‘Neither do I,’ said Sanglier, anxious to support the reluctant diplomat.
‘I totally agree,’ said Harding, not caring if the lie was obvious. What was even more obvious was what he had to do, as the operational commander. By this time tomorrow – sooner if possible – he wasn’t just going to know the favourite breakfast cereal of eight near strangers, he’d be able to say in which hand they held the spoon.
By the end of the meal Claudine accepted she had been the only person with any real problem but believed she had lost it early enough for neither of them to have been aware of it. Blake appeared very much at ease and Rosetti, usually a reserved man, matched his friendliness. She’d wished Hugo hadn’t been so territorially obvious, cupping her arm and holding out chairs and unfolding dinner napkins: twice she’d caught the curiosity on Blake’s face. They ate at the hotel at the request of Claudine, who pleaded exhaustion at the end of such a crowded day, which was only part of the reason. It would, she decided, make it easier to leave both men at the end of the evening.
There was only the vaguest of tensions, each man competing to admire the profiling and analysis that had led to the breakthrough, which neither doubted. The more cynical Blake was genuinely funny parodying the desperation of Harrison and Sanglier, who’d gone off alone to eat together, to avoid any personal responsibility for whatever Harding and Rampling did.
‘Let’s just hope they do it well,’ said Claudine, quickly cutting off the laughter.
Blake didn’t look at her when he pleaded tiredness to excuse himself as soon as the meal ended, leaving her with Rosetti. Claudine felt a sudden warmth and hoped she hadn’t coloured. That would have been ridiculous.
‘Kurt told me about the American,’ said Rosetti.
‘I’m all right.’
‘You sure?’
‘I should have prevented it.’
‘So you’re not all right,’ said the man.
‘I’ll be OK.’
‘It would be wrong to blame yourself.’
‘Easy to say.’
‘But true. He wasn’t your responsibility – or your patient.’
‘I said I’ll be OK: I can function. I don’t want to analyse it any more.’ She regretted the sharpness.
‘Peter’s a nice guy.’
‘Yes.’
‘You obviously get on well.’
‘I told you we did.’ She felt a sudden sweep of anger.
‘I remember.’
‘I’m very tired. I’m going to bed.’
‘Of course.’
She expected it to be Blake when her phone rang. ‘You didn’t tell me about you and Hugo.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘It didn’t look like that tonight.’
‘We see each other. But we’re not sleeping together.’ Why was she defending herself: telling him that!
‘Oh.’
‘I really am tired.’
‘How about lonely?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But no.’
‘You sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ She hoped she hadn’t created an unnecessary problem for herself.
Rosetti and Volker were at the bar and both drunk when Henri Sanglier got back to the Metropole. The German, emboldened by whisky, invited him to join them but Sanglier said he had calls to make.
‘Things could really start to move tomorrow,’ forecast Volker, carefully enunciating each word.
‘I hope you’re right,’ said the Frenchman.
‘We’ve done our best,’ Volker assured him enigmatically.
‘I don’t want to know!’
In his suite Sanglier remained undecided for several moments before picking up the telephone to dial Francoise, to whom he hadn’t spoken since Paris and hardly expected to reach now. He was actually surprised when she answered almost immediately. She appeared as surprised to hear from him. There was noise – music and people – in the background.
Instead of talking about Paris, which he’d intended, he said: ‘What’s going on?’
‘Friends. A party.’
Sanglier felt his throat block. She was very bright, excited, chattering grown-up birdsong. It wasn’t alcohol. He didn’t want to think what it was. ‘I said never the house.’
‘You say lots of things.’
‘Get them out, Francoise.’
‘They’re my friends.’
‘How long has it been going on?’
‘Days. Who knows? Great fun.’
‘I’m coming home,’ lied Sanglier. ‘I want everyone out before I get there.’
‘Don’t be such a pompous shit! Why doesn’t everybody stay so you can join us when you get back?’
Sanglier put the phone down but remained sitting on the side of his bed, eyes tightly shut in despair. What was he going to do? Dear God, what was he going to do?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The effectiveness of Kurt Volker’s computer marauding enabled the enlarged FBI and CIA surveillance operation to be in place by 6 a.m.
Through Europol’s temporary incident room Volker was officially part of the police headquarters system, knowing its password, so it wasn’t even necessary to hack in from the US embassy to access its personnel files, which had no protecting firewall against unauthorized intrusion.
The full print-out of Police Commissioner Andre Poncellet included two photographs clearly taken some years previously but still sufficient for identification – a prime requirement – so Volker digitalized both. There were two listed addresses, one within the city on the rue des Commercants and what was clearly a summer house by the lake at Auderghem. From their dates of birth one daughter was twenty-one, the other twenty-four, making it unlikely either still lived at home. Information about how many people were likely to occupy a property was another essential requirement.
Volker switched from police headquarter records to its computer directory, guessing the access code to the Justice Ministry would be registered, which it was. So he didn’t have to hack an entry there, either. As with police personnel, every ministry file held two subject photographs, full face and profile. Again he digitalized those of the six clerks, as well as those of Jean Smet.
The rue de Flandres was the only listed house for Smet, who was described as a bachelor with no dependants. Two of the Europol-assigned female clerks were married. So were two of the men. Each of the four had school-age children. Only the unmarried man lived outside the city, close to the Astrid park in Anderlecht.
To each of the eight targets Paul Harding assigned a six-man squad, with two ‘floating’ operatives for any unforeseen development or emergency. The necessary forty additional agents twenty from the FBI, twenty from the CIA – had been embarked at Washington’s Andrews Air Force base before Volker completed his computer searches. With them they brought the Bibles and literature to support the textbook CIA cover of overseas Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon missionaries if they mistakenly approached a still occupied foreign household.
The 6 a.m. deployment of each team was designed to avoid that risk – which it did in every case – by recording each departure against the likely remaining occupancy of premises to be burgled and searched after the target left for work. At that exit, the watching team split, three detaching to maintain the physical surveillance, three remaining to enter the house or apartment after determining it was empty. Each of the forty-eight officers, fifteen of them women, were equipped with Volker’s computer-hijacked personnel print-outs with their essential recognitive photographs.
All the clerks left their homes roughly within fifteen minutes of each other, for their 9 a.m. ministry start. Three dropped their children off at school. The wife of the fourth male clerk left separately, in her own car, with their two children.
The apparently unoccupied houses of the bachelor male clerk who lived at Anderlecht and the unmarried female whose rented home was on the rue Pieremans were the first to be entered. Both were telephoned first, to ensure they were empty. The others were burgled as their occupants left during the course of the day, the last not until 2 p.m. All the burglaries were to an established pattern, two agents entering while the third, the spot man, remained outside to warn of any unexpected return.