Private Monaco

Chapter 50

A low afternoon sun bathed the room, tinting our faces rose-gold so we looked a little like gilded statues as we sat trying to absorb the day’s revelations.

Mo-bot and Sci had reached the apartment by the time Justine and I regrouped there, and they’d told us about their interview with Baba Saidi and how the French — Somalian gangster had confirmed Roman Verde’s identity. Armed with the man’s real name, Mo-bot had been able to pull his official records from the Italian Ministry of the Interior. He was a former special forces soldier turned criminal and had served time for gun and drugs smuggling.

We shared our account of the discovery of the man calling himself Michel Augarde at the Automobile Club, my arrest, and the intervention of the corrupt cops.

“So, we’re up against an organization with resources and connections?” Mo-bot remarked.

Sci nodded. “Not just any organization. The Dark Fates.”

“And Propaganda Tre,” I added.

I told them about Michel’s tattoo, which signified his membership of the influential secret society.

“Flip sides of the same coin,” I explained. “The Dark Fates handle the street-level stuff while Propaganda Tre operates in the corridors of power.”

“And they want someone or some people dead,” Justine responded. “They involved us because they want revenge for what we did to Roman’s brother Milan, but we’re not the primary targets.”

I nodded and decided to voice a thought that had been nagging at me since my encounter with Michel. “Did you pull anything from Duval’s phone? Michel Augarde said every aspect of my trip here was planned.”

Mo-bot rose from her perch on the end of the couch and went to her workstation.

“Nothing on the main files,” she said, shaking her mouse to bring her monitor to life. “But he installed Signal.” She was referring to the secure electronic messaging app that was supposed to be impervious to most hackers. “I left a combination-cracker running while we were in Marseilles.”

She opened a file that showed an exchange of messages from the secure Signal app and scrolled through them.

“Friends, family, nothing unusual,” she noted. “But let’s see if there’s an echo, the remnants of deleted messages.”

She typed some commands. A shimmering icon appeared by a phone number that materialized at the top of the message list.

“Messages from this number were set to automatically delete after they were read, so I can’t see what was said, but why would he instantly trash messages from just one number he hasn’t even stored in his contacts?”

“Affair?” Sci suggested.

“Maybe,” Mo-bot replied. “Or perhaps they implicate him in something?”

“The original attack took place outside his building,” I remarked. “And I was suspicious of Duval until our background checks cleared him, but what if Propaganda Tre reaches as far as the government of Monaco? What if he was just very good at covering his tracks?”

“It’s possible,” Mo-bot conceded. “He knew where you’d be and when.”

“And he knew we’d discovered Justine’s location in the Utelle Valley,” Sci remarked. “He might have been the one who warned Roman we were on to them.”

I nodded and thought about all the phone calls Duval had made while we were preparing for the expedition. Even when we were on the mountain, he’d stepped away under the guise of calling Chevalier, but maybe he’d been warning Roman.

“So, what now?” Justine asked.

“I think we need to pay him a visit,” I replied.