Liz noticed that the CIA man was losing weight, though not much – his suit was a little looser at the shoulders than it once would have been, but his buttoned-up jacket did his bulging midriff no favours.
They’d all sat down and waited awkwardly while Daisy brought in a tray of coffee.
‘Don’t bother, Daisy,’ said Liz. ‘I’ll pour it out.’ As she reached forward to pour out the coffee, she’d noticed that Bokus was already drumming his thumbs on the arms of his chair impatiently.
When the coffee was poured, Fane said, ‘Elizabeth, why don’t you bring us all up to date?’
Liz had been startled by how rude the two men were being to Martin. Bokus hadn’t even acknowledged his presence when she’d introduced him and now Fane was behaving as if he wasn’t there. But she made no comment and proceeded to summarise the situation. When she finished there was a heavy silence.
Bokus said gruffly, ‘You mean to tell me, you got five bad guys – I mean really bad guys – right within your sights, and you want to let them come on here to do God knows what?’ He was staring at Liz and sounded incredulous.
‘We don’t have any intention of letting them do anything. Nor do the French.’
‘No. We certainly do not,’ said Martin Seurat.
Bokus ignored him – it was Liz he was going for. He said in the folksy voice Liz had always been wary of, ‘Listen, I’m just a country boy from Ohio. Sometimes I get a little lost if anything gets too complicated. But we used to say back home that a bird in the hand beats two birds in the bush any old day.’
‘Did you really say that?’ Seurat asked with feigned innocence, and Liz just managed not to laugh. She noted that Fane was staying quiet.
For a brief moment Bokus’s eyes flashed, but he stuck to his Huck Finn persona. ‘We sure did,’ he said, still looking only at Liz. ‘And I’m thinking it applies here pretty well. Why risk losing these guys if we can pick ’em up easier than a bird dog grabs a grouse?’
‘Why indeed?’ muttered Fane.
Liz was about to reply when Seurat broke in. He said simply, ‘Here is why.’ He looked at Bokus with a steeliness Liz had never seen before. ‘The initial information in this case came from you, the Americans. Believe me, we are all grateful for that. And then, the focus shifted to here in the United Kingdom – this man Jackson appeared, and we learned that these British Yemenis are on their way to this country, almost certainly to commit an atrocity.
‘But the fact remains, they are meeting first in Paris. And we believe they were originally considering Paris as the target of their operation – whatever this operation is.’
‘Not any more—’ Bokus started to say. Seurat held up a hand and the American stopped.
‘Hear me out, Monsieur. My point is that Paris has already featured in this case – this is where Zara and the arms dealer Milraud met, and where I fear the other side first suspected they had been observed.’
‘Whose fault was that?’ Bokus demanded.
‘Ours. Not all of us share the American infallibility. In any case, Paris is now again the focal point of this operation and of our cooperation.’ He looked around at them all. ‘Naturally, we need to respect each other’s point of view and to take dissenting opinions into account. But you will appreciate that since this part of the operation is taking place on French soil, then we – the French – must make the final decisions about it. So, since you are asking’ – which, thought Liz, no one was – ‘I must tell you that I agree with our colleagues here. We will not arrest the jihadis who are meeting in this apartment, and instead we will follow them to their exit point which we all believe will be the UK border.’
Seurat took a deep breath. ‘I am sorry if you are not in accord with this, Mr Bokus. And I know that you think this will be the weak decision of another one of those cheese-eating surrender monkeys. But it is the monkeys’ decision nonetheless.’
This speech had produced a startled silence in the room. Even Bokus had looked embarrassed in the face of Martin’s eloquence. When Liz seized the opportunity to say that the Home Secretary, the DG and the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester police had all agreed to let the operation run to the UK, no one had anything more to say and the meeting had broken up in a chilly atmosphere of recrimination.
Now the waiter arrived and Liz said, ‘So what do you want to eat, my cheese-eating friend?’
Seurat laughed. ‘I’ll just have a starter, I think. They will feed me on the train.’
‘Somehow after an hour with Andy Bokus, I don’t feel very hungry either – just a starter will do me too. But I need a glass of wine.’
When the waiter had left, Seurat sat back and sighed. ‘You OK?’ asked Liz.
He smiled. ‘Yes. That was just a sigh of relief. A day I am glad is over. Though I will be happier when tomorrow is over as well.’
‘Are you worried about it?’
Seurat shrugged. ‘No more than I would be normally. Isabelle and her people are in charge, and I have every confidence in them. Thibault seems quite sure that what GCHQ have told him is right. He says it all makes perfect sense. It should be fine, and with any luck they will all be in the UK the day after tomorrow. Then it’s your problem,’ he said, with a smile.
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Liz with an affectionate grin. Martin seemed more like his old self now, and she was relieved to see it. His put-down of Bokus hadn’t bothered her one bit – in fact, she’d loved it. It was such a change from the catlike way Geoffrey Fane danced around their American colleague. Though it had been direct, it had also been controlled, with no sign of the irritability Martin had been showing recently about Milraud.
Their food arrived, and they ate quickly, talking now of anything but work. Liz told him how her mother, whom he had met several times, had thought about giving up work at the nursery garden she ran, and how her partner Edward had dissuaded her since he rightly sensed she’d go mad if she didn’t have enough to do. And Martin talked about his daughter; he was worried about what she’d do after she graduated from the Sorbonne.
It was funny, thought Liz, that when things had been tense between them they had not talked about personal affairs at all; now she felt they were back on their old intimate footing again and it made her happy.
She said, a little reluctantly, ‘Tomorrow, will you be there?’
Seurat raised his eyebrows. ‘At Ramdani’s flat? No. Only the surveillance will be there. I will be with Isabelle and we’ll be sitting safe and sound in the DCRI HQ. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Good,’ she said, forcing a smile. She wished she felt less worried about this operation. She was used to the mix of apprehension and excitement that came just before the action, but somehow this time it felt different. She reached across the table and held Martin’s hand. ‘There’s a train at the crack of dawn, you know.’
He tilted his head back and smiled. ‘And how tempting it is. But I should go back tonight.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d never forgive myself if something went wrong tomorrow and I wasn’t there.’
‘But you said there was nothing to worry about.’ Liz kicked herself for letting her concern show.
Martin put one of his hands on top of hers and looked into her eyes. ‘There isn’t. But I just feel I need to be there. You’d feel the same, wouldn’t you?’
‘Of course I would. You’re quite right.’
Martin looked at her. ‘It’ll soon be over.’
‘I hope so.’
‘And when it is, I was thinking…’
‘Yes?’ asked Liz.
Martin was smiling. ‘You remember the hotel in the hills near Toulon?’