Before de Payns could sit down at his desk and check the picture Mike Moran had slipped to him, Margot appeared at his door. He presumed she was going to summon him to a meeting with the boss, as she usually did, but instead she said, ‘Aguilar, I am going to book another session between the boss and Dr Marlene.’ Her expression was the softest he’d seen on her. ‘What date do you think would work for him?’
De Payns breathed deeply and kept his face neutral. ‘The boss usually gets the most out of the doctor when he has a month between sessions.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Margot, with a brief smile, ‘but in this case he wanted a week.’
De Payns sighed and then gave in graciously. ‘The boss knows best …’
‘Yes, he does.’ Margot turned to leave. ‘And he wants to see you.’
De Payns restored the Moran envelope to his pocket and went to see Dominic Briffaut.
‘Where were you?’ asked the boss, when de Payns walked in.
‘Sidebar with Mike Moran,’ said de Payns, taking a seat as Margot closed the door behind him. ‘He wanted more.’
Briffaut considered an apple he was holding then pointed to a thin blue folder on his desk. ‘Present from DR. Take a look.’
Opening the file, de Payns found two pages: the first was a requisition sheet acknowledging the research tasking; the second page stated that there was no match in the sources and pseudonym database for #BRENDA#.
‘Valkov was serious about that name, so stay on it,’ said Briffaut. ‘You were at the Champ de Mars?’
‘You a spy or something?’ replied de Payns.
‘One of my lesser faults,’ the boss said, biting into the apple. ‘The Russians didn’t go for Keratine. That prod we gave them at the Maypole? No response from the FSB.’
‘So, he’s ours?’ asked de Payns.
‘Well, the FSB thinks he’s theirs, and that’s the main point.’
De Payns knew the early days of a new source could be uncertain. ‘That thing at the hotel?’
‘I didn’t like the prostitute trick, but our new source could be trying to even the scales, which is to be expected. You’d do something like that yourself …’
‘Is Keratine producing yet?’
‘Reluctantly,’ said Briffaut. ‘But with Lotus out of the game we need a source in the East, and this one works in the FSB. I don’t want to lose him.’
‘You want some carrot, along with the stick?’
‘How would you cement a source?’ asked Briffaut.
De Payns sat back and thought. ‘Well, for a start, I’d need some authority over him, so Jim would have to be managed by me, not the DR.’
‘Let’s assume that’s already happened,’ said Briffaut.
‘Okay, I’d show him the carrot—money, a job, French passports.’
‘And perhaps get him talking about what he wants to talk about?’ suggested Briffaut. ‘He doesn’t want to turn on his FSB buddies, but he might not be so delicate about the GRU …’
‘Or Wagner Group,’ said de Payns.
‘Precisely,’ said Briffaut. ‘I don’t like to rush these things, but with Lotus gone we need Keratine on board and delivering.’
‘And he answers to me?’
‘Of course. I’ll get those French ID packs ordered, for Keratine and his family. But you’ll be managing Jim—between the two of you, we can bring Keratine over.’
Changing the subject, de Payns asked that he be allowed to knock off by five the next day. ‘Romy’s work is holding some big gala dinner,’ he explained.
‘You know the score,’ said the boss. ‘The answer’s yes until it’s no. Now tell me, what did Moran want?’
De Payns took him through the SIS theory of an interloper dropping teasers about Azzam into prod that was destined for the British or French services. The Brits wanted the French to find the person who made the secret drops about Azzam, he explained, so they could confirm it was the same person.
‘Who have SIS found?’ asked Briffaut, tossing the apple core in his wastepaper bin.
‘Mike gave me a photograph,’ de Payns said, pulling the envelope from his jacket and passing it to Briffaut. ‘I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. It’s from a hotel. They think she got friendly with their man in the hotel business centre, and that’s where she dropped in the product.’
Briffaut opened the envelope and pulled from it an 8 × 10 colour print.
‘Fuck,’ he said softly, handing over the picture.
De Payns took the photograph, eyes widening as he recognised the woman in the picture. She was wearing a red wig and a pair of spectacles, but de Payns would always know her as the woman in the orange silk top.
■
When Aguilar had left, Briffaut leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the windowsill. The SIS theory was interesting and Briffaut assumed his counterpart in London had implanted it in Mike Moran’s ear before sending him to France, knowing it would end up in Briffaut’s mind.
He let the cogs turn, thought about which other service wanted the Brits and French to uncover a Russian assassination plot, and then try to stop it. Such an action would put that nation firmly in the opposite corner to Russia. He was jolted from his reverie by Margot knocking on his door and leaning in to ask if he needed anything before she left for the day.
‘A copy of this,’ he said, handing her the picture.
She reappeared a few minutes later with the picture, then said goodnight.
‘Goodnight, Margot.’ Once she had gone, he locked his office door from the inside and resumed his seat. Did this really go back to the Minsk Agreements, or was he stretching too far? The second Minsk Agreement had ended the war in the Russian-speaking south-east of Ukraine—the Donbas—but had left France and Germany to administer the peace. The two countries had pleaded neutrality as the Ukrainian Azov Battalion militarised the Donbas region and committed atrocities, which had drawn in Russia and the Wagner Group. The President’s advisers gambled that France could be best friends with everyone, but failing to enforce the Minsk Agreement had spawned many enemies. Chaos in the Donbas had encouraged the rise of Kolomoisky’s Azov Battalion, the expansion of Wagner Group and the entanglement of the Americans, in the guise of NATO.
Rising, he pulled the Glenfiddich bottle from the map drawer of his bookcase and selected an American shot glass. He poured a dram, drank it, then unlocked his safe and pulled out an old address book and burner phone. He found the number he wanted quickly, and dialled.
‘Yes?’ answered a woman’s voice.
‘Monsieur de Murat, at your service,’ said Briffaut.
‘I’ll be at my usual place, usual time,’ she said, and hung up.
■
Briffaut walked into the Canard Vert restaurant in the Marais district at 6.30 p.m. and followed the narrow passageways through the decrepit series of connected buildings, past a mahjong club, to the rear bar. It was dark, poorly lit, one of those Paris bars that the government’s tourism board would never let a visitor see.
‘Monsieur de Murat,’ the woman said, as Briffaut walked up to her corner table.
‘Gabrielle,’ he replied, removing his woollen overcoat. ‘Scotch, neat,’ he said to the barmaid, and took a seat.
She smiled. ‘It’s been a while.’ In her late forties, Gabby Castigan worked for the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. She had operated in Madrid, Moscow, Santiago, Mexico City and London, but the Germans’ default posting for this woman was Paris. She’d also been Briffaut’s lover—in two separate and equally disastrous affairs—but now they kept things professional with an occasional drink.
‘Always nice to get a call from you,’ she said, sipping on her vodka tonic. ‘But I suspect this’ll be about work.’
The Scotch arrived and Briffaut asked for another vodka.
‘We’ve had some curious drops through our embassies lately,’ he began.
‘Hence the Maypole,’ said Castigan, draining her glass and pulling her smokes from the jacket slung over her chair back.
‘Yes, and it went nowhere,’ said Briffaut. ‘Because we’re all getting the same prod, the services have an opportunity to pretend they’re being open, but they’re not.’
‘Someone is playing with the services,’ she said, lighting her cigarette as the new vodka arrived. ‘And then the services play with one another. Don’t you love this business?’
‘I do, which is why I want a sidebar.’
Sidebars required the swapping of information with another service in a non-official capacity, making the participants vulnerable to charges of treachery. A sidebar could only be conducted between people who trusted one another implicitly.
‘You go first,’ she said, with a soft-eyed smile that had been used to great effect on many targets over the years.
‘Tell me about Azzam.’
Castigan tapped the ash from her cigarette and gave a quick glance around the room. ‘Well, Monsieur de Murat. That’s quite an opening.’
‘The Brits and us, we both had prod planted in material that was otherwise being brought out of Eastern Europe,’ said Briffaut. ‘The planted information steered both services towards Azzam.’
She stirred her vodka with the blue tiki stick. ‘This is when I show that I know what Azzam is?’
‘It would help to verify that you know what I’m talking about.’
She put the tiki stick in her mouth and looked at him. Her eyes were green, and although the thick honey-blonde hair now sported streaks of grey, she was still a beautiful woman. ‘And why would I want to verify that?’
‘Because the events that flow from Azzam, the Brits believe, are an attempt to get France, Britain or Germany to enter into a conflict with Russia—unambiguously.’
‘And why is it currently ambiguous?’
Briffaut paused. ‘Because France and Germany sat back and ignored their Minsk Agreement responsibilities in the Donbas, and the UK gave us diplomatic cover to do so. And now the Russian wolf is at the Ukrainian border, huffing and puffing, and no one wants to argue about it because the Kremlin can crush our gas supply.’
‘And someone is dropping material into intelligence files that will force one of us to declare themselves for or against Russia?’
Briffaut let this dangle. ‘What do you know about Azzam?’
‘What do you know?’
‘We were on board,’ said Briffaut. ‘And so were the Brits.’
Her pupils dilated. She was experienced enough to know it and looked away. ‘Well, that’s one of those things which might have been raised at the Maypole, don’t you think?’
‘Not if Germany wasn’t in a giving mood that day.’
‘Touché,’ she nodded slowly and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’m not deep in the details; it’s being run out of Berlin.’
‘But you clearly know about it.’
‘What can you give me that makes this sidebar bear fruit?’
Briffaut slipped an envelope out of his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. Castigan picked it up without losing eye contact and opened it on her lap. She looked down at the picture then looked up again, shaking her head.
‘You bastard,’ she muttered.
‘Interested?’ asked Briffaut.
‘How did you find her?’
‘I wasn’t looking,’ said Briffaut. ‘I missed it in the first photo I saw, but this one made me look closer, and I thought it was Zeitz.’
‘The first photo? Thought you weren’t looking?’
‘She turned up in another operation,’ said Briffaut. ‘I’ve never met her, remember; she just seemed familiar because of your problems with her.’
‘Can I keep this?’
‘Your turn to give.’
Castigan leaned back slightly. ‘We tried to get on Azzam, but failed. You’re saying the Brits and the French got that inserted prod, too?’
‘You acknowledge it was inserted?’
‘That’s the working assumption.’
‘We agree,’ said Briffaut. He pointed at the photo. ‘It was planted—by Christine.’
‘Where’s the photo from?’ she asked.
‘A hotel in Eastern Europe,’ said Briffaut. ‘I’m guessing the Marriott in Bucharest.’
‘All that Saddam marble,’ she said. ‘What’s she doing there?’
‘I can’t talk about that,’ Briffaut replied. ‘Let’s just say a friendly service thought they were being played with the Azzam prod and worked it back.’
Castigan shook her head. ‘I thought she’d gone to America after the Damascus thing.’
‘Just tell me one thing: is she working for Germany?’
‘Hard no,’ said Castigan, nostrils flaring. ‘Berlin wouldn’t let her mop a floor after Syria.’
‘Keep the photo, but if you find her, call a Maypole, okay?’
‘I’ll do that,’ she said, and her face changed. ‘Your timing is shitty.’
‘I do my best.’
‘I thought you might be looking for company tonight?’
Briffaut let himself get drawn into her gaze. ‘What happened to the Norwegian?’
‘I have a thing for right-wing men, as you know, but Herr Klos was a bridge too far.’
‘He had a lot of fruit salad on his chest for a man who never left the office.’
Castigan laughed, throaty and worldly. ‘And he had a swastika in his basement.’
‘Nice Nazis, those Norwegians,’ said Briffaut. ‘Always the great teeth.’
She picked up her drink. ‘I said to him, That’s a pretty flag, but my Jewish grandmother would not approve. And he said, Don’t be embarrassed—there are ways to cover up your genetics.’
Now Briffaut laughed. ‘He sounds like my kind of racist. I’d put him in blackface and get him tap-dancing. He can call me massah.’
‘He’d take one look at you and shit himself,’ she said, chuckling.
‘I’m working on being nice, but I reserve the right to hurt people I don’t like.’
Castigan’s laughter died. ‘I miss you, monsieur.’
‘You’ve got a night ahead of you,’ he said, finishing his drink. ‘And you owe me.’