The Old Enemy by Henry Porter (read with me .TXT) 📕

tie. For the first time, he combed and shaped his new beard, which was no novelty for him. His entire time in Syria and Northern Iraq, searching for Ayshel Hisami, he hadn’t shaved. He gave himself a parting, which he never usually bothered with, and put on the slightly blue-tinted glasses that changed his appearance so well. Overnight, he had done a lot of work on two social media sites, fleshing out his business life with mentions of deals and banks he was working with, dropping the names of famous investors. He also worked up the gun-club aspect, using stills from videos of the gun range at Club de Tir Sportif de Créteil and photographs of targets, guns and men brandishing pistols. There were also heavy hints about his admiration for Le Pen’s National Front. He sent the biographical information to the Bird, who passed it on without links to the foot doctor, who would doubtless conduct his own quick checks and feel the more reassured for having done so.

Anastasia saw a message from Samson at 8.30 a.m., a couple of hours after he had sent it, and looked closely at the few seconds of film. At first, it meant nothing to her because he hadn’t explained why he’d sent it. Then it dawned that she should concentrate on the central figure in a group of three walking between a black vehicle and one of the houses at Seneca Ridge. The individual carried a jacket over his arm, held out in front of him, and walked in a particular way, at the same time both awkward and determined. It reminded her very much of the man who had twice visited the hospital in the last ten days, offering her support and all his resources, but had not in fact produced anything of use. She replied: ‘Marty Reid.’ At which Samson sent her an exclamation mark then a beat later another message: ‘Do you think he could be the businessman she compromised with an underage girl? Does that seem possible with Reid???’

She thought about that. ‘Maybe’ she replied.

‘I have an idea,’ wrote Samson.

Minutes after this she received another text from him but from a different number, asking her to a quick breakfast at Place du Café, ten minutes’ walk from the hospital. She shouldered her bag, touched Denis’s arm and said she would be gone for forty-five minutes. There was no response and she left the room without a backward glance. Sometimes she felt he was there with her, but that morning there had been no hint that he understood what was going on around him, no sense of that watchful intelligence. Later that day he would have a brain scan, to see if he had in fact suffered a stroke during the procedure to regularise his heartbeat, which was now the doctors’ preferred theory: ‘Ischemic infarctions in the territory of the middle cerebral artery,’ as Carrew had put it, without a trace of his habitual optimism.

She was glad to be outside and walked briskly, working through the implications of Reid’s behaviour. His attempt to gain her confidence had been so clumsy she had always half suspected him, and had said nothing of importance to him. Yet he’d gained knowledge of Denis’s condition, and that must have been relayed to Mila Daus. The less immediate question was how long he’d been working with her. Did the relationship go all the way back to the business at TangKi, when a co-investor and Denis’s friend Gil Leppo seemed to be the lone traitor who had conspired in her kidnap to put pressure on Denis? And she wondered how Samson could use the information about Reid’s relationship with Mila Daus.

The Place du Café was a large, busy establishment with orders being shouted out and a churn of young Beltway professionals carrying non-disposable coffee cups. She took a table at the far side of the café, ordering from the waitress as she sat down, coffee and toast that she was unlikely to eat. There was no sign of Samson. Two boisterous young men in their thirties jumped on the table next to her. A woman, also in a suit, joined them, and they chatted about the unprecedented spring heat and a tennis tournament in which they’d all competed. Then they left. She glanced at her phone. There were no messages. She called Samson and got his voicemail. ‘I’m here,’ she said, rather forlornly, because she had felt a lift at the idea of seeing him. They hadn’t seen each other since Estonia, and they needed to talk, though she wasn’t sure what she should or could say. She waited a few minutes, accepted a refill, toyed with the toast and called again. Nothing.

Her phone vibrated. ‘Where the hell are you?’ she demanded.

‘The item you asked to be returned,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘It’s beneath the banquette to your right.’

Anastasia felt below the banquette. It was a briefcase – Denis’s briefcase.

‘Have you located it, Mrs Hisami? Good. You have a great day, now.’

She brought the briefcase to her own chair and put money on top of the bill. As she looked for her waitress, she saw Special Agent Reiner turn, fold a copy of the Post and look at her over his glasses. He nodded to her, got up and walked out.

She left the Place du Café a few minutes later and waited outside until she saw a red cab, which she hailed. She told the driver to circle while she made calls. She dialled Tulliver, without success, then got Samson, who was driving and on speaker, and told him about the text sent by the FBI pretending it was from him and the briefcase.

Samson understood immediately the significance of the briefcase covertly returned to Anastasia by the FBI. It chimed with the CIA’s intervention in the street in Tallinn and the news that a lawyer from one of the most expensive firms in Manhattan had been hired – God knows by whom – to spring Angel so that