Adamson didn’t take his eyes off the car newly parked outside the hotel, till the door opened and the driver climbed out.
‘Confirmed. Single male carrying a newspaper. He’s heading for the front entrance.’
‘Copied,’ Dekker radioed. ‘Nothing seen to the rear of the building.’
Stanway stood for a couple of seconds in the small lobby of the Hostellerie de la Poste and looked around. There was a small reception desk, currently unmanned, directly in front of him, and to the right of that a wide curving staircase leading up to the first-floor bedrooms. To his left was the dining room, where he could see several tables already laid with plates, napkins and cutlery, but what he was primarily interested in was the bar and lounge over to his right-hand side.
He could hear the soft murmur of voices from behind the half-closed door, too faint for him to decide what language was being used, much less decipher what was actually being said.
Stanway pushed open the bar door and walked in. The sound of the voices immediately ceased. Seated at a circular table in one corner were three men: one was the fair-haired man he’d seen crossing the road from the Auberge du Lac about three-quarters of an hour earlier, but the other two were unfamiliar to him. All three had turned to look as he entered the room.
He nodded in their direction, murmuring a polite ‘Bonjour’, then carried on over towards the bar. He pulled up a stool, opened up Le Monde, and started reading an article. A few seconds later, one of the hotel staff appeared from a back room and asked what he wanted to drink. Stanway ordered a small beer, and for a couple of minutes he and the barman chatted about one of the stories in the newspaper.
They’d barely begun this exchange of views before the three men at the corner table started talking again. And, within ten seconds, Stanway knew his guess had been right. For although their murmured conversation was too quiet for him to catch more than the odd word, the language spoken was definitely Russian.
Wallis and Hughes had exchanged glances as the newcomer walked into the room but, after he continued across to the bar and started a conversation in French with the barman, they’d more or less dismissed him. Richter watched him for a few seconds longer, then turned his attention back to the lies he was busy telling the two SIS officers.
As the barman retreated into the back room again, Stanway bent his head over the newspaper and appeared to completely ignore the other three occupants of the bar, but actually he was straining his ears, to pick up any recognizable snippet of their conversation. Though his spoken Russian was poor, he did have a reasonable vocabulary, but unfortunately those few words and phrases he managed to overhear didn’t help him much. Twice the blond-haired man mentioned ‘papers’, and once each ‘Moscow’ and ‘Yasenevo’, the latter word confirming to Stanway that he’d identified his quarry correctly. Because they had their backs to the bar, the voices of the other two men were much less clear and from them he could gather nothing useful.
The question now, Stanway mused, was not what he should do about it but when.
He had no idea if the men wearing grey suits were armed — he presumed they were SIS officers, probably from the Paris station — but he knew he would have the element of surprise on his side if he just pulled out the Browning and started blasting away, right now.
But there were two obvious problems attending that course of action. Quite apart from the fact that it would involve shooting three men in cold blood, the barman who’d served him might remember Stanway’s face well enough to provide an accurate photofit picture, and by now the watcher in the Renault Laguna might have taken down the number of the Peugeot. Not that it would help him or anyone else, of course, because they were stolen plates. But, after a triple murder, the French police would obviously be keen to follow up every lead, and Stanway didn’t want a photofit image of his face in circulation after the event.
Nor did he think he’d be able to get across the road and take out the man in the Renault as well, for good measure. He’d just have to wait and bide his time, but at least he now felt certain of his target.
Five minutes later, Stanway drained the last of his beer, tucked the newspaper under his arm and walked out of the bar, wishing the three other men bonne journée as he passed them. None of them replied to him, or even looked up as he left.
On his way past the empty reception desk, Stanway reached over to grab one of the room keys, then continued on his way.
Raya kept hoping the odds were in her favour. As far as she knew, none of the SVR personnel stationed in Italy had ever seen her in person, so all they could be using in their search were whatever photograph and description Yasenevo would have sent electronically to the embassy in Rome. And she knew perfectly well that she now looked nothing like the person appearing in any of those pictures.
She pushed her way through the crowds, and back into the terminal, her glance flicking left and right as she searched urgently for the three men who’d already entered the building.
She spotted them almost immediately. They’d positioned themselves widely apart, so as to cover the maximum area and number of passengers. And, no doubt, once the three men outside had satisfied themselves that Raya wasn’t waiting for a taxi or a hotel bus, two or maybe all three of them would join their companions inside the terminal. She knew she had to move quickly.
But Raya didn’t want to risk just heading straight for the train station because no matter how effective her rudimentary disguise, she knew that the SVR men would be looking out for a single woman.
Several Italians were heading in the same direction. Raya checked them out as she walked along, looking for a suitable cover. She really needed to make herself part of a group, or at least one half of a couple, and quickly.
An elderly lady, carrying a heavy suitcase as well as a carry-on bag, was making her way slowly towards the train station. Raya crossed swiftly towards her and tried out a little of the Italian she’d tried to learn in Moscow.
‘Mi scusi, Signora, posso aiutarla?’ she said, pointing to the obviously heavy suitcase.
The old woman turned and looked her up and down carefully, but apparently approved of what she saw.
‘Grazie molto, Signorita,’ she replied, and waited while Raya seized the handle of the suitcase and began heading steadily on towards the railway station.
‘Quale è il suo nome?’
‘Mi chiamo Maria,’ Raya replied, giving the woman the first name that popped into her head.
‘Di dove è?’
‘Sono Americana, Signora, e imparo l’italiano da un mese.’
Claiming to be American seemed safe enough, because she doubted the woman spoke a word of English, though Raya was fluent in it.
‘Bene.’
They continued swapping pleasantries all the way to the platform, and actually passed within fifteen feet of one of the men who’d climbed out of the three black Alfas. He looked at the elderly Italian lady chattering away to a young dark-haired woman who could be her granddaughter, then shifted his glance to inspect the mass of people approaching behind them.
Raya helped her new-found friend to a seat on the platform, bought for herself the cheapest ticket she could from a machine, had it validated and then sat down next to her to wait. Within a couple of minutes a train arrived, and with a smile she helped the elderly Italian lady on board and then followed her, lugging the heavy suitcase. She had not the slightest idea where the train was going and cared less. All she was interested in was getting away from the airport as quickly as possible.