The Big Breach (48 page)

We took a taxi round to the embassy on the Avenue Leonardo da Vinci near the Place Victor Hugo. To take some photographs for the accompanying article, a
Sunday Times
photographer, Alastair Miller, was waiting outside as we pulled up. Even the heavy-handed DST would shy away from arresting me in front of a journalist and photographer. My suspicions about the New Zealand embassy staff were well-founded. Now they had changed their tune for the third time. `We've had new instructions from Wellington,' explained Mary Oliver, `You can't have your passport back until tomorrow.'

The embassy's capitulation to MI6 pressure over my passport was disappointing, and Oliver's farewell pleasantries fell on deaf ears as I stormed out. On the street outside I felt guilty about my rudeness and considered going back in to apologise, but Miller was impatient to get on with the photo-shoot. We walked over to the Trocadero, five minutes away, where the Eiffel tower would make a suitable backdrop, had a light lunch in an outdoor bistro, then Miller set to work. Soon we had a small crowd around us, presuming that I was a rock star or a football player.

We finished at around 1430 and since we were going the same way hailed a taxi together from the Place Victor Hugo. I kept an eye out for surveillance as we ploughed through the slow-moving Paris traffic, but saw nothing obvious. I asked the taxi-driver to drop me at the Gare St Lazare, as it was easier than giving directions to my hotel. The station was being refurbished and heavy polythene dust sheets and scaffolding obscured the familiar facade, disorientating me. Glancing around to find another landmark, I noticed a dark grey VW Passat pulling up 150 metres away. A similar car had been waiting near the taxi rank at the Trocadero. I didn't note the number so I couldn't be sure they were the same, but it added to my unease. I walked up the Rue d'Amsterdam, past the entrance to my hotel and bought a bottle of Evian from a Lebanese delicatessen. Doubling back to my lodgings, there was nobody obviously following.

No sooner had I locked the door of my room behind me and sat down on the narrow bed than there was a knock at the door. It was the sharp, aggressive knock of somebody in authority, not the soft apologetic knock of a hotel maid. `Oui, qu'est ce-que vous desirez?' I asked, unable to hide the suspicion in my voice.

'C'est la r‚ception.' The voice was too belligerent and in any case reception would have used the internal phone if they needed to speak to me. I stood up, took a deep breath and turned the key in the door. It burst in as though there was a gas explosion outside. Three heavily built men catapulted through the door, screaming, `Police, Police!', cartwheeling me backwards, smashing my head on the desk and crushing me to the floor. Resistance would have been futile, even if I was so inclined. My arms were wrestled behind my back and handcuffs snapped into place, biting into the flesh. I was helpless, but blows still rained down on the back of my head until a well-aimed kick in the ribs sucked the breath out of me. Only when I fell completely motionless did the assault stop. I was hauled upright, then thrown on to the bed. Three heavies stood over me, their glowers relaxing into triumphant, toothless grins. One was sucking a knuckle that had split during the assault. Behind them stood two more officers, their revolvers pointed at my chest. The taller of the two appeared to be in charge. A wave of the barrel and the three heavies started searching the room.

`L'ordinateur, o— est l'ordinateur?' he snapped at me. I pointed at the overturned desk where my laptop lay on the floor, face down, open at the hinge, but seemingly still in one piece. A heavy picked it up, dusted it down, slammed it shut and rammed it into a specimen bag. `Et le Psion?' continued the gun. I nodded at the bedside table and the bloody knuckle slung it in another bag. Working in silence, they gathered my other possessions and clothes together, crushed them untidily into my suitcase, struggled to close the zip, gave up and strapped it together with my belt, leaving my suit trouser-leg and a shirt-tail hanging out.

Silently they dragged me out of the room and down the narrow corridor to the lift. The commander stabbed the button but then muttered an order and decided on the stairs. There were five steep flights of them and for a moment it crossed my mind that they might give me a shove. As the five police led me past the front desk of the hotel, my hair dishevelled, shirt splattered with blood, shirt-tail hanging out, I smiled apologetically at the receptionist. He glared back, presuming I must be guilty of some villainous offence.

Outside, a small group of onlookers had already gathered. Two plain clothes police cars waited with an ambulance behind them, suggesting that they expected me to put up a fight. `Why did you smash me up?' I asked one of the officers in French as he pushed me into the back seat of the first car. He grunted menacingly and I shut up.

Sitting impassively in the back of the car, handcuffed to a
flic
on each side, we made our way westwards and then along the south bank of the Seine. It was a sickening feeling to lose control of my freedom again and dull helpless resignation set in, like a rabbit caught in a snare knowing its time is up. MI6 had got me again on a Friday afternoon, meaning a whole weekend in an uncomfortable police cell before a court hearing. Still, on the bright side, French handcuffs were a lot more comfortable than British ones, and Ronnie had told me that French jails were not too bad.

The traffic became more fluid as we left central Paris and we picked up speed down the southern embankment. Turning suddenly left, we passed under an elevated section of the metro and then abruptly right down a steep ramp into an underground compound.

My captors hauled me out of the car, led me through a few dimly lit corridors and shoved me into a custody cell. I gave it two stars: no toilet, no window, only a wooden bench with a dirty blanket and no mattress or pillow. British police cells were a category above. The front wall of the cell was entirely reinforced glass, allowing the guards to watch my every move. My handcuffs snapped off and the heavies ordered me to strip, then handed back my clothes, minus my belt and wristwatch. Wordlessly, they left and locked me in. I sat down on the bench and put my head in my hands. I had no idea how long they would hold me, so prepared myself mentally for the worst.

Perhaps an hour later they returned, handcuffed me again and escorted me down a short corridor into a windowless and stuffy interview room, lit by flickering neon lights. There was a long desk, behind which five police officers sat, Ratcliffe amongst them, smiling triumphantly as the heavies pushed me into a chair. Ratcliffe caught me glaring and spoke first. `You can't be surprised to see me here, Richard.'

I knew that Ratcliffe was only doing his job and following orders from on high, but it was difficult not to feel hostility towards him as the executor of this inconvenience. I ignored him and turned to the French officer who had overseen my arrest. `Je suis desol‚, mais je ne veux pas r‚pondre … l'Inspector en anglais ici sans votre permis.' There was no better way for an Englishman to annoy a Frenchman than by speaking English on his territory, as Ratcliffe had done. If I spoke French, it could only be helpful to my cause. His stern face cracked into a half smile and he introduced himself as Commandant Broisniard of the DST. Alongside him was Captain Gruignard, a new face who had not been present at the arrest. He had a small laptop computer in front of him, used by the French police to record interviews instead of a tape recorder. Another SB officer, Inspector Mark Whaley, sat alongside Ratcliffe and between the British and French officers sat an interpreter. In front of them, scattered across the desk, were my laptop, Psion, mobile phone and various papers and faxes.

`You have been arrested under the Mutual Assistance Act,' explained Broisniard in French. This agreement obliges a foreign police service to arrest a person at the request of another police force, whatever the reason. It was a piece of legislation that was open to abuse and SB were testing its spirit. `I am sorry', he explained, `but we are obliged to arrest you.' He advised me to cooperate fully with the questioning, assured me that Ratcliffe and Whaley were not entitled to question me directly and explained that the only language permitted in the interrogation would be French. The SB officers could propose questions via the interpreter but only he and Gruignard could directly question me on French soil.

As Broisniard explained this, every now and again the interpreter paraphrased a few sentences into English for the benefit of Ratcliffe and Whaley. They tired of listening to the French, and in a lull, Ratcliffe interjected impatiently, `We think you may have used the internet in breach of your probation conditions.' I ignored him, and replied to Broisniard in French.

`What did he say?' I asked, innocently.

Broisniard's smile broadened. The interpreter translated Ratcliffe's question into French and Gruignard opened up the laptop and started typing. He seemed unfamiliar with a keyboard and typed using his two index fingers, pausing occasionally while he searched for a key, his lower lip mouthing the letters as he tapped them in. `Voil…', announced Gruignard finally, evidently pleased with his work. `Est ce-que vous avez utilis‚ l'internet,' he read out aloud, checking his handiwork.

Broisniard put on his glasses and leant over to read the computer screen. `Est ce-que vous avez utilis‚ l'internet,' he repeated to me sternly.

`Jamais,' I lied emphatically.

Ratcliffe remembered enough schoolboy French to understand and, eager to get on with the interview, started to ask another question. But Broisniard cut him off. `Attendez, attendez un moment,' he said, holding up his hand, and leant over the laptop to watch Gruignard type in my reply.

Gruignard's lower lip quivered as he tapped out the letters J - A - M - A - I - S, his eyes scanning the keyboard for each key. `Et voil…,' he triumphantly announced as he completed the word and hit the `Enter' key.

Ratcliffe tried again to get in his question, but Broisniard cut him off with a movement of his hand. It was the interpreter's turn to speak next. He sat up from his slump with a jolt. `Never!' he translated.

Broisniard looked satisfied and at last Ratcliffe could begin his next question. `We believe you may have spoken to an Australian journalist, Kathryn Bonella, in breach of your probation terms.'

I waited while the interpreter rephrased the question in French, Gruignard labouriously tapped it into the PC and Broisniard finally put the question to me in his own language, all of which provided at least five minutes to think of a good answer. `Bien s–r, j'ai parl‚ … Mademoiselle Bonella quelquefois.'

My response went back through the recording and interpretation process, while Ratciffe fidgeted impatiently. He sensed that he had got me when the English translation finally arrived. `What did you speak to her about?' he demanded urgently. Again, the interpreter translated the question, Gruignard slowly typed the question into the PC and Broisniard put the question to me.

`Un emploi.' I replied and the process started again. Broisniard was starting to look irritated. Not with his officer's amateur typing or my facetiousness, but with Ratcliffe's irrelevant questions. They had arrested me at gunpoint, as if I were a terrorist, and now Ratcliffe just wanted to know about my job interviews and whether I had used the internet.

The Janet and John style of the interrogation was leaving me plenty of time to think, and I went through a mental list of everything on my computer and Psion. I was not confident they would find nothing incriminating. Files on my laptop were encrypted with PGP and the hard disk had recently been defragmented so there was no danger there. But although everything in my Psion was also encrypted, I feared that they might succeed in breaking the small encryption program. Moreover, they would probably keep the computers, and the Psion contained important information including all my contacts and research on the job market, my bank account details and PIN numbers. I would be crippled without it. The Psion sat temptingly close on the desk between Broisniard and myself; if only I could get hold of it without being seen.

I asked Broisniard for a drink, as the adrenaline rush of the arrest had made me thirsty and it was hot in the interview room. Broisniard barked an order into the internal phone and one of the guards came back a few minutes later with a bottle of Evian and put it on the desk. I picked it up with both handcuffed hands, took a swig and replaced it close to the Psion. Ratcliffe wanted to know the password to my encrypted files and while his question was being translated and typed, I took another swig and replaced the bottle even closer. The question was put to me in French by Broisniard.

`The password is ``Inspector Ratcliffe is a nonce'',' I lied.

`C'est quoi, un ``nonce''?' Broisniard asked seriously. After my explanation, the smirking Broisniard repeated the phrase to Gruignard to tap it into the laptop and the interpreter leaned over to help with the spelling. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ratcliffe and Whaley conferring, heads down. This was my chance. I reached for the bottle of Evian, took a swig, replaced it next to the Psion, slipped my hands down from the bottle, and grabbed the pocket-sized computer. With it under the table and out of their sight, I slipped out the stamp-sized memory disk, stuffed it down my boot and replaced the Psion. None of the five police officers noticed anything and I couldn't stop myself grinning.