The new Gare de Mons was a sweeping temple of white concrete, as if the old LAX flying-saucer building had had a love child with the Sydney Opera House. De Payns alighted from the Intercity train he’d caught from Brussels, having taken the Thalys from Paris, and walked the clean Belgian concourse to the taxi ranks outside. He gave the address of the Hôtel Saint Georges, selected for its location off the main streets and paid for in advance with cash through a travel agent in Paris, claiming his wallet had been stolen and he’d had to revert to his emergency cash. He checked in as Sébastien Duboscq and went to the third floor, where he did his sweeps of the room. He observed the street from his window and looked for people sitting in cars and service vans that seemed to be doing more parking than servicing.
He switched on the TV, which received Belgian and French services, and lay on the double bed. He’d called Raven from Paris two days before, introduced himself and told her he was going to be in Brussels later in the week. He’d asked if they could meet in Mons to discuss some translation work for his website. His adrenaline was now elevated. This was the ‘action’ work that the Y Division was created to do, and de Payns had been trained specifically for the task. Yes, he could drive fast, use firearms and make bombs. But accessing a human’s life, becoming part of it and betraying the trust created with that person, was on another level. It was difficult to initiate, hard to maintain and, if the target was protected in any way, it was dangerous. In order to appear calm and natural, an OT had to be meticulous and hard-working. It was like the proverbial duck on the pond—just because the effort was hidden from view, it didn’t mean there was no frantic paddling beneath the surface.
He lay on the bed and ticked boxes in his head—AlphaPharma Consulting had an address known to other businesses, and a business registration; it had a list of clients and engagements that could be checked. If ISI went nosing around the Paris offices of AlphaPharma, they might not find Sébastien Duboscq behind his desk, but they’d probably run into Claire, who could tell them all about the man she’d shared a smoke with just the other day. Sébastien had a personal identity, a driver’s licence, an address and a trail of social network activity on Facebook and LinkedIn. His work phone number was backed up and his two most recent clients would be verified by someone in the administration section of Y Division. This preparation was critical—if a target was being monitored by a secret service, they would test de Payns’ fictive ID; if there was one loose thread, a good intelligence operative would pull at it until the entire fabric unravelled.
Raven and Sébastien were planning to meet at Café Havre at 6 p.m.—early enough to make it professional but informal enough to start on a sociable footing. It had to be a good first meeting. De Payns took a shower and opened the Paco Rabanne toilette set he’d bought, using the deodorant and splashing on the cologne after he’d shaved. He dressed casually at first and made a pass of the venue at 5.28 p.m. He wanted to memorise the global picture so when he turned up for the actual meeting he’d be able to spot if something wasn’t right. The cafe was located on the corner of the main street and a well-used cross street. De Payns knew how an intelligence team would set up around and inside the cafe, and he could see nothing amiss.
He returned to the hotel, dressed in his suit and English shoes, and walked the three blocks to the cafe with a small leather satchel, arriving two minutes early. He sat against a wall so he could see the street, the entrance and the hallway that led to the WCs. There was virtually no one in the place—the Belgians ate even later the French. As the waitress poured a water and asked if anyone else was joining him, Raven walked into the cafe, dressed in a stylish dark blue silk blouse and white flared pants with medium heels. De Payns sprang to his feet, all smiles, and she blushed.
‘Hi, Anoush?’ he said, putting out his hand. ‘Sébastien Duboscq from AlphaPharma.’
She seemed a little flustered. ‘Hello, Monsieur Duboscq.’
‘Call me Seb, please,’ he said, hurrying around the table to pull
out the chair for her. ‘You’re on time. Such a refreshing change.’
De Payns found that a positive comment about a person’s professionalism always worked better than flattery about their looks or clothes.
‘So you’ve had some bad experiences with translators?’ asked Raven, as she sat in the proffered chair.
De Payns explained that he sometimes required translations at short notice, and occasionally these were technical—not all translators were up to it.
‘What kind of technical material?’ she asked.
‘Obviously, some of the writing is purely pharmaceutical and chemical, and there are trials and testing regimes to explain, which don’t always translate well from European languages,’ he said.
She laughed and he could see good dentistry. ‘You’ve had some experience with scientific work?’ He smiled as he looked at the menu.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘But some of the translations I’ve seen are hilarious.’
De Payns found her personable although she was heavy-handed with the Opium. He pushed on, telling her he had a website he wanted translated into Urdu and Pashto, and his main body of work was for clients in the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries who saw developing markets in Pakistan, Iran and the Stans.
‘But I will have to ask you to sign an NDA,’ said de Payns, once he knew she was interested and had the technical experience. ‘I only have a business if my clients are satisfied that I’m not disclosing anything about them to my other clients.’
He kept things charming but distant, and when they’d finished their meals de Payns made it clear he was not ordering another bottle of wine, keeping their meeting clearly in the ‘business’ category. As he put her in a taxi, he shook her hand, thanked her for the meeting, and suggested they meet again in a week when he’d have the NDA and the commercial engagement paperwork ready to sign.
‘Thank you for that,’ she said, slipping sideways into the taxi. ‘It looks like interesting work.’
As she disappeared into the long dusk, de Payns felt a rush of excitement at the first contact. It was always like this for him—out of the shadows, a ghost no more.