The man was simpler to figure out. He was a Scot who’d charmed his way through the whole interview, giving Bridge exactly the kind of answers befitting an experienced but still ambitious thirtysomething programmer, never once hesitating or thinking too hard, always smiling except when that would have been inappropriate. Bridge had long been a sucker for a Scots accent, but this was something else, a natural charisma she found fundamentally untrustworthy. His background check was even cleaner than the woman’s, though, with zero worrisome history or connections. If he wasn’t the mole, Bridge had half a mind to recommend Giles run an approach when he returned to Britain. A man with his charm could be an excellent spy.
Then, finally, there was François Voclaine. Most of the background check told her things he’d volunteered at dinner the other night. Some of the other details didn’t paint a flattering picture of the man, but then security background checks weren’t designed to make people look good. She noticed there was nothing about domestic violence, however. Had security missed that? Were there no official records, no hospital visits or complaints, and the French DGSI officer who did the check didn’t dig that deep? Or was it possible Montgomery was merely repeating gossip he’d heard? Rumours like that travelled fast.
Bridge was surprised to realise she was disappointed. She’d added Voclaine to the list before his formal interview, just because her gut told her there was something off about him. But now it appeared she might be wrong. This initial check contained nothing to suggest he might be inclined to leak secrets. He was a drinker, a curmudgeon, a wannabe womaniser — she was amused to note his apparent lack of actual lovers — but he had no debt, no ties to foreign states, and the closest he’d come to the Middle East was a holiday in Slovenia two years ago. Hardly the stuff of double agents.
So as she stood with Montgomery that evening, watching the security feed from a dark room behind one-way glass, she had no idea what to expect. It was a long shot, no doubt. But Montgomery had agreed to his part, and to keep Bridge unseen and anonymous. All she could do now was wait.
On regular weekdays, searches and scans were random. Most people left the building through standard barriers, using their lanyard for access. But Jules, the head security guard, would pick out every sixth or eighth or ninth person for a check, and those people would put their belongings through the scanner, while Jules ran a wand over their outstretched bodies, airport-style.
Today, it wasn’t random. Jules picked out a few people of his own, to obfuscate the real targets, but he also had a list from Montgomery, a list with five names on it, and he was under instructions to pick all five of them for searches.
The first was the tall QA tester, the Bosnian. He placed his bag on the scanner belt, emptied keys, loose change, and a Samsung phone from his pockets, then waited for Jules to run the handheld metal detector over him. The wand remained silent. In the hidden, darkened partition nearby, Bridge and Montgomery watched the feed from the bag scanner. A half-eaten chocolate bar, three sci-fi paperbacks, two packs of cigarettes, a bottle of water, and a metal tub of mints. No electronic devices beside the phone. “Ask him to unlock it,” said Bridge.
“Why?”
“Humour me. Tell him you’re looking for unauthorised apps.”
Montgomery shrugged and left the room, the bright light of the corridor outside piercing the inner gloom. She watched him approach the tester, who took his Samsung, ran a finger over the unlock pattern, and handed it over without protest. Montgomery made a show of swiping through the app screens, but Bridge had already moved on. Either he knew his phone contained nothing incriminating, or the Bosnian wasn’t their man.
Montgomery returned to the monitoring room. “It would help me very much if you told me what you were looking for, you know.”
“I wish I could, James, but I know you understand that I can’t. It’s like porn; I’ll know it when I see it.” Despite the dark of the room, Bridge saw him blush from the corner of her eye.
After two truly random checks, the next person on her list to be pulled aside was Voclaine. He sighed and huffed his way through the ritual of putting his bag on the scanner belt, emptying his keys and iPhone from his pockets, and so on. His wand sweep was clean. But, watching his belongings go through the scanner, Bridge saw that the phone he removed from his pocket wasn’t the only device he carried. There was another inside his backpack, stuffed inside padding by the looks of it, but visible on the scan.
“Bring him in,” said Bridge.
Montgomery hesitated. “François? You can’t think he’s a security risk.”
“Let’s find out, shall we? Just like we discussed.”
Once again he stepped outside, but this time asked Voclaine to enter the security interview room. Voclaine looked at Montgomery like he’d gone mad, and protested loudly. Several other staff were leaving at the same time, and Bridge didn’t need audio to tell they were all wondering what the hell was going on. Just like Voclaine. She wondered for a moment if Jules and the other security guards would have to wrestle the Frenchman into the room, but eventually he relented and stormed in. Montgomery followed, closing the door behind them, and now they were both on the other side of the one-way glass from Bridge.
Bridge silently thanked whoever designed this facility with the foresight to install a private monitoring and interview room. Behind the mirror, Voclaine had no way to see or identify her, but she could see and hear everything on the other side. As if to demonstrate, he sat down and said in English, “Who is behind that glass? Police? DGSE? What in the hell is it all about?”
Montgomery didn’t reply. He’d agreed to keep Bridge’s role in this incognito, so she could continue with her work at the facility if necessary, and Voclaine would have no idea who had accused him. Instead, he hoisted the Frenchman’s backpack onto the table and unzipped it. “Why do you have two phones, François?”
“What does it matter to you?”
Montgomery sighed. “You know the security protocols around this facility as well as me. The moment you set foot on this land, you give up any right to privacy. Now, answer the question…or would you rather I just have you carted off to Château d’If?”
“Château d’If? What in the hell are you talking of?”
Bridge wondered that herself. The legendary prison island itself hadn’t been used for over a century, so the French had recently repurposed the name for their Guantanamo Bay equivalent, a permanent holding pen for suspected terrorists with no rights, no trials, no lawyers. If Montgomery knew about the new Château d’If at all, it suggested he was better connected in the MoD than Bridge had realised.
Or maybe he was just joking. It was hard to tell, with Montgomery.
Inside the room, he upended the backpack and spilled Voclaine’s possessions on the table. Pens, notepads, his wallet, two magazines (one about videogames, one celebrity gossip), an empty water bottle, and a bundled scarf. The phone was nowhere to be seen — until Montgomery picked up the scarf and a second iPhone tumbled out, clattering onto the hard surface.
He had his back to her through the glass, but the room also had cameras feeding visual through to the monitoring room, and from those she saw Montgomery hit the power button, only to be confronted by a lock screen. The phone wallpaper was a middle-aged woman on a small boat, presumably Voclaine’s ex-wife. Montgomery held it up in triumph, but Voclaine merely shrugged. “It’s my old phone. I use it for to call my son and ex-wife. When we split apart I took a new number, and I don’t want her to know.”
“Nonsense. Why bring it to a secure workplace? Why hide it inside a scarf, of all things?” Bridge had guessed that Montgomery would enjoy this small taste of power, and she was right. He was practically grinning.
“If I tried to hide it, I’d make it a better job than that,” said Voclaine. “I had this phone with me each day since the project began, but before it’s never been a problem.”
“W
ell, it’s a problem now. I’d like you to unlock it, so I can see what’s on it.”
Voclaine shook his head. “I’ve told you, it’s all personal. There’s nothing for you on there to need to see,” he said, directing this last to the mirror.
Montgomery noticed. “Don’t look at her, look at me. What are you being so secretive about? Are you working for someone? Is it the Russians?” Bridge could hardly believe what she was seeing. Montgomery had gone power mad within a matter of seconds, and now he was talking about the Russians? What the hell was he playing at?
Voclaine suppressed a laugh. “You’re out of your mind, James.”
But Montgomery couldn’t back down now. He thrust the iPhone under Voclaine’s nose and almost screamed, “I order you to open this phone!”
Voclaine took the phone, dropped it on the floor, and crushed it under his heel. Then he smiled and said, “Would you call that open?”
Montgomery froze, unsure how to proceed, and looked to the mirror for assurance. But Bridge was equally uncertain. On the face of it, Voclaine had just given himself up. Why destroy the phone, unless it contained incriminating secrets? Thinking back to their dinner conversation, it was possible those secrets were personal. Family stuff, photos, text chats with his ex-wife and son. But then, as Montgomery had asked, why bring it to the office at all? Voclaine had told Bridge he spoke to his family only rarely.
Voclaine was glaring defiantly, not at Montgomery, but at her — or rather, the mirror. “I will say not another word without my legal representative with me. Whoever you are behind the glass, it’s big trouble for you.”
“On, on, on the contrary, François,” Montgomery stammered, as Bridge knocked on the glass to summon him out of the room, “you’re the, the one in trouble. Oh, yes.” He exited the room, leaving Voclaine alone.
Bridge watched the Frenchman glare at the mirror, still and calm. He focused on a point just above and behind her shoulder, as if expecting a taller man to be standing here, but it seemed like his eyes were locked to hers in a test of will. He hadn’t once raised his voice or lost his cool in there. If only the same could be said for his interrogator, who now stumbled wide-eyed into the monitoring room.
“I don’t know what exactly you were looking for, Ms Short, but I’d say we’ve found it. What now?”
What now? At that moment she wanted to kick Montgomery’s arse for his tinpot Hitler act, an act that may well have cost them a vital piece of evidence. And as a result, she still couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure. Someone in tech would have to try and recover the data from Voclaine’s destroyed iPhone to get anything solid, and meanwhile Bridge would have to remain here at Guichetech to maintain her cover. But still, it was a break of sorts, and those were rare enough in this line of work.
“Leave him here for now,” she said, dialling London. “Now please step outside while I make a phone call.”
45
Montgomery drove fast that night. Twice he doubled back on himself, worried someone might be following him, before starting up the tree-lined road to the car park at the top of the hill.
“Another fine night, Comrade,” said the Russian, waiting for him as always.
He ignored the greeting. “You won’t think so in a moment.”
The Russian’s wide shoulders sagged. “You did not bring me a card.” A statement, not a question.
“I couldn’t. I think someone’s onto us. London sent a woman…”
“What?” The Russian turned on him, faster than he thought a man that size could move. “What woman?”
“She’s supposed to be an HR inspector. But it’s just a cover.”
The Russian wrapped his big hands around Montgomery’s jacket lapels and pulled him close. He recoiled from the sour stench of booze and cheap German cigarettes on the thickset man’s breath, which seemed to grow stronger every time they met. “You should have told me this before.”
“She, she only arrived last week. And I only found out she’s undercover today.”
“How? Who is she?” The Russian let go of his jacket.
Montgomery leaned back against the side of his car, in the hope it would make his head stop spinning. It didn’t. “She wasn’t specific. She’s MoD, sent to investigate a security issue. She was very concerned about everyone’s phones.” He groaned in realisation. “Oh, of course. that explains why she lied to me about where she was last weekend…”
“Lied? Did you follow her?”
“No, no. She said she’d visited a vineyard, but I know she couldn’t have, because there was a truck accident that closed the main road all day. Not something you’d easily forget. Maybe she went back to London for the weekend.”
“Why did the woman tell you she is undercover?”
“I suppose she thinks she can trust me. Perhaps I’m a better liar than you give me credit for.”
“London,” the Russian considered, then barked a cruel laugh. “Five and Six working together. Yes.”
Montgomery’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, what? Do you mean MI5 and MI6? Jesus Christ.”
The Russian smiled, a lopsided and sad smile, and reached inside his coat. Montgomery caught a glint of grey steel in the moonlight, the semi-fist of the Russian’s hand as he drew it back out, and knew he was done for. He imagined himself jumping back into his car, slamming the door closed, ducking down behind it while bullets slammed into the metal. The engine would start with a growl and he’d reverse at high speed, throwing up gravel and dust, speeding out into the trees. He’d drive all night, through to Paris, crash into the barriers outside the British embassy and demand protection, throwing himself on a diplomat’s mercy. He’d be sent home, interrogated, tried for treason, imprisoned for life. But he’d be alive.
It was absurd. The Russian would shoot him before he reached the car, bundle his body into the boot, drive him to the Marne, and dump his body in the river. He would die here, in this godforsaken car park, and his body would never be found.
As Montgomery thought through these events, the pistol cleared the Russian’s coat. He closed his eyes and waited for the impact, wondering how it would feel to be shot, or if he’d feel anything at all. Would that be better, or worse?
“Stupid amateur,” said the Russian, and Montgomery heard the sound of the trigger pulling closed.
Followed by that cruel laughter again.
He cautiously opened one eye and realised he hadn’t been shot. The gun wasn’t loaded. The Russian turned it around and held it by the barrel, butt-first, for him to take. Montgomery was too surprised to argue, but as soon as his hand closed around the cold and surprisingly heavy metal, he regretted it. “I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” he said.
“And unless you find someone to give you bullets, you will not. But as you have demonstrated so well, to fire a weapon is not always necessary for it to be effective. If you need to scare a British woman…” Montgomery stared down at the gun as the Russian’s heavy hands sank into his shoulders. He assumed the gesture was supposed to be reassuring, but their sheer weight distracted him. They, and the whole world, were an impossible weight. “Now to business,” said the Russian. “Your debt is almost repaid…but not yet. You must finish taking the photographs.”
“You can’t be serious. I told you, Short is here to look for exactly this sort of thing. I mean, I steered her towards Voclaine, instead, and I even tried to blow her cover, but she didn’t seem to care. She’s still there; she hasn’t packed up and gone home yet.”
The Russian shrugged, and lit one of his cheap German cigarettes. “So she is a mole hunter, and you have given her a…” he pondered over the correct word, “a ‘patsy’ to take the fall. That is good. Now she thinks you are an ally, not a suspect. Has she altered the security protocol?”
Smoke from the cigarette drifted across Montgomery’s face, and he forced himself to swallow a cough. “No, not at all.�
�
“Then proceed as before.”
“But how can I? How am I going to take pictures of Voclaine’s terminal when he’s locked up?”
The Russian looked amused. “This is what you give us? Pictures of another man’s computer?”
“He takes ten smoke breaks a day. How else do you think I have chance to take the photos? But that’s all gone, now.”
“Then photograph your own computer, instead.”
“But I’m not a geek. How, how can I justify looking at code I know nothing about?”
The Russian leaned in and held his cigarette close to Montgomery’s face. The Englishman coughed, to cover up tears from the smoke. “You will think of something,” he said. “Only one more week and you can return home to England and celebrate, yes? Do not worry about the woman. I will take care of her if it is necessary.”
Starlight glinted off the Russian’s teeth as he grinned. Unbidden, an image of just what ‘taking care’ of Ms Short might mean flashed in Montgomery’s mind. He tried to suppress it, not least because he had a terrible premonition that he might see it first-hand before he was ever allowed to return to England. But it haunted him all the way during the drive back to his apartment on the edge of town, and as he lay awake praying for sleep, the thought hung in the blind void, refusing to fade.
46
They told her she’d been in the hospital for two weeks. Or was it three?
Bridge couldn’t remember. They told her a lot of things she had difficulty remembering afterwards, as her mind slowly pieced itself back together. Like how Dr Nayar had started visiting before she left the secure ward. Bridge didn’t remember that. The first time she remembered seeing the doctor was at her flat, after they discharged her and put her on leave. She remembered thinking Dr Nayar was polite not to comment on the state of her flat, which grew ever more unkempt with each visit, because Bridge was going stir-crazy cooped up in there.
The Exphoria Code Page 19
