Dark Arena by Jack Beaumont

Author:Jack Beaumont [Jack Beaumont]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2023-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

De Payns put his COVID mask in his pocket and lit a cigarette at the cafe he’d found across the road from the George V. Although masks were no longer mandatory, de Payns found them useful for daytime operations. He used the smoking action to scan the street, seeing Danny’s motorbike parked at his ten o’clock, and knew that the team’s backup man from the Lotus operation was sitting in a cafe and watching the hotel, freaking out at the cost of a cup of coffee in this part of the city.

He keyed the radio. ‘Aguilar to Danny. Package is secure?’

‘Danny copy. We’re clear. Standing by.’

He sat back and relaxed with his cigarette and coffee, having just used three trains to get from CDG to this part of Paris. Now he was waiting to be called in by Briffaut, who was debriefing Lotus upstairs. The cafe played news radio rather than the customary jazz, and de Payns listened to the bulletins that talked about the Russian build-up in Ukraine’s east. It felt like a very controlled media rollout, and he was cynical about such ‘news’. Accurate numbers on troop deployments and inside knowledge of joint military exercises in Belarus did not appear in the news because of excellent journalism; they appeared because someone like Sturt or Frasier wanted them there.

De Payns was on his second coffee when he received the call to tell him he was needed. He rose to his feet and crossed the road to the Hotel George V. The sun had set and cold was settling on Paris.

On the fifth floor, the DGSE guard opened the suite door. De Payns walked through to where Briffaut stood in the living area, looking through the glass at Gustav Eiffel’s ‘temporary’ structure which was lighting up for its nightly show.

‘He’s having a shower,’ said Briffaut, now in his shirtsleeves, no tie.

‘How did it go?’ asked de Payns.

‘He had a lot to drink,’ said Briffaut, looking intently at the window frame in front of him. ‘We had a heart to heart and he really talked. He’s expecting us to hide him and his money.’

‘He thinks he’s in Switzerland?’ asked de Payns.

‘He says the Russians are aware of leaks to the European services and the prod anticipates everything they’re planning. The Russians think Lotus is the leak.’

‘Does Lotus suspect there’s another source?’

Briffaut shook his head slowly. ‘He didn’t mention it, but the important thing for us is that the prod is authentic—authentic enough that the Russians are killing off the Lotus network to shut it down.’

‘Does he know which specific piece of information is really annoying the Russians?’

Briffaut looked at de Payns. ‘I tried to edge him into Azzam, Wagner and possible assassinations, and he couldn’t help me,’ said Briffaut. ‘If he was going to start singing, now would be the time, but he didn’t. So I’m thinking the source the Russians are really looking for is the Starkand group. What do you think?’

De Payns realised his boss had been trying to unhitch the window, and he finally succeeded.

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