The Geneva Trap

Chapter 10

Liz flew out early the next morning. She had stayed the night in a small, elegant hotel near the Embassy, though she had barely had enough time to appreciate her room’s décor before falling asleep, utterly exhausted. After leaving Sorsky she had gone back to the Embassy to brief Russell White and Terry Castle, and by the time they had gone over every detail and sent off a message to Vauxhall Cross, it was midnight.

One thing had continued to trouble her. At the end of the session, she had tackled White about it. ‘I asked for no surveillance of the meeting, but I’m pretty sure there were people around. Was it your lot?’

White looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry. Orders from Vauxhall Cross, I’m afraid – they insisted we keep an eye on you. But I am very surprised you saw him. He was convinced he hadn’t been spotted.’

Liz shook her head. She was cross, but not with White. He had only been following orders; orders from Geoffrey Fane himself, she was pretty sure. The man couldn’t keep his fingers out of the action, she thought wearily. But something still nagged at her. ‘I saw your man first in the street and then again in the Bourg-de-Four – before I went into the park. Then I saw him again afterwards. And there was a guy in a yellow sweater, which I thought was pretty unprofessional since it made him stand out a mile.’

White looked at Castle; it must have been the younger man who’d set things up. Castle shook his head, and White said, ‘That wasn’t us. We had someone in the university buildings. He watched while you were talking to Sorsky. He didn’t see any other surveillance.’

‘I didn’t see anyone in the park. Just in the street and the square outside. Sorsky said he didn’t think I had been followed so perhaps I was imagining things.’

But Liz didn’t think so. As she looked out of the aeroplane window and down at Mont Blanc, its snowy cap glistening in the sun, she knew that the thick-set man could have had a perfectly innocent reason for his stop-start walk around Place du Bourg-de-Four. But why had he come back and hung around Place Neuve? And why did he change his coat? Not to mention the ‘coincidence’ of her twice spotting a man in a yellow jersey. And if it wasn’t the MI6 Station, who were these people working for? Sorsky had been at pains to make it clear that his own people had no reason to suspect him of anything. The only conclusion she could draw was that these people were not interested in Sorsky or the meeting; they were watching her.