‘You’re sure?’ Dekker asked. Adamson had already called and booked two rooms there while they were still on the road, up in the Dordogne.
‘Yes. The directions they gave me were quite clear. There’s a roundabout at the end of the bridge. Turn right, and just beyond that there’s a narrow road running along the river itself. That leads straight to the hotel, and there’s a car park right outside.’
A couple of minutes later, Dekker parked in the closest vacant slot to the main entrance, as he wanted to leave the vehicle in as visible a location as possible. The two men plucked their overnight bags and briefcases from the boot and headed inside. The receptionist’s English was workable, though Adamson had been picked by Simpson because he spoke fluent French, and so check-in took no time at all. Dekker spoke hardly a word of the language, but he had other skills that Simpson thought he might need. The two men reserved a table for dinner, in the dining room overlooking the river, then took the lift up to the second floor.
‘Let’s get unpacked first, then we’ll go down and have a drink at the bar,’ Adamson suggested. He stepped back and examined the door of his room and the ancient lock on it. ‘This isn’t the most secure accommodation I’ve ever stayed in,’ he added, ‘so I think we’d better keep the weapons with us from now on. I’d hate to come back up here after dinner and find that some French tea leaf had broken in and walked off with the shooters. Simpson would go ballistic. Just make sure nobody can spot the holster under your jacket.’
In their separate rooms, the men unpacked what they might need for the night, then Dekker carried his heavy briefcase into the room opposite. Adamson first checked that the door was securely locked, then snapped open the locks on his own briefcase. Inside were two leather shoulder holsters and two locked pistol cases, each of them containing a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol with three magazines and a box of fifty rounds of 9-millimetre Parabellum ammunition.
Then the two men performed exactly the same sequence of actions. They first loaded all three magazines, then pulled on a shoulder holster and slid two of the magazines into the specially designed loops. The third magazine went into the weapon itself, which each man secured in his holster. Adamson finally locked the virtually empty briefcase and slid it under the bed.
‘What about the rifle?’ Dekker asked.
‘We’ll take it with us.’
‘Right.’ Dekker picked up his own bulky briefcase and headed for the room door, waiting there for Adamson to unlock it.
In the corridor outside, the two men studied each other for a few seconds, checking that the weapons remained invisible under their jackets. Once satisfied, they walked off towards the lift.
‘Order me a beer, will you?’ Adamson said, as they stepped out into the lobby. ‘I’d better go and tell our esteemed leader that the eagle has landed, so to speak.’
Outside the hotel, Adamson pulled out his mobile phone and dialled an unlisted London number.
A couple of minutes later he walked into the bar and sat down opposite Dekker, who had picked a table up against the wall, with the briefcase jammed into the space beside his chair.
‘And how is that poisonous, balding, short, pink bastard?’ Dekker asked, sliding a glass of beer across the table.
‘How many times have you actually met him?’ Adamson asked.
‘Just the once,’ Dekker replied.
‘You seem to have nailed his personality, then, and he’s pretty much as you’d expect. He was surprised that we’d only got this far, but I told him that, with the time-scale he’s given us, this was as far as we needed to get today — and that seemed to shut him up. And I explained to him that it had taken us a bit longer than anticipated in getting to the Paris embassy to change cars.’
That had been an important component of Simpson’s plan, as he’d guessed that a British-plated car would be more instantly noticeable in Ax-les-Thermes than a French vehicle. So he’d arranged for the pair to leave their British Ford at the Paris embassy, on the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré, and then complete their journey in one of the embassy’s own vehicles.
Adamson glanced round the bar, which was still empty at that time of day. ‘Anyway, it looks like it’s still a go for tomorrow, though there’s been nothing from Vauxhall Cross, or anywhere else, to suggest that anyone’s swallowed the bait.’
Chapter Eight
Richter got up fairly late, had a shower and shaved, then headed down to the hotel dining room for a typical French breakfast of coffee, bread and pastries.
Once finished there, he walked into the hotel lounge and sat down, placing the briefcase on the low table in front of him. He checked his mobile phone, which he’d left on charge all night. It had a fully charged battery and a good strong signal. Until Simpson called him, he had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and all day to do it in.
He unlocked the briefcase, pulled out one of the three novels he’d bought at Heathrow, and settled down to read.
Almost as soon as he reached Hammersmith, Simpson called Holbeche, but the SIS head had nothing useful to report.
There had been no results so far from their operation to flush out the traitor, and no suspicious telephone calls had been made or received by anybody currently under surveillance. No one had failed to report for work, who wasn’t genuinely sick, and no staff member at any of the target establishments had requested taking leave at short notice. It was as if their assumption was wrong, and that the deep-cover mole simply didn’t exist. Except that they knew he did.
‘Have you briefed Paris?’ Simpson asked.
‘Yes, I talked to the Head of Station this morning and told him exactly what’s going on.’
‘And you can trust him?’
‘I think so, Simpson, yes. I’m not sure he could even access the System-Three directory listing from the Paris holy of holies, but the reality is that the breach must have occurred on this side of the Channel. If somebody in France had obtained it, a Russian courier would have taken it direct to Moscow from there. It certainly wouldn’t have been sent over to London first. No, I’m happy to believe that he’s not involved.’
‘OK. So what did you ask him to do?’
‘I’ve told him to brief two of his officers — their names are Richard Hughes and David Wallis — to fly down to Toulouse tomorrow afternoon, and then drive on to Ax-les-Thermes. As far as they’re concerned, the whole operation is on the level. They’ll be told they’re being sent down there just to interview this Russian defector, and to assess whatever information he’s carrying. Once they’ve done that, they’ll report back to Paris with a straight recommendation of yes or no.’
‘They won’t be armed?’ Simpson asked.
‘They can be, if you want, but that might raise eyebrows. This is supposed to be a routine assignment.’
‘No, and I’d rather they weren’t armed. I just want to know who’s likely to be carrying, so I can brief my own people.’
‘Understood. Where’s your man now?’ Holbeche asked.
‘I’ve sent him to Geneva. He’s in a hotel just outside the city, but on the French side of the lake,’ Simpson said.
‘Why there?’
‘No particular reason. It just seemed fairly central, and he can easily get to the rendezvous position in about six hours.’
‘When will you send him down? I mean, what’s your take on this, bearing in mind we’ve so far seen no response at all from anyone within the security establishment?’
‘That hasn’t surprised me,’ Simpson replied. ‘Whoever Gecko is, he’s going to play it cool, and that means no sudden illnesses, dying relatives, or requests for unpaid leave. My guess is that, once he knows where this defector from the SVR has gone to ground, he’ll hop on an aircraft — or more likely just get in his car and drive down to the south of France.