He ended up in intelligence because of the general who was the passenger on so many of his clandestine flights. The general was conducting a DGSE operation to find Serbian war criminals, and one of the flights involved a top-secret meeting in Podgorica. De Payns smiled now at the passing sea, thinking back to that fancy lunch where the Serbians hadn’t realised the general spoke their language and thus was aware that the translator the Serbs had supplied was lying to the French. There were eight men at lunch around that rectangular table in the hotel’s huge dining room, and after they’d eaten the general had whispered to de Payns: At my signal, you drop your napkin. And when you pickup the napkin, look under the table—if they all have guns on their knees, put the napkin on the table; if they don’t have guns, put the napkin on your knee.

De Payns dropped his napkin and looked—all the Serbs had guns on their knees. He put his napkin on the table and the general started to talk in Serbian, letting the Serbs know that for the last eighteen months the French had been listening in to their private discussions.

Then the two Frenchmen had stood and walked out to the driver waiting in the Audi A8 and were whisked to the plane at high speed. They took off for Mostar without lights and flew at low altitude to avoid detection by the Serbs.

That early informal work with the Company had been noticed, probably by the general himself. And after his second spinal surgery, when de Payns was grounded for a while, he was asked to apply to the DGSE. After a tough year-long induction course, a new career had unfolded.

He took one last look up and down the ship’s deck, then returned to his cabin, where he washed his hands and hit the lights.

De Payns lay awake in the dark, thinking about an old source of his that he had managed to entice to turn on his country. And how, when the source was caught, the first response of his own secret service was to harm his wife and son. It seemed likely that the episode had resulted from a leak in Paris. And now de Payns wondered about the operation that had gone wrong in Palermo. Had it too been subject to a leak? And, if so, was the same person involved?

He had to avoid leaping at shadows, he warned himself, as he consciously slowed his breathing and waited for the day.