Azzam berthed at Port Hercules at 4 p.m. The Hibiscus bus driver dropped de Payns at the Nice Ville station and he just made the fast train to Paris, arriving at Gare de Lyon before midnight. He was driven to the Bunker after a pick-up near the Marriott and he’d gone straight to his office to write his report on his Azzam infiltration. He managed to grab some sleep in the employee lounge before being woken by Briffaut shortly after 6 a.m. Now he was in Briffaut’s car, reading a document the boss had given him as they headed across Paris for a meeting with Marie Lafont. De Payns finished reading just as they moved into the Cat’s security system.
‘This arrived at our Rome embassy?’ asked de Payns. ‘Why the embassy?’
Briffaut pointed at the file. ‘Look at the postmark.’
De Payns flipped to the appendices behind the eight-page report and looked at the photocopied stamps on the envelope. It was postmarked Genoa, from the same day he and Lolo had followed Starkand.
‘Did Starkand post something?’ asked Briffaut.
‘He paused at a post-box at the airport,’ conceded de Payns. ‘It wasn’t conclusive that he posted something.’
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ said Briffaut, his leg jiggling for a smoke. ‘Let’s talk to the brains trust.’
■
The Operation Bellbird meeting was held in a SCIF on the fourth floor of the Cat, a large room with a twenty-seater oval conference table and a large screen on the far wall. Anthony Frasier, director of the Operations Directorate—the DO—convened. Also present were Christophe Sturt, director of the DR, Briffaut, Lafont, de Payns and Lars Magnus.
‘Let’s look at the details,’ said Frasier, nodding to Marie Lafont.
She distributed files to the participants. De Payns briefly flipped through his, seeing cuts from his Azzam report and inclusions from the research on the woman in the orange top who had met with Starkand.
‘Things are happening quickly, so let’s run through the new prod and then we’ll get to the next steps,’ said Lafont, putting on her half-glasses. She pointed a remote control and the screen at the front of the room lit up while the overhead lights faded.
The first image projected on the screen was a picture from de Payns’ Garmin watch, taken in the owner’s bar on Azzam.
Lafont pointed her laser. ‘We know about the Emiratis,’ she said. ‘They’re supplying weapons to General Haftar, and they don’t care where they source them.’ She moved the laser around the other men present. ‘We have four persons of interest on this boat. Boris Orlevski, Leonid Varnachev and Faisal al-Mismari, and on the left is Jamal Hussein ul-Huq, who has a royal title but is an Emirati arms dealer. He also has a bank in Cyprus which provides vendor finance for illegal weapons purchases.’
‘Orlevski,’ said Frasier. ‘Where have we heard that name?’
‘Boris Orlevski is a military commander in Wagner Group,’ said Lafont. ‘He’s a former major in Russia’s naval Spetsnaz, and we can connect him to actions in Chad, Sudan and Syria. General Haftar likes Orlevski and takes his advice, which is dangerous because Wagner Group is a proxy for Putin.’
‘And Varnachev?’ asked Frasier, pointing at the screen.
‘He works in the corporate and political end of the business, dealing with the politicians and generals who are buying Wagner’s services,’ said Lafont. ‘He’s ex-GRU with a history in Somalia and Mali.’
‘Al-Mismari?’ asked Sturt.
‘He’s General Haftar’s nephew. Swiss boarding school, economics degree at Oxford and business studies at INSEAD,’ said Lafont. ‘Al-Mismari’s job is to remake the eastern side of Libya into a petroleum power. Russia is helping him do that.’
Lars Magnus cleared his throat. ‘Vladimir Putin intends to expand Russia’s military presence and reinforce it with economic power, oil and gas predominantly. Libya is an economic power play for Putin.’
‘What are Haftar and Wagner Group cooking up?’ asked Frasier.
‘Look at page five of the file,’ said Lafont, turning the pages. ‘Aguilar accessed Orlevski’s laptop. The hard drive is encrypted and we haven’t broken it yet, but we gained access to his emails, which go through remote servers.’
Page five contained translated emails between Orlevski and Varnachev: Varnachev asking if al-Mismari has agreed to the Vulcan deal and Orlevski replying, Haftar’s people are locked in—I understand they’ll use AKM. Varnachev’s next email addressed the importance of eliminating ‘Hammer and Anvil’. Orlevski assured him: They understand the value of our continuing friendship—they won’t fail.
Frasier leaned back, staring at the report as if it might bite. ‘Vulcan, Hammer and Anvil,’ he said. ‘What’s our thinking?’
Lafont licked her thumb, turned another page. ‘Well we understand that General Haftar has agreed to carry out Vulcan. He will use al-Kaniyat soldiers to execute it, and I doubt Haftar would use al-Kaniyat for a round of negotiations …’
‘Al-Kaniyat?’ asked Sturt.
‘That’s the AKM reference,’ said Lafont, looking over the tops of her glasses. ‘The British services labelled them the al-Kaniyat militia seven or eight years ago, and the acronym stuck.’
Frasier made a face. ‘Al-Kaniyat—it rings a bell. Were they in Chad?’
Lafont nodded. ‘AKM is a jihadist militia that controls parts of north-eastern Libya on behalf of Haftar and we believe Haftar has used them on his southern border against a terror outfit that operates on the Chad side.’
Frasier grimaced. ‘Fuck, and they’re being deployed in Europe? Tell me: who or what is Hammer and Anvil?’
Lafont hit a key on her laptop; a familiar picture of a bearded man projected on the large screen. ‘Based on other product, and Eastern Europe chatter, we think Hammer is Igor Kolomoisky.’
‘The Ukrainian billionaire?’ asked Frasier. ‘Russia wants Kolomoisky dead and they’re getting the Libyans to do it. Why?’
Magnus raised his voice. ‘Kolomoisky is a major player in Eastern Europe’s energy system. He owns gas fields and power stations and he controls a lot of the gas flows into countries west of Ukraine. Russia has tolerated Kolomoisky because everyone has been making money through the connectors that take Russian and Central Asian gas into Europe.’
‘But …’ prompted Lafont.
‘But Kolomoisky also wields military and political power, and the Kremlin now sees him as a proxy for American aggression in Ukraine.’
Frasier squinted at Magnus. ‘Kolomoisky’s relationship with the CIA has been known for years. What’s changed?’
‘Kolomoisky supports Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Zelenskyy now wants to join NATO,’ said Magnus. ‘Getting rid of Kolomoisky means the Kremlin could install their own guy in Kiev and undo the CIA’s control.’
Frasier nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off Marie Lafont. ‘Our analysis is very close to how the Kremlin spins it.’
‘The CIA’s use of Kolomoisky is acknowledged in the Western services,’ said Lafont, avoiding defensiveness. ‘Just because the Russians think Zelenskyy is an American puppet, doesn’t mean it’s untrue.’
Briffaut shook his head with frustration.
Lafont continued. ‘Kolomoisky’s company, Privat, is the dominant player in Ukrainian media. His network broadcast a TV show in which Volodymyr Zelenskyy played the President of Ukraine, and during the 2019 election Kolomoisky’s network played that show on loop. Kolomoisky funded the presidential campaign and I don’t believe Zelenskyy made one speech.’
De Payns watched on in silence. He remembered the 2019 Ukraine elections, which Zelenskyy won in a landslide. The French posture had been neutrality on Ukraine, built around the Minsk II Agreement of 2015 concerning Ukraine’s Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. Minsk II was supposed to be mediated by France and Germany, with the aim of reaching a ceasefire. But protections for Russophones in the Donbas were not enforced because Ukraine threatened to shut its westbound gas pipelines if its sovereignty was impugned. De Payns could sense an unnamed force trying to shatter that neutrality and draw France into the quagmire of Ukraine.
‘Okay,’ said Frasier. ‘If Putin takes Kolomoisky off the board, he can weaken the Americans, install his own president and exert more control over the gas markets?’
Lafont nodded.
Frasier tapped the report. ‘If Kolomoisky’s our Hammer, who’s the Anvil?’
Lafont looked grim. ‘We’re still working on that.’
■
At the coffee break, Christophe Sturt wandered over to de Payns and sat on the board table so he was looking down. He was immaculate, his perfect suit and sleek haircut making him as smooth as a seal.
‘Good to see you again, Alec,’ he smiled, stirring sugar into his coffee. ‘I wanted to thank you for accepting the arrangement with our new man in Moscow.’
De Payns could feel Briffaut’s gaze boring into him, but he kept his eyes on Sturt. ‘He’s a good operator, Director. It’s going to be fine.’
‘Sometimes, in this business we find ourselves making compromises, but we do it for France, yes?’
De Payns forced a smile, knowing Romy would rather he prioritise his family when traitors abducted her children. ‘Certainly, Director.’
As Sturt walked away, de Payns smelled a waft of mandarin peel—Sturt’s famous cure for the cigarette smell on his fingers that he had to keep from his wife. Everyone has a secret, thought de Payns, even Christophe Sturt.
When everyone had their coffee and biscuits, Frasier came back to the table and addressed the room. ‘Assuming we can stop this assassination, it would have to be clandestine, run from the Bunker. Can we make an argument to get involved?’
Lafont took a breath. ‘If Russia targets this man, they’ll have a plan for filling the vacuum, and we can assume the alternative to Kolomoisky will not be good for the West.’
Sturt nodded at Lars Magnus, who answered, ‘The Nord Stream Two pipeline into Germany reinforces Kremlin influence in Berlin, which is bad enough. But with Kolomoisky no longer there to support Zelenskyy, and a Russian presence in Kiev, Putin will control around sixty per cent of the gas used in the EU.’
‘The Kremlin can hold our economies to ransom?’ asked Frasier.
‘Effectively, yes,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s soft power. The power to do whatever they want without Occidental governments complaining about it.’
‘There must be other gas fields besides those controlled by Russia,’ said Frasier.
‘There’s a couple,’ said Magnus. ‘Algeria and Libya send gas to Europe.’
‘But Libya’s in play,’ added Lafont. ‘Go to page four.’
Frasier flipped and read an extract from de Payns’ report, nodding. ‘Wagner Group is paid by Haftar, but it will also earn royalties on the captured gas fields in the west of Libya?’
‘That was discussed on Azzam,’ said Lafont. ‘Joint control of Libyan oil and gas production, including Greenstream, which goes from Libya to Sicily. Control of Libya also gives Putin a stronger leverage over Niger’s uranium mines.’
Frasier looked at Magnus. ‘What about North Sea gas?’
‘Running out, and only meeting British demand,’ said Magnus. ‘Europe gets gas from Norway, but it’s unlikely Oslo will grant any more leases. And the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands will close before 2030.’
Magnus looked back at his notes. ‘There’s another reason Russia might want Kolomoisky out of the way. The EastMed project.’
‘What’s EastMed?’ asked Frasier.
Magnus tapped on his laptop and brought up a map of the Eastern Mediterranean. He shifted his laser pointer to the pocket defined by Turkey, Syria, Israel and Egypt, with Cyprus in the middle. ‘The largest economically viable natural gas reserves in the world right now are on the seabed off the coast of Israel and Egypt.’
Sturt said, ‘That explains why Putin is beefing up in Syria.’
Lafont nodded. ‘And why he’s made Egypt the world’s largest importer of Russian wheat.’
Magnus let the comments go. ‘Currently the gas runs through pipelines into Israel, Jordan and Egypt. But there’s a proposal by the East Mediterranean Gas Forum—of which France is a member—to pipe the gas into Europe via Cyprus, Greece and Italy.’
‘Cutting Russia out of the European gas market?’ asked Frasier.
‘And bypassing Turkey—they’re both opposed to it,’ said Magnus.
‘The Russians have been trying to get ahead of EastMed,’ said Lafont. ‘They’re supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon, they have military bases in Syria, they’re supplying weapons and wheat to Egypt, they own politicians and banks in Cyprus, and they have Wagner Group in Libya. Turkey’s TurkStream pipeline takes Russian gas into Europe—they won’t break with Russia.’
‘So, EastMed is encircled by Russia?’ asked Frasier.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Magnus. ‘We should also note that Kolomoisky has equity in an undeveloped field off Israel, and he is a strong proponent of the EastMed pipeline. This alone puts Kolomoisky in direct confrontation with Putin.’
Frasier’s face took on a pained expression. ‘Kolomoisky is connected to EastMed?’
‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘Perhaps more important, the Biden government withdrew US support for EastMed around three weeks ago.’
Sturt sat up. ‘I didn’t read that.’
‘Biden did it quietly, through the Greek and Israeli foreign ministries,’ said Magnus.
Sturt and Frasier stared at each other, perplexed.
‘Perhaps Lars can give some context?’ suggested Lafont, nodding to Magnus.
‘The EastMed project hinged on the United States or Russia giving it safe passage,’ said Magnus. ‘Under Trump, the US passed a law that supported it, but in late January of this year the Biden Administration withdrew support, citing its aversion to new fossil fuel infrastructure.’
Sturt shrugged. ‘Europe loses a cheap gas supply because the Americans say so?’
‘We have our own problems in Europe,’ said Magnus. ‘Germany supports the US position on the EastMed pipeline, as do Turkey and Russia. Supporting the pipeline is France, along with Greece and Italy.’
‘Will the Americans support EastMed under a different president?’ asked Frasier.
Magnus paused. ‘It’s unlikely that the US or Russia will ever support EastMed—Europe imports around two hundred billion cubic metres of Russian gas per year, so it’s a massive market and EastMed potentially supplies to that market cheaply, bypassing Russian piped gas and American LNG. Trump’s support for EastMed was a practical alternative to Nord Stream Two, which Trump publicly opposed because of the leverage it gave Putin in Berlin.’
Lafont thanked Magnus and, returning to her agenda, indicated to Briffaut that he had the floor.
Briffaut leaned forward. ‘Director, in the back of your file is some background on the mystery woman from the Starkand meeting. The yacht she boarded in Portofino is called Melissa. It’s owned by Red Ocean Holdings, which is clearly a Cypriot corporate front …’
‘Is this woman associated with the drop we received from Starkand?’ asked Frasier.
Briffaut nodded. ‘We’re still working on Starkand and the woman from the yacht, so we can’t be definitive about what they’re doing.’
‘Are we being provoked by Starkand?’
‘Almost certainly,’ said Briffaut. ‘But we should remember that the reference to this apparent assassination did not come from Starkand and the yacht woman. It came from an Eastern European source.’
‘So, we’re back to this assassination,’ said Sturt. ‘Any idea how we respond?’
Briffaut said, ‘If the Russians want to influence Europe with assassinations, we must act.’
‘How?’ asked Sturt.
‘I suggest we work on clandestine intelligence gathering and interdiction. Below the radar, nothing for the Élysée to worry about.’
‘Marie?’ added Frasier.
‘I agree. The narrow view is that if we know AKM is about to act in Europe, we have to shut it down.’
Sturt looked suspicious. ‘And the broader view?’
Lafont paused and focused on the far wall, a woman carefully weighing her words. ‘Putin always has a plan B. If Kolomoisky remains as kingmaker in Ukraine, Putin goes to plan B …’
‘Invasion?’ asked Sturt.
‘Most probably,’ said Lafont.
Sturt sat back, not convinced. ‘Surely Putin is too smart to take the CIA bait and invade a country the size of Ukraine? The Americans take all the upside, and the Russians have to destroy the place in order to own it. What’s the English saying? Ashes in their mouths?’
Lafont stayed calm. ‘It doesn’t matter if the Americans provoke an invasion, or if Putin just can’t help himself. Our concern should be what that leads to.’
‘Which is?’ asked Sturt.
‘France and Britain will become involved because Germany’s not up to it—too close to Russia,’ said Lafont. ‘Putin will bring Iran and China into the Black Sea, and the United States ends up with a major new LNG market in Europe.’
‘I think that’s enough,’ said Sturt, who looked as if he’d swallowed an egg. ‘We can leave that kind of speculation for the Élysée, non? Right now, plan A is under our noses.’
Lafont paused. ‘I agree with Dominic: we can’t allow al-Kaniyat a foothold in Europe. If the connection to Russia is awkward then we do it quietly—we don’t poke the bear.’
Frasier looked at Sturt, the room aware of the French president’s preference for neutrality in Eastern European matters. ‘You okay with clandestine interdiction?’
Christophe Sturt looked around the table, weighing the presidential appetite for risk given France’s eternal dance between the US, Russia and the EU. He settled on Briffaut. ‘Define interdiction.’
Briffaut deadpanned him. ‘We find, we assess and, if we can win, we engage.’
Sturt chewed his lip. ‘You can do this without a trace?’
‘Like a ghost,’ said Briffaut.