Her mind made up, Bridge scrambled over the edge of the roof to land on the balcony below, then climbed over the parapet and dropped the final three metres to the street. The landing sent a shockwave up her legs, and as she limped to her car, Bridge sighed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to rest for several hours at least. The guest house would be a short pitstop to collect clothes, the emergency passport, and her phone. Then she’d have to hit the road before the police figured out where she was staying, and call Mourad in Paris to be ready for her.
She climbed into the Fiat, fumbled with the keys, and started the engine. Before the car was fully in gear she stomped on the accelerator, burning tyre marks on the road as she screeched away. Turning the corner, she glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw Novak limp into the street from Montgomery’s building, shouting at her to stop.
Instead, she accelerated.
54
The police were waiting for her.
It was mid afternoon, broad daylight, and the local gendarmes evidently weren’t used to being discreet. Two marked vans were parked right on her street, while two uniformed officers stood guard outside the guest house. Presumably that meant the remaining officers were inside, searching her room. Watching through sunglasses from her car parked far down the other side of the street, Bridge’s stomach dropped. Had she left the suitcase’s hidden compartment exposed? Was the Ziploc still on her dresser, half-empty? No, that was here, in her pocket. But the Dell laptop and HTC phone were both inside, along with her emergency passport. She had to assume they were all now compromised. Everything in that room was lost to her.
Alone and outgunned, surrounded by the enemy, lost in the desert…
Bridge suppressed the thought. While there were similarities to Doorkicker, this was not the same situation. Yes, she’d completely screwed the mission. Yes, the mole and main witness was dead. Yes, she was now blown, and on the run. But this time, she didn’t just speak the language; she looked and sounded native. And the $500 in her pocket could be exchanged for euros, with which she could buy a whole new wardrobe and hairstyle.
How much did they know? That was the real question. Nobody in the DGSE or DGSI had been informed of Bridge’s mission. If the police discovered she was SIS, they’d call her a spy. If she could make them listen, and let her call London, she could prove who she was… but that assumed Giles would back her up. Sending an officer undercover into foreign territory, without declaring them to the host country, was a textbook definition of espionage. Would SIS hang her out to dry, to protect Britain’s relations with France? One last option: she could go to Paris, and find Mourad. But if the police suspected her real purpose they might have him under surveillance, just waiting for her to make contact.
There was one other big difference between this and Doorkicker. She had a bolt hole.
Bridge started the car and drove casually down the street, turning off onto a side road before she reached the guest house. She gasped as a gendarme stepped out into the middle of the road, signalling for her to stop. But it wasn’t Novak, and with half a dozen more officers within shouting distance, ignoring him was too big a risk. She slowed to a stop, pulling the band from her hair but leaving the sunglasses on. She lowered the window, looked out, and shrugged. “Qui se passe, officier?”
“An English woman is missing,” replied the gendarme in French. “Can I see your ID, please?” He held out a hand, expectantly.
Bridge shrugged, and spoke in perfect French. “Sorry, I don’t like to carry my carte in case I lose it. My name’s Édith Baudin. What’s going on?” She regretted using her sister’s name the moment she said it, but with no other working alias to hand, it was the first thing Bridge thought of.
“Not even your driver’s licence? You’re supposed to carry ID at all time.”
“I know, but it’s bad enough I keep leaving my phone everywhere. I can’t go to a café without putting it on the table and walking out by accident, you know? And replacement ID cards aren’t cheap.”
“Where have you come from?”
“Just now? I had lunch in Saint Dizier. I’m on my way home.”
“And where’s that?”
Her sister’s name was one thing, but Bridge wasn’t about to give Izzy’s address as well. “Chalons-en-Champagne,” she lied. “We just bought a place on the river.”
The gendarme raised an eyebrow at her hand on the steering wheel. “We? You’re not wearing a wedding ring.”
“I lost it, gardening.” Bridge gave him a lopsided smile. “I told you, I’m hopeless.”
The young officer hesitated, then sighed and waved her on. “All right, move along. But you should start carrying your card. Put it on a string around your neck.”
“Oh, that’s a really good idea. I’ll get my husband to make one.” Bridge was two streets away before she realised she was still wearing a fake smile, like a rictus grin that made her facial muscles hurt. She massaged her jaw, nodding to herself that she was doing the right thing. “An English woman is missing,” he’d said. Careful code, so as not to panic the locals. But whether or not they knew her real identity, they were looking for her. And considering the number of gendarmes at the guest house, they probably considered her dangerous. She took a wide circle around several streets, circling back round to drive south, rather than north as she’d told the police.
She regretted losing the computer more than the phone, but she’d sent Henri Mourad an update the night before; a full data dump of her work so far, so he could pass it all back to London. Unfortunately, she hadn’t mentioned her suspicion of Montgomery, because yesterday it had been
