“Another Chernobyl?”
“If you’re lucky,” said Kempa. “If you’re not, something worse. Far worse.”
“You’re a barrel of good news, aren’t you?” said Graves.
“No one ever came to a Russian for good news.” Kempa gave a world-weary shrug before beckoning Graves closer. “If I were you, I’d look at how they might get in. To cause an accident, it will be necessary to physically penetrate one of the plants.”
“You mean slip an operative inside?”
“Precisely.”
“But the entire point of attacking Ivanov’s motorcade was to find a way to steal the override codes.”
Kempa scoffed at the suggestion. “The codes can do nothing, especially if the plants are on alert. Even if Shvets could manipulate the reactor controls, it would take an hour to create an accident. The control room would light up like a Christmas tree. There would be plenty of time to take back control of the commands.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Graves.
“If it were me, I’d take a shorter route. I’d use a bomb. It’s cleaner that way-everything’s tied off. When the plant goes up, no one’s going to be able to get close enough to look for twenty years, give or take.”
“But you can’t get high explosives anywhere near a plant. They’d pick up the signature a mile away.”
The Russian shook his head. He wasn’t buying. “There’s always a way.”
Graves knew he was right. There had yet to be a security system created that couldn’t be circumvented. Emma Ransom had skirted Russell’s system, then devised a method to get into 1 Victoria Street. That was two strikes right there. Graves made a note to check how nuclear plant personnel were vetted. If Kempa was correct, there had to have been something on the stolen laptops’ hard drives that made such surreptitious entry not only possible but undetectable.
“Now it’s your turn,” said Kempa. “Who blew the car bomb?”
“Her name is Emma Ransom. She used to be an operative for the Americans. A unit called Division.” Graves handed him the photographs of Emma Ransom standing on the corner of Victoria Street and Storey’s Gate. “She killed Russell, too. Know her?”
“Of course not.”
Graves couldn’t tell whether the Russian was lying or telling the truth. What he could tell was that the mention of Division had rattled him. “Russell believed the attack was due to take place within seven days. Don’t you know anything more?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have had Chagall contact Russell,” answered Kempa heatedly. “Russell disappointed me. I’d heard that he had excellent contacts close to Shvets. I was mistaken.”
Graves smiled grimly. A Russian intelligence agent contacting an English civilian to spy on the Russian’s boss, no less than the chief of the FSB. Matters were simpler before the Iron Curtain fell. “What about Ivanov?” he asked. “It was no coincidence he was at the precise location when the bomb went off.”
“I’d have to agree. Shvets’s office monitors all diplomatic visits. He may even have had a hand in arranging it. He must have thought he could kill two birds with one stone.”
Graves ran a hand over his mouth. An attack against a nuclear plant in France. Activity in Paris. A team in place. He felt as if he had taken two small steps forward and one giant step back. He was tantalizingly close to learning the target, yet in actionable terms-and those were the only ones that mattered-he was hardly better off than he had been an hour ago. He thanked Kempa and asked that they keep channels open between them.
“Good luck, Colonel,” said the Russian. “Please hurry. And remember-it’s been six days since I contacted Russell.”
65
Midnight.
The house on the Rue Saint-Martin was dark, except for a dim glow in an upstairs window. A nightlight, Emma guessed, in the children’s room. Crouched behind the stone wall that ran around Jean Grégoire’s house, she slid the balaclava over her face, taking time to adjust the eyes and mouth. Her knees ached.
She had held this position for an hour, keeping watch as the lights were extinguished one by one and Grégoire took a last walk around the garden, picking up a stray rake and righting his daughter’s bicycle before enjoying a cigarette on the back stoop. He was a compact man with narrow shoulders and the beginnings of a paunch. An unassuming man to look at, except for his posture, which was ramrod straight and hinted at a military background. She pegged him as a fighter and made a note to take him first. The air hummed with the sawing of crickets. Somewhere close by, a swift stream hurtled past. Despite this, she’d heard the rear door close quite clearly and even the lock as it fell into place. A moment later Grégoire had opened a side window to allow the night air to cool the old cottage.
Emma checked her watch. Forty minutes had passed since the last light had gone out. It was a guessing game now. Some people enjoyed their deepest slumber immediately after nodding off. Others took ages to fall asleep. She could go now or later. The risks were the same.
In a single fluid motion, she rose and bounded over the wall. There wasn’t a soul within a kilometer, but she ran to the house all the same and pressed her back against the wall. Training. A circuit of the cottage revealed no evidence of a security system. The back door was locked.
Instead of risking her steel picks, she circled to the open window. The sill was at shoulder height. Freeing the screen, she propped it against the rock slurry that belted the cottage and peered inside.
The ground floor appeared to be a large, uninterrupted room with groupings of furniture defining its spaces. Closest, there was a television and a couch and two chairs. To the right was a dining room set. The stairwell rose in the center of the room, blocking her view. She guessed the kitchen was behind it, accessed by the back door, through which Grégoire had retreated after his cigarette.
Emma held her breath, listening.
The house was silent.
Taking a breath, she boosted herself onto the sill and swung her legs inside. The floor was wooden, aged, and warped. She shifted her weight from her left foot to the right. The floorboards groaned. Pulling off her shoes, she laid them by the window. The secret was to move fast. Everything had to happen quickly. There was no time for hesitation. No room for second thoughts.
She crossed the living room and mounted the stairs two at a time, careful to rise on the balls of her feet. In her right hand she held the Taser. In the left, flexicuffs. Precut strips of duct tape were laid across her forearm; her work bag was strapped snugly against her back.
She reached the top of the stairs and kept moving. The ceiling was low, the corridor short and narrow. A door stood open on either side. She remembered that the nightlight had been on the east side of the home- the right-hand side of the corridor. Grégoire and his wife slept in the room to the left.