The view from the storeroom of Caspian Commercial Laundry did not include Baku’s famous coastline, but it was a secure location for meetings thanks to Jim’s local contact, who was paid enough to see nothing.
De Payns watched Jim Valley walk across the car park at the rear of the laundry, and when Valley was in the first-floor room at his allotted time of 11 a.m., they made coffee and waited for Keratine to show at 11.30.
‘We’re going to squeeze him,’ said de Payns when Valley asked about de Payns’ unexpected visit.
‘For anything in particular?’ asked Valley, stirring sugar into his dark local brew.
‘Boss thinks we need carrot and stick,’ said de Payns. ‘The prostitute business means he’s panicking a bit, looking for some leverage on you.’
‘It was very Russian,’ said Valley with a smile. ‘I didn’t take it personally.’
‘Of course not,’ said de Payns. ‘You brought the citizenship packs?’
Valley patted his woollen coat. ‘They’re here. It was a nice touch, including the son.’
‘No problems at the drop?’
Valley shook his head. ‘The embassy is good in this part of the world.’
‘We’re under some time pressure, so we need Keratine working with us, and giving rather than us chasing.’
‘Suits me,’ said Valley, his fist enormous as it grabbed the mug handle. ‘What’s the time pressure?’
‘We think Wagner Group has something planned—maybe by the weekend, if the analysts are correct,’ said de Payns. ‘We think it’ll be an infrastructure strike, probably natural gas, which means they’ll outsource it to a terror outfit.’
Valley nodded. ‘You mean like al-Kaniyat in Istanbul? That was Wagner, right?’
‘Yes,’ said de Payns. ‘There’s a second target, and Keratine probably knows more about Wagner Group than he’s letting on.’
‘Okay,’ said Valley. ‘I’ll follow your lead.’
■
Lazar Suburov, the man they called Keratine at the Bunker, was not happy to see de Payns.
‘I came to meet the gravedigger, but instead Paris sends me the executioner,’ he said, nodding when Valley offered him coffee. ‘The French certainly know how to make a man feel comfortable.’
‘Comfortable?’ replied de Payns with a smile. ‘You mean like a hooker in a mink coat?’
‘Ah,’ said Keratine, as the coffee mug was placed in front of him. ‘I would not call Sonja a hooker, but point taken.’
De Payns signalled for the materials that Jim Valley was carrying.
‘I sensed some reluctance from you, Lazar,’ said de Payns, ‘and it occurred to me that perhaps we could reach a professional compromise, even given the obvious power imbalance in our relationship.’
Keratine laughed briefly. ‘When the French use their manners, you know you’re fucked. What are you proposing?’
De Payns took the manila envelope from Valley and pushed it across the table to the Russian.
Keratine’s eyes widened as he opened the envelope. ‘French passports and new identities.’ The Russian examined them with an expert eye. All FSB officers were trained in validating documents and de Payns noticed he paid particular attention to the French drivers’ licences and the health insurance cards.
‘It’s the four-star package,’ said de Payns.
‘It’s good to feel appreciated,’ said Keratine. ‘Why not the five stars?’
‘Because that would include a million euros, and I don’t have a million euros for you,’ said de Payns. ‘New identities, French passports and free health care is as good as it gets for a full colonel in the FSB.’
‘And what’s the catch?’
De Payns shrugged. ‘If you don’t want to work with us, then perhaps we drop the material about Nikolai to the Russian services?’
Keratine tapped the documents. ‘I’d have to verify these.’
‘You have already,’ said de Payns, smirking at a ruse he would have attempted himself. ‘Besides, we both know that those documents could be invalidated as soon as you’ve inquired. We’ve taken an incredible risk to bring these documents here, so you can sight them. You can see that the documents are real.’
Keratine leaned back in his chair and seemed to deflate. ‘You’re right, they’re real, and they’ll get us both killed. You can’t leave them with me.’
‘Okay,’ said de Payns, gesturing for Valley to return the documents to the envelope. ‘They’ll live in my safe, or a place you nominate. Are you ready to work with us?’
Keratine shut his eyes. ‘The spy trusting the spy? Sounds like a comedy.’
‘You could just as easily screw me,’ said de Payns. ‘One click of your fingers and I’m in the back of an FSB van.’
They stared at each other. De Payns could hear the Baku traffic outside.
Keratine finally sat forward and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. ‘Where do we start?’
‘Wagner Group,’ said de Payns.
Keratine widened his eyes; the pale eyes of a man who’d been trained in stillness. ‘That’s quite an opener.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
De Payns allowed Keratine to talk without interruption. The Russian described the creeping influence of Wagner Group via the President’s Special Programs Directorate, the GUSP.
‘Your colleague here—Guy—asked me about Varnachev two weeks ago, and I really couldn’t go into it,’ said Keratine, lighting his fourth smoke. ‘It’s too dangerous. This is not a subject that many of us in the services will talk about, let alone discuss with outsiders.’
‘Are you scared for yourself or for your son?’ asked de Payns.
‘Both,’ said Keratine. ‘It’s the presidential intelligence directorate, with its own budget and private troops. It’s like the Nazis with their SS that answered only to Hitler. It’s very dangerous and the FSB has been opposed to the arrangement since Wagner mercenaries were first deployed in Crimea in 2014.’
‘What was the problem?’ asked de Payns.
‘Wagner Group are just private soldiers,’ said Keratine. ‘It was annoying and confusing when they were deployed to the Donbas, but that was a tit for tat …’
‘You mean, because Kiev was using Azov Battalion private troops?’
‘They were called Black Corps back then, and most of us in the services accepted the Kremlin’s logic: to fight a deranged private militia, send one of your own.’
‘What happened?’ asked de Payns.
‘We had a very delicate situation in Syria, which was effectively a civil war engineered by a foreign power, and an extremist caliphate growing in the vacuum,’ said Keratine. ‘Moscow sends in Wagner Group, and they descended like a pack of dogs on one bone. Ridiculous stuff that made it almost impossible to get good prod out of Syria and for us to do our jobs.’
‘What about the GRU?’ asked de Payns, referring to Russia’s military intelligence and rival to the FSB.
‘GRU are not in the Wagner loop,’ said Keratine. ‘They’re as unhappy as we are.’
‘So, what are you doing about it? If the GRU and FSB both want to eliminate a pest, they don’t usually miss.’
Keratine sat back and observed de Payns. ‘If you’re suggesting you’ll piggyback on what we’re doing with Varnachev, that gets all of us killed, including my family and maybe yours.’
De Payns shifted in his seat, trying not to show how hard this last comment hit him. ‘What are you doing with Varnachev?’
Keratine raised his hand. ‘This conversation is suicide.’
De Payns leaned forward slightly. ‘It’s the only conversation which can actually save you and your son.’
Keratine steeled himself. ‘We’ve been following Lenny Varnachev for weeks, ever since he arrived in Tartus. He’s been having meetings at the Four Seasons in Baku with some very bad people.’
‘How bad?’
‘The Homs Hezbollah militia,’ said Keratine, eyebrows raised. ‘They call themselves the al-Ridha Forces, and they’re led by a maniac named Salah.’
De Payns knew the name. Salah had been a Marxist at university in Paris and was now a born-again Islamist.
‘Homs?’ echoed de Payns. ‘He was part of that ISIS insanity?’
‘Yes,’ said Keratine. ‘One of those devout Arabs with a bank account in the Caymans.’
‘What is Varnachev talking with them about?’ asked de Payns.
‘We’re trying to find out. We also have chatter about a Russian scientist delivering a “machine”.’
‘You haven’t listened in on these meetings directly?’
‘It took us a while to find the meeting place, and when we did there wasn’t enough time to get the listening post in place. But the next time we’ll be ready.’
‘When is that?’
‘You can’t be there.’
‘When?’
‘Friday, ten a.m.’
De Payns eyeballed the Russian, who glared back.
‘You can’t be anywhere near this. You may as well give me a t-shirt that says traitor. I’m giving you all I can, but be realistic—Varnachev is protected by the Kremlin.’
‘Okay,’ said de Payns, understanding the problem. ‘Then I strongly suggest you get creative.’
Keratine reached for another smoke but didn’t light it. ‘All I can give you is the room number. What you do with it is none of my business.’