Decoy

by Simon Mockler

  He checked his watch, would be about one in the morning L.A time. Too bad.

  “Harvey. How are you? Sir Clive here.”

  “Clivey-boy. Great to hear from you. We’re doing good. Very good as it happens.” He sounded drunk. Sir Clive could hear music in the background, the thump of bass, voices chattering, glasses clinking, women laughing. Sounded like a party. “We’ve already freighted in enough coltan to fulfil our government contracts.” Harvey continued breezily. “Having a little party to celebrate. You sorted out that problem of yours yet?”

  Sir Clive swallowed the last of the whisky. He could hear the background noise growing quieter, Harvey must have decided to head outside.

  “Afraid not. Trail’s gone cold.” Silence from Harvey. On a personal level he didn’t have much to lose if some girl started mouthing off to the press about Sir Clive. Centurion’s business practices might have been on the darker side of shady, but they were a billion dollar Security company, a manufacturer of high-tech weaponry, not a smoothie maker. No one expected them to be whiter than white. As long as they were profitable he had nothing to fear. No, it was Sir Clive’s reputation that would be in tatters. Still, he didn’t like the thought of his company’s name being dragged through the mud, he liked his low profile.

  “Soon as you hear something let me know. I want to send a team over. They won’t get in your way, just a bit of additional back-up,” in case she slips through your goddamn fingers one more time, Harvey thought. He didn’t need to say it, the inference was clear.

  82

  They passed through passport control without so much as a second glance, the Customs Officer looked quickly at Jack’s passport then waved him through. Another Brit off on an early morning booze cruise. The man looked like he could do with a drink, the officer thought, taking in the pale face and the shadows under the eyes.

  Twenty minutes in the tunnel then the motorway to Paris. A quick stop at a service station to buy some breakfast and a couple of maps, then another stop to buy a mobile phone with a pay-as-you-go SIM. It was lunchtime before they found the address Monsieur Blanc had provided, Avenue Jules Janin, a pretty side street interspersed with restaurants, a bakery and a charcuterie. There was a parking space about ten centimetres longer than the Volvo. After blocking the street for twenty minutes, Jack eventually manoeuvred the big car into the spot. He scribbled a hasty note on the back of an envelope he’d found in the foot well, climbed out and shoved it through the P.O box.

  Monsieur Blanc, Jack Hartman here. Need some advice. Call me.

  He listed the number of the phone they’d bought underneath.

  “What now?” Amanda said. Jack shrugged. “Now we just have to hope he’s in town.”

  They spent the afternoon strolling around Paris. An enforced bout of sightseeing that made them both uncomfortable. Outwardly doing their best impression of a carefree young couple on a city break, inside filled with restless anxiety.

  They were in the Impressionist Galleries at the Musée D’Orsay when the call came, the loud ringtone attracting a host of disapproving looks.

  “Jack?” A curious voice, high pitched and delicate, at odds with the well-rounded figure that produced it. Unmistakably Monsieur Blanc. He walked quickly towards the lifts, away from the crowds of tourists, Amanda following close behind.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “So you made it out the jungle. My congratulations. Must have been quite an adventure.” His tone was half admiring, half wary.

  “Not exactly a walk in the park.” Jack replied.

  “No, I can imagine. But you made it out safely and now you have decided to come and see me.” He didn’t ask why, didn’t need to, it hung heavily enough at the end of the sentence without being spoken.

  “I need your help,” Jack paused, looking round him. “There’s something I need to take care of.”

  “I see.” He was trying to work out what the boy was after. The sensible thing would be to leave well alone, let him fend for himself, deal with whatever mess he had got himself into. But the truth was he admired the lad, his peculiar resilience. And then there was the small matter of Centurion and Sir Clive cynically manipulating him, placing him directly in the line of fire. You simply didn’t do things like that, not to people in the business. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, perhaps it might be interesting to help the boy out, send a message to Centurion at the same time.

  “Where are you? I’ll send a car.” He said decisively.

  The sleek black Rolls Royce Phantom that pulled up alongside Jack and Amanda was hardly a discreet means of transport. Heavily tinted windows might have protected the passengers from prying eyes, but the size of the car gleaming imperiously in the evening sun meant it attracted the attention of the tourists lining up outside the museum.

  “Mr.Hartman?” The driver asked, winding down the window. Jack peered in. Gustav was sitting in the driver’s seat, awkward and uncomfortable in his Chauffeur’s uniform.

  “Bonsoir Gustav,” Jack replied, “how are things?”

  “Fine,” Gustav mumbled. “You look like shit.”

  “Thank you, you like a chauffeur.” Jack said as he opened the door for Amanda. The noise of the Paris street suddenly shut out as they found themselves cocooned in the plush interior. Thousands of pounds worth of hand-stitched leather and polished wood cosseting them. Even the carpet underfoot felt reassuringly soft.

  “Friends in high places?” Amanda said, opening the drinks cabinet in front of her, noting the two bottles of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame. Jack shrugged, a tense smile in place. He hoped he was doing the right thing, still wasn’t convinced how far he could trust Monsieur Blanc.

  The Rolls Royce sped through the Paris streets, the horn blasting motorbikes and tiny French city cars out of its way. They pulled into a small courtyard in the exclusive seventh arrondisement. The residents of this quarter lived in houses, not apartments, the clearest sign they had climbed to the top of Parisian society.

  Electronic gates closed smartly behind the Rolls. Gustav got out and escorted them to a set of double doors, heavy and wooden, studded with 18th century bronze detailing. He entered a security code into a keypad and waited as the door swung smoothly inwards.

  “After you,” he said, his thick Eastern European accent covering the words with a layer of sarcasm he may or may not have intended. Jack and Amanda stepped into the marbled hallway. A sweeping stone staircase led upwards.

  Life in 18th century palaces was lived on the first and second floors, servants and cooking facilities were relegated to the ground floor and cellar. It looked like that was one tradition Monsieur Blanc kept alive. He appeared at the top of the stairs, an elaborately embroidered silk housecoat over dark cashmere trousers.

  “Jack, so pleased to see you, and I see you’ve brought a friend.” He cast an appraising look over Amanda, his expression not altogether disapproving.

  Amanda looked at Jack, her features composed but her lips tight. He took her hand and led her up the stairs, following Monsieur Blanc through what appeared to be a hall of mirrors, heavily gilded with rococo flourishes, and into a salon that faced the courtyard. A young black girl sat in one of the chairs reading, a tall and strict-looking middle-aged woman peering over her shoulder.

  “You remember Florence, Jack? I’m afraid there wasn’t much left of her village, or for that matter her family, so I thought it best if she come with us.” The girl looked up solemnly from her reading and nodded at Jack.

  “I’ve already enrolled her at the Lycée Henri IV. Despite her lack of formal education her tutors say she is exceptionally bright.”

  “Hello again,” Jack said cheerily to the girl, hiding his surprise, but not his pleasure, at how well she looked. She smiled back, the seriousness of her expression suddenly vanished, transported into a young teenager again. Amanda was looking more than a little puzzled, wondering what sort of arms dealer decided to adopt random African children.
Jack turned to Monsieur Blanc.

  “Monsieur Blanc, I’d like you to meet Amanda Marshall, Dr. Amanda Marshall,” he said, correcting himself, a touch of pride in his voice.

  Monsieur Blanc nodded, “Shall we go through to my study? I’d prefer it if we discuss business matters there. Gustav, will you ensure one of the kitchen staff brings us some refreshments?”

  83

  Monsieur Blanc sat upright in a wingback chair behind his Philippe Starck desk, hands clasped thoughtfully under his chin, dessert trolley of cakes within easy reach. The study was an uneasy mix of ultra modern and traditional design. The intricate plaster cornicing and wood panelled walls were painted bright white to set off the angular and brightly coloured furniture.

  He had listened to Jack’s story with a great deal of interest and not a small amount of sympathy, and whilst he had nodded thoughtfully at Jack’s talk of ensuring Amanda’s safety, he understood that the boy’s true motivation, the real nature of his mission, was revenge. Revenge for his father’s death, revenge against Sir Clive for threatening the life of the woman he loved. It coursed through him like an electrical current. He didn’t seem to care about what the man had put him through personally.

  “You must play this carefully Jack. You are dealing with a very experienced and ruthless operator. He won’t be easy to stop.” He reached for a cake, paused, hand wavering over a custard tart as if suddenly distracted. “Something occurs to me though,” he said, opening a drawer in his desk and extracting what looked like a memory stick from it, holding it up for Jack and Amanda to see.

  “Sir Clive’s deception was so complex,” he said thoughtfully. “So much time and effort to build the devices. To leak the information. For a bluff to be convincing it does not always need such elaborate props.” He threw the memory stick at Jack.

  “What do you want me to do with it?” Jack said, catching it one-handed.

  “I want you to be careful, Jack. It’s my Internet bomb, could go off anytime,” his voice full of contempt. Jack frowned.

  “Seriously?” he asked. Monsieur Blanc smiled.

  “No, no it’s not an Internet bomb. It’s whatever we want. This is our bluff.”

  “So we turn the tables. Make him think we have something on him. Beat him at his own game?” Jack said.

  “Exactly. I take it you’ve played poker?” Amanda looked alarmed.

  “The last time he played poker he ended up . . . ” she paused, thinking of the clinical trial Jack had taken part in to repay the money lost, the madness that had descended on their lives since then. “The last time he played poker he ended up here.” She said quietly. Jack reached over, squeezed her hand.

  “With a good bluff we can draw Sir Clive in. Position him where we want.” Monsieur Blanc continued. “We’ll convince him you hold information that compromises him. That you have the best hand.” He bit into the custard tart, “the fact that you’ve risen from the dead is a pretty good start,” his eyes filled with mirth, laughter suddenly catching the back of his throat, his whole body starting to shake.

  “Sorry, I am sorry,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks, reaching for a serviette. Jack and Amanda looked on, surprised at his sudden outburst. He managed to regain control of himself, took a sip of water, sat back in his chair. He sighed.

  “My apologies. Where was I? The memory stick. In my experience, intelligence officers are a very jumpy bunch, quick to believe the worst, paranoid bordering on sociopathic. We will let him know it contains sensitive information, get him where we want him. Set him up. And once we have him you may do with him as you wish.”

  Jack looked at the memory stick, pale, white, nondescript.

  “Good.” He said coldly.

  84

  Sir Clive had spent the morning briefing the Defence Select Committee on the success of his operation to remove Nbotou from power. He advised them he’d taken out a major threat to the UK’s cyber security, said it was unfortunate this success hadn’t been achieved without the loss of British lives, but that he was confident those brave men didn’t die in vain. The Committee had given him a grilling, rightly so, the death of ten soldiers was not something to be taken lightly, but his military background meant his operational decisions were rarely challenged. He was back in his office by midday reading through e-mails when he saw the message:

  Leave Amanda alone.

  That was all. No sign off. No greeting. Sent from a Hotmail account. Sir Clive read it. Read it again. Drummed his fingers on the desk then reached into the top drawer. He pulled out the report he’d received from Nick Clarke. A nasty thought snagging at the back of his mind. Had the bodies been officially identified? There was no mention of it in the papers he’d been sent. He called the High Commission in Kampala. Nick wasn’t there. Tried another number.

  “Patrick Little speaking.”

  “Patrick, hello. This is London, Sir Clive Mortimer. Nick’s been helping us out with a rather tricky operation we’ve been running in the region.” Patrick stared miserably into the distance, wishing he hadn’t picked up the phone. He didn’t want to get involved in whatever ugly mess Nick had been asked to clean up.

  “Nick’s not available at the moment, how can I help?” He said, voice smooth as a silk cravat. One thing he was good at was sucking up to his superiors.

  “I just wanted to know if you’d officially ID’ed the bodies of those two unfortunate tourists caught up in the blast.”

  “Not as far I’m aware. Bits of one of them have been,” he tried to think of a way of putting it delicately, “reassembled. There should be something to send home. There’s nothing on the man with him, but it was a powerful blast, he might have borne the brunt of it.”

  “I see, thanks Patrick. Tell Nick to give me a call when he gets back.” He might have borne the brunt of it. Might have. Then again, he might just have sent him an e-mail.

  He checked the message again. The e-mail address. He hadn’t noticed it before: Coltan80@hotmail.com. The coltan part was obvious, you didn’t have to be a Cambridge student to work out that the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was rich in the stuff, whoever had sent the message had obviously put two and two together, but why had they come up with 80? Surely there can’t have been 79 e-mail addresses that already contained the word coltan?

  He stepped away from his desk, eyes on the river, determined to work out the significance of the number. So little information in the message he was certain it must have a meaning.

  The sky was grey and the river the same dull brown colour as a farmyard puddle. A man with a metal detector made his way slowly towards the water’s edge, tiny from this distance, sweeping the detector in careful semi-circles over the silt. Sir Clive wondered if he ever found anything, settlements had existed on either side of the river for thousands of years, must be all sorts of debris amongst the stones, Victorian coins, Roman pots . . .

  He stopped, walked quickly to the bookshelf. The number 80, the Roman army, a distant memory from Latin lessons at school. He picked an encyclopaedia from the shelf and flicked through it.

  Although a Centurion (Centurio) in the Roman army initially commanded a centuria of men (100), that number later changed to 80.

  Sir Clive closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf. Was the number 80 really an oblique reference to Centurion? To his involvement with them? He couldn’t quite believe Jack had made the connection, but then again he couldn’t quite believe how difficult it was to kill the boy. He reached for his coat and hat. He was going to reply to the e-mail, but not from the office. An Internet café under the railway arches would do.

  Jack, I know it’s you. Let’s not play games. Why don’t we meet? I’m sure we can come to some form of agreement. Best to leave the ‘80’ out of it. They’re not as open to discussion as I am.

  C.

  He read it through, pleased with the tone. Authoritative but somehow c
onfiding, on the boy’s side, then clicked ‘send.’ He pulled out his mobile. Time to call Harvey, let him know he’d need to send a team over sharpish. Things might be about to get messy. An e-mail pinged straight back. He put the phone down on the desk.

  Paris. Pere LaChaise cemetery. Midnight tonight. Wait in the phone booth outside the gates. I have some files you might be interested in.

  Sir Clive was taken aback. Hadn’t been expecting that. He checked his watch. Almost 1 o’clock. Didn’t give him much time. What files? Did he have something on him? Something he’d picked up in the jungle?

  Jack had obviously decided he wanted to call the shots, no chance of Harvey sending help. At least he had Field Officer Michaels and his UK team on standby. He could have them ready within the hour, in position on the Paris street before well before midnight. He scrolled down, at the bottom of the page an image. A broken headpiece and blood splattered high-tech sat phone. The type used by the SAS, photographed against a clinical white background. Sir Clive glanced over his shoulder instinctively, this was not an e-mail he wanted anyone else seeing. Even if the boy had stumbled across one of the team’s phones in the Congo, the data he’d be able to extract from it would be limited and encoded. He bit his lip, remembering Jack’s background in Computer Sciences.

  “Michaels,” he snapped into his phone, “four man team at the ready. We’re going to Paris.”

  85

  Monsieur Blanc peered over Jack’s shoulder, checking the e-mail had been sent. He’d asked Amanda to leave the room, much to her indignation.