De Payns and Lolo motored west, the sprawl of Nice to their left and the blue of the Med beyond it. Lolo had found a local radio station that played hits of the 1980s and 90s, and de Payns was discovering that being a telecoms genius did nothing for a man’s pitch, at least not when trying to sing to Cyndi Lauper. De Payns flicked his cigarette out the window and looked at his watch: 11.49 a.m. ‘We should be right on time for our lunch date.’
They’d enjoyed a few drinks the night before in Genoa and had eaten early before hitting the road for the lunch meeting with Johnny. Lolo had found some information on the Melissa. It was owned by a Cypriot company named Red Ocean Holdings Ltd, with the shareholders represented by nominees in the Cayman Islands. De Payns wondered about the connection with Lotus and Starkand.
To their right, a large backlit sign featuring a monkey in a kimono loomed two hundred metres from the highway, and de Payns steered for the off-ramp. They drove up a lane lined with old olive trees and emerged in a car park in front of the cafe. The elevation caught the breeze and he smelled the salty fragrance from the sea as he stood and looked around. There were five other cars in the car park and a kids play area in front of the building.
They walked into the restaurant and, before the maître d’ could seat them, de Payns saw Johnny sitting at a window table, looking at the view.
De Payns took a seat in front of Johnny and Lolo sat beside him. When they’d ordered two coffees, Johnny looked at his watch and smiled. ‘You are well trained in the Company.’
De Payns smiled back. ‘So, Johnny, what time were the prostitutes meant to turn up?’
‘Around two,’ said Johnny, looking at his hands.
‘You know,’ said de Payns, ‘if you have something to ask me, you could do it directly instead of trying to leverage me with blackmail. It would be much better for our relationship.’
Johnny nodded his acceptance. ‘Okay, point taken. So let me be direct—I have this new business partner I’m not so sure about. Would it be possible for you to check his file at the Company?’
‘You either don’t trust him or you don’t know him?’
Johnny shrugged. ‘If I could know in advance, it would avoid a bad partnership for me and a bad ending for him.’
‘No problem,’ said de Payns. ‘That’s what friends are for, right? Helping each other. You give me his name and I’ll check him out.’
The waitress delivered coffees and de Payns noticed that Lolo avoided catching her eye.
‘And Azzam?’ asked de Payns.
Johnny breathed out. ‘Well, it’s not a piece of cake. She’s owned by the UAE, so it’s impossible to bug her before the meeting, and we can’t really recruit crew members—the current crew are well paid and have been thoroughly vetted by the security people.’
De Payns made a face. It was what he’d been expecting.
Johnny smiled. ‘But the good news is they need temporary staff for two days at sea next week. Seems there’s an event onboard.’
‘How is that good news?’ asked de Payns.
‘The company providing the extra staff is based in Nice and it’s owned by someone who owes me.’
‘You mean you can get someone on Azzam as a waiter or waitress?’
‘If you can come up with a steward with a good résumé,’ said Johnny, ‘I can make sure they’re hired.’
■
De Payns had to keep the Renault under the speed limit as they negotiated the heavier traffic on the periphery road north of Marseille. He lit a cigarette, cracked the window slightly, then fished out the phone hidden under the driver’s seat and powered it up.
‘Boss, it’s me,’ said de Payns as Briffaut picked up. ‘I’ll debrief when I get back, we’re looking at around nine p.m.’
‘I’ll be here,’ said Briffaut.
‘And a heads-up. To get on the boat we’ll have to find a waitress or waiter, and quickly.’
‘Thanks,’ said Briffaut. ‘Drive carefully.’
The traffic thinned out as they headed north-west away from Marseilles, and as they headed north on the E15 for Dijon and Paris, de Payns settled at a cruising speed of 135 km/h.
‘So, Lolo,’ said de Payns, relaxing slightly. ‘How was that for field work?’
‘I liked it,’ said Lolo, reclining his seat. ‘But, shit, Johnny was a wake-up call.’
De Payns nodded. ‘Yes, they’re not made like that anymore.’
‘I mean, did he really say bad ending?’
De Payns laughed. ‘And you know what? I think he was serious.’
They arrived at the Bunker just before 9 p.m. after dumping the burner phones and completing a series of vehicle self-checks, looking for tails. When they’d decided they were clean, they drove in the security gate and de Payns told Lolo he could unpack the car and go home.
De Payns walked through to the techies in Y-9 and dropped the SD cards with the OT doing night duty, then he climbed the stairs to his office and picked up his personal belongings from his safe. He wandered down the hallway, saw that a few people were working late. The light was on in Briffaut’s office and the boss was sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette—which was forbidden in the DGSE—and drinking a glass of whisky, which was authorised.
‘Want a drink?’ asked Briffaut, and de Payns took a glass from the top of the filing cabinet and poured himself a short measure of Briffaut’s Glenfiddich before taking a seat and debriefing on the trip to Monaco and Genoa.
Briffaut nodded at the information and asked if Johnny was as reliable as he was legendary.
‘He’s a professional, which is a start.’
‘By the way,’ said Briffaut, ‘you’ve got tomorrow off. That’s official.’
‘Thanks,’ said de Payns, thinking the family could catch the 3 p.m. train and be in Deauville for dinner.
Briffaut looked out his window at the night and sucked hard on his cigarette. ‘Remember Paul Degarde?’
‘DR guy, running Lotus,’ said de Payns, as he helped himself to one of Briffaut’s smokes. ‘I did the handover in Vienna.’
‘We lost him.’
De Payns paused. ‘He’s off the net?’
‘He’s dead,’ said Briffaut, crushing his smoke in the ashtray. ‘Fucking Russians.’
They stared at one another. A death in the Company was keenly felt.
‘Where was he operating?’
Briffaut shook his head. ‘They got him in Paris. Waiting at his apartment. Raped his wife but let her live. Kid watched it.’
De Payns’ stomach seized into a fist and he let out a small moan: the spy’s nightmare of bringing the wolf to the family home.
Briffaut sighed. ‘It gets worse. I sent Shrek down to talk to her. Read this.’
De Payns picked up the report that Briffaut pushed across his desk. It was open at the third page and de Payns scanned it quickly. He froze as he read the second paragraph:
OT’s wife does not speak Russian but heard the word #AZZAM# mentioned by OT and by the Russian who raped her. The word AZZAM was used many times by both parties before OT could no longer speak. OT’s wife does not know what AZZAM means. She did not disclose AZZAM to DGS investigators. She has not conducted subsequent inquiries into the meaning of AZZAM.
‘Shit,’ said de Payns, pushing the report back across the desk, paranoia rising.
Briffaut turned away from the window. ‘So, there’s a few knots to untangle.’
‘How is Lotus connected to Starkand?’ asked de Payns.
‘There’s that,’ said Briffaut. ‘But we also have a security problem in Paris, along with this headache: if Degarde talked about Azzam with the Russians, maybe he talked about the rest of the Lotus documents he brought back from Prague.’
‘Fucking Lotus,’ said de Payns, shaking his head. ‘I told Degarde to be careful. How is his family doing?’
‘In isolation and in shock. His wife can’t call anyone—not even her mother—and the daughter will be enrolled in a new school under a new name.’
De Payns wished he hadn’t asked: their lives were ruined. It was what he feared might happen to his own family someday.
He changed the subject. ‘Lotus might have thrown him under the bus, or perhaps Degarde fucked up somewhere.’
‘He did fuck up,’ said Briffaut. ‘He took a taxi home from Charles de Gaulle. We think there was a reception team checking diplomats at arrivals.’
Briffaut changed tone. ‘So, we have Lotus dropping documents about Azzam, and we have Russian thugs killing one of our own over a conversation that centres on Azzam. I had a meeting today with the Europe section at DR, and we don’t understand the link between Lotus and the Russians. We need to be on that boat, so I guess you’ll be learning a new job.’
‘Me?’ replied de Payns, surprised.
‘Yes, you,’ said Briffaut, who was accustomed to OTs pushing back. ‘You have that ID of the barman, so after your relaxing long weekend, you’ll have two days’ training in a Paris hotel learning how to be a waiter.’
‘Why aren’t we using Aline?’ asked de Payns; he was already overstretched on his various identities and operations. ‘She usually does the hospitality jobs.’
‘Given the people we expect aboard Azzam, she’d attract the wrong kind of attention, if you see what I mean.’
De Payns did see. A shapely blonde French girl would be very conspicuous on a boat filled with Arabs and Russians. There’d be no blending into the scenery.
He sighed. ‘Thanks a lot, boss. Thanks to Degarde mentioning Azzam to the Russians, I can expect a spy hunt onboard.’
Briffaut lit another cigarette. ‘We have to at least try. I mean, one of our own died over this.’
‘I’ll do my Genoa report on Monday,’ said de Payns, moving for the door. ‘If I have the time between carrying plates and writing my last will and testament.’
Briffaut smirked. ‘Enjoy your long weekend. And close the door on your way out—I can’t get caught smoking.’