Scene 17: Hektor Maille finds Coriander

20.35: R2 von Port-Louis nach Senpuav

Working with ‹freelancers› had its downside: it had resulted some things going very wrong. That Hektor Maille had beaten the daylights out of her man in Dakar had not unduly pained Odette. What had been worse was that, because of a mistake on the part of her man, the agent had succeeded in finding Koslow's former assistant in Moscow. Had Maille been cleverer, he would have understood everything, and her whole coup would have been crushed. So she had to intercept the secret agent in Beijing, where, as luck would have it, she had a couple of friends in the Chinese Secret Service – in particular, colonel Li, an old buddy of her father's. With the help of Li's office she had managed to put Maille on the wrong track. But she had also needed to bribe a taxi-driver and engage two actors to stage a small drama on the Great Wall of China for the eyes of the secret agent – with fake blood and all that went with it. Because Maille reacted with uncharacteristic speed and actually engaged one actor in battle, her whole arrangement had come within a whisker of being torn apart. Then she had sought to trick the agent with a message that she scribbled on an old banknote and deposited in the old observatory. The scheme was carefully plotted – but absurdly enough, Maille had chosen to drive, not to the observatory but to the airport. The thing seemed to have gone out of control and, in his slumbrous behaviour, the best man in the Lemusan Secret Service seemed totally unpredictable. But he had at least understood the message and obediently travelled to Sweden – the northern-most point that Tatjana could still reach with her transporter-equipment.

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