The Rift by Rachel Lynch (good book recommendations txt) 📕

in particular to emerge. The man was of Moroccan descent and was in the city illegally, understandably without the permission of the authorities. But Grant wasn’t here to dob him in to immigration officers. The man had come to his attention, via a contact of his in the desert. There’d been a recent scuffle on one of AlGaz’s perimeters involving Moroccan nationals. It was frequent enough not to attract major interest, but the man’s brother worked for Khalil, as one of his gardeners, and hadn’t been seen since Sunday.

Grant’s camera was the size of his palm, but it could take detailed enlarged images from a kilometre away: the perks of working for a rich guy. The lead had come from a bad-tempered employee possibly looking for more cash, but there might be something in it. And here he was. Employees that worked the perimeters of AlGaz land were casually vetted and paid on zero-hour contracts: that made them difficult to trace. He’d last seen him fixing a generator, and when Grant had asked questions, he’d tutted arrogantly, giving him vague answers. Most of them had one thing on their minds, feeding their families, but others might be ripe for turning to the opposition, be it to hand over technical information, or perhaps something more sinister.

Khalil was a decent man, and he tended towards seeing the good in his employees – Jean-Luc was a perfect example. Random employees failing to turn up to jobs was a normal part of running any company which paid them in cash, but it was Grant’s job to make sure they then didn’t sell out to the competition – namely Nabil Tradings. The ex-employee had used his own passport to fly to France: his first mistake. Second: where did he get the airfare?

Being ex-military, Grant had a network of old pals willing to feed him handy information from time to time, such as passenger lists on aircraft; people will do significant favours for comrades who save their lives. His contact in Algiers was a retired major who’d been injured in Iraq. He’d side-stepped to the Foreign Office and now worked in the British Embassy there. He met Levi occasionally for the odd pint in the Marriot, in the twenty-fifth-floor members’ lounge.

The man was here. Grant sat up in his seat and held up his camera. A figure in sports clothes, wearing a baseball cap and looking about vigilantly, sauntered towards the doorway. He was inconspicuous and fitted in with all the other mixed nationalities typical of any Parisian street. Grant had parked underneath the shade of a leafy tree and took the photos through his closed window. The man slipped in through the door, and Grant saw him pay for something at the counter and take a seat.

Grant got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him, locking it with the key fob. He walked across the road, avoiding the traffic, which was light. He went into the cafe and paid five euros for half an hour’s internet access; he also ordered a coffee. His French was good enough for the man behind the counter not to answer back in English. He took a seat close to the stranger and listened intently. The man was speaking into an earpiece and Grant strained his hearing. It was sophisticated equipment for a man scrimping and saving to feed his family in the desert. He could make out the odd word but nothing that made sense. He logged on and switched his phone to camera. It was linked to a tiny recorder fixed to his jacket, which he pointed towards the man, and plugged a mouse to it, which he used to take images. It was kit only dreamt about in the army. This was one reason he’d left. Rich guys like Khalil could afford the surveillance equipment necessary to make life easy for those who knew how to use it. In the army, they’d had to put up with outdated gadgetry, often frustrating their efforts to track targets.

Grant nonchalantly browsed a few sites to give the impression that he was regular punter surfing the internet on a day off, sipping coffee, until suddenly, the man got up and left. Grant waited a few seconds and followed him, ignoring the stares from the waiter about his unused time. He looked both ways and spotted the man disappearing around a corner, and he set off after him on foot. He followed him for six or seven blocks, watching as the man spoke on a mobile phone; when he’d finished his call, he threw it into a rubbish bin. Grant searched the bin and fished out the mobile. Sloppy work, he thought. He put it into his pocket. He continued to follow for a couple more blocks, and Grant noticed the street signs told him they were in the eighteenth arrondissement, heading towards Gare du Nord. Finally, the man turned in to a parking area, and Grant fell back a little, not wanting to raise suspicion. He watched as the man entered a Haussmann-style block of flats and disappeared. Grant waited until he thought it was prudent to proceed and went to the entrance himself. The door had no lock and, as Grant entered carefully, he heard a door bang just above him. Otherwise the place was deserted. He jogged up a flight of stairs to where he thought he heard the bang and peered along the landing. The building was a far cry from the fancy boulevards of the tourist spots. The concrete stairwells smelled of piss and the walls were covered in graffiti. He tentatively progressed along the hallway, which had lots of residential doors leading off it, and stopped short of one, where he heard a single loud, unmistakeable voice, indicating that someone was on the phone. It was the man. Grant took a note of the address and disappeared the way he’d come.

He called Khalil and updated him as he retraced his route back