Eye of the Storm Read Online Free PDF Page B

we’ll have every cop in France on the streets.”
    “But it isn’t going to. I knew that bastard was bad news. Always something funny about him. You managed to follow him?”
    “Yes, he doubled around the streets for a while, then ended up at that fleapit old François runs just along the river. I saw him through the window booking in.” He shivered. “But what are we going to do?” He was almost sobbing. “This is the end, Pierre. They’ll lock us up and throw away the key.”
    “No they won’t,” Pierre told him. “Not if we stop him, they won’t. They’ll be too grateful. Who knows, there might even be a reward in it. Now what’s Inspector Savary’s home number?”
    “He’ll be in bed.”
    “Of course he will, you idiot, nicely tucked up with his old lady where all good detectives should be. We’ll just have to wake him up.”
     
    Inspector Jules Savary came awake cursing as the phone rang at his bedside. He was on his own, for his wife was spending a week in Lyons at her mother’s. He’d had a long night. Two armed robberies and a sexual assault on a woman. He’d only just managed to get to sleep.
    He picked up the phone. “Savary here.”
    “It’s me, Inspector, Pierre Jobert.”
    Savary glanced at the bedside clock. “For Christ’s sake, Jobert, it’s two-thirty in the morning.”
    “I know, Inspector, but I’ve got something special for you.”
    “You always have, so it can wait till the morning.”
    “I don’t think so, Inspector. I’m offering to make you the most famous cop in France. The pinch of a lifetime.”
    “Pull the other one,” Savary said.
    “Margaret Thatcher. She’s staying at Choisy tonight, leaves for Valenton at two? I can tell you all about the man who’s going to see she never gets there.”
    Jules Savary had never come awake so fast. “Where are you, Le Chat Noir? ”
    “Yes,” Jobert told him.
    “Half an hour.” Savary slammed down the phone, leapt out of bed and started to dress.
     
    It was at exactly the same moment that Dillon decided to move on. The fact that Gaston had followed him didn’t necessarily mean anything more than the fact that the brothers were anxious to know more about him. On the other hand . . .
    He left, locking the door, found the back stairs and descended cautiously. There was a door at the bottom that opened easily enough and gave access to a yard at the rear. An alley brought him to the main road. He crossed, walked along a line of parked trucks, chose one about fifty yards from the hotel, but giving him a good view. He got his knife out, worked away at the top of the passenger window. After a while it gave so that he could get his fingers in and exert pressure. A minute later he was inside. Better not to smoke, so he sat back, collar up, hands in pockets, and waited. It was half past three when the four unmarked cars eased up to the hotel. Eight men got out, none in uniform, which was interesting.
    “Action Service, or I miss my guess,” Dillon said softly.
    Gaston Jobert got out of the rear car and stood talking to them for a moment, then they all moved into the hotel. Dillon wasn’t angry, just pleased that he’d got it right. He left the truck, crossed the road to the shelter of the nearest alley and started to walk to the warehouse in rue de Helier.
     
    The French secret service, notorious for years as the SDECE, has had its name changed to Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, DGSE, under the Mitterrand government in an attempt to improve the image of a shady and ruthless organization with a reputation for stopping at nothing. Having said that, measured by results, few intelligence organizations in the world are so efficient.
    The service, as in the old days, was still divided into five sections and many departments, the most famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view, being Section 5, more commonly known as Action Service, the department responsible for the smashing of the OAS.
    Colonel