Close Call (9 page)

And since then money had led to the pursuit of more money – and more trouble. He had left the Service under a cloud that soon turned into a criminal investigation and a warrant for his arrest. He had fled France, escaping by the skin of his teeth, with Interpol fast on his heels. In the years that followed, his new business dealing in arms had become global. He had set up shop in Venezuela, where he had made certain arrangements that he felt confident would keep him safely out of the reach of Interpol and the European and American intelligence services. From there he ventured forth carefully, using a multitude of different passports, and usually to countries where there was no danger of extradition – certain Central European countries, the Middle East, parts of Asia, other South American countries. This trip to Western Europe was an exception and, as he was now realising, a mistake.

Now Annette was looking at him with irritation. ‘Go and get a shower and change. I’ve hung your clothes up in the wardrobe. Let’s get out of this stuffy old hotel and get some dinner. I’ve booked a table at a restaurant round the corner. You can tell me what happened while we eat.’

When he came out of the bathroom, Annette was getting dressed. She had put on a chic, tight-fitting black dress, and was trying on necklaces. He recognised one of them, a heavy silver chain he had bought for her in Geneva. The others she had bought for herself, with his money.

‘Which one?’ she asked as he came out of the bathroom.

‘Which one what?’

‘Necklace, you idiot,’ she said, half crossly, half affectionately. He noticed the small chicken wing flaps of skin under her arms. Annette was growing older and he couldn’t offer her the certainty of a secure retirement.

She settled on a simple affair of thin gold strings braided together and turned for his approval. He nodded without looking at the necklace. ‘I’m a bit tired,’ he said.

‘Of course you are,
chéri
.’ She looked as if she would give him a hug for a moment, but the damp towel he’d wrapped around his middle put her off. ‘I think some supper would be just the thing. I’ve been cooped up all day waiting for you and worrying. Go on, darling, put some clothes on.’

He shook his head and she stared at him. He said, ‘I don’t think we should go out tonight. In fact, I know we shouldn’t go out tonight.’

‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘This is the first time in months that I’ve been out of that violent, uncultured dump where you make us live, and now you say I have to stay in our hotel room?’

Milraud’s shoulders slumped. Annette looked at him despairingly. ‘I’m not asking to go dancing, Antoine; just a decent meal in a restaurant where the food isn’t Spanish. I thought that was the whole point of my joining you here in Germany.’

‘It was.’

‘Then what’s changed?’

He sighed. ‘I think they may be onto me.’

Annette looked at him, disbelieving. ‘Who’s they?’ she demanded.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Does it matter? The French – it could be our old friend Martin Seurat. Or the English. Or any number of countries. It doesn’t really matter. This is Western Europe, not South America. Countries here cooperate.’

‘What makes you think they’ve spotted you?’

‘I can’t be sure, but I had a meeting in Paris, in the Luxembourg Gardens. Somebody interrupted us – a young man. There was something odd about him, so we broke off the meeting. I haven’t been able to make contact since.’

‘Why didn’t you call me when it happened? I wouldn’t have come.’

‘It was too late by then and you were already en route. That’s why I told you to change the hotel and use the other passport. If they did spot me, they’ll have a picture, and it won’t have taken them too long to trace where I was staying in Paris, to get the name I was using and from that discover the flight I took to Berlin. As long as you left no trace at the last hotel of where you were going, then we should be OK for twenty-four hours or so – long enough for the meeting tomorrow. It’s critical I attend that; if it goes well there will be other larger deals, and then we’ll have enough money to retire somewhere nice and not to have to go on taking all these risks.’

Annette was shaking her head. ‘I told you not to go to Paris. But would you listen? Of course not. You seemed to get pleasure from thumbing your nose at your old colleagues – even if it meant both of us ending up in prison. How could you?’

She looked on the verge of angry tears, but Milraud had seen this display often enough before to feel unmoved. It was a bit rich of Annette to complain about their being forced to live in Venezuela in one breath, then in the next to moan about the risks.

He said patiently, ‘I am doing my best, Annette. And if it comes good . . . Believe me, there’s a lot of money at stake or I wouldn’t have taken these risks.’

‘But what if they are already onto you? What if they picked you up when you got here?’

It was a possibility he didn’t want to face and certainly one he didn’t want to discuss with Annette. ‘I’m sure we’ve got at least twenty-four hours. Time for me to make this deal and get us out of here.’

‘To go where?’ Annette said, in a whine, her voice like a distant but approaching siren.

‘Just in case they’re watching the airports, I think we should take the train to Poland. If we don’t hang about there, we should be safe to fly back home.’

‘Home? You call Caracas home?’  The sirens in her voice were at full blast now.

‘It’s home for now, Annette, and at least it’s safe. The point is, if things go well tomorrow, then we can start to think about living somewhere else.’ He raised a hand to stave her off before she could get started. ‘No, not Paris, that’s true. But somewhere better than Caracas. A place where you can feel you’re back in civilisation.’

‘Like where? You said yourself all the Western services are on the same side.’

He sometimes forgot how quick his wife was. He said, slightly faltering, ‘I thought we might try South Africa.’

She stared at him, then laughed disdainfully. ‘Cape Town here we come, eh? Well I can’t see that’s much better than where we are now. Believe me, if that’s the only choice on offer, you’d better just buy one ticket. I’ll come back to Europe and take my chances.’

He didn’t respond to this; after all, it was not a new threat. He inched along the bed and reached for the phone on the bedside table. ‘So what do you want from room service?’

Chapter 14

‘What are we waiting for?’ Martin Seurat demanded.

Isabelle sighed. Martin had seemed edgy throughout the flight from Paris. Normally a calm man, he had barely sat still, crossing and uncrossing his legs, folding and unfolding a copy of
Le Monde
. Isabelle had tried to divert him by asking about his daughter, now studying at the Sorbonne and the apple of her father’s eye, but he had cut off the conversation and stared moodily out of the plane window.

Now sitting in the BfV conference room with Isabelle and the German investigating officer, his tension was even more obvious. She sensed that Martin’s excitement at the prospect of finally getting his hands on Antoine Milraud was dwarfed by his fear of letting the man slip through his fingers.

Seurat went on, ‘We know where Milraud is, so why don’t we arrest him at once? If we hang around he’ll disappear again. We don’t know whether he saw the surveillance last night but he obviously suspected something in Paris. It sounds as if his wife, Annette, has joined him here; he must have contacted her, told her to change hotels, and to use a different name. He’s clearly thinking we’re not far behind him. There’s no problem with the warrant, so let’s get on with it before they vanish.’

The German said mildly, ‘We can do that, of course. If that’s what you want.’ He looked pointedly at Isabelle, as if to say,
This is your problem, not mine
.

‘Martin, you know as well as I do that we are not the only people interested in Milraud,’ said Isabelle. ‘And we’ve only found him at all because of the information we got from the British. At the very least, we need to consult them before making an arrest.’

Seurat was shaking his head, more from frustration than disagreement. He looked at the German. ‘Is that what you think?’

The German frowned and shrugged his shoulders. He was a youthful-looking man, a classic German with light blonde hair and pinkish skin which was turning red as he tried to follow the argument between his two French ­visitors. ‘Well, as I said, it’s really up to you. We have no information against the man but the warrant is outstanding, and the request to help came from your country.’ He paused. ‘The matter is complicated by the fact that he is not alone.’

Seurat said impatiently. ‘There’s a warrant out for his wife as well. She’s helped that bastard every step of the way.’

The German acknowledged this with a nod, but said firmly, ‘Nevertheless, since other countries’ services are involved, I would feel more comfortable knowing they agreed with the action we decide to take.’

Seurat looked exasperated, but when he turned to Isabelle there was resignation in his eyes. ‘All right. Ring London. Let’s talk to Liz.’

Liz Carlyle was at her desk in Thames House when the call came through from Berlin. She had heard about the German surveillance from Isabelle the previous evening, when she’d arrived back from Paris. So she knew that Milraud and Annette had changed names and hotels and that they must suspect that their pursuers were not far behind.

Now Isabelle explained the dilemma. ‘Martin is keen to go in now and arrest the pair of them, but I felt we must consult you first. If we do arrest him he’s most unlikely to talk about what he’s doing here and you’ll lose your lead to his contacts. What do you think, Liz?’

Martin Seurat was tapping his fingers on the top of the conference room table and he suddenly leant forward and spoke into the speakerphone. ‘Liz, you know that Milraud has broken French law in too many ways to list. Larceny, kidnapping, conspiracy to murder. These aren’t trivial offences. We at the DGSE want to see him extradited and put on trial, and who can blame us?’

Isabelle said, without looking at Martin, ‘He’s a big fish all right. And of course we have our national priorities. But perhaps we need to take a wider view.’

Isabelle sensed that Martin was bristling. He ignored her raised placatory hand, and said, with indignation in his voice, ‘What you call our national priorities ignores the fact that Milraud has been involved in arms deals all over Europe. Indirectly, he’s killed people on at least three continents. It also ignores the fact that Milraud was instrumental in kidnapping an MI5 officer in Northern Ireland, and bringing him to the south of France. If we hadn’t moved in, I doubt very much that that officer would still be alive.’

Isabelle said calmly, ‘But there may be other sharks swimming with him that we can catch. That’s what you think, Liz, as I understand it. And the Americans too. Is that not correct?’

To Isabelle’s relief, Liz Carlyle broke in, her tone brisk but conciliatory. ‘I have something to propose. But first let me ask our German colleague, are you confident of keeping Milraud under surveillance?’

Isabelle thought, can a fish swim? No intelligence officer worth his salt would say no to that question. Where was Liz going with this?

The German replied stiffly, ‘Of course.’

‘Good,’ said Liz, ‘then I advise the following: we keep tabs on Milraud, and obviously his wife as well. But if he goes off to meet anyone connected with his activities in Paris, it seems to me very unlikely that Annette will go with him. He wouldn’t want to involve her or expose her to the risk. I’m sure she knows exactly how he makes his living, and we know that when he escaped from us in the south of France several years ago, it was with her help. But I can’t believe she’s actively involved in his deals, whatever they are.’

‘So?’ asked Seurat impatiently.

Liz said patiently, ‘So, if he goes out and leaves her in the hotel, then that should be the time for you, Martin, to go in. After all, you know the woman well, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘So you can work on her. You can explain that if she tells us who Milraud is working with, and helps us move up the ladder of this deal, then we can see that things don’t go too hard on her. Or her husband.’

‘I’m not prepared to promise that. I want things to go hard for the bastard.’

‘Martin. It’s up to you what you say. We all know you won’t have any influence over what happens to them when they’re arrested.’

There was silence while all the participants considered this. At last Seurat stirred. Leaning towards the speaker on the table he said, ‘All right, Liz. You win – you, and the Americans. But let’s not lose him, OK? Nothing personal, but he’s caused me a lot of trouble. I couldn’t bear it if he had the chance to cause any more.’

Chapter 15

The Schweiber Mansion at the eastern end of Unter den Linden had once housed the private collection of Ernst Schweiber, a German manufacturer who became fabulously wealthy in the late nineteenth century. He and his sons after him had used their wealth to amass an eclectic collection of paintings, furniture and
objets d’art
from all over the world, which they had housed in their grand baroque mansion. But the mansion had had the misfortune to be in the path of the Red Army when it arrived in Berlin in 1945.