‘No one knows who he is?’ asked de Payns.

Briffaut shook his head. ‘The Arabic desk is going over it, but it basically can’t be used. We have that and the sketch that was made from your description, which is more useful right now. That’s all we have.’

‘We don’t even know if it is Murad,’ said de Payns.

‘By the way, we’ve had a small breakthrough on the Palermo situation,’ said Briffaut. ‘Shrek’s main find was traces of epsilon toxin in the warehouse, but he also discovered that Michael Lambardi used his brother David’s real estate firm in Palermo for some back office matters such as billing and accounts. And phones.’

De Payns raised his eyebrows. ‘He mentioned David but I never met him.’

‘This is Commodore’s phone,’ said Briffaut, pulling a sheaf of printed papers from beside his PC. ‘Brent’s guys have been working on his telecoms.’

De Payns looked down the spreadsheets where they’d isolated two Michael Lambardi numbers—one seemed to be business and local and they went to a spray of Italian numbers without much pattern. But there was another IMSI—a démarqué phone—and the pattern was immediately obvious. The secondary phone only called one number, once a day.

‘We’ve had some work done on that recipient number, and it has used cell towers in northern Pakistan, probably Islamabad, and Europe, Italy and Spain. But the most common area it’s been used has been in France.’

‘Fuck,’ said de Payns. ‘What was Palermo really about?’

Briffaut pointed at the spreadsheet. ‘Look at the dates. There’s a week of those calls terminating at northern French towers—probably Paris—and then, two days before Operation Falcon goes bad, Commodore’s daily calls are terminating at Italian locations.’

‘We know Commodore was taking his orders from Sayef Albar and Murad,’ said de Payns. ‘But what’s Murad doing in Paris?’

‘Sayef Albar has been trying to move into Europe, and maybe Sicily is their staging point?’

‘Staging point for what?’ asked de Payns. ‘That gangrene shit?’

Briffaut shrugged. ‘I need more information.’

De Payns was driven in a Company Audi north into Paris, stopping at an underground car park in Muette Nord, where they switched cars before driving across town to the neighbourhood of the safe house just after midnight.

He let himself in and went to the bedroom, where he changed out of the George-the-journalist clothing into his Alec de Payns clothes and emptied his collateral onto the bureau in his locker. Having slipped on his watch and put his wallet and keys in his pocket, he suddenly felt the fatigue and paranoia. He grabbed the bureau to steady himself. Dr Death’s eyes were seared in his brain. He didn’t know if he could go home, but he knew he had to. He needed grounding.