She had no idea that Line Z knew Labarre spent his professional life investing in whatever could make him richer, and his personal life funding the political causes he believed in. He was a fervent nationalist, and an ardent, right-wing capitalist. He was also France’s single biggest secret donor to the Quebec sovereignty movement, and funnelled vast sums of francs to the Ralliement National. This was a problem for the KGB, because they were also supporting Quebecois freedom via quietly backing the Marxist-Leninist Front de Libération du Québec.

The prospect of a sympathetic breakaway state in North America that might even one day become a Soviet satellite was too tempting for the KGB to ignore. So, while rubles flowed into an untraceable bank account in Zurich destined for the Front de Libération, in Ottawa the KGB residentura and a team of Directorate S operatives were constantly working to destabilise the Ralliement National—including operations like tricking the local MI5 SLO into believing that it was actually being funded by Russia.

Unknown to them, Line Z was also working to bring down the right-wing party.

Anna’s orders had been brief, just a coded note in the holdall that she’d collected when she’d checked into the Hôtel des Bergues late last night. She wasn’t given any instructions about how Labarre was to be killed, only that his death needed to look bloody and painful.

She’d slipped into his room in the morning to prepare her trap, then walked over the Pont du Mont-Blanc to Rue du Rhône, where she’d bought the silk gloves—a personal flourish that would help her create the character of the high-class prostitute she would use to ensnare Labarre, as well as ensure she didn’t leave any fingerprints in his suite that would need removing along with the holdall after she’d left.

It had been a calculated risk to shoot Labarre twice. One pop of a silencer could be misheard or ignored by someone in the corridor outside the suite, but not two in quick succession. However, Anna had decided the likelihood of someone passing Labarre’s room in the middle of the afternoon at the very moment he was being killed was low enough to take the chance. Plus, the obliteration of his manhood would provide the impact that Line Z wanted when news of his death reached whoever it needed to.

She walked through the quiet hotel foyer, transformed by her new outfit into a rich businessman’s wife, congratulating herself on another successful job. She didn’t give any thought to the poor chambermaid who would discover Labarre’s body in a few hours when she came to turn down his bed for the night, or the hotel manager who would have to spend the rest of his week dealing with enquiries from the police and Labarre’s office in Paris.