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PARIS
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“I TAKE IT NO-ONE’S joined him in the lift,” Agent Ney said. He had been sitting in the front seat of the surveillance van for over a quarter of an hour, with no sign of any activity outside the apartment building that was being watched.
“No, sir, the lift’s still empty aside from Renault,” Agent Artois, who was positioned inside the building replied softly. “He’s just riding the lift to the top floor and back down again. He’s definitely waiting for someone. Wait a minute...”
The agent fell silent, and Ney found that he was holding his breath in anticipation of something, anything, happening.
“He’s making a call,” Artois reported quietly from the top of the apartment building’s only lift as he listened to what was happening below him, using a powerful microphone to capture every sound.
“Are you picking up the call?” Ney asked, twisting in his seat to speak to the agents who were monitoring the surveillance equipment in the rear of the van. He saw that the pair were busy adjusting their equipment, so he waited.
“We’ve got him, sir,” Agent Soult said after a moment. “And the signal’s clear.”
“What’s he saying?” Ney wanted to hear what Renault was saying, but he also wanted to keep an eye on the front of the building, so he stayed where he was and had a set of headphones passed through to him.
“...been here for over fifteen minutes already. I’m not going to wait much longer.”
Jean-Paul Renault’s voice came through the headphones. There was a pause then, which Ney took to mean Renault was listening to what was being said by the person on the other end of the call.
“Fine, but if you’re not here in the next five minutes, I’m leaving. I’ve got other things to do today.”
Ney continued to listen in case Renault was going to say something more. When he didn’t after almost a minute, Ney concluded the phone call was over.
“Okay, everyone, listen up,” Ney contacted all the members of his team. “Renault is intending to leave in five minutes if his contact doesn’t show, so keep your eyes peeled. The chances are his contact will be hurrying to get here, so let me know the moment you see a possible target.”
The affirmatives came back from his team in quick order. They were all as disgusted as Ney by the thought that one of their fellow agents was selling information to a criminal organisation, and as eager to find out who the corrupt agent was so he or she could be stopped.
“I’ve got a possible target,” one of the agents watching the apartment building and the nearby roads reported after nearly five minutes. “He’s stopped at the corner and is looking around. I think this is the guy. He’s definitely looking around for something or someone.”
“Which corner?” Ney asked as he searched for the figure who had been spotted.
“Northeast. He’s looking around the street and the surrounding area. I think it’s safe to say he’s looking for us.”
“Any chance he’ll spot you?” Ney asked worriedly.
There was silence for a moment, then, “I don’t think so. He’s going to need a healthy dose of luck to spot me.”
“Can you get a shot of him?”
“Yeah. I’ve got about a dozen shots, including several good ones of his face. If we can’t identify him from these pictures, we never will.”
Ney was relieved to hear some good news. “Keep watch in case he leaves the same way.”
**
“IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU turned up,” Jean-Paul said irritably when he was joined in the lift by Dubois. “Another couple of minutes and I’d have left.”
“Like I told you on the phone, I got held up by traffic,” Dubois said. “Hardly my fault.”
“Fine. You’re here now. So, what is it you want to see me about?” Jean-Paul was glad of the information Rene Dubois supplied him with, but he disliked the time and effort he was forced to waste every time the agent wanted to meet with him.
Dubois ignored Jean-Paul’s tone. “I thought you’d like to know that the professional you hired has completed his work. He dealt with Sofia Torres and the officers protecting her last night.”
Jean-Paul was silent for a moment. He was too surprised to say anything. “I have to admit,” he said finally, “I never thought he’d actually succeed in getting all three of them. Mind you, considering what he insisted on being paid, he certainly should have, so I’m glad to hear he did.”
“How much?” It made no difference to Dubois what Jean-Paul had agreed to pay but he was curious.
“Five million pounds. Five bloody million.” Jean-Paul shook his head in disgust, still unhappy with the price Luke Caldwell had insisted on.
“Worth every penny, I’m sure, to get your cousin out of jail and keep him out,” Dubois said. “Which of the three did you end up hiring?”
“Caldwell, the Brit, he was the only choice I had in the end. If you’d taken the time to check the three of them out before you gave me their files, you’d have known that he was the only one available.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the Italian is dead and the German is retired. Of the three options you gave me, Caldwell was the only one I could hire. Anyway, the job’s done now, he’s got them all, thank God. Did he have any problems?”
“I take it he hasn’t been in touch yet,” Dubois said, reaching out to hit the button for the ground floor as the lift stopped at the top of the apartment building.
Jean-Paul shook his head. “If he had, I’d have known already that he got that damned witness last night. So, did he have any problems?”
Dubois shrugged. “The inspector in charge of the case believes your assassin was injured during the attack on the boat, but that’s unconfirmed. The team in Barcelona is checking hospitals and similar places for anyone with gunshot wounds but, as I said, it hasn’t been confirmed that he was injured, so they could be on a wild goose chase.”
**
THE CONVERSATION IN the lift continued for a while longer, with Ney listening through the headphones he had pressed to his ears. To his dismay, nothing was said to help identify the corrupt agent, though they did get plenty on tape to assist their case once they identified him.
“Okay, he’s leaving,” he informed his team. “Keep an eye out. Team One, you stay with Renault, Team Two, I want you to focus on his contact. Follow him and see where he goes and who he talks to. I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to have him lead us to his desk, but he might make it easy for us to identify him.”