Bridge groaned. “And there’s your false flag. If Marsh’s — sorry, Bowman’s — parents were spies for Beijing, it’s a safe bet he is too. He would have grown up surrounded by Maoist propaganda, completely indoctrinated and taught to hide it from an early age. A native English boy, loyal to the red state.”
“That would be quite an asset,” agreed Giles, “but it still doesn’t explain why he’s doing this, or on whose orders. Would Beijing really need us to think the Russians are behind this?”
“Maybe they’re just playing for time, hoping to misdirect us long enough for Bowman to complete his mission. Once it’s done, they won’t care if we know it was them, because the only evidence is Bowman himself.”
“And he’ll be completely deniable,” said Giles, rubbing his beard. Bridge wondered if Andrea would appreciate the scent of hazelnuts. “Then it’s down to Five to locate him before he acts, and fast. You’re focusing around the airfield, I assume?”
“Yes, although we’re not ruling out Bowman remaining in London and using an agent in Lincolnshire for the attack. Patel’s team at GCHQ is all over it, and trying to find this bloody radioactive material too. How’s your lad getting on in France?”
Giles stood and offered Andrea his hand. “Nothing yet. You’ll be the first to know.”
Andrea shook his hand and smiled sceptically. “Don’t fib to me, Giles. Second or third will do just fine.”
Bridge waited until they were escorted back through the layers of security and out of the building before asking, “Radioactive material? What’s Henri doing in France?”
Giles was confused, then gasped like a man remembering he’d left his car lights on. “Sorry, this all happened after you left Agenbeux. There’s the small matter of a suspected dirty bomb attack. The material was shipped out of Saint-Malo, and Mourad is trying to track down the men who transported it to find out where it was headed.”
“We could contact Voclaine, ask the DGSI to help.”
“Who? Oh, you mean Tolbert.”
Bridge laughed. “So that was his real name, after all?”
“Well, it’s the one they gave us. But no, I think we rather need to keep this on the QT for now. Besides, Mourad told Ems that he’s close.”
74
By some miracle it wasn’t raining, so instead of taking refuge in a café Henri Mourad found an unoccupied bench in a small square of Toulouse’s pink city to wait for Marcel. The southern nights were now almost as warm as the northern days, and a group of weathered old men threw pétanque on the far side of the square, oblivious to the fading light. Henri’s view of the game was poor, but the players’ reactions and taunts were enough to tell him one side was handily beating the other, and delighting in their impending victory.
The game distracted him enough that he didn’t clock Marcel until after the Frenchman had entered the park. He tried to approach discreetly but failed miserably thanks to a hoarse, chesty cough. Henri expected him to sit on the bench, but instead Marcel walked close by, whispering, “Follow me.”
Henri fell in beside him, and they walked toward a park exit. “Have you found them?”
Marcel jerked his head around, checking nobody was within earshot. “Yes. And it won’t be long before someone else here does, too. The whole city is jumping, ready to beat them to a pulp.”
“Your forger Benoît must have been well-liked.”
Marcel shrugged. “He was a skilled forger, and he never cheated. More importantly, he was one of us. Two strangers walk into town, take advantage of our hospitality, and respond by killing one of our own. What would you do?”
Henri couldn’t answer that. He also couldn’t answer the biggest question of all; why hadn’t the Portuguese smugglers used the forged passports? Marcel had summoned him because the Toulouse underground believed the men had returned to the city, despite the obvious danger. Why? Why hadn’t they gone with the shipment to England, as must surely have been the plan?
Marcel was so preoccupied with the smugglers’ offences toward Toulouse that the question didn’t come up, and after switching cabs three times they finally took a ride out of the old town, toward an industrial district that didn’t look much newer. The cabbie was reluctant to take them too far in, and from the broken windows and rusting barbed wire Henri glimpsed from the car, he wasn’t surprised. Modern Toulouse was a thriving hub of modern industry and technology, but every city had its black spots, and this was clearly theirs.
He followed Marcel, squeezing through a gap in a wire fence, climbing over a gate where the barbed wire had been snipped away, and finally entering a long-abandoned factory building. They picked their way over fallen roof tiles, broken flooring, and discarded raw materials long rusted in the rain. Henri used the LED flash on his phone to see, while Marcel had been prepared and brought a flashlight. They made their way up to the first floor, and as they climbed the concrete stairs, Henri heard an involuntary sniffle from up ahead.
Marcel heard it too, and called out. “It’s me, Marcel. I’ve brought you food.” To Henri’s surprise, it was true. Marcel reached into his coat pocket and pulled out two sandwiches wrapped in cling film, holding them up so they could be seen in the beam of his flashlight. “I’m coming in.”
They were hiding in a former supervisor’s office, overlooking what would once have been part of the factory floor. Two men, huddled against the far wall, flinching in the sudden light, sobbing with pain and misery.
