A Matter of Honor

“No, no, of course not,” said Jim. “Well, good luck.”

As the car moved off Adam stood on the pavement watching them disappear. He smiled and tried to wave, then, turning, he walked quickly down a side street looking for a shopping center. Within moments he was in the center of town, relieved to find that all the shops were still open. He began to search up and down the street for a green cross above a door. Adam had to walk only fifty yards before he spotted one. He entered the shop tentatively and checked the shelves.

A tall man with short fair hair wearing a long leather coat stood in the corner with his back to the entrance. Adam froze. Then the man turned round, frowning at the packet of tablets he wanted to purchase, while at the same time rubbing his thick Gallic mustache.

Adam walked up to the counter.

“Do you speak English, by any chance?” he asked the druggist, trying to sound confident.

“Passable, I hope,” came back the reply.

“I need some iodine, cotton wool, a bandage, and heavy adhesive tape. I fell and bruised my shoulder on a rock,” Adam explained.

The druggist quickly put the order together without showing much interest.

“This is what you require. That will be twenty-three francs,” said the druggist.

“Will Swiss do?”

“Certainly.”

“Is there a hotel anywhere nearby?” asked Adam.

“Around the next corner, on the other side of the square.”

Adam thanked him, handed over the Swiss notes, and then left the pharmacy in search of the hotel. The Hotel Frantel was, as promised, only a short distance away. He walked across the square and up the steps into the hotel to find several people were waiting at reception to be checked in. Adam flung his trench coat over his bloodstained shoulder and walked past them as he checked the signs on the wall. He then strode across the entrance hall as though he were a guest of several days’ standing. He followed the sign he had been looking for, which took him down a flight of stairs, to come head on with three further signs. The first had the silhouette of a man on the door, the second a woman, the third a wheelchair.

He opened the third tentatively and was surprised to find behind it nothing more than a sizable square room with a high-seated lavatory against the wall. Adam locked himself in and let his trench coat fall to the ground.

He rested for a few minutes before slowly stripping to the waist. He then ran a basinful of warm water.

Adam was thankful for the endless first-aid seminars every officer had to go through, never believing they will serve any purpose. Twenty minutes later the pain had subsided, and he even felt comfortable.

He picked up his coat with his right hand and tried to throw it back over his shoulder. The very movement caused the icon to fall out of the map pocket and onto the tiled floor. As it hit the ground, the sound made Adam fear it must have broken in half. He stared down anxiously and then fell to his knees.

The icon had split open like a book.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHEN ADAM RETURNED to the Hotel Frantel an hour later few guests would have recognized the man who had crept in earlier that afternoon.

He wore a new shirt, trousers, tie, and a double-breasted blazer that wouldn’t be fashionable in Britain for at least another year. Even the raincoat had been ditched because the icon fitted snugly into the blazer pocket. He considered the shop had probably given him a poor exchange rate for his traveler’s checks, but that was not what had been occupying his mind for the past hour.

He booked himself into a single room in the name of Dudley Hulme and a few minutes later took the lift to the third floor.

Lawrence picked the phone up even before Adam heard the second ring.

“It’s me,” said Adam.

“Where are you?” were Lawrence’s first words.

“Ill ask the questions,” said Adam.

“I can understand how you feel,” s

aid Lawrence, “but …”

“No buts. You must be aware by now that someone on your so-called team has a direct line to the Russians because it was Romanov and his friends who were waiting for me outside the hotel in Geneva, not your lot.”