House of Spies Read online

  She greeted him, as always, with a worried smile and a warm, weightless hand to his cheek. Her skin was the color of flour; a black scarf covered her tinder-dry white hair. It was strange, thought Keller, how the marks of ethnicity and national origin were erased by time. Were it not for her Corsican language and mystical Catholic ways, she might have been mistaken for his old Auntie Beatrice from Ipswich.

  “You’ve been on the island a week,” she said at last, “and only now do you come to see me.” She gazed deeply into his eyes. “The evil has returned, my child.”

  “Where did I contract it?”

  “In the castle by the sea, in the land of Druids and sorcerers. There was a man there with the name of a bird. Beware of him in the future. He does not wish you well.”

  The old woman’s hand was still pressed to Keller’s cheek. In the language of the island, she was known as a signadora. Her task was to care for those afflicted with the evil eye, though she had the power to see the past and future as well. When Keller was still working for Don Orsati, he never left the island without paying a visit to the old woman. And when he returned, the crooked little house at the edge of the square was always among his first stops.

  She removed her hand from Keller’s cheek and fingered the heavy cross around her neck. “You’re looking for someone, are you not?”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “First things first, my dearest.”

  With a movement of her hand, she invited Keller to sit at the small wooden table in her parlor. Before him she placed a plate filled with water and a vessel of olive oil. Keller dipped his forefinger in the oil. Then he held it over the plate and allowed three drops to fall onto the water. The oil should have gathered into a single gobbet. Instead, it shattered into a thousand droplets, and soon there was no trace of it.

  “As I suspected,” said the old woman with a frown. “And worse than usual. The world beyond the island is a troubled place, filled with evil. You should have stayed here with us.”

  “It was time for me to leave.”

  “Why?”

  Keller had no answer.

  “It was all the Israelite’s doing. The one with the name of an angel.”

  “It was my choice, not his.”

  “You still haven’t learned, have you? It’s no use lying to me.” She stared into the plate of water and oil. “You should know,” she said, “that your path will lead you back to him.”

  “The Israelite?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Without another word, she took hold of Keller’s hand and prayed. After a moment she began to weep, a sign the evil had passed from his body into hers. Then she closed her eyes and appeared to be sleeping. When she awoke she instructed Keller to repeat the trial of the oil and the water. This time the oil coalesced into a single drop.

  “Don’t wait so long the next time,” she said. “It’s best not to allow the evil to linger in the blood.”

  “I need someone in London.”

  “I know of a woman in a place called Soho. She’s Greek, a heretic. Use her only in cases of emergency.”

  Keller pushed the plate toward the center of the table. “Tell me about the one they call the Scorpion.”

  “The don will find him in a city at the other end of one of our ferries. It is not in my power to tell you which one. He is not important, this man. But he can lead you to the one who is.”

  “Who?”

  “It is not in my power,” she said again.

  “How long will I have to wait?”

  “When you go home, pack your bag. You’ll be leaving us soon.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You doubt me?” Smiling, she searched his eyes. “Are you happy, Christopher?”

  “As happy as a man like me can be.”

  “But you still mourn for the one you lost in Belfast?”

  He said nothing.

  “It is understandable, my child. The manner of her death was terrible. But you killed the man who took her from you, the one called Quinn. You received your vengeance.”

  “Does vengeance truly heal such wounds?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person. After all, I’m a Corsican. You used to be one, too.” She glanced at the strand of leather around Keller’s neck. “At least you still wear your talisman. You’re going to need it. She will, too.”

  “Who?”

  Her eyes began to close. “I’m tired now, Christopher. I need to rest.”

  Keller kissed her hand and slipped a roll of euros into her palm.

  “It’s too much,” she said softly as he took his leave. “You always give me too much.”

  9

  Corsica—Nice

  Later that evening, in the firelit warmth of Don Orsati’s office, Christopher Keller learned the man who called himself the Scorpion would be waiting two days hence at Le Bar Saint Étienne, on the rue Dabray in Nice. Keller feigned surprise. And the don, who knew that Keller had been to see the signadora, made scant effort to conceal his irritation over the fact that the mystical old woman, whom he had known since he was a boy, had once again stolen his thunder.

  There was much about the encounter that even the signadora, with her extraordinary powers of second sight, could not have surmised. She did not know, for example, that the Scorpion’s real name was Nouredine Zakaria, that he held both French and Moroccan passports, that he had been a low-level street criminal most of his life and had served time in a French prison, and that he was rumored to have spent several months in the caliphate, probably in Raqqa. Which meant it was possible he was under DGSI surveillance, though the don’s men had seen no evidence of it. He was scheduled to arrive at Le Bar Saint Étienne, alone, at a quarter past two in the afternoon. He would be expecting a Frenchman named Yannick Ménard, a career criminal who specialized in the sale of weaponry. Ménard, however, would be unable to attend. He was now lying five miles due west of Ajaccio, in the watery graveyard of the Orsatis. And the guns he planned to sell Nouredine Zakaria—ten Kalashnikov combat assault rifles and ten Heckler & Koch MP7 compact machine guns with suppressors and ECLAN reflex sights—were in an Orsati warehouse outside the Provençal town of Grasse.

  “How much would this be worth to your friends in London?” asked the don.

  “I thought we agreed your work would be pro bono.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Ménard’s death might complicate things,” said Keller thoughtfully.

  “How so?”

  “The British frown on blood.”

  “Is it not true you have a license to kill?”

  No, explained Keller, it was not.

  Le Bar Saint Étienne occupied the ground floor of a three-story pie-shaped building at the corner of the rue Vernier. Its awning was green, its tables and chairs were aluminum and stained with spilt ice cream. It was a neighborhood spot, a place to grab a quick café crème or a beer or perhaps a sandwich. Tourists rarely ventured there unless they were lost.

  On the opposite side of the intersection was La Fantasia. Here the fare was pizza, though the accommodations were identical. Keller arrived at half past one and after ordering a coffee at the counter took a table on the street. He was dressed as a man of the south. Not a well-to-do sort who lived in a villa in the hills or an apartment by the sea, but the kind who lived by his wits on the street. A waiter one day, a laborer the next, a thief by night. He’d done a bit of time in prison, this version of Keller, and was good with his fists and a knife. He was an excellent friend to have in times of trouble, and a dangerous enemy.

  He drew a cigarette from his packet of Marlboros and lit it with a disposable lighter. His phone was disposable, too. Through an exhalation of smoke, he scanned the quiet street and the shuttered windows of the surrounding apartment buildings. He could see no sign of the opposition. Mayhew and Quill, his instructors at the Fort, would have reminded him that surveillance by a professional service was almost impossible to detect. Keller, however, was confident of hi
s instincts. He had worked as an assassin in France for more than twenty years, and yet to the French police he was nothing more than a rumor. It was not because he was lucky. It was because he was very good at his job.

  A small Peugeot transit van, dented and dusty, passed in the street, a North African face behind the wheel, another in the front passenger seat. So much for coming alone. Keller wasn’t alone, either. In violation of all known MI6 rules, written and unwritten, he was carrying an illegal Tanfoglio pistol at the small of his back. Were the weapon to discharge—and were the round to strike another human being—Keller’s might be the shortest career in the history of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service.

  The Peugeot eased into an empty spot along the rue Dabray as a second car, a Citroën sedan, stopped outside Le Bar Saint Étienne. It, too, contained a pair of North African–looking men. The passenger climbed out and sat down at one of the outdoor tables while the driver found an empty space along the rue Vernier.

  Keller crushed out his cigarette and considered his situation. No sign of the French security service, he thought, only four members of a Moroccan criminal gang quite possibly linked to ISIS. He recalled the many lectures he had attended during the IONEC regarding the rules for making or aborting a meeting. Given current circumstances, MI6 doctrine dictated a hasty retreat. At the very least, Keller was obliged to check in with his controller in London for guidance. Too bad his secure MI6 phone was locked in a bank vault in Marseilles.

  With the disposable phone, Keller snapped a photograph of the man waiting for him at Le Bar Saint Étienne. Then, rising, he left a few coins on the table and started across the street. He is not important, the old woman had said. But he can lead you to the one who is.

  10

  Rue Dabray, Nice

  He was a citizen of the forgotten France, the great belts of suburbs, banlieues, that ringed large metropolitan centers like Paris and Lyon and Toulouse. For the most part, their residents lived in shabby high-rise housing blocks that were factories of crime, drug abuse, resentment, and, increasingly, radical Islam. The overwhelming majority of France’s growing Muslim population wanted nothing more than to live in peace and care for their families. But a small minority had fallen victim to the siren song of ISIS. And some, like Nouredine Zakaria, were prepared to slaughter in the name of the caliphate. Keller had encountered many like him—members of North African street gangs—while working for Don Orsati. He suspected that Zakaria knew little of Islam, the tenets of jihadism, or the ways of the salaf al Salih, the original followers of the Prophet Muhammad whom the murderers of ISIS sought to emulate. But the Moroccan possessed something more valuable to ISIS than knowledge of Islam. As a career criminal, he was a natural operator who knew how to acquire weapons and explosives, how to steal cars and cell phones, and where to find places for members of a terrorist cell to lie low before and after an attack. In short, he knew how to get things done without attracting the attention of the police. For a terrorist group—or an intelligence service, for that matter—it was an essential skill.

  He was shorter than Keller by an inch or two, and powerfully built. His was not a body sculpted in a fitness club. It was a prisoner’s physique, honed by relentless calisthenics in a confined space. He looked to be about thirty-five, but Keller couldn’t be sure; he had never been good at guessing the ages of North African men. In appearance he was an archetype—a high forehead with arcs at the temples, broad cheekbones, a full mouth, dark lips. Yellow-tinted aviators shielded his eyes; Keller had the impression they were almost black. On his right wrist was a large Swiss watch, no doubt stolen. The right wrist meant he was probably left-handed. So it was the left hand, not the right, that would reach for the gun he carried just inside his partially zipped leather jacket. The bulge was quite obvious. And intentional, thought Keller.

  Presently, a Police Nationale unit rolled slowly past the café, an environmentally friendly Peugeot 308, a go-kart with lights and a flashy paint job. The officer behind the wheel cast a long look toward the two men seated outside Le Bar Saint Étienne. Keller watched the car round the corner while lighting a cigarette. When at last he spoke, he did so in the Corsican way, so that Nouredine Zakaria would know he was not a man to be taken lightly.

  “You were instructed,” he said, “to come alone.”

  “Do you see anyone else sitting here, my friend?”

  “I’m not your friend. Not even close.” Keller glanced toward the Citroën parked across the street, and at the Peugeot van on the rue Dabray. “What about them?”

  “Guys from the neighborhood,” said Zakaria with a dismissive shrug.

  “Tell them to take a drive.”

  “Can’t.”

  Keller started to rise.

  “Wait.”

  Keller froze and after a moment’s hesitation lowered himself back into his chair. Mayhew and Quill would have been pleased by their star pupil’s performance; he had just established dominance over the source. It was a technique as old as the bazaar, the willingness to walk away from a deal. But Nouredine Zakaria was a man of the bazaar, too. Moroccans were born negotiators.

  He started to reach inside his leather jacket.

  “Easy,” said Keller.

  Slowly, the hand retrieved a mobile phone from an interior pocket. Like Keller’s, it was a throwaway. The Moroccan used it to dispatch a brief text message. Ping, thought Keller, as the message surged across the French cellular network. A few seconds later two engines turned over, and two examples of French automotive prowess, one a Peugeot, the other a Citroën, moved off.

  “Happy?” asked Nouredine Zakaria.

  “Rapturous.”

  The Moroccan lit a cigarette of his own, a Gauloise. “Where’s Yannick?”

  “Under the weather.”

  “So you’re the boss?”

  Keller allowed the question to pass unanswered. The fact that he was the boss, he thought, was manifest.

  “I don’t like changes,” the Moroccan said. “They make me uneasy.”

  “Change is good, Nouredine. It keeps everyone on their toes.”

  An eyebrow rose above the yellow-tinted aviators. “How do you know my real name?”

  Keller managed to appear offended by the question. “I wouldn’t be here,” he said evenly, “if I didn’t.”

  “You speak like a Corsican,” Zakaria said, “but you don’t look like one.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  The Moroccan made no reply. The dance was almost complete, thought Keller, the dance that two seasoned criminals engaged in before getting down to business. He had no interest in seeing it come to an end, not yet. He was no longer a contract killer, he was a gatherer of information. And the only way to get information was to talk. He decided to drop another coin in the jukebox and stay on the floor a little longer.

  “Yannick tells me you’re interested in acquiring twenty pieces of merchandise.”

  “Is twenty a problem?”

  “Not at all. In fact, my organization generally deals in much larger quantities.”

  “How large?”

  Keller glanced at the clouds, as if to say the sky was the limit. “To tell you the truth, twenty is hardly worth our time or effort. Yannick should have checked with me before making any promises. He has a bright future but he’s young. And sometimes,” added Keller, “he doesn’t ask enough questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “My organization operates a bit like a government,” Keller explained. “We want to know who our buyers are and how they intend to use our merchandise. When the Americans sell airplanes to their friends the Saudis, for example, the Saudis have to promise they won’t use the planes against the Israelis.”

  “Zionist pigs,” murmured the Moroccan.

  “Nevertheless,” said Keller with a frown, “I trust you see my point. We won’t fill your order without certain restrictions.”

  “What sort?”

  “We would need your assurance that nothin
g will be used here in France or against citizens of the Republic. We’re criminals, but we’re also patriots.”

  “So are we.”

  “Patriots?”

  “Criminals.”

  “Are you really?” Keller smoked in silence for a moment. “Listen, Nouredine, what you do in your spare time is of no concern to me. If you want to make jihad, go ahead. I’d probably make jihad too if I were in your position. But if you use the weapons on French soil, there’s a good chance they’ll be traced back to my boss. And that would make him extremely unhappy.”

  “I thought you were the boss.”

  A cloud of smoke came billowing across the table. Keller’s eyes watered involuntarily. He had never cared for the smell of Gauloises.

  “Say it for me, Nouredine. Swear to me that you won’t use my guns against my countrymen. Promise me you won’t give me a reason to hunt you down and kill you.”

  “You’re not threatening me, are you?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. I just wouldn’t want you to do something you might regret later. Because if you behave yourself, my boss can get you anything you want. Do you understand?”

  The Moroccan crushed out his cigarette, slowly. “Listen, habibi, I’m beginning to lose patience. Shall we make business, or should I find someone else to sell me the guns? Someone who doesn’t ask so many fucking questions.”