Other than Stichkin and a young woman dressed as a nurse these two compartments were empty. A pilot in the left-hand seat of the cockpit had turned and was watching Bruno nervously.
“We were not taking off, just obeying the control tower’s orders to move away from the terminal and park beyond the flying school,” the pilot said. French was clearly his mother tongue.
“Can I enter the baggage compartment from inside this aircraft?” Bruno asked,
“No, the rear is a cold space for medical supplies with freezers for carrying organs for transplant. We’ve been waiting for a delivery from Sarlat hospital that I’m taking back to Nice, where there’s a patient waiting.”
“Can you open the baggage hatch from the cockpit for me?” Bruno said. “I need to search it.”
The pilot fiddled with a catch, and Bruno went to the door to see Yveline standing there, her weapon at the ready. The army corporal and two troopers seemed to have placed themselves under her orders. One was standing at the tail, the other two at the nose.
“Both holds should be open now, nose and rear,” said the pilot.
After a few moments Yveline reported that the rear hold contained only suitcases and the front hold contained small cardboard boxes labeled for swabs, syringes and other medical supplies.
There came a roar from the runway, and Bruno looked out to watch as the Falcon landed with a burst of smoke from the tires followed by a screech as the engines were switched to reverse thrust. Bruno turned to see Stichkin sitting in one of the lounge chairs, his hands clasped over an ample stomach. He was looking very pleased with himself as he stared at Bruno with a half smile on his face. The woman who was dressed as a nurse sat opposite him, her back to Bruno.
“Kozak should be at Orly by now and then who knows where he’s gone?” he said. “But I know you. We were not introduced, but I’ve seen you before at a château near here. It belonged to a friend of mine and the event was his ninetieth birthday party—Marco Desaix, a great pilot and a war hero on the Russian front. You were pushing a famous old woman in a wheelchair, the Red Countess.”
Bruno nodded. Stichkin had also been a pilot and there had been Russians at that party. It made sense that he would have known Desaix. “Marco was a great hero of France, a legendary man. I went to his funeral,” he said.
“I gather you also know my daughter,” Stichkin went on. “She speaks well of you.”
Bruno’s nerves were still jangling as the adrenaline rush died down and he felt out of his depth at the sudden transition from gunfire to the kind of polite conversation he might expect in a drawing room.
“You must be proud of her,” Bruno replied. “Galina is a very gifted musician as well as the best tennis player I know. But right now my priority is a multiple murder that was made to look like a car crash. Three dead, each of them connected to you.”
“How very sad,” said Stichkin.
“The evidence suggests that Kozak was responsible,” Bruno went on.
“Had I known, I would have tried to delay his departure. He asked for emergency leave to visit his sick mother in Russia. But I shall stay. I want to see my daughter, this château she’s buying and this boy she wants to marry. I gather you know him, too.”
“He’s a fine young man. But I thought you were about to fly some organs to Nice.”
“They don’t need me for that. Another copilot is coming to replace me, should be here by now. I have a meeting arranged here with some senior French officials. I imagine they will be on that jet that just landed.”
Stichkin shifted in his seat as if uncomfortable, put a hand behind his back and pulled out a mobile phone. He looked at the nurse. “Is this yours?” She shook her head.
“It’s not mine. It’s an Android. I use iPhones. Kozak must have forgotten it.” Stichkin offered the phone to Bruno. “Maybe it will help your inquiries.”
Bruno took out a handkerchief, accepted the phone, wrapped it and put it in his chest pocket. He had the unsettling feeling that he was taking part in a play in which Stichkin alone knew the script.
“Bruno,” called Yveline urgently from the aircraft steps. “You’d better come.”
The other aircraft had halted some thirty meters away. It carried the colors of the French Republic, and descending the steps were the familiar figures of General Lannes and Isabelle, both in civilian clothes. His heart sinking, Bruno went down the steps, saluted and waited to be called to an extremely difficult encounter.
“Over here, Bruno. And you, Commandante Yveline,” Lannes called. The moment they reached him, Lannes gave Bruno a glacial stare. “Is Stichkin inside?”
“Yes, sir. But Kozak has gone. He’s the murder suspect in the car crash J-J will have briefed you about.”
“That’s your problem, not mine. Is there any evidence that gives you reason to detain Stichkin?”
“His aircraft brought Kozak to Bergerac yesterday. He came back here this morning and left his phone on the plane, probably assuming we would use it to find him. The three dead seem to have been people who were putting Stichkin’s insurance company at risk, which is to say that Stichkin had a motive to silence them. There is also a question of his yacht being used for human trafficking in Syrian refugees.”
“How strong a case do you have against him?”
“Enough to put him under garde à vue, and then it would be up to a magistrate.”
“I agree with Bruno, sir,” said Yveline. “There’s enough for a conspiracy charge.”
“Good, so we can put some serious personal pressure on him. What about that nosewheel. I presume you did that, Bruno?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bruno. “The aircraft had been held by air traffic control even before J-J informed them we were in pursuit of a suspected murderer. I shot out the front wheel to prevent what seemed to be an attempt to take off. This is entirely my responsibility, sir. Commandante Yveline simply agreed to support my request to come here in hot pursuit.”
“I see.” Lannes turned to Isabelle. “Do you have any questions for Bruno, Commissaire?”
“Not immediately, sir, but we’ll need to debrief him fully later. We’ll also need to issue a European arrest warrant for Kozak. If Bruno has any photos of him, that could be helpful. We can run them through the archive of the fighting in Ukraine using the new facial recognition software. After they lost so many people when the airliner was shot down, the Dutch are eager to bring war crimes charges before their court in The Hague.”
“Understood. Very well, Bruno, I’d like an unmarked police car as soon as possible ready to take me and Stichkin and the commissaire to somewhere private, civilized and nearby. We’ll also want a discreet exit from the airport. I imagine by now the press will be on their way. Could you take care of that while we go and have an initial chat with him?”
“Yes, sir. His pilot says they are waiting for a delivery of human organs for transplant to be flown to Nice. I doubt whether there’ll be a replacement nosewheel available here. You might need another medical plane.”
Lannes nodded and, followed by Isabelle, he climbed the steps into Stichkin’s aircraft. A few moments later, the pilot and the nurse came down the steps and said they had been asked to wait in the terminal.
Bruno turned to Yveline and said, “Sorry to have dragged you into this. It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t be silly, I’m responsible for my own actions and you did the right thing, whatever the Realpolitik games being played inside that aircraft. But what’s the antiterrorist coordinator doing with General Lannes?”
“I imagine it’s several different things, starting with that Malaysian airplane that she mentioned, shot down by a Russian missile over Ukraine in 2014,” Bruno said. “The Dutch government is holding Russia legally responsible for the three hundred dead. They say it’s state terrorism, and a lot of European governments agree. More rece
ntly there was the use of nerve agents in an English country town against a Russian defector. So what we’re involved in here is French security officials setting up a back-channel negotiation with the Kremlin, or maybe with just one of the factions in the Kremlin.”
“Merde,” Yveline said. “Meanwhile we have our orders. I’ll arrange for the car.”
“Any idea where we can take them?” Bruno asked. “I was thinking of one of the nearby vineyards, maybe Château de Tiregand. I know the count who owns the place. There’s a closed courtyard where we can put the cars.”
“Sounds good. I’ll arrange a car from Bergerac.”
Bruno contacted the count, explained the need for a discreet meeting place for an impromptu high-level security meeting and was told they could use the château dining room. Yveline reported that an unmarked car was on its way. She called the airport control room and asked about alternative entrances. At that moment a four-by-four vehicle that Bruno knew only too well pulled up outside the airport fence. Philippe Delaron climbed out, camera in hand. Another familiar car slowed as it passed Philippe, and J-J waved from the passenger seat before his car rolled on to the airport entrance.
“So much for discretion,” said Bruno, steering Yveline out of Delaron’s line of sight. “We’ll have to screen the aircraft steps when they come out. One of the fire engines could do it. Try the airport manager.”
Bruno’s phone vibrated. The screen told him it was Juliette. As he took the call, a fire engine began moving forward to block any sight of the two executive jets from the airfield perimeter.
“One heavy-duty hydraulic jack with broad blade, suitable for lifting containers with a single operator, was rented from Bergerac Leasing, just down the road from the airport,” she said. “Six hundred euros paid in cash, lease secured on a Bank of Malta credit card issued to Euro-Trans-Med Logistics in the name of Sandro Cosacchi, whose identity was verified by a Maltese passport in that name. The jack was booked by phone on Saturday, picked up yesterday by special arrangement when the payment was made and the jack returned to the yard before they opened this morning.”
“Sandro Cosacchi,” Bruno murmured. “Alexander Kozak. Sorry, Juliette, I’m thinking aloud. Thank you. I owe you one.”
He put the phone away as J-J approached to shake his hand and greet Yveline.
“Kozak flew out of Paris-Orly first thing this morning, having returned the hydraulic jack he rented to push over the log pile,” Bruno said. “He paid in cash but had to show a credit card issued by a company owned by the Russian who’s inside that aircraft with General Lannes and Isabelle.”
“And from Orly he could catch a plane anywhere,” said J-J, shaking his head in frustration.
“He’s got passports in his own name and an Italianized version of it, and probably others,” said Bruno. “I’ll give all this to Isabelle. She may be able to use it to put pressure on the Russian.” He paused. “Any word on the girl who survived the car crash?”
“Not yet, she was still being operated on, but they don’t sound hopeful.”
“Have you heard anything from Prunier?” Bruno asked, referring to J-J’s boss, the police commissioner for the département.
“Not since he was on the phone with Lannes. Just a text message to say I should accompany Lannes and arrange security as required, so I suppose I should take you along, Bruno. At least you’re armed. How long do you expect them to stay inside that plane?”
“Until the unmarked car arrives from the Bergerac gendarmes to take them to Château de Tiregand for more discreet talks,” Yveline said. “They’ll use a special exit at the far end of the runway. And since they’re using a gendarme car, I’ll go along.”
“Bring your car onto the tarmac and then we can follow them out,” Bruno said to J-J. “The Russian is planning on staying here for a bit. You’ll need to check whether Lannes wants to lay on continued security for him.”
J-J nodded just as his phone began to ring. He listened, grunted and grunted again before muttering, “Understood.”
“Putain,” he said as he closed the phone and stared hard at Bruno. “Your reporter friend, Delaron. He’s on the local radio news saying the police suspect that car crash was no accident. He’s spoken to the owner of the log pile who said you and he agreed that somebody pushed those logs into the road deliberately.”
“It’s true, and don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Bruno replied. “But I haven’t spoken to Philippe, and if I had I’d have said ‘No comment’ and ‘Our inquiries continue,’ just as you would.”
“As if I don’t have enough on my plate, Delaron is trying to get photos of the people on those planes,” said J-J, and raced off to bring his own car onto the tarmac. Isabelle called Bruno to ask if the cars and new location were ready, just as the unmarked gendarme car appeared, J-J’s Citroën behind it, and the two cars drew up close to the aircraft steps. Lannes and Stichkin came down the steps and squeezed into the back, Yveline taking the front passenger seat. Isabelle and Bruno climbed into the next car, behind J-J and Josette, his usual aide. They drove out to the far end of the airfield where one of the mechanics stood waiting for them beside an open gate.
As they took the back road toward the Route Nationale, Bruno told Isabelle about Kozak’s rental of the hydraulic jack with a credit card from one of Stichkin’s companies. “That puts Stichkin in the frame for a charge of conspiracy to murder.”
“Interesting, but of course Stichkin can deny knowledge of this, put it down to a private feud on the part of Kozak,” she said as they crossed the River Dordogne and caught sight of Château de Tiregand, perched overlooking the valley on the long Pécharmant ridge.
“You mean he’s just going to walk away from all this?” Bruno asked.
“This is bigger than your murder by car crash, Bruno, or of your old man Driant. The Dutch are pressing hard for us to widen the sanctions that currently target Putin’s associates to include Russians who bought themselves European citizenship, mainly in Cyprus and Malta. If France throws her weight behind the Dutch, Stichkin stands to lose everything. That’s why he’s talking to us now. He needs our protection.”
“And what will he have to give us to get that?”
“Putin’s money and where it’s hidden. We’re pretty sure that Stichkin is the bagman who knows where the billions are buried. That’s what this is all about.”
“So Stichkin and his stooges get away with murder?” Bruno demanded as the turnoff to the château came into view.
Isabelle shrugged. “Sarrail is your top stooge and he’s dead.”
“And so is that girl that was in intensive care, Lara Saatchi,” chimed in J-J, turning around from the front seat. “I just got a text. They couldn’t save her.”
Once inside the château grounds, the gendarme driver ahead pulled in to let J-J take the lead, and Bruno steered him past the main château entrance to a side gate that led to an enclosed courtyard. The Count de Saint-Exupéry was waiting to greet them.
“Bonjour, François-Xavier,” said Bruno, climbing out to shake hands and thank the courteous aristocrat who made one of the finest wines of the region. “This is very kind of you, and I’m sorry I can’t explain more.”
“No need,” said the count, shaking hands with the others. He led the way indoors and then through a long corridor into a stately dining room, its walls painted red, furnished with Chinese antiquities brought back by some ancestor who had been an ambassador in imperial Peking. There were two open bottles of wine, fruit juice, coffee and mineral water on the table along with cups and glasses.
“If you need anything else…,” the count said.
“Thank you, no,” said Lannes, steering Isabelle and Stichkin to chairs on opposite sides of the table. “We’d better get to work.”
The count withdrew, Yveline stayed outside the door, and Bruno and J-J went out to the courtyard where the gen
darme driver waited by the cars, checking his handgun.
“What do you think they’re discussing?” Bruno asked as he and J-J went to the courtyard entrance to keep watch.
“What new sanctions Europe is going to put on the Russians,” said J-J. “There was something about it in the papers, more Russian businessmen banned from travel, and now there’s talk of limiting the access of Russian banks to the international clearing system. But with half of Europe dependent on Russian gas, that probably won’t get very far, whatever Putin’s thugs do. But I take seriously what Isabelle said about Stichkin being Putin’s private banker.”
“I imagine Isabelle will at least bring up the Kozak business,” Bruno said. “She suggested putting out a Euro-wide arrest warrant for him on murder charges.”
“I’m sure she will,” said J-J. “She’s still a cop at heart. And don’t forget I trained her.”
Then the press office called J-J again to say that local radio news was reporting a top-secret security conference between French and Russian security officials at Bergerac airport.
“Your damn Philippe Delaron again,” said J-J. “Can’t you bring him under control?”
“Not at all, he’s far too useful doing what he does,” Bruno replied. “Don’t you believe in the freedom of the press?”
Chapter 30
The conference at Château de Tiregand was into its third hour, and Bruno had ignored three calls from Philippe Delaron when his phone vibrated again. The screen said it was Rod Macrae.
“We have a situation here, Bruno,” Rod began, his voice high pitched and nervous. “Bertie’s got Galina and he’s got a gun.”
“What? Who?” Bruno was confused, but the intensity of Rod’s voice got his adrenaline pumping.
The Shooting at Chateau Rock Page 26