De Payns flew into Orly on Friday morning and rode the Orlyval shuttle to the Place de la Bastille, where he sat down in the Hippopotamus cafe at 10.29 a.m. Before he could pick up his menu, a man ten metres away took a blue cap from his table, put it on his head and walked onto the street.
De Payns followed the man for six minutes, into a quiet side street, where the man took off his cap and de Payns heard a silver VW Golf starting beside him. The man walked on and de Payns got in the car.
‘Good morning,’ said de Payns to the driver, who was his colleague and friend, Jéjé. He didn’t know the woman in the passenger seat, so he didn’t use names.
They drove east across Paris to the suburb of Noisy, and after clearing the security gate—which de Payns had to do without Company ID—Jéjé pulled up outside the side entrance of the Bunker. The headquarters of the Y Division was an old fort, set in parklands and surrounded by a castle wall that had somehow stayed erect through the centuries. Known as the Bunker, the fort was the home of the Company’s Operations section, the Y Division. It was physically separated from the other DGSE divisions—Intelligence, Technical and Administration—which were situated at Boulevard Mortier in central Paris.
‘The boss wants to see you,’ said Jéjé with a smile as de Payns climbed from the car. ‘No pressure, mon pote.’
De Payns entered through the secret employees’ entrance, ran up the stairs to the first floor and walked the squeaking floorboards to his small office with its eastward views over the leafier part of Paris. The office was plain and government-issue, with a nondescript desk, a basic safe on the floor in the corner, and a keyboard and screen with no port for a thumb drive or any accessories. His French rugby team coffee mug was the only personal item on his desk.
Around him he could hear other officiers traitants banging on their keyboards. The French secret service was capable of interesting adventures, but the whole show ran on reports and briefs. Grabbing his mug he made for the kitchenette and made himself a capsule coffee. He was reaching for the sugar when a throat was cleared behind him. He turned to see Margot, Dominic Briffaut’s middle-aged executive assistant, who stalked the halls of the Bunker doing the work of a sergeant-at-arms.
‘The boss is waiting for you,’ she said without preamble.
He thanked her but she was already walking away.
He followed her up the stairs to the top floor and through the antechamber to Briffaut’s office.
‘Go right in,’ said Margot.
De Payns shut the door behind him as he entered.
At the desk, with a view of Paris behind him, was Dominic Briffaut, head of the Y Division. He was a solidly built man of West African heritage who had been recruited from French special forces. Even in his early fifties he looked as though he could operate in the field.
‘So,’ said Briffaut, polishing an apple on his shirt. ‘How did it go?’
De Payns took a seat. ‘I think we won the first round. He wasn’t expecting it.’
‘Do we have a reliable source?’
De Payns nodded. ‘I think it’ll hold for a while, but Jim will have to be careful. Even if Keratine loves his son, he might still declare the approach to save his career.’
Briffaut looked at de Payns. ‘I know how you feel about Jim, but you’ll have to get over it.’ He bit into the apple.
De Payns felt his nostrils flare. Jim Valley, the Company’s OT who would handle Keratine in Russia, had worked for Philippe Manerie, a corrupt director of the DGS—the Company’s internal affairs directorate. It was Jim who had recently taken de Payns’ wife, Romy, and his two sons on an abduction simulation, designed to leverage de Payns’ silence.
Briffaut continued. ‘Jim is pretty good at what he does. And the investigation showed that he was just obeying Manerie’s orders; he had no idea he was betraying the Company.’
De Payns made a face—the Cat would rather redeploy a wayward employee than risk dirty laundry finding its way into the newspapers. ‘I guess putting him in the DR is what they had to do.’
‘And I guess I had to agree to it,’ said Briffaut flatly.
De Payns wondered what Romy would say if she found out her husband now worked with the man who’d abducted her and their children.
‘We’ve received an urgent request from the DR,’ said Briffaut, tapping a file on his desk. ‘A source produced some serious stuff. Looks like the Russians are deploying those new observation drones at Khmeimim in Syria.’
‘Okay,’ said de Payns, intrigued. The Russians’ new DA42NG drone was used by their intelligence service, the FSB, in areas where it was up to no good: Mali, Libya, Chechnya. It wasn’t a general surveillance aircraft. Deploying it at Khmeimim—the Russian air base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast—indicated Russian escalation.
‘The documents suggest the SVR are also beefing up operations at their Tartus navy base.’
‘Shit,’ said de Payns.
‘One of the documents the source supplied mentions a deal between the Russians and another party. It’s due to go down on a UAE-owned boat called Azzam in two weeks’ time.’
‘Where’s the boat?’ asked de Payns.
‘It will be in Monaco,’ said Briffaut. ‘In a separate email, there’s mention of a person with an associated phone number. The phone was just located in Genoa.’
De Payns repressed a sigh. No doubt this meant more travel, the possible sabotage of his weekend plans and almost definitely a fight with his wife, Romy.
‘I want you to leave for Genoa on Monday,’ said Briffaut, as if reading de Payns’ mind. ‘Take a technician with a spinner and put a face and an ID on this number and the person operating it. We’re calling him Starkand—operation is Bellbird.’
The boss pushed a file across the desk. This was a DAO, a demande d’aval d’opération—the official tasking by the DR for the Y Division to go to work. De Payns opened it and looked at the attached printout with the phone number of Starkand’s phone.
‘On your way to Genoa, you can stop in Monaco and get us access to Azzam,’ Briffaut added. ‘We need someone on board, or we need to bug it in advance. We have to know who’s talking and what they’re saying.’
De Payns stared at him. ‘Do I look like Harry Houdini to you? How do you want me to set this up in two weeks?’
‘We have an HC in Monaco,’ said Briffaut. ‘An old-timer. His name’s Johnny. He’s been asleep for ten years.’
‘Ten years?’ echoed de Payns. ‘I’ll have to blow the cobwebs off him.’
‘Save your judgement for the meeting,’ said Briffaut, pushing a second file across the desk. ‘Here’s his file. The plan de liaison to wake him up is inside. If he replies, go see him. If not, we’ll find something else.’
De Payns breathed out and avoided Briffaut’s stare.
‘You’ll have to go Monday, at the latest.’
De Payns hissed. ‘That means goodbye to my weekend. I was away this week.’
‘Life is tough,’ said Briffaut, trying to smile. ‘But so are you.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said de Payns. ‘In that case I’ll take next Friday off and spend a long weekend with the family.’
Briffaut shrugged acceptance. ‘And let me know if you’re meeting Johnny.’
De Payns nodded. ‘Can I take Lolo as the technician?’
‘If you want, but make sure he uses his brain this time, otherwise he’s out.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked de Payns, chuckling.
‘When he gets in the field he goes all James Bond and thinks with his underpants.’
‘Understood Boss,’ said de Payns. ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t jump on anyone.’
Briffaut nodded his approval, his attention already on another set of files.
There was a knock on the door.
‘That’ll be Shrek,’ said Briffaut. ‘You can let him in on your way out.’