“I had Sir Tony get on the blower. He was upset, after the snafu on your end. I think they could hear his voice across the Channel unaided.”
“Is she inside?”
“Have a look for yourself.” Graves led her to an unmarked van parked outside. Inside the rear bay sat two officers in front of a bank of monitors and instruments. “We’ve got a surveillance post set up inside a building across the road. They have a couple of infrared cameras and a laser mike on the windows. We have identified two actives inside. Both are awake and moving around the flat.”
“Early risers, eh?” Kate studied the largest screen. On it, displayed against a grainy gray background, the silhouettes of two figures could be seen walking back and forth between rooms. “Is it them?”
Graves squinted, as if he could will the fuzzy heat signatures into focus. “No visuals yet. They have the storm blinds down. But it could be. He’s in town. So’s she.”
“Shvets is in Paris?” asked Kate, who’d received a full briefing and a temporary promotion to “Eyes Only” clearance en route from Nice.
“They call him Papi. I didn’t know that. Quite the father figure. Rumor is he takes a personal interest in his more comely female agents.”
Upon learning that Shvets had masterminded the car bomb at 1 Victoria Street and the theft of the IAEA’s laptops, Graves’s first order of business had been to share the news with Anthony Allam. A diplomatic dossier was established containing all facts tying Shvets to the crime. Besides going to the prime minister, the foreign minister, and the heads of MI6 and the Metropolitan Police, the information was passed to R Section, known within MI5 as the Red House.
“R Section tracks Shvets’s position at all times,” continued Graves. “They traced the tail number of his aircraft to Orly last night. Get this- the same plane landed at Luton Airport outside London the night before the bombing.”
“So he’s supervising this personally,” said Kate.
“Oh yeah. This one’s his, all right. Something he’s running out of a shop called Directorate S. His locations correspond to calls placed from Emma Ransom’s phone. Moscow, Sochi, Paris. Shvets’s jet was in Rome two days after Emma Ransom was stabbed. We’re getting a trace on the credit card used to pay the hospital bill right now.”
“Her real name is Lara,” said Kate. “She’s a Russian, too.”
“I guess so.”
“Do you think Ransom knew?” she asked.
“I couldn’t care less.”
Kate pointed at the monitors. “What about sound? Can we listen in?”
“The storm blinds are making a hash of the lasers. We can’t find a large enough section of glass to get a clear read.” Graves tapped the technician on the shoulder. “Try the sound again.”
The policeman flipped a switch and the van filled with the babble of television news, but the words were unintelligible. He played with his knobs and the din of the news diminished, replaced by fits and spurts of classical music. He fiddled some more and a woman’s voice could be heard shouting something, then a man’s voice in reply.
“What language are they speaking?” asked Kate. “Russian?”
“No idea. Could be anything.”
At that moment the French police captain appeared at the door of the van. “We’re ready.” He looked at Kate. “You will join us?”
Kate nodded. The Frenchman issued a string of orders, and a moment later a deputy ran up, carrying a Kevlar vest. Kate took off her blazer and slipped on the vest in its place. Graves moved behind her, helping her tighten the straps. “You can stay here if you like. Safer.”
“Right,” said Kate, meaning there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell.
“That okay?” he asked, giving a final tug and pat on the back.
“Just fine, Colonel.”
Around them the Black Panthers completed their final preparations, a corps of ninjas armed to the teeth. Graves adjusted his own bulletproof vest, then removed his pistol from his shoulder holster and chambered a round. “Know something?” he asked. “I’ve never fired this in anger.”
“Even when you were in the military?”
“Even then.”
Kate racked a round and thumbed the safety off. “Beat you there. I’ve taken down two bad guys.”
“Killed?”
“Wounded.”
Graves looked at her with a newfound admiration.
The police captain summoned his troops. “Everyone ready?”
68
Emma Ransom left the house on Rue Saint-Martin precisely at 5:45 a.m. She drove slowly down the country lane, her windows open, the air freighted with the smell of fertile earth and cut grass. She had dressed conservatively for the day’s work, choosing charcoal slacks, a black blazer, and a white T. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore little makeup. She did not carry a weapon. The only concessions to the job that lay ahead were the needle-nose pliers, Philips screwdrivers, and box of alligator clips that lay inside her purse. None of these items would be considered out of the ordinary for a trained inspector from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
After five minutes, she joined the D23 and headed in the direction of Flamanville. It was another sunny day, and she quickly put on a pair of sunglasses. She turned on the radio and listened to a patch of rock music, then switched it off.
She exited the highway at D4/Rue de Valmanoir, turning onto a feeder road that paralleled the highway. To her right, a vast wheat field swayed in the morning breeze. She continued for 10 kilometers, until she saw a sign that read, “ La Reine 1 & 2. Restricted Entry. Authorized Personnel Only.” She followed the sign onto a narrow two-lane road that ran straight toward the coast. Her eyes lifted to the hillside where she’d left her car two nights earlier and retraced the steps she had taken. Ahead she saw the line of the outer perimeter fence cutting the horizon in two and the guard post in the center of the road. Immediately she noted that something was amiss and her foot lifted from the accelerator. Parked on either side of the road was an armored personnel carrier with a 50-caliber machine gun mounted on its turret. Soldiers sat inside the hatches, watching the road like hawks.
With a hard-earned discipline, she laid out possible reasons for the elevated security presence. Pierre Bertels at the International Nuclear Safety Corporation had discovered she was not Anna Scholl but an impostor. The British police had tracked down Russell’s source. Papi’s plan had been uncovered inside the Kremlin and he had admitted everything. They all came down to the same thing: the operation was blown.
Applying the same cold logic, she parsed each possibility and discarded it in turn. Given Pierre Bertels’s desire to bed her, it was doubtful that he had questioned her identity even for a second. Anna Scholl was safe. Second, even if the British police had tracked down Russell’s source, they would have obtained no more information than Russell had. An attack was imminent, but the location was unknown. It could be anywhere in the world. And even if Papi’s enemies in Moscow had discovered the plan, they would be unsure how to act, effectively paralyzed.