‘The French police tried to take him down. Needless to say, it didn’t work.’
Ferguson weighed the response for a moment. ‘I’ve just spent the afternoon teaching the director of national intelligence a lesson in the art of putting and this has somewhat soured my good mood.’ Ferguson pushed a hand through his hair. It was so thick Sykes used to think it was a wig. From the amount of hairs Sykes discovered each morning in the shower, he expected to be bald as a plucked chicken by the time he was Ferguson’s age.
‘This is the kind of complication we could have done without.’
‘We’re still safe,’ Sykes offered, more to satisfy his own anxiety than Ferguson’s.
The old guy huffed. ‘Thank you for that small assurance. I’m assuming we have more dead bodies.’
Sykes nodded. ‘He killed three, two more are in the hospital. I don’t know if they’ll make it.’
‘What do the Frogs know?’
‘As far as I know they don’t know anything. They don’t know why Tesseract was in Paris or who the girl was. The apartment isn’t hers and the one in Marseilles was rented under an assumed identity, so they won’t be able to connect her to the agency. Her cover is good. It should hold.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Ferguson said.
They stood without speaking for what seemed like a long time. Sykes could almost see the wheels turning inside Ferguson’s mind. When he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, Sykes said, ‘I don’t understand how Tesseract tracked her down.’
‘Have you heard anything about the police finding her body?’
‘No.’
‘Then think again.’
Sykes couldn’t keep still. His fists were clenched down by his sides, knuckles white. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He didn’t find her,’ Ferguson said.
Sykes was as confused as he looked. ‘What?’
Ferguson explained it for him. ‘Either he contacted her first or perhaps she contacted him, but that hardly matters. What matters is she realized she’d become a target so agreed to meet him.’
‘But why? And how did she know before Reed got to her?’
‘Because she’s smart. Tell me if I’m wrong, but that’s why we used her.’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘Maybe she’s smarter than we thought. Maybe Kennard made a mistake and revealed his identity, so when he died she put two and two together. Or either of them could have become suspicious and deliberately broken protocol. Who knows?’
‘I guess that makes sense.’
‘So,’ Ferguson continued, ‘she runs to her cousin’s apartment in Paris, unaware that we know about it. She’s frightened; she doesn’t know what to do; she’s got nowhere else to turn, and so she goes to Tesseract for help. Maybe offering to tell him what she knows if he gives her the drive. Either he’s desperate and agrees or goes there to kill her and changes his mind and they decide to work together. She knows more, he’s more capable, so each can help the other. I would say that’s a pretty shrewd course of action.’
Sykes frowned hard. He’d been frowning a lot recently. ‘So what are we going to do?’
‘We sit back and wait,’ Ferguson said with annoying calm. ‘Either Tesseract will kill her as a precaution or maybe just for revenge once she’s no longer useful. That’ll solve one little problem if nothing else. Then Tesseract will disappear with the flash drive, and we’ll never hear from him again. We won’t get the missiles and we won’t get rich, but we’ll get to keep our freedom. Considering everything that’s happened so far I would consider that a victory.’
‘Or?’
Ferguson walked out of the hall and into the spacious kitchen. Sykes followed.
‘Drink?’ Ferguson asked.
‘I’ll take a beer,’ Sykes answered after a second’s deliberation.
Ferguson’s thick eyebrows moved closer together. ‘I was thinking more like juice or water.’
‘I’ll skip then.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Ferguson said. He opened the fridge and took out a carton of grapefruit juice. He poured himself a tall glass. ‘Or,’ he continued eventually, ‘they’ll contact us and try and do a deal. I think this is more likely. They’ll offer us the information if we leave them alone.’
Sykes exhaled heavily. ‘Okay. And if they do, will we?’
Ferguson looked shocked. ‘Of course not, you idiot. Where’s your head? No, we won’t leave them alone. If we do this right we can manipulate their coming together to give us an opportunity to take them both out and retrieve the drive in one go. We get our hands on those missiles and come out cleanly.’
‘You really think we can still pull this off with everything that’s happened?’
Ferguson stared at him with something approaching disgust. ‘I’ve got myself out of deeper holes than this, Mr Sykes, and still managed to smell of roses.’
‘What about Alvarez?’
The old CIA man sighed as though the whole conversation was beginning to bore him. ‘Alvarez is nothing more than a Boy Scout. I’ve never thought particularly highly of him. All he does is follow the path of least resistance. Look, what’s just happened is actually a good thing for us in a way. It’ll give the idiots in the department some more wild geese to chase. And all the while they’re being led further and further away from us. If Procter, Chambers, and Alvarez had a brain between them they would be looking for how someone could have found out about Ozols in the first place. Instead they’re trying to do things the other way around. They’ll never get anywhere that way. So keep your cool and this will all be over soon enough. And, with a bit of luck, when it is, there will be tens of millions of dollars waiting in numbered accounts for us both. I take it you still want to be rich? I know I do.’
Sykes nodded his agreement. ‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘it’s almost a shame we’ve got to kill Tesseract. I mean, the fact that he’s come this far shows how good he is. We could really use him on our team, couldn’t we? He’d make a great asset. Maybe we could bring him on our side.’
‘I’ll forget you said that.’
Sykes swallowed the dry nothing from his throat. ‘Sorry.’
Ferguson glared at him. ‘Have I not taught you anything, Mr Sykes? Never apologize. Ever. At worst it’s an admission of culpability, at best it just makes you look like a fucking chump.’
CHAPTER 53
London, United Kingdom
Tuesday
13:56 CET
Rebecca sat on a comfortable leather sofa in the reception area of Hartman and Royce Equity Investments, feeling a little nervous but confident those nerves weren’t showing. Seif’s company was located on the nineteenth floor of the striking Canary Wharf tower — fifty storeys of glass and steel that loomed over the rest of London’s skyline. The view was stunning. Rebecca concentrated on the glittering flow from the reception area’s tranquil water feature and let the hypnotic reflection of light relax her.
The click of heels caused Rebecca to turn her head. Approaching her was the receptionist, Melanie, a stunning brunette with a delightfully friendly manner and a porn star’s physique squeezed into a flattering pinstripe. Melanie had greeted Rebecca courteously, all big white smiles and practised small talk, insisting on fixing her a coffee while she waited. Rebecca found it very hard to say no to her.
Melanie offered the espresso in a small china cup with a saucer. Rebecca took it and wasn’t surprised to find Melanie made a killer espresso. Strong with just a hint of bitterness. Rebecca couldn’t remember having a better one.
‘That’s fantastic, thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’ Melanie’s glossy lips formed a smile. ‘Anything else you fancy, just let me know.’
While Melanie walked back to her desk, stilettos clicking and a certain strut to her walk, Rebecca wondered
