A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (best finance books of all time txt) 📕

long as I didn’t have to pass through any kind of scanning device I’d be fine to carry it with me.

I placed the Beretta and passports in the bottom of my backpack and pocketed the cash. From here on in I was going cash-friendly to avoid using my existing cards. I didn’t want to use them unless I had to.

I checked the apartment one last time, making sure there was nothing to identify me to anyone who came looking, and cleared out some old invoices for some building work I’d had done. I’d dump those later in a skip. Then I left and walked three streets away to a general store where I bought an envelope and scribbled a note to go inside with the apartment keys.

After that I dropped the envelope through the letterbox of the lawyer I’d used to negotiate the paperwork for acquiring the place. My note told him I’d send instructions later. Until then he could set about looking for a buyer and wait to hear from Belnex who would have shared responsibility for settling any outstanding bills and approving the contracts.

I walked for twenty minutes until I found a small hotel near the Parmentier métro and took and paid for a room for three days. Then I left through the rear door and walked some more and took another room for the same length of time at a hotel close to the Place de la République. I was probably being over-cautious but after the events of the past few days I wasn’t taking chances. As I’d learned over many years, having a plan A and a plan B and a safe place just in case, is never a waste.

In the second hotel I replaced the sim in my phone and dialled Callahan’s number. Because of our past association I didn’t have to go through the CIA switchboard, which would avoid any exchange of names being overheard. An additional plus point was that both our phones were encrypted. He picked up within two rings.

‘Callahan.’

‘It’s me.’ I said.

‘It’s good to hear from you.’ He sounded as calm as always, if a little relieved. ‘After Cyprus and Frankfurt I was beginning to worry. Frankfurt was you, right?’

I confirmed it was. ‘They arrived right on the spot where you told me to be and spotted me immediately.’

‘Yeah. They knew who to look for.’

‘Obviously. In a place that big it should never have happened. And after the other team attacking the British facility in Cyprus not long after I left, how was it possible?’ I wasn’t angry, although I put some stick into sounding it. But I didn’t think it would hurt. I had, after all, been shot at and nearly sliced open by people who should not have known where I was.

As a wise man had once said to me, it doesn’t do any harm just to occasionally let the people around you know that you’re royally pissed off.

‘I’m sorry – truly. We’re working on tracing the leak.’

So there was one. ‘Any ideas?’ Not that it would matter directly to me but I also wanted him to know that I was annoyed enough to ask. Callahan or the people above him had to realize, if they didn’t already, that the threats against me and the attempts on my life so far were more than simply an unscheduled blip in events caused by a chain of bad luck.

‘Not yet. I’m working on that. Where are you now, Marc?’

‘On the move. Why?’

‘That’s good. In fact it’s better than good because staying on the move is just what I was going to recommend. In fact, I have a job for you.’

‘What – now? How does that help my present situation?’

‘There’s a woman journalist on our payroll in France who’s being hunted by a small extreme right-wing organization. As part of her cover working for us she’s been investigating their activities with a friend, compiling data on their strength and members. She got too close and a couple of days ago they killed the friend to blow her off the scent. She can’t go to the French authorities as that would signal our involvement, and there’s nobody else we can ask right now. You’re there and I know you can handle this. But we need to keep close contact throughout. It’s a sensitive issue.’

I’ll bet. Spying on people in a friendly nation state doesn’t go down well when the friendly nation state finds out what you’ve been doing. And the French could be righteously and noisily angry about such behaviour, even though they were well versed in doing a bit of snooping on their allies when the spirit moved them.

‘What do you mean, close contact?’

‘I’ll need to know where you are so we can provide support. We can have a team standing by but we’ll have to use the locator system we’ve been using recently. The group chasing her is particularly nasty.’

‘What, worse than the group chasing me?’ I didn’t disbelieve he had a job for me or that it involved pulling a female asset out of a sticky situation, but the thinking behind it was devious.

‘Sorry. You know what I mean.’

‘You want me to be a decoy.’

‘I want you on the move, is what I want. The more you move the less chance there is of the Russians being able to target you. Staying still is a guarantee that they will find you.’

He hadn’t denied the decoy bit, I noticed. And he was right about them finding me. They had the resources and the manpower, and would be able to call on as much help here as they needed. If I sat and waited for them, they would eventually pin me down.

My problem was, I was now going to be threatened by two groups, not one. Part of it might reveal who the mole was, but it didn’t make me feel any safer. I didn’t say anything for a few moments while I thought it over.

‘And the real reason?’ I needed at