The de Vere Deception (David Thorne Mysteries Book 1)
Page 19
“That’ll be a thousand pounds, and two hundred extra for a Paris contact. I’ll contact him and say you’re coming”
Thorne reached into his coat pocket, withdrew a book of traveler’s checks, and placed it on the desk and reached for a pen.”
“Cash—in pound notes,” said Stockton as he examined another bonbon.
Thorne withdrew his wallet, counted out twelve one-hundred pound notes, and pushed them across to Stockton.
The round man leaned forward with effort and picked up the money. He pressed a button on the intercom. “Adele, come in.” He continued staring at Thorne as they waited, his fat lips moving as he enjoyed another mouthful of chocolates.
Adele came into the office wiping her hands on a towel.
“Take Mr. Riley back and take his picture. Then give him the usual ID—passport, pocket litter, etcetera.”
Thorne followed Adele to a small room off the lobby where she photographed him and searched through a file cabinet for various documents. He waited in the reception room while she printed the photographs and put the identification and papers together in a packet. She carefully inserted the photograph onto the passport, stamped it, and handed him the packet of documents.
Thorne went back into Stockton’s office and Stockton handed him a card. “That’s my partner, Marcel Rohmer, in Paris,” Stockton said. “He can give you the name of a buyer for your what-ever-it-is you have for sale. I don’t need to know—I don’t want to know.”
He popped another chocolate bonbon in his mouth, swiveled his chair around, and looked out the window. “Remember, you weren’t here.”
Thorne slipped the business card in his shirt pocket and followed Adele to the outer office. Holding out his hand, he smiled. “Thank you ma’am, the work you did was not just good, it was exceptional. I enjoy seeing a true artist at work.”
Adele blushed and said softly, “Well, Thank you much, Sir. It’s nice to work with a gentleman who appreciates what I do. I wish you the best of luck.”
Thorne descended the stairs, went out onto the sidewalk, and looked around for the van.
It was nowhere in sight, but he suspected it was close by. He paid no attention to the two men across the street with their backs to him, leaning on a gray Nissan. As he pulled out into the traffic, the two men got into the car and followed him to the Dover ferry terminal.
Thorne glanced in his rear view mirror as he handed the ferry conductor his ticket. The van remained in the queue six cars back and followed him onto the ferry. He could now see the driver was Kelly, but couldn’t make out the other man in the van, but he assumed it must be Forestal. His attention was fixed on the van, and he gave little notice to two men in the gray Nissan parked in the next row, their faces obscured behind newspapers, The large engines churned furiously as the ferry worked its way out into the channel. Thorne relaxed, read the map of northern France and made notes during the crossing
PART 4
Chapter 58
FRANCE
Tuesday, December 21
4:30 PM
The Land Rover was jolted as the ferry moved into its slot at the dock in Calais. The lorries were directed to a covered shed, and the remaining traffic pulled straight ahead to a custom booth at the head of their line.
Thorne showed his new passport and ID and asked the attendant the best way to get to Dunkerque. He eased onto the main highway, making sure the van was within sight. At Dunkerque, he turned southeast, hoping the van would assume he was headed to Antwerp via the longer but more traveled route. He saw them and sped up, hoping to put distance between himself and the van on the crowded highway.
As he passed the Antwerp and Lille intersection, he had the option of heading north to Antwerp or south to Lille and then on to Paris. He quickly pulled off the motorway at a truck stop and drove to the rear and the cover of the building. He got out quickly and asked a waiting truck driver which truck might be going to Antwerp or Brussels.
The truck driver pointed to a truck with the lettering on its trailer reading TRANSPORT HOLLAND-FRANCE. “That truck travels between the two cities, but I don’t know which way it’s going this time.”
When the driver left, Thorne opened the door to the cab and looking at the manifest. It read LYON TO BRUSSELS. Satisfied the truck was going to Brussels, and not to Paris, he rushed back and crawled under the Land Rover. He quickly found the GPS transmitter attached to the frame of his Land Rover with a strong magnet. He easily detached it, and placed it under the frame of the truck.
He pulled the Land Rover out of sight behind a line of parked trucks at the rear of the property, and waited for the van to get closer. As he waited, he opened his laptop and made room reservations for the night at La Chateau Rameau, a small hotel off the Boulevard Périphérique, a main highway north of Paris. He calculated he had put about two kilometers between himself and the van after they came off the ferry. They would be content to follow the GPS transmitter and receiver link instead of following by sight.
A few minutes later, the TRANSPORT HOLLAND-FRANCE truck pulled out. Thorne continued to wait another ten minutes before driving to the side of the building.
He took a pair of small binoculars from his briefcase and glassed the parking lot in front of the station. There was no sign of the van, only three vehicles, and a small truck with a Belgium license tag, a brown Peugeot with a French tag, and a gray Nissan with a British tag. The Peugeot and the Nissan were parked with their backs to him and there were three men in the brown Peugeot. There was none in the Nissan or the truck. He wrote the numbers of the license tags of the three vehicles in his notebook and gave one last look before retracing his route back behind the station. He searched the lot behind the station. There were no cars, only trucks at the rear of the building. He left the station by the way he’d entered, watching closely to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Satisfied the van would be following the truck and transmitter on its way to Brussels, Thorne headed back in the direction of Dunkerque. As Thorne’s Land Rover pulled out of the service station, the brown Peugeot followed and kept a safe distance between the two vehicles.
Kelly was driving the van and Forestal sat in the passenger’s seat. Their eyes were glued on the receiver screen and they failed to see Thorne’s Land Rover clustered in a long line of cars on the opposite side of the roadway
Forestal said, “Look at the screen of the receiver. It looks like he’s on his way to Antwerp.”
Kelly looked at Forestal. “We’re dealing with a smart cookie here. You don’t think I’d rely on only one transmitter do you? Sure, he thinks we’re in the dark now, but he quit looking after he found the first GPS transmitter.
“The first GPS transmitter is on that lorry that just passed on its way to Brussels. The second and most important one is in his laptop briefcase. I had a man go into his hotel room in Stratford on the morning he was at breakfast, and glue it under the cover of his laptop carrying case. It’s one of these tiny, very high-tech GPS transmitters—nanotechnology or some such thing. Clever, what? Of course, I never told my man about the necklace, for obvious reasons.”
He looked down at a map on the other receiver screen. “From the looks on this second screen, the second transmitter shows he’s headed back to Dunkerque. We just missed getting a visual on him. We should be on our way.”
As Kelly pulled the van back on the motorway, Forestal glanced at the map overlay on the receiver screen. “Wait a minute, it looks like he’s turned off and heading south. My guess is Paris.”
Chapter 59
PARIS
Tuesday, December 21
6:45 PM
As Thorne drove slowly into the outskirts of Paris it began to rain. It was getting dark when he stopped and waited in the parking lot in front of the La Chateau Rameau Hotel where he had reservations for the night. None of the cars stopped or turned around, and he didn’t recognize any of the cars as they passed.
A kilometer back, the van pulled off the highway and into a parking lot when the map on
the GPS receiver screen showed the Land Rover had stopped.
Forestal said with annoyance, “Kelly, get rid of that first receiver. It’s of no use to us now, and it’s just confusing. Show me how to work that second receiver, the one that’s receiving a signal from his lap top.”
He flipped open his cell phone and spoke into it. “Thorne’s stopped at a hotel north of Paris. It looks like we’re going to have to spend the night here and catch him in Paris. We assume he has what we’re after. We’ll get him when he stops to make contact with the fence, or sooner if we can get him alone.”
Thorne spent the night in the hotel, and the following morning he placed the necklace packet into a slot in the laptop case and double-zipped the compartment shut. He checked the clip in the Glock before putting it in his shoulder holster.
The Peugeot waiting across the road at the rear of a restaurant, pulled out and followed him as he drove the Land Rover out onto the roadway.
A kilometer back down the roadway, the van spent the night parked off the shoulder of the roadway. Kelly was awakened by Forestal. “Let’s go, he’s up and moving.” Forestal said wearily, “I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my entire life. I need a bed and a bath. Try to keep close contact. We don’t want to depend fully on that second transmitter. In fact, we agreed to get rid of this van.. Did you do what we discussed last night?”
“Don’t worry,” Kelly said. “Like I said, I’ve already taken care of it. I called my contact last night and he gave me the name of a driver in Paris. Her name is Nan D’Autry. She’s a young bird, but a first class driver. Speaks a little English and knows Paris like the back of her hand. From what I hear, she’s worked on a lot of high-profile jobs around Paris, but she’s clean, never done time, never even been charged.”
“Wait a minute. We don’t want anyone involved with—”
“No—no—like I just said, she doesn’t have a record. She’s just a driver. I called and offered her ten-thousand Euros as we discussed. She’ll be meeting us with a white Volvo SUV at the large Horvalt Elf petrol station. The station is just before we get to Boulevard Périphérique.
“She’s a tall redhead, and she’ll be wearing a red jacket. She’ll be a great help, even though she’s expensive, but we need a new vehicle—so—”
Forestal said, “Well, maybe you’re right. We’re both easily recognizable to Thorne.”
Kelly said. “I’ll just pull up the map on the Paris screen, and we’ll always have a fifteen kilometer range on the receiver, so, it shouldn’t be hard to keep track of the Land Rover.”
When the van reached the Elf station, a new white Volvo SUV was parked by the side of the building. A tall red-head in a short Bolero-style red leather jacket leaned against the driver’s door, smoking a cigarette. She had a thin, angular build, and was just under six feet tall. A black beret covered the top of the shoulder-length red hair. Her heavy-lidded, large green eyes were set in a long hard face. She had smooth, easy movements and was attractive in an exotic sort of way.
Kelly parked next to the Volvo, and both men quickly moved the receiver and their bags from the van to the SUV. D’Autry crushed out the cigarette with the heel of her boot and climbed in behind the wheel.
Kelly was sitting in the front seat with her, holding the receiver. “We’re following a dark green Land Rover with GB plates. We don’t have a clue what he’s got in mind. All we know is we have him on our GPS receiver, and the map here on the screen will tell us where he is. I’ll just have to tell you as we go, okay? We had better be on our way, we only have a fifteen kilometer range.”
She turned to Kelly and said in English with a French accent, “Last night you said you would pay to me ten-thousand Euros. I like to have the half now.” Forestal handed a sheaf of bills over D’Autry’s shoulder. She examined the bills before putting them in the inside pockets of her jacket. “We are fine. I am ready. Now, where do we go?” she asked as she turned on the ignition.
Chapter 60
Thorne continued through the outskirts of Paris before pulling into a hotel parking lot. He waited in a far corner to see if he was being followed. Two cars pulled into the lot in the next five minutes, a silver Citroën with two women passengers and a black Renault with a family of five. With a sigh he put the Land Rover into gear, and worked his way back onto the road that would eventually put him into the center of Paris. As he inched along he began to wonder if his paranoia at being followed had been justified. He hadn’t seen the van, nor been able to determine whether he was being followed by any other vehicles.
The brown Peugeot followed at a safe distance. The driver spoke to the two passengers in English before flipping open a cell phone and speaking in French, “This is Inspector Andre’ Trudeau, of Europol, Code RT365. It is nine-twenty AM. Our man has just crossed Boulevard Périphérique and is driving south in a dark green Land Rover. British license plate number GB BDC545 STMB. If our information is correct, he plans to turn onto Rue La Fayette and go to the Stockton-Rohmer studio on 1534A Rue de Château dun. Notify INTERPOL and Europol headquarters in Lyon and Paris to keep in close contact with Monsieur Jacques Cravelle of INTERPOL at Stockton-Rohmer. We are following him by sight only and we are driving a brown Peugeot sedan with the standard sticker in the windows. Do not detain Thorne at this time. We want to follow him to his next stop after he leaves the studio. He is traveling under the name David Riley.”
Thorne followed his map to the address on Rue de Château dun given him by Stockton and parked a block away. He waited and looked behind him to see if he’d been followed. The Peugeot had turned off the main road and came in from a different direction, parking on a side street with a view of the studio. He walked a block to the studio that bore the letters STOCKTON-ROHMER, REPRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHIQUE, PASSEPORT on the window
Forestal monitored Thorne’s route and directed D’Autry to park the Volvo SUV two blocks back on Rue de Château dun. They waited, keeping the Land Rover’s location in sight as well as on the screen of the receiver.
“Now what?” she asked
“Let’s hold here for just a bit,” Forestal said. “Let’s see what he’s going to do. None of us can follow him into the shop. He’d recognize any one of us except you, and you have to drive.” He paused to think and then said, “Okay, once he’s inside, drive by and let’s get a name and address of the shop.”
The Volvo slowed as it passed the shop. “I know those people,” Kelly said. “Dassin Stockton has his operation in London. Furnishes phony passports and other types of identification. Rohmer’s his Paris partner. Thorne’s probably getting the name of a fence name from Rohmer.”
Forestal said “Drive around the block and park on a side street. Kelly, you go into the shop and talk to Rohmer after Thorne comes out. Convince Rohmer to tell you where he sent Thorne. Rohmer’s in the same business as Stockton, so it’s fairly certain he speaks English. We’ll follow the Land Rover when he comes out. You can relay the information to us on your cell phone—that is if you can convince him where he sent Thorne. We’ll pick you up later “
Kelly gave a yellow-toothed grin at the prospect. “Don’t worry, I’ll convince him.”
Inside the shop, Thorne approached the older man sitting at a desk behind a low rail. “Is Monsieur Rohmer in?”
The dour old man replied in broken English, “For what you want to see him?”
“I was sent by Mr. Stockton in London. Monsieur Rohmer is expecting me. My name is David Riley.”
The man picked up a phone, pushed a button and spoke in French.
As he waited, Thorne looked around the reception room. It wasn’t much different from Stockton’s office, with numerous pictures of wedding pictures and family groups covering the walls. The main difference was the old sourpuss at the front desk. He was no Adele.
A small, compact man in a white shirt and conservative tie emerged from a hallway and extended his hand. “Good morning, Mr. Riley, I am Marcel Rohmer. Dassin said you would be coming.”
“Yes.”
“I have an excellent contact that may be of assistance. He is very discreet and can handle large transactions. How large of a transaction were you thinking of?”
“Perhaps I should discuss that with him,” Thorne said. “I can tell you it’ll be well over seven figures—in pounds.”
The man across the desk shrugged. “His name is Henri Delain, and he does speak English.” He wrote the address and phone number on a slip of paper and pushed it across the desk. “I will call and tell him you will be in contact. His office is near Place de la Concorde, close by the east end termination of the Champs-Elysées. Unless you are familiar with Paris, I suggest you avoid Place de la Concorde. It can be quite congested at times. Many Parisians think of it as a race track.”
Thorne looked at the address on the slip of paper handed him. “Which side of the river is this?”
“Rive Gauche, the Left Bank—on Boulevard Saint-Germaine. I’m sure Dassin told you we prefer not to have our names revealed to anyone other than the contact. Dassin has already told me you have paid him in full.” He stood, went to the door and held it open. “Our business is done here. Remember you were never here.”
Back on the street, Thorne looked around and made a mental note of the cars in hopes of noticing those that might start up when he drove off. He started the Land Rover and eased slowly into the traffic. He saw no one following as he made his way to Place de la Concorde..