people. Someone could go through your room. Better to leave it until the very last moment.’
‘I have to be at the Palais des Nations by eight-thirty.’
‘It will have to be before.’
‘Shall I come to the apartment?’
‘No!’ said Zenin, too anxiously. He’d taken his last chance with the woman: from this moment on it was distancing time. Less forcefully, not wanting to upset her, he said: ‘I told you yesterday we’ve got to protect the mission: nothing else matters now until that is all over.’
‘We’ve still got to make arrangements for afterwards,’ she said.
‘One step at a time,’ Zenin insisted, thinking. The railway terminal was an obvious meeting place but they had used that almost too much; and it was the route he had chosen for his escape, so it would be definitely wrong to be seen there with her. A hotel then. He said: ‘Do you have a list of the delegation hotels?’
‘Yes,’ she said, bending to the large briefcase and handing it to him.
Zenin ran through the list, from the Beau-Rivage and the Des Bergues and the President and the Bristol and then smiled up: ‘On the Quai Terretini there’s the Du Rhone: it’s on the way you will take, from your hotel to the conference. I will be in the foyer at seven.’
‘What do I do?’
‘If there are any changes to the schedule just hand me the sheets.’
‘The gun!’
‘And I’ll give you the gun,’ promised Zenin, patiently.
‘And afterwards?’
‘You’ve got a city map?’
‘I bought one the first day.’
‘Memorize where the Rue de Vermont connects with the Rue de Montbrilliant,’ instructed Zenin. ‘There will be immediate panic, when the shooting starts. Get away from the garden and out of the international area at once and go to that connecting point.’
‘I understand,’ said Sulafeh, intently.
‘I will already be waiting there. The car is a blue Mercedes, numbered 18–32–4. You got that?’ said Zenin. The Peugeot was brown, the number was 19–45–8 and it would anyway be at Carouge, awaiting his arrival off the train.
‘Blue Mercedes, licence number 18–32–4,’ Sulafeh recited, trustingly.
‘Where would you like to go?’ asked the Russian.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Anywhere, as long as it’s with you.’
Playing the part, Zenin reached across the table, covering her hand with his. ‘You’re going to be,’ he promised.
‘Please let’s go to the apartment now,’ she said. ‘I want you!’
‘I thought you wanted the gun, just as much?’ said Zenin, the excuse already formulated.
‘I don’t understand,’ said the woman.
‘The weapons aren’t here in Geneva,’ lied the Russian. ‘I’ve got to get them. There isn’t time for the apartment today.’
Zenin walked from the cafe to collect the car from the railway terminal, relieved to be away from the claustrophobia of Sulafeh’s attention. He took the south route out of the city, the lake grey and stretched away to his left, picking up the Carouge signpost almost at once. This time tomorrow, he thought, it would all be over. He was beginning to feel excited: excited but not nervous.
David Levy made the demand as soon as he entered the office of Brigadier Blom in the Geneva safe house. Roger Giles was already there and said he thought it was a good idea, as well.
‘I’ve arranged the tour for the security services of the participating countries,’ said Blom, stiffly. ‘That’s all.’
‘What harm would it do for Charlie Muffin to come along?’ asked Levy.
‘He has no cause or reason to be there.’
‘Or not to be, by the same token,’ pointed out the American. ‘I’d actually like him along.’
‘So would I,’ said Levy. ‘We’re all convinced it’s a false alarm. Let’s show him the protection is more than adequate, whatever happens.’
Charlie responded at once to Blom’s telephone call, nodding as the man extended the invitation.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ said Charlie.
Chapter Thirty-three
They swept up to the Palais des Nations in Blom’s official car and were gestured straight through the criss- cross barriers and on into the conference complex. The vehicle stopped at the front entrance, where another man in uniform who was never introduced saluted the brigadier smartly and nodded to Levy, Giles and Charlie, all of whom nodded back.
‘Central control first,’ announced Blom.
The uniformed man led into the main building and along a wide, sweeping corridor where other uniformed security guards were obvious and very visible: one group were actually looking through a bag being carried by a woman in one of the side offices as they went by. There was an average of two men in each group carrying handheld metal detectors.
The control room was on the second floor, its entrance guarded. The man came smartly to attention, opening the door as they approached for them to enter unhindered. It was a large, circular room, its walls lined in serried rows with television monitors in front of which sat operators manipulating banks of camera adjustments and sound switches. The camera placings inside the huge conference chamber ensured no part of it was unobserved. The corridor along which they had earlier walked was also well covered, as well as the entry area where the delegation leaders would be received. Externally the cameras were clustered over the entrance area, so that every section of the approach was displayed, and further cameras were installed around the building to give practically a complete view of the grounds outside. The special area where the commemorative photographs were to be taken had a separate camera grouping, supplying three different monitors with visibility almost as good as that in the conference room. Blom handed each of them the final, definitive conference schedule.
Charlie accepted it but did not look at it. Instead he said: ‘If any of these operators see something suspicious what is the system for them to raise any alarm?’
Blom’s unidentified aide indicated telephones in front of each operator and said: ‘They are direct lines to security control.’
‘Does security control have a matching monitor system?’ demanded Charlie.
‘No.’
‘So a verbal description has to be given of whatever appears suspicious: and where it’s happening has also got to be verbally described?’ persisted Charlie.
‘Each man – the operator here and the security supervisor in their section – work from identical, grid-divided maps,’ came in Blom. ‘The location is instantaneous: the system has been extensively practised and works very satisfactorily.’
‘How long, from the moment of picking up a telephone in this room, until someone from security gets to the designated spot on the map?’ asked Levy.
Blom looked to the assistant, who hesitated. Then he said: ‘Five minutes.’
A guess if ever he’d witnessed one, thought Charlie. He said: ‘You think you’d have five minutes in a real security emergency situation?’
‘No doubt you’ve got a superior suggestion,’ said Blom, sarcastically.
‘What about a sound alarm, a klaxon?’ said Charlie. Was it all a waste of time? he wondered. Or might it just stir some reaction? Whatever, he supposed he had to try, if only for his own satisfaction.
