The Frenchman, page 28
‘We’ve had some work done on that recipient number, and it has used cell towers in northern Pakistan, probably Islamabad, and Europe, Italy and Spain. But the most common area it’s been used has been in France.’
‘Fuck,’ said de Payns. ‘What was Palermo really about?’
Briffaut pointed at the spreadsheet. ‘Look at the dates. There’s a week of those calls terminating at northern French towers—probably Paris—and then, two days before Operation Falcon goes bad, Commodore’s daily calls are terminating at Italian locations.’
‘We know Commodore was taking his orders from Sayef Albar and Murad,’ said de Payns. ‘But what’s Murad doing in Paris?’
‘Sayef Albar has been trying to move into Europe, and maybe Sicily is their staging point?’
‘Staging point for what?’ asked de Payns. ‘That gangrene shit?’
Briffaut shrugged. ‘I need more information.’
De Payns was driven in a Company Audi north into Paris, stopping at an underground car park in Muette Nord, where they switched cars before driving across town to the neighbourhood of the safe house just after midnight.
He let himself in and went to the bedroom, where he changed out of the George-the-journalist clothing into his Alec de Payns clothes and emptied his collateral onto the bureau in his locker. Having slipped on his watch and put his wallet and keys in his pocket, he suddenly felt the fatigue and paranoia. He grabbed the bureau to steady himself. Dr Death’s eyes were seared in his brain. He didn’t know if he could go home, but he knew he had to. He needed grounding.
He made fast time to Port-Royal and walked the long way to the apartment. It was almost 1 a.m. when he let himself in and tiptoed to the kitchen. The light in the extractor fan had been left on, something Romy was always telling him not to do. He smiled as he switched it off, plunging the kitchen into semi-darkness. He turned slowly, aware of a new scent. Very slight, familiar … and male. It smelled like Old Spice, which he didn’t wear. He walked to the living room and the main window in front of the Juliet balcony, then looked down to the street out of habit.
He turned for the bedrooms and, in the half-light created by the city, saw a small pile on the coffee table—Romy’s wallet and keys. He stared at it. He knew he was tired and paranoid, but it still didn’t seem right. Romy’s stuff was always piled on the hall table near the front door and it was a running joke between them, because to de Payns that was just asking for an opportunistic thief to stick his head in the door and take your stuff. And where was her phone? Romy was organised and her iPhone always accompanied her wallet and keys.
He pushed off his sneakers and padded quietly down the dark hall. The city’s ambient light didn’t reach here and he moved by muscle memory. At Patrick and Oliver’s door, he paused and stuck his head around the jamb. Oliver had a Buzz Lightyear quilt and Patrick’s was Paris Saint-Germain.
He crept into the room. No boys.
They’d probably be with their mother, a common sleep pattern when he was away. He went to the next room, and as soon as he stuck his head inside, he knew it was empty. No sleep noises, no sleep warmth or smell. He flipped the lights and his mind went to white noise. The bed was empty—it hadn’t been slept in.
Snatching his phone from his pocket, he tried Romy’s number.
It went straight to voicemail. He left a greeting and followed it up with a text. He tried to stay calm but he was flipping out.
His breath rasped as he walked the room, checked the wardrobes and under the bed. He ran through the apartment, swearing to himself, panicking, his skin crawling and his brain squawking like an old field radio. He jumped from Dr Death to Islamabad, from weaponised gas gangrene to power drills and children as he grabbed the car keys, put on his shoes and burst out of the apartment door.
He took the fire stairs down to the underground garage two at a time and headed to the family VW, which was parked in its usual spot. He walked around the car, looked under it, and then unlocked it and opened the door. There was nothing amiss—a Buzz Lightyear toy on the back seat and a book list for school on the passenger seat. He turned on the power and scrolled through Romy’s recent map directions—nothing unusual. He scrolled the recent calls on the screen. She’d received a call from Ana at 3.49 p.m. the day before; Romy had missed the call and rang her back at 4.02. They spoke for six minutes.
He returned to the apartment and sat on the sofa, cycling his breathing to calm himself. He scrolled through his own personal phone, found Ana’s number and texted, Are you awake?
The reply came twenty seconds later: Am now.
De Payns called her and Ana picked up immediately. He apologised for the hour and explained that he’d come home to an empty apartment. ‘Do you know where Romy and the boys are? Have you seen them today?’
Ana was sleepy. ‘I rang her to ask about regulation school shoes for when the boys start next week,’ said Ana. ‘We ran through it and agreed we should meet up at the park in the next couple of days. Surely they haven’t just disappeared? Could they be at Romy’s parents’ house?’
‘Not without Romy’s wallet and car keys,’ said de Payns. ‘Oliver’s teddy bear is still here. He wouldn’t sleep over without it.’
He knew what he had to do—the personal security of the Company’s operatives was handled by the DGS, and the protocol, when there was a breach, was to contact the emergency number and report it. Ending the call with Ana, he dialled the number which all operatives had to memorise. He was asked for his OT number by the male voice on the end of the line, who paused. ‘I can’t respond to you,’ said the DGS man.
‘What?!’ replied de Payns. ‘You can’t—’
‘There’s a note; I’ll connect you now,’ said the man, and the line clicked and buzzed, as if he was calling a new number.
‘Hello, Alec?’ answered a man.
De Payns knew the voice. ‘Manerie? Christ, is that you?’
CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE
‘I’ve been waiting for your call.’
Cold anger welled up in de Payns. ‘Waiting?! Manerie, what the fuck? Where is my family?’
‘Be outside in ten minutes,’ said Philippe Manerie. ‘And as they say in the movies—don’t tell anyone about this. Remember your oath.’
De Payns stared at the phone, the call now ended. What was Romy involved in? The director of DGS tells him to shut up about the disappearance of his family and reminds him of his oath, the one he took on being commissioned at the Company. That oath included total adherence to information security imposed from above. If someone with a higher rank told you something was secret, you disavowed all knowledge until you were told otherwise. No exceptions.
He was aware of his own panting. He knew how to get through situations where his life was in danger; he had the skills and personality to handle it. But the threat to his family was triggering pure animal fear.
He picked up the phone again, thought about calling Shrek or Templar. He thought about calling Briffaut. But he’d wait until after he’d seen Manerie, he decided. He would also revert to his training—if you have the opportunity, always do recon of a meeting site. Reconnaissance was always worth the effort. He ran down the fire stairs again and emerged in the parking garage. It was now 1.29 a.m. He made for the far side of the garage, where the building manager had a caged-off area containing the water meters, power meters and assorted hardware such as sump pumps and ladders. De Payns used the wires in his key ring to pick the padlock on the cage gate and moved to the corner where the pipes and conduits all disappeared upwards into the building. He shifted a stepladder into position and reached up and into the pipes cavity, and brought down an object wrapped in oilskin canvas. He removed the CZ 9mm handgun, checked it for safety and load, pushed it into his belt and replaced the oilskin. Then he left the cage, relocking the gate behind him.
The street was slick with recent rain. He walked away from his apartment for one hundred metres, looking for anomalies, then crossed to the other side of the street. He walked in the shadows of the trees, the only person moving. Ahead he saw something that triggered his brain—a blue tradesman’s van parked fifty metres west of his building. Tradesmen did not generally live in Montparnasse. He was walking towards it when a black Audi SUV slowed and then stopped in front of his building. De Payns knew the occupants would be looking at the entrance to the apartment building, so he walked slowly in the shadows, watching the vehicle. There seemed to be only one occupant. He stepped into the street. A block away a truck started its engines. He looked through the window of the Audi and saw Manerie, alone at the wheel, face ethereal in the red glow of the instruments. He opened the passenger door, giving Manerie a start.
‘Tell me where my family is,’ said de Payns.
‘Get in,’ said Manerie, deadpanning de Payns with the face that once stalked the war zones of Africa.
De Payns climbed in the Audi and Manerie accelerated.
‘Romy and the kids are fine,’ said the director. He was dressed in chinos and a polo shirt, windbreaker over the top—the standard field wear of spies when not living a fictive legend. De Payns twisted, saw a small wheelie suitcase perched on the back seat.
‘You going somewhere, Manerie?’
‘Mind your business,’ said the DGS man. ‘Romy and the boys are in an exercise.’
‘A kidnap exercise?’ asked de Payns, blood boiling. ‘Why wasn’t I notified?’
Manerie ignored him.
‘And what’s this got to do with finding the mole? What the fuck is going on?’
Manerie smiled. ‘At five p.m. today, I’ll make a phone call to the field team and the exercise will be over. Smiles all around. Happy families in Montparnasse.’
De Payns looked at the side of Manerie’s head, wanting to put a bullet through it. ‘You’ll make a phone call?’ exclaimed de Payns. ‘Holy shit, are you threatening me?’
They stopped at a red light, Manerie turned to de Payns, and—in a small flash of clarity—de Payns saw the truth in his eyes.
‘You?’
Manerie shrugged.
‘You’re the mole?!’ said de Payns, his heart sinking at the thought of his family. ‘My God, Manerie! What have you done?’ Manerie hit the accelerator as the light went green, and before he could stop himself, de Payns had the CZ muzzle jammed in the DGS man’s neck. ‘Pull over.’
The Audi came to the kerb in a bus zone opposite the Café Odessa. De Payns jammed the muzzle in harder, controlling his breathing but finding it hard to quell his emotions.
‘It seems we have a stand-off,’ said Manerie, his head pressed against his window. ‘I’ve set this up so it can end peacefully.’
‘You used my family?’
‘It’s what we call leverage. You’re the expert, yes?’
De Payns pushed harder, then suddenly pulled back, leaving an embossed circle just below Manerie’s right earlobe. His number one priority was Romy and the boys. He had to control himself.
Manerie straightened, rubbing his neck. ‘Here’s the deal—you stand down, talk to no one, initiate no protocols. Maybe even take a day off work, if that doesn’t raise any flags. When I’m clear, I make the call, and as far as your family is concerned, it was just an exercise, helping out France.’
‘Why would I trust you, Manerie? You’re a traitor.’
‘Because you have no choice, Alec.’
They stared at one another, both knowing that de Payns was going to back down.
‘I don’t understand this,’ said de Payns. ‘Why me? What justifies any of this?’
Manerie laughed. ‘You cost me three million euros, and you ask about justification? That’s funny.’
‘Cost you?’ replied de Payns. ‘Are we talking about those passports?’
Across the road a bakery van pulled up at the Odessa and a person emerged from the cafe.
‘You sold me out for three million euros?’ asked de Payns.
‘You weren’t supposed to be on that ferry,’ snapped Manerie. ‘As soon as you looked at our friend, it became a clean-up exercise. A person like that doesn’t like eye contact.’
De Payns’ brain roared. ‘I was supposed to die that night?’
‘Not my doing,’ said Manerie. ‘I told him there were five genuine French passports waiting in Palermo, and the handover meeting was set. Our friend decided to have a chat with Commodore on the ferry and instead finds himself being stared at by the DGSE. Not happy!’
‘Cagliari was a last-minute thing,’ said de Payns. ‘Commodore wanted me at a meeting. I joined him from Marseille.’
‘Well, he didn’t tell his handlers, and I guess he paid the price.’
‘But the money was going to Commodore …’
Manerie laughed, genuinely amused. ‘Three million euros, to a knucklehead like Michael Lambardi? Commodore was never getting that money.’
Manerie checked his watch and pulled out into the street, did a U-turn and headed back to where they’d started. De Payns wasn’t convinced. ‘I don’t see why you’d leave me or my family alive right now. What’s in it for you?’
Manerie’s smile was more to himself than for his passenger’s benefit. ‘You went and put a wrinkle in things with your little trip, and so for the next fourteen hours you’re not going to poke the wasp’s nest. That’s good for me, and good for you. I’m sure we understand one another?’
‘My little trip?’ de Payns remembered how Manerie had tried to work out where he was going, unsuccessfully. ‘You betrayed me in Islamabad?’
Manerie’s face changed into a rictus of hate. ‘Betrayed? Don’t you use that word with me, de Payns,’ he snarled. ‘I fought for France just as much as you and your glorious family, and I kept Mike Moran under my hat for years. Is that a betrayal?’
‘I never sold operational secrets.’
‘Fuck you, de Payns,’ snarled Manerie. ‘Moran is SIS. He’s a sworn officer of a foreign intelligence organisation.’
‘I declared the Morans when I first joined the air force and when I joined the Company. They’re friends of the family.’
‘You didn’t declare that you go drinking with Mike Moran four times a year,’ said Manerie. ‘Rule number one: Don’t get drunk with foreign spies.’
They pulled up outside de Payns’ apartment. ‘Five o’clock,’ said Manerie. ‘I’m still running security at the DGS, so I’ll know if you’re frightening the horses.’
De Payns opened the door, then stepped onto the road. Before he could say anything more, Manerie accelerated away.
He felt a deep dread. As he walked to his building he took a look at the parked tradesman’s van. The passenger door opened and a man stepped out. It was dark, but he knew that shape.
CHAPTER
SIXTY
Briffaut and Shrek walked towards him out of the dark. The van accelerated past them.
‘Shall we go up?’ asked Briffaut. ‘We don’t have much time.’
Shrek made coffee in the kitchen while Briffaut and de Payns spoke at the table, smoking.
‘Templar and Brent are in the van, running the spinners on Manerie,’ said Briffaut. ‘Do you know where he’s headed?’
‘It has to be the airport, but I don’t know where he’s flying,’ said de Payns. ‘How did you know there was a problem over here?’
Briffaut looked sheepish. ‘You made a call.’
‘Ana?’ he asked. ‘Shit, you’re bugging me?’
Briffaut opened his hands. ‘As soon as Palermo went bad the Company wanted to keep tabs on you. Sorry.’
‘So when did you know it was Manerie?’ asked de Payns.
‘Something you said last night, about who knew the details of your dinner date with Raven and Timberwolf,’ said Briffaut. ‘You, me and Templar. We didn’t leak it, so it must have been Lafont. I called and asked her and she angrily denied it. That left Frasier, the last person indoctrinated on Alamut.’
‘Not Frasier?’
‘I thought that. I called him and he said the update to the file had been placed in the DO’s safe and he hadn’t read it. He’d accepted my verbal heads-up. So who had access to that safe?’
‘The director of DGS,’ said de Payns, shaking his head. ‘The failsafe for compromised operations.’
‘I asked the night duty at DGS to check the access logs to Frasier’s safe on the day of your dinner. It was accessed four times, so we checked the CCTV against those times.’
‘Manerie,’ said de Payns.
‘He accessed the safe at eleven minutes past midday—while Frasier was at lunch—and that evening, Islamabad time, Templar recorded Timberwolf taking a call.’
Shrek brought the coffees to the table.
‘Can we match the voice to Manerie?’ asked de Payns.
‘It’s not Manerie’s,’ said Briffaut. ‘We’re working on the assumption that it’s Murad.’
He pulled out his phone. ‘Listen to this.’ The voice file was a smooth, cultured South Asian voice with an English undertone.
De Payns nodded. ‘So we have a loop between Dr Death and the epsilon toxin, and the Sayef Albar operation in Palermo?’
Briffaut’s phone trilled. He took it and asked a few questions before disconnecting. ‘That’s Templar. They just caught a call from Manerie’s car. Now we run it through the phone company systems and see where the call terminated. Could take an hour.’
De Payns sat back with his coffee and looked at his old friend Shrek. ‘So where have you been lately?’
Shrek shrugged.
‘He’s been with me,’ said Briffaut.
‘With you?’ asked de Payns.
‘We’ve had our eye on Manerie and …’
‘And me?’ asked de Payns.
‘Manerie told me the DGS was investigating us both,’ said Shrek. ‘He basically blackmailed me to leak to him from Noisy, so I went to the boss. We’ve been trying to backtrack Palermo, work out what Manerie was scared of us finding.’
‘I know why it went bad down there,’ said de Payns. ‘Manerie was promised the money for the passports. When I decided to leap on the Cagliari trip, it meant I unexpectedly got a look at Murad on the ferry and he decided to pull the plug.’
