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.’