“Sorry, Makeev, but I don’t like the way you do business.”

“Not even for a million, Mr. Dillon?” Michael Aroun said.

Dillon paused and turned to look at him calmly, then smiled, again with enormous charm. “Would that be in pounds or dollars, Mr. Aroun?” he asked and walked out into the rain.

As the door banged Aroun said, “We’ve lost him.”

“Not at all,” Makeev said. “A strange one this, believe me.” He turned to Rashid. “You have your portable phone?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Good. Get after him. Stick to him like glue. When he settles, phone me. We’ll be at Avenue Victor Hugo.”

Rashid didn’t say a word, simply went. Aroun took out his wallet and extracted a thousand-franc note, which he placed on the bar. He said to the barman, who was looking totally bewildered, “We’re very grateful,” then turned and followed Makeev out.

As he slid behind the wheel of the black Mercedes saloon, he said to the Russian, “He never even hesitated back there.”

“A remarkable man, Sean Dillon,” Makeev said as they drove away. “He first picked up a gun for the IRA in nineteen seventy-one. Twenty years, Michael, twenty years and he hasn’t seen the inside of a cell once. He was involved in the Mountbatten business. Then he became too hot for his own people to handle so he moved to Europe. As I told you, he’s worked for everyone. The PLO, the Red Brigade in Germany in the old days. The Basque national movement, the ETA. He killed a Spanish general for them.”

“And the KGB?”

“But of course. He’s worked for us on many occasions. We always use the best and Sean Dillon is exactly that. He speaks English and Irish, not that that bothers you, fluent French and German, reasonable Arabic, Italian and Russian.”

“And no one has ever caught him in twenty years. How could anyone be that lucky?”

“Because he has the most extraordinary gift for acting, my friend.