“How much activity on this one?” Graves asked.
“Plenty. Forty or fifty calls.”
Graves was surprised. “Where to?”
“London. Rome. Dublin. Moscow. Nice. Sochi.”
“Hold it there. Did you say Moscow?”
“Several to Russia. A few placed to a cell number in Moscow four days ago. Another to Sochi the day of the bombing.”
There it was. Confirmation that David Kempa had been telling the truth. Graves had no doubt but that Emma was contacting her controller, be it Sergei Shvets or another high-ranking hood inside the FSB. “Can you get me GPS coordinates pinpointing the locations of both parties for all those calls?”
“Right down to the city block.”
“Do it.”
“What about any calls to Paris?”
“I count four made to a landline inside the Paris area code.”
“A landline? You’re sure?”
The response was a curt “Hold while I get the address.”
Graves drummed his fingers on the desk, confused. Continuing to make calls with a SIM card used in a bombing-a card purchased precisely because it was nearly untraceable-constituted a flagrant breach of protocol. It reeked of carelessness and amateurism, and did not for a moment fit with the sophisticated operation mounted to steal the IAEA’s computer codes.
“The number is registered to a G. Bahrani at 84 Rue Jean Mathieu.” There was a pause, then the man’s voice notched up a tone and fairly bristled with anxiety. “Charles, you there? Wait a sec. Jesus… okay, we got it.”
“What is it?” demanded Graves.
“We have a real-time call being placed to that address from one of the SIM cards you mentioned. The two parties are connected at this moment.”
It had to be Emma Ransom, thought Graves. “Can you listen in?”
“Negative. I don’t have that capability.”
Graves swallowed his frustration. “Where’s the initiating call coming from?”
“I can’t tell that either. The call is running on France Télécom’s towers, so the incoming signal has to be located in Paris or somewhere nearby. Hold on a sec… the call was just terminated. Duration: thirty-one seconds.”
“Get on to France Télécom. Ask them to compile a full list of all calls to that number and see how quickly they can isolate the caller’s location. I’ll have a warrant signed out by lunch. It’s about the Victoria bombing. Top priority.”
“Right away.”
“Oh, and what about the last number I gave you?”
“That one? Virgin. Never used.”
Graves suddenly had a terrible premonition. Not used yet. “Can you shut down that number? You know, deactivate it, so that it doesn’t work?”
“I’m pretty sure that the boys in tech services can. It’ll take some time to run the number through the system.”
“How long?”
“Noon, latest.”
Another twelve hours. Not good, but better than nothing. “Many thanks. I owe you.” Graves hung up and rang Kate Ford. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Èze. Searching the house Ransom ran to.”
“Whom does it belong to?”
“Officially it’s the property of a small corporation called VOR S.A. The company registry lists a single director. His name is Serge Simenon.”
“Serge Simenon. Sergei Shvets. Same initials, similar name. What do you think?”
“What are you talking about?”
Graves updated Kate Ford on his meeting with the Russian spy Kempa, as well as the information he’d received from Vodafone. “The cell is active, and its base of operations is in Paris.”
“My God.”
“Have you found anything there that ties into Russia?”
“There’s a trove of papers in the office written in Cyrillic and a few CDs by Russian singers. Coincidence?”
“No way. Do you still have the jet?”
“On the runway at Nice.”
“How soon can you get to Paris?”
“Three or four hours, if I hightail it. What are you planning?”
“A raid,” said Graves. “We go in at first light.”
67
The sun rose in Paris at 5:42 a.m. Driving into the city from Charles de Gaulle Airport, Kate Ford watched the first rays of light strike the dome of the Sacré Coeur high on the hill in Montmartre. Her car rattled over the Pont Neuf. The cool, pleasing scent of the Seine invaded the cabin, and she caught a glimpse of Notre Dame upriver. A moment later her view was obscured and she found herself speeding through a maze of drab, unloved streets. This was a different Paris, not the home of the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe, but a dilapidated colonial outpost lined with Algerian coffeehouses, Middle Eastern cafés, and boutiques overflowing with West African clothing. As she progressed farther into the banlieues, the city darkened and acquired a hostile façade. Oil barrels black with soot, smoke from the past evening’s fire still curling skyward, were not uncommon. A burned-out car lying on its side occupied one sidewalk. Dumpsters overflowing with trash lined more than one alley. Everywhere graffiti assaulted the eye.
The car rounded a corner and stopped suddenly. Ahead, the street was blocked with police vehicles. A dozen men moved purposefully, putting on vests and helmets, filling ammunition clips and checking weapons. Her driver, a sergeant from the Paris prefecture, led her across the street into a corner café where the mobile command post had been established. She found Graves standing over a table studying a set of blueprints, with several black uniforms on either side of him.
The police belonged to the Black Panthers, the nickname of RAID- Recherche Assistance Intervention et Dissuasion-an elite national squad twenty-four men strong on call 24/7 for exactly this circumstance.
“They’re operating out of a one-bedroom flat on the tenth floor,” explained one of the men in black assault gear, using the tip of his Ka-Bar knife as a pointer. “End of the hall. Apartments on either side. One way in, one way out. The building has two elevators, but only one is in service. The other is stalled between the fourth and fifth floors. There are two stairwells. We can put a team in on top, but the helo might scare the prey.”
“Stick with the stairs,” said Graves. “We want them alive. They may have vital information.”
“Entendu.”
Graves spotted Kate and stepped away from the table. “You made it.”
“Had to scream at air control, but they came around. Looks like you were able to rouse the troops.”