The route he took almost mirrored the one Richter had followed earlier that morning. Stanway drove a short distance beyond Ax, towards Mérens-les-Vals, l’Hospitalet and Andorra, then returned and headed back through the town. As far as he could see, there were only about half a dozen hotels, so if Holbeche’s information was accurate, the clerk would be in hiding somewhere at the northern end of the town. That meant the most likely location for him was either the Hostellerie de la Poste or the Auberge du Lac.
While he decided what to do next, he pulled the Peugeot into a parking space opposite the casino, which was the second of the town’s main attractions, after the thermal springs that gave its name, and attracted visitors seeking relief from rheumatism and similar disorders.
He stuck money in the machine and placed the ticket on the dashboard — not wanting to attract attention by disobeying the parking restrictions — then made for a cafe beside the casino and ordered himself a grande café crème. He’d had a couple of tours in France and Stanway’s French was fluent and colloquial enough for him to easily pass as a native.
Maybe the obvious way to proceed was to check in to one of the two most likely hotels, and just use his eyes and ears to try to identify his quarry. The downside of that plan was that when one of the hotel guests turned up dead — the most likely outcome of this weekend — the French police would be bound to check all the local hotels, and then possibly detain all their guests for questioning. And that would be disastrous for Stanway, so he’d have to just wait and watch, identify his target, do the job and get out.
He finished his coffee, left three euros on the table, and headed back to his car. Four minutes later, he slotted the Peugeot into a vacant space in the unsurfaced car park beside the Auberge du Lac, and strolled towards it and into the bar.
Richard Simpson leant forward between the seats, as the Renault Megane entered the northern outskirts of the town.
‘Over there.’ He was pointing towards a hotel on the left-hand side of the road. ‘That’s the Hostellerie de la Poste, where Markov is staying. My information says he’ll remain in the hotel all this afternoon. He’ll be expecting you to approach him, and he should be easy enough to identify.’
‘Do you want us to book in there, as well?’ Wallis asked.
But that was the last thing Simpson wanted. To allow Gecko a clear run, he needed the minimum number of friendlies hovering around Richter.
‘No,’ he said, ‘you can book yourselves in to one of the more central hotels. Keep going now, and drop me off first.’
Without slackening speed, Hughes drove on, heading for the middle of Ax, where Simpson had a room reserved in one of the bigger spa hotels.
As soon as he’d taken his bags up to his room, Simpson left the hotel and made his way across the road to the open area in front of the casino, where he sat down on one of the benches. As he pulled out his mobile, it started ringing.
‘We’re in position,’ David Adamson said.
‘Where?’ Simpson demanded.
‘At the northern end of the town, covering the main road.’
‘OK, stay there for the moment, but I think you’ll probably be wasting your time. Gecko might well be here already and, if he isn’t, he could come in from a different direction, from the Andorra road, say. And he might well have swapped cars, so that he’s now using a Frog-mobile, not something on British number plates. Any sign of Richter — or a car on Austrian plates?’
‘I thought he was supposed to be here already?’
‘He is here. I just wondered if you’d seen him driving about, or anything. Or if you’d recognized him from the stuff I gave you.’
‘We’ve not seen him,’ Adamson reported, ‘but there’s an Austrian registered Ford Focus parked on a street not far from the hotel. Reckon that could be his?’
‘Probably,’ Simpson agreed. ‘Now, as soon as I know what time the two guys from Paris are going meet Richter at the hotel, I’ll call you in. You do know which hotel, don’t you?’
‘Yes, we scoped it out earlier. We can be there in around three minutes from the go signal.’
Simpson snorted. ‘Do at least try to be literate when you’re talking to me, Adamson. You’re starting to sound like an American cop in a bad B-movie.’
He ended the call, then dialled another number.
When his Nokia rang, Richter was sitting at a table by himself at one end of the terrace of the Auberge du Lac, the novel open in front of him, though he’d so far read barely a couple of chapters. There were several men inside the bar behind him, and a handful of people had appeared on the terrace since he’d taken his seat. There were three couples, one of them with two young children, and at the far end sat a single middle-aged man drinking coffee and reading a French newspaper. Richter had pegged him as a commercial traveller or businessman. All of them were well out of earshot.
‘Simpson. Where are you now?’
‘Ax-les-Thermes.’
‘Don’t try and get funny with me, Richter. Where are you exactly? At the hotel?’
‘No. I’m watching the hotel from along the road, just in case I don’t like the look of the people you’re sending to meet me.’
‘This is a training exercise, for God’s sake. We’re all on the same side here.’ Even as he said the words, Simpson smiled slightly. ‘Now, keep your eyes open, because they’ll probably be arriving any time now. They’re driving a silver Renault Megane with a local number — a thirty-one plate.’
‘They’re here already and arrived a couple of minutes ago. The Renault’s in the car park at the back of the hotel, and I can see it from here. So what now?’
‘Listen carefully. I’m not giving you a detailed briefing,’ he began, ‘simply because although you and I know that this is a training exercise the two men you’ll be meeting think it’s a genuine operation, and it’ll be interesting to see if you can fool them. So these are the ground rules. First, everything you say to these two men must be in Russian or in really poor English.’
‘And I presume one of these men will be wired for sound?’ Richter asked.
‘You presume correctly. Now, your name is Anatoli Markov, and you’re a defecting clerk on the run from your masters in the SVR, and currently seeking asylum in the West. Your dowry, so to speak, is the packet of papers you’re carrying. Keep that with you at all times, but don’t hand it over. The most you can do is show the men the first page, but don’t let them handle it. Just let them see the Sekretno stamps on it, and tell them you’ve got other papers squirrelled away somewhere. Your ace in the hole is that you know the identity of a traitor somewhere within British intelligence, who’s been copying files from Vauxhall Cross and selling them to the SVR. But, obviously, don’t tell them anything at all about this business, apart from the fact that you know who the person is.’
Richter snorted. ‘You’ve been reading too much John le Carré, Simpson. That scenario’s a total spy-fiction cliché.’
‘It may be, Richter, but that’s the way we’re playing it. Keep the meeting short — no more than about thirty or forty minutes. Talk only in general terms about where you work: you’re employed as a clerk at SVR headquarters at Yasenevo, in the south-east area of Moscow, which is why I needed you to be familiar with the contents of that briefing paper. I hope you’ve read it?’
‘Yes,’ Richter replied. ‘I wouldn’t want to try going on Mastermind with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service as my specialist subject, but I think I’ve retained enough to bluff my way through a conversation.’