De Payns was in the middle of his third breakfast coffee, but with no hangover thanks to the Islamic Republic’s attitude to public intoxication. It was easier just to have two beers and call it a night. It didn’t concern de Payns that much, but Templar finished most days with several glasses of something and he wasn’t impressed.

Now it was after 9 a.m., the other guests had already cleared out and Brent and Thierry were upstairs, calibrating their spinning equipment. De Payns was ill at ease. He’d woken up early and stressed, thinking about Manerie and Shrek and wondering at what point he had to talk to Briffaut … or Shrek himself? Manerie’s belief that there was a mole at the Bunker was not far-fetched. Someone had sabotaged the Palermo operation—probably a Company insider, or someone being fed by such a person. He had a head filled with Murad, Manerie, Lambardi and a mole with no name. Too many loose ends. He hadn’t dwelled on it since the night Lambardi was killed, but he’d woken thinking about it and the blue rats were gnawing.

‘Coffee still on?’

De Payns looked up and saw Templar, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a Reebok backpack on his shoulder, back from his overnight recon. The waitress approached and took an order for two coffees.

‘How we looking?’ asked de Payns, embarrassed that his friend had caught him in a pensive moment.

Templar leaned forward on his forearms. ‘The person of interest is a middle-aged Arab male with a cheap suit and shoes,’ said Templar. ‘But they all dress that way, even at the top of the government. He may not be running the whole MERC, but he’s high enough to ride in an S-Class Mercedes. Remember, people are more modest about displaying wealth in this country. It’s not like Syria.’

‘Habits?’ asked de Payns.

‘Black Mercedes arrived to pick him up at seven thirty-six this morning, one driver and one bodyguard,’ said Templar, pausing and leaning back as the waitress brought two black coffees. ‘It’s all on the card, but it’s wiped for now.’

Templar was talking about the protocol for recon photographs in the DGSE. You took your shots amid lots of filler that supported your legend. But the photographer deleted the shots to be used back in Paris immediately after taking them. They were retrieved with special software that could reconstitute shadow data, but the trick was to wipe the shots immediately after taking them or the numbering of the shots on the SD card would reflect missing images, something the ISI would look for.

‘So, a middle-aged man and two bodyguards; they all get in the car and go to work?’ asked de Payns.

‘They took off on the same route they used last night.’

‘So now we have three people and three IMSIs,’ said de Payns. ‘We have to isolate the VIP’s.’