Pinnacle Event

40

It had taken Etienne Kafotamaki quite a while to get the French Sûreté to understand that he was a contract employee of the DGSE, licensed to carry firearms, and that he had shot the man who was attacking the island’s DGSE chief. For a long time, the Sûreté could not piece together who had shot whom, although all the witnesses agreed that the blond man had shot the two men at the table and that Etienne had intervened to stop it.

Etienne was slightly sympathetic with the Sûreté. When was the last time they had a triple shooting here? Probably never. It had helped that Etienne knew many of the officers and had worked with them. It was just that with Pierre Marcoux dead, there was no one to officially vouch for him. Finally, the DGSE man from Comoros’s capital Moroni had flown over to Mayotte, and the formalities were completed to let Etienne free.

Etienne took his liberator, Marcel Baize, back to the DGSE office, unlocking it for him. Baize had been ordered by La Piscine to investigate what the late Pierre Marcoux had been up to that had resulted in his untimely demise. As far as Paris had known, nothing was going on in Mayotte.

“We were helping the South Africans on an urgent case,” Etienne explained to Baize. “The white man who was shot with Pierre, he was a South African special services officer. He had called Pierre three days ago and that had sent us scrambling to find out about flights into Comoros and about ships.”

“Odd,” said Baize. “Why didn’t he just call me to find out about Comoros. There I was sitting in Moroni, capital of the Comoros, with nothing to do but try to teach these local fellows tradecraft. Hopeless. I could have done the legwork for Pierre. Who did?”

“I did,” Etienne admitted. “And a few other guys he uses.”

“Totally out of line, against the rules,” Baize said aloud to himself. “I should have been informed.”

“Here it is,” Etienne said, rummaging through the debris on Pierre Marcoux’s desk.

“What?”

“What he was going to give the South African,” Etienne replied. He held up a small blue file card.

Baize grabbed it from his hand and read it aloud.

“‘5B-01739, MV Rothera, MV Nunatak.’ Pierre died for this? What is it?”

“I don’t know, but I think we should tell the South Africans,” Etienne insisted.

“We shall do no such thing,” Baize replied, tucking the card in his coat pocket. “It will be in my report to Paris, when that is completed. Along with the fact that you were operating in my territory without my permission. We shall see whether you are to be kept on.”

Etienne looked at him as he would a drunken tourist getting behind the wheel, with a combination of horror, disdain, and pity. “If you will not be needing me further now, I shall go to my wife, who will have been wondering where I was.”

Etienne, who was not married, walked down the street, turned the corner, and took a card out of his wallet. Then he took out his mobile and called the number in South Africa that Marcus Stroh had given him. Stroh may be dead, but someone would answer.

Pierre had told Etienne that he paid him more than the others because Etienne had a photographic memory, he could remember names and numbers after just seeing them for a few seconds. Etienne thought everyone could do that, until Pierre Marcoux had told him it was a special gift. He would miss Pierre, he did already.

He heard the phone ring through. It was picked up on the third ring. “Legal offices,” a female voice answered. “Do you need bail money?”

“I need an airline ticket,” Etienne responded. “The late Mr. Robinson said you would buy it for me, so I could be there for the reading of his last will and testament.”

There was a pause. He thought he could hear her hitting a keyboard. “And who is this calling?”

“I was the man at Mr. Robinson’s funeral.”

Another, longer pause. Then a man spoke. “Yes, will it be in your name?”

“My name is Charles Dupré,” Etienne said. He spelled it out.

“Yes, of course. The ticket will be at the Thomas Cook desk at the airport where you are. We look forward to seeing you. For the reading of the will. Good-bye.”