Liberation Day by Andy McNab Page A

my new girlfriend in the laundromat. Teenagers raced around on motor scooters, some with helmets, some without, just like the police on their BMWs. Small cars were driven like ballistic missiles in both directions. Christmas decorations were rigged up across the boulevard; the most popular number this year was white lights in the shape of stars and lighted candles.
    I thought about how things had moved on since Logan.
    “All the people that you care about live here.” George had known exactly what he was doing even before he got me to take Zeralda’s head. Blind watchmaker, my ass.
    I scanned up and down the boulevard for the hundredth time, looking for anybody wearing red on blue, checking to make sure no one else was lurking around waiting to jump me once I’d made contact.
    I had a contingency plan if there was a problem before the meet. My escape route was out of the laverie service door, which was open. It was lined with bags of unclaimed laundry and lost socks and underwear, and led through a small yard into an alleyway. At the end was a low wall, which led into the backyard of the perfumery on the boulevard to my left. From there I’d slip into an adjacent apartment building and hide in the basement garage until the coast was clear.
    I checked traser. Four minutes to eleven. To my left I caught a flash of red among the pedestrians on the curb, waiting to cross in the direction of the café. I hadn’t seen it before; she must have come from one of the shops or the other tabac farther down the hill. She’d probably been sitting having a coffee, doing pretty much what I’d been doing. If so, it was a good sign; at least she was switched on. I kept the patch of red in my peripheral vision, not searching for the face in case there was eye contact.
    There was a gap in the traffic and the pashmina made a move. It was a man; he had a magazine rolled up in his right hand and a small brown porte-monnaie —or fag-bag, as a few of my new fellow countrymen called them—in his left. If I was wrong, I’d soon be finding out.
    Once over the road he went up to an empty pavement table and took a seat. As in all French cafés, the chairs were facing the road so the clientele could people-watch. He got settled and laid the magazine out flat on the table. I continued to watch through the traffic. A waitress in a vest went over and took his order as he brought a pack of cigarettes out from the fag-bag.
    I couldn’t see much of his face, owing to the distance and the volume of traffic between us, but he was wearing sunglasses and was either dark-skinned or had a permatan. I’d find out later. I didn’t look at him anymore now. My gaze shifted elsewhere; there were more important things to check. Was it safe to approach him? Was anyone else around, waiting to ruin my day?
    I ran through my plan once more in my head: to go and sit near him, order coffee, and, when it felt safe, come out with my check statement. I was going to point to Julia Roberts and say, “Beautiful, isn’t she?” His reply would be, “Yes, she is, but not as much as Katharine Hepburn, don’t you think?” Then I was going to get up and go over and sit by him and start talking Katharine. That would be the cover story: we just met and started talking about film stars because of the cover of the magazine. I didn’t know his name, he didn’t know mine, we didn’t know each other, we were just chatting away in a café. There must always be a reason for being where you are.
    I still felt uneasy, though. Meeting inside the café would have been bad enough, with nowhere to run, but outside was even worse. He could be setting me up for a snapshot that could be used against me, or maybe a drive-by shooting. I didn’t know this character, I didn’t know what he was into. All I knew was that it had to be done, no matter what was out there; if everything went according to plan, I would come away with the information we needed.
    I stood up, adjusted my sweatshirt