Close Call

Chapter 37

There had been no further emails to Milraud from the young jihadi Zara in the UK. When Seurat pressed him Milraud merely shrugged, and said that when he’d met the young Arab both in Paris and Primrose Hill he had not been given a schedule for his next communication. Milraud’s insouciance infuriated Seurat, but he did his best not to show it – he didn’t want to give his former colleague the satisfaction of seeing him get angry, when getting angry wouldn’t do any good.

But he needed to move things forward. Liz had told him that the Americans’ source in Yemen, the government Minister who had started this whole operation going, had now fled the country; she had also told him of MI5’s discovery that Zara, far from being the Yemeni student he claimed, was a native-born Briton. It was quite possible that whatever Zara was plotting could be well advanced, which made it crucial to find out what else Milraud knew. He clearly wasn’t going to volunteer information, so Seurat had to find some way to lever it out of him. He knew Milraud well enough to know that threats and confrontation would get him nowhere, so he fell back on his ace card – Annette.

He arranged to meet her at a café near the Seine, a few streets from the Musée d’Orsay. The café straddled an intersection of two streets that met at right angles; its outside tables allowed a clear view of both the pedestrians and the cars that drove past. When Annette arrived, accompanied by her two guards, Milraud had been sitting for fifteen minutes, and was satisfied that he would recognise any returning cars or pedestrians that might indicate surveillance. The coast seemed to be clear, as he expected it to be.

As Annette sat down, her two guards took up positions at a nearby table. The waiter came over and she ordered a large Campari and soda before asking Seurat, ‘To what do I owe the privilege of being let out of my cage?’

‘I thought you might enjoy a little outing.’ He knew that Annette was allowed out once a day for a stroll, but only when accompanied by her armed escorts. Meeting Seurat here, she could at least enjoy the pretence of being an ordinary Parisian.

‘Come, come, Martin,’ she said. ‘We both know your concern for my welfare is strictly professional. You never cared a damn about me.’

‘That’s not true at all—’ Martin protested.

Annette dismissed this with a curt wave of her hand. ‘Even if you did regard me as a friend back then, you are not going to let that affect you now. So tell me what you want from this tête-à-tête.’

Seurat said nothing while the waiter was putting Annette’s drink on the table. The two guards, alert and watchful, weren’t even pretending to talk to each other; they were scanning the comings and goings at the café tables and in the street. When the waiter had left, Seurat said quietly, ‘Antoine is holding back on us, Annette. I don’t know if he’s actually lied to us, but he certainly hasn’t told us the whole truth.’

Annette lifted her drink and took a long swallow. Putting the glass down, she pursed her lips, as though considering what to say.

Seurat sighed. ‘I haven’t got time for games, Annette. If Antoine is concealing information, it will come out sooner or later, and then things will go very hard for him. And you.’

‘You’ve already made that clear.’ She reached into her bag and brought out a packet of cigarettes – Russian Sobranies. She lit one with a wafer-thin gold lighter from Cartier – he remembered Milraud showing it to him after he had bought it for Annette’s Christmas present years ago. A reminder of more innocent times.

He said, ‘Yes, but what I haven’t told you is what Antoine has got himself involved in. This isn’t a normal kind of arms deal we are talking about.’

‘No?’ Annette said neutrally, but she was tapping the fingers of one hand on the Formica tabletop, and Martin sensed her curiosity.

‘No, it’s much worse than that. Your husband would like to think he’s supplying arms to freedom fighters in the Arab Spring, but that’s not the real situation and I think he knows it. He’s helping to arm terrorists – al-Qaeda supporters.’

Annette frowned and shook her head. ‘You’ve been listening to the Americans too much, Martin. They think anyone who doesn’t agree with them is a terrorist – and that all Muslims are al-Qaeda supporters.’

‘Don’t pretend to be simple-minded. What I’m telling you is true. I can’t be sure yet exactly how the weapons Antoine has agreed to supply to these people will be used, but it’s not for any struggle against dictatorship, I can tell you. Antoine’s buyer is a radical jihadi, whose sole purpose is to kill anyone who fits his distorted idea of an enemy of Islam. His mission is likely to be to murder as many people as possible. Innocent people, by any civilised standard.’

He was staring at Annette but her eyes avoided his face, gazing past him to the street outside. She took a deep drag of her cigarette, then slowly blew it out in a white trail that hung in a plume over the table. She tapped her milky pink nails on the table. ‘Antoine is many things, Martin, most of them good. You may not approve of his life now, but he is as human as you are, in every essential way. I am sure he would never sell weapons to anyone like the man you are describing.’

‘He may not have known at first, I grant you that. But I think he’s guessed now and he’s doing it just the same.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘No. Not yet. But everything is pointing to the truth of what I’m saying.’ He judged that it was better to be up-front with Annette; if he misled her she would press him until that became clear. ‘What I do know without a doubt is that his customer is English, even if he’s ethnically Arab. And why would an English citizen want twenty thousand rounds of ammunition – and it is even looking possible that it is to be delivered to England – unless he was planning a terrorist attack of some kind? It simply doesn’t make sense if he’s a “freedom fighter” in Yemen, does it?’

He could see she was taking this in, and beginning to waver from her previous defiance, so he turned the screw further. ‘We don’t know what his plans are, but we need to find out before there’s a bloodbath. You wouldn’t want to have that blood on Antoine’s hands, would you?’ He added more gently, ‘Or on your own.’

‘I’d like another drink,’ Annette said loudly, and Seurat signalled to the waiter. Annette sighed. ‘You were always a persuasive bastard, Martin. Antoine used to come home and describe how the two of you had interrogated someone. You know my husband – he’d have been direct and aggressive. But he admired your method; he said you could charm the birds out of the trees.’

Seurat gave a non-committal shrug. Annette laughed. ‘Still the modest one. That was something else Antoine admired.’

‘There was a lot I admired in Antoine too,’ said Martin.

‘Yes, perhaps there was.’ She sounded wistful. ‘But not any more. I can see that in your eyes.’

‘No. Not any more. Not after what he did. I took that as a personal betrayal.’

‘Really?’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’d realised that – though I suppose I should have done. You were always so upright; nothing tempted you off the path of duty.’ Her face looked sad and drawn as she sat quietly while the waiter brought her drink. When he had gone she sat up straight as though she had resolved something. ‘So back to the beginning – what is it you want me to do?’ she asked.

‘Talk to Antoine. If you believe what I’ve told you about his client, and I think you do, then make him believe it too. Forget about jail sentences or clemency or anything like that; I’m not bargaining right now. I just don’t believe Antoine would want to see dozens, maybe hundreds of innocent people massacred because he’d helped their killers.’