Serge Rassini read out, ‘All the Caravelles were grounded at 1650 hours. One was destroyed, and the rest are being searched for the second time. There’s full co-operation from the airport staff, and from most of the Air-France personnel.’
Broussard nodded: ‘So there will be no problem. No chance of a flight at least until tomorrow?’
‘Absolutely none.’
They sat listening to the wind outside blowing up from the south. Broussard considered the chances, disadvantages and dangers of his decision. Relations between the Secret Army and the foreign Press would be damaged badly; but to Broussard’s mind journalists were of little concern. The execution of one of them would serve ‘pour encourager les autres!’ He was a mean, morbid man who took a natural pleasure in vengeance. The Englishman had betrayed them and must pay the penalty. The only problem was the hotel. They had put special guards on the door, and the area was full of CRS. Broussard was reluctant to risk his hard-pressed commandos in breaking into the Miramar to kill a squalid English journalist. It might be difficult to get him alone: the man would be certainly on his guard.
Broussard raised his head and spoke to Serge Rassini. His voice was relaxed, his eyes huge and full of a dull white light, almost the eyes of a blind man: ‘Who is on reception at the Miramar tonight?’
‘Marc-Claude — until curfew.’
‘Telephone him every hour to check if the Englishman gives up his key and takes his luggage. He may try to wait at the airport.’ He paused, lifting the pipe again to his lips. As he considered the final decision he did not look at Anne-Marie. His eyes were again cast down at his reflection in the polished table, and his thoughts wandered with a twinge of conscience to his duties as a husband and father.
Five years ago he had married the widow of a fellow commander in Saigon who had fallen at Dien Bien Phu. She was Broussard’s first wife, and Anne-Marie was her only daughter. She was now living in France until the crisis was over.
Broussard had married her as much out of duty to a dead comrade as from real love; his method of loving was to be faithful and provide her and Anne-Marie with money and material comfort. In return, he exacted from them both an absolute loyalty. For one of them to have disobeyed him would have been as outrageous in his eyes as if his authority had been flouted by a junior officer.
He looked now at Anne-Marie: ‘I understand you have met this Englishman several times before he was brought here?’
She nodded: ‘Le Hir sent me down to meet him.’ She kept her voice under control.
‘Have you been to his room in the Miramar?’
There was a tense pause, while the shutters groaned in their frames. Broussard laid down the opium pipe, his fingers drumming restlessly against the table.
‘Once,’ she said. ‘He has Room 274.’ She had gone very pale, knowing what was coming, but felt no fear: rather, a sense of painful pleasure. Unlike her stepfather she had an uncomplicated character. Even if she had tried, she would have been unable to analyse her feelings towards Neil on that night in the Miramar. She had been hysterical and lonely and rather drunk, and had enjoyed feeling him stab deep inside her and churn out some of the memories of that ghastly afternoon on the beach, with death coming with the twilight. She had not thought at the time she would ever see him again, and it did not worry her. She was not in the least in love with him.
But with Guérin’s arrest her attitude had drastically changed. Now, instead of having passed a pleasant physical night with Neil, she saw herself humiliated, seduced and ridiculed, while all the time he had been laughing at her, plotting to betray both her stepfather’s cause and her country; and she hated Neil now with a cold, terrible hatred, and waited for Broussard to speak.
‘I have decided that this Englishman must be killed. As far as we know, he has not yet left the hotel. But there are guards there, and the Front de Mer is being heavily patrolled. I cannot spare any regular commandos for the job — they would almost certainly get caught.’ He paused and picked up the slender clay pipe. Anne-Marie said nothing. Broussard stared at her with his sunken white eyes, as the pale smoke curled out of his nostrils. When he spoke again his words were ponderous, like stones plopping into water. ‘I want him killed tonight — quickly — privately — in his room. You are the only person who can do it.’
Still she said nothing. It was Serge Rassini who replied: ‘She can’t do it! Send in one of the “Gamma” men —!’
‘Shut up!’ said Broussard, still staring at his stepdaughter. ‘Are you on friendly terms with this Englishman?’ he asked her.
She lowered her eyes to the table. ‘Yes. He won’t suspect me.’
‘Very well. You must try to delay him in the hotel tonight. Write him a letter and arrange to meet him in his room just before curfew. I can have the letter delivered this evening. You will leave here at eleven o’clock.’ He turned to Rassini: ‘Prepare the pistol, Serge. A cloth silencer will be sufficient in this wind.’
Serge saluted and disappeared into the back room. Broussard turned back to Anne-Marie. His fist, holding the gold Roman coin, clenched and unclenched. His mind felt cold, disembodied, a superior force controlling and commanding, detached from the scrambling chaos of the city. He was pleased with how well she was reacting. He had never thought of her as his own daughter: to him she had always been just another attractive spirited young girl to whom he had a special responsibility. As he looked at her now
