Authors: Kevin Wignall
Chapter Nine
They drove directly to the dead man’s place. He’d been living the simple life, that had been the consensus, but it was an attractive red timber house in a private wooded setting, a separate garage, the whole place freshly painted and well maintained.
It wasn’t set out with the same attention to sightlines and security that Charlie’s place boasted, but then Fillon had been able to rely on something else. No one had known he was here, and here was a long way from almost anywhere else.
Per let them in and they walked from room to room around the house. It was clean and simply furnished, almost as if a magazine editor had wanted to create a classic Scandinavian interior. None of the rooms had a TV or computer. One room was lined with bookcases that were full, but there were no books lying around anywhere, no magazines or papers.
The kitchen was well stocked, but again, it was all tidy, hardly the stereotypical bachelor place. Both Dan’s place in Italy and the apartment in Paris probably looked more lived in than this, and that was saying something because he seemed to spend hardly any time in either.
Dan turned to Per, who’d walked into the kitchen after him, and said, “Did he have a cleaner?”
“A woman from the village came in once a week. We spoke to her, but she said there was never much cleaning to do. She said he liked to talk, maybe just to practice his Swedish. He wanted to be fluent.”
“And she knew him as Jacques Fillon?”
“Jack. People called him Jack.” He turned to Inger and added, “Nobody knew he was French.”
She nodded, and said, “We still don’t.”
Dan sat against the kitchen table, looking around the room, thinking over the house they’d just toured, trying to imagine himself inside the mind of the man who’d lived here. Even harder, he was trying to imagine himself living here, in this space, the hours of each new day yawning in front of him.
“What did he do here? How did he fill his days, his evenings, the winter nights? He’s been living up here for over ten years, but he doesn’t have a TV, doesn’t have a computer.”
“He has a lot of books,” suggested Inger.
“True, yet no book by his bedside, none left by a favorite chair.” He looked at Per and said, “Have you found out any more about where he went on the bus every day?”
“Nobody knows. And it’s only because of Siri and the regular driver that we know he took the bus every day. We can’t even find anyone who saw him on the bus coming home.”
Inger said, “Siri was the girl he saved.”
Dan nodded.
“What did he do?” This time the question was to himself, but Per looked on expectantly. Dan was trying to think of all the things that were missing, then said, “You searched the place, right, looking for another ID?”
“Yes, we searched, but as you can see, we put everything back where it was. There was no other ID, no passport.”
“Were there any guns?”
“No.” He laughed and said, “Not everyone up here’s a hunter.”
Dan smiled in response, but his thoughts were snagging all over the place. He noticed Inger didn’t smile, that she’d understood his question perfectly. It was all about the kind of scenario that might have brought Fillon up here. In one way or another, he had to have been on the run, and very few people on the run would ever get comfortable enough to be completely without a weapon. So where were they?
It was just one of the many things he couldn’t make sense of, and he still had a dozen unformed questions circling, none of which Per would have an answer for.
Inger ended the confusion anyway by stepping in and saying, “Okay, I think, Per, if you take us to our accommodation now, we can walk back here on our own later.”
“Sure, but you can call me any time you need a ride.” He looked a little bashful, and Dan guessed he’d already taken a shine to Inger.
She smiled in response, but not in a way that suggested she’d be returning the sentiment. Briefly, Dan sympathized with her—she had the sort of easy-going beauty that meant she probably spent a good part of her daily life dealing with the fanciful thoughts of male colleagues. He laughed to himself, then, not sure why he thought he was any different.
They left and Per locked the door and handed the key to Inger, but then looked at Dan, struck by a sudden thought.
“You asked what he did all the time. The postman, he didn’t come very often, just bills, you know, things like that, but he said normally Jack was in the garage.”
Dan looked across at the garage. It was open at the front and a pretty new-looking SUV was poking out.
“I can’t imagine that car needing much work.”
Per smiled and said, “I said exactly the same thing, but the garage is bigger than it looks from here. There’s a big old motorbike behind there, a real old wreck—he was always working on it, that’s what the postman said.”
“Okay, thanks.” For want of something else to say, he added, “I’ll take a look at it later.”
What he was actually thinking as they climbed into the car and drove back onto the road was that this had been a half-life lived here, a half-life curtailed by that bus crash.
Yes, the man who hadn’t been Jacques Fillon had come here for a reason, escaped for a reason, was a person of interest to the CIA for any number of reasons, but this, the last twelve years, had not been a life. It had probably been as depressingly dull and limited as it looked on the surface.
The man had lived with barely any human interaction, no apparent connection with the outside world, and his days had been spent visiting a nearby town or tinkering with an old wreck of a bike. Dan didn’t want that to be the sum of it, but he knew all too well that it most likely was.
It disappointed him somehow, and also made him see that the coming weeks were more all or nothing than he’d first envisaged. They either freed themselves completely from the threat, or this was the best they could ever hope for.
Charlie had been the one talking about needing to get a life, and for the first time, Dan understood that siren call, because he knew that this, the existence carved out by the man who wasn’t Jacques Fillon, would never be enough. He wasn’t sure what he wanted exactly, but he knew it was the opposite of this.
Chapter Ten
They didn’t drive far along the road before turning off again into the same woods and along a narrow track to another house, bigger than the one they’d just been to. Per was about to continue beyond it on the track, but a lean grey-haired man came out onto the steps and waved them down.
They stopped and got out of the car and Per introduced them to Mr. Eklund, the owner of the cabin where they’d be staying. He said hello to Dan and welcomed him but didn’t seem confident speaking English and reverted into Swedish for an extended but friendly negotiation with Inger.
They left him with smiles then and drove another hundred yards to the cabin, which was in the same style but pretty much hidden from the main house.
As they were getting out of the car again, Inger said, “They’ve stocked up some essentials for us. Mr. and Mrs. Eklund wanted to know if we’d like to join them for dinner tonight or if we’d prefer them to bring dinner to us, if we have a lot of work to do.”
“What did you tell them?” He was hoping it was the latter, even though he doubted they’d have much work to do, doubting even that this visit would yield any serious clues as to who Jacques Fillon had been.
“I said we’d have a lot of work, and it would be better if they could bring dinner to us. I wouldn’t have said that, but I got the feeling it was what he wanted. I think they’re quite private people.”
“Yes,” said Per. “Private. We talked to them about Jack, but they’d spoken to him only very few times.”
He smiled then as he gestured towards the door, as if to show Dan that they weren’t unfriendly people up there, even those who liked to keep to themselves.
The cabin was a perfect summer retreat, a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a large room that served as a sitting and dining room. There were landscape paintings on the walls of the main room, and more in the bedrooms, all apparently by the same amateurish hand, probably one of the Eklunds.
T
here was no nonsense about choosing a room. Inger dropped a laptop bag on the dining table and took her small case into the nearest room, leaving it at the foot of the bed before going into the kitchen. Dan took his case into the other room, looked through the window into the woods, then came back into the main room.
Per was standing waiting for instructions.
Dan said, “Can I get you a coffee, Per?”
“No, thanks, I think maybe I should . . .”
Inger appeared in the kitchen doorway and said, “I think we’re okay now, unless you want the coffee.”
He looked as if he wanted to change his mind, but said, “I should be going, but call if you need me, and maybe I’ll drop by in the morning.”
Inger thanked him warmly, slipping into Swedish.
Dan said, “Yeah, thanks for everything, Per. See you tomorrow.”
Inger walked back out with him, leaving the door open. They stood chatting by the car then for a few minutes, their voices low. Inger’s back was to the door but Dan could see Per’s face which looked grave with whatever he was being told.
His own responses were short, his expression compliant. On one occasion he responded to what Inger was telling him by glancing back toward the cabin, a look that was hard to decipher, one of intrigue or concern. He noticed Dan standing there and looked away again quickly.
Were they talking about him? Was Inger explaining exactly who Dan was and how he made his living? The worst-case scenario was that Inger had flown up from Stockholm as much to investigate Dan as to find out about Jacques Fillon. He didn’t think Patrick would have knowingly put him in that situation, but the fact was, Dan
had
been to Sweden before and it was quite probable that the Swedes didn’t like what he’d been doing there.
A moment later Per got into the car and drove off and Inger came back, closing the door behind her. She walked into the kitchen without saying anything. He could hear the small domestic noises of spoons and cups being moved about, the only sounds now that Per’s car had faded back into the woods. The aroma of coffee drifted out.
Dan didn’t move, an unexpected inertia rendering him immobile, perhaps because of finding himself embedded in this depth of peace when, in truth, his life was in turmoil. He stood in the middle of that big room, acutely aware of the hollowness in the air, of the underlying silence, of time paused.
For some reason it made him think of Ramon Martinez again, of him ambling along that sunny Spanish street with his boy. That in turn made him think of his own son, but that was where the daydream broke down. And Martinez now knew what Dan had known for years, that it could all be snatched away in a moment.
The sudden appearance of Inger in the doorway brought him back slowly, and he smiled at her as if from a long way away. She was carrying a tray with coffee pot and mugs, but hesitated when she saw him.
“I’m sorry, are you tired? I guess you’ve had a long journey.”
“No, I’m fine, a little out of it, that’s all.”
“You prefer to get some sleep?”
“No, seriously, I’m good.” He moved over to the sitting area and she followed, putting the tray on the coffee table. They sat down opposite each other and she leaned forward and poured the coffee as he said, “The last few weeks have been pretty hectic, the last few days particularly so. Being here is just a bit of a . . . well, it’s a bit like an out-of-body experience.”
She laughed a little and handed him his coffee, saying, “Sugar, cream?”
“No, this is fine, thanks.”
“You were hectic on a job?”
He studied her face. Did she not know what had been happening? She knew about his background, he was now certain of that, but it was quite possible the other intelligence agencies hadn’t fully caught up with what had been going on these last few weeks or months.
“Yeah, I was on a job, but . . . there are other things too.” He paused, and said, “Just how much do you know about me, Inger?”
She put her own coffee mug down and said, “I know you were in MI6 for a few years. I was curious about that, why you applied there and not CIA.”
“SIS approached me, that’s the only reason. I’m not the applying kind.”
“So why did you leave?”
“Well, I guess for me the key things were the money, the glamor, the excitement, and once I realized there wasn’t any, I got out.”
She laughed again, but said, “So you went to Blackwater . . .”
The laughter had seemed genuine, and the curiosity personal as much as professional, as if she’d read his file and was trying to see how it fit with the person in front of her.
“And others, but for some years I’ve worked for myself. And I’m sure you know that for most of that time I contracted primarily for the CIA.”
“Yet now you’re working against them?”
“I work for whoever’s paying.”
He noticed a hardness creep into her expression in response to that—so she didn’t like the mercenary aspect of his career. She picked up her coffee and sipped at it, looking down to her cup rather than meeting his gaze. He’d met a lot of people over the years who disapproved of the way he earned a living and it had never much mattered to him in the past—he wasn’t sure why it bothered him with Inger, but he wanted her to at least see the full picture before judging him.
“Inger, you may not know about this yet, but a CIA office in Berlin is overseeing the liquidation of a lot of the specialists who’ve worked for them this last decade. I’ve lost five friends recently, nearly lost another a few days back. They want me dead too. So yes, I am now working against the CIA.”
She finally looked up at him again, but didn’t give away how much of that had been news to her. Her thoughts appeared to snag, though, and she said, “The guy who came to look at Jacques Fillon’s house,
he
came from Berlin.”
“From the same office. That’s why I’m here. Patrick White ran people like me before his move to the ODNI. He doesn’t like what’s happening, doesn’t like this Berlin outfit or the person running it. He’s hoping Jacques Fillon’s story might be the material he needs to undermine them. That’s why I’m here. I need to find out who he was, why he disappeared and what, if anything, he had on these people.”
She nodded and said, “Thank you for being candid.”
He smiled, touched in some way by the odd choice of words, then said, “How about you being straight with me?” She looked confused. “First off, are you keeping the CIA informed about this?”
“Not as far as I know. The order to offer every assistance to Patrick White came from very high up.” He didn’t respond. “There was something else?”
“Yeah, I was wondering why they sent someone from head office, instead of from Umeå. And I was thinking that you knew I was lying when I said I’d never been to Sweden before. And then I was thinking I’m maybe not the only one with a mixed motive for being here.”
She stared at him for a few seconds before finally saying, “It’s a priority for us to identify Jacques Fillon, and the involvement of the ODNI is quite unusual.” He didn’t acknowledge the point, just stared back, and eventually she said, “You’re right. Or partly right. I assume you’ve been to Sweden before because we believe you’re responsible for the disappearance of Ahmad Habibi a few years ago. And Jacques Fillon is the reason I’m here, but it’s a bonus if I come away from this with information about Habibi.”
Dan nodded subliminally, not sure how safe it was to admit to anything. She said they wanted information, but he had no way of knowing what the Swedes would do with it. Would they come after him if he admitted to it, would Patrick’s influence be enough to keep him in the clear?
His tone measured, he said, “I was under the impression Habibi disappeared on a visit to Paris, so surely not a Swedish problem?”
“He was a Swedish national.”
“On paper. This was a Swedish national who planned the firebombing of Jewish centers, who was planning a string of car bombs, all for the country that gave him refuge. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking a moral position but, secretly, your government must be a little bit happy he disappeared.”
“That’s not really the issue.” She looked perplexed for a moment, then said, “Look, we don’t intend to pursue you or make it a public matter if that’s what you’re worried about. We simply want to know what happened to him; if he’s still alive and, if so, where.”
Dan thought back to the hours he’d spent with Ahmad Habibi. A lot of the time he’d been calm and they’d talked about the state of affairs in the Middle East and elsewhere, about politics and history and religion. He’d had periods, though, coming on in waves, of getting emotional, even hysterical, pleading and crying, usually in the name of his children. It was amazing how many of the people he’d taken had pleaded on behalf of their children, usually men who’d shown a completely callous disregard for the children of others.
“I’m not admitting anything. In every sense, the disappearance of Ahmad Habibi was nothing to do with me. But I’ll tell you what I know to be true. The original plan was to take him in Stockholm. When he flew to France it was decided that would be easier. So he was picked up in Paris. He was flown from a private airstrip to a military airfield in Romania. From there he was taken to . . . a facility, to be interrogated. My understanding is he died of a heart attack on the second day.”
“What happened to the body?”
“Probably cremated,” said Dan, shrugging. “They did an autopsy, because having someone die like that isn’t what they want to happen, and it turned out he had a weak valve or something, that he would have dropped dead one day soon anyway.”
“Did you torture him?” It seemed to matter to her, and oddly he took some encouragement from that—an indication, perhaps, that she liked him?
“Interrogation isn’t my thing. And remember, I’m not admitting to involvement in any of this, but if I had been involved, my job would have ended when he was handed over to the facility.”
She sighed, and looked slightly thrown that he’d been so forthcoming, but said, “Thank you.”
He nodded, not entirely sure what he was being thanked for, or what this did to the dynamic between them. He was at least under the impression that she believed him, and she seemed more relaxed as a result, perhaps not yet seeing him entirely as a fellow traveler, but perhaps accepting that they
were
on the same side.
He tested the water by saying, “The guy who came here from Berlin, do you know how long he spent at the house?”
“Yes, Per went with him. He said maybe only forty minutes, quite a quick inspection, and he didn’t take anything away with him.”
“A long way to come for that.” He looked out of the window, trying to work out how many hours of daylight they had left. “We should get back over there, I suppose.”
She didn’t answer at first, but after a couple of beats, she said, “You don’t think we’ll find anything, do you?”
“Yeah, I do. It may not be what we’re looking for, but we’ll find something. No one can disappear completely.”
She smiled and said, “He did a pretty good job.”
And Dan had to concede that. It had been his mantra; no one could disappear completely, but the man who was not Jacques Fillon had done a pretty good job of it.