‘Jesus, what a sick, screwed-up bitch!’ said Harding.
Blake disagreed. ‘No. It means something. It’s us who’re screwed unless we work out what it is.’
‘Who responds to the man in the gatehouse, male or female?’
‘A man,’ said Burr. ‘Always a man.’
‘The same man?’ pressed the CIA chief.
Burr hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re sure? It’s important.’
‘Always the same man,’ insisted Burr.
‘And we got the first call, so it has to be Lascelles,’ said Harding. ‘Sneaky bastard hid his car away in a garage.’
‘Why are the phrases different?’ wondered Blake.
Burr shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘What’s the response from the chateau?’ asked Blake. Behind him other cars began arriving. He moved to the side of the road to allow them to pass out of sight further along the tree-canopied track. Hillary McBride was in the last vehicle, with Ulieff and Sanglier.
‘Not much. “Thank you,” mostly. Sometimes just “I understand” or “That’s good.”’
Ulieff, Sanglier and Hillary came up to join them.
‘What’s happening?’ demanded Sanglier. Things were moving of their own volition and he knew he’d made the right decision about telephoning the chateau from Namur. It was important to go on giving the impression of still being in operational charge.
‘We don’t know,’ replied Rampling, honestly but unhelpfully. At once he said: ‘It’s some sort of identification. It’s got to be.’
‘You’re not making sense,’ said Sanglier.
Rampling shouldered his way past the man, towards the communications van close to which Burr and McCulloch stood. Inside, at McBride’s demand, McCulloch’s replacement increased the volume for the discussion to be relayed to Brussels.
‘Fifteen cars?’ he demanded.
‘Fifteen that made uncertain turns towards St Marc, as if they were strangers to the area looking for an unfamiliar address, and fifteen telephone intercepts,’ answered McCulloch, ahead of the other man with whom he’d shared the communication vehicle.
Blake smiled doubtfully. ‘And each time you logged the registration, French or Dutch?’
‘To trace the identity of the owners,’ agreed the Texan.
‘And additionally those you think carried children?’
‘Yes,’ replied the man, curiously. ‘Three, to my count.’
Blake switched to the scanner technician. ‘And you recorded each line of the nursery rhyme against each arrival?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me see the sheets,’ demanded Blake. Around him everyone was quiet, no one understanding except Rampling. Blake didn’t have to go further than the first comparison. ‘The first car was a French-registered Citroen, possibly with a child.’ He looked at McCulloch. ‘There was a child.’ He went to Burr. ‘You didn’t tell us that sometimes there were two lines recited to the mansion. There’s two on that first message, but they’re not consecutive: between “How does your garden grow?” there’s a line missing before “And pretty maids all in a row.”’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ demanded Hillary.
Blake continued comparing the two record sheets for several minutes before looking up. ‘“How does your garden grow?” identifies the French group. “With silver bells and cockle shells” is the Dutch identification. “Pretty maids all in a row” designates cars carrying a child.’ He offered the papers generally. ‘It’s all there. Felicite knows she hasn’t got anyone coming. Lascelles has a count of his people. So has whoever’s organized the French. If the count doesn’t tally, they’ve got trouble.’
‘Brussels wants to talk to you,’ called the liaison man from inside the van.
Blake put on the headphones to hear Claudine say: ‘You’re right! That’s how I read it!’
‘I know I’m right,’ said Blake.
‘Be careful. No kamikaze stuff.’
‘Speak to you later.’
He emerged to hear Harding, forgetting Hillary’s presence, say: ‘So how the fuck do we get past that barrier?’
Blake went back to the scanner record. ‘“Not much longer,”’ he read aloud.
‘That was the last reply from the chateau,’ said Burr.
‘They haven’t all arrived!’ declared Blake. He jerked hurriedly round to Ulieff and the local police chief. ‘We want cars, with French plates. They must be French because if Lascelles is talking to the gatehouse he’ll know how many of his own people to expect: they might all have already arrived. And Felicite hasn’t included any of hers.’ He gestured towards the main road. ‘Stop anyone. Persuade them, pay them, arrest them, whatever. Just get cars.’ He included Sanglier. ‘We can’t see the gatehouse from the road, which means the gatehouse can’t see the road. Any vehicle on that road from now on gets stopped and the occupants arrested. The party’s over for them.’
At Ulieff’s shooing gesture the local police chief moved off towards the main road, beckoning Namur officers to follow.
‘It’ll work,’ agreed Rampling. ‘There’s a lot of people ahead of us so there’ll be a lot of movement inside the house. And let’s not forget as we did in Namur that we’re all strangers. Once we’re out of the car the Dutch will think we’re French and the French will think we’re Dutch and Felicite will think we’re one or the other. It still won’t give us much time but we’ll be inside.’
Harding looked at McCulloch. ‘You’re aboard because you’re the biggest bastard we’ve got. You don’t move away from the front door once we’re through it. You’ve got to keep it open for everyone who’s going to come behind us…’ The American came to a halt, belatedly remembering jurisdiction. To Sanglier he said: ‘That would be my suggestion, of course. I understand the planning has to be yours.’
Another easy decision, thought Sanglier. ‘You, Blake and Rampling in charge, in the lead car. Choose your own people to follow.’
‘We’ll be wired,’ said Blake. ‘Our getting inside the house is the signal to put everyone in, from every direction.’
‘We don’t worry about the perverted fuckers: Felicite Galan even,’ suggested Harding. ‘We just get the kids: find them and get them out. Including Mary Beth there’s four. There could be more, so we go on looking even after four. Leave everything else to back-up.’ It had become a discussion between themselves, the rest excluded. ‘Anything else we need to talk about?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Rampling.
‘Let’s go,’ said the FBI chief.
For the first time it had been possible to hear most of the briefing verbatim in the Brussels embassy. At Harding’s final remark McBride said to Harrison: ‘You got a helicopter ready?’
‘Waiting,’ said the other man.
As the ambassador rose, Claudine said: ‘We don’t leave until we hear Mary Beth – all of them, I hope – are safe.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?’ demanded McBride.
Looking steadily at the ambassador, Claudine said: ‘I’m the person, if anything goes wrong, who’s going to tell the world that scoring points off each other was more important to you and your wife than getting your daughter back.’
McBride sat down again. It was nine forty-five.
Thirty minutes later no French-registered car had gone in either direction along the Namur to Gembloux road and the local police chief had radioed Namur for any French car to be seized there.
At ten thirty a Dutch-licensed Ford was stopped on the narrow feeder road to the chateau. The Amsterdam tanker pilot angrily maintained that he was a lost tourist until a Namur constable found a bag containing a devil’s costume, complete with mask and whip, and two child sex videos in the boot.
Ten minutes later the message came from Namur that two French cars, both Citroens, were on their way and Rampling said: ‘We’re going to miss Felicite’s deadline.’
‘They’ve still got to have their party,’ said Blake.
‘Maybe they’ve already started,’ said Harding.
‘She won’t have done, not until she’s spoken to McBride,’ said Blake.
At five past eleven the cars arrived. Neither police driver turned his engine off when he got out. There were two plainclothes Namur detectives in the four-man backup car.