Aubrac was a French aerospace consultant whom he’d first met in Vienna, at a conference like this one. Amin remembered it well. It was held in a grand old hotel that had been modernised while still retaining its imperial aura. They’d bumped into one another at the breakfast buffet, exchanged pleasantries and shared a table. More conferences, a few drinks at the bars, with Marcus never asking for anything. In fact, it had been the Frenchman dropping tidbits about Israeli guidance systems and Russian quantum computing in their missile defence. Amin liked Marcus’s worldly grasp of missile technology—plus they had fatherhood in common. Amin must have talked too longingly about the advantages of raising his son Javed in Europe, because one afternoon, at a bar in Brussels, Marcus asked him outright what he’d be prepared to do to have a new life in Paris. It had been one of those precipice moments. After a long silence, Amin had finally said, ‘I gather this is not a hypothetical question?’

Marcus replied that he worked for the French government, and he was in a position to offer a pathway for Amin and his family to gain French citizenship and new identities.

‘And what does France want in return?’ Amin asked.

The answer was updates on his missile development and any collateral he might be privy to.

Over the next two weeks they’d worked out a deal, down to timelines, possible employment opportunities in Paris and the safety of Anita’s and Amin’s extended families. They organised a meeting schedule, always at an international conference and always on the afternoon of the final day. Aubrac had advised him to use a burner phone, to use an encrypted email service such as ProtonMail, and explained how to wipe the history on his laptop—always seven times—to avoid having his ProtonMail discovered by the snoops at Amin’s lab.

They became close, swapping tales of wives and children, work pressures and the eternal annoyance of politics. Amin assumed Aubrac wasn’t Marcus’s real name, but the details of his life—even if disguised by false names—rang true. There was something magnetic about the Frenchman—aged in his mid-thirties, he was handsome, with a lightly tanned face and sandy hair. His well-cut suit hinted at an athletic build, and although he was over six foot tall his movements were those of a more compact man. If Amin had seen Marcus in a public place he’d have assessed him as a professional tennis player dressed for an office job.

Now Amin looked away from Aubrac’s email; he keyed a number on his burner phone and sent a text to the number provided in the email. The Frenchman responded quickly with his own text: Queen’s Inglish pub, two-thirty.