Free The Nostradamus Prophecies by Mario Reading Page B

he’d be convinced of it. ‘Yes. It tested fine. I even tried it at two kilometres and it was clear as a bell. We lose GPS, of course, if he goes under a tunnel, or parks in an underground car park, but that’s the price we pay for having a live feed.’
    ‘What are you talking about, Macron?’
    ‘I’m saying that if we ever lose him, it might take us a little while to restore contact.’
    Calque unclipped his seat belt and began to ease his shoulders, as if, with each kilometre they were travelling away from Paris, he was being relieved of a great weight.
    ‘You should really keep that on, Sir. If we have an accident, the airbag won’t function properly without it.’ The minute he’d uttered these words, Macron realised that he’d made yet another unforced error in the litany of unforced errors which peppered his ever deteriorating relationship with his boss.
    For once, though, Calque didn’t rise to the occasion and administer his usual stinging rebuke. Instead, he raised his chin in a speculative manner and stared out of the window, completely ignoring Macron’s blunder. ‘Did it ever occur to you, Macron, that there may be two tracking devices?’
    ‘Two, Sir? But I only placed one.’ Macron had begun fantasising about the happy life he could have had working as an assistant in his father’s bakery in Marseille, rather than as dogsbody to a grumpy police captain on the verge of retirement.
    ‘I’m talking about our friend. The one who likes making telephone calls.’
    Macron immediately revised what he had been about to say. Nobody could accuse him of not learning on the job. ‘Then he’ll be picking up the ghosting, too, Sir. He’ll know we planted a device and that we’re running parallel to him.’
    ‘Well done, boy. Good thinking.’ Calque sighed. ‘But I suspect that that thought won’t bother him overmuch. It should bother us, though. I’m slowly getting a picture here that isn’t very pretty. I can’t prove anything, of course. In fact I don’t even know if this man with no whites to his eyes really exists, or if we are simply summoning up a demon for ourselves and should concentrate our attentions on Sabir. But we must start treading more carefully from here on in.’
    ‘A demon, Sir?’
    ‘Just a figure of speech.’

33
    ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘To where it says on the base of the coffer.’
    Alexi leaned forward from the rear seat and clapped Sabir on the shoulder. ‘That’s telling her. Hey, luludji? What do you think of your phral now? Maybe he’ll leave you lots of money when this crazy man kills him? You got lots of money, Adam?’
    ‘Not on me.’
    ‘But you got money? In America, maybe? Can you get us a green card?’
    ‘I can give you a black eye.’
    ‘Hey? You hear that? That’s funny. I ask him for a green card and he offers me a black eye. This guy must be a Berber.’
    ‘Is anyone following us?’
    ‘No. No. I looked. And I keep on looking. We’re clear.’
    ‘I don’t understand it.’
    ‘Maybe he didn’t find the car. The boys hid it well. You owe me for that, gadje. They were going to break it up and sell off the pieces, but I told them you would pay them for protecting it.’
    ‘Pay them?’
    ‘Yeah. You got to leave them money too, when you die.’ Alexi suddenly sat up higher. ‘Hey. gadje. Pull over behind that car. The one parked down the track.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Just do it.’
    Sabir pulled the Audi across the hard shoulder and down the track.
    Alexi got out and began stalking around, his head cocked sideways. ‘It’s okay. There’s no one here. They’re off walking.’
    ‘You’re not going to steal it?’
    Alexi made a disgusted face. He squatted down and began unscrewing the car’s number-plate.
     
***
     
    ‘He’s stopped.’
    ‘You mustn’t follow suit. Keep on driving. Go past him. But if you see another car pulled over, mark it. We’ll call in back-up.’
    ‘Why don’t you just pick up Sabir and have done with