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.
‘But the Azzam prod was brought in by Degarde, from Lotus,’ said de Payns. ‘He’s claiming no knowledge of that whole side of it?’
‘Our friend is mainly worried because he’s been spreading himself around the services,’ said Briffaut, fishing one of his Camels from the pack.
‘How thin?’ asked de Payns.
‘Germans won’t take his calls, and the Americans said no to a meeting,’ said Briffaut. ‘It turns out he’s also been talking to the British and the Israelis … and God knows who else.’
‘I guess polygamy has its risks,’ said de Payns, accepting a cigarette.
‘The man’s a whore,’ said Briffaut, lighting up and holding the flame for de Payns. ‘He suited us while it suited us. But now he’s admitting to having talked to us more than the others, we can’t have anything more to do with him.’
De Payns agreed. ‘Spoiled meat?’
Briffaut looked down on the street. ‘No one must know that we had him. The risk of embarrassment is too high.’
They exhaled their smoke through the opened window, aware it was illegal to smoke in a French hotel.
‘Had him?’ asked de Payns. ‘That sounds terminal. What happens now?’
‘We’ll give him that,’ said Briffaut, pointing to a metal briefcase on the table. ‘That’s his one million euro, which should buy him a room like this for a week.’
‘One million?’ echoed de Payns, grimacing.
‘Yes, he gets his money,’ said Briffaut. ‘France honours its promises.’
De Payns laughed. ‘Where do I drop him?’
Briffaut shrugged. ‘Anywhere in Paris, so long as it’s safe for you and Danny.’
‘And that’s it?’ asked de Payns.
‘We can’t use him anymore, and we can’t have him associated with France. Drop him off somewhere, go home and see the family.’
De Payns dragged on his smoke. ‘What about his family?’
‘He’s cut them loose,’ said Briffaut, shaking his head and making a face. ‘He demanded an exfiltration just for himself. His wife and kids are probably in a basement right now.’
‘For a million euro?’
‘And a French passport and a new identity.’ The director of Y Division allowed himself a rare smile. ‘A deal’s a deal.’
■
Lotus held the briefcase close to his chest, like a child who doesn’t want to surrender their teddy bear. As they descended to the parking garage in the elevator, Lotus was chipper, even pleased with himself, despite the attentions of the FSB.
De Payns kept silent, lest he make a comment about the man’s family and their fate. He keyed the radio and told Danny they’d be emerging in a couple of minutes, heading north.
They got in the DGSE car and Lotus couldn’t help himself. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Can’t say,’ said de Payns. ‘You’ll see when we get there.’
‘Your boss told me it’s in the fifth arrondissement,’ said Lotus. ‘That was the deal.’
De Payns drove north up the Avenue George V, bathed in neon signs that beckoned people for a drink and a meal. They crossed the Champs-Élysée into a precinct of smaller hotels and expensive bars.
‘I do love this city,’ said Lotus, smiling now.
They took a left-hand turn, followed a one-way street system and ended up outside the Hôtel Balzac, where de Payns pulled the car to a stop.
‘The Balzac?’ said Lotus, peering through the side window with disappointment. ‘Not what I expected.’
‘You’re not booked into the Balzac,’ said de Payns.
Lotus hugged the briefcase closer. ‘Then why are we here?’
‘This is where you get out.’
Lotus stared at him. ‘I can’t get out here, on the street.’
‘Where else would you get out of this car?’ replied de Payns, deadpanning him.
Lotus’s Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘On the streets of Paris, I’m a dead man! The FSB are following me, remember?!’
De Payns nodded. If the FSB didn’t pick him up, the Russian mob certainly would.
‘I demand to speak with Monsieur de Murat,’ said Lotus, referring to Briffaut. ‘We had a deal!’
‘The deal is that briefcase,’ said de Payns. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he saw Danny had stopped forty metres behind him. ‘You’ve been paid a million euro. Time to go.’
‘Go? I can’t go anywhere,’ spluttered Lotus, his usually sleazy voice now whiny and needy. ‘They’ll find me and kill me, have you thought about that?’
‘Have you thought about where your family is right now?’ asked de Payns, leaning across the man’s chest and opening the passenger door from the inside. ‘Because I have.’
‘Leave my family out of it.’
‘Like you did?’ replied de Payns. He waited for a woman with a pram to walk past, then he reached under his seat and presented a CZ 9mm handgun, which he held low at Lotus’s bladder.
‘You can’t do this,’ said Lotus.
‘You either get out and walk with your money, or I shoot you and keep the briefcase. Your call.’
Lotus’s face froze in fear, his eyes wide in understanding. He slowly reached down, unclicked his seatbelt and inched sideways, putting one foot and then the other on the pavement, as if in a trance.
‘Don’t forget this,’ said de Payns, grabbing the wheelie suitcase from the back seat and throwing it out the door after Lotus.
‘You—you can’t do this,’ Lotus pleaded.
‘And yet, there you are,’ said de Payns, reaching for the door.
‘You damn French,’ said Lotus, rage replacing fear. ‘You make a deal and then you fuck me!’
‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ said de Payns, accelerating into the traffic of Rue Balzac.
His last vision of Lotus was of a confused man, hugging his money.