He paused, then said, “Really? Ah, François must have dealt with that. I didn’t realise. Well, very good. Carry on.” He walked into his office, closing the door behind him.
Bridge checked the Dell. She hadn’t logged out when she left the room, which was foolish, but there was nothing in the unrestricted partition that would give her away. If anyone thought to check the disk volume, they might wonder what the separate partition, small and unrelated to the OS, was for. But she doubted Montgomery would know where to find the partition map, much less wonder at its composition. She couldn’t risk logging into it here at Guichetech, in case someone noticed it on the network, but made a mental note to check it as soon as she was outside the facility with a signal. And that, she now knew, would be very soon.
She spent the next twenty minutes with nonsense work, tidying up spreadsheets and pretending to think. But her mind had been made up since returning to find Montgomery standing at her laptop. She closed the lid, gathered her things, and knocked on his door.
“Entrez,” he called from inside. Bridge opened the door to find Montgomery alone, lost in thought. “Oh, um, Ms Short. How are things?”
“Mostly fine, but…I’m afraid I’m rather unwell this morning.”
Montgomery seemed to palpably relax at the news, and adopted a sympathetic expression. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Anything serious?”
“Stomach pains,” she said meaningfully, hoping that would curtail any further questions. “I think maybe I should go back to the guest house and lie down for an hour or two, if that’s OK?”
“Ah,” said Montgomery, understanding. “Well, um, why not take the afternoon off, if you need it? After all,” he half-smiled, “you have your man. You’re just here for show, now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, that’s right. Just for show. Thank you, James.” She smiled, and left to go and break into his apartment.
49
The Russian had put him in an impossible position.
He had no realistic way of obtaining more code, whether by taking photographs or any other method. He couldn’t very well come clean to the MoD, or security services, and hope they’d be lenient. He knew they wouldn’t, and they might throw him to the French authorities, who would almost certainly be worse. And he couldn’t stay here. Sooner or later Bridget Short would realise that Voclaine wasn’t the mole, and her attention would return to other suspects. Meanwhile, Montgomery had been foolish enough to make himself look suspicious when he tried to get into her laptop that morning. He was due to return to England in less than a week, after the final deadline. But did he really think he could string both the Russian and Ms Short along for all that time?
A knock at the door broke his train of thought. His heart sank when Ms Short entered. Surely she was here to accuse him, and that would be the end of it. But to his surprise, she merely complained of ‘stomach pains’, and asked to go home for a while. She didn’t need to be more specific. Montgomery suggested she not only return to her guest house, but that she stay there and recuperate for the rest of the day. He couldn’t believe his luck, but such a sudden proximity to catastrophe cemented the only realistic option open to him.
He had to run.
The Swiss account was still there, but for how long? The Russians didn’t seem to realise it, but he was certain they would when they discovered he’d abandoned them, and so a plan formulated in his mind. He would drive to the bank in Switzerland, switch the money to a fresh account at a different bank, withdraw a large amount in cash, use some of it to buy a new car under a fake name, and keep the remainder hidden inside the vehicle while he found a place to live incognito.
He would take the gun the Russian had given Montgomery, in case anyone tried to stop him. He’d tossed it on his bedside table as soon as he returned home that night, but as the Russian had said, even unloaded it could be a useful bluff. And surely there were places in Switzerland, of all countries, where he could buy ammunition.
Finally, he would drive his existing hire car off a cliff, to fake his own death.
He thought of his family, then, and realised he was more saddened by the thought of never seeing his children again than his wife. Perhaps because he knew she’d be fine. If he was assumed to be dead, she could live off his life insurance and pension. She might even find a new husband, though he didn’t like to think so. He wondered how much his children would grieve for him. They were still in high school, not yet blunted by the harsh winds of adulthood.
He waited until lunchtime, then took the mini-tablet from his desk drawer and placed it in his bag. He shouldn’t take it out of the facility at all, but with Ms Short gone, nobody was checking for second devices at security. Besides, the tablet contained perhaps the last pictures of his family he would ever see, and its SD card held several hundred photos he hadn’t yet given to the Russian. They might be useful as a bargaining chip if they hunted him down. Which they would surely do.
Perhaps he could sell the photos to the Chinese.
Montgomery shouldered the bag, took a deep breath, and headed back to his apartment.
50
“Thanks for joining me,” said Andrea Thomson as the black cab drove slowly through East London. “Figured it couldn’t hurt to have someone with me who knows what they’re looking for.”
“You mean a geek,” said Steve Wicker.
Andrea smiled in return. “If you like.”
“I thought Lisa Hebden was liaising with you and Six on this one?”
“Not any more.”
Andrea had spent ten minutes on an early call with Hebden, and
