‘So how did you find out about this dinner at my sister’s apartment?’

Manerie gulped. ‘The director of DGS is given a list of active operation names every week. I saw a name I wasn’t familiar with—Alamut. I dug around, found a briefing note in another director’s safe that referred to a dinner in Islamabad. That’s when I informed Murad.’

Bijar crushed his cigarette. ‘Alamut—the Valley of the Assassins. Don’t you love these clever Franks?’

The Colonel took over. ‘The DGSE released a report saying the five passports that Murad would buy from Aguilar were indeed destroyed.’

‘Correct,’ said Manerie.

The Colonel looked at Murad. ‘So how was it that you obtained five French passports to gain access to the high-security section of the Saint-Cloud water facility?’

Murad nodded at Manerie, who answered. ‘I provided passports created by the DGSE.’

The Colonel, a career intelligence professional, was incredulous. ‘You mean, passports used by DGSE field agents? Passports used for their cover?’

‘Well, yes,’ said Manerie, embarrassed that even the Colonel found this dishonourable. ‘I had to work on short notice.’

‘You would give us passports created by the French secret service, to allow a terror act to take place in Paris?’

Manerie slumped.

The Colonel slowly shook his head. ‘I doubt we could have kept you safe in Pakistan once your employer realised what you did,’ said the Colonel. ‘But there’s something else of interest to me. The passports would have secured you three million euros—and yet you provided them for free?’

‘I imagined I’d be paid,’ said Manerie. ‘But I haven’t seen it.’

The Colonel turned to Murad. ‘Tell me, Murad, about this DKB bank account of yours in Munich?’

‘Munich?’ echoed Murad, astonished. ‘I don’t bank in Munich.’

‘Interesting,’ said the Colonel, reading from a sheaf of papers. ‘A DKB account in the name of Nasim ul-Huq was just opened in Munich, and an amount of one-and-a-half million euros was deposited by Philippe Manerie.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Manerie. ‘That’s a lie!’

‘The bank statement doesn’t lie,’ said the Colonel, shaking it at Manerie. ‘You sent it from your Turkish bank account five days ago—just as you were leaving Paris, I guess?’

Manerie’s head swirled. The bastards had framed him! ‘I don’t have a Turkish bank account,’ he spluttered. ‘Given my background, do you really think I’d open an offshore bank account in my own name?’

The Colonel seemed not to hear. He skipped to a new page. ‘Tell me, Philippe, how did you manage to leave France so easily? It’s not like the DGSE to let a traitor live happily ever after.’

‘I kidnapped Aguilar’s family, told him to hold off until I was clear of France.’

The Colonel nodded sagely. ‘And why did your bank account receive three million euros from the French government?’