‘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.