by James Phelan
“That is not easy to define,” Zoe said as she returned to the table, looking at Gammaldi as though he were an interesting creature. “It is a French word, and everyone agrees that it is untranslatable into English.”
“There’s disagreement over whether it exists,” Kate interjected. “A romantic idea to make French wine seem better than it is.”
“It refers to the way that soil, light, topography and microclimate conspire … over generations of human stewardship, to endow a wine with its unique soul,” Zoe said to Kate, then looked to Gammaldi. “How about that? It’s a sense of place that you can taste.”
“Terroir is a marketing slogan disguised as something poetic,” Kate said. “A hoax, just another piece of France dressed up to look better than it is.”
“An American should know…” Zoe said, “since they’ve had precious little luck getting any terroir into their own wines.”
“Well!” Gammaldi said, appraising the bottle and leaning back in his chair. “Whatever it is, I’m gonna drink a shit-load of it tonight.”
Enough was enough, Fox had to get things moving so that they could leave.
“So, Agent Ledoyen,” Fox said.
“Zoe.”
“Zoe. You follow me here. You call off cops chasing me through Paris—”
“It was far too dangerous to continue driving like that,” she said. “Any other officer would bill you for those damaged police cars.”
Both Al and Kate looked at him—he shrugged.
“Was that phone call about me?”
“No.”
“Renard?”
She nodded.
“He’s okay, isn’t he?”
“We have someone watching over him.”
Why’d she ask where Renard was if she had someone on him?
“How’d you know where I was this morning?” he asked her.
“Interpol had your name in their system and the car rental agency flagged it.”
Fox thought about it. Interpol? Flagged? She’d been there so soon after he’d rented the car—literally just a couple of minutes—as if he’d been followed on foot since leaving Renard at Le Figaro. Maybe those two uniformed cops who’d stopped him … However she’d done it, the explanation was bullshit, but he decided to play along.
“Interpol?” Fox repeated. “I’m on some kind of watch-list or something?”
Zoe sipped her coffee, set it down and measured him up.
“There was an incident two days ago,” she said. “In Paris.”
“Incident?”
“Murder.”
She watched him closely. He raised his eyebrows and looked down at the table while he thought it through. Murder?
“And…?” he went on eventually. “Look, Zoe, I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“It was the Russian Ambassador,” she said. Zoe looked at Fox very closely as she spoke. “And his wife.”
Fox felt like he’d been hit in the guts.
21
PARIS
Boris Malevich couldn’t get the ambassador’s wife out of his mind—the look in her eyes as the blood drained from her neck.
Blood, her eyes bulging, brutal, struggling … And she didn’t even have the diary.
Murderer. He’d live with it forever. But they would only have asked him to do this if the Rodina, his motherland, had been threatened. It wasn’t murder when it was for the sake of the country, right? He was a soldier, killing in the line of duty, and they didn’t call soldiers murderers, did they? No.
Not most of the time.
His country had come a long way in a short time with all the predictable problems associated with such rapid change. Without doubt there had been hope these past few years, genuine hope, for a prosperous future the like of which he’d never thought possible. When he’d travelled back to his home town the locals seemed at peace, content, happy even. Many of his friends still wanted some pieces of the old USSR to return, those who were angry at the rich men who had profited so much from the transition. But he’d argued there was an aspirational element to living in Russia now that had never really been there before—at least, not for many decades—and in his mind that far outweighed the negatives. There was a price to be paid for such improvements.
His handler had contacted him. Activated him, then kept in contact, each time with a new task. It always sounded like he was talking from inside an aircraft. He had been instructed clearly: get the diary, kill the woman. The diary would lead to the document: get the document, whatever the cost. Then, there would be a flight booked for him at the Charles de Gaulle Airport—under a new name, and the necessary identity papers and tickets would be waiting for him at the Aeroflot desk. The handler didn’t say where the flight would take him, and Malevich didn’t ask—saying too much over the phone was how the Americans caught you.
In return he’d get a bank account with a million euros in it. He’d have to give up everything he had here in Paris, disappear, but that was okay. A price had to be paid. And oh, how he’d paid … He could still see her blood when he closed his eyes. Look at what they make you give …
He looked across the street at the front doors of the Le Figaro office. Quiet. Someone coming and going every ten minutes or so. A thin, dark-haired woman exited, walked across the road and unlocked the car in front of him. She walked like a dancer. Reminded him of his sister. He would share a new life with her: they’d use this money and open a little bar, as they’d talked about so many times. Some place warm. It would mean freedom for her, away from the husband she’d married to get out of Russia, and a chance to set up a long, happy life, remember childhood fun and make new memories. The woman in the car in front signalled and drove out into the street, leaving behind a cloud of blue diesel smoke.
He’d finish this job and start a new life. He rubbed his eyes and tried not to think of the woman’s dead face. Her neck. Her eyes.
His phone rang—the guys covering the back of the building.
“Yes?”
“He just got into a taxi—”
“Where?” Malevich started the car, scanned the street.
“Out back, following him now, about to drive behind you. Ten seconds.”
He ended the call, put the car in gear and followed the cab and the Citroën van as they flashed past.
22
GIVERNY
“We saw that on the news,” Kate said.
“No,” Fox said. “We saw the report that the ambassador was killed there. They didn’t mention his wife, and to my knowledge neither has the print press since.”
Zoe nodded, still watching him. Yes, Fox thought, you know I’ve been following the killing. So what? He remembered back to the footage of the ambassador being laid out on a stretcher. Surely, if Renard knew something about the wife’s death, he would have said something?
“Are you saying they both died in the embassy explosion?”
Zoe shook her head.
“It wasn’t from the local wine, I hope,” Gammaldi suggested with a grin that faded after Fox shot him a look.
“Forgive him,” Fox said. “He was dropped on his head as a baby.”
“I’ll go take your partner some food,” Gammaldi said. Zoe nodded and he looked relieved, as though the teacher had let him out of detention.
“The ambassador’s wife,” Zoe said, turning to Fox, “was found dead in their residence the same night as the explosion.”
She continued watching Fox’s face carefully.
“How did she die?” Fox asked, knowing any reaction might make him look guilty. He felt sweat running down his back.
“Violently.”
“Russia is investigating?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “Through all the usual channels. This is a delicate matter for my government as the Franco–Russia relationship is an important one for us.”
Fox nodded. He was well aware that the two countries had strong e
conomic ties—around thirty billion dollars and change annually between them. Russian exports to France were much like its relationship with the rest of Western Europe: dominated by energy commodities, metals and timber. In turn, Russia was a big market for imported French machinery, chemical products, and food. Recently, they’d been doing military projects together, and not just the small stuff: a ship worth half a billion euros was being considered for purchase by Russia. So there was a military angle, and France’s standing as a leading country for diplomacy—well, no country wants a foreign diplomat murdered on their turf, let alone he and his wife in two separate attacks.
Important was an understatement.
But he knew there was more.
“And there’s something else?” he asked, prompting the detective.
Zoe topped up her coffee, stirred it, tapped her teaspoon on the saucer.
“I think the murder was, as you would say,” Zoe said, “an inside job.”
“What—a domestic case between the husband and wife?”
“No,” she said, picking up some of Gammaldi’s brioche with foie gras. “I believe that the ambassador’s wife was killed by a Russian agent.”
“As in an officer, or a sleeper?”
“The latter.”
Fox thought about that—an agent, not intelligence officer. Someone recruited by a serving member or Russia’s own intel services, someone undercover, activated and likely deactivated now the job was done.
“Do you have any details you can share?”
She hesitated, then shook her head.
“So you’re chasing a ghost on a hunch?”
“A chase would imply that we knew where he is,” Zoe said. “But we are getting close, I’m sure.”
“How do you know that?”
“A source.”
“Your source FSB?”
“Something like that.”
Which meant it could be the FSB, Russia’s internal intelligence agency, or the SVR, their external agency and CIA equivalent. Probably the SVR, Fox thought. The Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki had taken over from the old First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and like their predecessor they handled the bulk of the field spooks out in embassies around the globe. That meant they were the ones who ran most agents abroad. Fox didn’t press it.
“He was contacted on the day of the attacks,” Zoe said, “earlier in the day, activated that day. You see?”
Fox tried to read her …
Zoe stirred her coffee.
“But he’s not why you’re here,” he said. She had something connecting Renard, maybe? No, he couldn’t be, could he?
“No. Not specifically.”
“How does this relate to me then?”
Zoe dabbed her mouth with a napkin.
“Lachlan,” she said, tilting her head a little. “A name was found on the ambassador’s computer, several times, and it was last accessed moments before the explosion.”
Fox knew what was coming.
Zoe looked him square in the eyes: “Your name.”
23
HIGH OVER THE MED
Hearing his name spoken and conversing in Russian was a beautiful thing, something he’d fantasised about for months. But this was no fantasy: this was homecoming.
“Welcome, Roman Babich, welcome,” Colonel Mikhail Lavrov of the SVR gave Babich a jubilant slap on the shoulder. Lavrov was a squat man, with a heavy brow, flat nose and square shoulders that reminded Babich of his grandfather’s war photos of fellow tankers from Stalingrad. Lavrov’s features were those of an old boxer, earned as a street thug in his youth working in East Germany. The first friendly face Babich had seen in six months. “You’re safe now.”
“Thank you.” Babich took the damp towel and bottle of water offered him by an operative and wiped his face again—his eyes burned, red and watering, and his lungs felt full of smoke. He’d been given an injection to counteract the nerve agent, and he’d felt almost immediate relief.
“My wife?” Babich asked.
“She’s safe, hidden in St Petersburg.”
“You’ve done well,” Babich said. He thought back to the other plane: A masked figure emerging from the cockpit. He was uncuffed, helped to a chain ladder that led to the ragged hole in the roof. He’d stopped at that agent, Hutchinson, who was writhing in pain from a leg wound and two shots to the chest that incapacitated him despite his bulky vest. Babich took a pistol from the floor and fired a round through the man’s leg. He’d bleed out, yet still be alive in the crash. Let the self-righteous American suffer. He cleared his thoughts.
“Where are we?”
“High over the Mediterranean,” Lavrov replied. “Headed east.”
Babich looked around the aircraft, an Antonov 148. Its high-wing monoplane design—with the twin jet turbine engines mounted in pods under the wings, well clear of the bottom of the fuselage—made it perfect for the docking procedure they’d just performed.
It was a popular plane with the Russian leadership—he used this model himself for Umbra Corp’s Siberian operations—but he could see that this particular plane had been modified by the Russian space team, Roscosmos. It had been customised with a hatch set into the middle of the floor. Lavrov must have sequestered this from his employer, the SVR, who operated such aircraft for mid-air rescues and take-downs. Babich liked what that act represented.
“All or nothing,” Lavrov said.
Babich nodded. Lavrov had risked a lot for him. He would pay him back.
“Relax,” Lavrov said. “This is a Siberian long-range model—we will make the flight to Shanghai without refuelling.”
“You’ve done well.”
Babich clapped a hand on his shoulder. Lavrov could be depended on.
“The good days are arriving again, my friend,” Babich said. “And we will be present to herald in their dawn.”
Lavrov nodded and passed Babich a flask of vodka. He took a couple of sips, closed his eyes and smiled. Like mother’s milk. He could have cried; he’d been dreaming about this taste for months. He looked out the window, the sky was clear and bright as they headed east.
“The American aircraft?” Babich asked, although he didn’t really care.
“It will fall from the sky soon,” Lavrov said. “They will waste their time following it, before watching it go down. More time still retrieving the wreckage, sifting through it. It will buy us the hours we need to be out of their reach.”
“Time, time, time…” Babich said, smiling. He took another sip. “They wasted so much of mine, it’s only fair that we waste theirs.”
The Americans would watch their aircraft go down and they’d assume he was on it. By the time he went public he’d be untouchable.
“Now,” Babich said, taking another sip of vodka, “where are we with the operation?”
24
GIVERNY
“So he was looking at some of Lachlan’s news items?” Kate offered to Zoe. She sat forward, ready to defend Fox while being apprehensive of the unknowns. “Some news piece about Roman Babich’s arrest?”
Zoe shook her head. “I do not believe in coincidences.”
She paused, waiting for Fox to fill in the blank.
He shrugged and turned his attention to Gammaldi who sat back down and grabbed a hunk of cheese.
“Wassup?” he asked Fox. He knew Fox was stalling for time and was milking his pain for fun.
“Nothin’. Wassup with you?”
“Nothing like what you’ve got going on,” Gammaldi said, leaning back in his chair. That was Gammaldi. You’d assume he was constantly thinking about food or football or books about war, but he was always alert, always in the present, taking in the conversation even if he wasn’t a part of it.
“I don’t know how I can help you,” Fox said to Zoe. “I’ve never spoken to the ambassador. I’ve had nothing to do with him, no contact at all.”
“Okay,” Zoe said. “We also came
across your name in the ambassador’s residence—”
“Maybe from another news item?”
“It was found among his wife’s papers,” Zoe took a folded page from her notepad and held it out to him.
It was a picture. Katya. The Russian Ambassador’s wife. Fox couldn’t hide his interest.
“Tell me, Lachlan,” Zoe asked. “Why were you in contact with her?”
Fox looked at the sheet of paper for a long time. He wondered why Renard hadn’t returned his call. He wondered if the Frenchman knew about this.
“She contacted me about a month ago,” Fox finally admitted.
Zoe continued to eat, she didn’t appear surprised. Neither did Kate, but he could feel her questions hitting him—silent, full of anger. He turned to talk to her, wanted to tell her how much he loved having her here, that it wasn’t just about Umbra and Babich, it was about so much more—it was about getting their life back. But Zoe wasn’t done.
“Why did she contact you?”
Fox exhaled, loudly.
“She said she had some information that might help my story and the case against Babich,” he said. “In return, she wanted help—US government kind of help … I got the sense she wanted to defect.”
Zoe’s expression changed. “Come on, Lachlan, you make it sound like the Cold War is still going on.”
He didn’t much like her tone. Gammaldi lit up a cigar and gave him a look: You’re the one that brought us into this fire.
“She wanted money … and safety. She felt threatened by what would happen if she spoke out.”
“Spoke out?”
“Yes. Babich has people everywhere.”
“Why would she ask for this kind of help from a reporter…”
“Maybe she trusts reporters more than she trusts the authorities.”
“I do not buy that.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”
