Rules of Vengeance

by Christopher Reich

  Graves drummed his fingers on the desk, confused. Continuing to make calls with a SIM card used in a bombing—a card purchased precisely because it was nearly untraceable—constituted a flagrant breach of protocol. It reeked of carelessness and amateurism, and did not for a moment fit with the sophisticated operation mounted to steal the IAEA’s computer codes.

  “The number is registered to a G. Bahrani at 84 Rue Jean Mathieu.” There was a pause, then the man’s voice notched up a tone and fairly bristled with anxiety. “Charles, you there? Wait a sec. Jesus … okay, we got it.”

  “What is it?” demanded Graves.

  “We have a real-time call being placed to that address from one of the SIM cards you mentioned. The two parties are connected at this moment.”

  It had to be Emma Ransom, thought Graves. “Can you listen in?”

  “Negative. I don’t have that capability.”

  Graves swallowed his frustration. “Where’s the initiating call coming from?”

  “I can’t tell that either. The call is running on France Télécom’s towers, so the incoming signal has to be located in Paris or somewhere nearby. Hold on a sec … the call was just terminated. Duration: thirty-one seconds.”

  “Get on to France Télécom. Ask them to compile a full list of all calls to that number and see how quickly they can isolate the caller’s location. I’ll have a warrant signed out by lunch. It’s about the Victoria bombing. Top priority.”

  “Right away.”

  “Oh, and what about the last number I gave you?”

  “That one? Virgin. Never used.”

  Graves suddenly had a terrible premonition. Not used yet. “Can you shut down that number? You know, deactivate it, so that it doesn’t work?”

  “I’m pretty sure that the boys in tech services can. It’ll take some time to run the number through the system.”

  “How long?”

  “Noon, latest.”

  Another twelve hours. Not good, but better than nothing. “Many thanks. I owe you.” Graves hung up and rang Kate Ford. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Èze. Searching the house Ransom ran to.”

  “Whom does it belong to?”

  “Officially it’s the property of a small corporation called VOR S.A. The company registry lists a single director. His name is Serge Simenon.”

  “Serge Simenon. Sergei Shvets. Same initials, similar name. What do you think?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Graves updated Kate Ford on his meeting with the Russian spy Kempa, as well as the information he’d received from Vodafone. “The cell is active, and its base of operations is in Paris.”

  “My God.”

  “Have you found anything there that ties into Russia?”

  “There’s a trove of papers in the office written in Cyrillic and a few CDs by Russian singers. Coincidence?”

  “No way. Do you still have the jet?”

  “On the runway at Nice.”

  “How soon can you get to Paris?”

  “Three or four hours, if I hightail it. What are you planning?”

  “A raid,” said Graves. “We go in at first light.”

  67

  The sun rose in Paris at 5:42 a.m. Driving into the city from Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kate Ford watched the first rays of light strike the dome of the Sacré Coeur high on the hill in Montmartre. Her car rattled over the Pont Neuf. The cool, pleasing scent of the Seine invaded the cabin, and she caught a glimpse of Notre Dame upriver. A moment later her view was obscured and she found herself speeding through a maze of drab, unloved streets. This was a different Paris, not the home of the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe, but a dilapidated colonial outpost lined with Algerian coffeehouses, Middle Eastern cafés, and boutiques overflowing with West African clothing. As she progressed farther into the banlieues, the city darkened and acquired a hostile façade. Oil barrels black with soot, smoke from the past evening’s fire still curling skyward, were not uncommon. A burned-out car lying on its side occupied one sidewalk. Dumpsters overflowing with trash lined more than one alley. Everywhere graffiti assaulted the eye.

  The car rounded a corner and stopped suddenly. Ahead, the street was blocked with police vehicles. A dozen men moved purposefully, putting on vests and helmets, filling ammunition clips and checking weapons. Her driver, a sergeant from the Paris prefecture, led her across the street into a corner café where the mobile command post had been established. She found Graves standing over a table studying a set of blueprints, with several black uniforms on either side of him.

  The police belonged to the Black Panthers, the nickname of RAID— Recherche Assistance Intervention et Dissuasion—an elite national squad twenty-four men strong on call 24/7 for exactly this circumstance.

  “They’re operating out of a one-bedroom flat on the tenth floor,” explained one of the men in black assault gear, using the tip of his Ka-Bar knife as a pointer. “End of the hall. Apartments on either side. One way in, one way out. The building has two elevators, but only one is in service. The other is stalled between the fourth and fifth floors. There are two stairwells. We can put a team in on top, but the helo might scare the prey.”

  “Stick with the stairs,” said Graves. “We want them alive. They may have vital information.”

  “Entendu.”

  Graves spotted Kate and stepped away from the table. “You made it.”

  “Had to scream at air control, but they came around. Looks like you were able to rouse the troops.”

  “I had Sir Tony get on the blower. He was upset, after the snafu on your end. I think they could hear his voice across the Channel unaided.”

  “Is she inside?”

  “Have a look for yourself.” Graves led her to an unmarked van parked outside. Inside the rear bay sat two officers in front of a bank of monitors and instruments. “We’ve got a surveillance post set up inside a building across the road. They have a couple of infrared cameras and a laser mike on the windows. We have identified two actives inside. Both are awake and moving around the flat.”

  “Early risers, eh?” Kate studied the largest screen. On it, displayed against a grainy gray background, the silhouettes of two figures could be seen walking back and forth between rooms. “Is it them?”

  Graves squinted, as if he could will the fuzzy heat signatures into focus. “No visuals yet. They have the storm blinds down. But it could be. He’s in town. So’s she.”

  “Shvets is in Paris?” asked Kate, who’d received a full briefing and a temporary promotion to “Eyes Only” clearance en route from Nice.

  “They call him Papi. I didn’t know that. Quite the father figure. Rumor is he takes a personal interest in his more comely female agents.”

  Upon learning that Shvets had masterminded the car bomb at 1 Victoria Street and the theft of the IAEA’s laptops, Graves’s first order of business had been to share the news with Anthony Allam. A diplomatic dossier was established containing all facts tying Shvets to the crime. Besides going to the prime minister, the foreign minister, and the heads of MI6 and the Metropolitan Police, the information was passed to R Section, known within MI5 as the Red House.

  “R Section tracks Shvets’s position at all times,” continued Graves. “They traced the tail number of his aircraft to Orly last night. Get this— the same plane landed at Luton Airport outside London the night before the bombing.”

  “So he’s supervising this personally,” said Kate.

  “Oh yeah. This one’s his, all right. Something he’s running out of a shop called Directorate S. His locations correspond to calls placed from Emma Ransom’s phone. Moscow, Sochi, Paris. Shvets’s jet was in Rome two days after Emma Ransom was stabbed. We’re getting a trace on the credit card used to pay the hospital bill right now.”

  “Her real name is Lara,” said Kate. “She’s a Russian, too.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Do you think Ransom knew?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t care l
ess.”

  Kate pointed at the monitors. “What about sound? Can we listen in?”

  “The storm blinds are making a hash of the lasers. We can’t find a large enough section of glass to get a clear read.” Graves tapped the technician on the shoulder. “Try the sound again.”

  The policeman flipped a switch and the van filled with the babble of television news, but the words were unintelligible. He played with his knobs and the din of the news diminished, replaced by fits and spurts of classical music. He fiddled some more and a woman’s voice could be heard shouting something, then a man’s voice in reply.

  “What language are they speaking?” asked Kate. “Russian?”

  “No idea. Could be anything.”

  At that moment the French police captain appeared at the door of the van. “We’re ready.” He looked at Kate. “You will join us?”

  Kate nodded. The Frenchman issued a string of orders, and a moment later a deputy ran up, carrying a Kevlar vest. Kate took off her blazer and slipped on the vest in its place. Graves moved behind her, helping her tighten the straps. “You can stay here if you like. Safer.”

  “Right,” said Kate, meaning there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell.

  “That okay?” he asked, giving a final tug and pat on the back.

  “Just fine, Colonel.”

  Around them the Black Panthers completed their final preparations, a corps of ninjas armed to the teeth. Graves adjusted his own bulletproof vest, then removed his pistol from his shoulder holster and chambered a round. “Know something?” he asked. “I’ve never fired this in anger.”

  “Even when you were in the military?”

  “Even then.”

  Kate racked a round and thumbed the safety off. “Beat you there. I’ve taken down two bad guys.”

  “Killed?”

  “Wounded.”

  Graves looked at her with a newfound admiration.

  The police captain summoned his troops. “Everyone ready?”

  68

  Emma Ransom left the house on Rue Saint-Martin precisely at 5:45 a.m. She drove slowly down the country lane, her windows open, the air freighted with the smell of fertile earth and cut grass. She had dressed conservatively for the day’s work, choosing charcoal slacks, a black blazer, and a white T. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore little makeup. She did not carry a weapon. The only concessions to the job that lay ahead were the needle-nose pliers, Philips screwdrivers, and box of alligator clips that lay inside her purse. None of these items would be considered out of the ordinary for a trained inspector from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

  After five minutes, she joined the D23 and headed in the direction of Flamanville. It was another sunny day, and she quickly put on a pair of sunglasses. She turned on the radio and listened to a patch of rock music, then switched it off.

  She exited the highway at D4/Rue de Valmanoir, turning onto a feeder road that paralleled the highway. To her right, a vast wheat field swayed in the morning breeze. She continued for 10 kilometers, until she saw a sign that read, “La Reine 1 & 2. Restricted Entry. Authorized Personnel Only.” She followed the sign onto a narrow two-lane road that ran straight toward the coast. Her eyes lifted to the hillside where she’d left her car two nights earlier and retraced the steps she had taken. Ahead she saw the line of the outer perimeter fence cutting the horizon in two and the guard post in the center of the road. Immediately she noted that something was amiss and her foot lifted from the accelerator. Parked on either side of the road was an armored personnel carrier with a 50-caliber machine gun mounted on its turret. Soldiers sat inside the hatches, watching the road like hawks.

  With a hard-earned discipline, she laid out possible reasons for the elevated security presence. Pierre Bertels at the International Nuclear Safety Corporation had discovered she was not Anna Scholl but an impostor. The British police had tracked down Russell’s source. Papi’s plan had been uncovered inside the Kremlin and he had admitted everything. They all came down to the same thing: the operation was blown.

  Applying the same cold logic, she parsed each possibility and discarded it in turn. Given Pierre Bertels’s desire to bed her, it was doubtful that he had questioned her identity even for a second. Anna Scholl was safe. Second, even if the British police had tracked down Russell’s source, they would have obtained no more information than Russell had. An attack was imminent, but the location was unknown. It could be anywhere in the world. And even if Papi’s enemies in Moscow had discovered the plan, they would be unsure how to act, effectively paralyzed.

  Emma studied the military vehicles and realized that they were there simply as a precaution because of the stolen laptops. If anything, the presence of armored vehicles with no supporting troops was proof that the plan was intact. If anyone had known, or even suspected, for that matter, that La Reine was the target, there would have been twenty armored personnel carriers at the guard post, not two, and an entire brigade of soldiers armed to the teeth.

  Emma pressed her foot on the accelerator, harder this time.

  She passed the armored vehicles and stopped at the guard post. “Anna Scholl,” she said, handing over her credentials. “IAEA.”

  “Who are you here to see?”

  “Flash inspection. Phone M. Grégoire, your chief of security.”

  “Wait here,” said the guard, with more hostility than she would have liked. He took the identification card issued the day before by the International Nuclear Safety Corporation into his shed and phoned the main security building. Emma glanced to her left. The turret gunner was staring at her through a pair of reflective sunglasses. Emma nodded, but did not smile. The gunner’s gaze never left her.

  Several minutes passed. Emma lifted her hand an inch off the stick shift and held it steady. Her fingers hovered without the slightest tremor.

  Finally the guard returned. “Continue three hundred meters and park in the visitor lot on your left. Go into the central processing facility. M. Grégoire hasn’t come in yet, but there will be someone else to look after you.”

  “I do hope so.” Emma returned her identification to her purse, waited for the gate to open, then drove at a leisurely pace to the parking lot. On the way she glimpsed the paramilitary barracks to her left. Besides the jeeps and the trucks, there was a single police car belonging to the local gendarmerie. More proof that they had no idea La Reine was her target.

  She parked and walked briskly to the central processing facility. Once inside, she showed her INSC “passport,” and placed her hand on a biometric scanner to confirm her identity. The scanner confirmed her identity as Anna Scholl and she was directed to a metal detector, while her purse was placed on a conveyor belt and X-rayed. When the purse emerged, a guard sifted through its contents, examining the pliers and screwdriver and clips, along with her iPod, cell phone, lipstick, and other makeup.

  “You’re an engineer?” he asked, holding up the pliers.

  “Inspector,” replied Emma.

  The guard replaced the pliers, handed her the purse, and wished her a good day.

  An intense-looking middle-aged man wearing rimless glasses and sporting a 1950s brush cut waited on the other side of the barrier.

  “Good morning, Miss Scholl. My name is Alain Royale, and I am M. Grégoire’s assistant. He hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure he’ll be here any minute. He’s never late. You can wait in his office while I have your site badge and key card made.”

  Emma followed the man upstairs into Grégoire’s office. There were a large desk, some chairs for visitors, and a couch. Behind the desk was a bank of monitors showing two dozen locations inside the power plant. Emma recognized the main entrance, the control room, the reactor vessel, the outdoor loading docks, and, of particular interest, the spent-fuel pond.

  “I’d like to get started right away,” she said. “I’m sure you know why.”

  Royale nodded. “We received the alert at three this morning. Have you heard anything mor
e?”

  “Nothing. Naturally, you’ll be the first to know when we do,” replied Emma briskly. “Our security team is on top of the matter. What’s important is that the individual plants take appropriate measures. I have some paperwork to do before I begin my physical inspection. Would you mind if I use M. Grégoire’s office?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Emma set down her purse on Grégoire’s desk. “To get started, I’d like a delivery manifest of all fuel assemblies entering the plant and spent-fuel assemblies shipped out during the last powering-down cycle. I’ll also need a list of where the spent fuel was sent and signed proof of its receipt.”

  Royale nodded again, his suspicious eyes never leaving her. “Coffee?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  Again the hard stare. “It will be ten minutes.”

  Emma nodded and Royale left the office. She sat down in the visitor’s chair facing the desk and took out her phone. She counted to thirty seconds. On the dot, Royale opened the door and popped his brush-cut head into the office. “If the spent fuel was sent overseas, do you need customs forms?”

  “That won’t be necessary. Just the receipt showing time and date the delivery was made. Thank you, M. Royale.”

  Emma returned her attention to her phone. As soon as the door closed, she stood and placed her ear to it, listening as Royale’s footsteps echoed down the hallway. She opened her purse, took out the pliers, screwdriver, and alligator cables, and slipped into the corridor. The door to her right was marked “Sécurité Visuele.” She slid a graphite pick from her hair and jimmied the door.

  Inside was rack upon rack of audiovisual equipment and DVD recorders. The room was unusually cool, with a steady current of air conditioning preventing the equipment from overheating. Two walls were taken up by a multiplex of monitors broadcasting live pictures from 150 locations inside the plant complex. Closer examination revealed that the monitors on each wall broadcast the same pictures. Or nearly the same. In fact, two cameras were positioned at every location. One belonged to Électricité de France, the company that managed the plant. The other was the property of the IAEA and served as an independent backup. As with every other system governing the safe function of a nuclear plant, redundancy was the watchword.