The Europol Commission did that at the beginning of the fourth week, in a formal announcement of Henri Sanglier’s resignation. It was timed to coincide with the Paris press conference at which Sanglier appeared flanked by Roger Castille and Guy Coty. Françoise, looking the epitome of French chic, was with him. There was a hugely enlarged photograph of Sanglier’s father being decorated by de Gaulle as a backdrop to remind television viewers of the family honour and Sanglier made an impressive vow to maintain that honour in a political career that had been declined by his father but he had decided to pursue. It was the cue for Castille to denounce the corruption of the present government that he would sweep aside in the coming election. Henri Sanglier, his intended Justice Minister, would be in the vanguard of every fight against crime, as he had been as the most famous of Europol’s governing commissioners.
It was only at the end of the televised conference that Claudine was reminded, annoyed that she hadn’t remembered it earlier. She actually considered telephoning Volker that night but decided there was no urgency. She did, however, call him as soon as she got into the Europol building the following morning.
‘I’m just tidying up my final report on the Mary Beth kidnap,’ she said.
‘I’ve already filed mine,’ said the German.
‘I was wondering about all that pornography you got in?’ she said, recalling the miniature bird tattoo on the thigh of a masked Françoise parading in Sanglier’s house.
‘What about it?’ asked Volker.
‘I know it’s hardly necessary to remind you, but the regulations are that it’s got to be destroyed. With all the chaos at the end I thought you might have overlooked it.’
‘No,’ said the German, unoffended. ‘I intended to.’
‘Intended?’
‘Sanglier asked for it all. When he said pornography was going to be his next priority I thought he meant here, in Europol. He meant when he becomes the French Justice Minister, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ agreed Claudine.
Rosetti returned at the end of that week. He’d called from Rome, to warn her, and they met that night. It was virtually the only one she hadn’t spent with Blake.
‘Flavia died,’ he announced bluntly. ‘We actually thought there was going to be a recovery. Her eyes opened and there was some movement but it came down to muscle reflexes: even the squeezing of my hand.’
‘I’m sorry. So very sorry.’
‘The priest said it was for the best. So did the doctors. And they’re right.’
‘Yes.’
‘So now there’s us.’
Claudine didn’t reply.
‘I love you. I want to wait, obviously. Out of respect. But I’m asking you to marry me.’
‘Yes,’ said Claudine. ‘You should wait.’ Her period was already more than a week late. Now she didn’t think she should put off the pregnancy test any longer. That was the easy decision. The more difficult one was whether she still wanted to marry Hugo Rosetti.
A Biography of Brian Freemantle
Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain’s most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.
Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the Daily Mail, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city’s orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle of newspapers.
Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with Charlie M. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carré, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series, The Blind Run, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is Red Star Rising (2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.
In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle’s other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia’s organized crime bureau.
Freemantle lives and works in London, England.
A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.
Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.
Freemantle’s parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.
Brian Freemantle and his wife, Maureen, on their wedding day. They were married on December 8, 1956, in Southampton, where both were born and spent their childhoods. Although they attended the same schools, they did not meet until after they had both left Southampton.
Brian Freemantle (right) with photographer Bob Lowry in 1959. Freemantle and Lowry opened a branch office of the Bristol Evening World together in Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, England.
A bearded Freemantle with his wife, Maureen, circa 1971. He grew the beard for an undercover newspaper assignment in what was then known as Czechoslovakia.
Freemantle (left) with Lady and Sir David English, the editors of the Daily Mail, on Freemantle’s fiftieth birthday. Freemantle was foreign editor of the Daily Mail, and with the backing of Sir David and the newspaper, he organized the airlift rescue of nearly one hundred Vietnamese orphans from Saigon in 1975.
Freemantle working on a novel before beginning his daily newspaper assignments. His wife, Maureen, looks over his shoulder.
Brian Freemantle says good-bye to Fleet Street and the Daily Mail to take up a fulltime career as a writer in 1975. The editor’s office was turned into a replica of a railway carriage to represent the fact that Freemantle had written eight books while commuting—when he wasn’t abroad as a foreign correspondent.
Many of the staff secretaries are dressed as Vietnamese hostesses to commemorate the many tours Freemantle carried out in Vietnam.
The Freemantle family on the grounds of the Winchester Cathedral in 1988. Back row: wife Maureen; eldest daughter, Victoria; and mother-in-law, Alice Tipney, a widow who lived with the Freemantle family for a total of forty-eight years until her death. Second row: middle daughter, Emma; granddaughter, Harriet; Freemantle; and third daughter, Charlotte.
Freemantle in 1999, in the Outer Close outside Winchester Cathedral. For thirty years, he lived with his family in the basement library of a fourteenth-century house with a tunnel connecting it to the cathedral. Priests used this tunnel to escape persecution during the English Reformation.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1988 by Harry Asher
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A Biography of Brian Freemantle
Copyright Page
The Predators Page 38