‘I’ve got something you might be interested in,’ Noakes said with his usual hundred-mile-per-hour speak. ‘Stevenson tried to be sneaky with his hard drive and used a piece of software for deleting files securely. It’s the kind of thing my dad would use. I mean, for Christ-’
Alvarez jumped in. ‘Let me guess, it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.’
‘Not quite,’ Noakes said. ‘Or at least it doesn’t do it as well as it’s supposed to. I’ve managed to extract some of the more recently deleted files, but the older ones are going to take longer, if they’re still there somewhere, which I don’t know. They could be. Or they might truly be gone for good.’
Alvarez held the phone a fraction farther away from his ear. ‘What did you find?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Noakes laughed. ‘Almost forgot to tell you. I’ve dug up some deleted e-mails between Stevenson and an unidentified person. We’ve only got the last few in what appears to be an ongoing conversation. They’re discussing payment for something called ParisJob.’
‘Good,’ Alvarez said. ‘Get those e-mails to me as soon as possible.’
‘On it now.’
Alvarez put the phone down, pleased to be making some progress but aware of how little he really knew. He stood and walked to the window. Alvarez stared out through the glass, through Paris, to the person out there who’d started this whole mess.
‘Where are you?’ he whispered.
CHAPTER 23
Central Intelligence Agency, Virginia, USA
Wednesday
16:56 EST
He looked like a kindly old gentlemen, face craggy but tanned, thin but still strong, hair grey but thick. Kevin Sykes watched Ferguson pour himself a cup of coffee from the brushed steel pot and take a sip. It was bitter, tasteless crap, but the caffeine content should at least meet with Ferguson’s approval.
‘Has the room been swept?’ Ferguson asked. He looked at Sykes through the reflection in the office window.
Sykes nodded. ‘Just before you got here.’
Ferguson turned around and said, ‘Then please explain to me what the fucking hell has just happened.’
Sykes tensed visibly. ‘Tesseract showed up in Switzerland.’
‘And?’
Sykes shook his head. ‘Swiss police found a body in the woods north of the village of Saint Maurice. My man.’
Ferguson sighed heavily and sat down. ‘What about Tesseract?’
‘We don’t know for sure. The house was burned to the ground. I guess there’s a chance he was in it.’
‘That sounds to me like a fool’s hope, Mr Sykes. If he killed your man I doubt he would have managed to get himself cooked afterward.’
‘I’m afraid I’m inclined to agree with you, sir.’
‘So he’s gone then, with the flash drive?’
Sykes nodded.
‘Unless it was lost in the explosion. Which would take this from disastrous to catastrophic,’ Ferguson added. ‘When did all this happen?’
‘A few hours ago,’ Sykes replied, half to himself. ‘Look, this isn’t over yet. We have leads. We-’
‘So why did you not inform me of this earlier?’
‘This is my show, and I’ve been handling it. Telling you before I knew the facts would have achieved nothing except to inflame the situation. There isn’t anything you could have put in motion that I have not already done.’
Ferguson frowned. ‘And whom did you use this time?’
‘Carl McClury. He was ex-Special Activities Division with a solid record in wet work, before that Special Forces. He wasn’t prone to asking questions either. He was freelance, did contract work for the company. His cover was as a security guard at the Zurich embassy, so he was the perfect choice for a clean-up op.’
‘You have got to be joking.’ Ferguson stepped forward angrily. ‘You used a CIA employee? Are you out of your fucking mind?’
‘A former employee. He’s not on the books.’
‘Don’t get cute with me, Mr Sykes. It amounts to the same thing. What do you think will happen when they find that out?’
‘Nothing,’ Sykes answered confidently. ‘McClury was an agency contract shooter, and everyone knows it’s not unheard of for our contractors to do work for other people. Who knows who McClury may also have been doing jobs for? Europe’s a hell of a big place. Lots of potential clients. His death will go down as an occupational hazard. Plus,’ Sykes added, ‘there is nothing that connects McClury to Tesseract. There’ll be no evidence that the man who killed him was the same guy who shot up Paris. And let’s not forget that nothing connects us to McClury or Stevenson and his crew. We’re so clean we’re practically virgins.’
Ferguson ran slim fingers through his hair. ‘I’m afraid I don’t share your confidence.’
‘There are at least two people between us and McClury, and neither know where their orders came from. McClury was payment on delivery, and he didn’t deliver. Before him, Stevenson was paid in advance in cash. Alvarez won’t be able to identify the man who paid him. And that money was shipped through the usual methods — intermediaries, offshore accounts, et cetera. No trail. We let Stevenson gather his own team, remember? We’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘That remains to be seen.’
‘Yes, McClury’s death makes things awkward, but he was a shrewd operator. Meticulous. He won’t have left any tracks to follow like Stevenson. Besides, he was totally deniable alive, and he’s even more deniable dead.’
‘You forgot to add incompetent to his list of qualities.’
‘He had an impressive track record.’
‘Right up until the point he got himself killed.’
‘Be that as it may, he was the only choice for the op given its unique criteria. We needed someone fast, and disposable hitmen aren’t exactly easy to find.’
It was a good retort but Ferguson waved a hand to dismiss the point, and Sykes swallowed down the anger that flared up inside him. He reminded himself who he was speaking to and didn’t press the issue further. Ferguson wasn’t just his boss, he was the architect of their scheme, and he demanded obedience at all times, even when he was blatantly wrong.
‘What are you going to do about McClury?’
Sykes already had everything planned out in his mind. ‘It’ll be a day before he’s identified by the Swiss police, another day at the very least before anyone that matters realizes he’s former agency. That’s more than enough time for me to sour McClury’s reputation. I’ll make it seem as if he’d been taking contracts for some very objectionable people. The kind of people who don’t mind killing the hired help when they’re no longer useful. That’ll be sufficient to muddy any trail. No one will think to connect his death with what’s been happening elsewhere.’
Ferguson seemed to take a long time placing his cup back down. He carefully wiped the corners of his mouth with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Somehow Sykes managed to stop himself from smiling. He knew he’d won the old bastard over. Ferguson just didn’t want to give Sykes any praise.
‘Things have gone bad so far, I accept that.’ A little humility would go down nicely, Sykes thought. ‘But this thing isn’t over yet. Tesseract is still out there, still with the flash drive I’m sure, so we have options. People are looking for him now, the French, Germans, Swiss, the agency. That’ll help us close in on him. And when we do, I’ve got some more contractors on standby. I know it’s risky, but we can make it look like someone else got to him first. Sure, things won’t have been as clean as we would have liked, but the end result will still be the same.’
‘There won’t be a next time.’
‘You don’t know that. It’s too early to give up.’
