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

afternoon on my way here, you know, just to brief him on me coming here, and why, and I got diverted to Ben Palmer’s office. He told me that I need to run everything through him, but I’m not comfortable doing that. It was Sir Conrad who generated this post for me,’ Helen said.

‘Does Sir Conrad know that Palmer is interjecting?’ Grant asked.

‘I don’t know because I can’t bloody get through to him,’ she replied.

‘Did you tell him anything?’ Grant asked.

‘Only that I wanted to speak to the ambassador to tell him I was travelling to Marseilles.’

‘Did you mention me?’

‘No. No one knows my connection to you, or indeed the significance of you working for Khalil,’ she said.

‘Which is what?’

‘Oh, come on, Grant, an ex-army officer in charge of the security of a North African billionaire, currently a person of considerable interest in an Interpol case, not to mention an ex-close associate to Fawaz Nabil.’

‘His son is missing – why is he a person of interest?’ Grant asked.

‘It’s basic investigative statistical knowledge that ninety per cent of the time, family members are usually found to be the culprit of harming a close relative.’

‘Don’t throw statistics at me, Helen. You know he didn’t plan this,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Which is why I wanted to speak to you first. But I have so many questions for him.’

‘They’ll be answered, but my priority is finding Hakim.’

‘Listen.’ They stopped to face one another. The lights of a vehicle approached, and they receded into a corner in the shadows, away from sight. He reached his arm around her and she let him hold her. She could smell him, and memories of his naked body flooded her mind.

He turned to her, and she thought he might kiss her. Part of her wanted him to, part of her didn’t.

‘Can you give me twenty-four hours?’ he asked.

She didn’t reply immediately, instead watching the blood vessels near his temple. He touched her hand, but she withdrew it, putting it into her pocket. Grant spoke softly.

‘I never wanted to leave. After Luke…’

She felt the warmth of his body next to hers.

‘Don’t mention Luke.’ Her voice was a whisper. Why did he have to do this now? Luke was their son who’d lived for three hours. He was born prematurely, and his death was due to anencephaly, a rare neural defect. Helen and Grant simply fell apart afterwards.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He held her hand again, and this time she let him.

‘I can still see his face,’ she said. She fought with all her will to hold back her emotion, but seeing Grant had opened a gateway to her pain.

‘Me too,’ he said.

A pit of dread formed in her stomach as it dawned on her that the compulsion she’d had to throw herself into work after Luke was merging with the need to face this moment. One relied upon the other; in her quest to forget, she’d unwittingly set herself up to fail in her goal. Of course she couldn’t forget; not as long as this man in front of her was breathing her air.

The parting had been messy, unclean, and left a gaping wound, which she’d tried to fill with the wrong things.

Her emotions muddied her thoughts, and Grant stepped away slightly. Damn, why did he know her so well.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Twenty-four hours, and then I go to Interpol.’

He smiled. They peered towards the quay and reckoned the ship would dock soon. He turned back to her.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he said.

‘More?’ she said.

‘Are you happy about the security for the summit in Paris next week?’

‘How do you know about that?’ she asked.

‘Remember Levi? We still speak.’

‘Of course you do. The FBI is in charge and they’ve got everything covered, as far as I can see,’ she said. ‘The Afghans have been invited to discuss their national security progress. Sir Conrad is representing the UK at a special round of meetings after the big guns have gone home. Our PM and the president of the USA are flying in for three days.’

‘That has to be it,’ he said.

‘What? A hit on NATO? Come on, I’ve already been down that hole and it’s too far-fetched. Five Eyes would have been on to it by now – it’s too big and Fawaz too well known,’ she said.

‘Does our intelligence know he’s here?’

‘Who?’

‘Fawaz.’

‘Here, as in France?’ she asked, shocked.

‘Europe, for sure. When Khalil has called him back on two separate occasions, it’s a European dialling tone.’

‘Holy shit, are you sure?’

‘Dead sure.’

‘But all the intelligence on Fawaz says that although he travelled recently to Madrid a few times and raised eyebrows – hence Sir Conrad getting jumpy – he’s now back in Morocco at his pad.’

‘He’s not in Morocco.’

‘If he’s here and planning something big, then it’s personal,’ she said.

‘I know that look,’ he said. ‘You know something, I can see the cogs of your brain whirring round,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ve told you everything I know,’ he added.

‘Really?’

‘Yes!’ he said.

‘His son,’ she said.

‘Whose son?’

‘Fawaz’s son, Rafik. He was arrested in the UK and deported back to Morocco, where he died in custody, probably tortured. The body was never released to the family. I’ve read the file.’

Peter Knowles had been as good as his word and had sent the Home Office file to her this afternoon. She’d read it on the train.

‘And?’

‘The then Home Secretary is our very own current prime minister,’ she said.

He nodded again.

‘The senior civil servant who signed the extradition papers was Sir Conrad Temple-Cray.’

Chapter 42

The remotely piloted RQ-4 Global Hawk flew at one hundred thousand feet above the Sahara Desert. The Rolls-Royce engines were silent, but it wouldn’t matter anyway, given the altitude. It was equipped with high-resolution synthetic-aperture radar and long-range electro-optical/infrared and could survey an area of forty thousand square miles per day – about the size of South Korea. On-board data was sent via text message to control centres on the ground and processed by the US Airforce. With over thirty hours’ flight