House of Spies Read online

  It was nearly dusk by the time he reached the outskirts of Marseilles. The violent drug gangs thrived in the city’s northern banlieues, especially in the housing projects of Bassens and Paternelle, but Keller approached through the more tranquil suburbs to the east. The Tunnel Prado-Carénage delivered him to the Old Port, and from there he made his way to the rue Grignan. Slender and straight as a ruler, it was lined with the likes of Boss, Vuitton, and Armani. There was even a JLM jewelry boutique. Keller swore he could detect the sour odor of hashish as he passed.

  As he continued across the city center, into the quartier of Marseilles known as Le Camas, the streets turned dirty and mean, and the shops and cafés catered to a decidedly immigrant and working-class clientele. One such enterprise, located on the ground floor of a graffiti-splattered building overlooking the Place Jean Jaurès, peddled discount electronic goods and mobile phones to a largely Moroccan and Algerian customer base. Its proprietor, however, was a Frenchman named René Devereaux. Devereaux owned a number of other small businesses in Marseilles—all of which were cash-oriented, some in the category loosely defined as adult entertainment—but the electronics shop served as something like his operational headquarters. His office was on the second floor of the building. The room contained no telephone or electronic devices of any kind, a curious set of circumstances for a man who purportedly sold such modern conveniences for a living. René Devereaux didn’t care much for the telephone, and it was said that he had never once personally sent an e-mail or text message. He communicated with his business associates and subordinates only in person, oftentimes in the gritty square or at a streetside table at Au Petit Nice, a reasonably pleasant café located a few paces from his shop.

  Keller knew all this because René Devereaux was a prominent figure in the world he had once inhabited. Everyone in the French criminal underground knew that Devereaux’s real business was drug trafficking. Not just street-level trafficking, but trafficking on a continent-wide scale. The French police were likely aware of it, too, but Devereaux, unlike many of his competitors, had never spent a single day behind bars. He was a made man, an untouchable. Until tonight, thought Keller. For it was René Devereaux’s name that Olivia Watson had spoken in the safe house outside Ramatuelle. Devereaux was the one who made the trains run on time, the one who moved the hashish from the docks of southern Europe to the streets of Paris and Amsterdam and Brussels. The one, thought Keller, who knew all of Jean-Luc Martel’s secrets. They would have only one chance to get him cleanly. Fortunately, they had at their disposal some of the best field operatives in the business.

  Keller left the motorbike at the edge of the Place Jean Jaurès and walked to Devereaux’s shop. Peering at the merchandise in the cluttered display window he saw two men, both French in appearance, observing him from their outpost behind the counter. On the second floor, light burned behind the shuttered French door that gave onto the crumbling balcony.

  Keller turned away and continued along the street for about fifty meters before stopping next to a parked van. Giancomo, Don Orsati’s errand boy, sat behind the wheel. Two other Orsati operatives were crouched in the rear cargo compartment, smoking nervously. Giancomo, however, appeared outwardly calm. Keller suspected it was for his benefit.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “About twenty minutes ago. He stepped onto the balcony to have a cigarette.”

  “Are you sure he’s still in there?”

  “We have a man watching the back of the building.”

  “Where are the others?”

  The young Corsican nodded toward the Place Jean Jaurès. The square was crowded with residents of the quartier, many in the traditional clothing of Africa or the Arab world. Even Keller couldn’t spot the don’s men.

  He looked at Giancomo. “No mistakes, do you hear me? Otherwise, you’re liable to start a war. And you know how the don feels about wars.”

  “Wars are good for the don’s business.”

  “Not when he’s a combatant.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not a little boy anymore. Besides, I have this.” Giancomo tugged at the talisman around his neck. It was identical to Keller’s. “She sends her best, by the way.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “Something about a woman.”

  “What about her?”

  Giancomo shrugged. “You know how the signadora is. She talks in riddles.”

  Keller smoked a cigarette while walking to Au Petit Nice. Inside it was bedlam—Marseilles was playing Lyon—but there were a few tables to be had outside in the street. At one sat a man of medium build with dense silvery hair and thick black spectacles. At an adjacent table two dark-eyed men in their twenties were watching the pedestrians moving along the pavements with unusual intensity. Keller walked over to the silver-haired man and, uninvited, sat down. There was a bottle of pastis and a single glass. Keller signaled the waiter and requested a second.

  “You know,” he said in French, “you really should drink some.”

  “It tastes like licorice-flavored gasoline,” replied Gabriel. He watched two robed men walking arm-in-arm in the street. “I can’t believe we’re back here again.”

  “Au Petit Nice?”

  “Marseilles,” said Gabriel.

  “It was inevitable. When one is attempting to penetrate a European drug network, all roads lead to Marseilles.” Keller watched the pedestrians, too. “Do you suppose Rousseau was true to his word?”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “Because he’s a spy. Which means he lies as a matter of course.”

  “You’re a spy, too.”

  “But not long ago, I was employed by Don Anton Orsati. The same Anton Orsati,” added Keller, “who’s about to help us with a little dirty work tonight. And if Rousseau and his friends from the Alpha Group happen to be watching, it will place the don, peace be upon him, in a rather ticklish position.”

  “Rousseau wants nothing to do with what’s about to happen here. As for the don,” Gabriel went on, “helping us with this little piece of dirty work, as you so callously refer to it, is the best decision he’s made since hiring you.”

  “How so?”

  “Because after tonight no one will be able to lay a finger on him. He’ll be immune.”

  “You think like a criminal.”

  “One has to in our line of work.”

  The waiter delivered the second glass. Keller filled it with pastis while Gabriel consulted his mobile phone.

  “Any problems?”

  “Madame Sophie and Monsieur Antonov are quarreling over where to hang the new paintings.”

  “And they were doing so well.”

  “Yes,” said Gabriel vaguely as he returned the phone to his jacket pocket.

  “Think they’re going to make it?”

  “I have my doubts.”

  Keller drank some of the pastis. “So what do you intend to do with all those paintings when the operation is over?”

  “I have a feeling Monsieur Antonov will discover his Jewish roots and make a rather high-profile donation to the Israel Museum.”

  “And the fifty million euros you gave to Olivia?”

  “I didn’t give her anything. I purchased two paintings from her gallery.”

  “That,” said Keller, “is a distinction without a difference.”

  “It’s a rather small price to pay if it leads us to Saladin.”

  “If,” said Keller.

  “Is it my imagination,” said Gabriel, “or is there something between you and—”

  “It’s your imagination.”

  “She’s a very pretty girl. And when this is all over, she’s going to be quite well off.”

  “I try to stay away from girls who latch onto rich French drug dealers.”

  “Are you forgetting what you used to do for a living?”

  Frowning, Keller drank more of the pastis. “So Monsieur Antonov is Jewish?”

  “Apparently so.”
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br />   “I would have never guessed.”

  Gabriel shrugged indifferently.

  “I’m a little Jewish. Did I ever mention that?”

  “You might have.”

  A silence fell between them. Gabriel stared morosely into the street.

  “I can’t believe we’re back here again.”

  “It won’t be much longer.”

  Keller watched two men climb from the back of the van and enter the electronics shop owned by René Devereaux. Then he glanced at his watch.

  “About five minutes. Maybe less.”

  From their exterior table at Au Petit Nice, Keller and Gabriel had only an obstructed view of what came next. A few seconds after the two men entered the shop, several flashes of light spilled from the display window into the street. They were faint—in fact, they might have been mistaken for the flicker of a television—and there was no sound at all. At least none that reached the noisy café. After that, the shop went entirely dark, with the exception of a small neon sign in the door that read fermé. Pedestrians flowed past along the pavement as though nothing were out of the ordinary.

  Keller’s eyes returned to the van, where Giancomo was removing a large rectangular cardboard box from the rear compartment. It was an oddly shaped box, manufactured to Don Orsati’s exacting standards by a paper-products factory on Corsica. It was quite obviously empty, for Giancomo had no trouble conveying it across the street and through the front door of the shop. But a few minutes later, when the box reappeared, it was borne by the two men who had entered the shop first, with Giancomo holding one side like a pallbearer. The two men inserted the box into the back of the van and crawled in after it while Giancomo reclaimed his place behind the wheel. Then the van slid away from the curb, rounded the corner, and was gone. From inside Au Petit Nice there arose a loud cheer. Marseilles had scored a goal against Lyon.

  “Not bad,” said Gabriel.

  Keller checked the time. “Four minutes, twelve seconds.”

  “Unacceptable by Office standards, but more than adequate for tonight.”

  “You sure you don’t want to join in the fun?”

  “I’ve had enough to last a lifetime. But do send the don my best,” said Gabriel. “And tell him the check is in the mail.”

  With that, Keller departed. A moment later, straddling the Peugeot Satelis, he flashed past Au Petit Nice, where a man with dense silver hair and thick black spectacles sat alone, wondering how long it would be before Jean-Luc Martel discovered that the chief of his illicit narcotics division was missing.

  36

  The Mediterranean Sea

  Celine was a Baia Atlantica 78 with three cabins, an MTV diesel engine capable of producing speeds of fifty-four knots, and a long slender prow that could accommodate a small helicopter. Keller, however, reached the vessel by less conspicuous means—namely, a Zodiac dinghy that had been left for him at an isolated marina in the Rhône estuary, near the town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. He tied the craft to the aft swim platform and climbed up to the main salon, where he found Don Orsati watching the Marseilles-Lyon match on the satellite television. Dressed as he was now, in his simple Corsican clothing and dusty sandals, he looked distinctly out of place amid the luxurious leather-and-wood fittings. Giancomo was on the bridge with the pilot.

  “Marseilles scored again,” said the don, disconsolate. He pointed the remote at the screen, and it turned to black.

  Keller looked around the interior of the salon. “I expected something a bit more modest.”

  “I’m too old to be moving around the Mediterranean in the belly of a fishing trawler. Besides, you’ll be glad to have twenty-four meters of boat beneath you later tonight. It’s supposed to blow.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “A friend of a friend.”

  “And the pilot?”

  “He’s mine.”

  Keller looked down and for the first time noticed several drops of drying blood.

  “He had a gun on the desk when they went in,” explained the don. “He took one in the shoulder.”

  “Is he going to live?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Has he seen your face?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Did you bring a hammer?”

  “A nice one,” said the don.

  “Where’s Devereaux?”

  “In the single. I didn’t want him to make a mess in one of the masters.”

  Keller looked at the floor again. “Someone really should clean this up.”

  “Not me,” said the don. “I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  One of the don’s men was standing watch outside the door of the single. There was no sound from within.

  “Is he conscious?” asked Keller.

  “See for yourself.”

  Keller went in and closed the door behind him. The room was in darkness; it smelled of sweat and fear and faintly of blood. He switched on the built-in reading lamp and aimed the cone of light toward the figure stretched motionless upon the twin bed. Silver duct tape obscured the eyes and mouth. The hands were bound and secured to the torso, the legs and ankles were trussed. Keller scrutinized the wound to the right shoulder. There had been a substantial amount of blood loss, but for now the flow had stopped. Even so, the bedding was drenched. The friend of a friend, thought Keller, would need a new mattress when this was over.

  He tore the duct tape from the eyes. René Devereaux blinked rapidly several times. Then, when Keller leaned into the light, showing Devereaux his face, the drug trafficker recoiled in fear. It seemed their acquaintance was mutual.

  “Bonsoir, René. Thanks for dropping by. How’s the shoulder?”

  The eyes narrowed, the fear evaporated. Devereaux was trying to send the Englishman from Corsica a message, that he was not a man to be shot, kidnapped, and bound like a game bird. Keller removed the duct tape from Devereaux’s mouth, thus allowing him to give voice to such sentiments.

  “You’re a dead man. You and that fat Corsican you work for.”

  “Are you referring to Don Orsati?”

  “Fuck Don Orsati.”

  “Those are three very unwise words. I wonder whether you would dare to say them to the don’s face.”

  “I would shit on the don. And the rest of his family.”

  “Would you, indeed?”

  Keller went out. To the Corsican standing outside the door he said, “Ask his holiness to come down for a minute.”

  “He’s watching the match.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be able to tear himself away,” said Keller. “And bring me the hammer.”

  The Corsican went up the companionway, and a moment later, with some difficulty, Don Orsati came down. Keller ushered him into the cabin and displayed him for René Devereaux to see. The don smiled at Devereaux’s obvious discomfort.

  “Monsieur Devereaux has something he wishes to tell you,” said Keller. “Go ahead, René. Please tell Don Orsati what you said to me a moment ago.”

  Greeted by silence, Keller showed the don out. Then he stood menacingly over the captive drug trafficker. “Suffice it to say, you have a narrow window of opportunity. You can tell me what I want to know, or I can explain to the don all the naughty things you said about him and his beloved family. And then . . .” Keller held up his hands to indicate the uncertainty of Devereaux’s fate under such an emotionally charged scenario.

  “Since when have you been in the information business?” asked Devereaux.

  “Since I made a career change. I’m working for British intelligence now. Haven’t you heard, René?”

  “You? A British spy? I don’t believe it.”

  “Sometimes I don’t believe it, either. But it happens to be true. And you’re going to help me. You’re going to be a confidential source, and I’m going to be your control officer.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Consider your current circumstances. They are as serious as it gets. So is our mission. You’re
going to help me find the man who’s been orchestrating all the terrorist attacks here in Europe and in America.”

  “How am I going to do that? I’m a drug dealer, for God’s sake.”

  “I’m glad we cleared that up. But you’re no ordinary drug dealer, are you? Dealer is too small a word for what you do. You run an entire global network from that dump on the Place Jean Jaurès. And you do it,” said Keller, “for Jean-Luc Martel.”

  “Who?” asked Devereaux.

  “Jean-Luc Martel. The one with all the restaurants and the hotels and the hair.”

  “And the pretty English girlfriend,” said Devereaux.

  “So you do know him.”

  “Sure. I used to go to his first restaurant in Marseilles. He was a nobody then. Now he’s a big star.”

  “Because of drugs,” said Keller. “Hashish, to be specific. Hashish that comes from Morocco. Hashish that you distribute throughout Europe. Martel’s empire would collapse if it wasn’t for the hashish. But you would never dream of cutting him out, because that would mean finding a new method of laundering five or ten billion a year in drug profits. Your so-called legitimate businesses might be enough to make you look reasonably respectable to the French tax authorities, but there’s no way they could handle all the profits from a global narcotics network. For that, you need a real business conglomerate. A conglomerate that takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in cash receipts. A conglomerate that acquires and develops large tracts of real estate.”

  “And buys and sells paintings.” After a silence, Devereaux added, “I knew she was trouble the first time I met her.”

  “Who?”

  “That English bitch.”

  Keller balled his right hand into a fist and drove it with all his strength into Devereaux’s blood-soaked shoulder.

  “But back to the matter at hand,” he said while the Frenchman writhed on the bed in agony. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about Jean-Luc Martel. The names of your suppliers in Morocco. The routes by which you bring the drugs into Europe. The methods you use for inserting the money into the financial bloodstream of JLM Enterprises. All of it, René.”