“Are the cards from a public dump of a known breach? Pastebin, Textdump, something like that?”
Steve shook his head. “Either it’s a private list, or the victims are being targeted individually. They’re all completely nondescript people. No records, no priors, and no flags in our own system.”
Patel spread his hands, trying to get a handle on the situation. “So someone targets innocent people. Steals their identities and credit cards. Uses that information to make precisely one online purchase, which is delivered to a third-party pickup address and collected the next day. After which the stolen identity is discarded, and never used again.”
Steve nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”
“But you think this isn’t sixteen similar cases, all following instructions from a 4Chan thread. You think it’s one person’s MO, doing the same thing sixteen times.”
“Well, that’s my suspicion. But I don’t have any hard evidence, yet. Hopefully CCTV footage from the pickup locations will give me something. I’d like to request that from the locations, but it’ll have to go through Five.”
“Go for it. If you get any pushback from them, CC me in. I’ll wave my big stick around if I have to.”
“Thank you, sir.” Steve gathered up his presentation notes and stood.
Patel gazed into the distance and snorted in frustration. “Drones, of all things?”
“Drones, sir. Sixteen of the best consumer-grade quadcopters money can buy.” Steve closed the door behind him, attempting to mentally draft his request to MI5 in a way that wouldn’t make him a paranoid laughing stock.
33
Fréderic was up a ladder, hammering away at the main building’s gutters, when Bridge pulled up in the Fiat. La Ferme Baudin was an old, squat, stone building of modest size, but surrounded by a large yard for vehicles, and beyond that were acres of land that, after centuries of crop tilling, now grew wild. An old wood lined one edge of the property, away from the road by which Bridge had approached.
Now Fred paused mid-swing and peered down at the car, to see who was inside. Bridge took her time, hoping that Izzy would come out to greet her instead, but she could only sit here for so long before it became weird. Fred climbed down the ladder, hammer still in hand, and walked towards the car. Then a door banged open, as Stéphanie ran out to see who had come to visit them, zooming past her father. Fred called to her, but she ignored him, and made a beeline for the car.
Bridge opened the door and stepped out, waving and smiling. “Salut, Steph.”
Steph gasped and cried, “Auntie Bridge!” Then the girl crashed into Bridge’s legs and wrapped her arms around them.
She staggered back, laughing. “Calm down, Steph, it’s only been a couple of weeks.”
“Stéphanie, behave yourself,” said Fred. Steph immediately let go of Bridge and stepped back, looking contrite. “What are you doing here, Brigitte? Has something happened?”
Bridge shook her head. “I’m on a work trip up north, and I have the weekend free. I thought I’d pop in and say hello.” She reached inside the car and retrieved a small paper bag, holding it up for Steph to see. “I brought macarons.”
“Isabelle is out shopping,” Fred scowled. “You should have called ahead.”
Lying to Voclaine, Montgomery, and everyone else at Agenbeux was something Bridge had worried about constantly before she arrived. She’d expected to be a ball of nerves, to hesitate and stammer over aspects of her cover bio. And while the legend OpPrep had put together helped, being so close to her real background, she’d nevertheless surprised herself at the ease with which she’d spun her tale to the Exphoria staff.
But lying to her family sadly came more easily; she’d been doing it her entire working life. The truth was that she daren’t call ahead in case she was being watched or monitored. A call from the guest house would leave a record, using her cover mobile would immediately blow her cover, and using her real mobile would raise questions about mission security. After all, she hadn’t told anyone in Vauxhall she was coming here, or that Izzy’s place was so relatively close.
So instead, she continued lying. “I wanted it to be a surprise. The work trip was kind of last-minute, so Izzy doesn’t know I’m here.”
Fred grunted, and took Steph’s hand. “I suppose you’d better come in, then. I’ll make coffee while you wait.”
Bridge followed them inside, ducking her head under the low overhead beams, and rested her bag against the kitchen table. She had always been terrible at small talk, but refused to sit in hostile silence, for Steph’s sake more than Fred’s. So while he prepared the coffee, she asked, “Fixing the roof?”
“Every year. Old houses need care and attention.”
“This is your family’s place, isn’t it? How far back?”
“Four generations of my fathers. And I’ll pass it on to Hugo.”
“Stéphanie’s older,” said Bridge, noting the absence of women in this pattern of inheritance.
“Hugo is my son.”
“Hugo will let me stay here as long as I want,” said Steph. “He does whatever I tell him to.”
Bridge smiled at her. “Oh, I bet he does.”
“Can I have a coffee too, Papa?”
“No,” Fred grunted. “Not until after lunch.”
“But Auntie Bridge is having one.”
“Brigitte is our guest,” Fred said, passing her the coffee. At least he had the grace not to say, “your mother’s guest”.
Steph watched Bridge intently while she sipped the coffee, as if she could somehow drink it vicariously. Then she said, “Is it true you’re a corporate lapdog?” Bridge almost spat coffee over the kitchen table. She didn’t need to ask where the girl had heard that phrase.
Fred shrugged. “It’s a fair question. What’s the British government doing in France, anyway?”
“You know I’m not allowed to discuss it,” said Bridge, wiping her lips with a napkin. “It’s just a trade visit; the usual. And no,” she said to Steph, “I don’t work for corporations, I work for the government. Which means that, really, I work for ordinary
