56
Izzy didn’t believe a word of it, and said so.
Bridge had arrived in the early evening, after a deliberately careful drive. Her instinct had been to race down to Côte-d’Or, to escape Novak and his gendarme flunkies as soon as possible. But driving like a maniac risked attracting police attention, and with her name and description on every gendarme’s dashboard, that could only spell trouble. So instead she drove carefully, always five kilometres per hour below the speed limit, always staying on boring, anonymising highways as far as possible, and always erring on the side of cautious driving once she had to come off the highways onto local roads.
Halfway down the N67 she’d remembered Montgomery’s mini tablet, tucked inside her hoodie. It had taken several blows during the fight with Novak, and the already-cracked screen was now a spiderweb of shattered glass. When she pressed the power button, the black glass defiantly refused to show anything other than her own cracked reflection. She wanted to pull over and scream at her own incompetence, but instead tossed it on the passenger seat, gripped the steering wheel, stared straight ahead and continued to drive. If she was lucky — if — then she might be able to hook something up to the data port and somehow extract data. It was a long shot, and she’d need specific equipment to attempt it, but it was enough to keep a tiny drop of hope alive in her stomach.
Only a drop, though. She’d blown the most important part of the mission by killing Montgomery. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that he was indeed the mole. Assuming he was the only one, his death meant no more leaks from Exphoria. But it also meant no SIS interrogation, no opportunity to find out why he did it, who was paying him, who wanted these secrets. Marko Novak may have been his handler, but he was just muscle. A point man, not a mastermind. So who did he work for? Was he FSB, on ‘official unofficial’ business for Moscow? The FSB had grown in leaps and bounds since Putin’s second presidency, and Bridge’s whole life would have been different if not for Russia’s march into Syria. It didn’t seem far-fetched to imagine military espionage was also on the agenda. But with Montgomery dead, imagine was all SIS could do. Even if Bridge could somehow capture Novak, the chances of making him talk were slim. Everything about the man spoke of experience, a veteran spy who would rot in a cell before giving up his agency. And that assumed they could nab him at all. While Bridge could testify that he tried to kill her, he’d also caught her red-handed, burgling the apartment of a man she’d killed. All he had to say was that he tried to apprehend her, defending himself when she resisted arrest, and then it was his word against hers.
She’d been rash, moving forward with only half a plan and no contingency, like a novice. She’d wanted to find the mole so badly, and was so concerned she’d wrongly accused Voclaine, that she barged in to Montgomery’s place without stopping to think what might happen if things didn’t go to plan. She’d never imagined it could go so wrong that she now found herself on the run with nothing but the clothes on her back, a Ziploc of spy tools, and a tablet computer that was both potentially incriminating and also possibly broken beyond repair. She should call London, but first she wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing. She needed some time to think, to figure out the best way of fixing the terrible mess she’d made. Once she had a plan, she could call from Izzy’s place.
But to do that required privacy, if she was to maintain her employment cover story, and that same story was wearing increasingly thin on her sister.
“You seriously expect me to believe your office politics are so bad that you can’t stay there, but you also can’t go home, and couldn’t grab a change of clothes from your hotel? Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Bridge? I may not be some jet-setting PA, but I’m not stupid.”
“It’s really complicated, Izz. Can you just bear with me for a couple of days? Please?”
“You know Mum thinks you’re a criminal? That this civil service stuff is all rubbish, because they wouldn’t keep paying for you to fly all over the place, and that you’re actually smuggling drugs for the mafia?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Bloody hell, she’s never said anything to me.”
“Because you never talk to her, do you? I swear…”
“Auntie Bridge!” Stéphanie ran across the courtyard and hugged Bridge’s legs, before looking up at both women. “Why weren’t you talking in English?”
Bridge winced. Once again, they’d argued in French without realising. “We forget sometimes,” said Izzy, taking Steph’s hand, “just like how Daddy sometimes talks French.”
They walked back to the farmhouse. “But Daddy is French.”
“And so are Maman and Auntie Bridge, darling. We were born here.”
Steph’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “What, here? At the farm?”
Bridge smiled despite herself as Izzy and Steph’s voices faded inside the house. She took the broken mini tablet from the car and made to follow them. Fréderic stood inside the doorway, scowling as she approached, and nodded at the tablet. “No internet here,” he said. “You can’t get online with that.”
“Can’t anyway,” said Bridge, showing him the shattered screen. “Won’t even switch on. I just don’t want to leave it in the car.” As she turned it over in her hand, though, she saw something she hadn’t previously noticed. An SD slot, with a card still lodged inside. She tried to prise it out with her fingernails, but the slot was crimped, bent from all the damage the tablet had sustained. She looked to Fred. “Do you have a pair of tweezers?”
He
