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Back The Frenchman
Chapters (76)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. AMIN
  5. PARIS
  6. … TWO YEARS LATER
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  56. CHAPTER FIFTY
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  63. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
  64. CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
  65. CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
  66. CHAPTER SIXTY
  67. CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
  68. CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
  69. CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
  70. CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
  71. CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
  72. CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
  73. CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
  74. CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
  75. CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
  76. EPILOGUE

The Company spent two weeks preparing the Marriott Rive Gauche for the operation, while de Payns stayed away from the hotel. If the Pakistanis came with muscle, they had to be shut down quickly. If they came to photograph Marcus Aubrac, the Company needed its own photographic and eyes-on verification of the ISI operators. The French had to know who they were dealing with before judging how much danger their agent was in and what they were going to do in response. It was a game—one that both sides were playing with their eyes wide open. De Payns and Briffaut had decided there was a high probability that the Pakistanis knew that the French were aware that Amin was dead. Heck, thought de Payns, they might have deliberately planted the news with the source named CRS 00218 in order to get a good look at de Payns. The mission team would be positioned carefully to look for the Pakistani watchers and undertake their own counter-surveillance. But more important to de Payns was knowing that his mission team would foil a kidnap or an assassination, even as he walked into the wolf’s mouth.

The mission was complicated for de Payns not only by the friendship he’d developed with Amin but by the hotel’s proximity to his family’s apartment in Montparnasse. The Marriott Rive Gauche was on Boulevard Saint-Jacques, only a ten-minute walk from Patrick’s school. It felt too close to home, especially given how ruthlessly the ISI had exploited Amin’s greatest weakness—his family. Usually de Payns operated overseas; the prospect of engaging with the ISI so close to home had him on edge.

He watched a Netflix movie with Romy the night before the operation, his bare feet on the coffee table and nursing a glass of riesling. He didn’t say much—usually he kept up a running commentary, which Romy would quell with a few shut ups. She was doing a PhD on political economics, with a complicated thesis about east–west wealth discrepancies within Europe, and de Payns would usually tease her by attributing a Marxist or Anarcho-syndicalist motive to the most stupid character in a given movie. If he was having fun, he could drive her to throw something at him. But tonight he was nervy and she knew it. Rather than ask him about it, she switched off the TV set and took him to bed shortly after nine o’clock.

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