Red Ice

by James Phelan

  “They will be fine,” Zoe said to him as they watched them walk away, Brujon following.

  She led Fox to the building’s entrance, “The Russian Ambassador’s residence,” she explained.

  Like much of the rest of this neighbourhood of the seventh arrondissement, it screamed expensive. A tiny cobbled street, lined with four- to six-storey residences that abutted the pavement.

  “You can see why we were so interested in you this morning,” Zoe pointed at the address plaque on the wall: 79 Rue de Grenelle.

  It took a while before it clicked in Fox’s brain. He’d parked on Rue de Grenelle this morning by the market, not far from here.

  “We thought you must have seen us follow you along Saint Germain, and assumed that was why you turned off early, to backtrack here on foot,” Zoe explained, watching Fox. “We had plain-clothes officers on foot, following you as you shopped.”

  “Really?” Fox tried to recall the faces, but there were far too many.

  “I noticed your car,” he said, thinking back to earlier this morning. “When you followed my dog-legged route to the market street.”

  She smiled.

  “You see, at that time I thought for sure you were looking for this place,” Zoe said. “And instead you were just shopping for food.”

  “Well, you’ve met Al,” Fox said, walking in step with her to the entrance. “He would have ‘cassouleted’ me if I’d come back empty-handed!”

  They reached the doors, and the six paramilitary men waved them through. They were decked out in black Nomex overalls, Kevlar plating, knee pads and helmets, pistols in thigh holsters and chunky SIG SG 552 Commando assault rifles slung across their chests. The kind of paramilitary cops Fox could have used back at the farmhouse. As he passed them they eyed him carefully.

  “The gendarmerie?” Fox asked, standing next to Zoe in the cobblestoned courtyard.

  “No,” Zoe replied. “Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion, or RAID, a SWAT-type unit of the National Police. Our primary anti-terrorism unit. So they are like my, how would you say, cousins?”

  “Wouldn’t want to pick a fight over the Christmas table with those cousins,” Fox said. He watched them shut the heavy timber door behind them so that he and Zoe were enclosed in the high-walled space. “Is this Russian sovereign territory?”

  “No,” Zoe replied. “Marquis de Touresol sold the villa to the Russian government in 1864. The Russian Embassy was situated here till the October Revolution. When the new Soviet Embassy building was finished in 1977, this became solely the residence of the ambassador.”

  Fox noticed several security cameras attached to the building and walls. He pointed, asked, “Do you have the—?”

  “No,” Zoe said, pre-empting any question about security footage. “They took it all, we are working in the courts to get it back but it will take a while—too long.”

  Fox nodded. If this murder was the work of one of their own, he couldn’t imagine the Russian authorities ever giving up the footage; if forced, they’d probably hand over doctored tapes of the night before.

  “Were there guards on the gate the night of the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they let the killer through?”

  She stopped, looked at him, questioning.

  “I mean—this place is a fortress,” Fox said. “The glass in the windows at the front, out on the street, it could stop a mortar shell.”

  “Yes,” she said, leading them towards the front door. “They let him through and he entered through here.”

  Fox glanced at the lock as he walked in. A recent addition, it was a big brass mechanism, anti-tamper steel sleeve …

  “He had a key,” Zoe said. Her look gave nothing away. Perhaps she had no more information.

  “As you said, an inside job,” Fox agreed.

  “Our killer entered the front door,” Zoe continued, walking to an open-plan living area. She pointed to a sofa in front of a big LCD screen. “Katya was sitting there with the television on. She did not notice him until he was attacking her. It was quick, but messy.”

  There was some crime-scene gear still set up in the lounge room—lights, measuring tapes and marks, notes on small plastic cards.

  “I found a note in her diary about meeting with you next week,” Zoe said. The throwaway comment snapped Fox out of staring at the blood-stained carpet.

  “Yeah … Wednesday, I think; my iPhone is back at Renard’s farmhouse.”

  Zoe nodded, detached. “This is where she was killed. Bled out quickly, they say.”

  “Knife?”

  “He killed her with glass from the table,” Zoe said, motioning to a broken coffee table. She mimed a slice to the side of her neck. “Dead quickly, like I said.”

  “That’s a brutal way to murder someone,” Fox said. “Stupid and amateurish. Almost like it was unplanned, improvised … Or something went wrong.”

  She looked at him with a little more respect.

  “Come, follow me.”

  He watched the sway of her hips as she walked up the stairs, tried not to notice. It was a pleasant distraction, though. He held the banister with his left hand and winced with the pain of a deep cut along his forearm.

  “We’ll patch that wound up in a few minutes,” Zoe said. She stood at the top of the stairs, a magnificent tapestry behind her. She pointed. “There, the second door.”

  They entered a small room with a single window that looked back over the courtyard. It contained an ancient timber desk furnished with a new Aeron chair and an iMac. There was an in-tray filled with papers, a vase of blood-red poppies, and an open diary. The air was stuffy.

  “Her study?”

  “Yes,” Zoe said. “And, yes, Wednesday is when you were to meet her: 11 am, with Renard, at the Louvre.”

  “Okay.”

  “And then it was crossed out, and a new date and time set.”

  “Oh?” Fox said. That was news to him.

  “We found an email to Renard cancelling the meeting, and mentioning she was giving the information to a friend, for safekeeping, until she was sure of things.”

  “Who’s her friend?”

  “Raymond Durand. Her lover, a local architect. He did the designs for this building’s renovations,” Zoe said. “She’d been seeing him for some months.”

  Fox was about to speak when he stopped himself. Looked around the room and back to Zoe.

  “Is it okay to talk in here?” he asked. “I mean…”

  He pointed to his ear, and signalled around the room.

  “Yes, we swept it for bugs, found at least one in every room,” she said. “They’re gone now, but I’ll get to that in a minute.”

  Fox was having a hard time catching up.

  “Later that day, Katya sent a parcel to Durand at Hotel Martinez in Cannes,” Zoe said. “Concierge there says that he received the package, about the size of a hardback novel, and delivered it personally to Durand.”

  “And that’s the information she wanted to hand to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s in Cannes?”

  “It arrived yesterday, but has already moved.”

  Fox shook his head. He not only felt tired and beaten up, he felt out of the loop. There was more to this than was being lost in translation. There was clearly more to this than a macabre tour for his sole benefit. What the hell did Zoe want from him?

  “Durand checked out of his hotel and travelled back to Paris this morning,” Zoe continued.

  “So he’s here—he’s here in Paris right now?”

  “Yes,” she said, watching Fox closely.

  “Well, can we go see him?”

  “He’s meeting with your friend Renard as we speak.”

  Fox took a step back. His mind was reeling. Renard was now meeting with this guy? Without him? To deliver the information that Katya had contacted Fox about? What the hell was going on? And why was Zoe pl
aying with him … Was he a suspect?

  “But…”

  “Don’t worry, we have Renard under close surveillance,” she said. “But it takes me back to the bugs, and why I wanted to bring you here.”

  43

  NAPLES, ITALY

  The ceiling was bright. Hutchinson blinked his eyes, his vision blurry, light-headed … The room started to spin. A face appeared over him, short brown hair flecked with red, friendly eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses.

  “Hello.”

  She didn’t answer as she checked his IV connection and then his vitals. He could feel her down at his legs, prodding and adjusting, but couldn’t see her. He tried to lift his head, but it felt too heavy.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” the nurse said, popping back into his field of vision. “How are you feeling?”

  Her accent was American, a fellow Bostonian, in fact.

  “Numb,” Hutchinson replied. “My leg … A little sore in the leg.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “Pain’s good,” she replied. “Apparently you self-administered some Fentanyl lollipops.”

  He remembered floating in the water. Being winched up to a grey Seahawk helicopter.

  “Where am I?”

  “Naples, Sixth Fleet Headquarters,” she answered, efficiently prodding him. “You’re in the base hospital.”

  “Right,” he said. “How long have I been here?”

  “Less than an hour. You passed out in the helicopter after they rescued you from the sea,” she replied. “We cleaned out and dressed your leg wound … You don’t remember?”

  He tried to play back the memory. He remembered the flight. Watching the Gulfstream’s altitude meter winding down. Jumping out of the aircraft. Free-falling through the air. Parachuting into the sea, bobbing there … How long had he been in the water?

  She was watching him, concerned. “You know your name?”

  “Bourne?” he said.

  She laughed.

  He remembered Capel and Brick and the two pilots. He remembered Babich.

  “Look, I need to make a phone call.”

  “Doctor will be here in a minute, and I’ll bring you a phone then,” she replied. She beamed a smile at him. “If you need anything, just say so, I’ll be sitting right here.”

  “I need a phone.”

  44

  PARIS

  “Some of the bugs we found in the building were ours,” Zoe said. “Some were American, some Russian. There were three in the bedroom—even the Russians put one in there.”

  “Maybe it was part of the ambassador’s performance review…”

  Zoe showed the slightest of smiles.

  Fox asked, “So you have audio of the killer?”

  “Yes,” Zoe replied. “This was recorded by our bug, and we assume by the Americans as well.”

  Fox guessed the American feed went to the CIA station at their embassy. He wondered how many Russian speakers they still had on the payroll. Enough, surely?

  “Have they said anything about it?”

  “Why would they?” Zoe asked. “This is a murder on French soil, an internal policing matter for us to handle. If it stretches across borders, it’s an Interpol issue, nothing more.”

  He adjusted his makeshift bandages, tried to speed things along: “Can I hear it?”

  “Like I said, it’s why you’re here.” Zoe put a digital recorder on the desk. “Translated for our Interpol colleagues.”

  She pressed play. Fox heard the sounds of a struggle, a muffled scream, indecipherable murmuring, then some shouting and apparently the shattering of glass. Then the incident played again with the sound levels changed: voices were isolated and an English translator spoke over the conversation:

  KATYA: Who are you—what are you doing here?

  UNKNOWN MALE: You know what I want.

  KATYA: You have to leave, my—my husband will be here any—

  UNKNOWN MALE: Don’t be stupid—You just saw him leave the embassy.

  KATYA: Is he …

  UNKNOWN MALE: Dead? Yes.

  Silence for a few beats and then a quiet sobbing.

  KATYA: It wasn’t meant to be like this. Please, don’t hurt me.

  UNKNOWN MALE: Give me the diary and you will not be hurt.

  Pause.

  UNKNOWN MALE: Where is the diary?

  Zoe pressed ‘stop.’ Fox knew there was more, as the shattering glass of what had been the coffee table downstairs—the very murder weapon—had yet to play in the translated version of the conversation.

  “And?”

  “Do you know anything of a diary?” Zoe asked, watching him closely. She was no further than a pace from him, and although not much more than half his weight and a few inches shorter, she had the advantage. Fox didn’t like games. Especially those played by police.

  He shook his head. Pointed to the table, to a leather-bound ledger. “A diary like that?”

  “This is Katya’s diary,” Zoe said, opening it to the marker on the current week. Fox wondered why they hadn’t taken it for evidence, but then he remembered the cops at the door—this was as secure a crime scene as there could be. “They are talking about a diplomat’s diary—Eduard de Stoeckl—found in this room, in the panelling, during the renovations.”

  Fox took it in, memorised the name, knew it was pivotal: enough to kill for, something about—or important to—Roman Babich.

  “I’ve never heard of him,” Fox said, matter-of-factly.

  “Did Katya mention a diary?”

  “No.”

  “But she wanted to give you something?”

  “All she said was that she had information that would implicate Babich…” Fox said. “No, wait. She said she had something that Babich valued very highly—something that her husband wanted to sell to him. She was scared of what might happen when her husband found out she was going to give it to us.”

  “She told you that on the phone?”

  “Yes, it was a brief conversation, and as far as I knew I’d put Renard in touch with her to arrange a time to meet and discuss it further.”

  “She told you just that and you flew out here, from the safety of the FBI protection, to chase a lead against the very man who wants you dead.”

  “I didn’t say my actions made any sense,” Fox said, a little smirk playing on his face. “Look, Zoe, I’ve been doing this a while now. I’ve seen some shit. You’ve read my file. I’ve done my time in special forces and Naval intelligence. I know how the world works. Katya contacted me; she was spooked and anxious, and I believed her. And guess what, she was right to be spooked by this. Only I guess she underestimated Babich’s reach.”

  Zoe’s eyes never left his, and something seemed to resolve itself in her look.

  Fox asked, “Who’s this Stoeckl guy?”

  “A Russian diplomat,” Zoe said. “Posted for some time to the US. He died in Paris in 1892.”

  “Bit before my time.” Fox motioned to the digital recorder.

  Zoe pressed play.

  UNKNOWN MALE: Where is the diary? Stoeckl’s diary?

  Long pause.

  KATYA: I don’t have it.

  Pause.

  UNKNOWN MALE: Where is it?

  Silence.

  UNKNOWN MALE, YELLING: Where is it?

  Fox could hear struggling, and the sound of the coffee table shattering.

  KATYA: Please, no!

  UNKNOWN MALE: Tell me where the diary is.

  The sound of crying. Real sobs, defeated. Another struggle.

  KATYA: My husband … He had to deliver it to Shanghai … by midnight, Saturday.

  Fox instinctively checked his watch.

  UNKNOWN MALE: I know you had it. You sent it in the post. Where is it? Who did you send it to?

  Sounds of a struggle, broken glass moving.

/>   KATYA: Please, no … Please …

  Sobbing.

  KATYA: A reporter—I sent it to a reporter! Fox, it’s with Lachlan Fox. He’s in Paris now.

  Pause.

  UNKNOWN MALE: You are sure? Fox? Not your friend … a Mr Durand?

  There was the sound of another struggle, more breaking glass and then a gurgling sound for about five seconds, then silence.

  UNKNOWN MALE: I’m so sorry …

  Zoe switched the audio device off.

  Fox studied her. Okay, he could see why she was interested.

  “Zoe, I don’t have—”

  “I know,” she said and pocketed the recorder. “She didn’t send it to you. It’s what she sent Durand—to Cannes.”

  Fox followed her out of the study. At the end of the hall by the stairs they paused at a window and stood, both thinking, while Fox re-wrapped his aching hand.

  Sunlight streamed in from double-door windows that looked out to a grassed area, filled with brightly painted totems. They were tall cylindrical figure drawings with smiling face outlines and flowers. Maybe they were meant to symbolise missiles rising out of silos, reborn as art, taken over by the people. Maybe they were symbols of male power. Maybe they were just pretty.

  “A Paul Flickinger installation,” Zoe said, standing close to him. She smelled of citrus and lavender, the faintest perfume.

  “French artist, his works are displayed throughout the residence and in the garden.”

  “Hats off to the Russian Federation for showing some taste,” Fox said.

  Zoe looked at him with what he read as respect. Maybe the revelations of hers were over. Maybe that’s all she had about this case and it went no further and they’d be on their way and he could get his friends to safety and he’d leave her to have words with Renard.

  Zoe asked him, “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m wondering what’s so special about this diary.”