“I don’t know him, but his name is Harry Brabham, and he’s now a United States congressman.”
Bergeron looked to Inger, as if wanting confirmation, and she nodded, but Dan could see she was lost in her own thoughts. This was a much bigger story than they’d ever imagined, but as if the knowledge of it hadn’t been dangerous enough, the existence of this recording made it even more so.
“What will you do?”
Dan didn’t respond directly, but he knew they needed safeguards now, that one disk wasn’t enough, and he said, “Would you be able to email that file to me?” Bergeron shrugged. Dan leaned over and wrote down the email address on a piece of paper sitting on the desk.
Bergeron turned back and spent a minute sending the email and for the whole time it took him, Inger and Dan simply watched him in silence, both of them still too shocked to think much beyond the present moment.
Bergeron said, “It’s done.”
Dan looked at the screen, checking the details, and said, “Thanks. And now, Monsieur Bergeron, I think it’s important that we leave you alone.”
He stood up and said, “It changes things, this tape?”
“It changes a lot of things. They don’t know we have it, they don’t know you have it, but it’s still not good for us to stay here too long.” He pointed at the screen, even though the image was no longer there. “That man’s father is a very powerful person in the CIA, and he wants me dead. They’re looking for me now, so the sooner we get away from here the better it is for all of us.”
Inger held up the disk too, saying, “And the sooner we get this to the right person the sooner Dan can walk a little safer.”
Bergeron smiled at her, and said, “Then I wish you good luck. And I’m happy. For fourteen years I was afraid to do the right thing, but now it’s done.”
Dan nodded, understanding why he’d concealed it all that time, an instinctive sense of needing to protect his family. That was undoubtedly what had driven Bill Brabham too, and he almost respected him for that, but the way he’d gone about it probably went some way toward explaining the actions of the son—it was what Jack Redford had been trying to prove all this time; that the Brabhams were a family who believed themselves untouchable.
Chapter Thirty-two
They drove away in silence and they were passing back through the village before Inger said, “How dangerous is this?”
“They don’t know we have it.” He shook his head in amazement, and said, “Jesus, thanks to Bergeron, no one even knows it exists. But I think it tells us why Brabham’s coming after me the way he is, and why he sent someone after Patrick White. This means a hell of a lot more to him than shutting down former CIA contractors.”
“So we have to get this disk to Patrick. It’s the only way.”
Dan nodded, and said, “I haven’t spoken to him in days. Do you know where he is?”
She held up her hand, her fingers crossed, and said, “He was in London, but he told me he was coming to Paris, I think either today or tomorrow.”
“Good.”
He’d taken a left and only realized after a few hundred yards that he’d made the wrong turning. They were on a long narrow lane, overgrown woods forming a hedge on one side, open flat fields stretching out on the other to more woods and another village in the distance. He was just thinking about turning when he noticed a motorbike appear in his rearview, a trails bike with the rider sitting high in the saddle.
He kept driving now, but said, “Could be nothing, but we might have someone following us. Guy on a motorbike.”
“But how?”
Dan shook his head, trying to think. He looked in the rearview again—he was certain of it, some quality about the guy that suggested he didn’t just happen to be on the same road as them. Then he thought of the car itself, knowing that he hadn’t been as thorough as he should have been.
“There must be a tracker on the car.”
She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and said, “If there’s one guy, there’ll be more, surely?”
“I guess so.” The guy was gaining on them now, and fast. Within seconds he was close up behind them, looming in the rearview, reaching into his jacket. “Brace yourself.”
Dan hit the brakes hard as the guy pulled the gun clear, the rider’s concentration just a shade enough off for it to catch him unprepared.
Bike and rider hit the back of the SUV with a multiple thump and clatter as if they’d been caught in a rockslide. The back window cracked but held. Dan drove forward, saw the guy on the floor behind them then, with the bike further back. He reversed fast until they hit the guy again, the bump throwing them out of their seats a little, then a gentler, somehow queasier bump as he once more drove forward and stopped.
Inger said something under her breath in Swedish. He looked at her, but then back in the mirror. The guy was lying motionless, but a black car had appeared in the distance behind them.