Lafont stayed at the Cat and Briffaut offered de Payns a lift in his Viano. ‘So,’ said Briffaut as they headed south, ‘ever heard of Brenda?’
‘No,’ said de Payns. ‘But I’d like to know who they’re talking about.’
‘Paris and Ukraine!’ said Briffaut. ‘We’ll run the names but you can chase it up.’
Briffaut’s phone buzzed. He grimaced and mumbled at the voice on the other end, and when he hung up, he looked at de Payns. ‘Mikhail wants to talk.’
■
They arrived at Levallois just before 9 p.m. Mikhail Manturov was brought out of his cell and ushered into the interview room.
‘I’ll talk, but what do I get?’ asked the Russian without preamble. ‘The Russians will harass my family and hunt me for the rest of my life.’
‘Or you can take your chances with the French military justice system, but that still means your family is exposed,’ said Briffaut. ‘And as soon as the mercenary prosecution is done, you’ll be in a civilian court for murdering a government employee and raping his wife.’
‘I did neither of those things,’ said Mikhail, deflating slightly. ‘I’m a good soldier but I’m not a bad person.’
‘Who did it?’ asked Briffaut.
‘What are you offering?’
‘You won’t hang,’ said Briffaut. ‘If you convince me it wasn’t you who did the rape and murder that night, I can talk to the prosecutor, but you’ll be my asset.’
‘A French asset?’ replied Manturov, shaking his head.
‘You’ll get paid, but you’ll work for it. It’s better than what you’ll get from Boris Orlevski.’
‘Okay,’ said Manturov. ‘But I need a story that I’m dead, killed by the French. I have to protect my mother and my sister.’
Briffaut turned to de Payns, who nodded.
‘Okay,’ said Briffaut. ‘We can do that. Who was the leader that night?’
‘His name is Victor,’ said the Russian. ‘I don’t know his last name; we all work with pseudonyms.’
‘What was he trying to discover?’
‘I don’t know, I wasn’t briefed. I’m just the muscle.’
‘What was the conversation?’
‘Victor wanted to know what the Frenchman had read in the files he brought back from Prague,’ said Manturov. ‘The target said to Victor, I don’t really read them, I just look over them to check there’s something there.’
‘How did Victor know there was product coming into Paris, and at that time?’
Manturov shook his head. ‘He has a boss. That’s where he gets his orders. He had a picture of the target and we were told he was flying into Paris in a certain window of time.’
‘Victor’s boss is Russian?’
‘I assume so, but I never asked him.’
‘So,’ said Briffaut. ‘You followed him to his apartment?’
‘Yes, Victor didn’t want to go straight into the apartment the night the Frenchman returned in case he had a gun.’
‘So, you wait until he’s at work, break in and rape the wife, then wait for the man of the house to come home?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘What was Victor asking about specifically?’
‘Victor asked the target if he’d seen any names in the prod,’ said Manturov, forehead creased in recollection. ‘And the Frenchman said he remembered something like Azzam. So then there’s lots of yelling about Azzam and the Frenchman saying, I don’t know about Azzam.’
‘What did Victor want to know?’
Manturov made a face. ‘I think he wanted to know who gave him the information and the Frenchman said he didn’t know.’
‘He said, I don’t know?’ asked de Payns.
‘He said words like, I don’t know how it got there, it wasn’t in the drop. Something like that.’
Briffaut sneered. ‘That doesn’t make sense Mikhail. We have a deal, remember?’
Manturov paused. ‘The Frenchman was confused, Victor was angry.’
‘And then Victor killed him?’
Manturov sighed. ‘It went on too long and Victor hit him once too often with his sidearm, and the Frenchman didn’t wake up. Victor didn’t want to kill him. At one point he was talking about abducting him, taking him back to Marseille.’
‘Marseille?’ asked de Payns. ‘That’s Vieux Port, right?’
Manturov eyed him.
‘Which yacht are you living on?’
‘I don’t remember the name,’ said Manturov. ‘It’s Spanish and it never really stuck. I have a photo in my phone.’
De Payns walked to the door and asked the security guard to bring in Manturov’s bag.
‘How many of you are living on the boat?’ asked de Payns.
‘Five,’ said Manturov, as the guard came in with the bag.
‘You planning something?’ de Payns asked, fossicking in a gym bag filled with clothes.
‘Not really.’
‘Sounds like something,’ said Briffaut. ‘Five Wagner mercenaries on a yacht in Marseille, coming up to Paris to do jobs. What’s next?’
‘You have to speak to Victor.’
‘Can you arrange that?’
Manturov laughed. ‘Anything else you want?’
‘How do you communicate with Victor?’ asked Briffaut.
‘In person, and on jobs we have the radio, just like DGSE.’
‘Not by phone?’ asked Briffaut.
‘Not allowed,’ said the Russian.
De Payns looked at Manturov’s iPhone and put it in the Russian’s hands. ‘Let’s see a picture of that yacht.’
Manturov’s hands crawled over the phone, finding the picture. But as de Payns watched, he saw the man’s fingers pinch on the side of the black protective cover, pulling out a small plastic plug from the case.
‘No!’ said de Payns, leaping forward, Briffaut seeing it at the same time.
They grabbed at his hand, Briffaut pushing the pill away from the Russian’s mouth and de Payns using his left forearm to push the mercenary’s head away from the suicide capsule. The Russian was strong and de Payns grunted against Manturov’s neck muscles until Briffaut shook the pill from his fingers, and they watched it bounce across the lino floor.
The three of them panted, de Payns’ throat dry and rasping as he stood and looked at the soldier, amazed that the man was now cracking a smile.
‘What are you smiling about?’ demanded Briffaut, dropping the Russian’s hand. ‘You just tried to end it.’
The Russian looked at the ceiling and laughed, his manacles jangling. ‘You really are desperate to keep me around. So now we get to make a bargain about my family, before you hear what I have to say. It’s nice to be wanted.’
‘Jesus,’ said Briffaut, shaking his head. ‘What is it with Russians?’