This history lesson had helped pass the time, but Raya was still totally exhausted when they finally arrived at a small hotel on the outskirts of Piombino. She perked up a bit when they entered the dining room and started eating two large plates of pasta, a dish with which she was totally unfamiliar.
And then they’d gone to bed in a room overlooking the sea, and made love to the sound of the waves breaking gently on the beach below. It had been a long time for Raya, but Mario was careful and cautious and he took his time, till they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Chapter Fifteen
Gerald Stanway reached up to make sure that the interior light in the Peugeot was switched off, so that he wouldn’t be illuminated when he opened the car door. He then checked his Browning pistol again. His car was parked about a quarter of a mile from the Hostellerie de la Poste, an easy and level walk. It was a little after two in the morning, and time he made his move.
He slipped out of the vehicle and pushed the door closed as quietly as he could, the catch making barely a click. He wouldn’t lock it, as he didn’t want the hazard warning lights to flash. That would be a dead giveaway, if there was anybody watching.
Stanway glanced in both directions before he stepped away from the car, but the road was completely deserted and he couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic nearby. He made sure he’d still got the room key he’d grabbed from the hotel reception earlier, again checked the Browning, then started walking slowly northwards along the side of the road, heading towards the Hostellerie de la Poste.
‘Sierra, Whisky, heads up. Single figure, probably male, walking northbound and approaching target.’
‘Roger. Keep me posted.’
In the parked Renault, Adamson kept his binoculars focused through the open window. But the distance and the lack of ambient light — the moon, high in the sky, casting only a faint glow over the landscape — meant he could do little more than tentatively identify the approaching figure as male.
‘Still walking slowly, direction unchanged,’ he radioed, more for something to say than because it provided useful information for Dekker. ‘He’s a possible target, so I’m allocating him the code name Tango One.’
‘Roger that.’
At the edge of the gravelled driveway that led off the N20 road and into the forecourt of the Hostellerie de la Poste, Stanway paused and again looked all around him. He’d neither seen nor heard anything since he’d stepped away from his car. It was as if the entire town was asleep — which, on reflection, it probably was.
Then he turned right and stepped off the road. The hotel lay directly in front of him, dark and silent.
‘Sierra, Whisky. Tango One now approaching the hotel. Is Romeo’s room light still on?’
‘Negative. Extinguished about an hour ago. No lights showing anywhere else in the building.’
‘Tango One has stopped in front of the hotel. He’s just looking at the building.’
On the hillside rising behind the hotel, Dekker clicked his transmit button twice to acknowledge. He couldn’t see the man Adamson was watching, because he was still on the opposite side of the building, but for the moment he wasn’t concerned about him. Dekker had never met the man named Paul Richter, but he already felt a kind of kinship with him.
He knew Richter had been set up by Simpson, knew that there was a very good chance that, within the next few minutes, Gecko would get inside the building and do his best to kill him — assuming it was Gecko who’d just appeared at the front of the hotel. He knew all that because Simpson had given both him and Adamson a very comprehensive briefing back in London. Richter was merely a stalking-horse, a target intended to entice Gecko out of hiding, and Dekker had been ordered to do nothing at all to interfere with events at the hotel, until after the traitor had made his move.
But, a couple of times during his career in the British Army, Dekker had also been treated like a mushroom — kept in the dark and fed on shit — and he hadn’t much enjoyed the experience. And he couldn’t think of a single good reason why he shouldn’t do whatever he could to help Richter survive.
In fact, there wasn’t a huge amount of help he could give right then, but there was one action he could take that might just give Richter an edge. That assumed he was still awake, and Dekker was prepared to bet a substantial sum that, despite the darkened room, Richter was sitting over to one side of it, and wide awake.
He altered his grip on the sniper rifle very slightly, carefully aimed the rifle at the exact centre of Richter’s open window, and switched on the laser sight.
Through the Zeiss telescopic sight, a pinprick of red light appeared on the wall inside the bedroom, and Dekker knew that if he pulled the trigger right then, the bullet would end up within half an inch of that tiny dot. He switched the laser sight off, then on again, repeating this three times. If Richter was awake, that should be all the hint he’d need that something was about to happen.
Dekker switched off the laser sight, for the last time, and settled down to watch.
In front of the hotel, Stanway turned to his right and headed towards the rear of the building. He intended walking right around it, just to make sure no lights were burning, and that everyone inside was asleep. Then he’d walk through the front door, do the job and walk out again.
‘Tango One moving right. I’m losing him.’
‘Roger,’ Dekker muttered.
A little later, a dark shape appeared at the side of the building, and for a moment Dekker wondered if it would be worth switching over to his night-vision glasses, but he decided not to. The chances were that the action would take place inside Richter’s room, and there the lights would probably go on before anything happened, simply because Gecko would want to be certain of hitting the correct target before he pulled the trigger. And then the Zeiss scope would be all Dekker would need.
‘Contact. He’s checking the back of the hotel. Moving around it anticlockwise.’
‘Roger,’ Adamson said. ‘I’ll call Simpson and give him a heads-up.’
‘Enjoy,’ Dekker muttered, still watching the slowly moving figure.
Stanway neither saw nor heard anything to suggest that anyone was still awake inside the Hostellerie de la Poste, so he moved back to the front door of the building, fishing in his pocket for the stolen key. As in many French hotels that Stanway had used in the past, next to the room key on the keyring was one that opened the main door, so that guests returning late could let themselves into the building without ringing the bell and disturbing others.
And Stanway was particularly keen not to disturb anyone that night.
He slid the key into the lock, turned it carefully and pushed on the door. A moment later, he vanished into the building.
‘Sierra, Whisky, he’s inside. Through the front door, and it looked as if he simply used a key. You don’t think we’ve just been watching the barman creeping back after a night out somewhere?’
‘No chance,’ Dekker said. ‘This guy’s either Gecko or some tea leaf who’s really good with locks. And I guess we’ll find out which of those pretty soon.’
Stanway walked across to the reception desk and replaced the room key he’d taken earlier. Then he used the slim beam of a pencil torch to check all the other keys, and nodded in satisfaction. The only key not hanging on a hook behind the desk was for room 11, on the first floor, so that had to be where he’d find the blond-haired Russian clerk.