The black helicopter sat in the empty parking lot of an industrial plant north of Newcastle. The pilot stayed inside, waiting for the order to fly, along with more men and more guns. The factory owner—a member of the House of Lords and also of Le Renouveau ever since his recruitment at Cambridge—had made sure the overnight security guards at the facility would be deaf, dumb, and blind.
Chrétien Pau paced impatiently near the trees at the back of the lot, waiting for the signal from the island. When it came, the helicopter was less than half an hour from Lindisfarne.
Only minutes from his final encounter with David Webb.
And with Shadow.
Pau shook his head. Shadow. Monika.
He hadn’t seen her since that last night at the chalet ten years earlier. Of course, she had no idea that he’d been there, that it was her on-again, off-again French lover and spy who’d orchestrated her abduction. That he’d been ready to kill them both when Webb exposed himself as a traitor trying to burrow into their network. That during all the months she had been manipulating him as a source for the Americans, he’d been stealing her intelligence on Le Renouveau.
After that night—after that fucking magician David Webb had saved her life and murdered all of his men—Shadow disappeared. He’d wondered at first if she’d resigned from Treadstone, if she was hiding in some remote corner of the world, living an ordinary life. But it was hard to imagine anything ordinary about her. She could make a man do anything. She was the best spy he’d ever met. The best liar.
Except for himself.
As she would discover tonight. God, for that moment when he saw her face again!
Pau kicked at one of the puddles in the parking lot. He stared at the crescent moon. The rain had stopped, and he grew nervous when the signal didn’t come.
Tell me he is there! Tell me you have found them both!
But the radio was silent.
Instead, in his pocket, he felt the buzz of his KryptAll phone. The device was secure, no listeners from Interpol and the NSA eavesdropping on his calls. Only one man ever called him on that phone.
“Le Roi Raymond,” Pau answered with a smile.
“Bonsoir, Chrétien,” Berland said, all business. “Give me the update. What’s going on? I expected a call from you before now.”
Pau knew that Berland rarely indulged in humor. He was a serious man for serious times. “As did I. I’m still waiting to confirm that Webb and Monika are both on the island. It should be any minute now.”
“Where are you?” Berland asked.
“A few minutes away by helicopter. I’ll be in and out in an hour or so, and our work will be done.”
There was silence on the line.
“I’m wary of the risks of this operation,” Berland finally went on. “I don’t like your involvement in it.”
Pau shrugged. “The risks are low, Raymond. I have a ready alibi. At this moment, I’m at dinner with my parents in an estate outside Bordeaux. We’ll post about it online. There will be pictures and witnesses. No one knows I took a private jet to Newcastle. And the Americans and British will be anxious to cover up what happens on the island. They won’t ask questions, and even if they do, no one will be left behind to give them any answers.”
“Still,” Berland murmured unhappily. “We’re very close to the election. This is the most delicate part of our yearslong dance. We need all of the pieces to fall into place.”
“Which is why Webb and Shadow must be killed,” Pau replied. “We can’t leave them alive. If Webb remembers me—if he tells her about me—then I’m finished. Treadstone will end me. Plus, my exposure would be a body blow to Le Renouveau. It would set us back by years. The risk is too great.”
“I agree that the two of them must be removed. But it doesn’t explain why you need to be there to see it done. That is personal, Chrétien. It’s self-indulgence we can’t afford.”
Pau didn’t try to deny it. “Yes, I understand, and I know you’re right. If you tell me to stop, Raymond, I’ll stop. You know that. I’m le commandant to our men, but ultimately, Le Renouveau is your organization. Your vision. Whatever your orders are, I will follow them. But a true general also cannot be afraid of the front lines. I was there at the chalet ten years ago. I should be there at the end.”
Berland was silent for a while. “This mission is obviously important to you. Very well. See it done.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
Pau breathed a sigh of relief. If Berland had told him to stand down, he would have done so, but he was glad to have permission to proceed.
Raymond and Chrétien. What a duo they made!
Their relationship went back many years, to when both of them were in their early twenties. As a young dockworker in Le Havre, Berland had led a wildcat strike that turned violent and led to a blockade at the port. Pau, then an up-and-coming staffer in the French State Secretariat for the Sea, had been sent to gather intelligence on the man behind the unrest. He’d expected a foulmouthed manual laborer of little refinement, but instead, Raymond Berland turned out to be a political philosopher who could quote Edmund Burke from memory and lay out all the details of his grand plan for the future of France and Europe.
His intellectual side was balanced by cold, brilliant political calculation.
“We will never defeat the system, Chrétien,” Berland told him. “The system will never give up its power. So we must become the system. We must take it over from the inside, recruit the best and brightest to our side and watch them assume positions of control. Then and only then will we see the renewal of France as a superpower, true to its heritage and roots. And from there, our message will spread across the continent.”
Renewal.
Le Renouveau.
Pau had signed on with the man that weekend, and he’d never looked back. He became Berland’s greatest friend and ally. Berland was the master architect, and Pau was his secret weapon—the political engineer who would bring all of his plans to life.
“I wish we could see each other before the election,” Pau said. “I miss our chats.”
“I do, as well,” Berland replied, “but you know it’s impossible. You must be completely independent of me for now. That’s the only way this works. Any hint of our alliance would bring everything tumbling down. Imagine if you hadn’t found out that the Americans were spying on our meeting in Ibiza—if you and I had been seen there together! It would have eviscerated our plans before they even started. Instead, here we are, with you finally on the verge of bringing our vision to reality.”
Pau found himself stirred, the way his friend’s words always stirred him. “I only wish you could be the public face of the movement, Raymond. This is your victory. You deserve to win, not be on the sidelines.”
“I am the sacrificial lamb, Chrétien,” Berland reminded him. “That’s how it must be. We’ve known it from the beginning. No one will ever tolerate me and my party taking that kind of power, no matter what the polls say. The voters disappoint us time and time again, because the establishment keeps them under their thumb like scared little sheep. But they will support you. You can accomplish what I never could.”
“I have always appreciated your faith in me,” Pau told him.
“And you have always earned it.”
Pau heard the ping of an incoming text. He checked his other phone and finally saw the message he’d been waiting for.
Webb is on the island. So is Monika.
“Raymond, I must go,” Pau told his mentor. “It’s time to fly. Soon we will tie up the last loose ends from the past, and we can move forward. I’ll be in touch when it’s done.”
“Good hunting, my friend,” Berland said. “But I’m also curious. Who is your source? Can this person be trusted? Their information about Webb and the woman has proven reliable to date, but now you are putting your own future on the line. Our future.”
“I don’t know who the source is,” Pau admitted. “I only know what they are. And that is what makes me trust this person. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose. We have a mole in Treadstone.”