Alexander Hammond had warned him about Roy Oxley, and so had the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE, France’s main intelligence agency tasked with acquiring secret political, military, and economic information from foreign sources. It was getting so damn hard to keep all his lies straight that Pierre’s heartbeat was consistently over 110. Even the drop-dead gorgeous view of Cape Town he had from his table did nothing to quell his anxiety. He signaled the waiter and ordered a dozen oysters and paired it with a glass of crisp chenin blanc. When the wine arrived, he closed his eyes and took a small sip.
For years Pierre had used his cover as a sommelier to conduct industrial espionage operations in the United States. There had been almost no risk involved, and the intelligence he had fed to his superiors at the DGSE had made him a rising star within the spy agency. During the last ten years, he’d been promoted four times due to the value of the intelligence he had provided. Targeting visiting foreign officials, American business leaders, and even celebrities dining at the high-end restaurants he’d been working at had been easy and almost danger-free. Compared to the bits of intelligence some of his colleagues risked their lives to collect from unreliable sources, Pierre’s intel was always solid.
That was, until three years ago, when by mistake he’d tried to break into Alexander Hammond’s phone. At the time, Pierre hadn’t been familiar with Hammond, but he had recognized one of the people he’d been dining with: US Senator Peter Shelby, one of the most influential senators in the US Senate and the current chair of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In retrospect, Pierre should never have attempted to hack into such a prominent politician’s phone, but his track record had been flawless, and he had never come close to getting caught. It would have been a fantastic achievement—one the instructors back at the National Academy for Intelligence in Paris would have talked about for decades. All he had to do was stand within one meter of the senator’s phone for thirty seconds and let the device the DGSE Technical Directorate had given him do its work. The device was preloaded with bootable software that could break through most four-to twelve-digit screen-lock passwords quickly. Once the screen was unlocked, the device would upload a key-sniffer application to the target’s phone that would link directly to a server Pierre kept in his condo. From there, a listener application and a reverse shell would be installed on the targeted phone, giving Pierre and the DGSE unlimited access.
Pierre had honestly believed his stratagem had worked, as it had so many times before. It wasn’t until he returned home after his ten-hour shift at the restaurant that he realized how wrong he was. Hammond and two men dressed in dark clothing and carrying silenced pistols were waiting for him in his living room.
“Close the door and lock it behind you, will you, Pierre?” Hammond asked him. Something in the man’s voice told him there was no point trying to run away.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Pierre asked, calculating his odds of success in reaching for his pistol under the kitchen sink.
“Clever stuff, Pierre. Really. Quite clever,” Hammond said. “It would probably have worked if you’d targeted the good senator’s phone instead of mine. How long have you been spying for the French government?”
Despite his best efforts to appear unruffled by the situation, Pierre was terrified. His direct-action training was long forgotten. With the exception of his martial arts classes and regular visits to the gun range, he didn’t have the fighting spirit he once possessed.
“Who are you?” he asked, having renounced the idea of going for his pistol.
“I’m General Alexander Hammond. I’m the commanding officer of JSOC.”
Pierre was familiar with JSOC. In fact, it was common knowledge that the DGSE’s Action Division had worked in close collaboration with JSOC on occasions when French and American interests coincided. Pierre gestured toward an open bottle of Bordeaux sitting on his marble kitchen countertop.
“May I?” he asked.
“Sure. As long as you’re not reaching for the gun you keep under the sink,” Hammond warned him.
After pouring himself a glass, he took a seat across from Hammond.
“What now?”
“How long have you been at it, Pierre?”
“Long enough,” he replied, his heart beating at an alarming rate. “Am I under arrest?”
“Do these gentlemen look like police officers to you?”