in the conference room, studying a map, and beside him stood a tall, well-built man with close-cropped hair, who Lacomte introduced as Lieutenant Erulin of the GIGN. Dekker and Trooper Smith eyed him with interest. ‘Fortunately,’ Lacomte said, ‘Lieutenant Erulin speaks English, so we will have no language problems.’
The way he said it made Richter wonder if he was anticipating any other kind of problems. Richter introduced Dekker as Captain Colin of 22 Special Air Service Regiment, and Trooper Smith as Trooper Smith, and they got down to business.
Lacomte began by providing a summary of overnight events, which amounted to very little. Monsieur Giraud and the Minister had summoned him late the previous evening and requested an update, and he would be seeing Giraud again immediately before lunch. The French President had been informed, and had also been in consultation with the American President and the British Prime Minister. ‘The Minister reinforced what Monsieur Giraud said, Mr Beatty,’ Lacomte said. ‘He wants minimal French involvement in this matter.’
Out of the corner of his eye Richter could see Erulin stiffen. ‘Colonel, with respect,’ the GIGN officer began, ‘this operation is already using significant French resources. We will be closing both carriageways of a busy autoroute for a distance of some forty kilometres and a period of, probably, four or five hours. We will be using two articulated lorries and numerous emergency vehicles, not to mention the gendarmes and others who will have to be at the scene to provide local colour. It seems pointless to me to pretend that it is an unauthorized British operation. GIGN personnel are perfectly capable of handling this entire matter.’ He waved a hand dismissively towards Dekker and Smith.
Lacomte regarded him levelly for a moment. ‘I think you may well be right, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘I suggest that you call the Minister and Monsieur Giraud immediately and tell them that they are wrong.’ Erulin stared at him for a moment, then dropped his gaze. ‘No?’ Lacomte continued. ‘Right, then we do it their way.’
Erulin lapsed into a sullen silence. Richter wondered how his attitude would affect the co-operation they were going to need with GIGN personnel, and he knew Dekker would be thinking exactly the same.
‘As the subject of manpower has been raised,’ Lacomte continued, with a glance at the GIGN lieutenant, ‘this might be an opportune time to look at the forces available to us.’ He looked over at Dekker. ‘I understand you have three men with you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Dekker replied. ‘A standard four-man patrol.’
Lacomte nodded. ‘Lieutenant Erulin is in command of a GIGN strike team, which is all the French involvement that Monsieur Giraud wishes. For those of you not familiar with GIGN operating procedures—’ he clearly meant all of the non-French in the room ‘—that’s two five-man intervention forces, plus a dog and handler. I don’t think we’re going to need the dog today, as I’m sure we can all find a lorry on a deserted autoroute.’ Dekker rewarded him with a polite smile. ‘So that gives us a total of fourteen personnel, plus Captain Colin, Lieutenant Erulin and, of course, Mr Beatty and myself. I assume,’ he said, looking at Richter, ‘that you, Mr Herron and Mr Westwood are not intending to participate in the actual assault?’
‘Certainly not,’ Richter said, looking at Colin Dekker. ‘No point in having a dog and barking yourself.’ Erulin sneered at him.
‘I’m out of this,’ Westwood said. ‘My boss wants me to keep a watching brief, but he didn’t say anything about me being shot at.’
‘Very well,’ Lacomte continued, ‘I don’t want to discuss the actual tactics of the assault at this stage, as until we know the composition of the opposition it would only be speculation, but what we can do is assess distances and average speeds.’ He looked down at his map. ‘Strasbourg to Metz is about one hundred and fifty kilometres, Metz to Reims around two hundred, and Reims to Laon about fifty. If we add, say, another ten kilometres from the Laon intersection to the site of the operation, that gives a total of just over four hundred kilometres.’ He glanced round the table. ‘How fast can a lorry travel?’
‘Too bloody fast, in most cases,’ Dekker said.
‘We’re not talking about an average trucker with a deadline to meet,’ Richter said. ‘This is a large, heavy and very dangerous load, and it’s not just the truck, it’s also the cars. They’ll all have to make stops for food, fuel, toilets, sleep and all the rest, so I’d have thought we should estimate a fairly low average speed. They’ll also probably stick to the speed limits, because the last thing they’ll want to do is attract attention.’
‘If they do it’ll be about the only lorry in France that does obey the speed limits,’ Tony Herron murmured.
‘Let’s have some numbers, then,’ Lacomte asked. ‘Mr Beatty?’
‘My guess would be no more than eighty kilometres an hour, overall.’
Lacomte did a quick calculation on the paper in front of him. ‘That gives a total journey time from Strasbourg of about five hours.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Let’s give ourselves a reasonable time frame. What’s the fastest possible speed we could expect the convoy to achieve? One hundred kilometres an hour?’
‘Make it one ten,’ Dekker said.
‘Right. One hundred and ten – that gives a time of about three and a half hours. So we can work on the basis that the convoy will arrive here,’ he tapped the ringed section on his map with the pencil, ‘between three and a half and five hours after departure from Strasbourg.’
‘So all we need now,’ said Colin Dekker, ‘is the time the lorry is going to clear Strasbourg and start heading this way.’
Right on cue there was a knock at the door and a DST man entered with a sheet of paper, which he handed to Lacomte. They all waited expectantly while the colonel scanned it. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘The Gendarmerie in Strasbourg has reported that the Russian convoy arrived early this morning, but the delays caused by the roadworks have held all the vehicles at Strasbourg. They do not expect the convoy will be able to continue its journey until mid-morning at the earliest. More importantly for us, we now know what we’re up against.’
Unlike the crossing at Waidhaus, getting over the German/French border had been a mere formality. All four vehicles had been ordered to stop, probably because of their Moscow plates and because they were quite obviously travelling together, but all the French Customs officers and gendarmes had done was inspect their passports. They hadn’t even bothered asking what the lorry was carrying or why twelve Russian diplomats were driving together across Europe.
The border crossing had been easy, but getting through Strasbourg had been a nightmare. As far as Modin had been able to discover, a water main had burst just to the west of the border by the Rhine. They had reached the end of the traffic queue whilst still on the autoroute and approaching Kehl, and by that time they had little choice. They couldn’t turn round on the autoroute, and the only two junctions they could have taken off it wouldn’t have helped. The one to the south ran down to Lahr and Offenburg, and the northerly turning would have taken them through Rheinau and on to Rastatt, but neither offered any crossings of the Rhine or of the border. They had had no option but to carry on through Strasbourg.
The city was in a state of chaos. The gendarmes had been doing their best, but Strasbourg was virtually grid-locked and all traffic was subject to diversions. Local traffic was being allowed through the centre, but all vehicles in transit had been forced to head south out of eastern Strasbourg on minor roads, through Plobsheim and Erstein, before being allowed to join the N83. From the junction to the west of Erstein, traffic had been flowing freely in both directions. Modin had hoped there would be no further problems around Strasbourg, but once they had joined the autoroute A35 past Illkirch-Graffenstaden, traffic had again come to a virtual standstill because of vehicles leaving the autoroute to get into the centre of the city.
‘At last,’ Bykov said, as the limousine accelerated away. The Mercedes was the last vehicle in the convoy, then heading north up the autoroute A4, taking the loop past Brumath and Hochfelden rather than the more direct, but much busier, road to Saverne.
‘Chaos,’ Modin agreed. ‘Total chaos. We have probably lost two or three hours. Order the convoy to increase speed. Aim for one hundred and ten kilometres an hour. We must make that ferry tonight.’
Le Moulin au Pouchon
Hassan Abbas read the decrypted text from the email he had just received from Dmitri Trushenko and grunted in satisfaction. The
