De Payns pushed the pin into the picture of Lenny Varnachev, so the Wagner man’s face formed the centre of a web on the ‘ELLIPSE’ corkboard: Varnachev, surrounded by Orlevski and al-Mismari, and the Emirati prince Jamal. Vladimir Putin’s picture sat over the top of the Wagner Group web, which was connected by red tape to Kolomoisky—labelled Hammer—and Anvil, with a question mark under the word. Sitting beside the Wagner web was a picture of Mikhail connected to a picture of Paul Degarde, and a photo of Lotus and the Russian embassy officer, Andrei Lermatov. At the other end of the long operations room, another corkboard labelled ‘BELLBIRD’ carried pictures of Starkand, the woman they were calling Orange Top and the yacht Melissa.
He couldn’t stand to look at the trombinoscopes. They were too inconclusive and just reminded him of how much work there was to do.
He looked at his watch: one minute late for Mattieu Garrat’s budget meeting. He scooted down the hallway, past Briffaut’s office, and found Garrat staring at his screen in a west-facing office.
‘Aguilar, I was about to call you,’ said Garrat, an OT in his late forties who had worked in the field before being made Briffaut’s 2IC. ‘Talk me through a couple of these Operation Bellbird requests and then I’ll have this down to the boss to sign.’
De Payns took a seat.
‘You say we need two subs and six OTs, on standby for an unnamed city in Western Europe?’ asked Garrat, not looking up from the screen. ‘That’s not cheap. When they’re on standby they can’t be deployed elsewhere.’
‘We’re waiting on a phone environment for Starkand,’ said de Payns. ‘We have to be ready to go.’
‘Two of the OTs are techs from Y-9, and they’re costed at the top band,’ said Garrat, chewing his lip. ‘Don’t be surprised if the boss pushes back on this.’
‘He told me to take what I need and he’ll sign it,’ said de Payns, smiling lightly. ‘And he’s in a hurry.’
Garrat sighed and shrugged, muttering about how he’d be the one explaining the blown budget when the department auditors made their rounds.
■
The scheduled Operation Ellipse update meeting comprised only de Payns, Briffaut and Marie Lafont. Lafont went through the new product from Jim Valley. He had FSB confirmation of Wagner arranging a hit, and Lenny Varnachev was named as the one running it. No mention of Kolomoisky, no date, no venue and no ideas on who ‘Anvil’ might be.
Marie Lafont paused and tapped the arm of her spectacles on the report. ‘Keratine warned Jim that there’s a traitor in the Russian services, selling prod to the Western services.’ She looked at de Payns. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Try this,’ said Briffaut, sliding a sheet of paper to her.
She read quickly and peered over her half-glasses at Briffaut. ‘Andrei Lermatov? Remind me.’
‘The SVR officer at Russia’s Tbilisi embassy. He made the drop to Lotus.’
Lafont looked back at the report, her face hardening. ‘He’s dead? Confirmed?’
Briffaut nodded. ‘A reliable source.’
De Payns looked at the report when Lafont handed it to him. It said Andrei Lermatov had been found strangled in a public toilet in Vake Park, Tbilisi. Evidence of a homosexual tryst gone wrong.
‘FSB,’ said de Payns, handing the report back to Briffaut.
Lafont shook her head. ‘What is it with the FSB and gays?’
‘It destroys the family’s prospects, along with killing the traitor,’ said Briffaut. ‘By the way, Lotus wants to come in.’
‘Why?’ asked de Payns.
‘First Lermatov went missing, now one of his sources—a Syrian air force officer—has dropped off the map. He’s surmised the Russian services are cleaning up a leak, and Lotus is worried he’s on the list.’
‘Has Lotus been blown?’ asked Lafont.
‘No evidence of it,’ said Briffaut, ‘but he says his sources are being caught.’
‘Do we want him alive?’ asked de Payns.
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ said Briffaut. ‘First, we’ll need to bring him out in one piece.’
Lafont said, ‘We have the Maypole this afternoon. Tony wants me running our side. I need you there, Dominic, if you can make it.’
‘The British are in Paris?’ asked Briffaut.
‘Yes,’ said Lafont. ‘They’re highly motivated.’
■
When Briffaut was behind his own desk once more, he told de Payns to stay on Starkand. ‘Shrek can bring Lotus out.’
‘What about Jim?’ asked de Payns. ‘He’d be closer.’
‘Jim is on Shrek’s team, and so is Jéjé,’ said Briffaut, sitting back. ‘When Lotus arrives in Paris I want you to bring him to the hotel. Alive—and that goes for you too.’
De Payns looked at his boss. ‘You’re expecting trouble in Paris?’
‘Aren’t you?’
De Payns didn’t respond but his mind went straight to Paul Degarde; he couldn’t help it.
‘You’re impeccable about your last mile,’ said Briffaut, as if reading his mind. ‘Keep it that way.’
Sensing a lecture coming, de Payns changed the subject. ‘About this Maypole—I might do a sidebar, if it’s okay with you?’
Briffaut put his foot on the desk, grabbed his coffee. ‘I don’t like sidebars, and the Cat hates them. Remember what they did to Burland?’
De Payns remembered: an OT who worked at the Cat, Drew Burland, conducted a sidebar with a CIA agent he knew personally, during a difficult operation involving a Mali general. Word of the meeting got back to Sturt, and Burland was accused of treason. He was last heard of working as an assistant librarian in Rouen.
‘Name one advantage that France gains from you going under the table?’ challenged Briffaut.
‘If all the services are getting the same prod from Starkand, then we all get to offer the same thing and nothing more,’ said de Payns. ‘The Maypole could be fruitless and we waste time …’
Briffaut raised his eyebrows. ‘Or even more fruitless than usual. Okay,’ he said. ‘Do it.’
■
De Payns waited at the Café Français, on the edge of the Place de la République. He had an outside table and watched the early afternoon tourists amble past, rugged up against the cold but still enjoying the clear Paris skies.
‘This seat taken?’ said a voice, and de Payns turned, saw a heavy-set man in his late thirties looming over him.
‘It’s reserved for geniuses,’ said de Payns.
‘Then what the fuck are you doing here?’ replied the man.
De Payns stood, shook Mike Moran’s hand and let the Englishman give him a very fast hug.
‘So, you knew I’d be on the Maypole?’ asked Moran, who wore aviator sunglasses and a heavy woollen coat that looked as if it was made for the Royal Navy. ‘Anything else I should know about?’
The waitress approached and de Payns asked for two Kronenbourgs. ‘I thought there’d be a good chance the Brits would want a sidebar, and they’d fly you in to lure me out.’
Moran laughed. ‘There you go again, all that French over-analysis. You remind me of that bloke in The Princess Bride—you know, the one with the table and the shell game?’
‘What does it say about the English that I was dead right?’
The beers arrived and Moran raised his bottle. ‘To triple-reverse logic,’ he said.
‘À la tienne,’ said de Payns, and they clinked beers.
They went through what they wanted from one another without admitting anything.
‘The external liaison people are going to do the Maypole dance,’ said de Payns, ‘but they’ll probably withhold more than they say.’
‘Agreed,’ said Moran. ‘If you’re wondering about the information about Russian movements, it’s coming as anonymous mail to our embassies in Europe.’
‘Rome, Berlin and Amsterdam?’ asked de Payns, thankful for his woollen scarf as a cold Paris breeze ruffled the pigeons of Place de la République.
‘Those are the ones I know about,’ said Moran, ‘and it’s all snail mail. Old school, like a le Carré novel.’
‘Intelligence bases in Syria, missile cruisers through the Straits into the Black Sea?’ asked de Payns.
‘Yes, and yes,’ said Moran, draining his beer. ‘The question is, who’s sending the same prod to our embassies?’
‘And why?’ added de Payns.
‘My suspicious mind has been at work,’ said Moran.
‘Mine too.’
Moran looked around at the tourists and leaned forward. ‘I don’t want to appear too paranoid, mon pote, but it’s like someone wants to generate an anti-Russian feeling among us.’
‘Like someone wants a lot of focus on Ukraine,’ said de Payns.
This established, they updated each other on their families, and then Moran looked at his watch. ‘Have to see a man about a dog.’
‘Until next time,’ said de Payns.
‘By the way,’ said Moran, as he stood and pushed his chair under the table, ‘I heard you’re a very nice nautical roommate.’
As his friend walked through the scattering birdlife, de Payns thought back to the steward named Simone, and wondered what she had retrieved for SIS.