“I’d reserve judgment until you read the e-mails.”
Gabriel raised the monocular to his eye again and trained it on Villard’s apartment. “Is there a woman over there?”
“If there is, she isn’t awake yet. But he’s having drinks with someone named Isabelle Jeanneret at five o’clock.”
“Who is she?”
“For now, she’s an e-mail address. The Unit is working on it.”
“Where are they meeting?”
“Café Remor on the Place du Cirque.”
“Who chose the venue?”
“She did.” A silence fell between them. Then Mikhail asked, “You think he knows something?”
“We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“How do you intend to play it?”
“I’d like to have a word with him in private.”
“A friendly word?”
“That depends entirely on Lucien.”
“When are we going to make our move?”
“After he’s finished having drinks with Madame Jeanneret at Café Remor. You and Sarah will be sitting at the next table.” Gabriel smiled. “Just like old times.”
The Coltrane piece ended, and the next began.
“What’s that one called?” asked Sarah.
“‘You Say You Care.’”
Sarah shook her head slowly. “Couldn’t you have found someone else to send to Geneva?”
“He volunteered.”
They saw Villard for the first time at half past one, standing in the window of his sitting room, stripped to the waist, his compromised mobile phone to his ear. He was speaking in French to a woman whom the device identified only as Monique. They were obviously well acquainted. Indeed, for some ten minutes, the woman explained in excruciating detail all the things she would do to Villard’s body if only he would agree to see her that evening. Villard, citing a scheduling conflict, declined. He made no mention of the fact he was having drinks with someone named Isabelle Jeanneret at five o’clock. Nor did he make reference to his pending trip to Marrakesh. Gabriel found much to admire in the performance. Lucien Villard, he surmised, was a man who lied often and well.
The woman ended the call abruptly, and Villard disappeared from their view. They glimpsed him occasionally when he passed within range of the phone’s camera, but mainly they listened to drawers opening and closing—a sound that Gabriel, a veteran of many surveillance operations, associated with the packing of a suitcase. There were two, actually, a duffel bag and a rolling rectangular behemoth the size of a steamer trunk. Villard left them both in the entrance hall before heading downstairs.
When they saw him next he was stepping into the busy street, dressed in a mid-length leather coat, dark jeans, and suede chukka boots. He paused on the pavement briefly, his eyes moved left and right—perhaps out of habit, thought Gabriel, or perhaps because he feared someone might be watching. A cigarette found its way to his lips, a lighter flared, an exhalation of smoke was carried away by a cold winter’s wind. Then he shoved his hands deep into his pockets and set off toward the center of Geneva.
Gabriel remained in the hotel room while Mikhail and Sarah followed Villard on foot. The phone allowed Unit 8200 to track his every move from afar. Mikhail and Sarah served merely as human eyes on the target. They kept to a safe distance, sometimes posing as a couple, sometimes working alone. Consequently, only Sarah observed Villard entering a small private bank off the rue du Rhône. The compromised phone allowed Gabriel to monitor the transaction Villard conducted inside—the transfer of a rather large sum of money to a bank in Marrakesh. Villard then requested access to his safe-deposit box. Because the phone was in his pocket at the time, the camera was effectively blinded. But the sequence of sounds—the squeak of a hinge, the rustle of paper, the zipping of a leather jacket—led Gabriel to conclude that items had been removed from the box rather than added.
Mikhail was drinking coffee in the Starbucks across the street from the bank when Villard finally emerged. The Frenchman checked the time on his wristwatch—it was half past four exactly—and struck out along the rue du Rhône. He followed it to the river and then wound his way through the narrow, quiet streets of the Old Town to the Place de la Synagogue, where Gabriel was sitting behind the wheel of the Passat.
Café Remor was a hundred meters farther along the boulevard Georges-Favon. There were several unoccupied tables on the Place du Cirque, and several more beneath the shelter of the awning. Villard sat down outside along the square. Mikhail joined Sarah under the awning. A gas heater burned the evening chill from the air.
Sarah raised a glass of red wine to her lips. “How did I do?”
“Not bad,” said Mikhail. “Not bad at all.”
For ten minutes no one appeared. Villard smoked two cigarettes, lighting the second with the first, and cast several glances toward his mobile phone, which was lying on the tabletop. Finally, at five fifteen, he signaled a passing waiter and ordered. A single bottle of Kronenbourg arrived a moment later.
