The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Thirty-Two

‘It’s been a while, my old friend,’ said the smooth, warm, Gallic voice of Commissioner Luc Simon. ‘Thought you’d dropped off the face of the planet.’

‘Still keeping those healthy work hours, I see,’ Ben said.

‘Glutton for punishment,’ Luc said. Ben could picture him sitting at his desk in a darkened office on the top floor of the Interpol HQ in Lyon. The expensive suit jacket hung crisply over the back of his chair. Tie loosened, but not too much. The ubiquitous cup of coffee steaming at his elbow, black as pitch and strong enough to stand a spoon up in. Luc Simon’s hard-driving work schedule depended on a diet of heavy fuel.

‘I thought about replying in some cryptic form to the rather unconventional communiqué that appeared on my fax machine,’ he said, ‘but I lack your imagination in these kinds of things. And besides, I didn’t know where you were.’

‘I’m in between places,’ Ben said.

‘Heading away from trouble rather than towards it, I hope.’

‘A little of both.’

‘That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. In fact, I knew it. You worry me, Ben.’

‘That’s sweet of you to say,’ Ben said, but he detected an emerging seriousness in the Frenchman’s tone.

‘Seriously. I have to ask myself what kind of mayhem your unexpected reappearance on my radar is going to spark off this time.’

‘If you’re referring to the thing in Paris,’ Ben said, ‘it really wasn’t such a big deal.’

‘A memorable high point in my police career. Wrecked cars and dead bodies all across the city, carnage and devastation, a one-man army on the rampage.’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ Ben said.

‘And now, just when I was enjoying the peace, here you are again.’

‘I only need a quick run on those prints,’ Ben said.

‘So I gathered. And I wish it were that simple. But I need to know where you got these from, my friend.’

Here comes the serious bit, Ben thought. The prelude was over. Now it was time to talk business, and it was clear that something was troubling Luc Simon. ‘Off the guy’s fingers,’ Ben said. ‘The rest is classified, as you might say. But from the question, I’m sensing you already know who they belonged to.’

‘Belonged. Past tense. What am I to infer from that?’

‘The obvious,’ Ben said.

‘See, now, that’s a real problem,’ Simon said.

‘He was already dead when I found him,’ Ben explained for the second time that night. ‘If it’s any consolation.’

‘That makes a refreshing change, coming from you. And may I ask where he is now?’

‘Don’t worry, he’s nowhere that’s going to traumatise some unsuspecting member of the French public. Don’t play games, Luc. If you know who he was, give me a name. You owe me that.’

‘I do know who he was. Though it took a little finding. First place I looked was the Interpol criminal data management system covering France. The computer drew a blank. No trace of him there, no criminal history anywhere in this country. So then I ran a wider search. As an authorised user I can cross-check all European law-enforcement databases on suspected criminals or wanted persons. No sign of him there either. I had to dig deeper. And this does go deep. Which is why I said we have a problem if you’re telling me this person is dead. It’s going to cause more than a few ripples. If you want me to be forthcoming with you, you’re going to have to reciprocate. Quid pro quo.’

Ben was a very close and secretive person, partly by nature, partly by training, mostly from long experience that had taught him a cardinal rule: never tell anyone anything that you don’t absolutely have to. In this case, he knew he would soon have a decision to make. Opening up to Luc Simon represented a big tactical gamble. It would help establish the veracity of what Silvie was saying, one way or another. Which was important information to Ben. On the other hand, he hated exposing himself. Luc Simon was an old friend, but he was also a cop: the shrewdest and canniest Ben had ever met. Yet, if Ben didn’t take the risk, he stood to find out nothing of any value. Choices.

He eased off the throttle and braked the Hummer into the side of the road. He leaned back in the driver’s seat and twisted round a few degrees to face Silvie Valois. She was looking at him keenly, watching his face, studying his expression and straining to hear what was being said on the other end of the line.

‘Come on, Luc. It’s only a name. For old times’ sake.’

‘It’s a little more than that. The subject whose prints you sent me was one Dexter Nicholls. He was an intelligence operative. Not one of ours. He was working with French agents on a joint operation that I definitely, categorically can’t talk about. Not even for old times’ sake.’

Decision time. Ben thought, Fuck it, and jumped in with both feet. Cards on the table. All the way in.

‘A joint operation involving MI6 and DGSI,’ he said, ‘investigating the activities of a Swiss called Udo Streicher.’

Luc Simon’s composure slipped for a moment and he let out a sound that was halfway between a choking cough and a horrified gasp. ‘Jesus Christ. You’re not supposed to know anything about that.’

‘I don’t want to,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t choose to get involved. They crossed the line, not me. I was in peace.’

‘Then stay that way. Keep out of this. For your own sake. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.’

‘Too late for that, Luc.’

A long, pondering silence, then Luc Simon laid another of his hidden cards on the table. ‘You know, I lied to you. Before, when I asked you where you were. I pretended I didn’t know. The fact is, I know exactly where you are, Ben. I put the track on your phone before this conversation even began.’

‘It’s the least I’d expect of you, Luc.’

‘Right at this moment, I’m looking at a wall-sized digital map of France with a flashing red dot on it. That’s you. Which puts you uncomfortably close to the scene of a serious recent multiple homicide in the Hautes-Alpes region that the police are dealing with as we speak. I would be very, very concerned to think you had any kind of involvement in that situation.’

‘I was the one who called the police,’ Ben said. ‘Just so you know.’

‘You need to come in. We have to talk.’

‘Sorry, Luc, that’s not really on my agenda,’ Ben said. ‘I still have plenty of talking to do with Agent Valois here.’

Silvie’s eyes opened wide, flashing in the darkness of the Hummer’s cab.

There was a stunned silence on the phone. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard me, Luc. For the record, she’s not here of her own volition.’

All the way in. Ben was fully committed now. Nowhere to go but straight ahead, come what may.

‘Where is she?’ Luc Simon demanded.

‘Right here sitting beside me,’ Ben said. ‘Safe and sound. I’m afraid I can’t let you talk to her.’

‘I’m warning you not to interfere with justice, Ben. You have no idea how deep a mess you’ve got yourself into already.’

‘I’m not interested in your kind of justice, Luc. Or in any of your intelligence bullshit. I’m interested in one thing only, and that’s finding the people who murdered my friends. There’s nothing more you can do to help me, and nothing you can do to stop me.’

‘I know you well enough,’ Simon said. ‘That’s for damn sure.’

‘Then you know to stay out of my way.’

‘You realise that’s something I can’t do,’ Simon said. ‘Not even if I wanted to.’

‘That’s what I thought you’d say. Then consider Agent Valois a hostage until further notice.’

‘Don’t do this to yourself. We’ll find you. You can’t get away.’

Ben gave a dark smile. ‘I thought you said you knew me, Luc.’

Then the call was over. Ben turned off the phone. There was silence inside the cab of the Hummer. Just the muted growl of the idling motor and the crackle of duct tape as Silvie Valois shifted in her seat and shook her head at him in disbelief. ‘Smart move,’ she said. ‘You just screwed yourself.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Ben said. ‘What I did was to verify that you were telling me the truth. That was worth taking a small risk for.’

‘A small risk? You’re crazy.’

Ben didn’t reply. He went back to thinking. By now, Luc Simon’s office would be a hubbub of burning phone lines as Interpol fell over themselves scrambling troops to the triangulated location of Dexter’s phone. Police could be mobilised on the ground pretty damn fast, twenty-four-seven, even in remote Alpine areas, but not half as fast as by air. Ben knew that the Gendarmerie Nationale airborne division had helicopter bases all over France. Given the local topography, the difficulty in tracking targets by road in a mountainous region, the occasional necessity of locating and rescuing lost climbers and skiers, they’d almost certainly have a helibase in Briançon.

The GN chopper squadrons went all the way back to their role flying combat sorties in Indochina in the fifties, before the debacle of Vietnam had kicked off. These pilots had a long legacy of expertise. It would take just a few minutes before they were in the air, and hardly any time at all before the helicopters were homing in on a target so close to base. Meanwhile, Luc Simon would have been sure to order police roadblocks all around them. Those might take thirty minutes to set up. In that time, on twisty unlit roads, even the most determined driver couldn’t realistically have covered more than about forty kilometres in any direction, dictating a minimum diameter for the cops to encircle. That didn’t give Ben a lot of wiggle room, but it gave a little. The incoming airborne units gave him much less.

In short, it was time to get moving.