‘What makes you think they’ve spotted you?’
‘I can’t be sure, but I had a meeting in Paris, in the Luxembourg Gardens. Somebody interrupted us – a young man. There was something odd about him, so we broke off the meeting. I haven’t been able to make contact since.’
‘Why didn’t you call me when it happened? I wouldn’t have come.’
‘It was too late by then and you were already en route. That’s why I told you to change the hotel and use the other passport. If they did spot me, they’ll have a picture, and it won’t have taken them too long to trace where I was staying in Paris, to get the name I was using and from that discover the flight I took to Berlin. As long as you left no trace at the last hotel of where you were going, then we should be OK for twenty-four hours or so – long enough for the meeting tomorrow. It’s critical I attend that; if it goes well there will be other larger deals, and then we’ll have enough money to retire somewhere nice and not to have to go on taking all these risks.’
Annette was shaking her head. ‘I told you not to go to Paris. But would you listen? Of course not. You seemed to get pleasure from thumbing your nose at your old colleagues – even if it meant both of us ending up in prison. How could you?’
She looked on the verge of angry tears, but Milraud had seen this display often enough before to feel unmoved. It was a bit rich of Annette to complain about their being forced to live in Venezuela in one breath, then in the next to moan about the risks.
He said patiently, ‘I am doing my best, Annette. And if it comes good… Believe me, there’s a lot of money at stake or I wouldn’t have taken these risks.’
‘But what if they are already onto you? What if they picked you up when you got here?’
It was a possibility he didn’t want to face and certainly one he didn’t want to discuss with Annette. ‘I’m sure we’ve got at least twenty-four hours. Time for me to make this deal and get us out of here.’
‘To go where?’ Annette said, in a whine, her voice like a distant but approaching siren.
‘Just in case they’re watching the airports, I think we should take the train to Poland. If we don’t hang about there, we should be safe to fly back home.’
‘Home? You call Caracas home?’ The sirens in her voice were at full blast now.
‘It’s home for now, Annette, and at least it’s safe. The point is, if things go well tomorrow, then we can start to think about living somewhere else.’ He raised a hand to stave her off before she could get started. ‘No, not Paris, that’s true. But somewhere better than Caracas. A place where you can feel you’re back in civilisation.’
‘Like where? You said yourself all the Western services are on the same side.’
He sometimes forgot how quick his wife was. He said, slightly faltering, ‘I thought we might try South Africa.’
She stared at him, then laughed disdainfully. ‘Cape Town here we come, eh? Well I can’t see that’s much better than where we are now. Believe me, if that’s the only choice on offer, you’d better just buy one ticket. I’ll come back to Europe and take my chances.’
He didn’t respond to this; after all, it was not a new threat. He inched along the bed and reached for the phone on the bedside table. ‘So what do you want from room service?’
Chapter 14
‘What are we waiting for?’ Martin Seurat demanded.
Isabelle sighed. Martin had seemed edgy throughout the flight from Paris. Normally a calm man, he had barely sat still, crossing and uncrossing his legs, folding and unfolding a copy of Le Monde. Isabelle had tried to divert him by asking about his daughter, now studying at the Sorbonne and the apple of her father’s eye, but he had cut off the conversation and stared moodily out of the plane window.
Now sitting in the BfV conference room with Isabelle and the German investigating officer, his tension was even more obvious. She sensed that Martin’s excitement at the prospect of finally getting his hands on Antoine Milraud was dwarfed by his fear of letting the man slip through his fingers.
Seurat went on, ‘We know where Milraud is, so why don’t we arrest him at once? If we hang around he’ll disappear again. We don’t know whether he saw the surveillance last night but he obviously suspected something in Paris. It sounds as if his wife, Annette, has joined him here; he must have contacted her, told her to change hotels, and to use a different name. He’s clearly thinking we’re not far behind him. There’s no problem with the warrant, so let’s get on with it before they vanish.’
The German said mildly, ‘We can do that, of course. If that’s what you want.’ He looked pointedly at Isabelle, as if to say, This is your problem, not mine.
‘Martin, you know as well as I do that we are not the only people interested in Milraud,’ said Isabelle. ‘And we’ve only found him at all because of the information we got from the British. At the very least, we need to consult them before making an arrest.’
Seurat was shaking his head, more from frustration than disagreement. He looked at the German. ‘Is that what you think?’
The German frowned and shrugged his shoulders. He was a youthful-looking man, a classic German with light blonde hair and pinkish skin which was turning red as he tried to follow the argument between his two French visitors. ‘Well, as I said, it’s really up to you. We have no information against the man but the warrant is outstanding, and the request to help came from your country.’ He paused. ‘The matter is complicated by the fact that he is not alone.’
Seurat said impatiently. ‘There’s a warrant out for his wife as well. She’s helped that bastard every step of the way.’
The German acknowledged this with a nod, but said firmly, ‘Nevertheless, since other countries’ services are involved, I would feel more comfortable knowing they agreed with the action we decide to take.’
Seurat looked exasperated, but when he turned to Isabelle there was resignation in his eyes. ‘All right. Ring London. Let’s talk to Liz.’
Liz Carlyle was at her desk in Thames House when the call came through from Berlin. She had heard about the German surveillance from Isabelle the previous evening, when she’d arrived back from Paris. So she knew that Milraud and Annette had changed names and hotels and that they must suspect that their pursuers were not far behind.
Now Isabelle explained the dilemma. ‘Martin is keen to go in now and arrest the pair of them, but I felt we must consult you first. If we do arrest him he’s most unlikely to talk about what he’s doing here and you’ll lose your lead to his contacts. What do you think, Liz?’
Martin Seurat was tapping his fingers on the top of the conference room table and he suddenly leant forward and spoke into the speakerphone. ‘Liz, you know that Milraud has broken French law in too many ways to list. Larceny, kidnapping, conspiracy to murder. These aren’t trivial offences. We at the DGSE want to see him extradited and put on trial, and who can blame us?’
Isabelle said, without looking at Martin, ‘He’s a big fish all right. And of course we have our national priorities. But perhaps we need to take a wider view.’
Isabelle sensed that Martin was bristling. He ignored her raised placatory hand, and said, with indignation in his voice, ‘What you call our national priorities ignores the fact that Milraud has been involved in arms deals all over Europe. Indirectly, he’s killed people on at least three continents. It also ignores the fact that Milraud was instrumental in kidnapping an MI5 officer in Northern Ireland, and bringing him to the south of France. If we hadn’t moved in, I doubt very much that that officer would still be alive.’