Claudine put her glass down, relieved her hands had stopped shaking. ‘Are there really people who’d like to kill you?’
‘Not until they’d hurt me as much as they could.’
August Dehane’s wife was completely unaware of his membership of Félicité Galan’s group, which always made it difficult speaking to the man at home. The conversation was one-sided and led by Jean Smet. The lawyer impatiently dictated the message upon which Félicité insisted and said he did not, of course, expect it to be convenient for the telephone executive to meet the rest of them until the following evening. Dehane’s hesitation was obvious when Smet gave his address off the rue de Flandres as the meeting place.
‘Is Félicité going to be there?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘No. We’re going to settle things. Remove the problem,’ promised Smet.
‘That’s good,’ agreed Dehane.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There are in Paris a very small number of restaurants, three the most notable, renowned as much for their discretion as for their highest Guide Michelin awards. That on the rue du Miel, the first of the notable three, was a place of dark wood, small-paned windows, subdued lighting and conveniently anonymous rooms. The most conveniently anonymous of all were two on the very top floor. The epitome of belle époque – as indeed the restaurant was – such salons particuliers were originally conceived as private rooms where the rich and famous could dine their mistresses in intimate mirrored luxury before moving to the only other furnishing, an opulent chaise-longue. Favours were expected to be returned for favours received. It was the practice for the courtesans to test the genuineness of their gifted diamond by inscribing their intitials round the mirrors’ edges: those inscriptions – anonymous, of course – are now officially decreed to be national monuments.
The salon particulier that Sanglier entered, five minutes late, was, like all the others, a place where favours were still expected to be exchanged, although no longer cut into the ancient, still reflecting glass which his hosts were studying when he arrived. There were three of them. Guy Coty, the chairman of the party, was the oldest although he did not look eighty-five. He was a small, tightly plump, totally bald man who had spent his life as a pilot fish for sharks in murky French political waters. The diminutive but exalted ribbon of the Légion d’honneur was in the left lapel of his immaculate dove-grey suit. Roger Castille was half the other man’s age, with the dark-haired, ivory-teethed, open-faced looks of a matinee idol disguising a ruthlessness inherited, along with Ff50,000,000, from a financier father. The third man, Lucien Bigot, was one of the few survivors of Castille’s tread-on-anyone ascent to the party leadership. Bigot was a beetle-browed man who used his size to intimidate. His official position was party secretary: like Coty he preferred power-brokering in back rooms to his public parliamentary work. It was Bigot, already known to Sanglier from their six months of political flirtation, who performed the introductions.
There was pre-luncheon champagne but no pretence of toasts: as yet there was nothing to celebrate. As aware as he’d always been of the significance of the Légion d’honneur and the expectations of the recipients, Sanglier accorded Coty the necessary respect, conscious of how it was being properly shown by Castille and Bigot. And it wasn’t stopping there, Sanglier realized. To a far lesser but still discernible degree the two politicians were acknowledging himself as the son of a man who had also gained France’s highest honour.
‘I knew your father,’ said Coty, in a voice clouded by too many cigarettes. ‘Not during the war, of course: I was in London, with de Gaulle, after I escaped the Gestapo. But afterwards, when the sanglier’s bravery became known. De Gaulle invited him to come into government but he declined.’
It seemed odd, hearing the name like that, properly used as the code designation by which his father had worked before officially adopting it as the family’s legal surname after the war, like several other Resistance heroes. Coty was almost an exception for not having done so. It was the first time Sanglier had heard of the political invitation: another aspect of his father’s life that had been secret. He said: ‘He was a very modest man.’
‘And now you’ve got the opportunity to take up the offer he refused,’ said Castille, seizing the way to move on from reminiscence without offending the elder statesman.
Could he take the risk? Sanglier asked himself for the thousandth time. He didn’t know that his father’s exploits, re-routing Nazi labour-camp trains and execution orders, weren’t totally true: there were, in fact, provable Gestapo records of the failed hunt for the mysterious sanglier. But there were so many gaps, verging on inconsistencies, in those and other records, omissions blamed on Claudine Carter’s father who, as Interpol’s chief archivist, had by almost unbelievable coincidence prepared Sanglier’s wartime history for France’s archive of heroes.
His emergence into political life would inevitably re-focus attention upon his father’s history: maybe, even, rekindle interest in a new biography by a new, more determined literary investigator than the authors of those that already existed, and who had unquestioningly accepted his uncooperative father’s explanation that apparent discrepancies were unavoidable in the chaos of the war’s end.
Cautiously, determined upon assurances that went far beyond his fear of the past, Sanglier said, with false diffidence: ‘I’m very flattered to have received this approach, and I have had several months to consider it. But there are important matters for us to discuss before I can give you my reply.’
‘Food first,’ growled the husky-voiced Coty, pressing the waiter’s bell just inside the door of the private room. He was smoking through a small malacca holder.
The others had already studied the menu, before occupying themselves with the initials of long-ago whores. Sanglier refused to hurry, keeping the attendant waiting while he carefully considered his meal. By the time his choice was made Castille was scuffing his chair impatiently.
As soon as the waiter left the room Castille said: ‘There’s no doubt the present government will fall within six months. No doubt, either, that we’ll succeed them. And we’ll remain in power for a very long time, after the scandals and failed policies of the last ten years—’
‘But with a difference this time,’ Coty broke in. ‘Virtually every minor party making up the current coalition is associated with the disgrace and failures, either part of them or by association. We’re not. We’re clean: above it all. That’s going to be our manifesto: how we’re going to be seen by the electorate. It’s going to give us an overwhelming, unassailable majority so that there’ll be no need to rely on any of the smaller groupings.’
‘We’re going to be the clean party for a new Republic,’ announced Castille, almost too obviously practising an election slogan.
This encounter was just as well rehearsed, decided Sanglier. ‘I have been extremely fortunate in my profession,’ he ventured, ‘but until your approach I’d never considered a political career.’
‘Consider it now!’ urged Bigot. ‘We’ll guarantee you an electable constituency.’
‘And I can also guarantee that I will never forget those who declare for me at this stage,’ said Castille.
He needed an admission without portraying himself as naive, Sanglier knew. ‘If I were to pursue this there would have to be complete truthfulness between us.’
‘We wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t expect you to take everything that’s said with total seriousness,’ said Castille. ‘And never for a moment will I be anything but completely truthful: I intend to practise among colleagues the central core of my manifesto.’
He had learned at the EU meetings in Brussels and Luxembourg and Strasbourg! ‘Colleagues?’ Sanglier demanded, shortly. ‘More than simply members of the party in the Assembly?’
The arrival of the food covered what Sanglier guessed would have been a hesitation among the other men. His oysters were superb, the bone-dry Muscadet the perfect complement. Coty reluctantly extinguishe
d his cigarette.
‘I’ve already made it clear we do not see you simply as a parliamentary member,’ said Bigot, with a hint of impatience.
Sanglier applied lemon in preference to onioned vinegar. It was the moment to wait, saying nothing.
Coty said: ‘You went to Brussels after an extraordinarily successful period as police commissioner here, in Paris. And continued that success there.’
Time for absolute directness, judged Sanglier. ‘What role would you see me fulfilling if I were to become part of your administration?’
‘Justice Minister,’ declared Castille.
‘I would consider nothing less,’ said Sanglier. ‘I am well aware – and proud – of my achievements here in Paris …’ He paused, determined never to be treated lightly or underestimated. ‘Just as I am well aware – and perhaps even prouder – of the cachet that goes with my name.’
Coty smiled, a flinty expression, fitting another cigarette into its holder. ‘The art of politics is assembling maximum resources to achieve optimum advantage—’
‘—consistent with honesty,’ Castille hurried in.
‘I’m glad we’re fully understanding each other,’ said Sanglier, content with Coty’s admission that like all politicians these men were observing the golden rule of expediency. He recognized that he did not have a positive guarantee – anything in writing – but acknowledged that to expect that would be naive. ‘I have your promise?’
‘My absolute word,’ said Castille.
‘Do we have yours?’ demanded Coty.
Sanglier paused, at the very moment of commitment. ‘Yes,’ he said.
The venison Sanglier had chosen to follow the oysters was excellent, like the Margaux. With something to celebrate now, it was Coty who proposed the toast.
Castille said: ‘I have given you my solemn undertaking.’
‘Which I accept,’ said Sanglier, curiously.
‘Now I am seeking undertakings from you,’ announced the man. ‘I have no wish to cause offence. But there are questions I have to ask you. My platform, remember, is that of honesty, integrity and selflessness towards the people who will put us into office.’
‘Yes?’ If Sanglier hadn’t felt the first stir of uncertainty the unctuous hypocrisy would have been amusing.
Castille turned invitingly to Coty. The éminence grise of the party said: ‘Is there anything in your past that could emerge once we’re in power – once you held a ministerial portfolio – that could cause the sort of scandal that has besmirched the present government?’
‘No,’ declared Sanglier. No going back, he realized.
‘I repeat that I do not intend any offence,’ said Castille. ‘But neither do I intend to allow any risk to my election. Are you prepared for the party secretariat to investigate your past fully, to confirm that assurance independently?’
He had to take the risk about his father. What about Françoise? She was by far the greater danger, prowling too many public places like a bitch permanently on heat. Could he control her – persuade her to control herself – with the lure of being the wife of a government minister? Close to being an unrealistic question, he forced himself to admit. There’d been enough to lose – quite apart from the Sanglier reputation – when he was commissioner in Paris before the Europol appointment, and neither consideration had curbed her. It wasn’t Françoise or his father that gave him pause. Rather it was his determination to speak and act in every circumstance as they would expect, to prevent any doubt. Despite Castille’s caveat, they would expect him to be affronted. ‘Your apparent need to do so hardly fits with undertakings of personal honesty that we’ve pledged between ourselves.’
‘It fits with my intention to establish an administration above reproach,’ said Castille, a prepared retort.
‘Do you object?’ said Bigot.
‘Of course not,’ said Sanglier. ‘I’m prepared to cooperate in any way.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ said Coty. ‘It’s going to give me great pleasure getting to know the son of a man I greatly admired.’
It was mid-afternoon before the meal ended. They parted with effusive handshakes and assurances of how much each was looking forward to working with the other.
Bigot was the first to speak after Sanglier left. ‘It’s a coup. And not just for the Sanglier name. His wife was a Dior model: spectacular woman. There’ll be a lot of good publicity around the two of them. We could maybe build them up as the perfect couple.’
Kurt Volker tracked the third message.
He wasn’t suffering any hangover from the previous night and was actually early at his embassy-linked terminals when the e-mail was delivered. Because he’d established a program of as many connections to Mary Beth McBride as possible the sender address instantly registered, which gave him at least forty seconds to follow backwards the stepping stones between sender and embassy before the disconnection.
Claudine and Blake arrived at their police headquarter offices as it was happening, unaware of the potential breakthrough until being beckoned urgently into the computer room by one of the early shift Belgian operators ploughing through the renewed incoming deluge prompted by the previous night’s TV appearance.
Several other operators had abandoned their stations, crowding round the German, but even their excitement was subdued. Volker himself appeared quite relaxed, although his hands were darting with astonishing coordination between the keyboards of three terminals in a semicircle in front of him. Claudine was once more reminded, as she had been on their first assignment together, of a theatre act to which she had been taken as a child to watch a man perform simultaneously upon three pianos. Completing the impression, Volker was humming, at first tunelessly but then something vaguely Wagnerian. No one else was making any sound.
Claudine had no idea what she was watching: didn’t try, even, to read the words and the instructions that kept appearing, becoming fainter each time, upon the main screen in front of the German. At one stage, like the theatre pianist, Volker operated his central keyboard with his left hand and with his other punched keys on the board to his right, conjuring e-mail addresses on to the connected screen.
‘Bah!’ he exclaimed, in final frustration, when the screen directly in front of him remained blank after the message faded. ‘Lost him!’
He spun the swivel chair, scattering the other operators, to face Claudine and Blake. ‘They’d buried themselves in at least four different systems, moving just as I thought in source-covering sequence from one to the other …’ He stabbed a finger at the last address on the side screen. ‘That’s where I lost them … at least I think I did. There’s an outside chance – a very outside chance – it could be where they’re operating from.’
‘Where is it, for Christ’s sake!’ demanded Blake urgently.
Volker turned another revolution, accessed INEX, and typed in the address. At once the screen filled with a blank home page of a computer café in Menen, on the Belgian-French border. ‘It would certainly be easy,’ said Volker, still looking at his screen. ‘You can be quite anonymous in places like this. You just go in, get allocated a terminal to surf wherever you want and simply walk away after you’ve paid.’
‘Get me the rest,’ demanded Blake, hurrying from the room.
Claudine followed, accepting that apart from analysing the latest message she was largely superfluous. And she didn’t hurry with the message.
Needing the operation-initiating authority of the Belgian Justice Ministry Blake first telephoned Jean Smet and asked for total surveillance to be placed upon the Menen café. Before disconnecting he cancelled that morning’s scheduled conference with the promise to reconvene at the already arranged afternoon time unless a new development intervened. He gave the same undertaking – and account – to André Poncellet and Paul Harding, in that order.
Finally Blake tried to reach Sanglier. Told the commissioner was unavailable, he sent a full account to the man’s secretariat, with a request for Sanglier to conta
ct him as soon as possible.
By the time Blake finished, Volker had located the Internet-linked computers through which Mary Beth’s abductors had ridden Sinbad-like to reach the US embassy home page. From the specialized Menen café the message had travelled unseen and unsuspected to the Foreign Ministry system in Bonn. From there it had been sent to a Trojan Horse unknowingly installed in the mainframe computer of the American Express office at the foot of the Spanish Steps, in Rome. From there it had been automatically routed to the flagship of the Kempinski hotel chain on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm. The last stage from there had been to the school on the rue du Canal from which Mary Beth McBride had disappeared, six days earlier, whose e-mail address Volker had put on to his search program.
Claudine realized her own need to talk to Sanglier had become secondary in the light of the morning’s developments, but remained determined to insist he use his authority to stop the nonsense degenerating any further. She wasn’t interested in playing silly games and using her knowledge of the tap to their own advantage. They had to recover a child and to achieve that a paranoid man had to be removed before he caused God knew how much damage.
By midday Blake’s flurry of activity had eased. Smet telephoned that the computer outlet was under intense observation and Volker had independently accessed the cafe’s system and attached tracers programmed to react to the embassy’s e-mail address.
Blake was at Claudine’s shoulder when she at last spread the print-out of the latest communication between them. It was written in two lines and read: WE DETERMINE HOW AND WHEN. YOU WAIT AND OBEY.
‘We’re not going to get much from that, are we?’ he said.
‘Enough,’ said Claudine gravely. ‘Maybe more than enough.’
‘What?’
‘I need to think more about it,’ Claudine said. ‘Make sure I’ve got all there is to get.’
Nothing occurred to alter the scheduled afternoon session and by the time they assembled disappointment had begun to erode the initial excitement of the cyberspace chase. Volker explained, stage by stage, stopping short only of his newly installed monitor of the cafe’s inward and outward traffic. As if on cue Smet said the Justice Ministry had asked Belgacom to suggest any electronic check that might be possible on the Menen outlet, completing the irony by pointing out that to attach an eavesdropping facility would be illegal, although they were seeking a ruling from a High Court judge. The physical surveillance was absolute, insisted the lawyer. Computer literate plainclothes officers had been drafted in to use the facility during the day, taking the observation actually inside the café to identify regular users, and there were rotating squads watching from outside. A separate team had been assigned to investigate the registered owners and all their known associates. If it was established the café’s use was innocent the owners and all its regular users would be specifically questioned about the computerized pictures. The café was on the outskirts of a pedestrian and shopping precinct and all security camera film was being collected, again for comparison with Volker’s digital images.
The Predators Page 18