The young gendarme was exhausted, completely drained of strength. She and her teammates had rushed to the crash site only to discover a hellish scene. The plane had crashed into a residential area, just a stone's throw from a peaceful park, causing considerable damage and numerous deaths in addition to the passengers. Nothing could be done for them, as the aircraft had exploded upon impact. The fire had quickly spread to neighboring houses, and it certainly wouldn't have been as terrible if its tanks hadn't been full at the time of the crash.

With firefighters unreachable, it was with the residents that the small team had come to the aid of the victims, shocked and sometimes severely injured. The fire had ravaged the buildings throughout the evening without anything being able to be done, as the water no longer reached the fire hydrants or the taps.

Karima had never felt so helpless. She had done her best and had not hesitated for a second to put her life in danger for others. She had entered the flaming buildings, forced entry into modest homes, and rescued a few people despite the suffocating smoke that permeated everywhere and the unbearable heat that prevailed.

Reinforcements arrived very late. They were not firefighters, but personnel from a nearby clinic. A small team of gendarmes also arrived, who, like Karima's team, suddenly found themselves without a vehicle and radio. They were close to the crash because their last instruction was to go back up the N184 to intercept, along with Karima's team, the hit-and-run driver who had been completely forgotten in the broken-down car, still handcuffed.

Karima sat in the grass, unable to stand any longer. She barely noticed that next to her was an airplane seat blackened by fire and smoke. A quick sorting had been done, but only of the bodies. They had been laid side by side across the street and covered with sheets out of respect. Many were certainly missing, but there were still about a hundred. The impact had been so violent that there was no doubt that bodies had been propelled tens of meters from the crash site, if not more.

One of the bodies, a woman in her forties, had been found still attached to her seat, in a tree at the entrance of the Le Nôtre park. It was not impossible that bodies had simply been pulverized at the time of impact and explosion. Three-quarters of the building that had borne the brunt of the impact, as the plane had gone through it and ended up in the building behind the first, had disappeared.

Despite the distance, Karima could feel the heat of the fire on her skin. All her clothes, her skin, and her hair had taken on the smell of smoke.

A man with a dirty and tired face wearing a gendarme uniform silently approached Karima and sat beside her. They had briefly met earlier while trying to gather the injured to facilitate their care. His name was Maurice, and like her, he was an adjudant-chef. Yet they were not attached to the same station: while Karima belonged to the Nanterre station, Maurice belonged to the neighboring Pontoise station, just across the Oise River. He was a big guy, easily standing at 6'3'' and weighing about 220 pounds (1m90, 100 kg), with hands so wide they could easily grip a skull, a very neat military cut but a friendly face.

"Still no news from your station?" he asked, staring at the buildings in ruins still engulfed in flames.

"No, nothing," she simply replied. "The radio still isn't working, and the sun will soon set. The lights should already be on by this time."

"Well," he said after a short pause, "since Nanterre isn't nearby, I suggest you come with us to the station. We'll probably have more information and instructions there. Although I don't think their radio works either."

"I don't think so either."

Karima remained silent for a moment, then turned away from the burning buildings. She looked at Maurice, whose profile was all she could see.

"Hey, what do you think?" she asked.

"Honestly? I don't know," Maurice replied honestly, shrugging. "It's too big to be a digital attack. The cars wouldn't have all broken down simultaneously. If the radios don't work and the phones are cut off, it's a safe bet that it's the same with the computers and the Internet. Powerful countries like the USA, China, or Russia are said to have weapons that can do this. If that's the case, it's a declaration of war. But they can't hit the whole country. Our allies will come to our aid. We'll have to maintain order on our scale as much as possible and hold out until the situation returns to normal."

"I agree, but how long will we have to hold out? And with what means? Our manpower is limited, and without means of transportation or communication, I don't see how we're going to do our job."

"That's our superiors' problem. It's up to them to find solutions and for us to implement them."

"Hmm, just for that, I'm glad I failed the officer exam last year."

"You took the exam too?" Maurice asked in astonishment.

"I tried, yes, but I was rejected. I tried again this year, but I haven't received the results yet."

"Well," Maurice replied with a sad smile, "let's look on the bright side: you're not stuck with the hot potato. Come on, shall we go? The fire seems to be calming down, I think, and this mess won't disappear overnight. It will be daylight tomorrow. We'll resume the search then."

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Very well. I'll go find my colleagues."

Karima got up laboriously and walked like a lost soul toward her two colleagues, who evidently were also exhausted. One of them was coughing violently due to the smoke he had inhaled.

"Are you okay, Greg?"

"I'll be fine, it's nothing. Cough, cough!"

"What do we do, my adjudant-chef?"

"The night is falling, and it looks like the electricity hasn't been restored. We won't be able to see soon. We'll accompany adjudant-chef Pignon and his men to the neighboring Pontoise station. With luck, but I'm not counting on it, we'll be able to contact our station there and receive our orders. We'll probably come back tomorrow morning to continue the search. We've done what we could."

The two men were too exhausted to respond, but they agreed with their superior in their hearts. Neither of them saw what else they could do. Above all, they wanted to shower and rest.

"Damn it! The hit-and-run driver!" Greg suddenly realized. "We left him on the side of the highway! Cough, cough!"

"Oh, crap," Karima Ali exclaimed, realizing her mistake, or rather her fault.

She was risking a lot by abandoning a suspect like this! The current circumstances might mitigate the accusations, but there was still enough to get her suspended! With a mark in her record, it became very difficult to become an officer. Here, she might have to kiss her career goodbye or be stuck at this rank for the rest of her days.

She went back to Maurice Pignon to explain the situation to him. Because the place they had to go was on the way to their station, they decided to go together. As a gesture of gratitude, the neighborhood residents kindly lent them bicycles so they could quickly return to their station. They sped off like the wind, zigzagging between the abandoned cars, some of which had caught fire on their own. It didn't take them long to reach the gendarmerie vehicle that hadn't moved an inch since it broke down.

The man who had been arrested was still where they had left him, forgotten and soaked like a soup because of the heat despite the open front doors, exhausted. He was relieved to finally see the dark-skinned gendarme with curly hair tied back with a small black elastic band reappear. He had been alone all this time, unable to escape because of the handcuffs, and with no one to talk to since all the stranded travelers had scattered, leaving their cars where they had broken down.

Karima pulled the man out of the vehicle and told him they were taking him to the Pontoise gendarmerie. Because it wasn't possible for two people to ride on one bicycle, Karima decided to walk him there. Unable to ride a bike and drag a suspect behind her like in an old western, she got off her bike to walk alongside him. Her colleagues followed suit to keep pace.

There were roughly one to two miles (approximately two to three kilometers) separating the spot where the hit-and-run arrest had taken place from the Pontoise station. It took them approximately half an hour to make this journey, although they couldn't be sure. If they had all been on bikes, this time would probably have been halved.

The captain of the Pontoise gendarmerie, named Gilles Lecordier, was a man of average height and quite thin, around forty years old with a pronounced balding. The setting sun illuminated the main room where the captain was with his teams trying to contact their superiors.

As soon as the two teams entered the room, they sensed some tension and a burnt smell.

"Ah! Adjudant-chef Pignon! Glad to see you again! Ah? Who are you?" the officer exclaimed upon seeing his team arrive with other gendarmes.

"Adjudant-chef Ali, from the Rathelot station in Nanterre," the young woman said. "And this is Mr. Rolland and maréchal des logis-chef Toussaint. Pleasure to meet you!"

"Likewise! You report to Captain Ollivier, right? Does he know you're here?"

"No, Captain. We haven't been able to reach our captain due to a technical problem which, from what I can see, also affects you."

It was hard not to notice the few gendarmes bustling around a radio, trying to get it to work.

"Yes, yes. Everything went out around 5:30 p.m. We have no radio, no phone, nothing at all," the captain explained with a somber face.

"Outside, it's worse, Captain," Maurice Pignon said gravely. "The cars broke down as if their engines had been ripped out, and we saw a plane crash nearby. We did our best, but..."

"A-a plane crashed?!" a young gendarme who seemed to have put on the uniform the day before exclaimed.

All the gendarmes present froze like statues.

"Are there... Are there... any survivors?" the captain asked, difficultly.

"We don't think so, Captain," Karima replied, still under the shock of the emotion. "The impact was very violent, and the plane exploded at that moment. Moreover, it crashed into a residential area. The losses are high. Unfortunately, it's too early to estimate them. As it will soon be dark, we preferred to stop the searches and resume them at first light tomorrow morning. With any luck, the electricity will be restored. We will then be able to ask for reinforcements."

"But how did you manage to extinguish the fire?"

"We couldn't extinguish it without the help of the firefighters. We evacuated the residents and let the building burn. The water seems to have been cut off at the same time as the electricity," the young gendarme explained, not hiding the gravity of the situation.

The captain was pale. He had never been trained for such a situation. This one completely eluded him. They had also had a fire to deal with, but it was not at all comparable. One of their vehicles, a hybrid model, had suddenly caught fire from the front. He suspected it was related to the power outage and the phone networks.

"Captain," a gendarme who had been working on the radio for hours intervened.

"Yes?"

"The radio won't work again. The circuits have completely burned out. It's already a good thing that it didn't explode."

"Damn it."

The officer turned to the newcomers.

"One of our computers exploded over there and nearly set the building on fire. Fortunately, no one was in front of it. What's strange is that it was turned off. It suddenly turned on before crackling and smoking."

"Captain," a gendarme with the rank of lieutenant said, "the sun is setting, and two teams are still missing from their patrol. Leroy's team and Martin's team."

"Hmm, Leroy was on a domestic violence case two streets from François Mitterand Park, and Martin's team for a shoplifting case at the nearby Aldi. There's still some time before it gets too dark to see. Adjudant-chef Pignon, I know you're exhausted, but we're short of men. You'll go to Saint-Martin Street, number 26. adjudant Picard, you'll go to Aldi. Take the bikes. And if you can, buy some candles. I think we'll need them tonight."

"At your orders," the two men replied determinedly.

"As for you, adjudant-chef Ali, although you're not under my command, I ask you to patrol the neighboring streets to help anyone in need and maintain order. Come back here when you judge it's too dark to continue."

"At your orders!"