A Death in Sweden(13)

“Let me guess, he was one of Bill Brabham’s men.”

“Exactly. We’ve been hitting a brick wall ever since, but we’re pretty certain Bill Brabham knows exactly who Jacques Fillon was. So I want you to find out the same, and find out why Brabham’s so keen to keep the information under wraps.”

“You had access to the same prints, the same profile?”

Patrick nodded but said, “And drew a blank. All the systems we could access suggest the guy never existed.”

Somebody came into the café, a guy in his thirties, but he immediately started laughing and joking in French with a couple of the regulars and Dan relaxed.

“So you’re hoping I find out something that’ll undermine Brabham. Two questions. Firstly, why don’t you look into it yourself? You must have resources.”

“The same reason I used you in the past—deniability. As I suggested earlier, Brabham has a lot of support, and the ODNI needs to build its case in the dark if we’ve any hope of shutting him down. The other thing is that I do have resources, but not the kind I need for this. Finance, not a problem, great legal minds, not a problem, researchers, you name it. But someone like you?”

“Okay.” Dan looked back down at the newspaper story. It was intriguing, who the guy was, why he’d gone up there, what he’d been running from, but intrigue on its own wasn’t enough, and nor was the money, not in the current climate. “Second question. Give me a good reason why I should do this. I could just go after Brabham myself.”

“You could. It wouldn’t be easy, but you’d stand a chance, I guess. Trouble is, you know the reality—working on your own, you might cut a head off the Hydra but it’ll grow back. If we work together we go for the heart.”

“Nice analogy.”

Patrick smiled, and waited a moment before saying, “So you’ll do it?”

It was an easy choice, because Dan would rather be doing anything than sitting around trying to work out who was coming for him and how. But there was something interesting here, and he believed Patrick’s assessment—if Brabham was hiding something, they could disrupt his operation by uncovering his secret, even if they didn’t manage to shut it down.

Of course, that would only apply if they succeeded. And even then, in the meantime, it could well lead to Dan attracting more fire. Whatever the arguments, Patrick had come to him for a reason, and he guessed his chances of survival might be marginally higher working for the ODNI than out on his own.

Perhaps, ultimately, it came down to whether or not he could trust Patrick, and even a short time in his company had been enough to convince him that his instincts had been right. Whether this job would save him was another matter, but apart from Charlie, Dan suspected Patrick White might be the only person in the world he could trust to help him right now.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“I knew I could count on you, Dan.”

“Well, I’m still alive.”

“It’s a start.” He reached into his pocket and placed a USB stick and a British passport on the table. “All the background we have is on there. UK passport in the name of David Porter. Your contact in the Swedish Security Service will probably need to know who you are, but we’ll use the alias for most of the others.”

“What if the Swedes share the information with Langley, let them know what you’re up to?”

“They won’t. I still have some influence. I assume you’ll want to go up to Fillon’s place to begin with, see where the trail starts, and I can arrange for your baggage to bypass Security for that trip, but thereafter it might be better if you make your own arrangements.”

“I always have in the past.”

“The CIA wasn’t trying to kill you in the past.”

Dan nodded, put the passport and USB stick in his pocket, and drank the rest of the cognac. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d just agreed to, and wasn’t really sure what he’d expected out of this meeting anyway. He certainly hadn’t expected a trip to northern Sweden but, on the positive side, he doubted Brabham would ever think of looking for him there either.





Chapter Eight


Dan was met off the plane at Arlanda by a guy called Henrik Andresen from the Swedish Security Service. He was in his forties, looked older, and came across like a slightly rumpled high school teacher.

He addressed Dan as Mr. Porter, then as David. They bypassed Security, headed to a small spare office which had the feel of an interview room, and Andresen brought him coffee and pastries.

They stayed there for just under an hour, Andresen talking primarily about the weather and how much colder Dan might expect to find it up in the north. At no point did he refer to the job or Dan’s position.

When his next flight was ready, Andresen carried out the same courtesies in reverse. Then, with some relief on Dan’s part, he said goodbye to him, explaining that another colleague would meet him in the north.

Dan sat by the window for the hour or so of the internal flight and, as he looked down at the seemingly endless landscape of lakes and forests, he could understand more than ever why someone would choose rural Sweden for a hideout. If it hadn’t been for the accident, he doubted anyone would have ever found Jacques Fillon.

Maybe that’s what it would take to secure his own future too, if Patrick’s plan didn’t work. He imagined himself falling off the grid the way Fillon had, but wasn’t sure he had it in him. True, he’d stayed out of reach one way or another for most of his adult life, but he’d also stayed on the move, and was less confident that he’d ever be able to settle permanently into some rural idyll.