She forced her mind to stop rambling.
'I thought he was supposed to be chained up at the bottom of some hole in Guadeloupe, helping the gendarmes with their inquiries.'
'Indeed,' Dalby said with a quirk of the lips that might have been rueful or wryly amused.
'Our last information had him so situated. But that was a year ago, and I'm afraid that communications between metropolitan France and the territoires d'outre-mer are not what they might be. Frankly, Mr. Baumer was no longer an active concern of ours once it became obvious that we were never going to be given unfettered access to him. Or any access at all, beyond furnishing the DST with a list of questions they might just pass on to the Directorate of Military Intelligence, which took control of him back in 2003.'
'So, what, all of our work on him was for nothing? Or was it because we were asking. Rather than MI6 or the Yard?'
'Could be,' Dalby conceded with a wave of one hand. 'We're not flavor of the month in the Elysee Palace. Never have been, which is only reasonable, I suppose, given our brief. Frankly, I would rather that Echelon had remained a private affair and hence deniable rather than declaring our hand as we did after the Vancouver Conference. I really don't think your Mister Kipper did us any favors there.'
Caitlin leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees, locking her elbows straight, imitating her father without realizing she was doing so. She agreed with the Englishman but could not get worked up over it in the same way. Echelon had worked very well in the old world as a secret arrangement among the Anglophone powers to divide up responsibility for spying on the rest of the world. And it wasn't as if the rest of the world didn't know about them. Compromised elements of the DGSE in France had been able to roll up most of Echelon's network there in the first days of the intifada.
'That's all politics, Dalby. And history now. Fact is, we are in the open, we are declared players, and the French are going to have to give up whatever they know about Baumer. This guy is out, and he's running assets again, on our turf, against me.'
'You really think it's personal?' Dalby asked. He sounded skeptical.
Caitlin threw her hands into the air. 'Richardson was paid by a man called Tariq Skaafe, also known as Terry Skaafe, one of Baumer's old aliases. He was contracted to drive up here and put a hit on my family. He got a bonus payment if he managed to drive back to London with me in a bag. It sounds personal, dontcha think? The guy's been sitting in a fucking hole in Guadeloupe for two or three years, eating his craw, stewing on the infidel bitch who put him there. Fuck knows how he got out, but if Sarko doesn't really control the external territories anymore-and who does have a handle on the fucking Carribean these days?-then it's entirely fucking possible that Baumer got sprung from his spider hole for a packet of fucking cigarettes and a handjob!'
Caitlin, who had leaned far forward in making her case, fell back into the chair, annoyed with herself for losing control in front of Dalby, for losing control at all. If Baumer really was on the loose and coming after her, she was going to need to stay frosty until she could reach into his fucking chest and rip his heart out herself just to make sure the fucker was really dead.
Dalby nodded sympathetically and opened a drawer behind his desk. 'Do you mind?' he asked, taking out a pipe. 'Helps me to think things through. And I received a new bag of tobacco the other day. From Missouri.'
'Knock yourself out, Sherlock,' she said, smiling an apology. 'I'm sorry to rant, but it's not just about me, you know. Those assholes this morning came after my husband and my kid. It doesn't get any more personal than that.'
Dalby tamped down the small bowl full of brown leaf and lit up with the same lighter he'd used to extract the information about 'Terry Skaafe' from Richardson. 'You know this al Banna chap better than anyone,' he said as he drew in the first puffs. 'Do you think there's a chance he's still in the country?'
Caitlin shook her head. 'None at all. He'd have moved in and out very quickly. The Skaafe cover was a good one. He didn't use it when I was trailing him. We only found out about it afterward. A solid jacket as a Kurdish- Austrian businessman working in medical supplies. That would have got him all the travel stamps from the Resources Ministry. He was on a clean EU passport, Austrian nationality. Gave him a free pass at border control. Richardson took the job from him six months ago. Paid by small multiple Web transfers into his betting account. He came, he went, he's gone.'
Dalby took a long draw on the pipe and closed his eyes, obviously enjoying the indulgence. The smoke had a whiff of port and old leather about it. Rain pattered at the single pane of glass between the office and the training area beyond. A chopper passed by, the hammering blades audible some distance away. It could lull you to sleep if you didn't mind yourself, Caitlin thought.
Dalby was quiet for so long, with his eyes shut and his head bobbing slightly, that she was beginning to wonder whether he might have fallen asleep when he spoke again.
'And so where to for Mister Baumer, assuming you're correct?'
She relaxed slightly, relieved that they were moving forward again. She wanted this dealt with so that she could get home.
'Well, not metro France, that's for damn sure. Paris isn't Guadeloupe, and old Sarko runs a pretty hard-hitting crew nowadays, at least in the parts of the country he controls. He's got the migrant ghettos sewed up pretty tight, too. If I had to make a guess, I'd say we'd need to start looking for Baumer in Neukolln, where his mom lived. Still might, if she's alive. Germans didn't go in for the whole ethnic cleansing thing. And they took in a shitload of refugees from France after the war. From here, too, after the Tories took over. A third world shariatown like Neukolln would be a good place for Billy to hole up. He knows the place inside out, and it's crawling with his sort of people. Lots of new faces, too. Makes it hard for the Germans to keep track of the talent. Not that they have time anyway with the Poles and the Russians keeping them busy.'
She sighed and shook her head. 'What a world, Dalby.'
He had the pipe running hot now. Caitlin didn't smoke, but she appreciated the strong, earthy odor after the stink of the interrogation room.
'So you would propose to go back into the field?' he said. 'Into Germany as a first measure?'
She nodded. 'I had a watching brief on him there for a year. He has a network. Or had one, anyway. The old Doctor Noor outfit…' She paused. 'I suppose you can tell me that Doctor No is actually dead, right? The French didn't fuck that up, too.'
Dalby smiled.
'No. That half clip of nine-millimeter hollow-point you emptied into his chest back in Paris well and truly sent him off into the afterlife to enjoy his seventy-six raisins with the blessed Prophet. He, at least, is no longer a bother.'
'Well, that's something,' she conceded. 'And to answer your question, yes, I think Germany is the place to begin. I'd like to start as soon as possible.'
'I can drive you down to London when we're cleaned up here if you wish,' Dalby offered.
'No,' Caitlin said. 'I'd like to see my family before I leave.' 'You know, kickass superspies aren't supposed to have leaky breasts. I checked in the manual. It's like an actual rule or something.'
Caitlin swaddled Monique in a fresh blanket and placed her on her back in the cot by Bret's hospital bed.
'Yeah, that might have been a rule once upon a time, but it was superseded by enlightened affirmative action policy ages ago,' she said. 'Any jihadi whack job or hired killer who tries to take unfair advantage of my leaky breasts is so going to get a severe dressing down from the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service. Plus new moms are perfect assassins. They're supergood at being very quiet, being up late at night, and sneaking around in the dark not stepping on LEGO or shell casings.'
Bret smiled, but the effort involved was painfully obvious. Her husband was trying to make light of her departure but failing. He had refused any pain relief so as to be clearheaded when she called, and Caitlin knew him well enough to see that he was trying to hide a serious hurting from her. More important, she knew, he had not forgiven himself for the morning, no matter how many times she told him he had nothing for which to seek forgiveness. He was too much of a soldier to let it go, a ranger no less, no matter how much he tried to distance himself from that past.
He'll never forgive himself, she realized. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
A low-watt lamp on the shelf by his bed lit the hospital room. Full night had fallen a few hours ago, and the curtains were drawn. Monique gurgled a few times and fell asleep, snoring ever so quietly and all but breaking Caitlin's heart. She had fed her one last time. She gently eased herself down on the edge of the bed next to Bret
