Breakfast, typically French, consisted of a couple of croissants, bread, butter and preserves, with either coffee or hot chocolate. After he’d finished, Richter went back up to his room, picked up the keys of his hired Ford, then headed to the car park. He started up the car, drove through the gateway, and pulled out on to the main road, heading south.
He continued through the town, carefully noting its layout, and followed the road that led eventually upwards to the Principality of Andorra. A mile or so beyond Ax, he turned back and retraced his route, driving up each side street in turn, but this time left the car on a street about a hundred yards from the hotel. The car park at the Hostellerie was certainly convenient but, having a single restricted entrance, Richter had realized immediately that it was also a potential trap. Parked out on the street, at least he couldn’t easily be boxed in.
He walked back to the hotel, went up to his room, checked that the unsealed packet of alleged ‘Secret’ papers was still locked inside his briefcase, then picked up the novel he was ploughing his way through. He left the hotel, waited for a gap in the traffic, crossed the road and walked some seventy yards down the street to the Auberge du Lac. This establishment was somewhat curiously named, as there seemed to be no substantial body of water anywhere nearby. He chose an outside table that offered a clear view of the Hostellerie de la Poste, and sat down. When the waiter appeared, he ordered a café alongé and a bottle of still water, laid his mobile phone on the table, and opened the novel. He adjusted the chair slightly to give himself an uninterrupted view along the road and settled down for what he expected would be a long and very boring wait.
Gerald Stanway reached Toulouse late that afternoon, feeling surprisingly alert despite having driven through the night. He had stopped for fuel and drinks at regular intervals, twice for snack meals, and once for almost an hour, fairly early that morning, at a vineyard outside Blois, where he had bought his stock of wine.
Toulouse is bordered by two ring roads — known as the interior and exterior périphériques — but Stanway ignored both and instead headed towards the centre of the city, looking for two things. He found the first, a small car-hire firm, within about fifteen minutes, but drove on past. Less than a hundred yards down the road, a blue ‘P’ sign beckoned, and moments later Stanway parked the Ford Mondeo on the third floor of the multi-storey car park. He locked the car and tucked the ticket into his wallet.
Then he removed his overnight bag and a small toolkit from the boot, and took the lift up to the fifth floor, where he investigated the rows of parked cars. Within a couple of minutes, he’d found what he was looking for: an elderly Renault with a thick layer of dust on it. He checked that nobody else was on that floor, and no security cameras either, then bent down behind the chosen vehicle.
Just as he’d expected, the number plates were attached with rivets. From his toolkit he took a small battery drill, a brand-new countersink bit already inserted in the chuck, then pressed the bit against the first rivet and squeezed the trigger. The noise was fairly loud, but it lasted only two or three seconds before the bit cut the rivet away. The second rivet took no longer, and less than two minutes later Stanway was heading back to the lift with both number plates and the toolkit hidden away inside his bag.
The car-hire firm was small, and the cars far from new, which suited him fine. Stanway had no trouble in explaining what he wanted. He needed a car, he said, for only twenty-four hours, and he would be paying the hire charge in cash, although he was happy to leave his credit-card details with the company as security. About half an hour after he’d entered the place, Stanway was driving away in a small five-year-old Peugeot hatchback.
That, he reckoned, should have sanitized his operation well enough. The only obvious link between him and what was about to happen at Ax-les-Thermes was his British-registered hire car, and that was now safely hidden in an anonymous car park in the middle of Toulouse. Even with all the resources available to it, Stanway doubted if MI5 or SIS would have any way of linking him to the French-plated Peugeot, especially once he’d changed the number plates, which he’d do as soon as he got clear of Toulouse and could find a quiet parking area.
It had gone better, and been easier, than Raya had expected. Her forged travel voucher had been accepted without question by the Aeroflot booking staff, once she’d shown her SVR identity card, and although the customs officers looked inside her case, as anticipated, they didn’t fully search it and barely even glanced at her CD player.
One of the Border Guards Directorate officers was rather more thorough, however.
‘Why are you flying to Rome?’ he asked, as she reached the head of the queue.
‘I have been ordered to report to our embassy there.’
‘For what reason?’
‘That is classified information. You’ve seen my identification and my travel voucher. If you’re not satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to contact my superiors at Yasenevo.’
That was one reason Raya had wanted to travel at a weekend, for the chances of there being anyone at SVR headquarters who could authenticate her travel orders were slim in the extreme, but the duty staff would certainly be able to confirm her identity from their personnel lists. She’d toyed with the idea of flying somewhere a little closer, like the Czech Republic or Poland, but those states were still subject to influence from Moscow. Although getting to Prague or Warsaw might be easier for her, getting out of those countries would likely prove a lot more difficult, so she’d taken the gamble of choosing Italy as her destination.
The officer looked less than convinced, and Raya wondered if he might even try to contact Yasenevo. That shouldn’t create a problem, but she would rather he didn’t. The fact that an SVR officer was travelling outside the CIS would certainly raise a flag, official travel voucher or not. She decided to up the ante.
‘What’s your rank and name?’ she demanded, taking out a small notebook and pen.
‘Why?’
‘So that if I’m delayed here, I can include your name along with the reason I was late reaching Rome, in the report I will have to make to my superiors.’
Stalemate. They stared at each other across the scarred wooden desk, Raya looking cool and confident, her pen poised expectantly, the Border Guards officer openly hostile.
But it was he who dropped his eyes first, and he handed back her voucher and identity card. ‘Proceed,’ he snapped, and turned his attention to the next passenger waiting in line.
In the departure lounge she settled down in a corner with her book, though she doubted she’d be able to read a single word. The flight didn’t leave for another two hours and, despite her outwardly relaxed posture, she was going to be watching every single second for any sign of problems. This was her end-game and, if she was detained in Russia her gamble would fail — and then she had no illusions about the likely outcome. Once her flight landed in Italy, and she was safely outside the airport, then she could start to relax — but not before.
Colin Dekker pulled the Renault Laguna into a small car park on the right-hand side of the road, just short of the centre of Ax-les-Thermes. They’d decided to walk around the town to get their bearings as soon as they arrived, and then they’d check into their pre-booked hotel to start the waiting game.
‘Not very big, is it?’ Dekker remarked as they reached the pedestrian area fronting the casino.
‘No,’ Adamson replied, ‘but it’s still big enough to miss somebody here. I hope Simpson’s right about this place. Come on, let’s get to the hotel.’