De Payns came in to Gare de l’Est at 6 a.m., direct from Frankfurt. He walked the concourse, checking for followers, and caught the escalators down to the Metro station, where he went in search of breakfast. He then caught two trains to the Place de la République. He gave a signal with his hand and hair beside the statue at 8 a.m., and at 8.30 entered the Café Français, where the Company’s team was ready to conduct the IS. By 9.16, Alec de Payns was sitting in Briffaut’s office, door closed.
‘I’ve heard the phone call to Timberwolf,’ said Briffaut, taking a seat. ‘We tracked it back and the most we can come up with is that it came from a French phone, and probably a tower in the north.’
‘Paris?’
Briffaut shrugged. ‘We have a recording of the call and we’re working on a voice match.’
‘Shit,’ said de Payns, shaking his head. ‘Someone gave up my pseudo in the middle of an operation?’
‘We’re on it.’
‘My family?’
‘DGS report they’re fine. You okay?’
‘I’m in one piece, but Timberwolf was hostile. He’s a scary guy—he’s capable of anything.’
Briffaut looked at him. ‘Give me a quick report then go to bed. You’re no use to me like this.’
‘We need to find the mole,’ said de Payns. ‘We should have been in the middle of dinner when the traitor called—Timberwolf would have taken the call right in front of me. I’d have had no chance.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Briffaut.
‘Only a very small group knew the timing of that dinner,’ de Payns pointed out. ‘I let Templar know and he emailed a situation update to you. And you copied it to Frasier and Lafont.’
‘No one asked me for the dinner meeting details,’ said Briffaut. ‘I’ll check on the other two.’ He paused. ‘Something else has come up. The DR has been searching for any other stories that have involved mass cases of internal haemorrhaging and those gassy pustules. The Red Cross reported a case six days ago in northern Burma. Thirty-five people dead. We’re trying to get samples we can test, but for now the photographs look the same as the ones taken by our patrol in Afghanistan. According to the post-mortem, these people died approximately three hours after ingesting the bacteria. It’s very quick, apparently.’
‘So the bioweapon works?’
Briffaut nodded. ‘The question is, what are they going to do with it?’
Nasim glanced at the clock on the wall then wound up the meeting. The project team had a major client to keep happy in the following two days, but he had other commitments that could not wait and he dismissed the five people who worked for him. When they were gone, he fished a new burner cell phone from his safe and caught the elevator to the street.
It was approaching the end of summer in Paris and he walked with crowds to the Rambuteau Metro station and took a northbound train, hopping off at République, where he lost himself in the throng. He was not a distinctive man in his native country, but in Paris his height and looks meant people stared openly. Paris was that kind of city, and he liked to blend in where he could. In the smaller streets to the south of Place de la République he found an internet cafe which only had three patrons in it. He turned his assigned computer on and off, and inserted a small USB drive on his office key ring, which ran a Mozilla browser. He opened his encrypted web-based email account, registered in a meaningless name, and looked at his watch: 2.58 p.m. He waited two minutes then sent an email which simply listed the number of his new burner phone. Then he shut down the email and the browser, and wiped the history seven times before turning off and restarting the computer.
He walked the pretty streets of what was the Jewish district of Paris. Although he’d been raised in Pakistan, his parents were not haters and he found this part of Paris very peaceful. Those who assumed Nasim’s undeclared activities automatically made him an anti-Semite were wrong. He had in-demand skills that generated a lot of income—what else was a former intelligence agent supposed to do with his knowledge? Let it go to waste? It was not hate that drove him, but money.
The phone buzzed in his jacket pocket, and he answered. ‘That last tidbit was well received,’ said Nasim, without preamble. ‘The mighty Aguilar, working in Islamabad? He’s either very desperate or very good.’
‘I have something else,’ said the caller. ‘Frasier’s report on Operation Falcon just landed. He’s satisfied the passports were destroyed in Palermo. Aguilar is clean.’
‘Hmm,’ said Nasim, as he strolled past the pizza bars and punk shoe shops. ‘So they really are gone? That leaves us five passports short.’
‘There’s not much I can do about that,’ said the voice.
‘Well, given your position, I’d argue the point on that one,’ said Nasim.
There was silence except for the sound of a sigh. ‘I wasn’t in Palermo,’ said the caller, in a tone that Nasim didn’t appreciate. ‘The passports weren’t my deal.’
‘Except to tell me there was a packet of them there,’ said Nasim, stopping beside a stand of trees. ‘And then you forgot to tell me that our friend Aguilar was on that ferry.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Well now you do, and I’m short five French passports,’ said Nasim, wondering how far he could push this man.
There was a long silence, then: ‘What do you want me to do?’ asked the man.
‘Use your position,’ said Nasim. ‘After all, I have a budget for five French passports, and I haven’t spent it yet.’