“Then let’s get to it,” Harry said, exchanging a suspicious glance with the barman. He watched the barman look over his head at the street outside and then narrow his eyes as he returned his gaze to the three foreigners in his bar. “Because I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”
“Which was pretty shitty to start with, if I’m honest,” Zoey said. “The only smile I got was from the parrot.”
“Love you too!” the parrot squawked.
“We’re outta here,” Harry said, and then they filed out the back to the rear door which led onto a typical Parisian inner courtyard. “This way.” They crossed the courtyard until they reached a narrow allow and walked along it in the opposite direction from the police until they hit the Rue de Grancey. At the north end of the road was a cobblestone street lined with taxis.
Harry hailed a cab and they piled in. “Melun,” Harry said and handed over a one hundred euro note. “Aussi vite que vous le pouvez.”
The driver stuffed the money into his shirt pocket and hit the gas, skidding away from the chaos on the Place Denfert-Rochereau behind them.
“You think we’ll make it?” Niko asked.
“The Super Cougar will make the journey in less than two hours, but we’ll make the time up when we get in the air at the aerodrome.”
As they drove south through the banlieu zone and while Zoey and Niko drifted in and out of sleep, Harry remained vigilant for the entire duration of the drive. If what Liška had said was true about this so-called Ministry of Human Puppeteers, then anyone and everyone could be a part of their network, including even this cab driver — a hacked call, a compromised agent… he knew how it worked.
But not this time. This time, they were safe and the cab driver rolled up outside the Aérodrome de Melun Villaroche at a little before midnight.
Harry woke Zoey and Niko and they crossed the damp asphalt to a tall man dressed in black who was leaning on the hood of a large Renault.
“Alain Baupin sent us,” Harry said.
The man offered no introduction, but jutted his chin at a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron that another man was pushing out of a small hangar behind him. “We fly in five minutes.”
THIRTY
Chamonix was high in the French Alps, only a few short miles from both the Italian and Swiss borders, and Alain Baupin turned out to be everything Leo had said and more. Standing well over six feet in height and with a prominent Roman nose he walked conspicuously through the snow on the side of the street. His hands were pushed deep in his ski jacket pockets and he wore a bright red bobble hat on his head. His chin was buried inside the folds of a thick scarf and partially obscured his long, tanned face.
After checking into a hotel in the early hours, they had all slept badly until first light when Harry had left Zoey and Niko in the safety of their room. Now he was following Leo’s instructions to the letter and holding the carnations in his right hand. When Baupin saw them he crossed the road and stood beside the Englishman and pretended to read the menu in the window of the café.
“These are for you,” Harry said under his breath, and wiggled the flowers casually at arm’s length.
“Leo said you were a good man, but really… you shouldn’t have.”
“I see the French sense of humor is alive and kicking.”
Baupin turned his mouth down and gave a shallow shrug. “Meh…”
“Leo told you what’s going on?”
“Of course.”
“And you have the information I need?”
Baupin leaned in to the menu. “The pain beurre confiture is very good here.”
“I said…”
“Walk with me, and lose the flowers.”
Harry thought this was a great idea, and offered them to the first woman who walked past him. She told him to get lost, so he handed them to the second woman who took them with a blush and a lavish merci beaucoup, monsieur.
“Smooth,” Baupin said with a suppressed smirk. “I see the famous English charm is alive and kicking.”
“Meh…” Harry said, and both men shared a brief laugh.
They walked across the square and crossed the tiny bridge that spanned the River Arve. Fed by the glaciers in the Chamonix Valley, the river flowed the length of the town until meeting up with the Rhône in Geneva just over the Swiss border.
“So where do I find Zalan Szabo, Alain?”
Baupin sighed, and winced as he looked up into the sky. For a few moments the sun appeared in a break in the clouds but was quickly spirited away by yet more of the heavy grey storm clouds. “Are you sure you want to find him?”
“He kidnapped some people I was supposed to be looking after, so yes.”
Baupin stared at him for a moment and then buried his chin back in the scarf. When he spoke his voice was muffled by the wool. “So you are sure.”
Harry nodded. “And I need to know in a hurry. Tell me everything you have.”
“Very well. He’s Hungarian originally, born in a small town to the south of Budapest. He did national service in Hungary and then went off the grid for many years, resurfacing in Vienna. Recently he built a hotel here in France. He has a great deal of money.”
“How much?”
“Too much.”
“How did he make his fortune?”
“We don’t know.”
“And why is he on your radar?”
“Money laundering mostly, but he covers all the bases. We’ve never even got him near a court, never mind got a conviction.”
“How so?”
“Friends in high places.”
Harry nodded. A familiar story. “Sounds about right.”
“But the question, Harry, is why is he on your radar?”
“I told you, he kidnapped some friends of mine.”
“Oui, but why did he kidnap your friends?”
Harry took a breath. He would trust Leo with his life, and Leo said that he would trust Alain Baupin with his life, but still he wondered just how far he could trust a man he had known all of ten minutes. He watched some clouds circling around the peak of Mont Blanc for a few seconds and decided to go with his heart. “We think he’s planning some kind of terror attack.”
Baupin stopped in his tracks and lifted his chin from the scarf. “Quoi?” His voice was too loud and he immediately lowered it, glancing over his shoulders to see if he had caught anyone’s attention. “Why didn’t Leo tell me this?”
“Because I never told Leo.”
“Bon sang, Harry! This kind of intel has to be shared. Where is the target?”
“We don’t know.”
“When?”
“We don’t know that either.”
Baupin sighed. “What do you know?”
“We think that Szabo is part of some kind of secret organization that calls itself the Ministry, and that they have developed the mother of all WMDs.”
Baupin looked at him sharply. “What kind of weapon?”
“It’s cutting edge nanoparticle technology that involves some kind of weaponized smart dust. It enters the human bloodstream and travels to the brain where it can then take over control, including shutting down essential functions like breathing.”
“You mean a system that allows people to be hacked like a computer?”
Harry said nothing, but gave a gentle nod.
“My God…”
“And worse than that, they can control the dust — expand it, change its direction, you name it.”
“How do you know this?”
“A turncoat named Andrej Liška.”
“Turncoat?”
“Traitor, only this time he betrayed the bad guys and crossed over to us. He used to work for the Ministry as one of the lead scientists on the project, only he claims he thought he was working for the Swedish Government at the time.”
“You believe him?”