outside. Across the street from the cafe was a sign that read ‘La Concorde Hotel’. Stratton stepped back around the corner and hit a key on his phone.
‘Brent? He’s at one of the outside tables of the cafe, opposite La Concorde Hotel . . . That’s right . . . Let me know when you’re set up and we’ll pull back.’
Stratton checked around the corner once again then stepped back. ‘Henri’s at the cafe,’ he said to Hank. ‘With a bit of luck it’s the rendezvous. Brent’s going to get a covert camera visual from inside the bookshop on the corner.’
Hank nodded and stepped back out of view of the cafe. This was fun. He was in the thick of it and buzzed by the prospect of watching a meeting between a French intelligence officer spying for the Algerians and a Brit military intelligence officer spying for the RIRA. Out of the blue he thought about Kathryn. He hadn’t spoken to her for almost a week. If everything went well he would see her and the girls before the end of the day. All the team had to do now was video the Brit when he arrived and record the meet. If he got here in the next half-hour they could be home by early evening. He must remember to pick up a couple bottles of French wine, some expensive stuff. Kathryn would like that. Perfume of course would be much smarter. He would try and make love to her tonight, see if he could mend some bridges. It had been three weeks since they last rolled in the hay. He wanted very much to get the relationship back on track. All it needed was some extra effort and understanding on his part to smooth things between them.
He checked his watch. It was five minutes to ten.
Bill pulled on his jacket without taking his eyes off Henri below. He had seen him arrive a moment earlier and watched him now sitting there, calmly reading a newspaper. He knew nothing about Henri other than he worked for French intelligence. He suspected Henri’s sympathies were with Algerian freedom fighters, unless he was doing it for money, but he doubted that somehow. It was a certainty Henri had no interest in the Irish cause. Bill wondered what Henri got out of this. Perhaps the Republicans were providing his people with training; they were, after all, the world’s number one terrorist organisation when it came to small-team tactics. Like Bill, Henri would gain nothing of material value. They were both doing it for their cause, two nationalities, two separate goals, but everything else they had in common: spies, operating alone, deep within the enemy’s ranks, everything to lose if caught, including quite possibly their lives. It was no secret among those in the business that uncovered spies never reached the courts and the attention of the media if it was at all avoidable. And not just because of the embarrassment factor. That was the least important reason. Uncovered spies could continue to do damage even when incarcerated. It was preferable that they mysteriously disappeared or died in an unfortunate accident, the important criterion being they could no longer communicate in any way shape or form. It was unofficial, of course. Those kinds of requests from upon high were never committed to paper.They needed to happen nonetheless. And it had to be kept secret - the kind of secret that was never revealed to the general public, ever. Bill understood it all too well and would be the last person to complain about the logic of it.When the IRA uncovered a tout within its ranks it meant interrogation followed by execution. Bill had such an execution order in his parcel of information for Henri to pass on to his handlers.
Most of the details in the pack involved operations the undercover detachments were mounting and the locations of recent wiretaps and secret observation posts, but it also included the names of two informers within the IRA’s command structure. Bill was sentencing those men to death. Like Bill, they knew the risks they were taking. Indeed, it was possible that one day it could happen to him. And there was the problem for him. Like the sword of Damocles, it was difficult to live with that aspect of the job hanging over him and getting more dangerous each time he provided information. Either because of that danger or simply because he was getting older and wiser, life was becoming more precious to him.
In recent months Bill had grown increasingly concerned with the way the RIRA command was using the information he provided. There was always a danger that if they mismanaged the information it could send up flags as to the possible existence of a spy within British military intelligence. That would release the hounds. The RIRA command was sometimes sensible about allowing the detachments some successes against them so as not to arouse suspicion, but not often enough in Bill’s mind.The favoured ploy was to continue certain operations RIRA learned the Brits were aware of. It was like a pantomime of terrorist activity to keep the watchers occupied while RIRA conducted the real operations elsewhere. The incident that triggered Bill’s alarm bells was the bungled kidnapping attempt of Spinks. He was concerned that RIRA’s obsession with capturing a Pink would tempt them to push the envelope a little too far. Bill blamed himself as much as them though. It was a warning to him that despite his importance he had to take more responsibility for his own security. Included in his package for Henri was a criticism of that kidnapping operation, his fears of information mishandling, and a request that he be allowed to hibernate for a while, years perhaps. If they did not agree he would consider imposing it himself. They couldn’t do much about it. He was an ace in a game where RIRA had so few. But taking charge of his own destiny like that had its dangers.There were those who might not be very understanding.
Bill reached for the window to close it before leaving the room. As he did so he happened to glance down the street. What he saw made him lunge back into the room in utter horror. Fear ripped through him. His breathing quickened as his heart rate soared. Nausea overcame him and he barely managed to hold the vomit down.
He stood there for several seconds, trying to regain control. He could have been mistaken.
He moved around to the far side of the room and then, with his back flat against the wall, he stood on tiptoe to look out on to the street. His view was obscured by the balcony and he inched from side to side until he could fit the road junction between the window frames in the door and the rails.
There was no mistaking it. It was Stratton.
Bill watched Stratton move back around the corner and out of sight.The horrific implications made him giddy with fear. His immediate thought was that Stratton was here to kill him. It would make perfect sense. He knew Bill by sight and he would want revenge for Bill’s part in Spinks’s kidnapping attempt. Bill knew only too well that Stratton was a killer. There were his four official kills, but then there was McGinnis, the IRA sniper, who was found with a broken neck in Warrenpoint the night Stratton was there with his team. There was no proof, of course. But the tout on the border near Bessbrook Mill was different. Bill knew it was Stratton who was responsible because Bill had been there that very night; he couldn’t say anything because he wasn’t supposed to have been. Bill was spying on a meeting between an RUC Special Branch detective and the very same tout. Bill did not know who the tout was at that time, only about the meeting and his existence and he wanted to find out his identity. But unbeknown to Bill, Stratton was also watching the meeting.When the Special Branch officer left, Stratton followed the tout a few hundred yards and killed him. At the time, Bill could not understand why Stratton had killed a tout who was effectively working for the Brits. It was only several months later that he learned the tout had not only been trying to squeeze more money from the Brits for his information and threatened his Special Branch handler with his life, but had also been behind a series of killings of Brit soldiers on shore leave. They were lured to an apartment by his accomplice girlfriend and then murdered. One airman was found dead with his throat slit and his testicles cut off and placed in his mouth. As far as Bill was concerned the bastard deserved everything he got. What truly peaked his curiosity was whether Stratton was acting on his own or working for King Henry. King Henry was a metaphor borrowed from the occasion when Henry II, speaking in anger, commented that the country would be best served if Thomas a Becket were gotten rid of, whereupon four of his knights, who had overheard, rode off and killed him. The point of the metaphor being it was not a direct order, merely a whim from on high.
Bill was afraid he had made Stratton’s dreaded hit list. He grabbed his stuff and hurried to the door. But he stopped in his tracks. Something about the scenario did not add up. He forced himself to consider the facts calmly.Things may not be quite as they appeared and an overreaction could be disastrous.
To begin with, it was possible that it was a coincidence and Stratton was on holiday or on a completely unrelated job. Bill quickly threw out that notion as ridiculous. Stratton had been looking up the street, towards the cafe, partly concealed around a corner. It had to be assumed he was trying to get a look at the cafe and therefore Henri without being seen. If Stratton knew Bill was in the hotel he would not have exposed himself. Stratton was far too good an operative for that. Bill knew him by reputation only, although of course he had seen him several times on his visits to the detachment. Bill felt confident enough of Stratton’s professionalism to conclude that if Stratton wasn’t watching the hotel then no one was. Stratton was watching Henri in the cafe, which would support the supposition that he was not alone and part of a surveillance team. Bill contemplated the possibility that they did not know he was the person meeting Henri. If they were suspicious of him he would have been placed under surveillance and followed from London and they would be watching the hotel. The fact that it was Stratton down in
