“Good heavens, you are a charmer.” He took her hand and kissed it.

“I feel as if I know you all, having had your pictures thoughtfully faxed to me by my friend Charles. You already seem like old friends. I have a suitable vehicle waiting.” He nodded to the porter and led the way out to a Renault station wagon in the car park. The porter loaded the luggage, took his tip, and went off.

“Where to now?” Dillon asked.

“I have a club restaurant on the Seine. I thought you could spend the day with me. I’ve no idea why you’re here and I don’t want to know. Let’s keep it that way.”

LA BELLE AURORE, his place was called, quite charming and close to the Quai St. Bernard, with a fine view of Notre Dame. There was a basin for moorings close at hand, quite a few motor cruisers with winter covers on them, and a row of barges in which people lived.

“The red one is mine.” Blériot led the way along a narrow gangway, and they boarded and followed him below. It looked like it had everything that was needed for a comfortable life, an enormous stateroom running into an open kitchen area at one end, a shower room and two bedrooms at the other.

“Yours for the day, my friends. Freshen up and then we’ll have a lunch in the restaurant, but first, a present for you from Charles Ferguson.” He unlocked a cupboard, took out a travel bag, and put it down on the large coffee table in the center of the stateroom and said to Dillon, “Yours, I believe?”

Dillon opened it and discovered two Walthers with silencers and a Colt.25, also with silencer, which he handed to Monica. “How thoughtful of Ferguson. No good-looking woman should be without one, that’s what I always say. I hope it’s not too heavy for your handbag.”

“If you’re being a male chauvinist pig, Sean Dillon, it doesn’t suit you. I would remind you that I’ve used a Colt.25, and quite effectively, as you well know.”

“Don’t let him get to you, Monica,” Billy said as he checked a Walther. “I don’t think we’re into a shooting war this time.”

“Nothing, my friends, is ever certain in this life,” Paul Blériot said. “So let’s go and have a drink at La Belle Aurore, and you can decide how you would like to fill your day.”

AT THE RITZ HOTEL, Kurbsky was still having his breakfast in the suite with Ivanov when he received a request for an audience from the duty manager.

“May I ask why?” Kurbsky said.

“I deeply regret to inform you, Monsieur Kurbsky, it concerns irregularities in the behavior of your companions.”

“Indeed,” Kurbsky said. “Well, we can’t have that. Come on up.” He turned to Ivanov. “Trouble with the management about my companions? What’s been going on?”

“Two of them were so drunk they had to be put to bed by porters. One vomited in his bathroom.”

“How delightful,” Kurbsky said. “I’ve always said, put a peasant in uniform and he’s still a peasant. It hardly covers the Russian Federation with glory.” The doorbell rang. “Answer it.”

The manager was so apologetic that it irritated Kurbsky immensely. “Of course their behavior doesn’t meet the standards the Ritz expects. It doesn’t meet the standards I expect. They will be dealt with appropriately when we return to Moscow. As I’m due at the Élysée Palace this evening, I must request your indulgence. We are leaving in the morning, as you know.”

“I apologize for having to bring this to your attention, Monsieur, as I know you are to receive the Legion of Honor from our President this evening.”

Kurbsky felt like saying, “So what?” but contented himself with “Your consideration has been all that I would have expected from the Ritz.” The manager bowed himself out, and Kurbsky said to Ivanov, “In here now, both of them, and don’t bother to dress. Bath-robes will do.”

“WALKING DEAD MEN” was an apt description. They both looked dreadful and were experiencing the most appalling hangovers. They stood there in their robes, obviously very ill indeed.

Kurbsky said, “You are officers in the GRU, on assignment abroad, in one of the world’s greatest cities. You are representing your country. You are supposed to be showing some pride in the Motherland, and what do you do? Disgrace yourselves, disgrace Russia. You might as well have stood there and urinated against a wall in the Champs-Élysées, and, frankly, you are not fit to accompany me to the Palace this evening.”

“Please, sir, I don’t know what happened,” Burlaka croaked. “I think there was something in my drink.”

“The oldest excuse in the world. Get out of my sight, get yourselves downstairs to the Sports Club. See what the saunas and steam room can achieve.”

They backed out. Ivanov said, “What happens for the rest of the day?”

“Well, I’ve no intention of sitting here on my backside, and according to the rules, you’ve got to accompany me, which will probably bore you to death. I like art, great art, so the Louvre is a must. I might just allow you a cruise on the Seine or a trip up the Eiffel Tower, but that’s it.”

“FOUR FIRST-CLASS TICKETS on the midnight train for Brest from the Gare du Nord. They are private compartments linked by a door. Each compartment takes two in the sense that you can pull two bunk beds down, but with the connecting door, it will suffice for a party of four. Here are the tickets.”

Blériot put them on the table and Monica examined them. “Excellent. We’ll travel in style. There is a restaurant car, I presume?”

“Yes. I know the train well. It has a kind of faded splendor, and the rolling stock is charming, but old. For example, there is a toilet at each end of the corridor, nothing private.”

“Hardly the end of the world,” Monica said. She turned to Dillon. “So, what do we do now?”

“Go for a walk, see the sights. Does that suit you, Billy?”

“Absolutely.”

“Remember you may use my barge as much as you want. There’s a lot of time to fill before your train leaves, and you’ll need a couple of the restaurant umbrellas. It’s not exactly the best time of the year to go walking by the Seine. I’ve things to do. I’ll see you later.” Blériot got up and went.

“There’s always the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame.”

“Been there, done that,” Monica said. “What about you, Sean?”

“My dear girl, I used to live in this great city years ago, in the days of my wicked past. I even had a barge like Blériot’s.” He turned to Billy. “What about you?”

“I’ve never been to Paris, the Louvre isn’t my cup of tea, and I’m not into cathedrals. The Eiffel Tower, though, is something I always wondered about when I was a kid.”

“Right,” Dillon said. “We’ll get a cab and go. Afterwards, I’ll take you somewhere special.”

THEY DIDN’T KNOW that they had missed Kurbsky and Ivanov by only forty minutes at the top of the Eiffel Tower. In any case, the visit was something of a non-event because of the rain mixed with mist that draped itself across the city.

“I enjoyed Blackpool Tower more,” Billy said as they descended in the elevator.

“Spoken like a true Englishman,” Dillon told him, approached a taxi rank, and in rapid and fluent French told the driver to take them to Quai de Montebello opposite the Île de la Cité.

“Now what?” Billy demanded.

“Wait and see.”

A short while later, they parked at the side of a cobbled quay. “What’s all this?” Monica asked, getting out and putting up an umbrella.

“Bateaux mouches,” Dillon told her. “Floating restaurants. Sail up the river and have a meal and a bottle of wine, see the sights. It’s a regular thing. They follow a timetable.”

“In this bloody weather?” Billy said.

“If you notice, there are ample deck awnings, and you can sit inside if you prefer.”

“Don’t be a grouch, Billy, it looks like fun,” Monica told him.