The police were waiting for her.
It was mid afternoon, broad daylight, and the local gendarmes evidently weren’t used to being discreet. Two marked vans were parked right on her street, while two uniformed officers stood guard outside the guest house. Presumably that meant the remaining officers were inside, searching her room. Watching through sunglasses from her car parked far down the other side of the street, Bridge’s stomach dropped. Had she left the suitcase’s hidden compartment exposed? Was the Ziploc still on her dresser, half-empty? No, that was here, in her pocket. But the Dell laptop and HTC phone were both inside, along with her emergency passport. She had to assume they were all now compromised. Everything in that room was lost to her.
Alone and outgunned, surrounded by the enemy, lost in the desert…
Bridge suppressed the thought. While there were similarities to Doorkicker, this was not the same situation. Yes, she’d completely screwed the mission. Yes, the mole and main witness was dead. Yes, she was now blown, and on the run. But this time, she didn’t just speak the language; she looked and sounded native. And the $500 in her pocket could be exchanged for euros, with which she could buy a whole new wardrobe and hairstyle.
How much did they know? That was the real question. Nobody in the DGSE or DGSI had been informed of Bridge’s mission. If the police discovered she was SIS, they’d call her a spy. If she could make them listen, and let her call London, she could prove who she was… but that assumed Giles would back her up. Sending an officer undercover into foreign territory, without declaring them to the host country, was a textbook definition of espionage. Would SIS hang her out to dry, to protect Britain’s relations with France? One last option: she could go to Paris, and find Mourad. But if the police suspected her real purpose they might have him under surveillance, just waiting for her to make contact.
There was one other big difference between this and Doorkicker. She had a bolt hole.
Bridge started the car and drove casually down the street, turning off onto a side road before she reached the guest house. She gasped as a gendarme stepped out into the middle of the road, signalling for her to stop. But it wasn’t Novak, and with half a dozen more officers within shouting distance, ignoring him was too big a risk. She slowed to a stop, pulling the band from her hair but leaving the sunglasses on. She lowered the window, looked out, and shrugged. “Qui se passe, officier?”
“An English woman is missing,” replied the gendarme in French. “Can I see your ID, please?” He held out a hand, expectantly.
Bridge shrugged, and spoke in perfect French. “Sorry, I don’t like to carry my carte in case I lose it. My name’s Édith Baudin. What’s going on?” She regretted using her sister’s name the moment she said it, but with no other working alias to hand, it was the first thing Bridge thought of.
“Not even your driver’s licence? You’re supposed to carry ID at all time.”
“I know, but it’s bad enough I keep leaving my phone everywhere. I can’t go to a café without putting it on the table and walking out by accident, you know? And replacement ID cards aren’t cheap.”
“Where have you come from?”
“Just now? I had lunch in Saint Dizier. I’m on my way home.”
“And where’s that?”
Her sister’s name was one thing, but Bridge wasn’t about to give Izzy’s address as well. “Chalons-en-Champagne,” she lied. “We just bought a place on the river.”
The gendarme raised an eyebrow at her hand on the steering wheel. “We? You’re not wearing a wedding ring.”
“I lost it, gardening.” Bridge gave him a lopsided smile. “I told you, I’m hopeless.”
The young officer hesitated, then sighed and waved her on. “All right, move along. But you should start carrying your card. Put it on a string around your neck.”
“Oh, that’s a really good idea. I’ll get my husband to make one.” Bridge was two streets away before she realised she was still wearing a fake smile, like a rictus grin that made her facial muscles hurt. She massaged her jaw, nodding to herself that she was doing the right thing. “An English woman is missing,” he’d said. Careful code, so as not to panic the locals. But whether or not they knew her real identity, they were looking for her. And considering the number of gendarmes at the guest house, they probably considered her dangerous. She took a wide circle around several streets, circling back round to drive south, rather than north as she’d told the police.
She regretted losing the computer more than the phone, but she’d sent Henri Mourad an update the night before; a full data dump of her work so far, so he could pass it all back to London. Unfortunately, she hadn’t mentioned her suspicion of Montgomery, because yesterday it had been nothing more than a hunch.
Once again, she wondered about Marko Novak’s timing. He hadn’t seemed at all surprised to find her in Montgomery’s apartment, and making the landlord open the door, rather than knock, suggested he wanted to surprise whoever was inside. The only thing that had seemed to catch him unawares was Montgomery being dead. Then there were the words he spoke as he tried to strangle her. “He was right about you.” That suggested Montgomery had talked about her, and it was now a safe bet he’d told Novak about her mole hunting. But had he also guessed she’d come to suspect him rather than Voclaine, or was at least working her way towards it? That would explain why he attacked her with such force, because there was no chance of mistaken identity. Montgomery had known exactly who he was fighting in that apartment.
As she drove along the N4, a theory formed. Could the apartment have been bugged? If so, Marko would have known something was wrong as soon as she and Montgomery began fighting. If it was also wired for vision he would have known even sooner, possibly from the moment Bridge broke into the apartment. And that could explain why he expected to see her, but was surprised at Montgomery’s body. If Novak headed for the apartment as soon as he saw her enter, then he would have been in transit when Montgomery returned home, fought with Bridge, and died, which all happened in the space of a few minutes. He hadn’t known Montgomery was there until he saw the body.
If Bridge was right, that meant the Russian was spying on his own mole. Not too surprising, but she wondered whether he trusted his fellow gendarmes more than that. Were they all in it together, coordinating the leak between them? Was he simply bribing them to look the other way? Or were they blissfully unaware one of their own was betraying not just the British, but their own country as well?
It was all too risky. If just one other gendarme was working with Novak, all it would take was a word to the wrong person and she’d find herself staring down the barrel of another SP2022. Agenbeux wasn’t safe for her any more, and as for trying to get into Paris unseen; she might as well shoot herself now.
She turned the Fiat south onto the N67 and began the long drive towards Côte-d’Or.