Shadow of Doubt, page 9
MoMo shook his head. “Whoever did the encryption on this thing, it’s first-class.”
“I’ll be in my office. Let me know when you break it.”
Eyes glued to his screens, MoMo gave her a thumbs-up and she continued down the hall.
In her office, Brunelle closed the door behind her, kicked off her shoes, and hung up her coat before sitting down at her desk. A muted TV on the wall, tuned to a 24/7 cable news channel, was showing scenes from Oslo.
Unwrapping the plastic utensils, she tore off a piece of khubz bread and tucked into her tagine as she checked her emails.
There was plenty of the bureaucratic nonsense that clogged her inbox on a daily basis, along with a reminder that she had a pistol and submachinegun requalification coming up, and an RSVP for a counterterrorism seminar in London. Buried at the very bottom was an update from Inspector Vincent Gibert. She opened it.
The email included his case notes thus far, a handful of witness statements, and links to the CCTV footage his officers had pulled from cameras around Jadot’s apartment building, which had been uploaded to the cloud.
According to a brief note Gibert had written, they were still working on getting access to the phone. If it was encrypted nearly as thoroughly as the flash drive, they were going to have their hands full. La Crim’s specialists were good, but none of them were at MoMo’s level.
As she ate, she scrolled through the witness statements. All of Jadot’s neighbors had been contacted, but none of them had seen or heard anything. The staff at Robert et Louise, the restaurant across the street, said that Jadot was a regular, and had come in last night for a nightcap, shortly before closing. There was nothing in his speech or his behavior to have given any of them cause for concern.
When he left, the barman remembered watching him cross the street in the rain and enter his building. He didn’t recall seeing anyone else follow him inside. Brunelle decided to check for herself.
Clicking on the link for the cameras with the best views of Jadot’s building, as well as the entrance to Robert et Louise, she toggled back and forth, fast-forwarding and rewinding until she had what she wanted.
She was able to pinpoint the exact moment Jadot arrived at the restaurant and the exact moment he left. The barman’s witness statement was correct. Judging by the CCTV footage, no one had followed Jadot into his building.
No one had come out either. At least not until the next morning, when residents, or what she assumed were residents, began leaving. One man exited with his dog. A young woman with two children departed not long after that. Then a smartly dressed couple stepped outside, only to realize that the man had forgotten his umbrella. He reappeared several moments later with it and they departed.
She kept watching until the woman identified as the housekeeper arrived, followed shortly after by uniformed police officers.
According to the housekeeper, she had found the door fully locked, and she had used her own set of keys to gain entry. She was unaware of anyone else who might have keys of their own.
Wanting to be completely thorough, Brunelle rolled the security footage back a full twenty-four hours and took note of everyone who had come and gone via the front door of Jadot’s building. According to Gibert’s email, his team had done the same. Everyone had been contacted, identified, and accounted for.
As she reviewed the footage, she kept thinking about Jadot’s pistol and what must have happened to cause him to pull it from its hiding place.
By all appearances, he was winding down; relaxing. He had returned home, had taken off his shoes at the front door, hung his coat, and was pouring himself a drink back in the kitchen. At some point, he had pulled his gun from under the sink.
The only logical answer was that something had spooked him. He had grabbed the gun because he sensed a threat. And then what? What would she have done in his position?
That answer was simple—she would have gone looking for the threat. She would have searched her entire apartment until she was satisfied the threat no longer existed. Was that what Jadot had done?
It would explain why he might have tucked the gun into his waistband. After searching the apartment, maybe he was confident enough that the threat had passed, but not so confident that he was ready to return the gun to its original hiding spot. Or perhaps he wanted to have his drink first. Either way, he let his guard down.
Judging by the partially opened freezer door, he had probably gone for some ice and that was when the killer had struck.
She was content with the credibility of that scenario. It made sense. It also allowed her to eliminate Jadot’s murder as a crime of passion. When someone was angry enough to go for a gun, the odds normally remained in their favor.
Which left assassination or a crime of opportunity—and this was where it got tricky.
By definition, a crime of opportunity was not premeditated. A burglar, for example, gets caught in the middle of a home invasion, picks up an ice axe, and kills the homeowner. That could very well have been what happened to Jadot. The fact that the murderer hadn’t stolen anything didn’t make the scenario any less plausible. The killer might have fled in a panic.
In whatever state the killer had fled, it wasn’t via the front door. That much was clear. The murderer had entered and exited Jadot’s fifth-floor apartment via some other means. This took the degree of difficulty and therefore the sophistication of the crime up a notch.
There was no back door to the apartment, no rear stairwell. Pulling up recent satellite imagery of Paris, Brunelle drilled down on Jadot’s building.
The killer would have had to have accessed the enclosed courtyard behind the building and then climbed up, or made their way across the adjacent, steeply pitched rooftops and dropped down. This person would have also had to have done so during inclement weather. It seemed to her that a burglar that determined wouldn’t have left empty-handed. Which begged a totally new question. How did she know they hadn’t?
Just because the killer hadn’t taken his gun, or his cash, or his phone, it didn’t mean that they weren’t there to steal something else. Jadot was a spy after all and that was exactly what Gibert had been driving at; what his “intuition” and his “gut” had been telling him. The killing had been “work-related.”
Despite keeping her mind open—and hating to admit it—Brunelle was beginning to move in his direction. Paris was full of much easier apartments to rob. This wasn’t random. Jadot’s had been targeted for a reason—because someone either wanted to get to him, or get to something he had in his possession. Once MoMo cracked the encryption on the flash drive, she’d hopefully have that answer.
In the meantime, Gibert and his team needed to widen their net—beginning with interviewing the residents of the surrounding rooftop apartments to determine if they had seen or heard anything unusual, and following up with an investigation of the walled courtyard.
Finally, they needed to expand their search cordon and scoop up a lot more neighborhood CCTV footage. The killer might have been clever and might have been determined, but they were human, and humans made mistakes; they all left clues. Brunelle only needed one.
She was about to reply to Gibert’s email when her phone rang. Looking down, she saw his name on her caller ID.
“Brunelle,” she said, answering the phone.
“I think I may have something,” the inspector replied.
“I’m listening.”
“No. Not over the phone. In person.”
She glanced out the window. It was still pouring outside. There’d be no taxis available. “It’s pissing down rain, Vincent. If you want to do this in person, you’ll have to come here.”
“I’ll meet you halfway,” he offered.
Then, before she could utter the one place in Paris she would not agree to meet him at, he said it, and disconnected the call.
“Botaniste. Forty-five minutes.”
CHAPTER 15
The Shangri-La was a five-star luxury hotel with jaw-dropping views across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. Tucked away deep inside and out of sight was its sumptuously decorated, yet intimate, Le Bar Botaniste.
Green velvet sofas, strewn with tiger-print pillows, sat beneath enormous oil paintings of brightly festooned Bedouin horses. Heavy draperies, tied back with knotted silk cords, sat at each end of the bar. Hand-fashioned copper cups filled with fresh herbs had been placed on every table. Terrariums and exotic plants kept under glass were scattered throughout.
In the quietest and darkest corner, Gibert sat at a table—their table. This was where their affair had started, meeting halfway between their offices at Le Bar Botaniste.
It was a perk of Gibert’s job. Tasked with high-profile, celebrity cases as part of his portfolio for the Paris police, he was known at all of the top hotels in town. Each of their general managers had his direct cell phone number and could call him at any time. In exchange for Gibert’s discretion and his ability to handle situations in such a way that the hotels’ reputations were protected, he was afforded certain perks. Among them were free drinks, free food, and the occasional complimentary suite.
There was one thing Brunelle could say for her time with him—it hadn’t been boring. In fact, it had been quite exciting. He was an excellent lover and highly intelligent. What he wasn’t, however, was honest.
The picture he had painted of his marital situation wasn’t even close to the truth. His wife had not moved out of their home, he was not six months into a trial separation, and he had no intention of seeking a divorce.
Once the real truth became known, Brunelle had cut off all ties with him. But instead of taking it like a man, owning up to what he had done, and moving on, Gibert had doubled down, telling her that he was profoundly in love with her and that he was, in fact, going to leave his wife. It was quite a spectacle.
The more he pressed his case, the less respect she had for him. She ignored his phone calls, his texts, and his emails, yet they kept coming.
Then one night, absolutely hammered, he had shown up at her apartment. He had done it, he claimed. He had left his wife and he begged Brunelle to take him back. She stood her ground. Things got heated. When he refused to leave her apartment, Brunelle called the police.
As she wasn’t interested in pressing charges, just getting him to leave, they took Gibert back to his office and let him sleep it off. The next morning, he crawled back to his wife.
Brunelle had not seen or spoken with him until this morning at Jadot’s apartment. She didn’t know what to make of his choice of the Botaniste for their meeting. If there was some kind of subtext to it, he had wasted his time. She had absolutely zero interest in rekindling anything with him. This meeting was business and only business.
Entering the hotel, she had made her way back to the bar and had found Gibert exactly where she knew he would be. Had he had the temerity to have ordered for her, she would have been hard-pressed not to throw the drink right at him. It was bad enough that he had picked this spot. At the very least, she expected him to remain professional.
When she arrived at the table, she saw that he hadn’t ordered anything for her, just a cocktail for himself. It was his usual, and one of the most expensive things on the Botaniste menu—a Sazerac made with Hennessy X.O cognac.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, sliding his chair back in order to stand and greet her properly.
Brunelle waved him off. “Don’t get up,” she said, pulling out her own chair and sitting down.
“Have you heard about Oslo?”
“Only what’s been on the news. We haven’t had an agency-wide update yet. You?”
“Email and text blasts went out to officers calling for enhanced vigilance. Other than that, all quiet.”
A tense moment of awkward silence passed between them. It was difficult being back in this setting under such different circumstances.
“Something to drink?” he asked, trying to reduce the tension.
She loved the Botaniste’s Golden Martini. It used to be her all-time favorite, but this wasn’t a social event. Not wanting to send the wrong signal to Gibert, she opted for something nonalcoholic. “Tisane,” she replied. Considering the weather, the infusion of herbs and spices, simmered in hot water, was probably exactly what she needed.
After getting the waiter’s attention and placing the order, Gibert was all business. He removed a manila envelope from his briefcase and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A summary of Jadot’s service file, most of which is redacted.”
Brunelle opened the envelope and pulled it out. “How’d you get your hands on it?”
“Like I said, a little professional courtesy goes a long way.”
“The boys in Action Division.”
“They want this solved just as much as we do. Probably more.”
“Speaking of which,” she replied, flipping through the pages of the summary, “I sent you an email before I left the office. Did you receive it?”
Gibert took a sip of his drink before saying, “I did and I’m already ahead of you. Forensics found some chipped paint near one of the apartment’s rear windows.”
“Outside or inside?”
“Inside, on the floor. But the paint appears to be from the exterior side of the window. We think that’s how the killer made entry.”
“Have you spoken with the neighbors in the adjacent buildings?”
“We’re in the process, along with expanding our search for additional CCTV footage.”
“Good,” said Brunelle, pausing as the waiter brought her tisane and set it on the table. Once the man had departed, she said, “Based on the summary, it looks like Jadot was a career intelligence officer, charged with recruiting and running spies. He had postings at a variety of French embassies around the world, eventually rising to senior positions toward the end.”
Gibert nodded. “Correct.”
“His last posting was just over a year and a half ago at the embassy in Beirut,” she stated, looking up from the file at Gibert. “Isn’t that about the time the French ambassador there died by suicide?”
“That’s how it was reported,” Gibert replied, taking another sip of his drink.
“Meaning what? It wasn’t a suicide?”
He shrugged. “No one knows for sure.”
Brunelle pulled up a news article about the incident and checked the dates. “It looks like Jadot got pulled from the embassy and returned to Paris right before it happened. He didn’t finish out his rotation. Why not?”
“According to what I was told, off the record, Jadot believed the ambassador had been compromised.”
“Compromised by whom? The Lebanese?”
Gibert shook his head. “The Russians.”
Jesus, she thought. It was always shocking when someone in government service was suspected of being an asset for a foreign country, much less an actively hostile foreign country. “So, what happened?” she asked. “Did Jadot blow the whistle? Is that what caused the ambassador to take his own life?”
“Allegedly, he was told by his superiors to back off.”
“Back off? Why?”
“They wanted to mount some sort of counterintelligence operation.”
“And?”
“And,” said Gibert, “he didn’t think they were moving fast enough. He kept pushing. That’s what got him recalled.”
“So Jadot returned to Paris and shortly thereafter the ambassador died by suicide.”
“Yes, but according to my guys, Jadot claimed never to have confronted the ambassador.”
“Then who did?” she asked.
“They think Jadot, angry over being recalled, may have told someone else before he left.”
“Such as?”
“No one knows,” he replied with another shrug.
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
Gibert shook his head, reached back into his briefcase, and withdrew something else. “There’s also this.”
“Is that what I think it is? You actually cracked it?”
“Yep,” he replied, punching in the passcode and sliding Jadot’s phone across the table to her. “We’ve got a new guy in digital ops. Crazy good.”
She couldn’t believe they had opened Jadot’s phone before MoMo could open the flash drive. Picking it up, she began scrolling through it. “Did you learn anything?”
“A little bit,” said Gibert, taking a sip of his Sazerac. “We know he spent the weekend at his cottage in Brittany. We know what train he took to Paris from Saint-Malo. And we can map his movements via the Métro as he made his way to Robert et Louise from the Gare Montparnasse.”
“And you’re pulling all the corresponding CCTV footage?”
“Again, one step ahead of you.”
Brunelle continued to look through Jadot’s phone. “Anything else?”
“Have you looked at his calendar yet? He had a breakfast meeting this morning, which he obviously didn’t make.”
Clicking over to today’s date, she read the name of the man Jadot was to have met with and her eyebrows went up.
“So,” said Gibert, marking her expression, “you recognize who his rendezvous was with.”
“Ray Powell,” she replied, nodding in a bit of disbelief. “The CIA’s Paris station chief. Why would the two of them be having breakfast together?”
“I asked my guys at the DGSE the same question. They couldn’t figure it out either. But they did tell me something interesting.”
“What was that?”
Leaning back in his chair, Gibert raised his glass to finish off what was left of his drink and responded, “Powell was in Beirut at the same time as Jadot.”
CHAPTER 16
OSLOFJORD
NORWAY
In the age-old tradition of how Russians built trust, Grechko picked up the bottle from the dining room table and poured them each another shot of vodka.
“Za zda-ró-vye,” the man said.
