The Third Woman

by Mark Burnell

  Boyd left the apartment shortly before six and walked back along quai d'Orléans to rue des deux Ponts, where he climbed into the rented Renault and took the portable INMARSAT phone from the glove compartment. Recently, Rosie Chaudhuri had told him, Magenta House had been using customized phones that transmitted via the spacecraft belonging to the International Maritime Satellite Organization. Very useful Boyd had replied, as he'd stepped out of the Falcon 2000 four days earlier, if you're under the stars in Afghanistan. Rather unnecessary in Paris, though. She'd agreed and they'd both smiled.

  Rosie was already at her desk in London. 'Is it her?'

  'It was. She's gone.'

  'And the American – Robert Newman?'

  'No sign of him. What about Paul Ellroy? Anything on him yet?'

  After his confrontation with Pierre Damiani, Boyd had sent Ellroy's name to Magenta House for a deep search. He'd expected a swift reply but had heard nothing in the subsequent sixty hours.

  'We've had some hits,' she said, 'but nothing useful to you. Not yet, anyway. We'll let you know as soon as we do. Is there anything else at your end?'

  'There's a body.'

  'Anyone we know?'

  'Someone I know. Grotius, Lance, ex-South African Army.'

  'Ex?'

  'Last I heard, he was a mercenary. I'm surprised to find him in Paris but he was in Belgium a couple of years ago.'

  'Any sign of any damage to Stephanie?'

  'None that I can see. Anyway, Grotius is damaged enough for two.'

  Boyd finished the call and sat in the car for a while contemplating Grotius and the DeMille Corporation. A perfect match, in many ways. A borderline psychopath on the books of an entirely amoral entity. In this line of business it rarely paid to take the moral high ground but every now and then a justifiable opportunity presented itself.

  'You've been a hostage before, haven't you?'

  Newman's face was marked by the warm red glow emitted by the dashboard. Stephanie saw no reaction at all. Which was at least consistent with his silence.

  She said, 'I'll take that as a confirmation.'

  Heading south towards Lyon, they passed a couple of articulated lorries, their mighty wheels throwing up walls of spray. The worse the weather, the more snugly insulated Stephanie felt inside the car. The feeling reminded her of her childhood in the rugged countryside of north Northumberland, not far from the border with Scotland. Wild weather had been normal especially during the long winters. She recalled with absolute clarity the sensation of being inside the family home as storms raged outside; the permanent heat of the kitchen, the smell of it, the crackle and dance of the fire.

  Until recently, she'd avoided such rose-tinted memories. They'd felt stolen; dreams ripped from another woman's life. Now, when she thought of those times, she remembered only the good things, and it occurred to her that perhaps they were the seeds of a change within; perhaps her moment was coming.

  'Your scars.'

  Newman sighed irritably. 'What about them?'

  'In particular, the scars on your wrists. They're from bindings. When I tied your hands behind you, they rubbed the scar tissue along the same lines.'

  'Is that right?'

  'Not approximately. Exactly.'

  'You're guessing.'

  Stephanie shook her head. 'Over the last four days there was only one of us who knew what they were doing. Who knew the procedure. The tricks. It wasn't me.'

  'Beirut,' Newman said. '1985.'

  More than ten minutes had elapsed. If silence could sound painful it just had.

  'You must have been very young.'

  'I was in my late twenties.'

  'You were one of them? McCarthy, Anderson, Waite …'

  'No way. Not at all.'

  'But you were a hostage?'

  He nodded. 'But not like them.'

  'Why not?'

  'I was just … well … it wasn't the same.'

  'Why not?'

  'They were … involved. All of them, somehow.'

  'And you weren't?'

  'Not in the same way.'

  'What was different?'

  'I wasn't supposed to be there.'

  'How come? Were you political?'

  His laughter was suffused with regret. 'I thought I was. I thought I was right on the pulse. Turns out I was a tourist. Just a naïve boy.'

  'I've only read about that period in Lebanon.'

  That prolonged the laughter. 'No shit. You'd have been a baby at the time.'

  'I was at school, thank you very much.'

  'Doing what?'

  'Pretending to enjoy Stendhal, smoking, listening to the Clash. And secretly fantasizing about John Taylor.'

  'Who?'

  'Duran Duran.'

  'Duran Duran from the movie?'

  'What movie?'

  'Barbarella.'

  'No. The rock band. The New Romantics?'

  'Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about them.'

  She wasn't sure whether it was a slip of the memory or no memory at all.

  'They're back in fashion,' she said.

  'First I was square. Now I'm cubed.'

  Stephanie smiled. Sometimes the gap in ages melted away, sometimes it was reinforced. 'Was I right about the scars?'

  Newman nodded.

  'Sorry.'

  'Forget it. I don't know why I didn't tell you. The truth is I don't mind them so much. The physical scars. The pain that caused them, the way they look, I can rationalize that. It's the other stuff I find tougher.'

  'What stuff?'

  'I get claustrophobic. Even now, twenty years later. And that thing with the tape across my mouth – that's a kind of hangover from what happened.'

  'How?'

  'You don't want to know.'

  'Tell me.'

  He was glad to have to keep his eyes on the road. 'Probably the closest I've ever been to death was the first time they taped my mouth.'

  'Why?'

  'Because of an involuntary reflex. I threw up, then choked. And nearly drowned. No reason for it. It just happened. Again and again. Every time they did it. Eventually I learned to do the only thing I could do. I took it back down.'

  Stephanie wanted to apologize but knew it would sound trite.

  'For a long time, I couldn't take darkness; for months I was in a basement with almost no light. After I was set free I had to sleep with the light on. I remember going to stay with some friends in Maine, just outside Bar Harbor, about a year after I got home. There was a power-cut in the night and I was just … back there.' He clicked his fingers. 'Like that. In the dark. My wrists bound by wire. The sound of rats I couldn't see. The smell of my own shit.'

  'How did you get over it?'

  'I had a lot of counselling. That's what everyone recommended. And it helped, in its own way. I guess time had as much to do with it as anything. But I still get caught out, even now. Not very often, although that makes it more of a shock when it does happen.'

  'Like when some psychotic woman jumps into your car and sticks a gun in your ear?'

  He nodded. 'That usually does it.'

  Stephanie shook her head. 'Of all the people I could have chosen to kidnap, I had to pick someone who'd been a hostage before. Why were you in Lebanon anyway? Not exactly a tourist hot-spot in the mid-Eighties.'

  'That's the reason I was there. Because I had ideals. Because I was an idiot.'

  They drove into the centre of Lyon and parked on place des Célestins beside the theatre, which was under refurbishment. Stepping on to the damp pavement, Stephanie stretched, arching her back until the tear in her side began to protest. The air was damp and chilly.

  Brasserie des Célestins had stone walls, exposed beams and a waiter with a bony grey face. His narrow shoulders were set at the same acute angle as his sloping silver hair. The skin around his eyes appeared to belong to someone else; crude grafts of dark papery tissue.

  'What's Petrotech?'

  Newman yawned. 'It's the annual conference for the oi
l services industry.'

  'Oil services as opposed to oil?'

  'Yeah. Engineering, design, marine, aviation, pipe construction, platforms, terminals, human resources, legal, accounting, security. Anything but the product. Each year Petrotech happens in a different location.'

  'Do you know where it is this year?'

  Stephanie watched him make the connection.

  'Is that why we're going to Vienna?'

  She nodded. 'One of the reasons. Have you ever been to Petrotech?'

  'Three times. Dubai, Caracas, Las Vegas. Always as a guest, though. Solaris isn't represented.'

  'Will DeMille be represented?'

  'I don't know. But others in that industry will be.'

  'It's not a world I know.'

  'Until recently, it wasn't a world many people knew. But it's become a massive growth industry. You have the established players like Kroll, DeMille, DynCorp and ArmorGroup. Then you have the smaller outfits, sometimes just five or six people.'

  'What kind of money are we talking about?'

  'Depends. You want to hire a four-man ex-SAS team? That'll cost you $5000 a day. A company like DynCorp probably runs about $1 billion of contracts at any given moment. DeMille's portfolio is larger but they're more diverse. Baghdad's been a boom town for the industry. The British, in particular, have profited, mainly because ex-SAS soldiers have a great reputation. The British sector was earning around $300 million a year before Iraq. Now it's closer to $2 billion.'

  'How does it work on the ground?'

  'In Iraq most outfits are running a three-tier structure. At the bottom you have local Iraqis. They get paid around $500 a month. They're the foot-soldiers. Next you have "third-country nationals" – Fijians, Ukrainians, Russians – and they're paid between $2500 and $4000 a month. At the top, you have the "internationals"; the Brits, the Americans. They get paid around $15,000 a month. For example, US contractors like Bechtel and KBR are protected by Ghurkhas supplied by ArmorGroup.'

  'Sounds lucrative.'

  'That has to be the understatement of the year. The US Program Management Office is handling the aid budget for Iraq. That's almost twenty billion dollars. At least ten percent of that will go on security. On top of that you can factor in cost over-runs of twenty-five percent. And that's just for Iraq.'

  Their cadaverous waiter appeared with croissants. Stephanie asked for butter which brought a glance of disapproval. Newman poured them both coffee.

  'Ever hear of a company called Erinys?'

  Stephanie shook her head.

  'Set up by a Brit. Ex-SAS. It won a contract to protect oil installations in Iraq and Jordan. You're talking north of $100 million running 14,000 people. Our analysts estimate there are more ex-SAS soldiers in Iraq today than there are in the regiment itself.'

  'And London's the centre for this industry, is it?'

  'London and Washington. But the manpower comes from all over.'

  'And the conventional military – how do they feel about it?'

  'Conflicted, mostly. Especially when their areas of operation converge. People like Donald Rumsfeld don't see it that way, though. He feels armies should specialize and then contract out everything else. The problem is a legal one. Regular soldiers are subject to law. Could be a court-martial, could be international law. But no one seems sure what kind of law applies to these firms. Generally, it's not local law. And probably not American law, either. As for international law – despite the best efforts of the International Red Cross, it's too hazy on this matter.'

  'Isn't that part of the appeal?'

  'Sure. You contract out to save money for the taxpayer and at the same time it allows you to wash your hands of responsibility. Take it one stage further and you're handing these private contractors the jobs you don't want to take on yourself.'

  Stephanie understood that principle perfectly. That was why Magenta House existed. To perform the tasks the conventional security services wished to avoid.

  Her thoughts turned to Grotius. Initially, he'd insisted that he didn't know whose books he was on, that anonymity was in the interests of all parties. But the blade had teased some of the truth from him before he died.

  Grotius had been a DeMille employee. His payments had come through Calloway Transport to an account in the name of Wayne Sturgess; phantom imports under invoice. He'd admitted to being recruited by a friend from the South African Army during his time as a mercenary in Bosnia.

  The butter finally arrived. The waiter looked surprised, then annoyed, that she'd waited. She smiled for him, which seemed to make it worse.

  'How does DeMille stack up against these other outfits?' she asked.

  'Bigger, better. And richer. It was a construction company originally, back in the Sixties. Based in San Diego, they were into large civic projects – airports, hospitals – but they always had a military angle too. They built at least three air force bases. Sometime in the late Sixties they stepped out of the limelight and stopped tendering for civic projects. But the company continued to prosper. On the few occasions the name surfaced in public it was usually in connection with foreign projects. Airstrips in Vietnam or the Congo, that kind of thing. But in 1976 it got involved in a scandal that generated a lot of publicity and revealed what it'd really been doing.'

  'Which was what?'

  'Pioneering the sale of military services overseas.'

  'Pioneering?'

  Newman nodded. 'We're not talking about American companies selling equipment overseas. We're talking about training men for combat using American hardware and tactics. Men who might, somewhere down the line, use that training against the US or its allies. DeMille signed two contracts, initially: with Iran for about $60 million and with Saudi Arabia for about $80 million.'

  'And the publicity?'

  'There was a lot of it, none of it good. Articles in the media, TV documentaries, questions in Congress. Especially when it was alleged that DeMille had agreed that no Jews should be employed on either contract.'

  'Was the allegation true?'

  'Yes, it was. Although it was never proved. The agreement had been verbal. And in the long run, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.'

  'How?'

  'The hysteria surrounding the Jewish issue deflected attention from the real issue: the business that DeMille was actually creating.'

  'What happened?'

  'What always happens. DeMille was rescued by the shrinking attention span of the public. When they got bored, the media dropped it and the storm passed. And the people at DeMille made sure they learned from their mistakes. They were already masters of the low profile. The scandal was a huge embarrassment. After it, the company took discretion and silence to new levels. In a way it's a paradox; the bigger they've become, the more invisible they've become. And they spend millions of dollars a year to make sure it stays that way.'

  'That is curious; enhancing one's reputation by concealing it,' murmured Stephanie, as she sipped some coffee and considered Petra's professional parallel.

  Newman yawned again, apologized, and then said, 'These days, they recruit from around the world but the services they offer are based on the US military model. The latest tactics, the latest weapons, the latest instructors. Whatever the client can afford. Which is just about anything, since most of DeMille's clients are oil-producing states.'

  'And it's owned by the Amsterdam Group.'

  'Technically, yes. DeMille is very secretive. Sure, they have a chairman and a CEO like everyone else. But nobody really believes they're running the company. Or that Amsterdam has too much of a voice. The point is this: DeMille can't afford to be transparent. But as long as they deliver, no one's going to rock the boat. That's not to say it doesn't have its problems.'

  'Like?'

  'They tend to operate in volatile environments. The work they do draws attention. Remember the coordinated Saudi attacks last April?'

  Stephanie's memory was vague. 'Remind me.'

  'Three bombs within five
minutes. The first went off at a compound in the Ghawar oil field, the second detonated close to Thirty Street in Riyadh, the third demolished an office block in Jeddah. Twenty-five dead, another hundred injured. Seventeen of the dead were American, employees of Elkington McMahon, an oil-services conglomerate based in Houston.'

  'So?'

  'Elkington McMahon, DeMille, Calloway Transport: same difference. They all exist under the umbrella of the Amsterdam Group. DeMille uses companies like Elkington McMahon to get men into countries where there's a tolerance issue. Saudi Arabia's the obvious example. They come in as mechanics, engineers, support personnel.'

  A common ploy, Stephanie supposed. Like being posted to a foreign embassy as the cultural attaché; everyone knew you were a spy.

  Newman leaned across the table to refill her cup. 'What now? Vienna?'

  'Not yet. Not until we have a new car.'

  'What's wrong with mine?'

  'Somebody knew where you lived. That means they know what you drive.'

  'Then why did we take it in the first place?'

  'Because the night was our friend. Whoever sent Grotius is probably going to wait a while before trying to find out what's happened to him. But they won't wait for ever. We had a period of grace but I think we should assume it's over. When they trace the car – and somebody will – we need to think about where it is. What message it sends.'

  'I'm not with you.'

  Stephanie smiled. 'You don't need to be. Leave it to me. I'll dump it and get a new one. We'll meet later.'

  'You don't want me to come with you?'

  'It would be better if I did it alone. We'll meet outside St Nizier church. Starting at ten, be there every hour at five minutes past the hour. Or at the junction of rue Dubois and rue de Brest at thirty-five minutes past the hour.'

  Stephanie found an internet café nearby, Connectik on quai St Antoine, where she checked Petra's AOL and Hotmail addresses for messages. There were several from Stern, the content the same in all of them – we need to talk – and one from Cyril Bradfield.

  > I've been away. Bad news but I'm okay. I had no contact from J or M beforehand. No contact for months. Nothing unusual anywhere else. What can I do?

  Stephanie had introduced Bradfield to e-mail and the art of electronic brevity. He'd resisted both. She felt relief flood through her and wondered whether his lack of contact with the Fursts had saved him.