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said that...'
    'Which means you don't disagree.'
    'Well, he's there now with a transmitter. He's sent several coded reports from the Bordeaux region. There are serious and growing riots - over the issue of deporting foreign immigrants. Someone is stirring up hatred of the Algerians, for a start. There is a lot of talk in the bars that men high up are plotting a coup. I might just know when I get back from Luxembourg City. In the meantime we'd better get some rest. Tomorrow may hold some unpleasant news. I just have that feeling...'

    Chapter Two

    The following evening it was bitterly cold in the old city of Bordeaux, a port situated inland on the wide Garonne river. In the Bar Miami Francis Carey looked at his watch. 10.30 p.m. Soon he'd be able to go off duty and hurry back to his cheap apartment.
    He had got himself a job as barman at the Miami, which was always crowded, after making casual enquiries about the place in his fluent French. It was one of several bars he'd checked out before taking the job. He had heard this bar was popular with low-ranking officers of the French Army who regularly patronized the Miami.
    At that hour - and because of the weather - the long room parallel to the bar was packed. Every chair and stool was occupied, many stood with their drinks. The noise was deafening as Frenchmen talked and joked. Carey, a thin man in his late twenties, with dark hair and a long lean face, polished glasses rapidly for new customers as he mentally wrestled with two problems.
    He had found himself a French girlfriend, Isabelle Thomas. She had a job in an advertising agency, long titian hair, a pallid complexion, a good figure she liked to display to advantage. She appeared to have fallen for him heavily, which had not been his hope when he picked her up as good cover. And any moment now she would walk in so he could take her out for a quick meal. He dreaded her arrival. And he wanted to postpone their date.

    Returning to his modest apartment in a large old block on the rue Georges Bonnac after a shopping trip that morning, he'd detected traces of the place being searched. The compact transmitter he used to send coded signals to Park Crescent had been concealed inside a battered old suitcase hidden on the top of the huge museum piece of a wardrobe. Before leaving for the supermarket in the Meriadeck Centre Commercial, a vast newish concrete complex, he'd attached a hair to the suitcase. When he returned he'd had trouble opening the door. His first suspicion that something was wrong.
    A closer check on the apartment inside confirmed his suspicions. The hair half-inserted inside the suitcase had vanished. At first he'd assumed Madame Argoud, the mean old biddy who ran the pension, had been nosy. But Argoud was short and fat. Carey was tall and still had had to stand on a chair to reach the suitcase pushed out of sight on top of the wardrobe.
    Now he was wondering whether he should have packed up, left the pension that morning and moved to another part of the sprawling city. All his training with SIS had empha sized this point. You never take one single unnecessary risk in hostile territory. You act to remove the risk instantly...
    Had he left it too late? Continuing to polish glasses at speed, he checked over the crowded room again. No one who seemed out of place. And had he been wise to trust Isabelle to send the message if anything happened to him? 'If I disappear and don't phone you,' as he had put it.
    Two Army lieutenants came in, walked straight to the bar, ordered drinks. He served them as they talked, paid, and drank.
    'Soon we'll be drinking in Paris, Anton. They say the women there are quite something.'
    'Paris? You mean on leave? We haven't any due.'
    'So they haven't told you? Well, I am in a specialist unit. Forget what I said.'
    The officer turned to stare at Carey. The barman was using a cloth to wipe the counter.
    'Haven't seen you here before.' the lieutenant said.
    'It's a new job,' Carey answered