He waited until he was sure no one was nearby, then continued his descent. The cove was exceptional on this side of the island, with its strip of white sand. Alain could see no one on the beach, although his colleague Comptoire was certain someone had been there and it was true the sand looked disturbed. Any boat that had landed here would have to be small – small enough to be lugged out of sight.
Alain was still above the beach, and from behind three eucalyptus saplings he used his binoculars to scan the bushes that started where the sand of the beach stopped. For ten minutes he moved them inch by inch over the dense undergrowth, but saw nothing unusual. Eventually, when his eyes were tired with the effort, he let the binoculars hang from the strap around his neck, wondering whether he was missing something. It was then that a reflection of the sun, now straight ahead of him, briefly blinded him. He blinked and realised the flash was coming from the bushes directly below him – the one place he had not examined with the binoculars. Peering down, he moved his head slowly back and forth, until again a dazzling flash hit his eyes.
There it was. The boat had been tucked deep underneath a large myrtle bush, but a steel corner of its outboard engine was exposed – just enough to catch a glint of sun.
Got you, thought Alain.
Twenty minutes later he was back in the woods above the cliffs, a quarter of a mile now from the sea, at the place where he had arranged to meet Françoise. He waited impatiently, and then suddenly, soundlessly, she was standing next to him.
‘Christ, you startled me,’ he said.
‘Good. If you’d heard me coming they might have heard me as well.’
‘They? You’ve found people?’
She nodded. ‘I discovered the farmhouse. Very run down; I was sure no one could be living in it. But then two men came out; one of them was walking in the yard. He didn’t look too good. I’ll radio in when we get a bit further away and tell them we’ve found them.’
Alain hesitated. Always cautious, he did not share Françoise’s certainty. He said, ‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I found a boat – a little dinghy, well hidden. But that could just be to keep it from getting stolen. And the two people you saw might be perfectly innocent visitors to the farmhouse.’
‘Trust you,’ said Françoise with a deprecating laugh.
Alain looked at her, slightly offended. ‘What’s so amusing?’
‘You and your caution. The man I saw walking in front of the house was being guarded by the other fellow.’
‘How could you tell?’ Alain demanded.
‘Because the man on the porch was covering his prisoner with a gun. I don’t think that’s how innocent visitors usually behave.’
50
As she emerged from the baggage hall at Marseilles airport, she saw a young man in naval uniform holding a sign reading ‘Carlile’. She introduced herself, ‘Bonjour. Je suis Liz Carlyle.’
‘Good afternoon, mademoiselle,’ he responded, shaking her hand. ‘Follow me.’ He led her to a smart black car parked in a reserved space just outside the terminal.
Having apparently exhausted their knowledge of each other’s language, they drove towards Toulon in silence. Liz gazed out at the Provençal landscape and the glimpses of the Mediterranean glittering in the midday sun, wishing that her first visit to this part of France could have been in happier circumstances.
Martin Seurat had telephoned late the previous afternoon to report the results of the surveillance on Porquerolles – the signs of a landing at the small cove, the dinghy concealed in the bushes, and finally the sighting of occupants at the fermette, with an armed man guarding a prisoner. He was, he’d said, sending a photograph taken by one of the surveillance team. He waited to see if she could identify her colleague. Shortly afterwards Liz was looking at a hazy photograph on her screen – a man apparently walking in a dusty yard as another man, holding a gun, stood watching him from the porch of a ramshackle house. It was the Spaniard, Gonzales, and Dave Armstrong – she recognised him even with his back to the camera.
Liz had taken the last flight from Belfast to Paris, frustrated that she couldn’t be instantly whisked straight to Toulon. Martin Seurat had told her that no rescue attempt could be mounted before the following night, but she still wanted to get there and not hang about wasting time in Paris. Strangely, she felt even more worried about Dave now that she knew where he was, than she had when she knew nothing.
Her anxiety increased when, just before she went to bed in the airport hotel, an excited Peggy had rung. She’d heard from a colleague of Isabelle Florian in the DCRI. The mobile phone number that she’d circulated around the world, the phone which had called Dermot O’Reilly (Brown Fox as they’d labelled him) shortly before he was killed, had come on the air again that afternoon. The French had noted it making a call to a number in Algiers, but more importantly, the call had been routed through a mast near Toulon. It must be Piggott, thought Liz. So he’s on the island too.
As the car turned through tall iron gates on the coast at Toulon, she dragged her mind back to the present, feeling suddenly tense at the thought of what was to come. She was surprised when a sentry saluted smartly as they passed; not sure how to respond, she acknowledged the courtesy with a wave. She had no idea how good the French were at operations of this kind; she could only hope that they knew what they were doing.
They drew up in front of a long, elegant, pink building and Martin Seurat stepped out and opened the car door.
‘Welcome to Naval Headquarters, Liz. Come inside and I’ll show you your cabin. This place is run like a ship, but you’ll soon get used to it.’
Seurat looked reassuringly calm and in his navy-blue polo neck sweater, ready for anything. Liz felt her anxieties begin to slide away; now she had someone else to share both the worry and the responsibility.
‘It’s not the Ritz,’ said Seurat, opening a door, ‘but I hope you’ll be comfortable. Not that you are likely to get much sleep, I’m afraid. We’re planning to go in at three-thirty tomorrow morning.’
Liz looked in at the room. It was spare and functionaclass="underline" a narrow bed, a bedside table, a cupboard and a small desk along the wall. It looked like a college room except that it was painted, fittingly for this environment, battleship grey. She was pleased to see that it had its own small bathroom.
‘I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes and brief you about what we’re planning,’ said Seurat, closing the door behind him.
Liz looked out of the window. She could see an enormous aircraft carrier moored in the dockyard; in the harbour itself two submarines and an assortment of grey battleships rocked gently as the tide came slowly in.
She changed into trousers and a sweater and went downstairs to find Seurat waiting for her in a comfortable lounge. ‘Good,’ he said smiling. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of coffee. We’ve got half an hour before we go into the briefing meeting. The teams are all here. Crack commandos from our ‘berets verts’, the Commandos Marine. They are good, Liz. If anyone can rescue your colleague alive, they will do it. Don’t worry.’
Liz smiled at him. ‘It was an immense relief to know that Dave is alive, and we’re very grateful for all you’ve done,’ she said. ‘I just hope we can get him out of there unhurt. But you know, I’m mystified about why he’s been brought here. What is Milraud up to? He must be the reason they’ve come here, but I can’t see why he’d travel all this way just to kill Dave – he could have had that done back in Northern Ireland. You know the man. What do you think he wants?’