Liz Carlyle - 07 - The Geneva Trap by Stella Rimington Page A

disappointed that I haven’t found out as much as I would have liked.’
    ‘That’s okay,’ said Liz. She waited for him to say something else. The daylight would soon be gone, and she was afraid the park might close, so trying to push things on she said, ‘When we met last week you said your Station had been asked to try and infiltrate Clarity. But then you were told this had already been done by another country. How did your people find that out?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Sorsky seemed troubled – not as nervous now as he’d been at their first meeting, but somehow weighed down, burdened. He pursed his lips for a moment. Then he shrugged and sighed deeply, as if to say, to hell with it. ‘We were briefed about Clarity two months ago – one of the high-ups flew in from Moscow. But that is not how I learned about this other country.’
    He paused and Liz resisted the urge to press him, since he seemed so fragile. Eventually he started to speak. ‘One night about six weeks ago,’ he began, ‘my section all went out for a night on the town.’
    It was an annual outing, he explained, and they liked to splash out. That night was no exception: Sorsky and four others dined in a fine French restaurant in the old town where they had nothing but the best – foie gras, Chateaubriand, a perfect Camembert, and finally Crêpes Suzette. There was champagne before dinner, bottles of Château Margaux during the meal, and a fine Sauternes with the dessert.
    It was a real blow-out, and by the time the meal ended Sorsky was more than ready to go home, but one of them – ‘I’ll call him Boris,’ said Sorsky, ‘but that is not his real name’ – wanted to go on to a club.
    ‘What sort of a club?’ asked Liz at this point.
    ‘A nightclub. Not a good one.’
    It was called the PussKat Club. You went down some steps, tipped the doorman, signed any name you liked in a book, then went into a cavernous, smoke-filled room, with disco music blaring from speakers in the ceiling.
    The place was full of international businessmen, sitting in little groups on vinyl banquettes, drinking exorbitantly expensive champagne or – in the case of the Russians – bottles of Stolichnaya. From time to time, semi-clad ‘hostesses’ approached the tables, offering lap dances and the possibility of a whole lot more.
    It wasn’t Sorsky’s scene at all and he wasn’t surprised when the others swallowed down their vodka and peeled off home – they were all family men. Sorsky was about to go home too, but Boris refused to leave – he had his eye on one of the women. Sorsky didn’t want to abandon him. Boris had had a lot to drink and was beginning to get aggressive, and Sorsky was afraid that if he stayed there by himself he’d end up either getting fleeced or beaten up by the bouncers, or both.
    Fortunately, after another drink, Boris was starting to flag and when Sorsky said firmly that they should leave, he didn’t argue. Once outside, it was obvious Boris could hardly stand and that Sorsky would have to take him home. Twenty Swiss francs were enough to persuade the doorman to leave his post and flag down a cab at the corner, while Sorsky propped his colleague up against the wall.
    The man lived alone in a new high-rise block on the edge of the financial district and it took only a few minutes to get there, heave Boris out of the cab and into the lift, and then open the front door. Once he’d dumped him on a sofa, Sorsky was ready to go home, but Boris, slightly sobered from the ride, insisted he stay for a drink, and fetched yet another bottle of vodka from the fridge. Sorsky reluctantly joined him, thinking he’d have just one small nightcap and then get out of there. But Boris had found his second wind. Putting on some loud rock music, he suggested, to Sorsky’s alarm, that they phone an agency and get some girls to come over. Sorsky was no prude, but when he found out that the girls Boris had in mind were fifteen years old, all he