The Rift

by Rachel Lynch

  Hakim realised that he missed the old man. He’d been a point of human contact that kept him hopeful. Now, it hit him how much he’d come to rely on that spurious and flimsy connection. He felt bereft, and heaviness sat under his rib cage. It took him by surprise and he felt his spirit waning. It was all part of the dehumanisation and reliance process used by captors – well, the clever ones anyway. It unnerved him that he’d disintegrated so far so quickly. His brain whirred as he tried to grasp reality and concentrate on what meant something important: his father’s face, his brothers’ laughter, and his mother’s embrace. Amélie’s kiss. It didn’t work. They appeared detached and cold in his mind, and he began to panic. He couldn’t breathe. He paced up and down the room, but as he did so, the images of his family blurred even further. Their faces disappeared, smudged and empty. Amélie’s face, bright with laughter, replaced the disappearing images and he snapped.

  He banged on the door and shouted. ‘Let me out! I have to get out!’

  Suddenly, the door flew open and the two men barged in, restraining him and forcing him onto the bed. They cursed at him in Arabic and French. One punched him in the gut, but still Hakim struggled. He felt like an animal might, caught in a cage, unable to free itself. All logic deserted him. He managed to land a punch on one of the men’s faces, but the reprisal was harsh. The man brought the butt of his automatic weapon down onto Hakim’s skull with full force, and it made his temples sing. Vibrations tore through his head and his eyesight faded.

  He slumped onto the bed, and he felt more punches to his ribs and gut. He curled into a ball and retched. Finally, the men left, still cursing about the noise he’d made. Within seconds, they were back. He was gagged tightly and slapped in the face a few more times.

  Exhausted, with his paranoia spent, Hakim lay down and closed his eyes, one of which was swelling, and calmed his breathing.

  Chapter 20

  ‘Tracing two men of North African descent in Lyon is like finding a white Catholic in Dublin,’ Sylvia said.

  Helen nodded. They sat in Sylvia’s office discussing the case. It was her second day in Lyon on the job, having arrived Monday night, and she felt settled in the office space. Sylvia was in and out, with other work taking her away from the office sporadically. For the most part, Helen was left alone, but she appreciated the interjections from a fresh pair of eyes. Helen didn’t know if the older woman was checking on her or being supportive and decided that it was a combination of the two. After all, Sylvia had admitted herself that she’d been through Helen’s work profile. It was slightly unnerving, as if she now had something to live up to.

  ‘But we do have the artist’s impressions from the old woman,’ Helen said. The drawings were detailed and had been distributed to the press and posted on the Interpol website, as well as given to all police departments in the 194 member states. It was standard for a yellow notice, but Helen suspected there was nothing conventional about this case.

  ‘We’ve got the full forensic report from Madame Bisset’s flat,’ Helen said.

  Sylvia stood in front of the vast window, overlooking the Rhône. Sylvia turned to her.

  ‘I think you’ll want to see this,’ Helen said after scanning the file. She knew what she was looking for; years of chewing over investigative materials had honed her skills to notice anything that stood out. This nugget did just that. ‘We already have Jean-Luc’s DNA there from a few weeks ago, but they found chewing gum in a waste paper, on top of a newspaper dated last week, yielding DNA matching Jean-Luc’s. He’s alive.’

  ‘And he’s visited his mother. When is she to be interviewed again? She lied to the gendarmerie,’ Sylvia said.

  Helen made a phone call to the control room, where squad cars were dispatched across the city, and it wouldn’t be long until Madame Bisset was in custody answering some uncomfortable questions.

  ‘I don’t think it’s expedient to share this with Khalil Dalmani just yet,’ Helen said.

  ‘I agree,’ Sylvia replied.

  ‘He needs to be kept at arm’s length until we’ve got some answers about why his son is so valuable. He says he hasn’t received a ransom demand, so the motive isn’t money. There’s something else, and my guess is that he knows what it is. He wouldn’t tell me the name of the security expert who has replaced Jean-Luc, but I have my suspicions.’

  Sylvia looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

  ‘He employed Grant Tennyson, a Brit, last year, as his security head for AlGaz.’

  ‘I thought Jean-Luc was his head of security?’ Sylvia said.

  ‘Only for the inner family circle. Tennyson is ex-military. I know him.’

  ‘So Dalmani is non-compliant to your investigation. Fuck him, Helen, crack on with what you’ve got. Are you still in touch?’ Sylvia asked.

  Helen loved Sylvia’s down-to-earth Irish expletive-laden frankness. It made things much easier if one could talk openly, and it saved time. She’d worked with investigators in the past who tiptoed around red tape and vagueness and Sylvia’s approach was refreshing.

  ‘No. He’s an old contemporary of mine, I don’t keep in touch with many army people – the RMP isn’t very popular among infantry regiments,’ she added.

  Sylvia smirked. ‘I wonder why. You guys are always on their cases, right?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Have you got anything on the Range Rover burned out at Calais yet?’ Sylvia asked.

  Helen bristled subtly. The head of International Missing Persons was a busy woman, and she had other cases to review today, but she was lingering, and Helen couldn’t help wondering if she’d had her nose put out of joint because, again, the RMP were encroaching on somebody else’s turf: this time, civilian. Helen decided that Sylvia was simply keen to help. Her gut told her that Sylvia was on her side, and that she was being trusted to use her judgement with Interpol’s absolute backing. Solid police work spoke for itself, and Helen saw in Sylvia a communal desire to catch the perpetrators of a crime. There was no agenda. And they had no history.

  ‘Yes,’ Helen replied. She brought the fire report up on her laptop and scanned the most important sections, which she’d previously highlighted.

  ‘The plates were fake – any dodgy garage in France would make them up for twenty euros. The original plates from which they were cloned belong to a farmer in Normandy – they’re still on his almost identical Range Rover. Any serial number or tool markings on the burned-out car were lost in the fire. There was evidence of ammunition having been in the boot and glove compartment at some point, indicating the owners mean business, and that they’re familiar with illegal arms acquisition – a worrying development. The most promising detail is that the accelerant cans were found nearby. It was bog-standard petrol, but the idiots left their receipt in a plastic bag, buried in a very crap and hasty shallow grave.’

  ‘It’s always easier to catch dumbasses,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘We’ve traced it to a garage just outside Lille, and the CCTV footage is being searched as we speak.’

  ‘Well done – that’s great work,’ Sylvia said, still standing. She turned around from her vantage point at the window. ‘I had a memo come in to me from the head of Counter Terrorism.’

  ‘Peter Knowles?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Yes. He’s been informed by the UK Home Office that activity around the property of Fawaz bin Nabil has stabilised and he’s no longer travelling to Europe. In fact, he’s up to very little. I thought you’d be interested to know.’

  The penny dropped. Sylvia had her back. Working for multi-layered international organisations meant that information could get lost in translation. What was important to Counter Terrorism and Peter Knowles might not necessarily strike anyone as important to a new secondment delving into a very different angle on the floor above. A standardised computer network would help but with that came further headaches to do with clearance levels. So the fact that Sylvia was passing on this information meant she was considered part of t
he team.

  ‘Thank you. I am. Nabil Tradings is a rabbit warren of trails and dead ends – I’ve barely begun on them yet. It’s curious that the Americans have been trying to catch him out for years, but yet they can’t come up with an explanation for his recent behaviour. What does “inactive” mean? How are they so sure he’s settled at home in front of a cosy fire?’

  ‘He’s been under their surveillance for years. Even the Americans make mistakes,’ Sylvia said.

  They held each other’s gaze for a second.

  ‘Here are my login details, familiarise yourself with the software – it’s easy.’ Sylvia scribbled down her password on a piece of paper and went to her desk to show Helen how to access her files.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Helen asked, following her and peering at the screen.

  ‘In my experience, missing kids often fall through the net because people like us don’t talk. Here we have an opportunity to find someone’s child, but we improve our chances if we work together. Nail Nabil Tradings and you get closer to Fawaz himself.’

  ‘It’s not my area of speciality,’ Helen said.

  ‘So why do they call you the Wrench then?’ Sylvia asked.

  Helen was careful with her answer.

  ‘What I mean is, I’m better at chasing people rather than money. What we need is a nerd who loves digging around in the dark looking for invisible numbers,’ Helen said.

  ‘I’ve got just the person. Go and see Hilda in Fraud on the fourth floor. Give her everything, she’ll find a nerd for you. The Americans have never asked for our help with pinning criminal activity on Fawaz so far.’

  ‘They rarely would,’ Helen said.

  ‘So, why now?’ Sylvia said.

  ‘They have? Specifically?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Via the British ambassador to Paris.’

  ‘Sir Conrad?’ Helen asked.

  Sylvia nodded.

  Chapter 21

  Grant watched as the man he’d followed left his Paris apartment. The plan had worked. He’d posted a pay-as-you-go mobile through the man’s door in a brown envelope, a universal tactic to contact sources, and called it after a few hours. The man had fallen for it and agreed to go to an address at four p.m. Now, he watched as the man left the stairwell and Grant calculated that he had well over an hour. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves.

  It wasn’t difficult to get in – a simple credit card down the door frame and a bit of physical strength did the trick. Grant shook his head: it shouldn’t be this easy – the man was an amateur. He clicked the door closed quietly behind him and left the lights switched off. Instead, he let his eyes become accustomed and began to get to know the layout of the flat. It was sparsely decorated, with nothing indicative of a personal life. It was like a sniper’s pad, indicating that the occupant was ready to move at short notice. Grant had lived embedded with two professionals in Iraq for six months, so he knew the signs. But he saw no obvious weapons on display. The bathroom was clear of the man’s objects, as was the bedroom. A single camp bed lay in there with one chest of drawers, which Grant searched. He found several mobile phones and connected each one to the device he’d brought with him, telling him of their recent usage, and storing any information from texts. He placed them back where they’d been. Next he searched the living area, which was darker than the rest of the flat because it only had a window facing the stairwell. There was one armchair, a radio, a small TV set and a coffee table.

  On the coffee table, he found an A4 pad and flicked through it. It read like the erratic note taking of a busy mother: lists, dates, phone numbers and addresses. All in Arabic. Grant’s proficiency in the language was patchy but he recognised a few characters. One thing did stand out, however, and that was a crudely drawn map of what looked like a dock. He turned it every which way and read the labels – this time in French, a language he was more comfortable with. It gave directions to a storage facility, with the docks numbered so it was easier to find. The drawing was angular and uniform, making Grant think that it was a modern dockyard. There were two main points that were highlighted: a landing point and a meeting point. The drawing wasn’t to scale but it did say that it would take twenty minutes to get between the two, but was that driving or walking? Scribbled along the port side of one of the arrows was ‘Q d.p. Wilson’ and Grant knew that it was the name of a huge Quay in Marseilles.

  He took photographs with his phone before he closed the pad, leaving it as it was before, and went to check the kitchen cupboards. In the first he found electrical equipment. In the second were circuit boards in various stages of completion. He found antennae in the third, and in the last were radios. The guy was a nerd, but who for? And what was he making?

  Grant left the flat and hurried down the stairwell, walking all the way to the metro at Gare du Nord, where he’d left the trusty battered Renault he’d bought with Khalil’s money. When he arrived in Lyon, he’d buy another cheap French banger. He called Khalil and told him of the map of Marseilles docks, and the stash of electronics.

  ‘Bomb making?’ Khalil asked.

  ‘It seemed a lot more sophisticated than that,’ Grant told him. ‘To make a bomb all you need is a few cables and some explosive, plus a vessel. It’s child’s play. I don’t think the plan is to blow up your ships, if that’s what you’re thinking. They don’t need you to get bomb-making equipment out of Africa – it’s something else.’

  ‘You know a lot about it. Where are you?’ Khalil asked.

  ‘On my way to Lyon to find Madame Bisset,’ he replied. He picked his way through the Paris traffic, itching to get to the southern city as fast as he could.

  They hung up. Grant rubbed his eyes. He’d never struggled with sleep – learning to doze off over an army-issue Bergen backpack stuffed with a hundred pounds of kit in the middle of the Iraqi desert with two hours’ notice to move did that for you. He could sleep anywhere, and he did. But he was weary tonight, although he couldn’t afford to rest. He knew that the authorities would have contacted Madame Bisset already. In fact, one of the first things Khalil did was call the mother of his trusty guard and warn her, giving her a cover story should she need it. That did two things: it made her feel as though her son’s boss was in the dark over the whereabouts of Jean-Luc (which they were), and it also gave her the impression that Khalil was looking out for her (which they weren’t, quite). It had worked, and Marie Bisset had been charmed by a promise of a new life, funded by Khalil, regardless of if Jean-Luc had anything to do with Hakim’s disappearance or not. She was assured that Khalil certainly did not believe that his guard had betrayed his trust, and Mme Bisset seemed to believe it.

  So far, she’d reported back to Khalil via Grant whenever the police asked her for extra information. She’d also communicated her worry that they didn’t believe her. Grant had calmed her and instructed her to go for a walk later this afternoon. It gave him time to get there, and it was an opportunity to assess her surveillance team, then guide her to a safe place, without being detected or traced. As far as he could tell, she wasn’t under house arrest – yet.

  It sounded simple, but it all depended on how savvy the French reconnaissance team watching her was. Should Grant be lucky, they’d be tired, bored and only 50 per cent eyes on the job because it would be late when he got there after a four-hour drive and because they wouldn’t be aware of the value of the source. Or, they could have been briefed already, making them alert, prepared and potentially dangerous. Time would tell.

  The traffic out of Paris was hell but, once out onto the autoroute, he was able to cruise all the way to Lyon. The summer sun was dipping behind the horizon when he arrived. There was a different pace here, he noticed, and an industrial flatness. The city’s lights were trickling on and mingled with the orange beginnings of a sunset.

  The vast sprawling city enveloped him and he fought through traffic to the Part-Dieu district. Smart offices, uniform boulevards and the giant spectre of the Tour du Crédit Lyonnais towered over the s
urrounding streets. Grant parked his Renault and went on foot to the block of flats where Marie Bisset was staying while an Interpol forensic team finished searching her home. It had taken a phone call to a gendarme on Khalil’s payroll, who usually looked out for his son, to extract the information. Madame Bisset was right: Interpol were closing in and that left them little time.

  It didn’t take him long to spot the surveillance team. They sat directly outside the doorway leading to the apartments. There were two of them, and they were eating – as Frenchmen tended to do constantly – and drinking coffee. They seemed to be having an amusing conversation. Occasionally, they swept their gazes up the street and peered up at the building. Grant walked around the back and, to his amazement, he could see no evidence of a team there. He texted Madame Bisset’s number from a new pay-as-you-go phone and got an instant reply. She was jumpy. She’d had two phone calls: one informing her that evidence had come to light that required her to attend a formal interview tonight, and a car was being sent to collect her, then a second apologising for a member of staff being sick and her interview was scheduled for tomorrow morning, first thing. Now, there was a man outside her door.

  Grant ran his hand through his hair. This would be trickier than anticipated. He texted her:

  When I text you again, it means you need to leave. Let me worry about the man outside your door. When you leave, go directly down the back service stairs and out to the carpark. I’ll be there waiting.

  He followed with a further text telling her what he was wearing and said he’d scratch his head as she emerged. He hung up. He headed for the back entrance and slipped inside, taking the stairs easily. When he got to the correct floor, he did one walk past of the apartment and confirmed that there was a single male gendarme outside it. He was armed. At the other end of the corridor was another stairwell and Grant thanked his stars. He took out his phone and texted Madame Bisset, instructing her to turn left out of her apartment. Then he shouted as loudly as he could, as if he was being mortally attacked. He banged on a door, making sounds as if he was being winded, and pleaded for help.