the chateau — and since I didn’t have any better ideas — I figured that was the place.
One of the places the news of Alexander Surkov’s spectacular murder came ashore was the Petrou chateau outside of Paris. Isolde Petrou read about the latest developments in Le Monde as she ate her breakfast at her desk in her bedroom after working out in her private gymnasium. Breakfast was unsweetened tea, dry wheat toast and yogurt.
When she was dressed and ready for the office, she found her daughter-in-law, Marisa, reading the newspaper at the desk in her bedroom. She had come in, apparently, while Isolde was in the bathroom.
“The police have found radioactivity in various places from Moscow to London,” Isolde Petrou said. “Do you still think the Russians are innocent?”
“There is no such thing as an innocent Russian,” Marisa shot back, “but the Russians didn’t kill Surkov. You know it and I know it.”
Isolde stood before the mirror as she donned her earrings. “He must have known everything — the names of the seven, the amounts we are contributing, the source of our intelligence, who Grafton’s soldiers are__everything. He knew even more than you know.”
Marisa folded the paper and placed it squarely on the desk. She looked at her mother-in-law’s image in the mirror and said, “You are in danger of your life. You all are. If he got to Surkov, he knows, and if he knows, you and your friends are in mortal danger.”
“How did he find out?”
Marisa drew a deep breath. “I will not insult your intelligence. You are in an illegal, criminal conspiracy to make war on al-Qaeda. Your own government would prosecute you if they knew. While the conspiracy may be small, the number of people necessary to carry your war to the enemy grows with every passing day. But I’m telling you nothing new — you know all this.”
Isolde Petrou turned to face her daughter-in-law. “So who betrayed us?”
“We’ll probably never know.”
Isolde seated herself beside Marisa and searched her face. Marisa met her gaze. From this distance she could see the hairline scars under Marisa’s makeup that the plastic surgeon had been unable to eradicate. “Why did you marry Jean?”
Marisa grimaced. “He was the only man who asked.”
“You could have done much better.”
Marisa said nothing to that. After all, Jean was Isolde’s son. He was what he was and words wouldn’t change it. “What should we do?”
“You and the other six? Or you and me?”
“All of us.”
“Kill him before he kills you.” When Isolde left the room, Marisa sat thinking about the dinner at which Surkov was poisoned. It was Jean who suggested they go to dinner that evening at that restaurant in Mayfair. When she saw Surkov, whom she wasn’t supposed to know, she started to walk right by his table. It was Jean who recognized him, who stopped and chatted briefly with the three men as she stood there smiling and nodding, trying to pretend they all were strangers.
What was on that table? She racked her brain, trying to remember, we had stood there looking at the faces and … Had the drinks been served? Certainly there were glasses of water in front of everyone. An appetizer?
Could Jean have dusted polonium on Surkov’s water glass or cocktail?
If he did, why would he do it?
Even as she asked herself the question, she realized that she knew the answer. What if her husband, Jean, not Surkov, betrayed the members of the Winchester conspiracy to Abu Qasim? He knew his mother was involved. Qasim knew about Jean, of course. Perhaps they had a way of contacting each other.
She and Jean both knew Surkov, had met him before on one or two occasions. Was it she or Jean who said, “Oh, there’s Surkov”? Perhaps she had. She tried to remember exactly what was said when they paused at Surkov’s table to chat. Had the two men made eye contact, or did they avoid it?
If Jean did it, where did he get the polonium?
From Abu Qasim, of course!
If he did it, which seemed unlikely. Yet even if he didn’t poison Surkov’s water, why did he suggest that particular restaurant for dinner?
The whole thing had Abu Qasim’s fingerprints all over it.
Very neat, you must admit.
She hadn’t an iota of proof. Yet.
Her husband was in Paris this morning at the ministry, so she went to his bedroom. The maids were finished. She locked the door and began searching.
CHAPTER SIX
After we got to France, my colleagues and I set up surveillance of the Petrou chateau and quickly learned the routine.
The chateau sat on about eight fenced acres of rolling countryside, twenty-two miles from the Louvre, and had at least twenty-eight rooms, not counting the dungeon, or basement, as the case might have been.
In residence were old Madame Petrou, the banking executive, young M. Petrou, the statesman, and young Madame Petrou, the lovely, loyal Marisa.
Twelve people worked there more or less full-time — twelve, in this day and age! — so the place was never empty. There were maids, a cook, a gardener, two security guys who carried guns, two chauffeurs and at least two people that we couldn’t classify. One of them might have been a personal secretary, who handled bills and telephone calls and such, and the other might have been the wine cellar guy. We couldn’t decide. From time to time tradesmen came in vans and cars. One of them, we concluded, was a hard-body female personal trainer who routinely wore skin-tight spandex. To summarize, there were people in the main house day and night, every day, and someone was always awake.
There were kennels for the dogs, a stable for a couple of riding horses, a garage for the cars, quarters above the garage for one of the chauffeurs and a couple of outbuildings for general storage.
There was even an old cemetery on the grounds, where presumably family members who didn’t want to lie with the common herd in a public burying ground could spend eternity among kin. Or maybe they buried the help there when they keeled over on the job. One or the other.
“It’s like a private hotel,” Per Diem remarked on our third day of observation from the top floor of a nearby country inn. We had large binoculars mounted on tripods that we used to look at the main gate and at the chateau, which was about a half mile away. In the summer this view would be obscured by leaves, but this being winter, we could see fairly well. We also took walks along the perimeter fence, rode along it at odd times in a couple of cars we were using, and studied satellite and aerial photography, which the CIA office in London had provided.
The real key, however, to keeping track of the goings-on at the chateau was a radio-controlled drone that a team of U.S. Air Force re-con specialists kept airborne over the grounds during daylight hours. It flew at about one thousand feet above the grounds, was essentially silent and broadcast a continuous video feed, which we monitored in the comfort of our digs at the inn. When the winter winds were steady off the Atlantic, the drone flew into the breeze and seemed to hover over the estate. We could even switch back and forth between ambient-light video and an infrared presentation.
Each morning Madame Petrou, the old madame, left in a chauffeured limo, off to the banks to lash the executives and make more money. About the same time son Jean left in a little gray two-seat Mercedes, a much newer version than the one I drove back in the USA. Around eleven or so, Marisa departed in a cream-colored sedan of some type, Italian, I think. Marisa returned first, the old madame came rolling in about three, the hard-bodied trainer showed around four and left at five thirty, and Jean came home about six. They held to that schedule for the first three days, anyway.
“Knowing how the upper crust lives is broadening,” Speedo observed. “I can feel my horizons expanding.”
