The Amigo Hotel is The Jackal’s practical base during the closing phase of his preparations in Belgium. He returns there between errands and journeys, uses its reception desk to arrange transport and a weekend stay elsewhere, and finally leaves it in the polished guise of a prosperous traveller. The hotel’s significance lies in this combination of ordinary hospitality and covert logistics: it lets him move through his preparations without making the hotel itself the repository of his most dangerous equipment.

Arrival and working base

After travelling from Paris by the Etoile du Nord express, The Jackal arrives in Brussels in the last hours of July. The account later places him at the Amigo Hotel as he conducts the detailed errands required for his plan. Its role is not that of a secluded hideout but of a convenient, respectable address to which he can return while keeping his public manner and appearance composed.

Arrangements for the weekend

On Friday, after shopping for outdoor clothing and equipment, The Jackal returns to the hotel and uses his driving licence and passport in the name of Alexander Duggan to order a self-drive hire car. He also persuades the head reception clerk to find him a single room with a shower and bath at a coastal resort for the weekend. Although August accommodation is scarce, the clerk secures a room in a small hotel overlooking the fishing harbour at Zeebrugge. The exchange gives The Jackal an innocuous explanation for his planned movements and demonstrates how he turns routine hotel services into logistical cover.

After spending the weekend at Zeebrugge and travelling through Ghent and Bruges, he returns towards Brussels. Before turning in, he asks the desk clerk for an early call, breakfast in bed, and a packed lunch for his intended drive into the Ardennes. He presents the excursion as a pilgrimage to his elder brother’s grave: the brother, he says, died in the Battle of the Bulge between Bastogne and Malmedy. The clerk responds solicitously and promises that the arrangements will be made. The hotel thus helps sustain a plausible personal story as well as the practical schedule around it.

Departure and concealed equipment

At a later point, after completing the planning and preparation stage in France and Belgium, The Jackal returns to the Amigo Hotel to pack and pay his bill. Before that return, he has deposited a cheap fibre suitcase at the station’s left-luggage office, keeping its ticket in his slim lizard-skin wallet so the case will not be seen by the hotel staff. The rifle is safely inside that unobtrusive case; the luggage carried away from the hotel presents a different picture.

When he leaves, he appears as before in a finely cut check suit and wrap-around dark glasses, with a porter carrying his two Vuitton suitcases to a waiting taxi. He is £1,600 poorer after the preparations, but three finely forged cards remain in an inside pocket of his suit, while the rifle stays behind at the station. He then flies to London; after a perfunctory search of one bag at London Airport, he reaches his own flat by seven. The Amigo Hotel is therefore the final visible stop in a carefully divided departure: respectable luggage and appearance travel with him, while the concealed weapon follows a separate route.