“Demonstration?”
It was possible none of the people working here had seen the results of their work in action. But surely the site manager must know? “The airfield. With the blue and red cars.”
“Oh, the targeting compensation test. Yes, that went off without a hitch. I gather Sir Terence was very pleased.”
The name ‘Sir Terence’ rang a bell somewhere, but Bridge ignored it for now. “I wouldn’t know. Those sorts of conversations are above my head, so to speak.”
The flattery worked, and Montgomery relaxed. “So what’s the concern over security? I admit, it’s not really my area of expertise. Voclaine is more hands-on with that sort of thing.”
That was interesting, but it didn’t change the plan. “Well, I’m afraid you can’t tell him anything. In fact, we think the French factor here may be the root of the problem, if you catch my drift. But we can’t be sure. After all, if we could, then I wouldn’t need to be here.”
“Why are you telling me now? How can I help?” Montgomery was sitting more upright now, excited at the notion of doing something clandestine.
“I’m glad you asked. First, we’ll pretend you’re having your interview with me right now. I’ve asked everyone so far not to discuss what we talked about, and you can use the same excuse. But I’m not going to interview you. I’m going to outline a plan, and I need your help to put it into action.”
A plan within a plan within a plan, she thought to herself. Could she trust James Montgomery? She had no choice. She couldn’t do this without authority, and with Voclaine still sitting at the top of her suspect list, that authority had to be absolute. Montgomery was an egotistical bore, but he had his uses, and Bridge intended to make the most of them.
44
At lunchtime she drove to a small café in Agenbeux, and settled in a corner table with the Dell laptop. Not so long ago she might have been frowned at, but even rural France was slowly dragging itself into the modern age, and several other young people had laptops and tablets out on their tables. Being one of the only places in town with free wifi probably had something to do with that, and Bridge connected after ordering a sandwich and coffee. But that was a feint, her natural paranoia kicking in, just in case someone checked the base station logs to see if she really had connected. Sure enough, there would be her laptop, innocently surfing the web.
Meanwhile, she logged into the secure partition, tethered it to her cell signal, and used an encrypted connection to check her real email. Henri Mourad had come through after all, running checks on the shortlist. There was only time to gather their security background checks and any related records; no real digging. But it was enough to make a start.
First there was a junior programmer. Bridge looked up the entry in the spreadsheet, and recalled the woman’s interview. Standard answers, but she was fidgety and nervous. She’d spent most of the session tugging at the hem of her pullover, like a nervous tic, and spilled water in her haste to leave the room when the interview was over. But her background check was fine, and she had no police record or note of interest from security. She seemed clean.
Next, a QA tester: a tall, rangy Bosnian guy that she remembered well. Orphaned, turned up in Strasbourg, adopted at six years old. His questionable origins were a black mark, but he’d spent his entire life since then in France. Good educational records, very respectable adoptive family. Bridge had mainly marked him because of his combative attitude in the interview, a real resentment of the interruption to his work and to all her questions. But again, his check was overall clean.
Two senior coders, one of them a project lead. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but there was something about the woman, a British programmer a couple of years younger than herself, that made Bridge uncomfortable. The woman had been friendly, relaxed, answering the questions with an ease and thoughtfulness that should have made the interview fly by. Instead, Bridge somehow found the experience tense and exhausting. But the only black mark on the woman’s background was her connection to a Polish 8-bit demoscene group while she was a student, and according to Bridge’s own colleagues at SIS she’d ceased communication with them upon graduation.
The man was simpler to figure out. He was a Scot who’d charmed his way through the whole interview, giving Bridge exactly the kind of answers befitting an experienced but still ambitious thirtysomething programmer, never once hesitating or thinking too hard, always smiling except when that would have been inappropriate. Bridge had long been a sucker for a Scots accent, but this was something else, a natural charisma she found fundamentally untrustworthy. His background check was even cleaner than the woman’s, though, with zero worrisome history or connections. If he wasn’t the mole, Bridge had half a mind to recommend Giles run an approach when he returned to Britain. A man with his charm could be an excellent spy.
Then, finally, there was François Voclaine. Most of the background check told her things he’d volunteered at dinner the other night. Some of the other details didn’t paint a flattering picture of the man, but then security background checks weren’t designed to make people look good. She noticed there was nothing about domestic violence, however. Had security missed that? Were there no official records, no hospital visits or complaints, and the French DGSI officer who did the check didn’t dig that deep? Or was it possible Montgomery was merely repeating gossip he’d heard? Rumours like that travelled fast.
Bridge was surprised to realise she was disappointed. She’d added Voclaine to the list before his formal interview, just because her gut told her there was something
