Liz Carlyle - 07 - The Geneva Trap (34 page)

‘Not only are they known to your Service, but we believe your Service is actively involved with these North Koreans. Possibly even running the operation.’

‘That is a highly unfriendly accusation. I don’t believe you can substantiate it.’

‘One of your senior officers was seen entering the office in Marseilles from which the operation is being run.’

‘That sounds most unlikely. It must have been a mistaken identification.’

‘Not at all. He was followed from Geneva to Marseilles. There isn’t any question of a mistake.’

The Russian’s eyebrows went up a second time. ‘Geneva?’

‘He is your Head of Security there.’

There was a pause. Then Kirov said, ‘I take it you learned this from Herr Bech. The Swiss Service is not one I greatly admire.’

Bokus spoke for the first time. ‘Anatole Kubiak.’

There was a long silence in the room. Finally, Kirov stubbed out his cheroot and said, ‘Let’s accept for the moment that you’re right – a Russian intelligence officer has been seen entering an office you believe is occupied by North Korean intelligence agents. So?’

Fane said, ‘It would link you to efforts to undermine the US–UK project. As I said, it has already suffered one, possibly two, acts of sabotage. If your country were involved with that in any way, we would take it as a highly provocative act.’

Bokus interjected, ‘We sure would. My own government would see it as an act of outright aggression. We are provisionally considering reprisals already.’

Kirov’s face was expressionless as he composed his response. Finally, he held up both palms. ‘Gentlemen, my wife would tell you it rarely happens, but I am at a loss for words. I have never heard of a North Korean infiltrator in the British Ministry of Defence. Frankly, it sounds preposterous to me. I am happy to relay your concern to Moscow, and tell you their reply in due course. But otherwise, I don’t see what I can do, since I don’t have any knowledge of what you are talking about.’

‘That’s not good enough,’ said Bokus. ‘I notice you didn’t say you knew nothing about the project.’

Kirov shrugged. ‘One hears a lot of things in our job,’ he said blandly.

Fane spoke urgently. ‘Events have rather overtaken us. This morning a senior British intelligence officer went to Marseilles to liaise with the French about this Korean operation. They met this morning and were scheduled to meet again at lunchtime. My colleague did not reappear – she’s still missing. Something has clearly happened to her.’

‘Could the Koreans have spotted her?’

Fane shook his head. ‘They had no way of knowing who she was. But there’s more: the French raided this office in Marseilles several hours ago; inside they found the Koreans who’d been working there, as well as the North Korean intelligence officer who had been liaising with their covert agent in Britain. All of them were dead.’

‘Murdered?’ ?When Bokus nodded, Kirov asked, ‘By whom?’

Bokus said, ‘We think it was your Head of Security in Geneva.’ When Kirov looked astonished at this, Bokus raised his voice: ‘He was seen entering the building at the time of the murder and leaving afterwards.’

Fane wished Bokus would calm down. Even though he shared his anger, you got nowhere shouting at the Russians.

Kirov sat quietly, then shook his head finally, as if to rid himself of a bad dream. ‘None of this makes any sense to me.’

‘Sure,’ said Bokus sarcastically.

Kirov ignored him and looked at Fane. There was concern in his eyes for the first time. ‘I will make enquiries as a matter of urgency.’

‘Please do,’ said Fane, trying not to show his own feelings. The Russians were quick to exploit any sign of weakness. He went on firmly, ‘If the same person who killed the Koreans is holding our officer, then she’s obviously in danger. I want assurances that if indeed an officer of your Service is holding her, then you will ensure that she is not harmed. You can tell your Head Office that if anything does happen to her there will be the most serious repercussions.’

Kirov momentarily bristled, but there was nothing menacing about Fane’s threat – it was stated calmly, as fact, and Bokus for once had the good sense not to butt in – so the Russian finally nodded, asking, ‘Is it absolutely certain that it was Kubiak who was seen in Marseilles?’

‘Without a doubt. The identification was made by the French and the Swiss. ‘

Kirov shook his head in bafflement. Then he stood up; the meeting was over. Though Fane and Bokus were both six inches taller than the Russian, he had an air of authority which at that moment made him seem the largest person in the room. ‘I’ll say goodnight now – my aides will show you out. I will be talking with Moscow before you reach the street.’

When they left the Embassy, it was dark outside. Walking towards the guard post at the High Street Kensington end, Bokus turned to Fane. ‘So what do you think?’

Fane shrugged and Bokus said crossly, ‘My people are going to want to make direct representations to Moscow – we’ll be calling in the Ambassador again.’

‘Hold them off,’ said Fane sharply. Escalation at this point wasn’t going to help get Liz back; in fact, it might make it even harder.

‘Why?’ Bokus demanded. ‘I don’t trust this guy Kirov an inch; don’t tell me you do.’

‘Trust isn’t the issue now. It’s credibility I’m concerned about.’

‘You mean you believed him – you think he wouldn’t know if the SVR were running an agent in the MOD?’

‘Of course he would –
if
they had been doing that. The problem I have is that he may be telling the truth: he has almost certainly heard of Clarity, but I don’t think he’s heard any of this information about Kubiak before. That’s what’s worrying me. I’d be less anxious if I thought he had been lying to us about that. At least it would mean he knows where Kubiak is. But I don’t think he has any more of a clue than we do.’

Chapter 56

‘Cigarette?’

Martin Seurat had stopped smoking ten years before, but he was so tired that he mindlessly accepted Fézard’s offer. He borrowed the Inspector’s lighter and lit up. It tasted terrible, but he hoped it would help keep him from nodding off. The clock on the wall said 6.15, and daylight was flooding through the windows.

It seemed important to stay awake, though there was nothing they could do – just sit and wait for news. They were both certain that whatever had happened to Liz, Kubiak was behind it. There had been nothing from the hospitals, so an accident could be ruled out. Every hotel,
pension
, and B&B in a twenty-mile radius was being visited by the police, checking the details of every visitor in a desperate search for Kubiak, Liz or anyone suspicious. Railways and the airport had been thoroughly combed over as well, scanning passenger lists and credit-card receipts, checking with Passport Control. Finally, over 400 CCTV cameras were having the contents of their last three days’ filing examined painstakingly, in a search for both the Mercedes saloon with Swiss number plates which belonged to Kubiak and the plain blue van in which he had arrived at the Koreans’ office, masquerading as a delivery man. Fézard’s surveillance cameras had caught only a partial shot of the van as it was being parked a little way down the street, but a couple of digits of the number plate were visible, and these had been checked with all the rental firms in Marseilles, the airport and the outlying areas. Without success.

CCTV seemed likely to be the most helpful source of information, but it would also be the slowest to produce results. Martin didn’t want to think how long it would take even the dozen or so who were working on it to scan all the digital video they’d collected.

The phones had been ringing all night. Herr Bech had been one of many callers; he had put out a general alert for any sighting of Kubiak or either of the vehicles in Switzerland. Geoffrey Fane had rung so often that Martin had finally had to suggest that he go to bed, so they could all get some sleep. Not that he himself had done much more than nap for five minutes at a time; he was too tense, too worried that if he closed his eyes he might miss something that could help find Liz.

His phone vibrated. He looked at the screen. ‘Now Geoffrey Fane’s started texting,’ he said irritably. ‘He expects to hear from the Russians this morning and will let us know if they have any useful information. I don’t expect much from that source,’ he added sourly.

Fézard nodded, then said, ‘There’s a canteen downstairs which will be open now for the early shift. Perhaps we should have some breakfast. It could be a busy day – we’d better eat while we have time.’

As if in rebuke, the phone on Fézard’s desk rang with a gentle purr. The Inspector picked it up and said hello, then listened intently, said a quiet
Merci
and put the phone down. ‘That was the lab – they have initial results from the first autopsy. The victims were definitely poisoned, and it was in the tea they drank. They haven’t identified the poison yet, but they believe it was a kind of venom – there are some that would paralyse a nervous system with just a few sips. It takes a few minutes to work, so provided everyone was drinking the tea at roughly the same time, it would poison them all.’

‘Sounds pretty sophisticated,’ said Martin.

Fézard nodded. ‘It is – that’s why they can’t identify it yet. The technician said he’s never seen exactly this poison before.’

A clever assassin, thought Martin gloomily, which meant he had carefully planned everything. Including, presumably, locating a place to hide Liz which no one could find.

Wait a minute, he told himself, Kubiak couldn’t have planned her abduction in advance. He wouldn’t have known she was in Marseilles; she hadn’t been certain of her plans herself until the day before. So if he had grabbed her, it must have been on the spur of the moment; he might not have had any idea what to do with her. That was where he could have made a mistake, something the CCTV cameras might have picked up. Unless he’d realised the danger, and decided the only thing to do was remove her from the scene altogether.

‘How about breakfast?’ Fézard began to say again, when there was a light tap on the office door. He sighed. ‘
Entrez
.’

One of his officers stood in the doorway. He was unshaven and his eyes were red. He’d obviously been up all night as well. ‘We’ve had a call from the CCTV crew, sir. They think they may have found something.’

Chapter 57

The CCTV images were from an industrial estate on the northern edge of the city that was scheduled for demolition and redevelopment. They showed a battered blue van driving along a deserted road with a derelict office building in the background. The licence-plate number was half in shadow but enough was visible to identify the vehicle as Kubiak’s delivery van.

A few minutes later, they were en route. Fézard drove Martin and Isobel in an unmarked police car. Ahead of them was a police van, containing four armed officers, and the small convoy was escorted by two police outriders on big Honda bikes with lights flashing and sirens going.

They took the Marseilles ring road, their outriders easily slicing a route for them through the heavy early-morning traffic. Martin drummed his fingers nervously on the arm rest while Fézard smoked as he drove and Isobel hummed tunelessly in the back seat. At last they got off the ring road and entered an area of low-lying office buildings, warehouses, and lorry depots. It looked very rundown – at least half the sites had For Sale signs.

‘We’re lucky there was still a camera operating out here,’ said Fézard as they slowed for a traffic light. ‘There was a lot of theft in this area – the depots were particular targets – and at one point there were cameras everywhere. In the last three years, as companies have moved out
en masse
, the cameras have been removed.’

‘Where was the picture taken?’

‘Just there,’ said the Inspector, pointing to a junction of the main road they were on with a smaller access road. ‘He was travelling that way,’ he added, pointing to the smaller road.

He turned and they entered an estate, which was so rundown it made its semi-deserted neighbours look positively prosperous. Here the windows were either smashed or boarded up, and the squares of grass hadn’t been mown or the verges trimmed for many months. There were obviously no tenants left in these buildings, though through one set of broken ground-floor windows Martin saw three long-haired men in overalls gathered around a primus stove. Squatters.

They drew alongside the waiting squad car and got out. The senior policeman was shaking his head as they approached him. ‘We’ve checked all the roads here, sir, though there aren’t a lot of them. The whole estate’s due for demolition. Some gypsies tried to set up camp last month, but we moved them on. There’s the odd squatter, but otherwise the only people who’ve been here are property developers snooping around, looking to buy the land and redevelop when the recession’s over. No one’s here now – except for the demolition experts and the wrecking crew. They’re blowing up one of the office blocks any minute now.’

As if on cue there was a large boom, followed by another, and then another still. Turning round, Martin saw not far away a four-storey office block collapse as if in slow motion – the upper floors crumpled like cheap plasterboard, spewing out dust in a massive cloud as the lower floors followed. It was all over in seconds: a pile of brick dust and mortar now covered the site of what only seconds before had been a 10,000-square-foot office block.