‘And they’ll still work after all this time underwater?’ Wyley asked.
Sykes nodded. ‘Maybe, maybe not. They’re housed in airtight casings that protect them from the elements but aren’t designed for submersion in salt water. The casing may have corroded, and any that have been exposed to sea water will be useless, but the technology will still be extractable, as will the warheads carried, which could be anything. Anyone who recovered the missiles and their accompanying electronics would be able to reverseengineer the design and create their own equivalents. Against a regime with these kinds of missiles our naval capabilities are extremely reduced. Even replicas with fifty percent of the capabilities of an Oniks can cripple or even destroy one of our aircraft carriers.’
‘And why deal in Paris?’ Chambers asked.
Alvarez’s voice again emanated through the speakerphone. ‘The man was paranoid as hell. He was convinced we were going to double-cross him. He would only meet on neutral soil. Somewhere he thought we would have difficulty pulling any stunts. Paris was his idea. He gave me a seven-day window, promising he’d call at some point during that period with the time and location of the meet. He phoned just before five-thirty this morning, said he wanted to meet an hour later. Obviously he didn’t show.’
Chambers leaned forward gracefully. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that Ozols gave any clues as to where the frigate is located before you were due to meet.’
‘Unfortunately he did not. He was coy enough not to give me anything even remotely specific. What he did tell me was that Moscow believed the ship had sunk in deep water and so wasn’t worth recovering but that in fact it had come to rest on continental shelf in shallow water. Ozols claimed it’s in international waters so anyone with a boat and its location can get to it easily. I’m sure you can appreciate that there is a lot of continental shelf out there in the Indian Ocean.’
‘Why didn’t he just try selling the information back to the Russians anonymously?’ one of the mandarins asked.
‘My guess is he knew if he tried to they’d be able to work out who was doing the selling and send a nice little SVR execution team to offer him a better deal.’
Chambers asked, ‘How was the exchange supposed to happen?’
‘Ozols had agreed to supply the information on a flash drive that he was going to give me on the day he was killed. I would then check the information, and, if it appeared genuine, I would wire half the money to his bank account. I would then walk away with the drive once he had checked with his bank that the money was there. The other half would be held in an escrow account that he would get access to once we had located the ship. It was the best deal I could negotiate.’
‘Okay,’ Chambers said. ‘Now take us through what happened in Paris.’
‘We still haven’t gotten even a fraction of the details yet,’ Alvarez began. ‘The French are keeping as many people out of the loop with this as much as possible. It’s so sandwiched in crap it’s taken this long just to chew through it.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re surprised at this,’ Ferguson interjected. ‘Our friends across the pond may be among the least intellectually blessed of our allies, but they’re not quite as dumb as we would like to believe. They have eyes and ears. They know we’re keeping them in the dark about something and they don’t like it.’
Procter smiled inwardly. The old man always spoke his mind without restraint, quite often without decorum as well.
Wyley cleared his throat before getting involved again. ‘Do you think they found out about the op?’
‘Unless there’s a leak or they’ve developed extrasensory perception, then of course they haven’t,’ Ferguson responded. ‘But Gallic paranoia has probably conjured up a host of incredible explanations for events thus far. None of which will be close to the truth, so stop worrying about them. For the time being at least the French are nothing more than an annoyance.’
Chambers gave Ferguson a polite but firm look. ‘Continue, Alvarez.’
‘This is what we know. The medical examiner puts Ozols’s time of death at sometime between five and seven AM. He was shot in an alley just off the Rue de Marne. Corpse found by a shop owner pretty quickly. No identification, but I saw his body myself at the morgue. Double-tap through the heart with holes so close they were touching, and one through the temple from close range. No witnesses. No physical evidence. The killer was definitely a pro.
‘Anyway, this is where it gets interesting. At eight fifteen the Paris police were called to a hotel where they found eight dead bodies. Five inside the hotel itself, two in a building opposite, and another in the street. One of the cops I spoke to, off the record, told me that they think one man killed them all. Bullets found in several of the corpses were 5.7 mm subsonics, the same round that killed Ozols, though fired from a different but same-model gun.’
‘What the hell happened?’ Procter asked.
‘At this time I have no idea,’ Alvarez answered. ‘I need to get inside that hotel, watch the security tapes, and look at the police report if I’m going to find out. I haven’t been able to do that on my own.’
‘I’ll make sure that happens,’ Chambers said.
Ferguson was shaking his head. ‘Someone killed Ozols and then went on a rampage through a Paris hotel? Doubtful.’
‘That’s exactly as it appears,’ Alvarez stated firmly.
Chambers asked, ‘Do we have any indication whatsoever of who this killer represents? I’ll take a guess at this stage.’
‘Ozols never told me who else he was negotiating with but I think we can make some educated guesses. Russia and China already have them and Iran has Sunburns, so Ozols wouldn’t go to them. Ozols wanted to deal in Paris so the French probably aren’t involved. But all the other usual suspects would love to get their hands on the Oniks: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, North Korea. If someone found out Ozols was selling to us and not them then it’s not unreasonable to think they’d try and get the information anyway. Sending a professional killer is a hell of a lot cheaper than paying what Ozols wanted as well. And let’s not forget that the Russians might have found out what Ozols was up to and tracked him down.’
‘So, to clarify,’ Ferguson began, ‘you’re saying the killer could be working for anyone?’
The voice that came through the speakerphone was deadly serious.
‘I’ll still find him.’
CHAPTER 12
Southeast of Charleroi, Belgium
Monday
19:48 CET
‘Les billets, si vous pla i t.’
Victor handed the conductor his ticket and thanked him when it was stamped and returned. The conductor made his way slowly along the aisle, periodically bracing himself against the train’s lateral movement. He looked eighty years old and unlikely to make eighty-one.
It was snowing outside. Flakes had collected on the window to Victor’s right, matted against the corners of the glass. Outside the scenery was invisible in the night, but when Victor leaned his cheek against the cold glass he could just make out fields and hills, the occasional twinkling light in the distance.
The train was two hours from the German border, and it would take into the early hours to reach Munich via Strasbourg, but Victor didn’t allow himself the luxury of sleep. He wasn’t sure that he could, even if he wanted to.
He was the only person in the carriage, sitting in the last row of seats, to the right of the aisle, the wall directly behind him. Sat straight in his seat he could see the far door and anyone who might come through it.
The door opened to Victor’s left and he automatically stiffened in his seat. Adrenaline surged, readying him for attack.
It was a child, a girl, four or five. She didn’t even look at him, just ran down the aisle bumping into seats on either side as she went. When she reached the end of the carriage she turned around and ran back, smiling as she bounced off one seat to the next. She stopped when she reached Victor, seeing him for the first time.