Traitor, Again
Raphael Mirabaud
Angels, archangels, Raphael,
and Dieter Schwarz.
Later in the afternoon after the meeting, Raphael sat in his office with the door locked, video-conferencing with his old friend Basch Favre, formerlyWachtmeisterFavre of ARD-10 and now Colonel of Police for the Canton of Geneva.
A headset pinched Raphael’s ears. Anyone listeningat the door wouldn’t be able to hear Basch’s voice. He held Bastien’s burner phone in his hand, streaming the video conference through software that he’d downloaded from a thoroughly disreputable source supplied by his Rogue hacker, Blaise Lyon.
Basch Favre was wearing the dark uniform of the Geneva Cantonal Police with its shiny ribbons and badges. A steaming cup of coffee sat at his elbow onhis wide, pristine desk. Basch was still keeping his office military-style orderly. Behind Basch, the certificates and commendations were nailed to the wall in matching black frames, square to each other and the corners of the room, as regimented as a military parade.
Raphael also had a cup of coffee on his desk, steaming the afternoon sunlight that glared in the window behind him.
On the tinyscreen, Basch stared at the piece of paper in his hands, glanced up at Raphael through the camera, and looked back down at the paper. He was breathing hard, like someone had punched him in the chest. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
Raphael shrugged.
He’d wrestled with himself the whole time he’d been in Geneva about going to the police and revealing himself. The danger to Flicka and Alinafrom him not going to the police finally outweighed the danger of him calling them. With Piotr’s instructions concerning the “shipment” of children, he couldn’t wait any longer. When Raphael refused to go through with it, Piotr Ilyin would kill all three of them.
That might even be one of Piotr’s plans.
Plan A: the shipment of girls is fulfilled. Money is deposited in the Bratva’s accounts atGeneva Trust.
Plan B: Raphael Mirabaud is proven to be the traitor in the organization. He is executed, together with his wife and child, as a warning to those who would double-cross the Ilyin Bratva.
Either plan would be an acceptable endpoint.
Carl von Clausewitz would have approved.
Basch’s brown eyes flicked from the paper to Raphael’s face and back again. “We were in ARD-10 together.”
“Yes, I was there,” Raphael whispered, his tone turning dry. He’d thought it would go better than this.
“Foryears.I knew you foryears.I scraped you off the floor and poured you into your bed in the barracks more than once. We were deployed on God-only-knows how many missions together.”
“Felt like forever.”
Basch stared at the paper, breathing hard. “You never said a damn word.”
“Obviouslynot.”
Basch looked up at him through the screens, letting the paper fall to the desk. “You’re the Archangel source.”
Raphael shrugged. During their first phone call, he’d recited a secret code from many years ago to confirm his identity. This was all recapitulation.
Basch shook his head. “I didn’t even know that Archangel was one source until I was promoted to major. Below major, no one issure whether you exist or that the information came from wiretaps or microphones planted somewhere. You’re like a ghost. You’re a legend. You’re the most closely guarded secret in the police force. I wrote a report on the Archangel raids during my officer exams, and I wasn’t sure a person was the source, let aloneyou,Dieter.”
Dieter.The name felt like a ghost haunting him.
Raphael shrugged.“I’m still alive, so people must have kept their mouths shut.”
“The Archangel raids were so many years ago. We’re the same age. How old were you while you were an informant?”
“Sixteen for the most part. I was resettled a few months after I turned seventeen.”
“You knew that much about the Ilyin Bratva when you were sixteen years old. That’s insane. It was never even whispered that the Archangelsource was a kid.”
