After Frank Mazot left, Nikki opened the box and began sorting through the files inside. Alphabetizing was not the archivist’s strong suit. It took her fifteen minutes to locate Coluzzi’s file, tucked between “Cranmont” and “Czell.” The file was thick as a phonebook, a compendious mess of arrest sheets, interviews, court records, and sentencing documents, all mixed up haphazardly. She required a further thirty minutes to put them in something resembling chronological order before she could begin her research.
Coluzzi’s first arrest was at the age of sixteen for burglary with a sentence of six months’ probation. The second arrest was three months later, for which he served a year at a reform school near the Spanish border. A note from the school director called Coluzzi “willing to cooperate and a model student.” Nikki wrinkled her nose. A handwritten note to Coluzzi’s parole officer stated that the young man had come to the director with the name of a student who had been pilfering from the kitchen and selling canned goods to a local vendor.
The die was cast at an early age.
From there, Coluzzi’s record grew at a blistering pace. Extortion. Assault. Grand theft. And then at the age of twenty-one, attempted murder. The trial lasted one day. Coluzzi was convicted and sentenced to five years at Les Baumettes.
Nikki paused, studying the paper. Something was missing. Normally, there should be a prisoner transfer sheet attached, documenting his remanding to the national prison system. In its place was a pink-hued form she knew all too well. She’d filed a similar one a dozen times, if not more, including one with Aziz Fran?ois’s name on it when she’d recruited him as a confidential informant.
At once, Nikki took a photo of the form with her phone.
Reports from Coluzzi’s case officer followed, providing a comprehensive list of criminals with whom he regularly worked, as well as crimes they’d committed and crimes they planned to commit. There on the third page was “Simon Ledoux.”
With mounting fury, she read Coluzzi’s detailed, almost joyous recounting of the plan to rob the Garda armored car on September 2, 1999. The following page was a copy of the arrest record, including a brief description of the attempted robbery. Four men killed, names given. Simon Ledoux shot three times, taken to hospital, condition unknown.
Coluzzi stood trial to preserve his anonymity as an informant and received a cursory sentence of six months, of which he was released after two.
And like Aziz Fran?ois, Coluzzi did not allow his work as a police informant to interfere with his career as a criminal. A few years after the Garda job, he was arrested for robbery and assault, and sentenced to a five-year stretch at Les Baumettes. This time, no amount of snitching could shorten his term. The prisoner transfer sheet showed the date of his arrival as shortly after Simon would have ended his time in solitary.
But nowhere was there mention of an attack on an inmate.
And then, as if a magician had snapped his fingers and said “Abracadabra,” the file ended. No mention of Tino Coluzzi for the past fifteen years. Even if he’d never committed another crime in his life, there ought to be more here—the mandatory reports from his parole officer, to begin with.
Something was wrong.
Nikki put down the last sheet and closed the file.
An administrative request form was stapled to the back of the folder. It was dated January 2003 and came from a Colonel M. Duvivier of the DGSE for an interagency transfer.
The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure was France’s foreign security service, the equivalent of the CIA.
The request read: “All further information kept at 141 Boulevard Mortier, Paris.”
It was the headquarters of the DGSE.
Nikki closed the file and slid it back in the box.
Now she knew who had given Tino Coluzzi’s name to Mr. Neill.
Nikki returned the box to its place on the shelf, then forwarded pictures of all the pertinent documents regarding Coluzzi’s work as a confidential informant to Simon. Satisfied she’d completed the first request, she consulted the notes she’d made in Mazot’s office and ventured to the opposite corner of the archives. The light was dimmer in this part of the basement, the air mustier, and she felt as if she were walking deeper and deeper into a forgotten grotto. The box holding the information she sought was easy enough to find, located on a shelf she could reach without difficulty. Thankfully, the files were alphabetized correctly and she found the name quickly. The file itself was surprisingly thin, containing a single arrest report and a court declaration noting that the defendant had pleaded guilty and waived his right to a trial.
She leafed through the pages that followed, her eye trained to spot one piece of information. She found it on the last page. An addendum to a prisoner’s death notice written in longhand at the bottom of the sheet, practically an afterthought. One sentence, but it was enough.
She replaced the box, then hurried upstairs. Frank Mazot was waiting in his office. With him were four men, all of them his superiors if dress and age were any indication.
“How did it go?” Mazot asked.
“Fine,” said Nikki, aware that all eyes were on her.
“Get everything you need?”
“I did, actually. Thank you.” She looked from man to man, meeting their gazes, and realizing with a sinking feeling that they were here for her. “Am I interrupting?”
“We received a call from Paris. From your lieutenant. He was curious as to what you were doing here when you’d been posted to desk duty on administrative assignment.”
“I thought I explained.”
“Detective Perez,” interjected one of the men in a no-nonsense voice, “Frank told us why you’re here. While we applaud your eagerness to help bring the investigation in Paris to a successful conclusion, our colleagues are concerned about your methods. They feel you may be assisting someone who isn’t working within the purview of French law enforcement.”
Nikki looked at the man. Sixty, gray hair, fit, with a fighter’s jaw and cold blue eyes. Suit far above a policeman’s pay grade. “You are?”
“Martin Duvivier. Office of Defense Intelligence.”
Colonel M. Duvivier, formerly of the DGSE.
“I see,” said Nikki.
“If you don’t mind, Detective Perez,” said Duvivier, with far too much deference, “we would like you to stay here until you can talk with one of our colleagues.”
“If you don’t mind,” Nikki replied, in an equally unctuous tone, “I can come back as soon as he arrives.”
“But he’s on his way over right now,” said Duvivier.
Nikki looked from face to face, meeting one stone gaze after another. She landed on Mazot. “Are you preventing me from leaving?”
“Please, Nikki,” said Mazot. “Do as they say.”
Nikki looked back at Duvivier. “Who is it that we’re waiting on?”
“A friend of French law enforcement.”
Nikki stared at the floor, concealing a bitter smile. That’s exactly what Dumont had called Simon Riske. “A friend?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I want a name.”
“Mr. Neill. An American. He’s with the CIA.”
Chapter 58
Alexei Ren climbed the fantail stairs to the landing pad and gazed north. Two hours after the Solange had raised anchor and left Entre les ?les, she was making twenty knots on a course due east, cruising past the Port de Toulon. Numerous warships crowded the harbor. Several destroyers were anchored nearby, sailors moving purposefully about the deck. He’d given the Solange over to his top executives for the week. Tonight’s port of call was Saint-Tropez, with a gala dinner arranged at the H?tel Byblos. The voyage would continue onward to Villefranche-sur-Mer, Monaco, and San Remo, across the Italian frontier. Ren, however, would not be joining them. A pressing matter demanded his attention.