29 Rue d’Antibes

29 Rue d'Antibes

Ingrid probed the defenses of the Wi-Fi networks within range of her computer while the maid tidied up the room. There were

twenty-two networks in all, with signal strengths ranging from one bar to four. Most bore the names of businesses along the

rue d'Antibes. The rest appeared to be personal. One was called schmidtnet . Another was designated ashworth . There was one network with no apparent name, just a seemingly random series of letters and numbers. Ingrid reckoned it was

the one that belonged to the hacker in Apartment 3B.

When the maid had gone, she returned the camera to its place in the window and reattached it to her computer. Gabriel met

her downstairs in the lobby and escorted her across the street to one of the boutiques on the ground floor of the apartment

building—the one directly beneath 3B. While pretending to shop, Ingrid checked the available Wi-Fi networks with her phone.

There were now only nineteen in range, but the networks called schmidtnet and ashworth had gained strength. So, too, had the one with no apparent name.

"Four bars," she said. "That has to be him."

Leaving the boutique, they walked down to the Croisette and took a table at one of the restaurants along the beach. Gabriel ordered a bottle of Bandol rosé, then listened while Ingrid explained what she proposed to do.

"Hack the hacker?"

"Not his computer," she replied. "Just his network."

"Won't he notice?"

"Eventually, I suppose. But it's the only way to determine whether it's safe for one of us to enter the apartment and have

a look round. If he's a professional hacker, it will be obvious."

"To you, perhaps. But I might mistake him for one of those idiots who spends his evenings playing video games."

"Which is why I should be the one who goes in there."

"I got a good look at the passcode on the street-level door this morning. I'm fairly certain it's—"

"Five, one, seven, nine, zero, two, eight, six."

"What about the door to his apartment?"

"I'm sure it's just an ordinary French lock."

"Which means you won't be able to open it without a bump key or a hand grenade."

"There's a locksmith up in Grasse who sells bump keys and other unlocking tools."

"You've done business with him in the past, I take it?"

"Monsieur Giroux is a fellow traveler. There isn't a villa on the C?te d'Azur that he hasn't robbed." She opened her menu.

"Have you been to this restaurant before?"

"Once or twice."

"Did you kill anyone while you were here?"

"Not that I can recall."

***

The picturesque town of Grasse, sometimes referred to as the perfume capital of the world, was a half hour north of Cannes

at the foot of the French Alps. Monsieur Giroux's shop was located on the Route Napoléon. Gabriel waited in the rental car

while Ingrid went inside. She emerged ten minutes later with a set of professional-grade bump keys that, in the right set

of hands, would open any lock in Europe in a matter of seconds.

"He threw in a lockpick gun as well."

"Perhaps there's honor among thieves, after all."

They stopped at a nearby hardware store long enough for Ingrid to purchase a screwdriver and a roll of gaffer tape, then started

back to Cannes. It was late afternoon by the time they were back in their rooms at the hotel. Gabriel attached the camera

to his computer and kept an eye on the feed while Ingrid made her first tentative moves against the nameless network. By eight

that evening she was in.

"How?" asked Gabriel.

"It's impossible to explain the process to someone like you."

"A moron?"

"A layman."

"Try."

She spoke for several minutes in a strange and foreign tongue. Derivation function, cryptographic hashing algorithm, wired

equivalent privacy, deauthentication frame, medium access control, physical layer protocols, something called "evil twin access

points." The upshot of all this gibberish was that she had deceived the network into surrendering its own password.

"Are you still connected?"

She shook her head. "It's not safe for me to be logged on while he's working."

"Did you happen to notice anything interesting before you took your leave?"

"Two desktops, two laptops, four phones, and an alarm system."

Gabriel swore softly.

"It's not a problem. I'll disable the alarm before I go in, and I'll reset it on my way out the door. He'll never know I was

in his apartment."

"Unless you happen to bump into Madame Martineau or Herr Schmidt on your way out."

Ingrid looked at the screen of Gabriel's computer. "Or the lovely Fiona Ashworth."

The British estate agent was returning home from her office on the Croisette. She punched in the passcode—five, one, seven,

nine, zero, two, eight, six—and went inside. A moment later the lights came on in her second-floor apartment. The windows

of Madame Martineau's unit were likewise illuminated. The apartment above hers, however, was in darkness.

"Does he ever turn on the lights?" asked Gabriel.

"Blackout shades. A trick of the trade."

"We can't prove that he's the hacker. Not yet, at least."

"And if he is?"

"I'm going to have a word with him."

"You're not going to lose your temper, are you?"

"Not me," said Gabriel. "I've turned over a new leaf."

Ingrid smiled. "That makes two of us."

***

Shortly before eleven o'clock, with the occupants of the apartment building apparently bedded down for the night, they walked to the Vieux Port for a quick pizza at Cresci. This time they sat in a darkened corner of the dining room so Ingrid could keep an eye on the feed from the camera.

"Who was the other gunman that night?" she asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"The other assassin who helped you kill Zizi al-Bakari."

"You met him once."

"Really? Where?"

"In Russia. He was the one who helped me get you out of the Range Rover and across the border into Finland."

It was after midnight when they returned to the hotel. Ingrid wrapped the grip of the screwdriver with several layers of gaffer

tape and practiced bumping the lock on the door between their rooms. Her brief retirement had done nothing to diminish her

skills; she was able to open the door in a matter of seconds. Indeed, she was faster with a bump key than the lockpick gun—and

quieter as well.

At 2:00 a.m. Gabriel insisted that she get a few hours of sleep. She stretched out on the bed and wrestled with dreams of

Russia until seven thirty, when she woke with a start. Gabriel poured her a cup of room service coffee. She drank some and

made a sour face.

"How is it possible to get bad coffee in France?"

"You should have tasted the sludge they brought me a couple of hours ago."

She looked at the shot from the camera. "Anything?"

"Not yet."

She carried her coffee into the bathroom and showered and dressed in a businesslike black pantsuit.

"How do I look?"

"Like the thief who robbed several guests at the Carlton and the Martinez a few years ago."

Gabriel rang room service and ordered another pot of coffee and a pitcher of steamed milk. It arrived twenty minutes later as matronly Madame Martineau emerged from the door of the apartment building, her wicker shopping basket in hand. The Schmidts appeared shortly after nine, followed twenty minutes later by Fiona Ashworth.

"I'm thinking about buying a little pied-à-terre along the C?te d'Azur," said Ingrid. "You didn't keep her card by any chance,

did you?"

"Office doctrine dictated that I burn it."

Ingrid, annoyed, tapped her fingernail on the desktop.

"Perhaps you should practice bumping the lock a few hundred more times."

Before she could reply, the shutters of Apartment 3B swung open, and the occupant appeared in the window. As usual he spent

a moment searching the street below.

"He's a hacker," said Ingrid. "And he's afraid someone is watching him."

"Someone is."

At length the man withdrew and the shutters closed. Ingrid placed the bump keys and screwdriver in her handbag and shoved

a pair of Bose Ultras into her ears. Gabriel dialed her phone on his secure Solaris and established a connection. He could

hear the sound of her breathing. Her respiration rate was elevated.

"Where the hell is he?" she asked.

"Right there," said Gabriel as the street-level door opened. The man hesitated in the threshold for a long moment, then set

off on an easterly heading. Gabriel opened the blinds and peered into the street. "You may proceed."

Ingrid connected her computer to the man's Wi-Fi network and went after the alarm system while Gabriel kept watch at the window.

Two minutes was all it took.

"We're good, Mr. Allon. The alarm is disabled."

Gabriel drew the blinds. "I think I'll go downstairs for a proper café crème."

"Mind if join you?"

"Not at all," said Gabriel, and followed her out the door.