Present Danger

by Stella Rimington

  ‘Is Milraud’s in the village?’

  ‘No. Annette’s fermette is on the other side of the island, facing out to the Mediterranean and North Africa. There are no beaches there, just high rocky cliffs. From the map I would say it’s very isolated. Isabelle’s people have made discreet enquiries and found that the house isn’t used now. It and the vineyard have fallen into disrepair. ‘

  ‘It sounds ideal if you wanted to hide something. Or someone,’ she added.

  ‘Exactly. Let’s talk about where we go from here.’

  Liz paused to think. She was torn between wanting to send armed police to the island right away, and the realisation that any mistake might alert Piggott and Milraud, and end up with Dave being killed.

  Seurat seemed to read her thoughts. ‘It’s a tricky one, n’est-ce-pas? I was going to propose that my people have a look around, but very carefully – I will supervise the operation. I’ll go down to Toulon tonight and we’ll look around in the morning. But if we do establish that someone is there, then I think we should move in quickly. The longer we wait …’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Of course,’ said Liz, already making arrangements in her mind. ‘In which case I’ll want to be there. Can you let me know as soon as you have any more information? If it’s positive I’ll come down to Toulon tomorrow afternoon. Unless you have any objection,’ she added as a formality.

  ‘Of course not. I was expecting you to want to come and I’ll be delighted to have your company. I’ll ring you tomorrow, and don’t worry: our people are very good. À bientôt.’

  48

  Pit pat, pit pat, pit pat. If the noise didn’t stop he’d go mad. The ceiling was too high for him to reach the pipe running along the beam in one corner, with its tiny leak causing this infuriating continuous drip of water onto the concrete floor. Why was he so obsessed with the noise when he had so much else to worry about?

  You’ve got to concentrate, Dave told himself. Stop thinking about that bloody drip. Everyone will be looking for you by now. You’ve got to help them find you. He was trying to beat his tired, confused brain into action.

  It had been pitch dark when they’d put him in here, and now he could see sunlight through the slit of a window high up in the wall. It must be afternoon, so he’d been here at least eighteen hours. By standing on tiptoe he could just look out and see trees and undergrowth. By the look of it he must have been brought south, Spain possibly or somewhere along the Mediterranean coast – France perhaps, given that he’d been in Milraud’s shop when all this started. Near the sea in any case; he could smell it when he put his face to the little window, and hear waves breaking on a shore.

  He’d been on a boat for days, though he couldn’t remember much about the journey. He must have been drugged – and then he remembered being injected. He also vaguely remembered two occasions when they’d transferred him from one boat to another. The last one had been small – probably just a dinghy; he’d heard the outboard motor start. He’d had a bag or something over his head – and he’d been pushed and dragged up some kind of steep path. His wrists were tied and he’d fallen several times.

  Then the foreign man had forced him into this place. He was Spanish – Dave was sure of that, since he had a dim memory of the man saying ‘sweet dreams’ sarcastically in Spanish. Suenos dulces – that was it. It must have been on the boat, but Dave couldn’t remember for sure.

  Thank God the Spaniard had taken the bag off his head and untied his wrists. He’d also shoved a mattress and a blanket in before he locked and bolted the great heavy oak door.

  Dave figured he was in some sort of old wine cellar, possibly a place where wine had been made. A faint aroma still hung in the air. There was a wall of empty bottle racks and two huge oak barrels which sounded hollow when he tapped them.

  Who were they? Why were they holding him and what did they want with him? Think back, he said to himself. What happened? He could remember sitting in Milraud’s shop. They’d been looking at a derringer and he was just about to proposition Milraud when the Spaniard burst into the room waving a gun. Milraud must have alerted him. But why? For a moment he thought of Judith Spratt, sitting in her office, saying that he should have back-up and wait for Liz to return before he went to see Milraud again. She’d been right, but it was no good thinking about that now. If he ever saw her again he’d apologise.

  They’d taken him off to the house in the National Trust place – he’d recognised the sound of the gate squeaking and banging – and they’d questioned him in a sort of library. He remembered Milraud standing in the corner, saying nothing while Piggott asked questions. He’d kept his cover – he was sure of that – but then it all went hazy. He couldn’t remember anything clearly until he was on a boat. Then just a lot of what seemed like muddled dreams. There’d been several people on the boat; he’d heard voices but couldn’t recognise them and he’d only ever seen the Spaniard.

  None of it made sense. But now, as he thought about it, he realised how very little he actually knew about Piggott and Milraud. Not much more than Brown Fox had told him. If this was some renegade Republican conspiracy aimed at British intelligence, surely they’d have kept him in Northern Ireland. That way, he could have been ransomed or simply killed and his body dumped in a country lay-by as a clear indication that the struggle continued.

  Why bring him on this long journey? It can’t be Republicans, he thought. Why was a Spaniard involved? He remembered Jimmy Fergus had said something about Piggott bringing in a hit man from the Costa del Sol. Was he in the hands of ETA? Did they take hostages? Why were they operating in Northern Ireland? Did Milraud work for ETA? And if so, what did he want with Dave?

  He had no answers. But he kept asking himself the same questions to avoid sinking into despair. He felt ill. His wrists ached from being tied up so long; his back had been banged against something when he’d been deposited like a sack of potatoes into the little outboard-driven boat that brought him to the island. His knees were bruised from falling up the path to this place and his head ached with a dull, throbbing pain that made him feel dizzy.

  There was the sound of a key in the lock; the bolts were drawn back and the door swung open. The Spaniard stood in the doorway holding his 9 mm. ‘Up,’ he ordered. What now? Dave wondered as he walked slowly up the cellar stairs, his jailer behind him.

  At the top a stone-flagged kitchen led into a yard. At a signal from the Spaniard, Dave pushed open a screen door and walked outside, squinting in the bright sunlight. The Spaniard followed. He waved his pistol at the dusty yard. ‘Walk,’ he said, and Dave began to walk stiffly round the yard, his feet crunching on the dead pine needles that lay thickly on the ground.

  As he walked he looked furtively around him, trying to get a better sense of where he was. His cellar was part of a farmhouse, a long stone building, badly run down, with a crumbling roof of red pantiles and a wooden porch with missing rails and steps that looked rotten. Around the yard were outbuildings, one an open barn with an ancient 2CV inside. Its rusty number plate was French. So I’m in France, thought Dave, triumphant at making a discovery. As he turned for yet another circuit of the yard, he looked again at the house and saw, through a window, Milraud, gesticulating and talking to someone else whom Dave could not see. Then he disappeared from view and a second figure came up to the window, talking on a mobile phone. It was Piggott.

  Dave felt cold fear. What had Brown Fox said about Piggott? He wanted to kill a policeman and a British intelligence officer. Well, perhaps it was he who’d had a go at Jimmy Fergus, and now he’d got Dave.

  ‘Bastante,’ the Spaniard shouted, and reluctantly, Dave trudged over to the kitchen door and paused, warming himself in the sun. The Spaniard grew impatient. ‘Inside,’ he said irritably, gesturing with his pistol.

  Dave opened the screen door and stepped into the kitchen. To his left a baize-covered door was slightly ajar. He could hear Piggott’s voice; the door must lead to the room where he’d seen him.


  The Spaniard was having trouble closing the screen. Dave quickly edged left and glancing behind him and seeing his jailer still occupied, he pushed the baize-covered door with a flat hand and it swung open.

  ‘What the hell—’ said Piggott.

  ‘Gonzales!’ Milraud shouted.

  Suddenly a rough hand grabbed Dave’s shoulder and spun him around. Gonzales stuck the barrel of his 9 mm right under Dave’s nose, pushing it against his upper lip. He was furious and for a moment Dave thought he would pull the trigger. Then Gonzales seemed to regain his self-control. He stepped back through the doorway into the corridor and motioned Dave to come out.

  Behind him Dave heard a voice say coldly, ‘Get him back down there.’

  A second later he felt the world had collapsed on the back of his head.

  When he woke up it was dusk.

  He winced as he touched a bump the size of an egg on the back of his head. His fingers came away sticky, and he looked at them a moment before realising the dark gummy stuff was blood. He was desperately thirsty but when he tried to stand up one side of his lower chest erupted in pain. He collapsed back onto the floor until the agony subsided. With his hand he gently touched the affected side, and through an excruciating prodding process of trial and error concluded that he had at least two broken ribs. How had that happened? All he could remember was Piggott shouting, then the world had gone black. He must have been hit hard on the back of his head and pushed down the stairs onto the hard floor.

  Dave managed to get up on his knees and crawl over to the tap in the corner. When he turned it on, water splashed on the floor around him, quickly soaking his trousers. He cupped his hands and let the running tap fill them again and again while he drank. He tried to recall what had happened before he’d been hit. He could remember walking outside round and round the yard, and seeing Seamus Piggott, the man who wanted to kill an intelligence officer.

  This would be a good place to do it, thought Dave gloomily, as he surveyed his prison. They could put a bullet in his head without fear of being heard, then bury his body deep in the woods – or weigh it down and throw it in the sea. But they hadn’t done it yet, so there must be another plan. But what? Did they plan to ransom him? He almost grinned at the thought of Michael Binding negotiating for his release – he’d probably try to knock the price down – but then suddenly depression settled on him like fog and he crawled back to the mattress and lay down.

  Then he heard something outside, quite far away. Thumpa thumpa thumpa. He strained to hear it, and this time the noise was louder. Thumpa thumpa thumpa.

  It was a helicopter, probably military, by the sound of its bass rumble. He opened his eyes and waited. Again, Thumpa thumpa thumpa. Was it coming closer? ‘I’m here boys,’ he found himself saying aloud, half prayer, half appeal.

  He listened for the deep throb, but this time it seemed no closer. He held his breath and waited again, but now the noise was definitely receding. A moment later and he couldn’t be sure if it was the helicopter he heard, or the beating of his heart.

  Then silence. Pit pat, pit pat, pit pat.

  49

  She loved window shopping, so Mireille Vitrin was perfectly happy strolling along the rue d’Alger, looking in the shop windows, admiring the clothes and scrutinising the antiques. And because she was enjoying herself, she looked quite unremarkable. But Mireille wasn’t going to buy anything; her window shopping was cover. She was waiting for the little device in her hand to vibrate, signalling that the target was on the move ten miles away.

  ‘She’s coming out.’ The gardener, cutting the grass verge at the top of the hill in Bandol, spoke into a tiny microphone fastened to his collar. He wasn’t the usual gardener and anyone who’d watched him closely might have wondered how he got the job. But he wasn’t staying. As soon as the white Lexus convertible passed him, he put his mower on the back of his truck and drove away. In Toulon, Mireille’s hand vibrated.

  Down the hill in Bandol two women sat in a dusty-looking Renault consulting a map. As the Lexus passed, they seemed to make up their minds on the route and drove on, slotting in behind it. The woman at the wheel of the Lexus, wearing a bright Hermès silk scarf wrapped round her head, was Annette Milraud.

  ‘On our way,’ the passenger in the Renault announced, as they followed the Lexus in the direction of Toulon. At the bottom of the hill the traffic lights turned amber just as the Lexus approached, but Annette speeded up and flashed through as they changed to red. The Renault stopped and waited, watching as the Lexus purred off onto the motorway. But a Volvo was already on the motorway, driving cautiously in the slow lane but speeding up as Annette went by. When the Lexus left at the exit for Toulon, the Volvo stayed on the motorway, leaving the job to another team already waiting outside the Musée de la Marine.

  Under their watchful eye, Annette drove into the centre of town and parked on the quayside. She crossed the rue de la République and turned down the rue d’Alger. As she approached her husband’s shop, she may have noticed the woman with strawberry-blonde hair just coming out of the pharmacy opposite, because she didn’t stop and go into the shop, but continued along the street at a fast clip. Behind her the blonde woman, apparently muttering to herself, passed the target on to colleagues at the end of the street.

  Walking briskly, Annette turned into the street where the market was in full swing and went into a cafe. She sat down at a table in the corner and ordered a café crème. She was smartly dressed, still wearing the Hermès scarf, and she carried a fashionably large designer handbag, like a small Gladstone bag. A man in a beret came in and sat two tables away, holding a sketch pad. He looked at Annette appreciatively, but she ignored him and concentrated on her mobile phone. When her coffee arrived she paid the waiter, left the change on the saucer, and taking her handbag got up and retired to the ladies’ toilet.

  Several minutes later, when she hadn’t reappeared, the man in the beret lifted his hand to his mouth and Mireille Vitrin, who had circled around from the Milraud shop, came into the cafe and went directly to the ladies’ room.

  Inside, she found one of the cubicles occupied, and quietly went into the next one. When she heard the door of the neighbouring cubicle open she waited several seconds, then opened her own door and emerged in time to glimpse a woman leaving – she wore blue jeans, trainers and a T-shirt, with her hair tied back in a pony tail. She was carrying Annette’s large handbag. Mireille turned around and went into the vacated cubicle. Nothing. She radioed Annette’s new description to all colleagues as she went swiftly to the door of the cafe and looked out to see the woman in trainers striding swiftly back to the quayside and into the range of two more colleagues.

  About noon a small dinghy, no more than two inflated rubber pontoons, came meandering along the rocky south coast of the island. It was sailed by a solitary fisherman. But the outboard motor was 110 horsepower and Henri Comptoire of the surveillance division of the DGSE felt confident he could out-race any threat that came his way.

  Henri had spent the morning inspecting the satellite photographs of the island from the Ministry of Defence records – photographs taken about ten years ago. He had been comparing them with photographs taken just hours earlier, at daybreak, by the small helicopter that was normally used to chauffeur visiting dignitaries but which also provided low-key reconnaissance.

  The shots had been captured by a camera mounted on the helicopter’s forward strut and the images were crystal clear. Both sets of photographs showed an isolated farmhouse, perched near the rock cliff that rose dramatically from the sea. It sat with woods on either side fronting onto what in the older photographs was clearly a vineyard but now looked more like a meadow, though you could just discern the rows of overgrown grapevines. In the satellite pictures a person could be seen in the yard, along with what looked like a tractor. The new pictures showed no signs that the house was occupied – no smoke from the chimney, no washing on the line, no cars in the yard. In both, the little cove lo
oked deserted. But the older pictures showed what seemed to be a line of buoys moored across it, just out to sea. They were not there in the recent photographs.

  Comptoire had also been talking to the customs officer whose long grey patrol boat was moored in the little harbour in the village. Porquerolles was part of his beat though he didn’t visit much in the winter, he’d explained. Comptoire had told him that he was doing a recce for a possible Naval Special Forces training exercise. They were looking for somewhere new for trainees to practise rapid assault from the sea. He was intending to look at the south side of the island, he’d said. The officer told him, ‘If you’re looking for something difficult you’ll find plenty to choose from round there. Mostly the rocks come down to the sea. There’s only one landing place, a tiny cove called Osteau de Dieu and we’ve got a boom across that to prevent tourists landing. It can be moved, but you’ve got to know the trick.’

  So where was the boom? wondered Comptoire, as he puttered through the still waters, calm beneath the high noon sun. It hadn’t been there in the helicopter photographs this morning and it wasn’t there now. As he approached he glanced only casually towards the shore.

  Then the outboard motor suddenly spluttered, coughed and died. While Comptoire tried to restart it, his dinghy began to float on the tide closer and closer to the cove’s sandy beach. As he pulled at the starter cord, he also managed to survey the beach. There was no one there, and no sign of a boat, but what he saw confirmed what the helicopter photographs had shown. The little beach was very disturbed. You could see where a boat had been pulled up and there were footprints in the sand and up towards the muddy path that led away into the undergrowth. People had landed on the beach; the only question remaining was whether they were still there. It was someone else’s job to try and discover that.