said the PLA official in a harsh, Hakka-inflected Mandarin. "Nothing could be of greater importance to me than the state of Liu Ang's security."
"Because I cannot stress enough that all of us who work with Liu Ang are extremely concerned," the economist said, not for the first time.
"We are in complete agreement," the PLA official, General Lam, said reassuringly. "As people from my village say, 'Right eye, left eye.' Trust that our beloved leader's safety will be my personal priority."
At least Wan Tsai thought that was what the general said. The man's heavy accent made the word "priority" sound almost like another, seldom-used Mandarin word, which meant "plaything."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Le Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise was established, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, on the hill of the old Champ l'Eveque and was named for Louis XIV's confessor, Father Lachaise. Now, it was the resting place for legendary figures-Colette, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Edith Piaf, Chopin, Balzac, Corot, Gertrude Stein, Modigliani, Stephane Grappelli, Delacroix, Isadora Duncan, and so many others.
Deathstyles of the rich and famous, Ambler mused as he entered.
The cemetery was vast-well over a hundred acres-and webbed with cobbled walkways. Especially in winter, it could resemble an arboretum of stone.
He glanced at his watch. The meeting was to take place at 5:10. In Paris, during this time of the year, the sun set at around half past five. Already the light was fading rapidly. He shivered, only partly because of the cold.
You never agree to a rendezvous chosen by the other party.
Basicprotocol. But in this case he had no choice. He could not drop the thread.
On the map, Pere-Lachaise was sectioned off into ninety-seven "divisions," like miniature counties, but the main routes had names and the instructions had been quite specific about which to take. Carrying a black backpack, Ambler dutifully went from the avenue Circulaire, the ring road along the outer periphery of the cemetery, to the avenue de la Chapelle and made a left on the avenue Feuillant. All the roads and walkways-each lined with mausoleums and tombstones like little houses-made it seem like a village. A village of the dead. Some of the tombs were in red granite, but most were carved slabs of pale limestone and travertine and marble. The gray-ness of the early evening added to the sepulchral air.
He did not visit the specified rendezvous immediately; instead, he walked the pathways surrounding it. The trees were plentiful but largely leafless, of little use for concealment. Still, Fenton could have positioned security guards behind the larger edifices. They could also have been interspersed, in plainclothes, among the tourists and visitors, also plentiful.
Ambler approached a nearby bench, a structure of green enameled steel slats, and, with a casual inconspicuous motion, left a black backpack underneath it. He strolled away and took up an observation post across a diagonal path and behind one of the larger stone memorials. Then he ducked into a kiosk marked we, removed his jacket, and put on a sweatshirt. He exited swiftly, stepping around the kiosk and behind a ten-foot stone memorial for one Gabriel Lully, where he could observe without being observed.
A little over sixty seconds later, a denim-clad young man in a brown leather jacket and black T-shirt stumbled past, sat down on the bench and yawned, and then resumed a seemingly aimless walk-but as he walked away, Ambler could see that the backpack was gone.
The young man with the leather jacket was one of the Watchers and had done what Ambler had predicted, albeit with surprising fluidity and economy of movement. They had observed Ambler leaving the backpack in place and, intent on learning why, had dispatched someone to retrieve it.
The item was, in fact, filled with birdseed. It was a play on a trade-craft term:
Birdseed referred to anything of no actual value that might be used to attract the attention of enemy agents. They would understand the ruse as soon as the pack was opened and the bag of sunflower seeds and millet examined.
Meanwhile, however, Ambler had identified one of the sentries one of the Watchers. He would follow the young man and see whether he led him to others.
Walking down another cobbled path, Ambler was now wearing jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and horn-rimmed glasses with clear glass lenses. His other clothes were folded tightly in the small nylon zip-bag he carried on a shoulder strap. He was utterly inconspicuous.
Or so he hoped.
He kept pace with the black-shirted Watcher, twelve yards behind him and to the