What was he expecting to find in Marrakech? The people who controlled Qazai, he hoped. The people he owed money, the people who were blackmailing him, the people he had perhaps betrayed. They were to be found somewhere along that trail of money that Oliver had been so patiently following, and in his imagination that’s where they still lived, dry and theoretical, refusing to come alive. They could be one man or many, from anywhere on earth, with anything in mind.
Somehow, though, he knew that they were here in Marrakech, waking up for a day that meant as much to them as it did to him, waiting as he was for Qazai.
WEBSTER HATED SURVEILLANCE. For something so simple it required such huge quantities of thought and concentration.
Kamila, dressed today in a full length djellaba and headscarf—“because no one sees you in one of these”—came for him at nine and together they made their way to the airport, where Driss and Youssef were already in place. Webster had given everyone photographs of Qazai, taken from interviews and news stories, but had no image of Senechal, and although a five-word description would probably be enough—surely there was no one else in Marrakech who looked quite like that—he agreed with Kamila that he should wait inside the terminal and point him out as he appeared.
Both men would be coming through the same door, thankfully: passengers on private flights still had their passports checked in the main terminal in a separate queue. Senechal was due to land first, and would either take a taxi or have a car waiting for him; there was no railway station at the airport and he was hardly likely to take a bus. Kamila and Youssef would be waiting in her car, a decrepit Peugeot 205, at the far end of the concourse, ready for Webster to point out their target. When Qazai arrived, Webster would be waiting in the back of Driss’s car at the same position on the concourse, ready to identify him. There was no reason why this shouldn’t work, but similar plans, better resourced and more deeply thought through, had gone wrong before.
Air France flight 378 from Paris arrived exactly on time and Webster, wearing a cap and sunglasses that Driss had lent him for the purpose, took up his position by the rail and watched the taxi touts barracking the new arrivals. Some more sober drivers, most of them from the big hotels, waited patiently with signs bearing the names of their charges. None of them was waiting for a Mr. Senechal, but then that was no surprise.
A steady flow of people was passing through the arrivals gate, but there was no way of knowing when passengers from the French flight would start appearing. Senechal would in any case be one of the first through. Webster kept half an eye on the luggage tags, and at eleven forty the first Air France passengers emerged, wheeling their executive cases. There was no sign of him. A few minutes later the crew passed through, wheeling theirs. Maybe he’d had to bring some large piece of luggage. Documents, perhaps. But by five past twelve the stream of people had slowed and after another five minutes it stopped altogether.
This was why surveillance was so exasperating. So many impossible variables. Perhaps Senechal had been stopped by immigration or customs; perhaps he had some special arrangement that allowed him to bypass all the formalities and leave the airport from another exit; perhaps he simply hadn’t come. But then if Webster had had the power to know any of these things he wouldn’t have needed to follow the man in the first place: as Hammer was fond of saying, watching someone’s back was a very crude way of finding out what was on his mind.
After a brief consultation with Driss, Webster called Kamila and told her that she could now switch her attention to Qazai; to be sure of picking him up, Webster would again endeavor to point him out. Then he called Oliver and asked him if he could think of some way to confirm that Qazai’s flight had indeed left, and spent an anxious few minutes waiting for a response. It was possible, he now realized, that the whole thing had been a blind, and that in fact the two men were now in Beirut, or Belgrade, perfectly secure.
But before Oliver could respond, Qazai appeared. He was dressed in the clothes of a rich man at play—loafers, a jacket of light-blue linen—and at first glance looked fresh, comfortable. His hair had been cut and his beard was particularly trim. His gait, though, seemed slightly impeded, slightly heavy, as if he were walking on sand, and because he wore sunglasses Webster realized for the first time how much of his authority came from the clear imperious blue of his eyes.
He had a single case, of deep brown leather, which he carried. Ten yards into the hall he stopped and looked around at the two dozen or so drivers and their signs; not seeing what he wanted he paused, put his bag down, and made another survey. This time something seemed to click and shaking his head he made his way to a short man in a black suit, who took his bag and led him out of the hall. From his position Webster couldn’t see the name on the driver’s sign; he watched them go, and once they were level with him motioned to Driss to follow him outside. But as he did so, some movement in his peripheral vision registered as familiar, and focusing on it he realized that it was the strange floating walk of Yves Senechal, looking as he always did, pulling after him a metal case.
Webster turned around, walked away behind a thick column, took his phone from his pocket and found Kamila’s number. He pressed the key, held the phone to his ear and waited. It took an age to connect.
Through the window he could see the driver holding open the door of a black Mercedes saloon for Qazai who, with a look around him, climbed in. The phone was still dead; cursing, Webster tried to cancel the call and at that moment a message from Oliver flashed onto his screen: “you are ok.” A minute ago that would have been accurate. Driss appeared at his side.
“That’s Senechal,” said Webster. “Behind me now. In the gray suit with the metal suitcase. I can’t get this fucking thing to work. That”—he pointed through the huge smoked glass window—“is Qazai. In the Mercedes. Get your mother to follow him, and then come back here.”
He turned and watched as Driss ran to the exit, past Senechal and along the outside of the window. The Mercedes was indicating and waiting for another car to pass, and while it did so Webster made a note of the number on its plate. As it pulled away Driss was still running toward his mother’s car, perhaps fifty yards away, so that by the time Webster himself made it out of the terminal she was just receiving the message. The little Peugeot turned into the road, was forced to wait for an endless moment while another car inched across its nose with extraordinary slowness into a small space, and then finally drove off. Webster looked for the Mercedes. It had disappeared from sight.
Trusting, or praying, that Kamila was good enough to make up the gap he looked around him for Senechal. He was no longer there. A moment before, he had been by a crowd of people, talking to a taxi tout, and now he had gone. He had to be in one of the dusty old yellow cabs that were queueing up yards away, but Webster couldn’t risk peering in through the window—he was already nervous about Senechal peering out at him. Turning to face the airport building he waited for Driss to arrive, out of breath, by his side.
“Do you see the man in the gray suit in any of those taxis?” A half-dozen of them were pulling away, waiting for traffic to clear. “I’m going to text your mother that license plate number.”
Driss looked, but saw nothing. He walked back, shrugging, as the cars rolled away, and stood for a moment looking anxiously at Webster, who had taken off his sunglasses and was pinching the bridge of his nose.