She paused. “Can I help, gentlemen?”

“We are seeking Monsieur Rocard,” Dillon told her.

“But he is not here. He went to Morlaix for a few days. He’s due back tomorrow.” She went down the steps, put up her umbrella, and turned. “He did say he might be back this afternoon late, but he wasn’t sure.”

“Did he leave an address? We have legal business with him.”

“No, I believe he was staying with one of his boyfriends.” She smiled. “He has many, monsieur.”

She walked away, and Dillon grinned. “Let’s take a look.” He pressed a button at random, and when a woman’s voice answered said, “It’s me, cherie,” in French.

The buzzer sounded. The door opened at a push, and they were in.

They found Rocard’s apartment on the third floor. The corridor was deserted and Dillon took out his wallet, produced a picklock, and went to work.

“A long time since I had to use one of those,” Blake said.

“You never lose the knack,” Dillon said. “I’ve always felt it would be useful if I ever have to take to crime.”

The lock yielded, he eased the door open and went in, Blake following.

It was a pleasant, old-fashioned apartment, with lots of antiques and Empire-style gold-painted furniture. The rugs were all collector’s items, there was what looked like a genuine Degas on one wall, a Matisse on the other. There were two bedrooms, an ornate marble bathroom, and a study.

Dillon pressed the recall button on the answering machine. The voice said: “Michael Rocard here. I’ve gone to Morlaix.”

“Go through his messages,” Blake said.

Dillon pressed the button and the messages, all in French, came through and then Judas cut in.

“Hebrew,” Dillon said. “We’ve just won the jackpot. I’ll play it again.” He listened intently, then nodded. “Berger’s been killed in an accident in London. Contact me as soon as you can.”

“Judas?” Blake said.

“Or I’m a monkey’s uncle.” Dillon looked around the study. “Not worth turning the place upside down. He wouldn’t leave incriminating evidence around, a smart man like that.”

Blake picked up a photo in a silver frame from the desk. It was very old-fashioned and in black and white. The woman was in a chiffon dress, the man in dark suit and stiff collar. There was a boy of perhaps ten or twelve, a girl of five or six. It was strange, remote, something from another age.

“Family group?” Blake said.

“He’s probably the kid in the short pants,” Dillon told him.

Blake replaced the photo carefully. “Now what?”

“Better leave quietly. We can try again in case he does come back late afternoon. Otherwise we’ll just have to fill in the time.” He smiled. “In Paris, that usually means having a really great lunch.”

They left the apartment, paused while Dillon relocked the door, then went downstairs. Outside it was still raining and they paused, looking across at the Bois de Boulogne.

“A good address,” Dillon commented.

“For a successful man,” Blake nodded.

“The man who had everything and in the end found he had nothing.”

“Until Judas came along?”

“Something like that.”

“So what do we do now?”

Dillon smiled. “We’ll go and see if my barge is still in one piece.”

It was moored in a small basin on the Quai St Bernard. There were pleasure boats tied up to the stone wall, motor cruisers with canvas awnings up against the rain and mist drifting across the Seine. Notre Dame was not too far away. There were a number of flower pots on the stern deck with no flowers in them. Dillon lifted one and found a key.

“How long since you were here last?” Blake asked.

“A year or eighteen months, something like that.” Dillon went down the small companionway and unlocked the door.

He stood just inside. “Jesus, smell the damp. It could do with a good airing.”

It wasn’t what Blake had expected, a stateroom lined with mahogany, comfortable sofas, a television, and a desk. There was another cabin with a divan bed and a shower room and a kitchen galley.

“I’ll find us a drink.” Dillon went into the galley and searched the cupboards. When he came back with a bottle of red wine and two glasses, he found the American looking at a faded newspaper clipping.

“I found this on the floor. The Prime Minister. It’s from the London Times, but I can’t make out the date.”

“Good old John Major. Must have slipped down the back of the desk when I cleared the rest of the material. February nineteen ninety-one, the mortar attack on Downing Street.”

“So it really is true and you were responsible for that. You nearly brought it off, you bastard.”

“That’s true. It was a rush job, no time to weld guidance fins to the mortars, so they weren’t quite accurate enough. Come up this way.”

He had been very calm, very matter-of-fact as he had spoken. He opened another door that gave access to the aft deck. There was an awning, rain dripping from the edges, a small table and two chairs in wicker. Dillon poured claret into the glasses.

“There you go.”

Blake sat down and savored it. “Excellent. I’m supposed to have stopped, but I could use a cigarette.”

“Sure.” Dillon gave him one and a light and took another himself. He stood by the rail, sipping the wine and looking toward Notre Dame.

“Why, Sean?” Blake said. “Hell, I know your record backwards, but I still don’t understand. All those hits, all those jobs for people like the PLO, the KGB. Okay, so your father was caught in the crossfire in some Belfast street battle and you blamed the British Army and joined the IRA. You were what, nineteen? I understand that, but afterwards.”

Dillon turned, leaning on the rail. “Remember your American Civil War history. People like Jesse and Frank James? Raiding, fighting, and killing for the glorious cause and that was all they knew, so what came afterwards, when the war was over? They robbed banks and trains.”

“And when you left the IRA, you offered yourself as a gun for hire.”

“Something like that.”

“But when the Serbs shot you down in Bosnia, you were flying in medical supplies for children.”

“A good deed in a naughty world, isn’t that what Shakespeare said?”

“And Ferguson saved you from yourself, pulled you in on the side of right.”

“What a load of cobblers.” Dillon laughed out loud. “I do exactly what I was doing before, only now I do it for Ferguson.”

Blake nodded, serious. “I take your point, but isn’t anything serious business to you?”

“Certainly. Saving Marie de Brissac and Hannah from Judas, for instance.”

“But nothing else?”

“Like I’ve said before, sometimes situations need a public executioner and it happens to be something I’m good at.”

“And otherwise?”

“Just passing through, Blake, just passing through,” and Dillon turned and looked along the Seine.

At the same moment and six hours back in time, Teddy boarded an Air Force Lear jet at Andrews. They took off, climbed to thirty thousand feet, and the senior pilot came over the speaker.

“Just over an hour, Mr. Grant, and it should be pretty smooth. We’ll put down at Mitchell Field. That’s about forty minutes by road to Fort Lansing.”

He switched off and Teddy tried to read the Washington Post but couldn’t take it in. He was on too big a high. He had the strangest feeling about this. There was something waiting for him at Fort Lansing. There had to be, but what? He reached to the bar, made a cup of instant coffee, and sat there, thinking about things as he drank it.

Marie de Brissac was doing a charcoal sketch of Hannah. “You’ve got good bone structure,” she said. “That always helps. Were you and Dillon lovers?”

“That’s a leading question.”

“I’m half French. We’re very direct. Were you?”

Hannah Bernstein was careful to stay in the past tense where Dillon was concerned, just in case. “Good God, no. He was the most infuriating man I ever knew.”