other half would be held in an escrow account that he would get access to once we had located the ship. It was the best deal I could negotiate.’
‘Okay,’ Chambers said. ‘Now take us through what happened in Paris.’
‘We still haven’t gotten even a fraction of the details yet,’ Alvarez began. ‘The French are keeping as many people out of the loop with this as much as possible. It’s so sandwiched in crap it’s taken this long just to chew through it.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re surprised at this,’ Ferguson interjected. ‘Our friends across the pond may be among the least intellectually blessed of our allies, but they’re not quite as dumb as we would like to believe. They have eyes and ears. They know we’re keeping them in the dark about something and they don’t like it.’
Procter smiled inwardly. The old man always spoke his mind without restraint, quite often without decorum as well.
Wyley cleared his throat before getting involved again. ‘Do you think they found out about the op?’
‘Unless there’s a leak or they’ve developed extrasensory perception, then of course they haven’t,’ Ferguson responded. ‘But Gallic paranoia has probably conjured up a host of incredible explanations for events thus far. None of which will be close to the truth, so stop worrying about them. For the time being at least the French are nothing more than an annoyance.’
Chambers gave Ferguson a polite but firm look. ‘Continue, Alvarez.’
‘This is what we know. The medical examiner puts Ozols’s time of death at sometime between five and seven AM. He was shot in an alley just off the Rue de Marne. Corpse found by a shop owner pretty quickly. No identification, but I saw his body myself at the morgue. Double-tap through the heart with holes so close they were touching, and one through the temple from close range. No witnesses. No physical evidence. The killer was definitely a pro.
‘Anyway, this is where it gets interesting. At eight fifteen the Paris police were called to a hotel where they found eight dead bodies. Five inside the hotel itself, two in a building opposite, and another in the street. One of the cops I spoke to, off the record, told me that they think one man killed them all. Bullets found in several of the corpses were 5.7 mm subsonics, the same round that killed Ozols, though fired from a different but same-model gun.’
‘What the hell happened?’ Procter asked.
‘At this time I have no idea,’ Alvarez answered. ‘I need to get inside that hotel, watch the security tapes, and look at the police report if I’m going to find out. I haven’t been able to do that on my own.’
‘I’ll make sure that happens,’ Chambers said.
Ferguson was shaking his head. ‘Someone killed Ozols and then went on a rampage through a Paris hotel? Doubtful.’
‘That’s exactly as it appears,’ Alvarez stated firmly.
Chambers asked, ‘Do we have any indication whatsoever of who this killer represents? I’ll take a guess at this stage.’
‘Ozols never told me who else he was negotiating with but I think we can make some educated guesses. Russia and China already have them and Iran has Sunburns, so Ozols wouldn’t go to them. Ozols wanted to deal in Paris so the French probably aren’t involved. But all the other usual suspects would love to get their hands on the Oniks: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, North Korea. If someone found out Ozols was selling to us and not them then it’s not unreasonable to think they’d try and get the information anyway. Sending a professional killer is a hell of a lot cheaper than paying what Ozols wanted as well. And let’s not forget that the Russians might have found out what Ozols was up to and tracked him down.’
‘So, to clarify,’ Ferguson began, ‘you’re saying the killer could be working for anyone?’
The voice that came through the speakerphone was deadly serious.
‘I’ll still find him.’
CHAPTER 12
Southeast of Charleroi, Belgium
Monday
19:48 CET
‘Les billets, si vous pla i t.’
Victor handed the conductor his ticket and thanked him when it was stamped and returned. The conductor made his way slowly along the aisle, periodically bracing himself against the train’s lateral movement. He looked eighty years old and unlikely to make eighty-one.
It was snowing outside. Flakes had collected on the window to Victor’s right, matted against the corners of the glass. Outside the scenery was invisible in the night, but when Victor leaned his cheek against the cold glass he could just make out fields and hills, the occasional twinkling light in the distance.
The train was two hours from the German border, and it would take into the early hours to reach Munich via Strasbourg, but Victor didn’t allow himself the luxury of sleep. He wasn’t sure that he could, even if he wanted to.
He was the only person in the carriage, sitting in the last row of seats, to the right of the aisle, the wall directly behind him. Sat straight in his seat he could see the far door and anyone who might come through it.
The door opened to Victor’s left and he automatically stiffened in his seat. Adrenaline surged, readying him for attack.
It was a child, a girl, four or five. She didn’t even look at him, just ran down the aisle bumping into seats on either side as she went. When she reached the end of the carriage she turned around and ran back, smiling as she bounced off one seat to the next. She stopped when she reached Victor, seeing him for the first time.
Eyes almost impossibly wide stared at his. He stared back but the intensity of her gaze made him uncomfortable, as though she could see through his eyes, past the veneer of his humanity to glimpse the real him that lay just beneath. But then she smiled, the gaps in her teeth showing, and any notion she possessed such power dissipated.
Feigning a look of puzzlement, Victor leaned forward and reached behind her ear. Her expression mimicked his. When he withdrew his hand he held a coin. A smile took over her face again. He rolled the coin back and forth across his fingers and the smile turned into a laugh.
He switched the coin into his left palm and passed the hand over his right. When he turned his left hand palm up it was empty. She laughed and pointed to his other hand. Maybe she’d seen the trick before, but Victor hoped she was merely perceptive beyond her years. He turned the closed right hand over and opened it. No coin there either. A look of confusion replaced the girl’s smile. He sat there with both hands turned palm up and shrugged.
The door opened and a woman appeared, instantly calling to the girl in German. The child responded by running off again. Her mother hurried after her, the volume of her voice rising with each shout. She looked flustered as if she had chased the girl down the whole train.
The mother caught the child’s collar before she’d reached the next door and marched her back the way they’d come with a sour expression on her face. She chastised her about running off, but the girl didn’t seem to care.
As she came closer Victor caught the child’s eye and gave her a look that said better luck next time. She grinned, and he slipped her the coin as they passed. Her eyes lit up for a second before she was gone and Victor had never felt more alone in his life.
The train rounded a long bend in the track and the overhead lights flickered momentarily. Victor drew a smartphone from his pocket and powered it on. He’d purchased it while in Charleroi, paying with cash to the shop owner’s delight. When it had loaded he took out the flash drive and plugged it into the USB port. The drive allowed him access, but the only file it contained asked for a password when he tried to open it.
He forced himself to think when all he wanted to do was shut down. Two hours after completing his assignment Eastern European assassins led by an American tried to kill him at his hotel. He thought about the dossier he’d found in the killers’ van. They may not have had many personal details, but to know his face and where he had been staying required extremely accurate intel.
