A Long Night in Paris: The must-read thriller from the new master of spy fiction

by Dov Alfon

  The corridor was dark. Red-covered speakers along the walls boomed trance music, as befitted the hour, which became louder as they descended the stairs. Heavy doors led to the main hall where dozens of people still danced ecstatically. Abadi followed the man as he made his way among the dancers, and felt the girl grab on to his waist behind him. Reaching the side of the D.J. stand, they passed underneath the elevated stage to a steel lid on the floor, like a submarine hatch. The man lifted the lid and led them down a set of spiral iron stairs to the lower level.

  It was the quiet floor, if Abadi understood the concept correctly. People were dancing to the sound of music selected by them and that only they could hear, thanks to designer wireless headphones. Many others were sprawled on the floor, sitting against the walls in the area that served as a bar. Flashes of colour from rotating laser spotlights swept the darkness, and it was nearly impossible to detect the long counter and the high stools lined up against it.

  An empty whisky glass had been left halfway down the bar.

  “He was sitting here. Seems he’s gone.” The man pointed, and said with surprising sincerity, “I wish you luck.”

  “Good luck,” the girls chorused, and the first one even gave Abadi a farewell peck on the lips. The three went back up the spiral staircase, and Abadi heard the hatch open and shut behind them, the music from the floor above flooding the space for a few seconds.

  Chapter 101

  The soldier brought Oriana on time to the terminal at Ben Gurion airport, courtesy of his motorbike with its impressive police lights and siren, but then she was held for twenty minutes at security. “I’m sorry, you’re B.C.L.ed”, the shift manager told her.

  “I’m what?”

  “You are Border Control-listed. You’re registered with border security as someone who can’t leave Israel without a permit.”

  “I know, but I have a permit, it’s stamped into my passport.”

  “Where was your passport in custody? I don’t recognise this stamp.”

  “Unit 8200 Headquarters in Glilot.”

  “So someone there entered a request in the system to hold you here.”

  The check-in for her flight was due to close in ten minutes. Oriana shrugged and went to the 24/7 department store. She bought some clothes and a book. When she returned to the El Al security counter, a tat aluf in full uniform was waiting for her.

  “Good evening, Commander,” Oriana said.

  “Good morning, Segen Talmor. You did a good job there.”

  He was smiling, but reserved. His eyes betrayed weariness, his white hair conveying a sense of old-order authority. He probably had not spoken directly to a junior officer in a number of years, and she decided that false modesty would be the wrong attitude to adopt. “Thank you, Commander,” she said.

  “I have another job for you,” the tat aluf said with minimal fuss. “I need the audio reel that Rav Turai Yerminski took with him to Paris.” It was more a plea than an order.

  “I’ll try my best to assist Aluf Mishne Abadi in the search for him, Commander,” she said.

  “Aluf Mishne Abadi may be close, but we think the reel may already have been delivered.”

  “To whom?”

  “Someone called Ming.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond. From what Abadi had told her, she knew the mission would be difficult, and she expected very little background information. But this was close to a blank slate. No intel. Nothing.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” said the commander, as he reached for a small suitcase waiting on the counter. “I’ve brought you some clothes. It’s raining in Paris, and your Tzahal uniform would not be the best undercover disguise in the history of Israeli Intelligence.”

  “I’ve already bought some,” she said, still confused by the exchange.

  “Yes, but the leather jacket here contains Rav Turai Yerminski’s phone. Thanks to you, it has been unlocked by the technological department. I have sent the password together with some other interesting information to your Navran.”

  “Does it contain Ming’s exact location?”

  “Regrettably not, Segen Talmor. Machines are as yet unable to do our jobs. Enjoy it while it lasts.” He sounded even more like a man who belonged to the past.

  “Commander, what is my mission, precisely?” She was careful not to cross too many lines.

  “I need this reel, Segen Talmor. Unit 8200’s special relationship with U.S. Intelligence depends on it. Aluf Mishne Abadi will probably meet you at Charles de Gaulle airport, but if he’s otherwise occupied, you will need to work on this alone.”

  Once again, she could not shake off the feeling that failure was so inevitable that the commander preferred to pin it on a junior officer and save his good friend Abadi in the process. She did not reply. The commander shook her hand, as if awarding her a medal, and signalled to somebody behind her.

  “This El Al security agent will take you to your flight now. Take-off is in ten minutes. Good luck.”

  Oriana had a window seat. The pilot instructed the cabin crew to prepare for departure – doors to automatic – and the flight attendant promised breakfast and a duty-free cart. Dawn had broken outside, and as the plane took off she could make out cars glinting in the early light, the outlines of houses, the semblance of normality. She wore her new leather jacket – probably bought by her friend the bureau chief – and began to read the transcripts from the Samsung that Rav Turai Yerminski had left behind.

  Chapter 102

  I, the undersigned, Philippe du Monticole, Juge d’Instruction of the Court Administration Paris-6 Branch, hereby instruct the following addendum be made to criminal case “76029649656 – The French Republic vs John Does”, such document to serve as an integral part of the investigation case under my supervision.

  Background

  Whereas from the time of the first crime in this case, the abduction and presumed murder of Israeli citizen Yaniv Meidan, the number of victims has grown at an alarming rate,

  And whereas the rigorous investigation by the police commissaire in charge of the case, Commissaire Jules Léger, has linked the series of killings perpetrated in the city over the past twenty-four hours to the attempts of a foreign commando unit, apparently Chinese, to abduct a different Israeli tourist named Vladislav Yerminski,

  And whereas Yerminski was abducted from his room at Le Grand Hôtel at 17:20 today, the commissaire posits, based on intelligence from an Israeli source, that Yerminski staged his own abduction with the aid of a model or actress whose services he hired.

  And whereas the information transferred to me by the fraud investigation division indicates that Yerminski hacked into the bank account of another guest at the hotel, and abused it,

  And whereas tracking down Yerminski would substantially advance the investigation, be he the victim, who might then draw in the killers, or an accomplice to the crime, and could then lead us to his partners,

  And whereas today at 04:20, approximately eighteen hours after the first crime, Commissaire Léger reported to me, via a telephone call from his deputy, that he had obtained the first solid lead in the case,

  And whereas, when I arrived within thirty minutes at the location – the locked gate at la cour de Rohan in the 6th arrondissement of Paris – Commissaire Léger requested that I issue a search warrant for the apartment in which, it is presumed, Yerminski’s accomplice to the staged abduction resides.

  Decision

  This case was defined by the Préfet de la Police as conspiracy to commit drug trafficking. In accordance with the law, I cannot issue warrants for night searches for standard cases such as drug-related crimes because a police invasion into a private apartment at night must be based on probable cause of perpetrating an act of terrorism.

  However, based on evidence, Commissaire Léger has suggested that this is in fact an espionage affair, and I have indeed found these killings to be more characteristic of military activity than gang wars. Therefore, and out of a desire to prevent further
loss of life and indeed the loss of innocent lives, I have granted the police request and issued the warrant.

  Once it came to my attention that the apartment housed not only the model or actress whose services Yerminski allegedly hired but many other young women, I sanctioned the operation on condition that only women officers enter the apartment, in order to minimise any possible complaints by the female tenants, all of whom may have no involvement whatsoever in the criminal aspects of this case.

  I signed the warrant at 05:10, after which the police effected entry into the apartment.

  Result

  Vladislav Yerminski was not in the apartment. No weapons were found in the apartment apart from self-defence pepper sprays. The officers recovered an illegal amount (forty grams) of marijuana in addition to a variety of stimulants, including twenty grams of M.D.M.A. pills, and approximately three hundred Ritalin L.A. 40 mg pills.

  Upon the reviewing of documents, it was revealed that the apartment was intended to accommodate four models employed by the Paris Top Models agency, which received the apartment with certain benefits from the city of Paris. In fact, thirty-two young women were discovered on the premises, the majority without a European Union work permit. All of the apartment tenants hold foreign citizenship, most from Russia or elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

  It appears the models authorised to live in the apartment charged rent from the foreign models not in possession of legal work permits in exchange for residence in the apartment. It arose from the investigation that such practice is common in the industry, and that the models also arranged private jobs for each other without reporting to the agencies employing them.

  Questioning of the only French-speaking model in the apartment revealed that the model or actress who “abducted” Vladislav Yerminski from his hotel room, known to her friend only by her first name, Ekaterina, had responded to a job advertisement in a Russian-language online work forum popular among models. The forum post was new. It concerned location work for the filming of a video installation, and listed requirements such as specific hair colour, height and measurements, all of which matched Ekaterina’s. She received a positive response and left the apartment at 15:10. Ekaterina’s friends had no further details concerning her whereabouts or the job.

  Instructions

  1. I have instructed Commissaire Léger urgently to locate Ekaterina using the mobile number which her friends provided to the officers. I have issued an information request warrant to this end.

  2. I have decided, in light of the grounds for the warrant, not to submit the incriminating evidence found in the apartment at the time of the search.

  3. Commissaire Léger’s hostility has led me to question whether he is the correct officer to lead this investigation, and I have summoned him to an inquiry meeting at my office at 10:00.

  Chapter 103

  So close and yet so far. Had Yerminski vanished again? Abadi searched for him amid the partygoers who were dancing and drinking, snorting and vomiting, but he was nowhere to be found.

  A drink or at least some water was definitely required. Abadi sat on the stool vacated by Yerminski and waited; there was no barman. Through the darkness he deciphered a set of instructions displayed on the counter. He pressed the button in front of him and spoke into the microphone. Within a minute, a Perrier rondelle arrived on the conveyor belt, kaiten sushi-style, complete with a mobile payment system. The world was increasingly resembling 8200, probably much to the joy of Yerminski who, Abadi suspected, had no doubt paid for his drinks with credentials belonging to another guest from Le Grand Hôtel.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out the Navran – no good – then searched for his normal mobile. Approaching its timeout, the payment terminal flashed its “Help” screen. “If a connection is unavailable or if you’re out of battery, you are invited to use our secure wi-fi booths in the vicinity of the bathrooms.”

  Secure wi-fi booths in the vicinity of the bathrooms, sure, that would be somewhere Yerminski might feel comfortable. Abadi followed the signs. A door opened to the bathrooms, which turned out to be huge and full of people. The space was very dark, very gender-neutral, and very open. Ingenious lighting made up for the lack of walls. At the end a dozen large cubicles with saloon doors were marked with a wi-fi icon. Only one of them was open and Abadi spotted a charging station with wi-fi router inside the cubicle, near the door.

  Four of the cubicles were occupied by more than one person, but in the last a woman’s long legs terminated in red stilettos. Abadi looked around. People were coming and going from their own worlds, lost in the music that flowed through their earbuds. He kicked open the door.

  The blonde stood up slowly, a queen from her throne. She was the honeytrap from Le Grand Hôtel alright, still in the same red uniform, and she towered over him in her high heels, displaying the same insouciance now as in the surveillance tapes. She held something in her hand, which Abadi was quick to see was her mobile, its cable dangling from the wi-fi router.

  “Rav Turai Vladislav Yerminski?” Abadi said.

  The man before him looked even younger than in the video, and was certainly thinner and paler. It was maybe the overhead lighting, maybe the alcohol coursing through his veins or perhaps stress was taking its toll. He remained sitting on the toilet lid and glowered at Abadi.

  “And you are? I expected a fully armed escort in Tzahal uniform, not a playboy wearing my own shirt.”

  Abadi had forgotten the switch in the hotel and suppressed a smile. “I am Aluf Mishne Zeev Abadi, head of Special Section of your unit. I need you to come with me.”

  Yerminski got up slowly, helped by the Russian model who appeared to be more in control than either of the two men present. She disconnected her mobile and looked at her companion, awaiting his decision. Yermi shot his hands up in mock surrender, and then, in weary resignation, lowered them. His shoulders trembled. “I’ll let you keep my shirt,” he said, “but the only place I’ll come with you now is the bar.”

  It was 5.45 a.m., Tuesday, April 17.

  Chapter 104

  Mme Abadi again offered the police officers coffee and again they politely declined. There were three of them, two female officers and a policeman, and none of them had ever seen anything like it before.

  “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” the senior officer said. They had been there for thirty minutes and had made not an inch of progress – surveying the room repeatedly, studying their papers and the balcony. They were used to investigating home burglaries, taking a few photographs and notes, and then asking the victim to come down to the police station to file an official complaint for insurance purposes. Almost all of Mme Abadi’s neighbours had been through it in recent years.

  “Maybe you could tell us again what you reported to the police when you made the call?” one of the female officers suggested, adding, “Tell us in your own words.”

  Mme Abadi sighed. Did she have any other words? She considered switching to Arabic in protest, but the reverence she held for those in uniform prevented her from doing so. “It’s all rather simple, really. Last night, just before I went to bed—”

  “Do you remember what time that was?” the officer interrupted her.

  “After the eleven o’clock news had finished,” Mme Abadi replied patiently. “I turned off the kitchen lights and then, through the window, I saw two Chinese men standing on the path, looking up at my apartment. It scared me, because on the news they had just mentioned there had been an attack in Paris by Chinese terrorists. I called my son to ask what I should do, but he didn’t answer. So I called Mme Zerbib.”

  “Who’s Mme Zerbib?” the other female officer said.

  “She’s the neighbour on my floor. She never sleeps.”

  “She already explained that,” the first female officer said.

  “I’ve already explained that,” Mme Abadi concurred. “In fact, I’ve already explained everything to you. Mme Zerbib said it did sound a bit frightening and suggested
that we come and spend the night at her apartment. But my husband was already asleep and in the meantime the two Chinese had disappeared, so I said no need and went to bed.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “My son called me back, having seen that I’d tried to reach him, but by then I’d already turned off my telephone. I always turn off the telephone at night. So he called Mme Zerbib, and Mme Zerbib knocked on my door to tell me that my son wanted me to wake up my husband and that the two of us needed to go and sleep at Mme Zerbib’s apartment.”

  “When was that?” the first female officer said. They had some kind of obsession with the timeline. Mme Abadi made an effort to be patient.

  “At two in the morning, less than two hours after I’d tried to call him. My son always returns my calls as soon as he can.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I did what my son said, of course. I woke up my husband and we went to sleep in Mme Zerbib’s guest room. She was very nice, and even left us water on the nightstand, like I do in my house. And then this happened.”

  The officers looked at each other and went into the bedroom again. The window facing the balcony was shattered. The closet was riddled with bullet holes, nine-millimetre. But the strangest detail was a syringe filled with a purple substance, most likely shot from a tranquilliser gun, jammed into the pillow Mme Abadi would have slept on.

  “When did you discover all this?”

  “I heard the noise in the night, but I was scared to leave Mme Zerbib’s apartment. She and I came over here an hour ago, and I called the police station right away.”

  They fell silent, and she added with cautious defiance, “Good thing I listened to my son.”

  The senior officer nodded. “Mme Abadi, I think we’d like to talk to your son,” he said.

  “Many people would!” she replied, and this time one could not miss the pride in her voice.

  Chapter 105