3

It was at moments like these that Ryan Finn missed wading through a jungle swamp with his finger cocked on the trigger of a C8 Carbine or leaping from the back of a Hercules at 20,000 feet. Standing like a shop-window dummy in the corner of a Paris hotel ballroom watching other people drink was his idea of purgatory. The young woman he was employed to protect was making matters worse by doing her best to disown him. Throughout the three days of the annual conference of the International Association of Nanotechnology, Dr Sarah Bellman had behaved like a spoiled child, making no secret of resenting his presence. The recent disappearance of one of her senior colleagues from Oxford University’s Department of Biomechanical Engineering seemed not to trouble her. Dr Bellman lived in a world all of her own.

Precisely why anyone would wish to harm a twenty-nine-year-old scientific prodigy was not something the civil servant who had engaged Finn through the agency had chosen to explain. Having sat through long, tedious hours of lectures in the Académie des Sciences over the past three days, he had begun to get an inkling. Dr Bellman and her colleagues were making things that were small – very small – chiefly for medical purposes. Earlier that afternoon she had given the keynote presentation. Although most of the technical jargon went over his head, Finn had caught the gist: she had built microscopic containers out of woven strands of DNA complete with lids that could be opened and closed using beams of ultraviolet light. These tiny boxes, thousands of which could stand side by side on a pinhead, could deliver drugs to any cell in the body. She had cured brain tumours in rats without surgery and was about to start work on humans. Even to a layman like Finn, it was clear that it was the sort of breakthrough that would make someone obscene amounts of money.

From his position near the entrance Finn watched his charge standing in the centre of the room shaking hands and accepting the compliments like a princess in a receiving line. With her black hair framing her pretty face and a scarlet cocktail dress hugging a slender, girlish frame, she looked closer to nineteen than twenty-nine. Among those vying for a moment in her presence he identified several corporate types, whose sharp suits and sober alertness singled them out from the relaxing scientists. They moved like hawks through a flock of unsuspecting doves, pressing their business cards into the hands of any they hoped might earn their companies a dollar.

Sebastian Pirot, the conference’s head of security, stepped away from the group of organizing committee members he had been chatting with and joined Finn. A smile of faintly mocking sympathy creased the scar that ran diagonally from his left ear almost to the tip of his chin.

‘I can see this work bores you, Mr Finn.’

‘I’ve had worse.’

Pirot glanced across at Bellman with a mixture of admiration and lust that caused Finn’s hackles to rise.

‘Some of the guys and I are meeting for a drink later. Would you care to join us?’ Pirot said.

‘Thanks, but I’m on permanent duty. I don’t get to clock off.’

‘Too bad. Oh well, next time you’re in Paris. We can swap old war stories.’

Finn maintained a straight face that masked his surprise. He didn’t recall having told Pirot that he had been a soldier.

‘We’ve met before; I’m sure of it,’ Pirot said. ‘It’s been preying on my mind. Now I remember. November 2005. Jalalabad.’

Jalalabad. Not a name Finn would easily forget. A rare joint mission between American, British and French Special Forces to neutralize a Taliban stronghold in mountains to the north-east of the city. It had been a bloodbath. Hand-to-hand combat with Saudi-trained Arab mercenaries equipped with British weapons. The sort of operation that left Finn confused as to who was fighting whom and for what.

Finn neither confirmed nor denied his presence in Afghanistan. Like all good former members of the Regiment, he was assiduous in keeping details of his service secret, even from his wife. Nevertheless, he allowed his gaze to linger on Pirot as he tried to recollect his distinctive face with its high jutting cheekbones and strangely empty basalt-grey eyes. A glimmer of memory surfaced: a group of French paratroopers from the 13th Dragoons clustered in a corner of the briefing tent, quiet and intense compared with the boisterous Americans of Delta Force.

‘Not good memories, I expect,’ Pirot said, ‘but at least the two of us survived.’ He offered his hand. ‘Au revoir, then, Mr Finn. Next time.’

Finn closed his fist around Pirot’s. They shook like comrades.

Pirot turned and left the room. Finn followed him with his gaze as another half-forgotten memory surfaced: a French Dragoon plunging his bayonet between the shoulders of a kneeling, blindfolded prisoner.

Finn blinked, banishing the image, and turned his attention back to Dr Bellman. She had moved away from her admirers to a far corner of the room where she was now talking to a smiling young woman whose cascade of auburn hair tumbled down her back. They took fresh glasses of champagne from a waiter manoeuvring expertly through the room with a silver tray balanced on delicate fingertips. Her companion said something that made them both rock with laughter. Finn checked his watch. It was still only nine p.m. He feared it would be a long night.

Dr Bellman and her new friend remained wrapped up in each other’s company for the following hour. The more they drank, the more they laughed and the more they flirted. Finn felt like a voyeur. He couldn’t wait for the evening to be over. Then, at last, the crowd began to thin and one by one the waiters retreated. The stragglers drifted out of the ballroom and across the Hotel George V’s brilliant marble foyer into the bar.

Eventually, his charge and her new friend drained their glasses and made their way to the ladies’ room. Finn grabbed the chance to pay a visit of his own. In the quiet resplendence of the gentlemen’s cloakroom he splashed his face with cool water and dried it with a soft white towel. He was tired. His feet and back ached. The skin beneath his eyes was sagging. Just a few more hours and he would be on board the Eurostar and on his way back to Kathleen and the kids. He glanced briefly at the middle-aged face staring back at him from the mirror and wondered whether its hunger had finally gone. Perhaps the moment had arrived – time to think about leading a quiet life in his home town?

Still mulling this not unpleasant thought, he made his way back out to the lobby and waited for Bellman to reappear. A minute passed. Then another. He stepped over to the doorway of the bar and glanced inside. There were only a few remaining patrons in the room and no sign of Dr Bellman. Reluctant to force his way into the ladies’, he brought out his phone and called up the tracker app that connected with the transmitter disguised as a brooch that he had insisted she wear at all times.

The app took infuriating moments to load and synchronize. Finn cursed under his breath as he waited for the wheel on his screen to cease spinning. Finally, a distance reading and a direction arrow appeared. She was, according to the screen, fifteen feet away at ten o’clock to his current position. He lifted his gaze to the spot in the centre of the lobby. It was occupied by a circular marble-topped table decked with an elaborate floral display. Finn felt his heart pound against his ribs as he moved quickly towards it. He spotted the brooch lying beneath the foliage. He retrieved it and crossed immediately to the reception desk.

‘Excuse me. Did you notice a woman in a red dress pass through here in the last few minutes?’

The receptionist, who resembled a Dior model, appeared puzzled. ‘Monsieur?’

‘Dr Sarah Bellman. Black hair. Red dress.’ He produced his security tag. ‘I’m looking after her.’

She glanced at it and shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I was on the phone.’

‘She was in this lobby just now.’ He was met with a blank expression. ‘Forget it, I need to see the CCTV playback.’

‘CC–?’

‘The security monitors.’

‘I’ll call the night manager.’ She picked up the phone and unhurriedly tapped in an internal number.

Finn’s patience snapped. He vaulted the counter and ignoring the receptionist’s cry of alarm slammed through the door behind the desk into the corridor beyond. He moved along it, trying several doors in turn, all of which opened on to deserted offices. He arrived at a fourth signed SÉCURITÉ.

He burst in, surprising a dozing security guard. The musclebound hulk with a neck as thick as his skull objected noisily as Finn flashed his ID, dropped into a seat and took over the controls beneath a bank of monitors.

Finn stared at the keyboard, unable to make head or tail of it. ‘How do you work this thing?’

The guard hauled himself to his feet and growled something in French. Finn ignored him and scanned the monitors for any sign of Bellman. He felt a heavy fist close round his shoulder.

‘You can help out or fuck off,’ Finn said, glancing over his shoulder.

The guard’s other hand reached for the telescopic baton attached to his belt.

Finn responded instinctively, firing out a backfist that crushed the soft cartilage in his nose, provoking a roar of pain.

‘What is going on?’ A slightly built man with a neat moustache arrived with the receptionist in tow. He looked aghast at the guard, who was now dripping blood on to the carpet through fat, stubby fingers spread across his face.

‘Show me how to operate this,’ Finn demanded, recognizing him as the night manager. ‘I need to rewind. My client’s gone missing from the lobby. Dr Bellman. One of the delegates.’

The manager’s expression changed from one of anger to alarm. He issued hurried instructions to the receptionist to take the guard out and get him cleaned up, then came alongside Finn and nervously tapped the keyboard. A badge on his lapel gave his name as Christian Deschamps.

‘The lobby. Go back through the last ten minutes,’ Finn ordered. ‘I’m looking for a young woman in a red dress.’

Deschamps did as requested. The monitor covering the lobby began to spool backwards at four times normal speed.

‘Faster,’ Finn demanded.

‘Of course.’ Deschamps wiped his perspiring forehead with the back of his hand. The image accelerated.

‘There. Stop. Go forward.’

Finn stared hard at the screen. Dr Bellman and her new friend entered the ladies’ room followed closely by Finn, who went through the adjacent door. They emerged seconds later, giggling like schoolgirls and made for the lifts. While passing the table, Bellman casually reached out a hand as if to deposit something small beneath the fronds of overhanging ferns – the brooch, no doubt. As they stepped through the opening doors into the lift, they kissed, laughed, then kissed again.

The manager glanced across at Finn. ‘Maybe not so serious?’

Finn grunted. ‘Find out where they went.’

The cameras picked them up again as they emerged on the third floor and walked hand in hand along the corridor. They went into a room at the far end: number 348. Finn grabbed the phone on the desk and dialled the room on an internal line. It rang four times before connecting to voicemail. He tried again with the same result.

‘The phone can be muted to prevent disturbance,’ Deschamps offered.

‘Get me her details.’

Deschamps hesitated.

‘Tell me who the fuck she is.’

Deschamps flinched. ‘Very well. But we have to go to reception.’ He hurried out through the door.

Finn followed him to the front desk where the bookings system revealed that Dr Bellman’s companion was checked in under the name of Ms Carla Forenzi. She was a US national aged thirty and listed as a delegate to the conference representing MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Her home address was an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Finn photographed the screen with his phone and thanked the manager for his trouble.

‘I am not the one who was hurt,’ Deschamps said.

‘Buy him a drink on me.’

Finn let himself out through the gate at the end of the desk and made his way up to the third floor.

‘Miss Bellman?’ There was no answer. He knocked again on the door of 348, this time more loudly. ‘Miss Bellman, I need to know that you are all right. If you don’t reply, I’ll be forced to let myself in.’

Silence. He pressed his ear to the varnished oak. There were no sounds of movement from inside. No sounds of any sort.

He was left with no choice. The protocols were strict and his duty to ensure her safety at all times was written into his contract. If he were to breach it, he risked losing his fee. A trip downstairs and back again to fetch a spare key card would take vital minutes and so was out of the question. He took a step back, drew the Beretta from the concealed holster beneath his left shoulder, flipped off the safety and aimed his right heel at the edge of the door several inches beneath the lock. It was a motion that during eight tours of Iraq had become second nature. The frame splintered along its length and the door burst open. Finn raised his pistol in a dual hand grip and moved inside.

The lights were on, the bed still made, the large sash window wide open and the floor-length net curtains flapping in the warm breeze. Finn’s eyes flicked left through the open door to the bathroom. Empty. He scanned the room: no luggage or possessions. On the carpet at the side of the bed was a single red stiletto: Bellman’s.

Only vaguely aware of the alarmed voices of other guests who had emerged into the corridor behind him, Finn moved to the window and tugged back the curtain to reveal two dangling climbing ropes secured somewhere on the floors above. He glanced out over the sill and saw that they descended into a narrow pedestrian alleyway that led along the side of the building towards a wider service alley that ran along its rear. He heard sounds of a scuffle and muffled female cries coming from around the corner.

Finn holstered his pistol, reached for the nearest rope, pulled it towards him and stepped over it. He fed it around his right hip and across his left shoulder. Gripping it at head height with his left hand and below and to the side of him with his right, he climbed backwards out of the window and abseiled fifty feet to the ground in the space of four seconds, pushing off the wall with his feet only twice.

The instant he touched the ground, two masked figures emerged from the shadows, both clutching Bowie knives. The long blades glinted in the flickering light cast by a solitary streetlamp. Finn knew at once that they had been waiting for him. He reached for his pistol, but saw an explosion of stars as a blunt object wielded by a third, unseen assailant clubbed into the back of his skull. The impact sent him sprawling face first on to the cobbles. Rendered momentarily insensible, reflex took over. He rolled several times and reached again for his weapon. He heard the sound of metal on bone and lost all sensation in his right hand as a steel blade drove through his upper arm. Finn flailed with his left fist, connecting with the cheekbone of the man who had stabbed him, but even as he did so, a second blade thrust between his ribs.

He tasted blood rising in his throat and heard air sucking through the puncture wound in his right lung, but continued to hurl his fists at the three attackers crowding over him.

There was no more pain, only blind, demonic fury as he tried to swat them. He would crush their skulls with his bare hands.

Their blows rained in, but as far as Finn was concerned they seemed to bounce off his impenetrable hide. He felt invincible, then suddenly electrified. His limbs coursed with liquid fire and he screamed like a wild man into the night.