The phone buzzed in his jacket pocket, and he answered. ‘That last tidbit was well received,’ said Nasim, without preamble. ‘The mighty Aguilar, working in Islamabad? He’s either very desperate or very good.’

‘I have something else,’ said the caller. ‘Frasier’s report on Operation Falcon just landed. He’s satisfied the passports were destroyed in Palermo. Aguilar is clean.’

‘Hmm,’ said Nasim, as he strolled past the pizza bars and punk shoe shops. ‘So they really are gone? That leaves us five passports short.’

‘There’s not much I can do about that,’ said the voice.

‘Well, given your position, I’d argue the point on that one,’ said Nasim.

There was silence except for the sound of a sigh. ‘I wasn’t in Palermo,’ said the caller, in a tone that Nasim didn’t appreciate. ‘The passports weren’t my deal.’

‘Except to tell me there was a packet of them there,’ said Nasim, stopping beside a stand of trees. ‘And then you forgot to tell me that our friend Aguilar was on that ferry.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Well now you do, and I’m short five French passports,’ said Nasim, wondering how far he could push this man.

There was a long silence, then: ‘What do you want me to do?’ asked the man.

‘Use your position,’ said Nasim. ‘After all, I have a budget for five French passports, and I haven’t spent it yet.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER

FIFTY-EIGHT

De Payns wrote a two-page preliminary report on Operation Alamut and the dinner meeting. He was about to shut down his system when he saw an internal phone call on his console—it said Briffaut, D.

‘Yes?’ he answered.

‘I need you in my office—now.’

Briffaut and Brent Clercq were looking at Briffaut’s computer screen when de Payns arrived.

‘Look at this,’ said Briffaut, pointing at an image. ‘Is this Murad?’

‘Étienne got it from the ferry company,’ said Brent, referring to a young operative from the Y Division. ‘Is it him, Alec?’

De Payns brought his face in close and squinted. It was grainy, shot from an oldish CCTV system, screen-grabbed and emailed. It appeared to be from footage outside the WCs on the ferry, taken on the afternoon that Commodore and de Payns had arrived in Palermo from Cagliari.

‘I believe that’s him, but how did Étienne know who to look for?’ asked de Payns, reaching for the mouse to see if he could enlarge the image.

‘Your report was very specific about where you saw the man you thought was Murad—outside the toilets, as Commodore emerged, around ten minutes before docking.’

‘Okay, well I think that’s him,’ said de Payns. ‘Although we can’t really see his face, so I’m going off my memory of his shape and clothes.’

The man was clearly looking at Commodore as the Italian emerged from the WCs, and their body language suggested some words were being exchanged.