by Rachel Lynch
Grant distracted her.
‘Look, who’s this?’ he asked.
She followed his direction and they watched as a smart vehicle pulled up along the quayside.
‘Ship-hands and foremen don’t generally drive Mercedes SUVs,’ He added.
Helen agreed. ‘And certainly not clean ones, anyway.’ They watched a tall, well-dressed man, who appeared to be greeting the shipment, step out of a spotless silver Mercedes. Neither Grant nor Helen recognised him. He shook hands with an official in a high-visibility vest. A docket of some kind was exchanged and the official in the hard hat nodded and pointed to a hangar. Helen and Grant decided to head to where he’d pointed. They slipped down the staircase and walked in the shadows across the loading area. The hangar was brightly lit but there were plenty of places to hide.
‘Wait,’ she said. They’d walked past an open door, and inside, Helen had spotted a couple of spare hard hats and high-vis jackets. They stopped and went inside, slipping them on. They made themselves appear busy by talking about some stacked cartons to the back of the space. There, they noticed an elevated walkway above and headed up some metal stairs. From the higher position, they could see the cartons arriving from the ship at the entrance, and the man who’d arrived in the Mercedes was surveying the load. He spoke to several dockhands, and it appeared that he was arranging for where they should be sent. A medium-sized lorry arrived at the hangar door and Mercedes man pointed to it. The dockhands seemed to show their frustration at what looked like extra work. There was a short altercation, but they acquiesced and began unloading some of the cartons. Several boxes were unpacked and loaded onto the lorry. Helen took the number plate.
‘Let’s go – we can follow it if we move now,’ she said. Grant agreed, after taking a few more photos. They slipped through a side door unnoticed and doubled back around the quay to the carpark where Grant’s Fiat was parked. Helen had arrived by cab. From the car, they could see that any traffic leaving the quayside had to exit via the roundabout, near the carpark. Grant pulled away and waited in a lay-by. In his rear-view mirror, he could see various lorries, trucks and cars exiting the dock for the night. Workers were going home, officials were knocking off shift and cafe employees were closing up.
‘There,’ Helen said, spotting the lorry. Grant nodded. He kept his lights off for now and waited until it had passed. Behind it, the sparkling Mercedes drove close by. Grant pulled out and flicked on his lights. There was a queue to get out, but it didn’t take long and the lorry took a right south along Quai de la Joliette. Traffic grew busier as they left the port area and headed away from the Old Port.
‘Where are they going?’ Grant asked.
Helen looked at the street names. ‘Rue de la République, Boulevard de Dunkerque…’ They stopped at traffic lights and lost sight of the lorry only once as it made better headway through the city.
‘There!’ Helen pointed.
‘They’re leaving the city,’ she said. ‘There’s a sign up ahead. So, we’re heading for the turning for Aix-en-Provence and Lyon.’
They made some distance up on the autoroute and Grant skilfully changed lanes and changed speed to fit in with the surrounding drivers. As far as they were aware, they hadn’t been spotted. The driver of the lorry and the Mercedes weren’t showing any signs of nervousness or making any rash decisions.
‘The Merc is turning off,’ Helen said.
‘Let’s stay with the lorry – we need to know where it’s going and what’s inside,’ Grant suggested.
Helen agreed. After another twenty minutes, they came to another sign, and the lorry signalled to turn off for the A7 to Lyon.
Grant settled in, anticipating the three-hour drive ahead. They travelled in silence and Helen fidgeted in her seat. It was already eleven o’clock at night. She checked her emails and Angelo had updated her on Nabil Tradings. He’d also sent her the maritime manifest and the entry summary declaration for the ship that just docked in Marseilles. She read both documents and unsurprisingly, the cargo was logged as citrus fruit, canned goods, textiles, chemicals, seafood, pottery, fertiliser and argan oil as expected. Every item was registered as the product of AlGaz. Of course, the ship belonged to the oil giant, so it made complete sense. The question was, which of his imports had Khalil sacrificed to make room for Fawaz’s contraband?
‘Your boss must know which of the containers were handed over to Fawaz,’ she said.
‘You’re awake then?’ he replied.
She bent her head over towards his seat.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said. Lights flashed past them and the air had cooled since leaving Marseilles, and inside the car, the air-con wasn’t top notch anyway, so they opened the windows. Her hair blew slightly.
‘You always said that to me when you were trying to avoid something,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘Tell me you missed me and that you thought about me every night when you were alone.’
‘Actually, now you mention it.’ She smiled. But her humour was short-lived. ‘We were both in a bad place. I couldn’t move on. Not for a long time. Seeing him so perfect and then knowing that his skull hadn’t formed properly.’ She looked ahead. ‘I don’t blame you, Grant,’ she added.
She knew that this was their Achilles’ heel. He hurt too. That was what she knew he wanted to say, but couldn’t, because he didn’t think he had the right. It had been her body that carried Luke for five months and her labour that brought him into the world. Tiny, but perfect. Army men weren’t very good at showing their emotions, but she knew Grant felt pain. She read his face like a favourite old book, well-thumbed and given pride of place on the bookcase. Being in the same space as him after so long, she felt at ease; as if she was home. Not that she’d ever had a home in the army, because home to her was inside, and this is how it felt. She swallowed hard. What made them so fractured that they couldn’t weather the storm together? Couples do it all the time, survive the death of a child, but they’d failed.
‘Fawaz didn’t tell Khalil which container was used, it was simply provided and loaded with all the others.’ Grant changed the subject, but Helen knew that he only did it because he, like her, couldn’t allow himself to lose focus right now. But the feelings she was experiencing nagged at her. She always thought that he was a part of her past and she’d moved on. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
‘But surely he knew which container because it had to come from somewhere at his instruction,’ she said. ‘And it would have a manifest. I’ve got one here, and it’s all the usual imports from North Africa that you’d expect. If I knew which container it was, I could work out where the goods were headed and prove that they never arrived.’
‘Isn’t it more important to follow the actual goods rather than the paperwork?’ he asked, nodding towards the truck in front.
‘Yes, right now it is.’ She looked ahead at the lorry. It was nearing one o’clock in the morning, but she knew that there would be a night shift at Interpol HQ who could trace the registration plate. She made the call and asked for it to be run through their databases as well as the plate for the Merc. ‘I take it Khalil knows who he’s dealing with? Is he clean?’
‘Who, Khalil?’
‘Yes.’
‘As far as I can tell. I looked into the company before I started to work for them, Levi rooted around for me too, and I found out that Fawaz and Khalil used to trade together until Fawaz followed the dope and Khalil wanted nothing to do with it,’ Grant explained. ‘Levi confirmed it.’
‘Why can’t Interpol pin anything on him?’ she asked.
‘These guys go to extraordinary lengths to protect their empires. No doubt there’ll be a money trail that no one has ever found. I reckon it’s always a simple case of following the money.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do, and I’ve found a company registered to an address in Mayfair, London, called Rafik Mining and Minerals.’
‘His son.’
‘Yes.’ Helen sighed. ‘It’s
so obvious, it’s laughable. But very well hidden.’
‘How are you going to handle Sir Conrad?’ he asked.
‘I don’t have to. I’ve been mulling it over in my head. I’m seconded to Interpol right now. Sir Conrad might have personally asked me to keep him briefed, and I can prove that I tried to call him several times, only to be blocked by Palmer. But, at the moment my line manager is Sylvia Drogan. Actually, I don’t have to involve you at all. When the time’s right, I’ll involve the head of Counter Terrorism, Peter Knowles. I actually don’t know why I’ve been so concerned about what Sir Conrad thinks of me.’
‘It’s because Palmer is in his ear, bad-mouthing you. It’s got under your skin,’ he said. He smiled.
She turned away and read the rest of Angelo’s email, trying to absorb the figures and company names, but she didn’t need to because Angelo had drawn her a diagram, predicting her bemusement.
‘Holy shit,’ she said.
‘What? Are you all right?’ Grant panicked.
‘No, no, I’m fine. This intern has been working all day on that money trail. He’s found out that a single transaction of ten million dollars was wired via Rafik Mining and Minerals to a phosphate mineral company in Morocco.’
‘So? He’s in mining, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but the goods came from Mali.’
‘Ten million dollars’ worth of phosphate minerals from Mali?’ he asked.
‘Exactly – it stinks,’ she said.
‘You know what’s worth ten million dollars to someone like Fawaz that the Malian government might have lying around from their civil war, funded by the French?’ he asked.
‘C4,’ she said.
Chapter 45
Helen stood in Sylvia’s office, bolstered with coffee, reflecting on the previous evening. She and Grant had travelled through the night, arriving back in Lyon around two a.m. They’d gone back to her apartment and chewed over their theory about C4, the mouldable plastic explosive that had more complete destructive power than TNT. She had no choice but to move on it.
‘I promised you twelve hours at seven p.m.,’ she’d told him when they woke. They’d fallen fitfully asleep on adjacent sofas and when the dawn light peeked through her curtains, she’d rubbed her eyes in disbelief at the man who slept opposite her.
At seven a.m., she’d called Peter and Sylvia. It was Saturday morning, but they both agreed to meet her in Peter’s office.
She hadn’t mentioned Grant by name – yet, and she still hoped she wouldn’t have to.
Everything she’d learned about Fawaz’s operation, the shipment and Rafik was laid out before them. Sylvia stood against the vast window, tapping a pen on her teeth. Peter strode up and down the office. Helen had made her case for delicacy regarding a hard pursuit of Fawaz and the potentially fatal outcome for Hakim.
‘I’ll have to involve the NSCT in Washington,’ Peter said finally.
The National Strategy for Counter Terrorism dealt with all threats to US citizens. Helen had to concede that what she’d uncovered transcended any incidental or localised threat levels and now involved every member of the summit. The timing was too pertinent to ignore. But the biggest and most concerning unknown was Fawaz’s whereabouts.
‘It’s unlikely this will remain our investigation,’ Peter said. ‘Everything needs to be shared from now on. I’m awaiting direction from the FBI and CIA, as well as MI6.’
Helen felt flat. Peter spotted her deflation.
‘It doesn’t mean we won’t be involved, Helen. You’re the one who did all the work on this. The Americans want to meet us in Paris ASAP. I hope you don’t mind me observing that I think you’re wasted in the army. Maybe you should transfer to us permanently?’ Peter said. She looked at him.
‘What, you mean join the civilian police and transfer?’ she asked.
‘Not necessarily. We employ all kinds of experts. We’d have to get it signed off by the MOD, but we can be very persuasive.’
‘You’d do that?’ she asked.
‘I would. I believe in you. What you’ve uncovered is the most important intel we’ve had this year. But we’ve got lots to do.’ He went to his laptop and tapped some keys; a plan was projected onto his white wall behind them. Helen let what he’d just said sink in as he carried on.
‘Surveillance is on the warehouse where the lorry arrived. All European ports, air and sea, are on high alert. Internet notices have been put on social media. By the way, we had intel from Five Eyes via the US Airforce this morning that Fawaz has been confirmed as absent from his property for four days. It came from a Global Hawk surveying the Sahara. I admire your balls for insisting that we don’t go busting in and lose the chance to find Hakim Dalmani, which is still our mission priority as part of Interpol yellow notice. What it does mean, though, as I’m sure you’re acutely aware, is that the price on Hakim’s head is even bigger now and will grow out of control if Fawaz gets a whiff we’re on to him. I should imagine that Washington will have it on their radar for the president’s visit – if they get in before us, Hakim, I’m afraid, might be put down as collateral damage.’
‘If only we could find him,’ Helen said.
‘That’s exactly what we’re going to do,’ he said.
‘Let’s get cracking then,’ Sylvia said in her Irish lilt. ‘We’re calling it Operation Tradewind. Fraud is drawing up a case against Nabil Tradings, and their accounts have been frozen. We’ve made sure that the company has been informed and hope the information filters through to Fawaz, wherever he may be. Fingers crossed, it will act as a smokescreen, and he’ll think it’s yet another poke around in his business affairs. In the meantime, we need to find Hakim Dalmani. We’ve been given extra time to hold the two suspects arrested on Thursday, and they’ve been transferred here to our cells.’
‘Well done, Sylvia,’ Peter said.
‘Helen, you have interrogation experience, I believe?’ Sylvia said.
Helen nodded. She’d taken the Special Investigations Branch qualifications for the job in Afghanistan and had used them countless times. There was a fine line between what was legal under the Geneva Convention, but changes to counter terrorism laws in recent years meant that certain exceptions applied, and here in France, they were more fluid than in the UK.
‘We’ll go in together and squeeze them both,’ Sylvia said.
‘What about the goods at the warehouse?’ Helen asked. She and Grant had followed the lorry all the way from Marseilles to Lyon, and she was desperate to know what was inside.
‘We can’t wait any longer to go ahead and raid it. It needs to be done today. Surveillance has reported little activity there. It doesn’t appear to have been moved or unloaded,’ said Sylvia.
‘And the Mercedes?’ Helen asked.
‘Nothing yet. Helen, you said armed drones? What damage can they do?’ Sylvia asked.
‘I’ve got to say, they’ve developed at lightning speed over the last couple of years and I’m not up to date,’ Peter said.
But Helen was, thanks to an interesting conversation with Grant, in the car from Marseilles. ‘As far as I’m aware, even a lightweight drone of five kilos can carry a payload of double that. My guess is explosives, but if the target is Versailles, then I can’t think how they’d get them anywhere close. There’s no way drones could be flown undetected from outside the grounds. Security round the estate is tighter than ever after last year’s train bomb in Madrid. The airspace is closed for three miles and they have armed snipers on the roofs. The only way a drone can be effectively stopped is by deploying nets. Gunfire simply won’t work – the target is too small and mobile. The best snipers in the world would be hard pushed to successfully bring one down. We’ve got to assume that the objective is to take out a major head of state. I have to throw in my opinion here. Peter, it could be the UK prime minister, as well as his ambassador in Paris.’
‘Sir Conrad?’
She nodded. ‘The motive being the death of Fawaz’s son, Rafik, while b
eing interrogated in Morocco. The current prime minister signed the order as the then Home Secretary. Sir Conrad signed the extradition paper, essentially condemning the young man to death.’
‘You’ve spoken to him about this?’ Peter asked.
Helen shook her head. ‘I’ve got a technical issue, Peter. My line manager in Paris is being obstructive. He doesn’t like me, plainly put. I haven’t been able to access Sir Conrad’s office.’
‘Why doesn’t he like you, the arse?’ Peter asked. Sylvia snorted.
‘I seem to remember spurning his affections,’ Helen replied. She could see Sylvia out of the corner of her eye.
Peter tutted. ‘Military men,’ he said. His phone rang. It was a brief, tense conversation and he hung up with a sigh.
‘That was Special Agent Roy White, in charge of security around Versailles for the summit.’
‘I met him,’ Helen said. ‘The ambassador sent me to liaise with him and report back to him confidentially about the measures in place. I did so, they’re excellent.’
‘But without the knowledge of a possible drone strike. This changes everything for them,’ Peter said. ‘He’s demanding a report to be discussed this afternoon so he can brief the FBI chief, who reports to the president.’
‘It’s time to bring in Khalil Dalmani and his head of security,’ Peter said. This is what Helen had been expecting, and she’d left Grant in her flat, cooking eggs, awaiting such a call.