‘I’m in between places,’ Ben said.
‘Heading away from trouble rather than towards it, I hope.’
‘A little of both.’
‘That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. In fact, I knew it. You worry me, Ben.’
‘That’s sweet of you to say,’ Ben said, but he detected an emerging seriousness in the Frenchman’s tone.
‘Seriously. I have to ask myself what kind of mayhem your unexpected reappearance on my radar is going to spark off this time.’
‘If you’re referring to the thing in Paris,’ Ben said, ‘it really wasn’t such a big deal.’
‘A memorable high point in my police career. Wrecked cars and dead bodies all across the city, carnage and devastation, a one-man army on the rampage.’
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ Ben said.
‘And now, just when I was enjoying the peace, here you are again.’
‘I only need a quick run on those prints,’ Ben said.
‘So I gathered. And I wish it were that simple. But I need to know where you got these from, my friend.’
Here comes the serious bit, Ben thought. The prelude was over. Now it was time to talk business, and it was clear that something was troubling Luc Simon. ‘Off the guy’s fingers,’ Ben said. ‘The rest is classified, as you might say. But from the question, I’m sensing you already know who they belonged to.’
‘Belonged. Past tense. What am I to infer from that?’
‘The obvious,’ Ben said.
‘See, now, that’s a real problem,’ Simon said.
‘He was already dead when I found him,’ Ben explained for the second time that night. ‘If it’s any consolation.’
‘That makes a refreshing change, coming from you. And may I ask where he is now?’
‘Don’t worry, he’s nowhere that’s going to traumatise some unsuspecting member of the French public. Don’t play games, Luc. If you know who he was, give me a name. You owe me that.’
‘I do know who he was. Though it took a little finding. First place I looked was the Interpol criminal data management system covering France. The computer drew a blank. No trace of him there, no criminal history anywhere in this country. So then I ran a wider search. As an authorised user I can cross-check all European law-enforcement databases on suspected criminals or wanted persons. No sign of him there either. I had to dig deeper. And this does go deep. Which is why I said we have a problem if you’re telling me this person is dead. It’s going to cause more than a few ripples. If you want me to be forthcoming with you, you’re going to have to reciprocate. Quid pro quo.’
Ben was a very close and secretive person, partly by nature, partly by training, mostly from long experience that had taught him a cardinal rule: never tell anyone anything that you don’t absolutely have to. In this case, he knew he would soon have a decision to make. Opening up to Luc Simon represented a big tactical gamble. It would help establish the veracity of what Silvie was saying, one way or another. Which was important information to Ben. On the other hand, he hated exposing himself. Luc Simon was an old friend, but he was also a cop: the shrewdest and canniest Ben had ever met. Yet, if Ben didn’t take the risk, he stood to find out nothing of any value. Choices.
He eased off the throttle and braked the Hummer into the side of the road. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and twisted round a few degrees to face Silvie Valois. She was looking at him keenly, watching his face, studying his expression and straining to hear what was being said on the other end of the line.
‘Come on, Luc. It’s only a name. For old times’ sake.’
‘It’s a little more than that. The subject whose prints you sent me was one Dexter Nicholls. He was an intelligence operative. Not one of ours. He was working with French agents on a joint operation that I definitely, categorically can’t talk about. Not even for old times’ sake.’
Decision time. Ben thought, Fuck it, and jumped in with both feet. Cards on the table. All the way in.
‘A joint operation involving MI6 and DGSI,’ he said, ‘investigating the activities of a Swiss called Udo Streicher.’
Luc Simon’s composure slipped for a moment and he let out a sound that was halfway between a choking cough and a horrified gasp. ‘Jesus Christ. You’re not supposed to know anything about that.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t choose to get involved. They crossed the line, not me. I was in peace.’
‘Then stay that way. Keep out of this. For your own sake. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.’
‘Too late for that, Luc.’
A long, pondering silence, then Luc Simon laid another of his hidden cards on the table. ‘You know, I lied to you. Before, when I asked you where you were. I pretended I didn’t know. The fact is, I know exactly where you are, Ben. I put the track on your phone before this conversation even began.’
‘It’s the least I’d expect of you, Luc.’
‘Right at this moment, I’m looking at a wall-sized digital map of France with a flashing red dot on it. That’s you. Which puts you uncomfortably close to the scene of a serious recent multiple homicide in the Hautes-Alpes region that the police are dealing with as we speak. I would be very, very concerned to think you had any kind of involvement in that situation.’
‘I was the one who called the police,’ Ben said. ‘Just so you know.’
‘You need to come in. We have to talk.’
‘Sorry, Luc, that’s not really on my agenda,’ Ben said. ‘I still have plenty of talking to do with Agent Valois here.’
Silvie’s eyes opened wide, flashing in the darkness of the Hummer’s cab.
There was a stunned silence on the phone. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me, Luc. For the record, she’s not here of her own volition.’
All the way in. Ben was fully committed now. Nowhere to go but straight ahead, come what may.
‘Where is she?’ Luc Simon demanded.
‘Right here sitting beside me,’ Ben said. ‘Safe and sound. I’m afraid I can’t let you talk to her.’
‘I’m warning you not to interfere with justice, Ben. You have no idea how deep a mess you’ve got yourself into already.’
‘I’m not interested in your kind of justice, Luc. Or in any of your intelligence bullshit. I’m interested in one thing only, and that’s finding the people who murdered my friends. There’s nothing more you can do to help me, and nothing you can do to stop me.’
‘I know you well enough,’ Simon said. ‘That’s for damn sure.’
‘Then you know to stay out of my way.’
‘You realise that’s something I can’t do,’ Simon said. ‘Not even if I wanted to.’
‘That’s what I thought you’d say. Then consider Agent Valois a hostage until further notice.’
‘Don’t do this to yourself. We’ll find you. You can’t get away.’
Ben gave a dark smile. ‘I thought you said you knew me, Luc.’
Then the call was over. Ben turned off the phone. There was silence inside the cab of the Hummer. Just the muted growl of the idling motor and the crackle of duct tape as Silvie Valois shifted in her seat and shook her head at him in disbelief. ‘Smart move,’ she said. ‘You just screwed yourself.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ben said. ‘What I did was to verify that you were telling me the truth. That was worth taking a small risk for.’
‘A small risk? You’re crazy.’
Ben didn’t reply. He went back to thinking. By now, Luc Simon’s office would be a hubbub of burning phone lines as Interpol fell over themselves scrambling troops to the triangulated location of Dexter’s phone. Police could be mobilised on the ground pretty damn fast, twenty-four-seven, even in remote Alpine areas, but not half as fast as by air. Ben knew that the Gendarmerie Nationale airborne division had helicopter bases all over France. Given the local topography, the difficulty in tracking targets by road in a mountainous region, the occasional necessity of loc
ating and rescuing lost climbers and skiers, they’d almost certainly have a helibase in Briançon.
The GN chopper squadrons went all the way back to their role flying combat sorties in Indochina in the fifties, before the debacle of Vietnam had kicked off. These pilots had a long legacy of expertise. It would take just a few minutes before they were in the air, and hardly any time at all before the helicopters were homing in on a target so close to base. Meanwhile, Luc Simon would have been sure to order police roadblocks all around them. Those might take thirty minutes to set up. In that time, on twisty unlit roads, even the most determined driver couldn’t realistically have covered more than about forty kilometres in any direction, dictating a minimum diameter for the cops to encircle. That didn’t give Ben a lot of wiggle room, but it gave a little. The incoming airborne units gave him much less.
In short, it was time to get moving.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘What are you doing?’ Silvie asked as he flipped open the glovebox and started rooting around for a bit of paper. Finding one of Omar’s insurance documents that had a blank reverse side, he scrolled up the list of contact numbers on Dexter’s phone and used the marker pen he’d bought in Briançon to write them down. The old-fashioned way, untrackable, untraceable. He folded the paper into his pocket and spent exactly two seconds deciding what to do with the phone. Keeping hold of it was out of the question. It was a virtual target hanging around his neck. Destroying it would simply kill the signal, which was the next best option. But he wanted the cops to be deceived for as long as possible into thinking they knew exactly where he was. He stepped out of the vehicle, waded into the long grass at the roadside and dropped the phone into the bushes, still switched on and screaming ‘Here I am!’ to his pursuers.
Jumping back into the Hummer and ignoring Silvie’s questions, Ben took off and drove like a wild man. The road snaked and looped. The Hummer roared up inclines and squealed around hairpin bends. The lights carved a dazzling tunnel out of the trees that hugged the verges. Ben checked his mirrors every few seconds, half-expecting to see flashing blue lights chasing them, but the mirrors showed only darkness.
After a few more minutes, the deserted road climbed steeply for two kilometres and the trees fell away either side to reveal an open vista. The mountains all around them, the forested valley below, the night sky spangled with billions of stars that threw a diaphanous glow over the landscape.
Ben braked to a halt. Silvie watched as he got out of the Hummer, walked round to the front, stepped up on the bumper then on to the bonnet, then clambered up on the flat roof. Standing high above the road, he had a sweeping three-sixty view of the terrain. Everything was still. No screech of sirens, no thump of approaching helicopters. To the west, there was nothing but dark wilderness. North and south, the road was an undulating strip of ribbon shining under the stars. To the east, the ground fell away beyond the roadside barrier in a staggered rocky slope strewn with thorny bushes and clumps of pine. About three hundred metres below and three-quarters of a kilometre away across the valley, Ben could make out the shapes of agricultural buildings clustered under the trees, surrounded by a large walled yard with a farmhouse at one end. Its windows were unlit. The good folks inside were fast asleep, as all good folks should be at this hour.
Ben jumped down from the vehicle and opened the passenger door. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s happening, or what?’ Silvie demanded. Without replying, he took Breslin’s switchblade from his pocket and popped it open, then carefully slashed the tape holding her right wrist and ankle to the seat frame. Then he trotted round to the driver’s door, leaned in over the transmission tunnel and did the same for her left side. She sighed with relief and shook her arms and rubbed her wrists to get the circulation flowing again.
‘Out you get,’ he said. ‘There’s a farm down there. That’s where we’re going.’
Silvie clambered out and started walking towards the edge of the road, peering down the slope. ‘Not so fast,’ he said, motioning her back to the car. ‘Lay your hands flat on the wing.’
‘You love that stuff, don’t you,’ she muttered as he looped a fresh length of tape to bind her wrists together.
‘We get down there, no noise. Any tricks, I’ll snap your neck.’
‘So before you didn’t believe me, and you were threatening to kill me; and now you do believe me, you’re still threatening to kill me?’
‘Life’s tough for hostages,’ he said. He tore off another five inches of the broad, strong tape, and before she could dodge backwards he slapped it across her mouth as a gag. ‘Don’t move.’ He grabbed everything necessary from the Hummer. Slung his green bag over his left shoulder and the holdall containing the guns and ammo over the right. He had three pistols in various pockets, the two Glocks and Eriq Sabatier’s Beretta. The combined weight of the weaponry, the gold bar and the stacks of cash he’d stolen from Rollo was close to crippling. About the equivalent of the heavy pack the SAS slave-drivers had expected their recruits to tote up and down the rugged slopes of Pen y Fan Mountain in the Brecon Beacons, way back in Ben’s training days, on the same selection course that had since caused the death of a dozen men from exhaustion and heart failure. But this would be easy, nearly all downhill.
‘Let’s go,’ he grunted at Silvie, motioning the way ahead, and they left the Hummer at the roadside as they stepped over the barrier and started threading a zigzag descent down the slope, Ben leading the way, keeping a watchful eye on his prisoner. His pang of regret at losing the Hummer didn’t last long. Easy come, easy go, just like it had been for Omar. The guy was probably still too much in love with his gold bar to care about a vehicle he’d won in a poker game.
It took more than twenty minutes to negotiate the tricky slope, loose stones and dry earth sliding in miniature land-slips under their boots as they worked their way down to level ground. Where the decline bottomed out, the trees grew thicker and they crossed half an acre of woodland before a starlit meadow opened up in front of them. At its edge was an old post-and-rail fence marking the edge of the farm boundary. They climbed the fence and walked on in silence, cutting due east towards the farm buildings nestling in the trees up ahead. To Ben, laden down with kit, it felt like one of the night marches from his army days. He felt strangely excited, invigoratingly alive. All five senses on full alert, constantly vigilant, taking in every detail, every smell, every sound. Like the distant thud of choppers, at least two of them, bearing down through the night sky on a target they would soon find was nothing better than an abandoned phone tossed in the bushes.
He smiled. Luc wouldn’t be a happy man.
From far above on the road, the farm had looked like a dainty model. Up close, it was a mess. Discarded machinery lay scattered about the yard and the sides of the rough, neglected buildings. The house was old stone, with a red-tiled roof and a squat chimney stack at each end. A dog barked from somewhere inside, but it was ignored and the farmhouse windows remained in darkness behind their louvred shutters. In front of the house was a large vegetable garden skirted by a stone wall. Parked face-out along the wall was a motley collection of tractors and old cars. Last in the line was a battered workhorse of a Toyota Hilux crew-cab pickup. The load bed was empty, apart from a diesel jerrycan and a rolled-up plastic tarp. No flat tyres, no missing lights. It looked serviceable enough. Ben motioned to Silvie to stay in the shadow of the wall. He gave the jerrycan a nudge and heard the slosh of fuel inside. Gently, he eased open the Toyota’s driver’s door and saw the key dangling from the ignition.
Country life. The benefits of a relaxed low-crime environment where nobody expected thieves to come in the night, and few folks bothered locking their vehicles.
Crouching down with the pickup hiding him from the house, Ben unslung his green bag and felt his right shoulder begin to decompress. Rooted around inside, pulled out a brick of Rollo’s cash and split it in half. 2,500 euros was more than the well-worn Toyota was worth. He hoped that the generosity of t
he exchange might entice the owners not to report the theft to the police. He left the money trapped under a stone on the wall, where it couldn’t be missed in the morning. Eased open the rear cab door and loaded the gear inside. There was a pair of rubber wellingtons in the footwell, crusted with dried dirt. A tattered flat cap and a rumpled boiler suit that smelled strongly of chicken shit lay on the back seat. Ben closed the door, waved Silvie over from the shadows and bundled her into the front passenger seat. He eased in behind the wheel, took a deep breath and twisted the ignition. The diesel started up with a rasp, loud in the night. He quickly engaged gear and they took off. Still no lights came on in the farmhouse. Heavy sleepers.
The farmyard led to a private track that wound its way between sheds and barns and finally out through a set of gates to the open road. Silvie rolled her eyes angrily and muttered from behind her tape gag. Maybe she was complaining about the smell of old boots and chicken shit inside the truck.
The road snaked up the valley until a junction took them back the way they’d come before. Ben drove fast for five kilometres, the Toyota’s maladjusted headlights a pale candle glow compared to the supernova of the Hummer, its worn engine and suspension and tyres all protesting loudly from the punishment. Still ignoring Silvie, he stopped the truck and got out. He reached in the back, removed his jacket, took out the boiler suit and put it on. It smelled even fouler up close, but he’d worn worse things in his life. He unlaced his boots, took them off and slipped his feet into the damp wellingtons, thinking about trench foot. Finally, he opened the passenger door and yanked the tape from Silvie’s mouth.
‘There was no need for that, you know,’ she said irritably.
‘We needed something a little less conspicuous,’ Ben said. ‘Out here in the boondocks that Hummer stuck out a mile.’
‘I don’t mean the car, imbécile. I mean the tape. I’m getting tired of being trussed up like a prisoner.’
‘You’re a government agent. As of tonight, I’m effectively a fugitive. Figure it out.’