LITMIR.BIZ

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other one,’ Savary said.

      ‘Margaret Thatcher. She’s staying at Choisy tonight, leaves for Valenton at two? I can tell you all about the man who’s going to see she never gets there.’

      Jules Savary had never come awake so fast. ‘Where are you, Le Chat Noir?’

      ‘Yes,’ Jobert told him.

      ‘Half an hour.’ Savary slammed down the phone, leapt out of bed and started to dress.

      It was at exactly the same moment that Dillon decided to move on. The fact that Gaston had followed him didn’t necessarily mean anything more than the fact that the brothers were anxious to know more about him. On the other hand …

      He left, locking the door, found the backstairs and descended cautiously. There was a door at the bottom which opened easily enough and gave access to a yard at the rear. An alley brought him to the main road. He crossed, walked along a line of parked trucks, chose one about fifty yards from the hotel, but giving him a good view. He got his knife out, worked away at the top of the passenger window. After a while it gave so that he could get his fingers in and exert pressure. A minute later he was inside. Better not to smoke so he sat back, collar up, hands in pockets and waited. It was half-past three when the four unmarked cars eased up to the hotel. Eight men got out, none in uniform, which was interesting.

      ‘Action Service, or I miss my guess,’ Dillon said softly.

      Gaston Jobert got out of the rear car and stood talking to them for a moment then they all moved into the hotel. Dillon wasn’t angry, just pleased that he’d got it right. He left the truck, crossed the road to the shelter of the nearest alley and started to walk to the warehouse in rue de Helier.

      The French secret service, notorious for years as the SDECE has had its name changed to Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, DGSE, under the Mitterrand government in an attempt to improve the image of a shady and ruthless organisation with a reputation for stopping at nothing. Having said that, measured by results, few intelligence organisations in the world are so efficient.

      The service, as in the old days, was still divided into five sections and many departments, the most famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, being Section Five, more commonly known as Action Service, the department responsible for the smashing of the OAS.

      Colonel Max Hernu had been involved in all that, had hunted the OAS down as ruthlessly as anyone in spite of having served as a paratrooper in both Indo-China and Algeria. He was sixty-one years of age, an elegant, white-haired man who now sat at his desk in the office on the first floor of DGSE’s headquarters on the Boulevard Mortier. It was just before five o’clock and Hernu, wearing horn-rimmed reading glasses, studied the report in front of him. He had been staying the night at his country cottage forty miles out of Paris and had only just arrived. Inspector Savary watched respectfully.

      Hernu removed his glasses. ‘I loathe this time of the morning. Takes me back to Dien Bien Phu and the waiting for the end. Pour me another coffee, will you?’

      Savary took his cup, went to the electric pot on the stand and poured the coffee, strong and black. ‘What do you think, sir?’

      ‘These Jobert brothers, you believe they’re telling us everything?’

      ‘Absolutely, sir, I’ve known them for years. Big Pierre was OAS which he thinks gives him class, but they’re second-rate hoods really. They do well in stolen cars.’

      ‘So this would be out of their league?’

      ‘Very definitely. They’ve admitted to me that they’ve sold this man Rocard cars in the past.’

      ‘Of the hot variety?’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Of course they are telling the truth. The ten thousand dollars speak for them there. But this man Rocard, you’re an experienced copper, Inspector. How many years on the street?’

      ‘Fifteen, sir.’

      ‘Give me your opinion.’

      ‘His physical description is interesting because according to the Jobert boys, there isn’t one. He’s small, no more than one sixty-five. No discernible colour to the eyes, fair hair. Gaston says the first time they met him he thought he was a nothing and then he apparently half-killed some guy twice his size in the bar in about five seconds flat.’

      ‘Go on.’ Hernu lit a cigarette.

      ‘Pierre says his French is too perfect.’

      ‘What does he mean by that?’

      ‘He doesn’t know. It’s just that he always felt that there was something wrong.’

      ‘That he wasn’t French?’

      ‘Exactly. Two facts of interest there. He’s always whistling a funny little tune. Gaston picked it up because he plays accordion. He says Rocard told him once that it was Irish.’

      ‘Now that is interesting.’

      ‘A further point. When he was assembling the machine gun in the back of the Renault at Valenton he told the boys it was a Kalashnikov. Not just bullets. Tracer, armour piercing, the lot. He said he’d seen one take out a Land Rover full of British paratroopers. Pierre didn’t like to ask him where.’

      ‘So, you smell IRA here, Inspector? And what have you done about it?’

      ‘Got your people to get the picture books out, Colonel. The Joberts are looking through them right now.’

      ‘Excellent.’ Hernu got up and this time refilled his coffee cup himself. ‘What do you make of the hotel business? Do you think he’s been alerted?’

      ‘Perhaps, but not necessarily,’ Savary said. ‘I mean what have we got here, sir? A real pro out to make the hit of a lifetime. Maybe he was just being extra careful, just to make sure he wasn’t followed to his real destination. I mean, I wouldn’t trust the Joberts an inch, so why should he?’

      He shrugged and Max Hernu said shrewdly, ‘There’s more. Spit it out.’

      ‘I got a bad feeling about this guy, Colonel. I think he’s special. I think he may have used the hotel thing because he suspected that Gaston might follow him, but then he’d want to know why. Was it the Joberts just being curious or was there more to it?’

      ‘So you think he could have been up the street watching our people arrive?’

      ‘Very possibly. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t know Gaston was tailing him. Maybe the hotel thing was a usual precaution. An old Resistance trick from the war.’

      Hernu nodded. ‘Right, let’s see if they’ve finished. Have them in.’

      Savary went out and returned with the Jobert brothers. They stood there looking worried and Hernu said, ‘Well?’

      ‘No luck, Colonel. He wasn’t in any of the books.’

      ‘All right,’ Hernu said. ‘Wait downstairs. You’ll be taken home. We’ll collect you again later.’

      ‘But what for, Colonel?’ Pierre asked.

      ‘So that your brother can go to Valenton in the Renault and you can follow in the car just like Rocard told you. Now get out.’ They hurriedly left and Hernu said to Savary, ‘We’ll see Mrs Thatcher is spirited to safety by another route, but a pity to disappoint our friend Rocard.’

      ‘If he turns up, Colonel.’

      ‘You never know, he just might. You’ve done well, Inspector. I think I’ll have to requisition you for Section Five. Would you mind?’

      Would he mind? Savary almost choked with emotion. ‘An honour, sir.’

      ‘Good. Go and get a shower then and some breakfast. I’ll see you later.’

      ‘And you, Colonel.’

      ‘Me,

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