The Frenchman, page 21
‘Hi, Sébastien,’ she said, smiling brightly. She gave him the French greeting of a hug and double kiss.
They made small talk as she handed over the sample translations he’d asked her to prepare.
‘It’s not like I can check them,’ said de Payns, chuckling, but noticing her translations were both in the European alphabet and Urdu script. ‘Did you have any trouble with the material?’
‘No, it’s not too bad,’ she said, putting a napkin on her lap. ‘When I hit a word I don’t fully understand, I search it.’
De Payns smiled and pushed an envelope across the table.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, eyebrows raised.
‘Your payment, one thousand euro,’ said de Payns. ‘It was easier to do it in cash. Please count it.’
She extracted the notes and fanned them, and somewhere through the western window of the cafe, one of Templar’s team was recording the entire transaction on HD video.
‘It’s nice to be paid so quickly,’ she said. ‘Government clients make me wait sixty days.’
They ordered and de Payns started what he hoped would be a fruitful escalation. ‘Once we get some of these foundation documents done, and printed and uploaded, I have something more specific for you.’
‘Yes?’ she replied.
He handed over the next level of translations that had been given to him at the Bunker. ‘The pharmaceuticals side of this business is well developed as a channel, and I know exactly who we have to target and service,’ said de Payns. ‘But the agricultural side—the biotech and agritech and chemicals research—is more diffuse.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Diffuse?’
‘You know, not defined, not concentrated?’
‘All over the place?’ she suggested, smiling.
‘I should just speak in plain French,’ he said, and explained that the supplies and machinery his clients wanted to push in the Middle East did not always have a central market, because the R&D groups were tucked away in facilities and campuses attached to universities and government departments, and it was hard to market to such a diffuse group of people.
Anoush nodded, indicating that she understood the problem. But she gave up nothing.
‘We might have a research facility on our list of potential clients, but are they developing pesticides, or herbicides, or GMO crops or fertilisers? Or are they working on vaccines for chickens or better yields for dairy cows?’
Anoush shrugged. ‘Could be anything.’
De Payns changed the topic to a man outside the window—he was allowing his dog to urinate on a chained bike.
‘That’s very nice of him,’ said de Payns, winking. ‘I bet he wouldn’t allow that if it was his bike. This man could be Parisian!’
She laughed and agreed, and as the laughter died down, she asked, ‘So which research facilities are we talking about?’
De Payns kept it casual and listed four, in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. Then he said, ‘We can’t forget your country. Pakistan has some of the best scientists in the Middle East.’ De Payns watched her face.
‘I don’t know much about that,’ she said.
The food arrived and de Payns shifted the conversation to personal topics. He asked about her kids, and allowed her to skirt around her husband without stating that they were estranged. By the time they were on to coffees, de Payns went for the social escalation. ‘I’m in Mons for a couple of days this time. What does a visitor do around here?’
She looked down at her coffee and then addressed him with a hopeful smile. ‘Perhaps I could show you?’
‘Sure,’ said de Payns, showing all his teeth. ‘Let’s do something.’
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
De Payns used the afternoon break to contact Templar and inform him of the evening plan; that Raven wanted to take him to the Latin club, and they were meeting in another bar first.
Templar laughed knowingly. ‘You know she was at the beauty salon before she met you?’ he said. ‘It’s getting serious, mon pote.’
‘Don’t start,’ said de Payns.
‘So just fuck her,’ said Templar. ‘You got performance anxiety or something?’
De Payns spent an hour walking the main streets, discovering there was a small, medieval core to the city, and more modern sections further out. He found a quaint bookstore, bought a 1954 first edition of Huit affaires pour Biggles, and napped at his hotel in the late afternoon. Then he showered and dressed in casual clothes, and at 6.58 p.m. he walked into the bar Raven had told him about, ordered a light beer and a glass of riesling—her favourite—and took a small round table near the door. Raven walked in three minutes later and when he stood he could tell she was nervous. They drank and laughed, and when they were finished they walked the two blocks to the Latin Bar, where Raven had reserved a table with a banquette, two tables away from the stage. De Payns ensured he took the seat on the edge of the banquette and allowed her to sit in the middle. The waitress arrived with a tray containing two margaritas and they clinked glasses and drank.
De Payns took it slow, pouring his drink between his feet when Raven was looking the other way. They ordered Cuban pulled beef and more drinks. By the third margarita, which arrived during the meal, the band was hitting its first number, an instrumental piece heavy on the bongos, leavened with high-pitch trumpet.
Raven leaned in to talk when making a point, her warmth and perfume enveloping him. By the time de Payns had finished eating, the lights went down and the dance leader stood in a spotlight on a parquet dance floor in front of the stage. The crowd—Raven included—whooped and applauded.
The dance leader’s accent was so heavy that de Payns struggled to understand what he was saying, but the other diners seemed to have no trouble, because they rose as one and headed for the dance floor. And then his hand was in Raven’s and he was being dragged into a Latin dance night.
Half an hour later, he collapsed into his seat, sweaty and panting from the work-out. Raven ordered a pitcher of margarita and now she wanted to talk. A female singer took the stage with the band, and Raven leaned in so her lips were on his neck.
‘What would you do if someone in your family became very religious?’ she slurred.
‘It would be difficult,’ said de Payns.
She made a groaning sound, sat up, rolled her eyes and leaned back into de Payns. ‘My husband.’
‘You don’t have to explain,’ said de Payns.
‘I know. But it’s so hard, living in Belgium with all this freedom and women having their own lives, and …’
De Payns sipped and waited.
‘My husband and I moved here five years ago, and it was great. He had a good job.’
De Payns ears were now pricked up and he leaned towards her slightly as the singer and the band performed a rowdy Latin American number.
‘But our mosque was filled with radicals, and Fadi fell in with them,’ she said. ‘Suddenly, he doesn’t want me drinking and he wants to go back and live righteously in Pakistan. But I don’t want to give up my freedom.’
‘He doesn’t live in Belgium?’
‘His clothes are still in the wardrobe and the kids live in hope that he’ll walk in the door, but he went back to Islamabad, where he belongs.’
‘Did he find work back at home?’ he asked. Perhaps the middle-aged man from the MERC was her husband, he speculated.
‘Yes, but now he spends a lot of his time working out of Dubai.’
That ruled out the man from the MERC.
He topped up her glass but not his own.
She leaned in again. ‘Women in Europe can be independent, if they have education and they have a way to make money.’
‘That’s about it,’ said de Payns. ‘Or come from a wealthy family. That’s also a good strategy.’
She sighed. ‘I know all about that.’
‘Yeah?’ prompted de Payns, interested again. This gave him an opening to play at the ego end of MICE. She was at a point of great candour.
‘But it’s also a prison.’
De Payns let a moment go by, nodding his head to the band’s beat. He didn’t want to appear too keen. ‘You mean in Pakistan?’
She nodded. ‘You get privilege, but they have you in their pocket the whole time.’
‘Who’s they?’ asked de Payns.
‘The government, the police,’ she said, waving her glass.
‘So, your family is political?’ asked de Payns. ‘That’s why you speak English and French?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘My family is academic, scientific.’ She was drunk now, her words not flowing. ‘I didn’t tell you the truth about those facilities.’
‘Which facilities?’ asked de Payns. ‘In Pakistan?’
She tried to swallow her drink. ‘Yes, I know a bit more about them than I told you.’
De Payns shrugged.
‘There’s a place outside Islamabad which is the kind of research institute you were talking about.’
De Payns frowned as if he didn’t know what she was talking about.
‘It’s called the Pakistan Agricultural Chemical Company, and it’s supposed to be about fertilisers and pesticides, but they do a lot of high-level research for the government—actually, for the army,’ she said, looking around her.
De Payns could feel his heart thumping. ‘You mean the military?’ asked de Payns, keeping his voice calm. ‘What do they have to do with agriculture?’
Her laugh was a bleak rattle. ‘Agriculture? I’m not so sure.’
De Payns’ guts twisted. If the ISI caught her talking like this, they’d kill her.
‘Well, okay then,’ he said, bringing it back to his legend. ‘That’s good for our marketing materials, but how do you know this?’
‘My brother is the head scientist of all the weapons programs at this place,’ said Raven, hiccupping. ‘I talk to him once a week.’
‘Right,’ said de Payns, his tone offhand. Meanwhile, his mind was doing somersaults. The person of interest is her brother and he runs the MERC!
He was very careful with the next sentence. ‘Well, that might help us target our marketing, do you think?’
Raven shook her head and turned her body towards de Payns. ‘You don’t understand. Yousef runs a weapons program, I’m sure of it. He’s completely controlled by the government and he’s allowed to speak to me for just ten minutes, once a week.’
De Payns mimed confusion.
Her face changed very suddenly, as if in panic. ‘You can’t ever mention this to anyone. You have to promise.’
‘I promise,’ said de Payns, putting up his hands as she poked him in the chest.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘If they knew I was telling you these things, we’d all be dead.’
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
The Thalys train got into Gare du Nord just before 11 a.m. and de Payns walked with the commuters through the famous vaulted concourses. He was mercifully free of a hangover, a fate he wouldn’t guarantee for Raven. She was sloshed by the time he loaded her into a cab and dropped her at her apartment. She was too drunk to make it to the door so he escorted her in and paid off the babysitter.
He had a quick look for followers in the Gare du Nord then ducked down the escalators to the Metro platforms and waited seven minutes for a train south to the Gare d’Austerlitz. As he took his seat in the lightly populated car, his Sébastien Duboscq phone trilled. This was the part of the journey where he’d normally break down the phone in preparation for a change of ID at the safe house. It was Raven.
‘Anoush,’ he said. ‘You’re up early.’
She groaned the groan of a person who’d had one drink too many. ‘Don’t laugh at me. Oh, and thanks for dealing with the babysitter.’
‘No problem,’ said de Payns. ‘You wanted that sofa for a bed.’
They made small talk for a few minutes, and then her tone changed. ‘Some of the things I told you last night, I … I really shouldn’t have.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said. ‘I promised you it wouldn’t go further than me—and I may change jobs shortly, so it’s not of any importance to me. What is important to me is that you gave me your trust, and I’m very touched. Go back to bed and see you in a week.’
He could hear her chewing her lip. ‘Really?’
‘I’m trying to remember exactly what you told me,’ said de Payns, jollying her along. ‘Now you have me all intrigued.’
‘Maybe I’m overreacting,’ she said. ‘I just really shouldn’t talk about him, and now you’ll have to shut up about it.’
‘I understand,’ said de Payns, laughing. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, really. But please, forget about last night?’
‘Anoush …’
‘Let’s meet again next week when you’re in Mons. But no mention of this in emails, okay?’
De Payns could almost feel the fear down the line.
She finished the call, and he broke down the phone as they closed on Austerlitz.
He spent most of the day writing his report. His night with Raven was a major breakthrough—the person of interest at the MERC was Anoush’s brother, a former professor in bacterial engineering named Dr Yousef Bijar. De Payns was happy to have the information, but he believed he was not the man to carry the operation further. The next step would involve getting closer to her family and she was now scared of her relationship with de Payns—or scared of the consequences of their association for Sébastien Duboscq, at least. If she was scared of what her brother or the ISI could do to her new friend, she could easily clam up and not allow any further incursions into her life or family.
He’d called ahead and notified Briffaut, Garrat and Lafont that he was ready to brief them. He had twenty minutes before the meeting started, so he grabbed a large black coffee and headed out into the morning sun, where he lit a smoke and walked the lawns around the old fort in search of a park bench where he could relax and stretch his legs. The end of summer was a time to savour the warmth before the cold winds of autumn started. He felt tired but not exhausted, a state that affected his brain more than his body. But he focused on the events of the night before and Raven’s call to him that morning. She was an abandoned woman, in a foreign country, quite vulnerable and expected to shut up about her brother, while talking to him once a week. He knew from Poles and East Germans that the true victory of the secret police was imposing self-censorship. He sucked on the smoke and sipped at the coffee. He wondered about Romy, Patrick and Oliver. What danger was he bringing into their lives on a daily basis? If his family knew who and what he was, would they live their lives in a similar state of fear?
He saw Briffaut exit the double doors down by the gym entrance and walk towards him holding his own coffee mug. Dominic Briffaut was fifteen years de Payns’ senior, but he still walked strong.
‘One of those for me?’ asked Briffaut, sitting on the bench. ‘Saw you with that damned smoke and suddenly I needed one.’
De Payns handed them over, and when he got the pack back he lit another for himself.
‘Saw your report on Raven,’ said Briffaut, sucking on the cigarette. ‘Nice work. How do you want to do it? Work Raven to contact Bijar? Or go to Islamabad and push for a contact directly on Bijar?’
‘It has to be through Raven,’ said de Payns. ‘And it has to be in Islamabad; he won’t leave that city. But I don’t know if I’m the one to do it.’
Briffaut dragged on his smoke and regarded de Payns. ‘That’s not what Frasier wants to hear right now. He thinks there’s some credible good news for the President.’
De Payns agreed. ‘I’m not terminating the operation, but I’m probably not the person to take the contact where it might have to go.’
‘Gone far enough with her?’
‘Something like that,’ said de Payns. ‘She’s shitting herself about saying too much last night.’
‘She’s worried about your welfare?’
De Payns nodded. ‘I’ve seen this before. She’s scared that her association with her brother is a negative for me. There’s panic about divulging too much.’
‘Okay,’ said Briffaut. ‘And then she stops communicating because she doesn’t want you running a mile from her?’
‘That’s a real possibility.’
‘Why?’ Briffaut chuckled. ‘Because she’s got a crush on you?’
‘Don’t make fun of me.’
‘You going to tell Marie this?’ asked Briffaut, shaking his head. ‘She’s a hard thing.’
De Payns took them through his report and made his case early.
‘The relationship is getting very close,’ he said. ‘Too close. It could wreck any chance of a contact on Bijar.’
‘We got a pseudo for Bijar?’ asked Briffaut.
‘Timberwolf okay with everyone?’ asked Lafont, to nods. De Payns could see her tensing up, wanting to argue with him. ‘Can I ask you, what is too close?’
Briffaut leaped in. ‘If a target says too much, they’ll sometimes back off because they want to keep the frisson the way it was. We might be in that position.’
Marie Lafont gave a wry smile. ‘So, Alec, how close?’
‘Drinking together, laughs, friendship,’ he said.
‘Did you fuck her?’ asked Lafont.
Garrat and Lafont started laughing and de Payns joked along rather than take offence. ‘No, I haven’t done that.’
Garrat said to Lafont, ‘I told you so.’
‘Come on, people, cut it out,’ growled Briffaut.
‘Okay, okay,’ said Lafont. ‘I’d like to make the point that too close generally means you’ve fucked, and now the relationship has changed, become complicated, and it might be harder to manipulate the target because the leverage is gone.’
‘Then I haven’t got too close, and perhaps I maintain some leverage?’ asked de Payns, regretting it as he said it. Female agents were regularly expected to include sex in a contact.
