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Back The Frenchman
Chapters (76)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. AMIN
  5. PARIS
  6. … TWO YEARS LATER
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  56. CHAPTER FIFTY
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  63. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
  64. CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
  65. CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
  66. CHAPTER SIXTY
  67. CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
  68. CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
  69. CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
  70. CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
  71. CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
  72. CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
  73. CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
  74. CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
  75. CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
  76. EPILOGUE

He used his swipe card to go to the top floor, Briffaut’s office. He had to head off any attempt by Manerie, Portmann or Laval to sabotage him and eject him from Operation Alamut. The MERC investigation was important and he had to keep up the momentum, no distractions. As he rounded the corner into a wood-panelled area he paused. Briffaut was in the antechamber, where the executive assistants sat, talking to Frasier and a second man. De Payns stayed hidden behind a credenza and watched as the three men nodded, as if agreeing on something. A few seconds later, Briffaut returned to his office with Frasier, and the other man walked away. Shrek.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

They started with the technical environment, established by the DT in Mons. It had to start from scratch because the phone number that received the ten-minute call every Thursday was also démarqué and therefore carried no data on the owner or an address. The receiving phone was not even Belgian. The DT people confirmed it had been bought in France and used a French network. From the back of the sub, the techs used the IMSI spinner to find which three cell towers the phone of interest was connected to, searching at night to find the general zone where the person lived. With the phone not moving, the IMEI of the phone could be established and tied to an address. They were able to trace it to a modern apartment block in the north-west of Mons, in the old city. De Payns covered the operation from a nearby hotel room, through a radio headset. When the owner of the phone went to work, the phone moved and the team followed and took pictures of the people moving at the same time the phone moved, often on a nature strip in front of the identified apartment building. They put a team of followers in front of the building, and one of the techs in the sub rang the phone of interest. One of de Payns’ team saw the target—a woman answering a phone when no one else was in the vicinity.

She was in her mid-thirties, a well-dressed Arab woman, and she was walking with two girls, aged around nine and twelve. De Payns was happy with the progress but he wanted to confirm a phone call from the Mercedes-Benz in Islamabad. A call from Islamabad at 6.15 p.m. would be received in Mons at 3.15. The woman stayed in her apartment on Thursdays until 3.25 before leaving for the school to pick up her children. So they had the phone that was called from Islamabad and the owner of the phone, but the Alamut team was yet to see the woman actually taking the call from the MERC employee.