by AD Davies
She quoted an additional three thousand euros to the two I already handed over, and I asked her to wait ten minutes, popped out to a money union exchange a couple of streets away, and withdrew five thousand euros from my personal cash reserves. I returned and paid the ginger woman, keeping the other two grand for my back pocket. Just in case. She asked again if I was sure I wanted to use those passport photos, and again I assured her it was fine. After she left, I spent the next half-hour on the hotel’s Wi-Fi, giving Jess as much information as I could relating to Sarah’s and Gareth’s new documents, but Jess would have to confirm where in the whole world their new identities had fled.
Still, I needed more traction, more intelligence. I needed someone to point me the right way, and I only knew one good person in this city who might help. I called Pierre Bertrand and requested he meet me … yes, I told him, on a Sunday.
Chapter Eighteen
I caught the Metro west, locating on a paper map the quaint park where Fanuco dumped the body of an innocent woman in order to make a point. I arrived fifteen minutes early and paced the bank where the water reflected the greying sky, wishing I smoked. I thought about the pen drive and what it might contain. Blackmail documents? Photos? Accounts? As Agent Frank said, it’s what organized crime did. They needed records in order to launder money and to keep track of employees and ensure not one penny ended up in someone’s pocket who hadn’t earned it. I’d heard of entire payroll databases before, although I didn’t know how much was true and what was urban legend.
Someone handed me a coffee.
“Thank you for coming.” I accepted the steaming drink.
“What happened to your hand?” Pierre Bertrand asked.
“Trapped it in … oh, it doesn’t matter.” I sipped from the paper cup. It tasted deeper and thicker than anything back home. I said, “I met a man called Sammy LeHavre today. He was helpful.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“I know the names of my subjects’ new identities. I was hoping you could check, see whether they left the country already.”
“Of course, no problem.”
“If you can see where they went, maybe you could get me the CCTV footage.”
He nodded. Smoked. Sipped. “Easily obtained.”
“If they are travelling with anyone else, would you be able to trace them? Get a name, maybe an address?”
“In today’s world? Of course. We can do this with one phone call.”
“The names are Isabella Laurent and Joseph Coulet. They will have travelled somewhere between—”
“Why don’t you come to the station, Mr. Park?”
“The station?”
“Oui.” He took a drag on the cigarette. Exhaled in my face. “Perhaps I can give you a pass and my access codes so you do not need to keep calling me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You want to give me your codes?”
“Yes! And I will cook for you too. How about a nice chicken?”
“Right,” I said, finally realizing what he was doing.
“And your cock, Mr. Park. Perhaps I could find a nice lady to service you. Or why not do it myself, hm? Yes, I cook for you and while you eat, I—”
“I get it,” I said. “Look, I really need this. These people have stolen money and important information that I need to retrieve, or—”
“Or what? You have some personal stake in this? Something you cannot explain?”
I wondered then, what did I have riding on this? I sent Lily away, so Benson’s main leverage over me was gone. I still had to find Sarah, of course, especially now I had no doubt she was in trouble. Whether that was with a highly-manipulative abuser or some wider crime, I couldn’t say. If she was even alive.
He said, “As much as I would like to be your personal informant in the police, I am afraid I have a little pride left. Au revoir, Mr. Park.”
Before he could move, I said, “Tell me again about the criminals moving into Paris. You mentioned them getting bigger, more successful. Asian origin, you said. Chinese, Korean?”
He deliberated with himself. Finished his coffee. “Bad people. They keep mostly to their own territory, but their trade is similar to Fanuco, so they fight sometimes. People is big business.”
“White slave trade?”
“Yes.” He lit another cigarette. I hadn’t realized he finished his first. “But not just white. We have a high African population here. Easy targets. These gangs, they bring girls in, they take girls out, bring boys, take them away. I do not know all the details. As I said, I am only a press monkey these days.”
“What do they do, these girls and boys? Sex workers?”
We were alone here. No Parisians, no tourists.
He said, “Sometimes sex, sometimes domestic people who work in houses for food and a bed. There is a culture of this in many parts of the world.”
“Do you think Sarah might have been taken somewhere else?”
“I think nothing. If there is no sign of her, no clue—”
“I have clues,” I said. I told him about the man taking Sarah’s luggage, about Gareth possibly being “with them” and of the documents they’d had made. “So who is most likely? The Koreans? The Chinese?”
Bertrand shook his head dismissively. “Mr. Park, I think it is time you filed an official statement. Go to your embassy, they will help you complete the paperwork. If not, you should leave Paris.” He started to walk away.
“I’m touched. Do you think these Chinese or Korean guys might hurt me?”
“Okay, you win,” Bertrand said. “Not Chinese. Not Korean. Vila Fanuco’s main enemy now, the fastest growing gang… they are Vietnamese.”
Now that rang a round, fat bell. Clanged loudly but, like the niggling question, I couldn’t quite grasp it.
He said, “If the gendarmes catch you making trouble, I will not protect you. If you are caught in a place you should not be, there will be no police to back you up. You will be arrested or hurt, or worse. And if these people have your girl, or your man, they will not give them up easily.”
After that, he stubbed out his cigarette and walked calmly away. I did not try to stop him. I had to go do something Harry would term “stupidly-dangerous.”
Chapter Nineteen
Without Wi-Fi, my phone was a shiny brick with a pretty interface, so I picked up a pay-as-you-go 4G SIM and, to prevent getting cut off through over-use, I paid two-hundred euros onto it. I Googled the Vietnamese district in Paris, and learned there was not a “district” as such, just a growing number of people emigrating from the former French colony to settle in this corner of Europe, working low-paying jobs, raising families, opening businesses, a few such businesses bunched together over a five-mile area. While this was still too multicultural to be deemed a ghetto, it was certainly viewed by various race-hate groups as a “Vietnamese stronghold” albeit one more palatable than the Muslim and African suburbs.
I called Jess from the back of a cab. She answered cautiously, not recognizing the caller ID, but after briefly explaining the change in numbers, I said, “When you were going through that cross-check of credit cards, you discounted all those with onward journeys, right?”
“Working under the assumption that Sarah and Gareth are still in France. I’m fine, by the way, thanks for asking.”
“Sorry.” I rubbed my eyes. “Just … please can you remember? Things have changed. Didn’t you say there was a hit in Vietnam?”
I heard a keyboard tapping. “Only one that fits the timeline. Five days in Paris, then active in Ho Chi Minh City. We originally assumed it couldn’t be them because we nailed that card in the internet café.”
“They must have two cards.”
“Want me to send you the data?”
“Yes please. And can you look up Isabella Laurent and Joseph Coulet, see if they left France?”
“I’ll unpack my wand.”
I forget sometimes that hacking isn’t as simple as it looks on TV. The DDS software was invisible to the
company being scanned so to the user it felt like an automated process, but the skill and guile it had taken to create was almost unfathomable. Genuine talent makes stuff like that look easy. And Jess made it all look very easy.
“Sorry,” I said again. “Can you try? DDS might work. They’re real people somewhere in France. They had their identities stolen and used for the passports. See if they cross with that credit card.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she said. “Might take a while, though. And Adam?”
“Yes?”
“I won’t be able to build a backdoor for you into the PAI mainframe, no matter how much time I have. Everything outside the UK is completely locked down. Unless you know how to clone a UK server IP address from your end?”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I have an undetected entry-point here. If you need access, you’ll have to call.”
I thanked her as much as I could, and promised I’d look after her when I got home.
“I know,” she said. “I know you will.”
Rain loomed over the edges of the city, meaning taxis would soon be at a premium. With movement in the case, I would have to be more mobile than this, so I had my current cab drop me at a Hertz. I managed to snag a small Fiat before they closed and drove out into the muggy evening.
Beyond American war movies, I knew nothing about Vietnam. It wasn’t somewhere I visited when I lived Out There in the World, Vietnam being—back then—a repressive communist country that did not cater well to travelers. Events, though, led to one obvious question: what involvement could the Vietnamese gangs have with Sarah and Gareth? Fanuco and Sammy were on the opposite side, so there was no reason to think the passport acquisition led directly to the Vietnamese. More importantly, I needed to ascertain whether they were still here, or if I should be booking a flight.
My remaining lead was Sarah’s phone. Harry had thoroughly checked her known number and it had been switched off, but I knew she was using a phone in Paris. Someone had told me that.
I followed the sat-nav to L’Hostel Centrale, and found Patricia Norman in the reading area, enjoying the damp remnants of her weekend off with a copy of At the Mountains of Madness. I asked her outright for Sarah’s number, the one she dialed a few days ago and heard only a laughing man. As I suspected, it was different from the one Harry had attempted to trace.
A new phone for her new life.
Back in the car, I called Jess, and no, she hadn’t been able to check those names against airport departures. I told her not to worry and asked her to see if Sarah’s new phone number was still active. I expected more bad news. But it was active.
“And, wow,” she said. “Will wonders never cease? It’s transmitting as we speak.”
I punched the air and asked her to text me the GPS location. She went one better, syncing my phone with her laptop so I could see the DDS data in real time. I used the text to load my sat-nav and drove toward 15, Rue Marie-Gauche. The drizzle started about twenty minutes in and continued to wisp around the car as the wind picked up. Twenty minutes later, I reached my destination.
Number fifteen was a narrow three-story townhouse. The railings surrounding a lower floor were black iron and the door was red and looked sturdier than 10 Downing Street. Paint peeled from the doors and windows on the houses either side, so the pristine number fifteen seemed embarrassed by its neighbors.
In my haste to ask Patricia about the phone, I left my binoculars in the hotel along with my Nikon and its lovely zoom, so I had to get closer than I’d like. I trundled past the house and parked two doors down, my rear-view mirror trained on the door, and wing-mirrors angled to see the road and pavement. And there I sat. For over an hour.
No distractions.
Just watching. And waiting.
Theorizing.
I fought off the sting of sleep by utilizing an exercise taught to me by a yoga instructor a couple of miles north of Bondi Beach: I held my nose, pursed my lips as tight as possible to form the tiniest hole, and blew with as much force as I could muster. It channeled air out of the pinhole gap, and the pressure building inside me refreshed my brain. On the third repetition of this exercise, I finally identified that question I should have asked hours earlier.
As I predicted, it was so obvious Harry would have barked the word “amateur” at me for not snagging it hours ago. I made a bet with myself to see if I was right about the answer. Childish, yes, but hey—I was really bored.
Eventually, I saw movement in my rear-view.
And I won my bet.
Sammy LeHavre emerged from the red door, flanked by Butterball and Michelin Man. They hurried down the stairs and into an old American car, a Mustang by the looks of it. The engine roared and they took off down the street in a cloud of fumes and revs. I checked Jess’s synced GPS data and, indeed, Sammy LeHavre’s car was giving Sarah’s phone a ride somewhere. I pulled the Fiat out, executed a one-eighty turn, and followed.
If Vila Fanuco, “Lord of the Parisian Underworld,” had been looking for Sarah and Gareth on behalf of Curtis Benson, why would Sammy not have told Fanuco, “A girl and a guy? Mais oui, I ’ad zeez documents made”?
That’s what I should have asked. The niggling question. Obvious now. Sammy had made out his boss would be dangerously upset with him, but Fanuco himself acted fairly chilled when he learned about it; a minor indiscretion by a protégé whose ego swelled larger than his ability. Nothing more.
So there was my question: Why didn’t Sammy tell Fanuco he’d had passports made for Sarah and Gareth? Why was he so scared?
I knew the answer now, of course. There really was only one.
Nearing the city, traffic all-but disappeared, making the tail harder, but the darkening streets and the steady rain made it doable. Plus, it was a Mustang. In Paris. If I wanted, I could hang two streets back, stick my head out the window, and listen for the engine. And we had the phone’s GPS, but the prospect of taking my eyes off that vehicle even for a second made my hands grip the wheel even tighter, and my foot grew heavier over the accelerator.
They eventually pulled into a multi-story parking lot and I was forced to make an illegal U-turn a hundred meters further on. I reversed into a disabled zone and turned off the engine. It ticked loudly in time with the rain on the roof, which meant more waiting.
Jess’s DDS data streamed through the phone. The purchasing history for the card currently in Vietnam was listed chronologically. The spending pattern indicated two cards on the same account, like a husband and wife may have, showing they spent in Paris and, later, in Ho Chi Minh City. There remained the possibility that the cards were, like the phone, taken away from Sarah and Gareth. If the cards alone were shipped out to Vietnam, it meant the pair had not left Europe, and if the cards were taken from them they’d have lost the cash too, and I would be searching only for their corpses’ resting place.
I couldn’t read any further, though, as Sammy and his two fat guards exited the car park, collars folded up against the drizzle. They hustled down the street and entered a bar. The establishment had no name that I could see, and the wicker chairs outside were too wet to sit on. I watched for five dead minutes, until Sammy dragged a tall, scantily-clad black woman out by her arm, her long legs gangling. Butterball and Michelin Man followed.
Under other circumstances I’d happily have driven my car into the two enforcers and battered Sammy with the cosh until he could no longer plead for me to stop—the heroic knight Sir Adam yet again saves the damsel. But there was a bigger picture to consider.
I lost sight of them around the next corner. I started the engine and pulled out, halting at the junction. The party turned into a building and I swung right into the narrow one-way street.
The window to the second bar Sammy entered was almost fully steamed-up. Vague shapes swayed behind the glass. This time a name was displayed above the door in peeling gold letters. I had to read it more than once: The Golden Lion. In English. I pictured a gaudy theme pub with union flags, Winsto
n Churchill portraits, and faux beer pumps.
A honk sounded from behind. A white Mercedes revved, trying to get past. I found an empty stretch of pavement and bumped the small car onto it. The Merc glided past and stopped outside The Golden Lion. A leather-jacketed man got out, flicked open an umbrella, and opened the Merc’s back door. A second man stepped into the wet road, the umbrella held over him by the first. This second man was expertly coiffed and wore a tailored tan suit and professorial spectacles. I was close enough to see both were oriental, although their skin was darker than the average Chinese. They could easily have been Vietnamese. I doubted that the Man in Tan was the same one who collected Sarah’s things, but I’d bet another broken finger he’d know who it was. Umbrella Man, perhaps.
They walked briskly into the bar.
I had Pierre Bertrand on the phone before the door closed. I briefly explained how I tailed Sammy, and recapped how Patricia had seen the oriental man taking Sarah’s luggage, that Sammy LeHavre himself was in possession of Sarah’s phone right now.
“And this concerns me how?” Bertrand said in a bored voice. “I told you, I have no interest in your activities.”
“Sammy is one of Fanuco’s guys, right? Fanuco controls Sammy’s operations, ‘lets’ him work his corner of Paris. The phone is evidence.”
“Yes. This is true.”
“So …” I knew he understood. He had to.
“Illegal evidence that will send me even further down the ranks of the Prefecture. Again, unless you are about to reveal how I may arrest or kill Vila Fanuco, I ask how this concerns me.” This was not the same man I met yesterday. Heck, this wasn’t the same man I saw this afternoon.
“He got to you,” I said. “Didn’t he?”
“No,” he said. “That is not why I cannot help you.”
“Then why?”
“Because, Monsieur Park … this Vietnamese gang has been moving into Paris for six months now. At first, Fanuco wanted to be partners, but they refused.”
