They sat in Dominic Briffaut’s office, de Payns and Mattieu Garrat briefing the head of Y Division on why they felt the operational environment was ready to be upgraded to contact. The three-week environment phase, run by Templar, had not disclosed anything special about Raven apart from the fact that in emails and phone calls she criticised her husband a lot, and she wished for more freedom. The phone calls to the mystery man at the MERC had been monitored and played back for the cryptographers at the Cat, who couldn’t find a code in the dull conversations about shopping, traffic and school lunches. It was not unusual in countries such as Pakistan and Iran for classified government workers to train their family and friends never to ask about their work or refer to it. So Raven wasn’t asking, and the person of interest at the MERC wasn’t telling. Briffaut had a file of the transcripts between Raven and the POI, and he flipped to a random page which contained the conversation:

POI: How are you?

RAVEN: Good.

POI: How are the kids?

RAVEN: Happy.

POI: How is the weather?

RAVEN: Fine.

POI: How is work?

RAVEN: Busy.

Briffaut sighed. ‘This is it?’

De Payns nodded. ‘The conversations are so banal that we should at least consider the possibility that Raven is trained.’

Briffaut shrugged at that possibility. In the intel game you also had to accept that people conducted uninspiring communications.

They went through the photographic surveillance, which demonstrated Raven’s ego, a potential MICE leverage. She had a pretty face and a voluptuous body. In one of the shots, she wore silky parachute pants and a tight bodice that was less modest than a typical Pakistani woman would wear.

‘One of Templar’s female team-members followed Raven to a Latin club,’ said de Payns. ‘She reported that the dance leader at the club was a good-looking man in a sleazy sort of way. It’s in the reports section.’

Briffaut made a face as he scanned the photographs. ‘We picking up any counter-measures?’

‘We’ve found nothing,’ said de Payns. ‘The environment is clean.’

Garrat directed the meeting to emails Raven had exchanged with other female Middle Eastern migrants living in Europe. In them, she complained about wanting to get away from Fadi—the absent husband—whom she accused of controlling her and becoming radicalised.

Briffaut shut the ring-binder file, pushed it back towards Garrat. Then he turned to de Payns. ‘If we go to contact, do you have a plan for Raven?’

‘I know how to approach her,’ said de Payns.

Briffaut nodded, his mind already shifting to something else. ‘It’s a yes from me. I’ll take it to Frasier. You’ll know by tonight.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX