Close Call

Chapter 29

The Royal Standard Hotel was in an undistinguished street between Victoria Station and Buckingham Palace. Though it billed itself as ‘situated in the shadow of Buckingham Palace’, it was in fact much nearer to Victoria Station. An anonymous sort of place, part of a small chain, it provided everything a mid-level businessman or official visiting London might require: wi-fi, cable TV with ‘adult’ films, in-room tea and coffee, minibar and even an ironing board and iron. All of its 361 rooms were furnished identically, and carpeted and upholstered in variations on the colour theme of beige and maroon.

All in all it was the sort of place where people could come and go without anyone taking much notice. Which is why, a few years ago, Liz Carlyle’s colleagues had identified it as perfect for the sort of rendezvous they occasionally needed to conduct. The manager had been recruited as what was called a ‘facilities agent’, to provide a room or rooms as required, without asking any questions about who might occupy them or what might go on in them. In return he received a present at Christmas and the satisfaction of knowing that he was helping Her Majesty’s Government.

On this occasion, two pairs of interconnecting rooms had been booked on different floors. In one of the pair on the eighth floor, Liz Carlyle was sitting, waiting for Dicky Soames, the burly A4 officer and member of the team ‘minding’ Milraud while he was in London, to produce his charge, so she could find out what had happened at the meeting on Primrose Hill.

There was a light tap on the door and a deep cockney voice said, ‘Here we are. OK to come in?’ Milraud entered followed closely by Soames, who closed the door firmly behind him and put the lock on.

‘I’ll be next door, if you want anything,’ said Soames, and he went into the other room leaving the intercommuni­cating door slightly ajar.

Liz motioned the Frenchman to one of the two chairs. She thought how tired and strained he looked. Much more so than when she’d first met him in the safe house in Montreuil.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked. ‘There’s tea or coffee, or a drink from the minibar if you’d prefer.’

Milraud shook his head. ‘Non, merci,’ he said shortly. He had kept on his mackintosh, and he looked chilled, even though it was warm in the room.

Liz switched the kettle on, and as she waited for it to boil, she pointed out of the window at the coloured lights strung across the street. ‘Christmas starts earlier every year,’ she said cheerfully. Milraud glanced out and nodded, but he seemed a million miles away. Liz took her time making coffee for herself and chatting inconsequentially, hoping to relax the man a little.

She sipped her coffee and winced. ‘You made the right decision,’ she said, but Milraud’s smile was perfunctory. He was clearly impatient for the debrief to begin.

‘So how did it go?’ asked Liz, sitting down at last.

Milraud shrugged. ‘Much as expected.’

‘Was he concerned about security? I mean, since your Paris meeting was aborted because of the surveillance.’

Milraud sat up. ‘Yes. He was worried that I might have been followed and he checked me out for a microphone. I assured him he need not worry; that I was once an intelligence officer and I know about these things.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I explained that I had gone to Paris and Berlin under different passports and I was at least twelve hours ahead of anyone hunting me.’ He grimaced; they both knew Milraud had thought this himself.

‘Do you think he suspects you?’

‘In his position I certainly would – I never trust my customers, so why should they trust me? But when he pressed me about being spotted in Paris, I told him I had as much right to worry about him as he had about me. That shut him up.’

‘So after that, what did you discuss? He called the meeting, didn’t he? What did he want to say to you?’

‘He wanted to add to his order. That was for firearms, as you know.’

‘What else does he want?’

‘It’s a bit surprising. He wants grenades – two dozen of them.’

‘Really?’ Liz was astonished. The whole business seemed surprising, as it was generally assumed that the jihadi groups fighting in the Arab Spring countries had no difficulty acquiring weapons from their supporters, but this requirement was even more unexpected.

‘That’s right. And then the oddest thing of all – he wants more ammunition for the weapons he’d ordered. Not more weapons; just more ammunition. Twenty thousand rounds.’

‘Twenty thousand?’ Liz could not contain her astonishment. It sounded as if Zara was equipping an infantry battalion. And why so much ammunition for only twenty weapons?

‘I agree it doesn’t make sense, unless he already has a lot of weapons at his disposal. But I didn’t have that impression from our first meeting. It’s quite peculiar.’

Milraud looked uneasy; Liz sensed there was something on his mind. She waited, but he said no more. Eventually she asked, ‘Let’s come back again to this black man you met in Berlin. What did he want?’

‘I was asked to meet him. I was told he wanted to see who was involved in the deal. I was told he has not done this type of business before.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Almost nothing. He just asked about my business – how long I’d been supplying, what parts of the world I supplied, that sort of thing.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Very little, but it seemed to satisfy him. Then he rushed off. He was very jumpy.’

He still looked uncomfortable. Then he shrugged and returned to the subject of the meeting with Zara. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t sure how you wanted me to play it today. So I told him that I would check if I could get the goods he wanted in time and get back to him. He pressed me, so I had to promise to let him know tomorrow.’

‘How are you to do that?’

‘By email.’

She knew from Seurat that the French were in control of the email traffic.

Milraud asked, ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Can you supply the extra things he wants in time?’

‘Yes. I only have to email my supplier.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In Bulgaria.’

Liz didn’t hesitate. ‘Do it then and tell him you can fulfil the supplementary order. But also tell him you need to know precisely where and how it should be delivered. Press him for details.’

She looked at Milraud intently. He might have been surprised by Zara’s request, but she was certain he was holding something back. It didn’t make sense that he knew nothing about Jackson. Milraud was acting as if Jackson was Zara’s contact and he had nothing to do with him, but she was sure that wasn’t the case. Maybe if young Thibault over in Paris could hack into their back email exchanges the full truth would emerge – and a lot sooner than if she waited for Milraud to come clean.