The Frenchman, page 11
‘Why?’ asked Shrek, keeping his voice low.
‘He said Murad was in town and would pay three million euros for the passports,’ said de Payns.
Templar whistled low.
‘Fuck,’ said Shrek, shaking his head. ‘Murad, as in the Sayef Albar commander?’
De Payns nodded and his friends leaned in. ‘I thought it was worth the risk to get a look at him.’
‘Of course it was,’ said Templar, throwing the Jack Daniel’s down his throat without taking his eyes off de Payns. ‘So, which one was he?’
‘Shrek, you remember on the ferry, the last time Commodore took a piss?’
‘You poured your beer into the carpet,’ Shrek recalled.
‘Yes, that was the one,’ said de Payns. ‘I don’t know if you had the right angle to the WCs, but a tall guy—well dressed, maybe Pakistani—was at the WC door when Commodore came out.’
‘I didn’t see him. Was it contact?’ asked Shrek.
‘Couldn’t confirm it,’ said de Payns, not wanting to overreach. One of the first disciplines in the intelligence world was learning to identify things as they actually were rather than how you wanted them to be. He wasn’t going to let a couple of beers ruin that. ‘They may have swapped words but the tall Pakistani looked at me very briefly.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Shrek, leaning back and pushing his brown hair off his forehead. ‘So maybe they had us in Cagliari?’
‘Shit,’ said Templar, knowing a lot of that fell on him. ‘No fucking way.’
‘Don’t get carried away,’ said de Payns. ‘By the way, why did we call it off?’
‘Jerome was around the back of the bar, saw two Mercedes pulling up,’ said Templar. ‘It didn’t look friendly.’
‘Two?’ asked de Payns.
‘That’s what he said. They looked professional and armed. It looked like an ambush.’
De Payns nodded. ‘I made it one vehicle.’
Shrek said, ‘I only saw one.’
‘The one Commodore got into?’ Templar asked.
De Payns nodded and drank.
Templar seemed distracted. ‘Tell me about Commodore and this person outside the ferry toilet.’
‘It might have been an opportunity that came up on the ferry,’ said de Payns. ‘They saw it and took it.’
‘Opportunity?’ echoed Templar. ‘You mean the passports?’
De Payns nodded.
‘But if Murad was outside the toilet—’
‘I don’t know if it was Murad,’ de Payns reminded him.
‘Then how did he know that you had passports?’ Templar finished. ‘That was a surprise, non?’
‘When did you reveal you had passports for Commodore?’ asked Shrek.
‘Right before he went to the WC,’ de Payns said slowly.
‘So?’ replied Shrek, looking from de Payns to Templar. ‘Murad knew about the passports before the contact with Commodore. He moved to the toilet door to tell his asset something, give him instructions.’
‘His instruction was, Get those passports and we’ll find you in Palermo,’ said Templar with a nasty smile. ‘But that doesn’t answer the question—how did Murad know about the passports?’
De Payns almost whispered, ‘How would we know?’
The obvious answer—that Sayef Albar had Michael Lambardi wired—hung unspoken between them. The three operatives had already leaped to their next question. If Sayef Albar and Murad were running a wire on their guy against the DGSE, they were confident about who they were targeting. And if it was as bad as they were guessing, the terrorists had planned to shoot de Payns behind Bar Luca along with Lambardi. Planned, professional, targeted and reliably informed. The Sayef Albar organisation had inside knowledge.
The beer mirror behind the bar had the windmill of Brasserie de Saint Sylvestre etched into it, although the mirror was so old and distressed that you’d have to know the brewery to understand what was being advertised. De Payns stared into it as he ordered another round, squinting through the whisky bottles and mirror flaws to get a proper glimpse of himself. What stared back was a patchwork of a man: part husband, part father, all spy. He wanted to be with Romy, Patrick and Oliver, but he also needed to be with people who wouldn’t scold him for his occupation. He needed to unwind with the people who kept him alive. It might be contributing to the slow death of his marriage, but he needed to be with his crew—his clan—like a shark needed to keep moving. And somehow he needed to work out what he and Shrek were going to do about Manerie and the DGS. He wasn’t going to spy on his friend, a person who had saved him from certain death in Sicily. But he was holding back for some reason, and it was eating at him.
He turned with the tray of drinks and the middle-aged woman on the guitar muttered something into her microphone and smiled when a drunk further down the bar yelled his approval. The accordion player squeezed out the opening bars of ‘Idées Noires’, the classic Bernard Lavilliers song about a depressed guy who just wants to run away from his life and wife. When the woman started singing, others in the bar joined her in a drunks’ choir. Templar stretched back in his chair, eyes closed, waving his hands like a conductor as he sang.
As Templar lost himself in a haze of French accordion and American whiskey, de Payns realised Shrek was staring at him with those hypnotist’s eyes.
‘You okay?’ asked Shrek. ‘You look tired.’
‘I’m drunk—is that what you mean?’
‘No, I mean exhausted and worried,’ said Shrek, his gaze shrewd.
‘Fuck,’ said de Payns, leaning back and running his hands down his face. ‘Manerie came to me.’
‘The DGS guy?’
‘Yeah,’ said de Payns. ‘He had a photo of me and Mike Moran, from SIS.’
‘Shit,’ said Shrek. ‘And?’
‘I didn’t register a CRE,’ said de Payns, referring to the compte rendu d’entretien. ‘I don’t know what he wants to do with it, but he’s a sleazy prick.’
‘Yeah, he is,’ said Shrek. ‘I saw Mike a couple of months ago at Twickenham.’
‘You know Mike?’ asked de Payns. He hadn’t been aware of the connection.
‘Sure,’ said Shrek. ‘You know how it is.’
‘Yep,’ said de Payns, reminded of how tricky it was for spies to drink together. ‘I know how it is.’
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
The smell of coffee and warmed pastry brought him around and he squinted through a seismic hangover at the bedside clock: 6.24. His wedding ring sat on top of the clock radio, a symbol between Romy and him. DGSE operatives didn’t wear wedding rings because it left a mark when removed, which could burn the legend of a ‘single’ operative.
Groaning, he rolled onto his back, noticing Romy was not there. For the past six months she’d been waking at five in the morning to work on her thesis before the child rituals began, but now—the thesis having been completed and accepted—it seemed early rising had become a habit.
De Payns winced against the slit of light that poured through a small gap in the curtains and tried to estimate what time he’d arrived home. He’d barely had three hours’ sleep.
The scalding water of the shower felt good on his head, and after a shave he wandered into the kitchen and kissed his wife as she handed him a large black coffee. He could see through her short nightie and he lingered in the kiss, thinking of a possible return to bed before the kids got up. He dropped his hand to her rounded hip but she wasn’t interested.
‘How’s your head?’ she asked, holding two Advils in her hand and offering a glass of water.
Taking the painkillers, he leaned against the kitchen counter, looking through the main windows into the south of Paris. It was going to be a fine day, maybe rising to twenty-five, twenty-six degrees.
She slid a plate towards him on which was a warmed pain au chocolat. ‘Eat this before you take the Advils. And we need some milk.’
He chewed as he walked to the coat rack and grabbed his windbreaker.
‘Two minutes,’ he yelled, letting himself out.
At the entrance portico he performed his daily habit—before venturing out he’d take a look through the glass of the main doors to see if anything was out of the ordinary, such as the presence of sous-marins, or subs—vans or cars used as observation vehicles—or pedestrians hanging about with no pretext. If he saw someone who looked off, he’d first clock their shoes, since footwear was the only thing a follower couldn’t change in a filature. De Payns was always looking for a filature—the professional shadowing of another person.
He bought the milk at the neighbourhood épicerie and returned to the apartment. He drank another coffee and Romy fixed him a fresh pain au chocolat. She was friendly but distant, an attitude he accepted because it was similar to his own style. In Romy’s mind she wasn’t finished with the PhD until after the ceremony and dinner with her parents. She would be distracted until it was out of the way.
‘I have a bit to do today—I’m leaving soon,’ said de Payns, glancing at his plain Omega watch. For their first wedding anniversary, Romy had bought him an expensive military watch, but it spent most of its life in the bedside drawer; a shiny adventurer’s watch was too conspicuous for his work.
‘My parents are arriving tomorrow,’ she reminded him. ‘But my graduation is next Saturday, okay?’
De Payns nodded. The silence lasted one second too long.
‘The ceremony starts at six, and I’ve made an eight-thirty booking at La Bohème,’ she said, looking into his eyes.
‘Sounds great,’ said de Payns, standing and draining the remains of his coffee. ‘I’m really looking forward to it.’
‘You’ll be there?’
He realised she wasn’t being arch; she was worried. Hugging her, he nuzzled her hair and whispered in her ear, ‘I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I’m very proud.’
When he hit the pavement again it was 7.21 and Paris was starting to pump. Delivery vans were double parking and filling the street with West African rap as their drivers ran to building porticos with their parcels; commuters on mountain bikes shouted at drivers and hundreds of pedestrians walked the wide footpaths. The street looked safe, and he caught the crowded Metro south to the interchange then changed to a northbound line which hooked around to Odéon. Catching a bus east, he alighted at a stop in Noisy before wending through an IS into the side street, where a hidden side entrance of the Bunker was situated. He felt alert and a little paranoid, which he put down to the hangover. Even small leaks from intelligence services made people antsy, and the worst affected were the field operatives. The problems in Palermo gnawed at him, not the least because it reminded him of how he’d never resolved the torture-death of Amin Sharwaz, and how it was that the Pakistani engineer was revealed to the ISI. De Payns sometimes wondered if he should acknowledge the true extent of his concern to Romy, but he always stopped short—the day he divulged all to the mother of his children would be the day she pulled the plug on their marriage.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
The vials of prototype were sealed inside polystyrene canisters, which were in turn secured within the five stainless steel capsules that resembled a construction worker’s thermos, with a small combination lock on the screw lid.
‘Are we in agreement?’ the Doctor asked the man who sat on the other side of his desk. ‘Small rural settlements, with an observable population?’
‘I have the sites,’ replied the man, nodding to the piece of paper he’d supplied to the Doctor. ‘Operation Scimitar will be conducted as agreed and you’ll get photographic evidence.’
‘And stool samples and swabs,’ said the Doctor, too quickly.
The Doctor didn’t like this man who lounged before him. He was tall, well dressed and altogether too smooth, like a movie star or a salesman. He was Pakistani, which was in his favour, but he was a contractor with the ISI, foisted on him by the Colonel. As such he had a codename—Murad—and the Doctor knew nothing else about him, except that he had security clearance to be here, in the basement levels of the facility, which implied a certain seniority. He’d heard gossip that Murad managed an al-Qaeda cell on behalf of the ISI, giving the intelligence agency influence and control in North Africa. It wouldn’t have surprised the Doctor—the ISI also operated the Taliban in Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan, using it as a tool for control over an area much larger than the Pakistani government’s official reach.
It was one of the irritations of the Doctor’s undeclared scientific work that all his connections to the outside world had to be managed through a secret office of the ISI, controlled by the ghost-like Colonel. Three years ago, the Colonel had directly taken over research projects at the MERC after his predecessor was found to be selling secrets to North Korea. The Colonel now had managerial control over both the MERC and the missile development programs at Noor Khan Air Base in Rawalpindi, whereas he had previously had oversight of the clandestine programs. The Colonel, for all his ignorance of science, was at a least a good manager. But living in secret meant having to rely on a person like Murad, who might be competent but was clearly mercenary in his motivations.
‘If this works,’ said the Doctor, ‘as I know it will, we’ll be ready for the final stage of Scimitar as per the agreed timetable. Is that a problem?’
‘Not at all,’ said Murad.
‘What about that business in Sicily I read about?’ asked the Doctor. ‘Anything to do with us?’
‘It’s under control.’
‘Control?’ echoed the Doctor, annoyed at the arrogance. ‘What does that mean?’
‘The French secret services were in Palermo,’ said Murad, showing his gleaming teeth. ‘But they were looking into a passport racket, nothing else. We’re clean.’
The Doctor breathed deeply. There had been one hiccup, almost two years ago. A scientist of his with a traitorous husband. But she had been dealt with. Now he had no choice but to trust this man, Murad … for the moment. His sponsor was the notoriously capricious Colonel, and who knew what would happen to Murad once he had served his purpose?
‘We’ve discussed these vials and their safe use,’ said the Doctor, pointing to the canisters. ‘Your team has been shown the safety video I sent? They’ll need to use full protective measures when handling them. No exceptions.’
In fact, the Doctor’s project team had engineered paper caps on the vials which lasted around thirty-five minutes, when submerged in water, before eroding. This meant there was little risk of spillage, but he didn’t want a clumsy soldier making a mistake and infecting himself, complicating the operation.
When Murad had left with the canisters, the Doctor walked into the security airlock that separated his administrative offices from the laboratory. He input a security code and offered his hand to a palm-reader, which allowed him into the most covert facility in Pakistan.
The smell hit him immediately. Although this place had its own ventilation system, the smell of sickness and ordure was strong. The room was in darkness, sub-lit by dim red bulbs which gave a faint outline of the internal structures. It was quiet, thanks to the timers which shut down the main lights at 9 p.m., and the Doctor sat on the top step of the entry stairs, fishing a pack of cigarettes from his cardigan. He lit up, knowing that while smoking was not permitted on the campus of the Pakistan Agricultural Chemical Company, the discrete ventilation system in this area meant there’d be no smoke alarms going off in the security offices.
He was feeling nervous but excited about his work being allowed into the field, even if the Colonel and ISI had determined that he couldn’t be present at the tests. It had been a long journey from childhood to scientific pre-eminence. His discoveries were as great as those of Isaac Newton or Robert Oppenheimer, but he would never be lauded by other scientists or feted at the United Nations. However, once unleashed, his discovery would not only right a historic wrong done against his family—it would bring to its knees one of the world’s great nations and the very foundation of Western culture.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
‘Either way’s a risk,’ said Briffaut, slicing up a breakfast apple with a pocket knife. Lying in front of him was de Payns’ mission plan for Alamut. The operations were briefed from the DR and authorised by the section heads, such as Dominic Briffaut. But the owner of the plan was the chef de mission.
‘I like the simplicity of your plan,’ said Briffaut. ‘One team, one car. But doesn’t that leave us exposed?’
The plan detailed how the Alamut team would ascertain the main arrival and departure times at the MERC and then base themselves in a petrol station located at the end of the road leading to the centre, or a cafe north of the junction, in a group of shops. They’d wait two hours in the morning before leaving to live their legends around Islamabad, then return to the access road for the two hours when people departed their workplace. All the cars coming or going from the MERC would drive past them, and if a car recurred and looked important, they’d follow it to isolate the phone number with their spinning machine. Then they’d identify the house and take a picture of the person associated with the car.
De Payns’ temples were still tight from the previous evening’s Jack Daniel’s—left to their own choices, Shrek and de Payns drank vodka, but Templar always insisted on the American whiskey. ‘We don’t need a full support team; it would just draw attention. Our cover should be okay.’
Briffaut made a face. ‘Palermo ended well because you had a support team.’
De Payns knew what Briffaut was saying, but he still had confidence in his plan. ‘I’d rather stay low profile and slightly exposed than have teams in-country. The film company cover feels strong.’ ‘Film scouts in Pakistan? The police might buy that, but what about the ISI?’
De Payns nodded. ‘We’ll mix it up, and the legends are clever. We even have a screenplay.’
