Chapter 10
Exchange
At the green light, the Rolls-Royce Ghost started again down the street. Six cars away, Bond waited patiently until the traffic started again before resuming.
The lights turned yellow, then red. The Volkswagen Polo in front of Bond beat the light.
Bond grunted in irritation as he stopped the Jaguar XF. So it was, with following someone: too close and you risked being sighted by your target, scaring them off; too far behind and you ran the risk of losing them. Fortunately, the GPS tracker attached to the Ghost's underbelly would allow him to make up for the lead.
Dubois was taking them somewhere in Paris's northwest, as expected according to COMINT from Dubois intercepted right after they left the auction house – he was heading straight to a drop-off to deliver the book to Marcus Lambert at 'the agreed location'. What exactly the 'agreed location' was remained unknown for now.
Not for the first time, Bond wondered what Lambert wanted with the book. He was believed to be a lieutenant in the People's Armed Alliance, but what would a group of far-right terrorists want with a seven hundred-year-old book? Maybe Lambert just liked old, expensive things and didn't want to go to the auction himself, or maybe Lambert was going to deliver it to someone in turn once he took delivery.
The Ghost eventually pulled into the driveway of a large house – no, a small apartment building or hotel – in the suburbs. Bond slowly continued straight, passing the driveway, before turning a corner and finally stopping a block away. Pocketing the Jaguar's key, he took a satchel from the front passenger's seat and left the car.
It was a substantial building, with what looked like a rendered brick wall and numerous windows with large, elegant outer frames. The apartment complex was surrounded by a seven-foot brick wall, punctuated with several iron gates. Both the building and the wall were falling into disrepair, with cracks in the brick and at least one broken window.
Outside the entrance to the apartment complex was a small outdoor parking lot, occupied by the Ghost and four other cars. Yeah, Bond thought, five cars parked in an abandoned apartment building. Some sort of deal is taking place. Squinting slightly, he eyed the windows, looking for a telltale shadow or lights. Nothing.
Bond drew his mobile phone from his pocket and photographed the cars, making sure the licence plates were visible.
After finding the front door unlocked and unguarded, Bond made his way into the foyer. Like the exterior, the interior was falling into disrepair, with cobwebs in the corners. The roof was ornately panelled with carved wood, although this was also decaying, while the walls were panelled from the floor up to about three feet, with the remainder painted pink. Mounted on the walls were faux candlesticks, each with an old incandescent lightbulb where the flame would be.
However, there were lights on in the foyer. Most of the light fixtures in the ceiling leading away from the foyer were dark, but there were still working lights on in the ceiling of the foyer itself. Either someone was paying the bills, or there was a generator on the premises.
Seeing a staircase, he started up from the foyer to the first floor.
Just short of the flight of stairs to the second floor, he promptly stopped: a guard was standing at the top of the staircase with a machine pistol. At least now he knew where they were having their meeting.
He stopped to weigh up his options. Yes, as a 00 officer, he was licensed to kill as necessary, but that wasn't a licence to kill indiscriminately or not show restraint if a less lethal option was available and could be deployed in a reasonable time. Besides, Bond took little pleasure in killing.
The man guarding the staircase turned around, now facing a window opposite.
Bond decided on the Taser. Pulling it from its concealed holster, he raised the weapon and carefully stepped out onto the staircase. As he ascended, he was acutely aware of the creaking of the wooden steps underfoot.
Finally, he was there. Somehow, he made it. He was standing right behind the man. Bond tucked the Taser into the waistband of his trousers and tapped the man on the shoulder.
Davide Doubois gestured towards the metal case as Philippe, his chauffeur, lowered it onto the table. "One book," he declared, "as promised."
Marcus Lambert stepped over to the table as Philippe stepped away. He carefully opened the latches on the case and lifted the lid. Inside was the book, which he peered at carefully. Dubois found himself glancing around the room for a second as Lambert looked at the book. He'd been here before: the old, run-down apartment building, each room with the same peach-painted walls and wood panelling at about waist height. Occupying most of the floor area was an old, probably imitation Persian carpet. The room smelled musty; probably the scent of old mould or mildew.
"It has that funny 'old' smell, doesn't it?" he finally said.
He was smelling it? "I wouldn't know," Dubois replied. "I just picked it up, as you asked."
"Fair enough," Lambert said. "I just thought it smelled weird. Hell, I would, too, if I was sitting in a family library for a hundred years."
Dubois grinned to himself at the joke. "So, otherwise, it's good?"
"So far." Lambert nodded. "I don't want to touch it right now, since I don't exactly have cotton gloves."
Fair enough. "So your boss will be looking at it, then?"
"Yeah. Once he's happy, the money will be transferred to your account."
"It better be," Dubois snorted. Wealthy as he was, he was still irritated at the sheer amount he had had to pay for it.
"Something wrong?" Lambert asked innocently as he closed the lid.
"I told you; I had to pay eight hundred thousand euros for that book. I thought it would only go for one."
"Don't worry about the money," Lambert reassured him. "I know, I only brought one hundred thousand, but you know I'm good for the rest."
Near the door, one of Lambert's men brushed at his left shoulder, as if trying to remove dust.
He knew that money wouldn't be an issue, but Dubois was still far from reassured. Something about this particular transaction didn't sit right. Not only that, Lambert had brought a surprising amount of men to this meeting: three cars with three men each, in addition to himself and his two bodyguards. It was an awful amount of men for a handover like this; in the past, Lambert only brought three or four men with him. Maybe it was the ambience, in spite of the fact that he was familiar with this place as a location for meeting.
Nervous as he was, he still spoke after looking around the room at Lambert's men. "So that's why you brought your goons? Hoping to threaten me into keeping my mouth shut about being paid?"
"Oh, no," Lambert replied as he walked over to one of his men and took a briefcase from him. "Some of my boys here are actually going on another job."
Now he was curious. What the People's Armed Alliance did with the guns and drugs he provided was none of his business, but he'd been careful to keep a distance from their activities. Being in the same room as men going on a 'job', though… "And what job would that be? The People's Armed Alliance has been low-profile for months. Don't tell me I've just become an accessory to an act of terrorism."
"Oh, no, no, no, no," Lambert said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Just a little errand. Nothing you need to worry yourself about."
"I see," he replied slowly. So he was about to go send some men to threaten or kill someone? He wondered if they owed him money. Speaking of which…
"By the way, you never did say who exactly the book was for. Does your boss like antique books?"
"Yeah, something like that. He's got an eye for history."
Dubois frowned to himself. He'd cultivated this relationship with the People's Armed Alliance for months, and yet he knew so little about their upper ranks. Drugs, guns, and the odd explosive all seemed to be typical business, but this book was random. It was a favour, to build on customer satisfaction and loyalty, little more; after all, they had always paid up before, so why would this be any different? He'd simply assumed that the man who wanted the book was reluctant to show himself for fear of being arrested.
Whatever. It was business.
Lambert turned to one of his men. "My laptop, please?"
One of the men set a laptop on the table. Lambert bent over it, opened it and turned it on. After plugging in a small broadband modem, he started typing.
Eventually, he turned the laptop around to face Dubois. "As you can see, two hundred thousand euros to your account."
Dubois looked down at the screen, which displayed a confirmation message for a bank transfer.
"Yes?" Lambert asked. He was after confirmation that he had seen the message on the screen.
He nodded. "Yes."
Lambert opened the briefcase, which was full of hundred euro notes. "This is one hundred thousand."
Dubois looked down at the notes. Picking up a stack of ten bills, he flicked through it. Genuine.
"The other five will be coming over the next few days. Have a look at the screen again."
Seeing the confirmation on the screen made him feel a little better. See, he told himself, there you go. They're paying, as usual.
"That's good to know. Thank you, Marcus."
In a room in the floor above, Bond knelt by a wall near the door, hunched over a small LCD screen. Next to him were a small satchel and a power drill.
After knocking out the guard and carefully dragging him downstairs, Bond used a mirror to look around the corner of the stairwell. Looking down the hall, he saw two men about four doors down. He then ascended to the third floor and made his way to the fourth door down the hall – the floors were identical in layout, as far as he could tell – and drilled into the floor. He then deployed a fibre-optic camera on a flexible probe and fed it through the floor to look into the room below.
Jackpot.
He wasn't sure how much of the exchange he missed, and he was lucky that the men accompanying them didn't look too closely at the ceiling, but he saw Lambert close the lid on the metal case from the auction and caught a brief exchange before Lambert showed Dubois something on a laptop and presented him with a briefcase full of cash.
The fibre-optic probe had a microphone installed alongside the camera. Bond had a set of headphones plugged into the receiver.
"Will that be all?" Dubois asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Lambert replied. "We'll be in touch for next time."
Bond heard faint clicks as Dubois closed the briefcase and picked it up. "Thank you," he said, slowly extending a hand to Lambert.
"No, thank you," Lambert replied. "Claude and Marc will see you back to your car."
"Sure," Dubois replied tersely. He and his chauffeur started walking to the door.
"Good bye," Lambert said politely."
"Bye," Dubois said before leaving the room.
Bond followed Dubois towards the door with the camera and then turned it back to Lambert once he had left. "And now what?" one of his men asked.
"We'll wait for them to get back, then everyone get in here."
After about a minute, the two men escorting Dubois and his chauffeur returned, accompanied by two more men. Lambert looked at them before asking, "Where's Luc?"
"I dunno," one of the newly arrived men replied. "He probably went to take a piss. We didn't want to wait for him."
"Whatever." Lambert gave a dismissive wave. "We'll just grab him before we go. These are the orders. You guys have a new target – two, actually." He fiddled with his laptop before showing the screen to his men.
"That one's easy on the eyes," one said, pointing at the monitor.
"Oh, yeah," someone agreed.
"Who are they?" another one of the men asked.
"I dunno," Lambert replied. "Small-time assassins, apparently. All I know is this comes from the top. They need to be eliminated."
Bond frowned to himself. A targeted killing.
"Right."
"Shame."
"Too bad about the hottie."
One of the other men chimed in. "They live in the 6th arrondissement?"
"Trendy," someone replied.
"Whatever," Lambert said. "It's apparently a high priority these two are taken care of. No specifics, but try not to make a fuss.
"My source tells me they'll still be in or near their apartment in the 6th arrondissement. I'll leave the rest with you."
"Ok," another of the men acknowledged. "What about that book?"
"I'll take it to Michel. He'll take it from there."
Who was Michel? Probably Lambert's senior in the People's Armed Alliance.
Now Bond wanted to know where this book was going, and why it was worth eight hundred thousand euros.
"Ok."
He still wanted to know more – perhaps there would be more to this exchange – but at the same time, he had to be in position to follow Lambert. He didn't yet know which car was his, and it would take several minutes to get out and get back to the Jaguar.
"Anything else?" Lambert asked.
The other men were silent.
"No? Ok. Well, you have your assignment. Get to it."
That was enough for now. Bond withdrew the fibre-optic probe from the hole in the floor. Hurriedly shoving the equipment back into the satchel, he rose to his feet and left the room.
Stepping back out into the hallway, Bond saw an exit at the far end of the hall to his right. To his left was the staircase he had used to come here.
An emergency fire exit? He couldn't go back the way he came… or could he?
Bond swiftly made his way back to the main staircase and started to descend the flight of stairs. Below was the landing where he had knocked out the sentry, which everyone would now be using to leave the building.
He hesitated, hearing footsteps and faint voices coming from up the hall.
"What about Luc?" someone asked.
"Call him on his phone," someone replied. "Wait, how about this: we'll all go ahead, and as soon as you guys get Luc, you follow us. Here's the deal: we'll have two cars in the area around the target's house, and you guys are the backup. Stay about four blocks or so away. It's ok if you're a little bit late."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. We're going. Just go ahead and call him already."
This time, the voice was louder. The speaker was approaching the stairwell. Bond held his position, waiting at the top of the stairwell around the corner.
Finally, a man stepped into view. He was a balding white man, apparently in his forties, and he wore a dark grey suit without a tie. "Come on, guys," he called out down the hall. "Let's go."
He descended the stairs, and was followed by several men, including Lambert, bearing a bag which Bond assumed had his laptop. Behind him was a man holding the metal case from the auction.
Waiting for this staircase to clear would take too long. Bond turned around and started down the hallway.
As he suspected, the door at the far end of the hallway was indeed a fire exit, opening out onto a second staircase, this one darkened with only the odd window at each landing.
The stairwell ended by opening out onto the middle of a short hallway, leading to a single door at one end. Bond opened the door and was greeted by the afternoon sun.
Directly in front of him was another wall, running parallel to the building. Barely five metres away was a gate.
He ran to his right, along the side of the building, until he came to a corner. After slowing down, he saw that around the corner was the front of the building, with the cars parked outside about twenty or so metres away. As he suspected, the Rolls-Royce Dubois came in was gone. He was done; it wasn't as if he needed to stick around anyway.
With his head and shoulder turned out around the corner, Bond silently observed as the first of the men emerged from the front door.
Lambert hadn't appeared yet, but Bond wanted to be ready to follow as soon as Lambert got in his car. Turning back around the corner, Bond drew his phone and opened an application titled Remote Drive.
A block away, the Jaguar's engine came to life.
Bond looked again. Now Lambert had left the building, accompanied by the man with the case.
He turned back to the phone. He'd stopped the Jaguar around the corner to take that last look around the corner at Lambert, and now he turned the corner and was driving the Jaguar along the road that was running parallel to his side of the building. His own position relative to the car was marked on the screen with a green marker and a range in metres that was shrinking.
Bond stopped the car. He took another look around the corner. Lambert was gone. He was in a car – which one? None of them had left yet. His angle didn't give him a particularly good view of the interiors, either.
Shit. Where is he?
Wait – was that his man who had been holding the case? Yes, it was. Same complexion, same light brown hair, same dark blue suit. He opened the door to a grey Audi saloon.
He heard the faint sound of a car door slamming shut just as Lambert's man opened the car door. That was probably Lambert, closing his door.
Bond glanced back down to his phone. He was less than twenty metres away from the car.
He turned again to the men clustered outside the building. The grey Audi was backing out of its parking spot. Sure enough, there were two men inside it, both in the front of the car. Bond could barely make out the passenger.
Lambert.
He finally turned around and jogged over to the gate. A quick glance as he approached showed it wasn't secured shut. He practically shoved the gate open as he ran through it.
He came out onto a street. Looking right and then left, Bond saw the Jaguar sitting a short distance away. He hurriedly made his way over to the car and entered the driver's side door.
Once inside, he nearly slammed the door shut in haste and drove up the short distance to the nearest intersection, intending to turn right and come out in front of the apartment complex. As he prepared to make the turn right, the grey Audi drove through the intersection, going right to left.
Bond hurriedly turned left to follow the car.