woman in her forties, blonde, with fairly short hair, wearing a small navy blue suit over straight black pants. Her features were drawn after the worst eighteen hours of her life. Even her last childbirth, which had been long and painful, had not been as exhausting. She hadn't slept a wink all night because of the succession of bad news, and nothing had improved. In fact, the situation seemed to be getting worse by the hour. They talked about looting, violence, planes crashing, and uncontrollable fires. Perhaps the worst part was the isolation. She would have liked so much to be able to communicate with the Prime Minister, Gérard Louvier, to whom she partly owed her position. She wanted to know what was happening, if it was the same everywhere, if the electricity would soon be back on, if they would get reinforcements, and above all what she should do!
At the meeting that had just ended, there had been far more questions than answers. Their conclusions had been obvious, but they needed means that she couldn't see herself implementing to make things a little better on her scale. There had been talk of mobilization and requisitions, which she had been forced to accept simply to prevent Nanterre and the entire Hauts-de-Seine department from erupting in flames. One of the questions that had been raised was how to communicate effectively with the other municipalities and the sub-prefectures of Antony and Boulogne-Billancourt without telephones or the Internet. She had had a moment of absence when she heard the word "messenger," as if she had suddenly changed eras. Perhaps that was the case?
They had sent messengers by bike to all the municipalities under this prefecture and to the two sub-prefectures as in the previous century to inform them of what had happened and of their decisions. For the tenth decision she had and would have to make, she would have raised objections the day before. She would have insulted the fool who had had the audacity to make such proposals and would have positioned herself as a defender of freedoms. The leftist woman that she was, and proud to be, felt like a prisoner of a nightmare from which they could not escape.
"Madam Prefect, I am adjudant-chef Ali, from the National Gendarmerie. Captain Ollivier entrusted us with the mission to protect you, as well as your team and the premises."
"Hmm? The gendarmerie? There are only five of you? Isn't that a bit..."
"Don't worry about that, madam. We have been well trained, and if it's not enough, we have the equipment we need."
The young woman pointed to the assault rifle she had been given before her departure. Each gendarme had been equipped in this way before being sent on a mission due to the orders transmitted by the DGGN headquarters. It had not been an easy task, as each weapon was locked up for obvious reasons. Due to the power outage, they had been forced to break down the doors separating them from their weapons and ammunition. They all wore black bulletproof vests, had a 9mm automatic pistol on their belt, and carried various types of grenades to give them the best chance against an angry crowd.
The prefect, feminist, environmentalist, and pacifist, paled at the sight.
"I-Is this really necessary?"
"Believe me, madam, it is," replied the gendarme, her face darkening. "And it's a safe bet that it's not enough. From what my colleagues have said and what I've seen, everything is going haywire. I've seen ordinary people turn into looters, so imagine what the bad citizens are doing. They must be taking advantage of this to settle scores while we're busy saving the furniture. You are the representative of the State, therefore, you are a potential target."
"Damn... Well, let's hope you don't have to use them. Do you need anything?"
As if in response to the question, a sound of a disgruntled animal was heard. The gendarme's face flushed. She didn't dare look at her colleagues, who were as exhausted as she was.
"Sorry," said Karima, putting a hand on her stomach. "I haven't eaten since last night."
"Hmm, follow me. We must have something for you and your men, somewhere."
"Thank you. With all this, we haven't really had time to sit down and rest."
"It must be the same for all the servants of the State. At least those who haven't abandoned ship. Several of my colleagues... Well, they decided to put their families first. And I can't blame them. If I didn't have a husband to rely on, I think I would have left too to look after them and feed them."
"Do you have children?"
"Two daughters. Four and eight years old. When the blackout happened, they were already at home with their father. That's what keeps me going. Here's our rest area. There's a coffee machine and a snack vending machine. Um, they're broken so we opened them. Help yourself and rest a bit. If something happens, I'll send someone for you."
"Thanks again, madam. We'll set up teams to patrol around the building to be seen."
"Very well. Good luck."
"To you too, Madam Prefect."
Karima Ali and her colleagues immediately headed to the vending machine, which had been partially emptied. The young woman grabbed a small bottle of mineral water, a packet of madeleines, a Kitkat, and a packet of chips. Then she noticed a bench made up of four emerald green seats against a large window. She devoured her meal and emptied her small bottle as if it were nothing before lying down, her rifle within reach. While she rested, two men were tasked with patrolling near the main entrance.