The siblings were really determined to deliver the first microfilm to Valerie as early as possible, to get that done and out of the way, so that they could even – maybe – just pretend to be tourists for the rest of the day. Their train for Lyon was scheduled for the next morning, so if everything went OK, they had plenty of time.

Fae in particular insisted to walk to the area behind Notre Dame the afternoon before, just to understand where things were, how to get there, and so on. She really wanted to be prepared and she also made sure they went to bed at a decent time. Finn, on the other hand, was regretting not having had the chance to go around Paris a little bit more, maybe even go to the Moulin Rouge in the evening… but his sister wasn’t having any of that, and even though they were both adults, she always acted as she was the one in charge – and Finn was so used to it that he didn’t even notice anymore, so he went with it, as always.

Île de la Cité, the small island in the Seine where Notre Dame was located, was actually really near to their hotel. They just walked there, exactly like the rehearsed the day before, behaving like tourists and snapping the mandatory pictures of the splendid Cathedral. And exactly like the day before, they could not help noticing that there were army soldiers patrolling the landmark, in full camo uniforms and armed with… assault rifles! The fact that no one was even slightly bothered by this meant that it was probably commonplace in France, or at least in Paris. Groups of gendarmes were also patrolling the area on horseback, another thing that was relatively common in cities, even in Ireland, albeit less frequent.

The park of Square Jean XXIII was really peaceful. A few stalls were present selling food, always carefully displaying their licenses, others were selling second-hand stuff, from well-worn pieces of clothing of any kind to houseware, even small pieces of furniture. And, of course, books. Most of the second-hand stalls were selling books as well, but there was one stall that was only selling books and magazines. A tall, slender, middle-aged, but still very attractive woman was casually looking around for potential customers, or for them, maybe. She had to be Valerie.

Fae kept looking around and she noticed that there were a lot of gendarmes patrolling the area. She had a bad feeling about this, so she told Finn to stay behind, while she was going to approach Valerie’s stall.

“Here, take this.” said Fae, and she took out the special AA battery from her wooden battery box. “If there are no problems, I’ll signal you to come in with the microfilm, but until then, it’s better if you have it.”

Finn, who knew better than to argue with her sister, nodded as he took the battery off her, then visibly gestured that he needed to go, and went back towards the cathedral. Once he arrived at a safe distance, he found an empty bench and sat on it, still making sure he could see Valerie’s stall in the distance.

He saw the two women greet each other and start talking. Things seemed to be going OK! He was just getting ready to get up from the bench to reach them… when he noticed that two gendarmes stopped at the stall and started asking questions. At the same time, another two turned up on horseback, as to make sure that no one could attempt to run away.

Finn began to sweat as realized that his sister was not that paranoid after all, and sure enough, he saw Fae open her backpack and… hand over her DigiBook to the gendarmes! Why on Earth did she bring it along? Maybe she thought it would be safer on her than at the hotel? Probably. After a few minutes, they were taken away, probably for some questioning.

Finn’s heart was racing. He suddenly realized he was on his own for the first time since they started their journey, and he started to panic. Should he follow them? Probably not a good idea, especially with the microfilm on him. Should he go back to the hotel? And then what? Wait for her to come back?