quid pro quo I think we’ve reached the limit of what they’ll tell us just yet.
‘The authorities have managed to keep the press at bay so far, so we’ve got no intel that way, but a second major shooting in a little over a week is a seriously big deal in that part of the world. More details might come out in the news. However, we’ve been lucky, and the NSA has grabbed us a few useful intercepts. According to the French Secret Service she’s an American.’
Procter, who had been looking out of the window, straightened in his seat. ‘An American?’
‘Her name is Rachel Swanson, but the DGSE believe this is an alias.’
‘What else do we know about her?’ Chambers asked.
‘That’s it so far.’
Sykes asked, ‘Do we have anything to indicate why he met with her?’
‘That’s the question,’ Alvarez said. ‘Maybe she’s his lover or just a friend, but I’m thinking business associate is more likely.’
‘Employer?’ Procter asked.
‘It’s a possibility.’
Chambers gestured to Procter: ‘I want to know everything there is to know about Miss Swanson, alias or not.’
Procter nodded.
‘In light of this Swanson development,’ Alvarez said, ‘I think we should check past and present CIA employees.’
Chambers’s eyebrows rose.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Something’s been bugging me for a while now,’ Alvarez began. ‘We assumed that another prospective buyer for the missiles or the Russians had Ozols killed. But we can’t dismiss that it’s someone within our own walls.’
‘I’ve already had words with the director to make sure it wasn’t us who put the contract out on Ozols,’ Chambers said.
‘I’d dig anyway. Someone might be operating off the books. Before, there was no reason to suggest this was the case.’
‘And what is there now to suggest otherwise?’ Procter asked.
‘A hunch.’
‘A hunch?’
‘My hunch, to be more specific. Sebastian Hoyt is dead.’
Chambers leaned forward. ‘Say again.’
‘Hoyt, in case anyone has forgotten, paid the American hitman, Stevenson, that briefcase full of cash to kill Ozols’s killer. He died of a heart attack on Sunday night while he lay in the bath. According to the autopsy, there are no signs that his death was anything other than natural, but it’s a hell of a convenient coincidence for whomever Hoyt was working for.’
Procter couldn’t disagree. ‘I’ll say.’
‘Chances are Hoyt was murdered simply as a precaution, but the timing of it, just after we found out his role in all this, makes me suspicious.’
Ferguson shook his head. ‘Hardly enough reason to think we have a mole.’
‘I’m not saying we have a mole — maybe a leak, maybe a rogue operation running under our noses.’
‘Okay,’ Chambers said. ‘There’s no harm in trying to find out if this Swanson is or was affiliated with us. I’ll authorize full access to our personnel records, asset lists, and so on.’
‘And may I suggest that any information found goes no further than the people in this room.’
‘Of course.’
Sykes tried not to shift in his seat.
CHAPTER 55
London, United Kingdom
Tuesday
16:46 CET
It was getting dark outside when Elliot Seif and his bodyguards reached the parking garage beneath the building. His spot was in an area reserved for the building’s elite, and there were only a scattering of cars under the hard white glare of the fluorescent lights.
Seif would be arriving home late tonight. Work rarely kept him beyond his scheduled hours, but his latest mistress — the very young and very nubile Isabella — often ensured he missed dinner with his wife. After years of serial adultery, he was as discreet as ever, but although Seif could lie and mislead with the best of them in the boardroom, he was utterly unconvincing when lying to his wife. He knew it; she knew it; but they both pretended otherwise.
The smell of exhaust fumes hung in the air. There had been some ventilation problems earlier in the week, and it still wasn’t quite fixed. Seif had complained on several occasions. It screwed with his asthma, and he needed every ounce of stamina his aging body could muster to keep up with Isabella’s youthful insatiability.
He knew she was only his for the endless stream of expensive gifts he lavished on her, but Seif didn’t care. He was well aware he had no charm to go with his frail body and wrinkled face, but a certain breed of woman found his wallet irresistibly erotic. Money, he had long ago discovered, was the world’s number one aphrodisiac. He considered it perfectly fair that Isabella desired him only for his money as he wanted her purely for her tight young body. Above all else, Seif was a deal maker, and he considered theirs to be a very good arrangement.
The echoes of heavy footsteps interrupted the silence as the bodyguards stepped out of the elevator. They took the most direct route across the expanse of concrete, one bodyguard walking in front of Seif and to the right, the other behind and to the left. Under normal circumstances they could get Seif from the elevator to the car in under forty-five seconds. Seif never walked fast.
His bodyguards were alert. The underground garage was a dangerous space, but they knew it well. Their gaze constantly shifted between potential places of concealment where someone might be hiding. Just because they’d done the same thing a thousand times and more without incident didn’t mean they ever got complacent.
Any face or vehicle they didn’t recognize in the area was watched closely. More than once Seif had found himself apologizing on his bodyguards’ behalf after they’d been rough with someone who’d made a seemingly threatening action. It may have been a ballpoint that time, one of the bodyguards had told Seif, but next time it might be a gun. Did he really want to wait to be sure? Better to apologize for a mistake than to die for one. Seif had readily agreed.
They were there for show more than anything else. Seif dealt with plenty of less-than-reputable individuals, some of whom were uncouth enough to try to intimidate their way into a better deal, or at least they would do so if Seif didn’t have two mean motherfuckers in his corner. And if one day any of the Euromafia scumbags realized he was stealing their money, to get to Seif they’d have to get through five hundred pounds of pure badass first.
Neither of his bodyguards liked the location. It was designed to be as pleasant a space as possible with no mind to security. As such, it was full of blind spots that had to be watched with care. Still, it was far safer than an exterior parking area. In here they could protect their client.
At least that’s what they believed.
The silver Merc SUV was parked at the far end of the garage in the most secure location. It had been reverse parked so that Seif, who rode in the back, had the bodyguards in front of him and the wall behind him when they were most vulnerable, as well as for a quick exit. In addition, the car was armoured and all windows fitted with bulletproof glass by a specialist firm in Germany.
Seif gripped his mobile phone to his ear and gulped as he listened to Isabella describe in lurid detail exactly what she was going to do to him when he finally arrived at her apartment. The volume on the phone was turned high to compensate for Seif’s poor hearing, and his bodyguards listened to every explicit word and groan Isabella uttered. They never let on that they could, except to each other.
