After fifteen kilometres of dual-carriageway the two cars drifted out of the right-hand lane on to a side road leading up towards the mountains. Neil had studied the road plan round the farmhouse from contour maps. The ground was open, rising slightly, but the mist was closing in, hiding almost completely the dark slopes of mountain ahead. He remembered that the spot had been chosen because it was exposed and free from ambush. He now began to wonder how much the weather would affect security arrangements. He looked at Le Hir, who sat grim-faced and quiet.
Neil said, ‘I don’t much like this mist. Is it going to make things more difficult?’
‘Never mind the mist,’ said Le Hir, still staring ahead, ‘the plan will proceed as before. You will be protected.’
As he spoke, the Citroën pulled off the road into a layby. Ahead of them stood a sand-coloured Mk 10 Jaguar.
The Citroën crunched up beside it and stopped. The driver leapt out and held the rear door open, and Neil and Le Hir stepped out. The second Citroën, with the two legionnaires, had drawn up behind the Jaguar.
Neil had heard about this car. Yellow Venetian blinds were pulled down over the side and rear windows, which were of bullet-proof glass. The coachwork had been reinforced with armoured plating and the tyres were self-sealing. It had been built specially for Guérin while he was Commander-in-Chief in the Protectorate, as a safeguard against assassination attempts by Arab Front terrorists. It was one of the General’s conceits that he still dared use it as his personal car, although it was well known to all the security forces.
Le Hir opened the rear door of the Jaguar, saluted and spoke to someone in the back, then stood aside. Neil stooped down and climbed into the sudden darkness of the car which had a brittle smell of pinewood. The driver had turned to watch; he sat behind a glass partition, holding a machine-pistol in his lap. He made up the full escort of six.
Neil looked along the wide leather seat at the man in the corner. He looked smaller and older than in his photographs. His hair was thin with a transparent silvery shine, combed straight back from his tall brow, making him look almost bald. He had a strong jaw and a good profile, but there were pouches of chicken skin sagging under the eyes which had the jaundiced look of a man who does not sleep well. He sat with one elbow on the padded armrest between them, peering at Neil in the dim striped light from the Venetian blinds. ‘So you are Monsieur Ingleby?’ he said at last, in a slow pleasant voice.
Neil replied, with a natural reverence of which he was rather ashamed afterwards, ‘I am honoured to make your acquaintance, mon General!’
Paul Guérin looked at his watch. The time was 6.44. ‘We are a minute in advance,’ he said, and stirred forward in his seat, adding, ‘I am pleased with the way you have handled the negotiations in the last four days, Monsieur Ingleby. You have shown tenacity and intelligence. My opinion of journalism as a profession’ — he slid back a pane in the glass partition — ‘has risen considerably. Drive on!’ he snapped at the driver.
The engine hummed with quiet force, and the great car moved out into the road between the two Citroëns. They drove fast, with the mist growing thicker, the road beginning to climb, turning and heading into the brown darkness that was the mountains. Neil tried to recall the details of the contour map. He remembered the two straight roads that led up to the farm, and the octagonal design of the outer walls: sheds and barns along three sides, the farmhouse and courtyard in the middle, with the gate leading out to where the two roads met. The mountains began to rise about a quarter of a mile behind; and towards the sea the land was flat for more than three miles of rank maize fields.
General Guérin did not speak again during the drive; and Neil, tense and watchful, did not attempt to break the silence.
At 6.57 the leading Citroën slowed suddenly. Neil saw the rear lights of the car in front flash on and off three times. He thought they were the brake lights. He did not know that the driver was flashing the yellow high beam at a point somewhere in the mountains.
The leading Citroën now turned off the road on to a rutted dirt track. Neil presumed that this was one of the two roads to the farm. After less than twenty yards the convoy stopped. Le Hir came round and opened the Jaguar door. Guérin said quietly, ‘Monsieur Ingleby, you will now verify that the enemy has honoured their agreement. We shall wait here until you return.’ As he spoke, his eyes were old and worried, one slender grey hand stroking the seam of his immaculate dark flannel trousers.
Neil got out. Le Hir closed the door after him, standing there in his khaki raincoat, huge and menacing, with the briefcase grasped to his chest, and said, ‘It is less than a kilometre up the track. When you get inside make sure that all three of them are there, and that they have brought no more than six men.’
The engines of the three cars had been switched off. Le Hir looked at his watch: ‘Right! It should not take you more than thirty minutes at the most.’
Neil turned and began to walk up the track into the swirling mist. The air was damp and close. He began to sweat. After a few minutes he stopped to take off his jacket. Behind him the shapes of the three cars
