De Payns sat in one of the visitors’ rooms of the MiT in downtown Istanbul. A television mounted on the wall showed footage of the Istanbul Congress Center taken from a helicopter, the area surrounded by flashing lights of police vehicles and ambulances, journalists breathless and excited about what they were reporting on. De Payns couldn’t understand a word but he got the gist: terrorists had attempted a mass shooting, with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and billionaire Igor Kolomoisky as the targets. The primary point of the bulletin seemed to be that the shooters were foreign terrorists, judging by the ISIS training footage cut into the news reports, and the intended victims were Jewish, evidenced by the file footage of the putative victims wearing kippahs.
De Payns was exhausted and his feet hurt from running on concrete. The night’s outcome could have been worse: no one was dead, only two people in hospital, and the Turkish government was able to say it had stopped a terror attack by Haftar’s Libyan terrorists thanks to European intelligence-sharing—all without the Turks knowing they’d stopped a Russian operation …
But the Russians would know, de Payns realised, as he thought about the shot from the burly shooter’s machine pistol. It had passed his leg and embedded in the corridor wall, according to Marak. He wondered if he was too old for this, and if Romy’s instinct that the job had run its course was correct. If he’d died in a conference hall in Istanbul, what succour would Patrick and Oliver be able to take from their loss? They wouldn’t read about their dad in the newspapers, and when France awarded him the Légion d’Honneur posthumously it would be at a secret ceremony in the same place where they’d just memorialised Paul Degarde. The family would be told to not discuss it, his own boys would be encouraged not to ask questions. What fulfilled him so significantly, he realised abruptly, meant only emptiness and absence for his family.
The door opened and Captain Marak walked in. ‘My service has just spoken with Monsieur Larmes,’ said the Turk, referring to the DGSE’s head of external liaison. ‘You can have five minutes with Maahi—he’s the young fellow you caught.’
De Payns stood. ‘Five minutes? Don’t you mean five hours?’
‘You wouldn’t let me anywhere near him if we were in Paris,’ the captain pointed out. ‘I’m allowing this in recognition of your cooperation in thwarting the attack. Thanks to your intelligence, we avoided the worst-case scenario.’
‘There were other shooters. Do I get time with them?’
Marak gave him a knowing smile. ‘They are not in a state for visitors, I’m afraid.’
As they walked to the cells, Marak asked: ‘A hit on the Ukrainian president, by a Libyan militia—will this be a Haftar trend?’
De Payns shrugged. ‘Al-Kaniyat soldiers are guns for hire. I’d be surprised if these shooters know why they’re here.’
The kid was in leg-irons and manacles, a chain holding his hands close to a U-bolt on the table in front of him. He’d been crying and looked very scared. He also looked intelligent and sensitive, not like the Maghreb terrorists and thugs de Payns had dealt with in the past.
‘Français?’ asked de Payns, and the kid—Maahi—shook his head.
‘English?’
‘A bit, sometimes,’ said Maahi. ‘Are you French?’
De Payns ignored the question, took a seat and offered Maahi a cigarette. Then he lit their smokes. ‘You ran away from the auditorium. Why?’
Maahi looked at him with honest eyes. ‘I didn’t want to do what they wanted me to do.’
‘Who’s they?’
Maahi looked away. ‘They’ll kill my family if I say.’
‘I’m guessing al-Kaniyat militia,’ said de Payns. ‘If you don’t argue, then I’ll assume you agree.’
Maahi smoked and looked away.
‘Okay, so they have your family?’ asked de Payns.
‘My brother,’ said Maahi. ‘He’s fourteen. And they know where my mother lives.’
De Payns nodded. ‘What did they ask you to do?’
‘I had to kill a man,’ said Maahi.
‘Who’s the man?’
‘I don’t know his name,’ said Maahi.
‘An overweight guy, with a beard?’ asked de Payns, describing Kolomoisky.
‘No, he’s thin, and the hair …’ Maahi searched for the word. ‘Like a movie star.’
De Payns nodded. ‘Your job was to shoot this man?’
‘Yes,’ said Maahi, nodding. ‘Akeem told us that there’d be two men. Grey hair and dark hair. I had to shoot the one with dark hair.’
‘What about the other shooters?’
‘Akeem said the dark man was my target,’ said Maahi, no hint of lying. ‘I don’t know about the others.’
De Payns took a deep breath, trying to alter his thinking on the run. ‘Why you?’
‘I’m a good shot,’ he said. ‘When they killed my father, they said I had to work for them because I used to hunt and I could handle a rifle.’
‘MP5?’ asked de Payns.
‘And AK47, G3, M4 and fifty-cal machine gun.’
De Payns nodded. ‘Those are not for hunting.’
‘No, mister.’
‘Who trained you on those weapons?’
‘Al-Kaniyat,’ said Maahi.
De Payns was aware of the clock ticking. ‘What’s your commander’s name?’
Maahi looked away. ‘I can’t …’
‘They’ve already got your brother,’ said de Payns. ‘You could do worse than helping me.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I can help you if you help me.’
Maahi gave up, slumped in the chair. ‘Parzan. Parzan al-Sharif.’
‘Does he work for General Haftar?’ asked de Payns.
Maahi nodded. ‘He’s the al-Kaniyat commander around Al-Uqaylah.’
‘When I cornered you, you said asylum. Why did you say that?’
Maahi paused. ‘A man told me to.’
‘Who’s the man?’
‘Faisal. He came to see the commander in Libya.’
‘Faisal told you to seek asylum?’
‘Yes. A week ago I had to pick him up from the airfield and take him to meet Parzan.’
‘Where was Faisal from?’
‘American accent, but Libyan,’ said Maahi. ‘He had money for Parzan. He asked me if I was in the Europe group.’
De Payns frowned. ‘Europe group?’
‘Yes,’ said Maahi. ‘That’s what he called us, the ones going to Turkey.’
‘So there was another group?’ asked de Payns.
Maahi shrugged. ‘He said we drummers were the Europe group.’
The door opened and Captain Marak walked in.
‘Time’s up,’ said Marak.
Marak held the door and de Payns paused on his way out. ‘The kid asked about asylum, is that possible?’
Marak smiled. ‘It’s being done.’
‘They have his brother,’ said de Payns.
Marak pulled the door shut as they walked into the corridor. ‘These terror outfits are holding thousands of kids—I can’t save them all.’