The Last Compromise Read Free Page B

leaving?’
    ‘In
four hours.’
    ‘All
right, we can get coffee from the machine and have a look at the atomic energy staff,
and at their work. A lot of information is accessible from here.’ Hans was a
project manager now, or so the boss had just said, so it was time to start
managing the project. ‘Apart from that we need to check the actual content of those
nuclear reports, see where exactly the irregularities are. Maybe it’s nothing
at all, or it’s something harmless. But maybe somebody is stealing uranium all
over Europe. As you just heard, we have the official green light to spend some more
time on this now.’
    ‘We
already have the Commission reports, we had used them for the first analysis,’ Viktor
said. ‘Now we need the raw data from the national authorities, in the form in
which it arrived at the Commission in the first place. I suppose they are Excel
sheets with lists of figures and some text. If you can get the raw data within
three and a half hours, I can save it on my laptop and work on it on the train.’
    Hans
nodded and encouraged Viktor to follow him out into the corridor and towards
the coffee machine at its end. A little celebration coffee was in order. They
were still at an early stage, but things were definitely looking up.
     
    Luxembourg
     
    ‘I
don’t know,’ Hoffmann said while getting comfortable in the passenger seat of
the car parked fifty metres down the street from the newsagent’s shop. A black
Audi, it would normally have looked very neat and shiny, but compared with the
tank-like luxury cars that were cruising on the streets of Luxembourg it looked
unremarkable. ‘This is either not an operative at all, or he’s playing some
kind of game.’
    ‘Tell
me,’ the man in the driver’s seat said as he started the engine, checking the
mirror to enter the stream of cars heading towards the motorway belt around
Luxembourg. It was around noon, traffic wasn’t very heavy. Hoffmann and the man
at the wheel both spoke neutral standard German, no particular regional accent.
The car had a fast acceleration, and the man at the wheel used it.
    ‘He
draws attention,’ Hoffmann explained. ‘He goes in to buy cigarettes and chewing
gum. He waits in the queue for two minutes, holding his wallet all that time like
an idiot. Then he buys cigarettes, but not the standard type from a standard
brand. He buys the menthol type. Then he forgets the chewing gum and gets into
the queue for a second time. Makes a second purchase within five minutes
without leaving the shop. Now the saleslady will remember him for an hour.’
    Hoffmann
had been standing three spots behind Zayek in the queue, watching him. Then,
when Zayek had returned to the end of the queue, Hoffmann had found himself standing
directly in front of him. Hoffmann had short fair hair and he wore a grey
jacket. Him the saleslady would not remember.
    ‘Where
were you standing?’, the man at the wheel asked, driving straight ahead towards
the cloverleaf.
    ‘Behind
him in the queue, then in front of him.’
    ‘He
noticed you,’ the man said, turning onto the motorway heading east and
accelerating towards the German border which was less than half an hour away. ‘He
didn’t want to behave like an operative. Or he wanted to have a closer look at
you, so he got back in the queue behind you. Maybe both.’
    Hoffmann
looked out the window on the passenger’s side, watching the grey sky and the woods
and the fields and the power lines next to the motorway as they raced back to
base.

2
    Hans returned to
his office. He had just said goodbye to Viktor and seen him to the elevator.
There’d been a handshake, but it had been somehow bungled and awkward. Either
way, Viktor had left the Brussels anti-fraud building with his black rectangular
bag containing his return ticket to Luxembourg and his laptop that was now full
of raw data.
    Getting
the raw data had been relatively easy, because the IT unit within anti-fraud
could grant access to