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

and she carried on her questioning as he took his time to study her, drinking her in after all this time apart.

‘I’m surmising that you’re here waiting for a shipment arriving in one of Khalil’s containers from Algiers at seven p.m., docking in Quay 91. It should be carrying rugs, canned goods, leather, fertilisers and citrus fruit, but I doubt that it is. What might really be in it do you think?’ she asked.

No answer. She held his gaze.

‘Why the secrecy from Khalil? Why send his new head of security, and the man tasked with finding his son, to meet a random container ship? Or are you here sightseeing?’ she asked.

Grant tapped his fingers on the table.

‘We’re working for the same side,’ she said.

‘No we’re not,’ he said.

‘What? That’s the first I’ve heard. Khalil has launched his own investigation, thanks to you, and we both want the same thing, so why don’t we work together?’ she said.

Grant continued tapping his fingers on the plastic.

‘Quid pro quo?’ she asked.

‘What can you give me?’ Grant asked.

Helen opened her mouth in shock. ‘You want me to go first? You’re no further along than I am, are you?’ she asked.

He broke first. ‘All right, let’s stop this game. I still love you, Helen. I’ve been trying to forget you and when I heard your name I’ve been trying to put you to the back of my mind. That’s what’s on my mind right now, not what’s in the fucking container?’

They both sat forward again.

She offered information first. ‘A scumbag, known to Interpol, started working for Jean-Luc Bisset inside Khalil’s security detail last month. He’s called Ahmad Azzine, and he’s been linked to Fawaz for decades.’

She watched him closely.

‘You didn’t know that, did you?’ she said. She’d looked into his eyes so many times that she knew that she was correct. ‘Quid pro quo.’

Grant retrieved a photo from his jacket, the one he’d emailed Levi, and showed it to her. ‘This man?’ he said.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘The nightclub where Hakim took his girlfriend last month before he went home.’

‘Amélie Laurent? You were the Englishman who interviewed her. Of course you were,’ she said. ‘His code name is Sand Cat. Are you hoping he’ll show up here?’

‘That was my best guess,’ he replied.

‘He’s already here in France. It’s pretty certain that he was one of the drivers who originally took Hakim to Lyon.’

‘You are positive Hakim’s in Lyon?’ Grant asked.

Helen saw the earnestness behind his eyes and realised that he cared about the young man. It touched her. She nodded.

‘He’s been moved at least once. Quid pro quo, Grant – what have you got for me?’

He took a deep breath and looked around the cafe.

‘Fawaz contacted Khalil before we left Algeria.’

She fell back in her chair. ‘For fuck’s sake, Grant.’

‘His son’s life is on the line! He knows what this guy is capable of.’

‘We could have been working together on this the whole time.’

‘How did I know it’d be you leading the case? Khalil doesn’t trust the authorities in Europe to find a kid of African descent, no matter how rich his father.’

‘That’s a serious accusation.’

‘Oh, come on, Helen, don’t pretend to be naïve. Your turn.’

‘We found Hakim’s DNA in a flat in Lyon.’

‘What? And you haven’t told his father?’

‘Maybe if he accepted my calls and looked as though he was helping, then I might have had that conversation with him. Quid pro quo.’

‘I found equipment in a flat in Paris, and the same type of equipment in a flat in Lyon. In Le Croix-Rousse. The address of the Lyon flat was on a phone I retrieved from the Paris address. It was a tip-off from an oil worker from Morocco,’ he said.

‘And the equipment is relevant because?’ she asked.

‘It could make drones.’

Helen absorbed this.

‘Azzine was the driver of a black Range Rover that transported Hakim from Le Bourget airport. It was burned out near Lille. Where’s Madame Bisset?’ she asked.

‘Safe,’ he said.

‘In one piece?’

‘No missing digits,’ he confirmed.

They heard the continuous, piercing honk of a ship’s horn and both turned towards the window. A large ship was approaching Quay 91, and they looked at one another. Grant grabbed her arm as she went to get up. She stared at him.

‘Helen, if Fawaz finds out that Interpol is on to him – I mean seriously on to him from what you’ve told me – Hakim will die.’

Chapter 40

The bundle underneath the blanket groaned and rolled over. The lump was a man, and he’d urinated again. It drained from his body and soaked through the blanket. The smell was rancid, and the heat attracted flies to dance upon his motionless mass. The windows remained closed, as instructed. Despite the heat, wallpaper peeled away from the walls and the air was laden with misery.

‘Do you think he’s sick?’ one of the two sentries asked his colleague. He caressed his AK-47, which never left his side, unless he was out in the open; then he took a pistol off the flimsy temporary table and fingered it, shoving it into his pants. The weapons were integral to his make-up. Like a precious child in swaddling clothes strapped to his chest, they provided a reason to live. And a reason to die.

They’d come here in the middle of the night. It was an empty, anonymous dwelling, like the others, with the same smells: vegetables, chicken fat and tobacco. Their captive lay on his side and hadn’t moved, but they could see that he breathed. They weren’t given specific instructions on how to look after him, just to watch him. Were they supposed to buy him food? Were they supposed to make him comfortable? They hadn’t been given money for such things, only to buy their own cigarettes and the odd pizza, and that was barely enough. What they did know, however, was that if their ward got away, the punishment for such incompetence would be slow and painful.

It had all happened so quickly since the other two members of