“Would Julian have known Rentoul in Iraq?”
“No. He was in Kabul until a year after Rentoul’s supposed death. I imagine he heard of the lost money. We don’t know if he ever talked to his father about it, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t. And in the past few days the FBI attaché in the London embassy has started pressing us for information on Rentoul.”
“Do you have any?”
“Not much, but my old colleagues were rather surprised when the FBI started asking questions, in particular if we knew if Rentoul had ever had any dealings with the CIA.”
Bruno raised his eyebrows. “And did he?”
“Nothing specific that we knew of, but it’s a very big concern, and a great deal of bizarre and questionable operations got under way, particularly in the years after nine-eleven. Lots of renditions—suspects spirited away to secret prisons in Poland, Egypt, Romania. And not a few of those suspects were deniable, that’s to say they weren’t picked up by the U.S. military but by private operators, bounty hunters, if you like.”
“You think Rentoul was involved in that?”
Crimson shrugged and finished his coffee. “Nothing we could prove, but several people who were signed out by the British troops in and around Basra as being released after questioning were never heard of again. And Rentoul was often in and around Basra, where he had a lot of old army friends. We debriefed one of Rentoul’s team, ex–British army, who told us that on three occasions he was present when Rentoul took a handcuffed prisoner from Basra to Abu Ghraib. Yet none of those prisoners from Basra was ever signed into Abu Ghraib. They were delivered to a special section that was known as CIFA. Rentoul evidently had some good friends there.”
Crimson explained that CIFA was a shadowy U.S. military body called Counterintelligence Field Activity, formed in 2002, before the Iraq War, by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It reported to him alone, much to the outrage of other agencies, who saw it as a rogue outfit. CIFA was disbanded in 2008, after it was found spying on American peace groups, which it was not authorized to do. Its activities, after supposedly being cleaned up, were later merged into the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“You think Rentoul was working for this CIFA group or with them?”
“We don’t know. We do know that he had very close links to U.S. military intelligence because that was his job at Rheindahlen. He was Felder’s liaison officer with the U.S. Sixty-sixth Military Intelligence Brigade based at Wiesbaden, some of whose personnel later showed up in CIFA and at Abu Ghraib.”
“What a mess that war turned out to be,” Bruno said.
“Well, as Chou En-lai said when asked about the results of the French Revolution, it’s too soon to tell.” Crimson gave Bruno a broad grin that lasted only a moment before his face turned serious again. “I heard that Moore reported back to London that the FBI man here, Hodge, claimed it was Felder who identified Rentoul’s body after the ambush in Baghdad.”
“That’s right,” said Bruno.
“Are you sure that Hodge didn’t say there was a second identification made of the body by a U.S. army major? He’d have been a member of that same Sixty-sixth Intelligence Brigade, who had known Rentoul in Germany.”
“Yes, I’m certain. A second identification was never mentioned, nor was an American army officer.”
“Well, it should have been in the file Hodge was sent. Or perhaps their military records are as jumbled as our own and that little detail was never included. Or perhaps our friend from the FBI is simply playing his cards close to the vest. They have a reputation for doing that. What did you make of him?”
“He and Moore came to dinner at my place on Saturday,” Bruno replied, “and he’s been careful to keep me in the loop, even when I had a bit of a falling-out with Prunier over whether I worked for him or for the mayor. Hodge strikes me as very professional and very much smarter than the slow-talking country boy he likes to play. He reminds me of those laconic, astute cowboys in Westerns.”
“You mean not so much John Wayne, more Gary Cooper?” Crimson gave one of his impish smiles.
“I suppose so, except that he has a French mother, so his French is perfect,” Bruno replied with a laugh. “But I can tell you that Hodge is taking a great deal of interest in Rentoul. He brought in a special radar that found Rentoul’s secret safe, filled with cash, stock certificates and four passports, one of them American. Hodge instantly began drawing up a chronology of Rentoul’s travels by the various entry and exit stamps in all four passports.”
“That’s interesting. What were the dates the passports were issued?”
“I don’t know, but I can find out from Yves, the forensics man who opened the combination of the safe. Oh yes, and the combination was based on Rentoul’s British army number.”
“Where was the safe?”
“Cemented in behind a wall in his wine cellar, and there was at least a hundred thousand euros’ worth of wine in there—Château Pétrus, Ausone, Latour, Lafite…you name it.”
“Nice to think that American money was spent in a good cause. What happened to the wine?”
“Hodge assumes it will all go to the Americans as compensation for the money they lost in Baghdad.”
“If he thinks that, he doesn’t know the French,” Crimson said, with a laugh. “The Americans would first have to prove that Rentoul took the money and then that he spent it on wine. One suspects he had other sources of income after his supposed death. I should add that I looked very hard for any indication that he might have been working for us and found nothing. So perhaps he might have been doing odd jobs for some of his American friends.”
“The thought had begun to cross my mind as you spoke. I suppose you want me to pass all of this on to the brigadier.”
“Tell him I’d like to see him, and you agree that I have some material he might want to come down and see and hear for himself. How do they put it in those Michelin guides? Vaut le détour, something worth a special journey. It might be interesting for us all to think about what Rentoul might have been doing in those four years between his being reported dead and this CIFA organization being officially wound up. It might also be useful to find out what he was doing in the years since. I don’t think he was the kind of man to spend his life in tourism and watching his vines grow.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” said Bruno. “It’s interesting that he didn’t turn up in Lalinde until 2008, when you say CIFA was wound up.”
“Let’s see if we can find out where Rentoul was in those lost years. You know his French was pretty good. His German and his Russian were even better. He reached NATO level four in both, barely short of being taken for a native.”
“There’s one thing I’m curious about,” Bruno said. “You went through Rentoul’s army file. Was there anything in there about his being wounded?”
“Not a thing.”
“He had a bullet scar high in his chest, near the shoulder, and what I think were grenade or shrapnel scars on one leg. So where did that happen and where was he treated?”
Crimson shrugged. “I don’t know, but I suppose it might have happened in the Baghdad ambush that was supposed to have killed him.”
“In that case I doubt whether he’d have been in good enough shape to organize the robbery. Do you have any contacts in Felder’s company to see if they have a record of his being injured?”
“Not really, but I could try,” Crimson said. “Of course, his injury could have happened in those lost years. There were always lots of small wars under way in the Congo, South Sudan, Somalia, Colombia—even before we get to the latest ones in Libya, Ukraine and Syria. Mercenaries never really go out of fashion.”
“Not that he needed the money,” Bruno replied, thinking of the hunting trophies and photos in Rentoul’s home and the cost of his guns and safaris. He tried to recall the hunting trophies and photographs o
n the walls of the man’s house, and suddenly something clicked.
“Bare-chested,” he said. “He was bare-chested and there was no scar. One of the photos in his house, an African scene, on a beach I recognized in Djibouti. He was carrying a rifle.”
“Djibouti? I thought that was a Foreign Legion base.”
“It is, but I was on a training course there nearly fifteen years ago. Desert warfare and then amphibious landings.”
“Djibouti, next door to Somalia, that suggests the piracy trade. And Felder’s son, Julian, was in the same business,” said Crimson, suddenly sitting forward in excitement. “Could that be where Julian learned that Rentoul was still alive? The Somali piracy began about 2005, I recall, but it went on for years. A lot of former mercs ended up as security patrols on merchant ships.”
“And Rentoul was an excellent shot,” Bruno replied. “It’s certainly possible. But what interested me was that there was no scar, so Rentoul hadn’t been wounded when the photo was taken.”
“Does it matter now?”
“It depends. Where were injured security guards taken from the oil tankers?”
“To one of the Western hospitals in Dubai. Why?”
“Can you find out if a man called McBride was treated there for a gunshot wound in the chest?” Bruno demanded.
“Probably. The security chief in the Emirates is an old friend. But again, why?”
“That could be where Julian Felder found out that Rentoul was still alive and living under the McBride pseudonym.”
Crimson nodded slowly. “His father could have told him, presuming that he knew all along that Rentoul was still alive. But you could be right. I’ll see what I can do. And there’s another factor we should think about—how and when did Rentoul get back in touch with Monika? Was she aware that he never died? Or did he just turn up one day and surprise her?”
“I went through the paperwork on the credit card that McBride used for travel,” Bruno replied. “It showed a couple of years of him and Monika being in the same foreign cities. J-J ran the details through Interpol’s list of unresolved cases looking for a match but without much result.”
“I don’t think someone like Rentoul would have mixed business with pleasure,” Crimson said. “You might get more from analyzing the trips listed on his other passports.”
“Hodge is working on that. Maybe the FBI should look for unsolved killings by sniper.”
“Again, even if Rentoul was a contract killer, does it matter now? He’s dead, so is Monika and the IRA did it. And I heard that General Felder died in the hospital and has been cremated. Isn’t this when cops say the case is closed?”
“Not all of us,” replied Bruno. “And not you, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking of telling all this to the brigadier.”
“Let’s see what my old friend in Dubai can find out,” said Crimson.
Chapter 22
Summoned by a text message from J-J the previous evening, Bruno was in the Périgueux conference room just before eight the next morning. Once again he found himself the only man in uniform. Moore and Hodge greeted him warmly, Yves gave him a friendly nod and even poured him an excellent cup of coffee.
“Where’s J-J?” Bruno asked. Yves replied that he was still in Bergerac, where the Kelly couple were being held to keep them separate from the O’Rourkes during the interrogation.
“Ah, Bruno, good to have you back with us and I’m glad St. Denis could spare you,” said Prunier, with the ghost of a wink as he entered the room and took his place at the head of the table. “And thank you for taking such good care of our Anglo-Saxon friends. They told me you gave them an excellent Périgord dinner with some charming female company. I’m envious, but we’d better get to business. I gather our new colleague from the Irish Garda arrives in Bergerac from Dublin later today, where he’ll join J-J in the ongoing interrogation of Kelly and his wife before meeting us all at tomorrow morning’s conference.
“One piece of good news has come from our colleagues in Bayonne,” he went on. “Based on our report of Kelly’s connection to him, they visited the Basque militant and found three kilos of Colombian cocaine on his premises. We have a significant narcotics ring here.”
“And Kelly was one of the IRA explosives experts who was in Colombia teaching the FARC guerrillas how to blow things up,” Moore interjected. “That could be the trade, drugs for bombs.”
“Interesting,” said Prunier. “We’ll be following that up with our Spanish colleagues. But back to new developments in our own case. Based on the recommendation of our British colleague, we now have some crucial evidence linking O’Rourke to the deaths of Madame Felder and Rentoul.”
“Thanks to the metal detector, we found the sniper’s rifle, the McMillan TAC-50,” said Moore, the matter-of-fact tone of his voice contrasting with the glint of triumph in his eye. “It was buried in his garden. I suppose he couldn’t bear to leave it in Rentoul’s gun cabinet. A gun like that is worth more than gold to the IRA. It was all wrapped in plastic sheeting, but the McMillan has Rentoul’s prints on it.”
Prunier led a small round of applause, and Moore nodded his thanks around the table.
“That’s excellent news, hard evidence that links O’Rourke to the murder,” said Prunier. “And the thought of such a gun being in circulation was very worrying. And now, Monsieur Hodge?”
“You all saw the report Yves and Bruno filed on Rentoul’s safe and its contents,” Hodge said, handing Prunier a document. “I’d like to give formal notice that the United States will claim ownership of the cash, securities and the wine that was found there.”
“Noted, but we’d better leave that to the diplomats and lawyers,” Prunier replied. “And you said you had news from your colleagues in Houston.”
Hodge reported that the FBI field office had interviewed hospital staff, the rental agency and its cleaners, consulted travel records and established a clear chronology of when each of the different members of the Felder family was in the city over the three months of Felder’s treatment. Felder’s body had been cremated on Saturday and the family was booked on a flight back to London that very evening.
“We may have grounds to arrest at least one of them,” Hodge went on. “We obtained voice prints of the first Mrs. Felder and her children, and compared them with the voice print on Kelly’s phone. We got a ninety-eight percent match with Mrs. Felder, and a ninety-one percent match with the daughter. That’s not unusual with close family members, but it means we have reason to detain Mrs. Felder and to cooperate in any extradition proceedings against her. We can also establish that Mrs. Felder flew to London a week before the letter containing the photographs of Rentoul was posted to Kelly. If you guys could establish from flight or train or shipping records that she came to France, we have a case.”
“Excellent work by the FBI, thank you,” said Prunier. “We’ll follow up on that.”
Bruno raised a hand. “I agree, great work, but there’s one issue that perplexes me. I see that Madame Felder and her children had a strong financial motive to eliminate Monika, but how could they be sure that setting the IRA onto Rentoul would kill her as well? They would have to have known of Rentoul’s background and of Monika’s affair with him and of her booking the cooking course.”
“Rentoul was working with Felder in Northern Ireland years before Monika met either of them, so the first Mrs. Felder would have known Rentoul,” Moore replied. “And if she didn’t know about Rentoul surviving the supposed ambush in Baghdad, her son was part of the family company. He could have known.”
“They certainly knew of the cooking course,” Hodge said. “Two of the hospital nurses told us that Monika mentioned it to them after the doctor recommended that she needed a break from Felder’s bedside and she should take a vacation that would keep her busy.”
“Like a cooking course,” said Bruno.
“Exactly. He said the same thing to the Felders, which is why Julian and Portia went skiing when Monika was in Houston. The travel records suggest that Mrs. Felder was the only one who went to Europe. The children made one trip to Yucatán, in Mexico, and another to ski in Mont Tremblant in Canada. We have asked local police if they can confirm their continuous presence there. But all the family had to know where the others were so they could be told if the old man died. They’d all have to be at the funeral.
“One more thing,” Hodge added. “I’ve been trying to fathom how Mrs. Felder knew of Monika’s affair with Rentoul. It turns out that while Felder was in the hospital, the first wife and his children were added to his credit card to cover their expenses. That meant they had access to his and Monika’s credit card records, so they could easily have tracked what she was spending and where. That’s how they realized Monika was having these romantic trysts with Rentoul. They even knew about the cooking course Monika paid for, her air ticket to Bordeaux, even the train ticket she bought and paid for online.”
“So when the IRA wanted to kill Rentoul, Mrs. Felder saw it as a way to kill Monika to be sure she wouldn’t inherit from Felder’s estate,” said Moore. “That’s very clever; she was killing two birds with one stone.”
Yes, thought Bruno, it all began to make sense. But he wondered if it was only her former husband’s money that had inspired Mrs. Felder. Might there not also have been some jealousy involved, a lingering hatred for the pretty young German girl who had stolen her husband all those years ago? Greed about money was one plausible motive, but the passions and resentments of the human heart were often far more powerful. Even as he mused, Bruno was aware of Prunier’s voice breaking into his reverie.
“Bruno, we need to arrange for that photograph of Madame Felder to be shown around hotels, restaurants, the usual places to establish that she was here,” Prunier said. “I should add that the reliability of voice prints is not yet established in French law, although our investigating magistrates do make use of them, so a visual identification would be important.”
A Taste for Vengeance Page 27
