‘No.’
‘Or for any proof of your eating there?’
‘They don’t suspect me!’ insisted Sulafeh, in weak defiance. ‘They’re putting it down to a street mugging: embarrassing in the circumstances, maybe, but just a mugging.’
Why hadn’t he thought of the need to identify a café other than the bistro! Because he’d become sexually involved and failed to be as objective to the degree of removed sterility to which he had been trained. No more, Zenin determined. And never again.
‘What else?’ he asked.
Sulafeh sniggered, coquettish again. ‘Guess what Zeidan said, afterwards?’
‘What?’ responded Zenin, forcing the patience.
‘He said there was no possibility of bringing anyone else in to replace Dajani,’ recounted Sulafeh. ‘That he was sorry if there had been any misunderstanding between us and that he had the greatest admiration for me as a linguist. And that he was sure I could take over the sole responsibility, demanding though it might be!’
Zenin forced his cynical laugh. ‘So it worked,’ he said.
‘I am back where I should be, for the picture session,’ she announced, almost proudly. ‘It’s all right now.’
Zenin relaxed, just slightly. ‘Good,’ he said, distantly. ‘Very good.’ Now everything could work as it was designed to work: it would be all right, like she said.
‘The police told me something, during the interview,’ announced Sulafeh.
‘What!’ said Zenin again, feeling his tension rise.
‘About Dajani,’ she said. ‘Do you know what you did to him? You broke his pelvis.’
‘Did I?’ said the Russian, in apparent innocence.
‘He really won’t need those condoms again for a long time, will he!’
Zenin realized the direction of her conversation and did not want to follow it. He said: ‘Does the translator change involve anyone at the conference?’
She shook her head. ‘It was made public today at the Palais des Nations, on an adjustment of representation order: there was no reaction whatsoever, apart from a few ridiculous expressions of sympathy for the randy bastard.’
It seemed he had got away with it, thought Zenin. He said: ‘We’ll need to meet tomorrow, for you to tell me of any last minute changes.’
‘When do I get the gun?’ she demanded, eagerly.
‘Then.’
‘Why not today?’
‘Too dangerous,’ he refused. ‘There could be a spot check, even though you’ve made friends with the security people. Someone could go through your room. Better to leave it until the very last moment.’
‘I have to be at the Palais des Nations by eight-thirty.’
‘It will have to be before.’
‘Shall I come to the apartment?’
‘No!’ said Zenin, too anxiously. He’d taken his last chance with the woman: from this moment on it was distancing time. Less forcefully, not wanting to upset her, he said: ‘I told you yesterday we’ve got to protect the mission: nothing else matters now until that is all over.’
‘We’ve still got to make arrangements for afterwards,’ she said.
‘One step at a time,’ Zenin insisted, thinking. The railway terminal was an obvious meeting place but they had used that almost too much; and it was the route he had chosen for his escape, so it would be definitely wrong to be seen there with her. A hotel then. He said: ‘Do you have a list of the delegation hotels?’
‘Yes,’ she said, bending to the large briefcase and handing it to him.
Zenin ran through the list, from the Beau-Rivage and the Des Bergues and the President and the Bristol and then smiled up: ‘On the Quai Terretini there’s the Du Rhône: it’s on the way you will take, from your hotel to the conference. I will be in the foyer at seven.’
‘What do I do?’
‘If there are any changes to the schedule just hand me the sheets.’
‘The gun!’
‘And I’ll give you the gun,’ promised Zenin, patiently.
‘And afterwards?’
‘You’ve got a city map?’
‘I bought one the first day.’
‘Memorize where the Rue de Vermont connects with the Rue de Montbrilliant,’ instructed Zenin. ‘There will be immediate panic, when the shooting starts. Get away from the garden and out of the international area at once and go to that connecting point.’
‘I understand,’ said Sulafeh, intently.
‘I will already be waiting there. The car is a blue Mercedes, numbered 18–32–4. You got that?’ said Zenin. The Peugeot was brown, the number was 19–45–8 and it would anyway be at Carouge, awaiting his arrival off the train.
‘Blue Mercedes, licence number 18–32–4,’ Sulafeh recited, trustingly.
‘Where would you like to go?’ asked the Russian.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Anywhere, as long as it’s with you.’
Playing the part, Zenin reached across the table, covering her hand with his. ‘You’re going to be,’ he promised.
‘Please let’s go to the apartment now,’ she said. ‘I want you!’
‘I thought you wanted the gun, just as much?’ said Zenin, the excuse already formulated.
‘I don’t understand,’ said the woman.
‘The weapons aren’t here in Geneva,’ lied the Russian. ‘I’ve got to get them. There isn’t time for the apartment today.’
Zenin walked from the café to collect the car from the railway terminal, relieved to be away from the claustrophobia of Sulafeh’s attention. He took the south route out of the city, the lake grey and stretched away to his left, picking up the Carouge signpost almost at once. This time tomorrow, he thought, it would all be over. He was beginning to feel excited: excited but not nervous.
David Levy made the demand as soon as he entered the office of Brigadier Blom in the Geneva safe house. Roger Giles was already there and said he thought it was a good idea, as well.
‘I’ve arranged the tour for the security services of the participating countries,’ said Blom, stiffly. ‘That’s all.’
‘What harm would it do for Charlie Muffin to come along?’ asked Levy.
‘He has no cause or reason to be there.’
‘Or not to be, by the same token,’ pointed out the American. ‘I’d actually like him along.’
‘So would I,’ said Levy. ‘We’re all convinced it’s a false alarm. Let’s show him the protection is more than adequate, whatever happens.’
Charlie responded at once to Blom’s telephone call, nodding as the man extended the invitation.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ said Charlie.
Chapter Thirty-three
They swept up to the Palais des Nations in Blom’s official car and were gestured straight through the criss-cross barriers and on into the conference complex. The vehicle stopped at the front entrance, where another man in uniform who was never introduced saluted the brigadier smartly and nodded to Levy, Giles and Charlie, all of whom nodded back.
‘Central control first,’ announced Blom.
The uniformed man led into the main building and along a wide, sweeping corridor where other uniformed security guards were obvious and very visible: one group were actually looking through a bag being carried by a woman in one of the side offices as they went by. There was an average of two men in each group carrying handheld metal detectors.
The control room was on the second floor, its entrance guarded. The man came smartly to attention, opening the door as they approached for them to enter unhindered. It was a large, circular room, its walls lined in serried rows with television monitors in front of which sat operators manipulating banks of camera adjustments and sound switches. The camera placings inside the huge conference chamber ensured no part of it was unobserved. The corridor along which they had earlier walked was also well covered, as well as the entry area where the delegation leaders would be received. Externally the cameras were clustered over the entrance area, so that every section of the approach was displayed, and further cameras were installed around the building to give practically a complete view of the grounds outside. The special area where the commemorative photographs were to be taken had a separate camera grouping, supplying three different monitors with visibility almost as good as that in the conference room. Blom handed each of them the final, definitive conference schedule.