A Colder War

30

Travelling on a French-Canadian passport under the name ‘Eric Cauques’, Sebastien Gachon took a scheduled flight to Zagreb in the early hours of 11 April. In the Croatian capital, he hired an Audi A4, fixed his iPod into the music dock and listened to an audiobook recording of the novel Dead Souls as he drove — within the speed limit at all times — south-east along the motorway to the coastal city of Zadar.

As arranged, a second vehicle was waiting for Gachon in the car park of his hotel. In the recess beneath the spare wheel, he found the knife and a weapon with sufficient ammunition. That night, he ate well in an Italian restaurant, went to a bar to find a girl, paid her six hundred euros to spend the night in his room, but asked her to leave at three o’clock in the morning after she had satisfied him and he was ready to sleep. Gachon arranged for a taxi to come to the hotel to collect the girl. They exchanged telephone numbers, though he gave her a cell phone which would cease to function within forty-eight hours. Her working name was ‘Elena’. She told him that she was from a small town to the west of Chisinau in Moldova.

The following morning, Gachon drove along the coast road towards Dubrovnik. Due to an accident near Split, there was heavy traffic and he was two hours behind schedule by the time he arrived at his hotel. Using a public telephone box in the old town, he obtained final confirmation of the target’s position from his controller and received the go-ahead for the operation. To Gachon’s frustration, he was instructed to wait in Dubrovnik for an extra twenty-four hours and to take the ferry to Lopud no earlier than Saturday morning. The other elements of the plan were to be observed as arranged. The water taxi would still be waiting to take him off the island at the jetty of the Lafodia Hotel at 23.30 hours.

No explanation was given for the delay.