A Foreign Country

78

Kell was on the TGV to Toulouse when Amelia called to tell him that she had received a video of François in his cell.

‘Proof of life,’ she said. ‘Filmed this morning. I’m sending it through to you now.’

Kell realized that it would have been the first time that Amelia had ever seen her son’s face. He could not imagine how she would have felt at such a moment. The immediate tug of a new devotion, or a reluctance to be drawn into the possibility of yet further pain, further betrayal? Perhaps François was just another face on just another screen. Could she have felt any connection with him after expending so much love on Vincent?

‘Any word from White?’ Amelia asked.

The three-man security unit had taken off from Stansted airport just before six o’clock. Their plane had landed at Carcassone two hours later. One of the team — referred to only as ‘Jeff’ — had driven to meet a contact in Perpignan and picked up some basic equipment and weapons. White and a second man — ‘Mike’ — had gone to Salles-sur-l’Hers to scout the location and to try to establish the number of people inside the house. After booking rooms at a hotel in Castelnaudary, they had driven west to Toulouse, meeting Kell’s train at two fifteen.

‘One thing,’ said Amelia. ‘As far as they’re concerned, I’m just another client. Any relationship they might have had with the Service in years gone by is history. We’ll have no operational control.’

Kell had assumed as much.

‘Everything will be fine,’ he reassured her, and thought that he could hear the voice of George Truscott in the background, barking orders to an underling at Vauxhall Cross. ‘If Akim’s product is accurate, we will have François out by tonight.’

Kell was certain that Akim had been honest, not least because White’s initial diligence on the farmhouse fitted Akim’s description of the building precisely. Furthermore, Mike had been into a tabac in Villeneuve-la-Comptal and flashed a photograph of Akim at the proprietor and his elderly mother, who had recognized Akim as one of the two young Arabs who had been buying Lucky Strike cigarettes, newspapers and magazines from the shop for the previous three weeks. Her son reckoned they were living in the farmhouse on the hill, south-west of Salles-sur-l’Hers, which had once been occupied by the Thébault brothers and was now owned by ‘a businessman from Paris’. That was confirmation enough.

‘We took a look at the house this morning from a barn on the opposite side of the road.’ White was a fourteen-stone, six-foot old Etonian with a Baghdad tan whose security firm, Falcon, had made annual seven-figure profits out of the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. He talked about the operation as though it were no more complex than a routine dental appointment. ‘The layout matches the map you showed us. Exits east and west down the connecting track from the D625. Access from the south is foot only, but Jeff reckons he can use the windmill as sniper cover.’ To such a man, extracting a French national from a poorly guarded farmhouse in the middle of Languedoc-Roussillon was plainly money for old rope. ‘There’s the fenced-off area on the western side of the property where we assume François exercises. The swimming pool is exposed out front. It’s got to be the same place.’

‘Have you any idea how many people are in there?’ Kell asked. White and Mike were driving him east towards Castelnaudary on the A61 autoroute. ‘Akim said they sometimes use two ex-Foreign Legion as back-up guards. He knows Slimane is in the house. After that, it may just be Luc and the woman.’

White overtook a prehistoric 2CV and settled into the inside lane, sticking to the speed limit. ‘Jeff is still keeping an eye out. The worry in these situations is that they move the package on a regular basis. We haven’t seen any sign of life at the house since we got there. Judging by what you said on the phone, these people have been careful to make calls and to use computers away from the location, but they’ve been there a long time and might be looking for a change of scene. How many times have they tried to reach Akim since the Lutetia?’

Luc had called Akim’s mobile shortly after eight o’clock. Akim had confirmed CUCKOO’s assassination by text message but Valerie had then rung back just after Kell had left for Austerlitz station. Under Drummond’s instruction, Akim had ignored the call. Valerie had rung back an hour later, leaving a tetchy message.

‘Akim needs to talk to her or they’ll get suspicious,’ White said. ‘Did he mention anything about a second location?’

Kell shook his head. There was an unspoken warning in White’s analysis. We’re doing this as a favour to Amelia. Mate’s rates. Two days, max, then we can’t afford to stick around. If your boy isn’t in there, we’re going back to Stansted.

Just then, like an augur of success, Jeff phoned to say that he had seen a young Arab walking along the lane past the ruined windmill, about three hundred metres south-east of the house.

‘Slimane,’ said Kell.

There was also a car in the drive, a white Toyota Land Cruiser that had not been parked there earlier in the day. Perhaps Luc and Valerie had returned to the house after making their calls to Akim.

It was enough to green-light the operation. In two connecting rooms at the hotel in Castelnaudary, White set out the plan.

‘You said the boss likes to go for a swim in the evenings.’

‘Akim mentioned that, yes.’

‘Then we’ll go when he goes. Get close to the house, Luc comes out to the pool, that’s our trigger. Jeff takes him out in his Speedos from the windmill. If he stays indoors, fine, we’ll wait for the sun. Mrs Levene said live rounds, body count.’

‘She wants to send a message to Paris,’ Kell confirmed.

White nodded. A routine dental appointment. He then set out further details of the raid. Jeff — curly-haired, mid-forties, looking for all the world like a hearty landlord from a pub in Shropshire — would walk along the track from the south side and take cover in the ruined windmill, two hundred metres from the pool. Mike would go in through the front door and secure the cell. Simultaneously, White would enter through the exercise area, removing the metal bars at the rear entrypoint of the cell and extracting François through the back. Kell would be waiting to drive them out on to the D625. In spite of White’s insistence that the operation was ‘a piece of piss’, Kell had insisted on a role.

‘As soon as we go in, block the track at the eastern intersection,’ White told him. ‘Something goes wrong and they come out and try for the Land Cruiser, get in the way and take out the tyres. Don’t shoot anywhere higher than the bumper. Your boy might be in there if they’ve seen us coming.’

‘Are they going to see you coming?’

Jeff laughed. Mike, who still had the build and buzzcut of the Regiment, looked like a cowboy preparing to spit a wad of tobacco on the floor. White smiled and passed Kell a Glock pistol. ‘Fired one of these before?’

‘Didn’t you get the memo?’ Kell replied, touching the barrel. ‘That’s all MI6 does nowadays. Assassinations.’