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BARCELONA
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WITH THE DOOR OF HIS office closed, Bright returned to his chair behind the desk and picked up the phone.
“I heard from Luke a short while ago, sir,” he informed Lejour when his call was answered. “He made contact with Renault during the night, and a meeting has been arranged between him and Noir for tonight at nine. They’re meeting at Noir’s vineyard outside Paris.”
“I guess you were wrong about your friend,” Lejour said. “He seems to be doing alright so far, despite his injuries. I’ll begin making preparations for tonight. How do I get in touch with Caldwell? We’ll need to wire him up for the meeting, so we can get Noir on tape.”
“He’s at the Hotel De Vere, room seventy-three,” Bright said. “You’re to send along one tech this afternoon at five to sort that out.” He had already discussed the situation with Luke, who was understandably reluctant to have any more dealings with Interpol than was absolutely necessary. “I don’t think we should take any action until he’s left the meeting and is safely away, sir. If your teams move in while he’s there, he’ll be at risk if Noir and his people decide to make a fight of it, which is likely. He’s already taken bullets for this operation, there’s no reason for him to have to risk taking more.”
Lejour agreed, though he remained unhappy that the operation relied so heavily on someone who was almost as high on Interpol’s wanted list as Philippe Noir. His only consolation was the fact that Caldwell had not requested any kind of immunity or protection in exchange for his assistance, which meant there was still the possibility of prosecuting him in the future, either for one of the murders he had already committed or for one he was yet to commit.
“Something might go wrong, though, and the assault team might have to go in before Caldwell can get out of there. It might be best if you’re here so you can go in with the team to protect Caldwell,” Lejour said. He was tempted not to worry about the possibility of Caldwell getting himself injured further, perhaps even getting killed, but it seemed wrong to allow that to happen when the man had volunteered his help, and that help was likely to lead to the arrest of a criminal as significant as Philippe Noir.
“Yes, sir.” Bright was glad Lejour had suggested it. He wanted to be there in case Luke ran into problems, but he hadn’t wanted to either suggest or request it in case Lejour would think he was more concerned about a suspected criminal than he was in doing his job. “I’ll make some arrangements and book a flight.”
**
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” MARIE asked from the passenger seat as Bright drove them to the airport. “Why are we flying to Paris?”
“Now we’re away from the office, I think it’s safe for me to tell you,” Bright said. He hadn’t wanted to say anything of what was going on before then because he didn’t want to be overheard by anyone who might be in the employ of Philippe Noir. “Firstly, Sofia Torres, Roland Baptiste, and Marc Delcroix are all still alive.”
Bright heard Marie gasp and took it for surprise.
“How?” Marie asked, doing her best to keep the fear and worry she was feeling from her voice. “I thought the hitman Renault hired killed them all. How did you manage to trick him?”
Bright took his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at Marie but didn’t notice anything out of place. “Renault made a mistake when he picked his hitman,” he said. “The man he hired is a former colleague of mine from the British Army.” He couldn’t help feeling pleased with the way things had turned out, even if he knew he could only claim a part of the credit for it. “I’m sure if he’d known that, Renault wouldn’t have hired him, but his mistake is our good fortune.”
Marie was silent while Bright filled her in on everything that had happened since Luke Caldwell was approached, but the moment he stopped talking she voiced the questions on her mind. At the same time, her hand crept towards the gun she had in a holster at her right hip.
“Where’s Sofia now? And the others? Where did you find to keep them that Noir’s people wouldn’t find out what you did?” Not only was she afraid of what Noir would do when he found out the truth, for she was Rene Dubois’ partner, and had supplied him with some of the information he had sold to Jean-Paul Renault, Marie was afraid of the steps she might have to take to fix everything. “Was Caldwell really injured, or was that just a story you put out to help his credibility?”
Bright couldn’t help laughing at the questions, thinking they came from astonishment at what he had done without her knowing, rather than fear of what it might mean for her.
“I can only answer one question at a time,” he told her. “Yes, Luke is injured, it isn’t just a story that was put out there to help him. We couldn’t tell Sofia’s protective detail what was going on in case one of them sold the information to Noir or let something slip to the wrong person, so they thought Luke was really trying to kill her and shot him. Luke got hit a few times but is mostly okay and was able to knock out everyone on the boat with tranquiliser darts. Delcroix, Baptiste, and Sofia, along with her protective detail, were taken to an army base, where they will remain until the trial. It’s the safest place for them.”
“I assume Caldwell is at the base as well, recovering from his injuries.” Marie unclipped the catch on her holster, wincing at the, to her, loud sound it made, and began easing the gun free. Out the corner of her eye she watched Bright to see if he was aware of what she was doing, but he was oblivious as far as she could tell.
“No,” Bright said. “I wish he was, but he insisted on continuing with the plan he came up with. He’s in Paris for a meeting with Noir and Renault tonight. The plan is for him to get Noir on tape admitting that he ordered the murders of Sofia, Baptiste, and Delcroix, which will enable us to arrest Noir and Renault and guarantee convictions. We’re on our way to Paris to take care of Luke after the meeting, or when the meeting is raided if things go wrong.”
She would have to act, Marie realised. Given what she had been told, she had no choice. “Is there anything else I need to know?” she asked, annoyed that she had been backed into a corner where she would have to give herself away as a corrupt agent, even if Bright didn’t yet know that that was what he had done.
“Yes. As well as the luck we’ve had with Luke, we’ve been able to identify who’s been leaking information about our progress here in Barcelona.”
Marie’s heart stopped for a moment. She thought she had been discovered and was being driven into a trap.
“The surveillance team watching Renault was able to catch him meeting with his contact a few days ago. It’s an agent by the name of Rene Dubois from the communications department at the Paris office.”
“Do they know how he got hold of the information he sold to Renault?” Marie asked, keeping her voice as calm and casual as she could, while clenching her gun in a grip so tight she was surprised she didn’t break it.
“Before he transferred to the communications department, Dubois worked in the records department and took a number of courses in various aspects of computing. It’s suspected that he’s been hacking into files to get the information he’s been selling. The surveillance team watching him is under orders to keep their distance to avoid alerting him until they’re ready to make their move, so they haven’t been able to confirm that yet.” Bright took yet another turn then, starting down a long road that led out of the city and passed a sign that revealed the airport was two kilometres away. “Once Noir’s in custody they’ll bring Dubois in, then they’ll make certain of how he’s been getting his information.”
Marie had heard enough for her to make up her mind. It sounded as though they didn’t yet know that she and Rene were a couple, and that she was involved in supplying him with at least some of the information he had been selling, but it was only a matter of time before they found out.
She lifted her gun from where she had been hiding it at her side. “I’m sorry, Ben, but you’ve left me no choice. Take the next turn,” she ordered.
Bright’s jaw dropped in shock when he looked around and saw the gun. “What the hell?” His voice trembled in a way that surprised him. He had never reacted like that before, not even when under fire while in the army.
“Take the next turn,” Marie repeated. “If you force me to, I’ll shoot you here and now. The road’s straight enough that I can get the car under control before it crashes.”
Bright wasn’t so sure about that, but the look in Marie’s eyes told him she would shoot him if he forced her to. He ran through his options in his mind, but it only took him a fraction of a second to realise that he would have to follow her instructions, for the time being at least.
Nodding slowly, to show that he was going to do as he had been ordered, he moved his hand to the indicator stick so he could let the traffic behind him know what he was doing. He continued to keep his movements slow, so as not to startle Marie into shooting him, as he turned off the main road.
**
“STOP HERE,” MARIE DIRECTED a couple of minutes after ordering Bright to turn onto a narrow track, which appeared to be a service path of some kind that led towards the airport. “Give me your gun.” She held out her free hand for the weapon.
When he handed over his weapon, Marie put her own away and then swapped his into her right hand. “Get out of the car.”
Slowly, Bright obeyed, uncomfortably aware that although Marie had opened her door, she hadn’t moved from the passenger seat and was pointing his own gun squarely at his back.
When he heard the car shift, indicating Marie was getting out on the other side, Bright took his chance. He darted away from the car, making for the nearest of the bushes. He knew it wasn’t going to hide him completely, nor would it protect him from any shots Marie aimed at him, but he hoped it would at least make it harder for her to see him well enough to hit him with any shots she fired, and perhaps give him enough time to get to the backup weapon he had at his right ankle.
Marie was quicker than he expected, however. Before he could make it halfway to the bush, he was struck twice by bullets that threw him forwards and into the dirt. He wasn’t sure if bullets hurt worse than they used to, or if he had simply forgotten how much it hurt to get shot, but the pain was incredible. He wanted to roll over so he could get to his backup gun and return fire but his body wouldn’t respond to the commands his brain was giving it.
He could hear Marie approaching, but her footsteps faded as darkness slowly overcame him, robbing him of consciousness, and perhaps life as well.
The gun in her hand at the ready in case Bright was faking, Marie cautiously knelt at his side. She nudged him, and then nudged him again. When she didn’t get a response, she reached out to check for a pulse, relaxing when she didn’t find one. Satisfied that Bright was dead she got to her feet and returned to the car, where she cleaned her fingerprints off Bright’s gun before negligently tossing it away. She then slid behind the wheel and reversed the car down the path until she reached a space where she could turn around.
As she drove her mind raced. Foremost in her thoughts was the problem of how she was going to reach Rene to let him know what had happened. With him under surveillance that was not going to be easy. She had to, though, he had made plans against the possibility of one or both of them being discovered as traitors to Interpol, and she didn’t know all the details of those plans.