Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (38 page)

“Understood. Standing by!”

Randi shut off the radio and stowed it in a pocket of her camos, unslung her MP5K mini-submachine gun from her shoulder, and loped off. She avoided the main road and the beach. Instead, she worked her way through the citrus groves and past the greenhouses, their plastic coverings stirring with the wind. The moon hung low on the horizon, its milky light reflecting eerily on the plastic. In the distance, surf pounded the beach, rhythmic as a heartbeat. Above her, the stars had come out, but the sky seemed more black than usual. Nothing moved on the highway or out at sea, and there were no houses in sight. Only the ghostly-orange and lemon trees, and the shifting glitter of the greenhouses.

At last she heard two cars speeding along the highway, their motors loud assaults in the quiet night. They roared past, and abruptly their tires screeched and burned rubber as they made the sharp turn inland that Max had identified from the air. In a few minutes, the engines stopped, cut off as if a curtain of silence had fallen over them. Randi knew the only residence ahead was the villa. The speed indicated someone had felt an urgent need to get to the villa.

She accelerated into a serious run and soon reached the high white wall, where she discovered it was topped by coils of razor wire. An open space of almost ten yards had been cut between the vegetation and the wall as far as she could see, which meant she would not be helped out by overhanging branches. She unslung the backpack she had loaded on the Saratoga with equipment flown to her by the CIA and pulled out a small air pistol, a miniature titanium barbed dart, and a roll of thin nylon-covered wire. She attached the wire to a miniature ring on the dart, inserted the dart into the pistol barrel, and searched until she found a thick old olive tree some ten feet inside the wall.

She stood back and fired. The dart landed where she wantedinto the tree. She returned the pistol to her backpack, put on padded leather gloves, and, grasping the wire, she swarmed hand over hand up to the top of the wall. Once there, she hooked the wire to her belt, returned the gloves to the backpack, and brought out a miniature pair of wire cutters. She clipped a three-foot opening in the razor wire, returned the cutters, and slid over the wall and dropped to the ground.

High-tech security was extremely expensive, and terrorists could rarely afford it. Fundamentalists who became terrorists maintained such an extreme secrecy that their paranoia prevented them from seeking out the necessary hardware, the sales of which were often too closely monitored for their tastes. At least, that was the theory, and she could only hope it was correctand be cautious as hell.

With that in mind, she released the wire from the dart, pulled the coil over the wall after it, and returned everything to her backpack. She melted through the vegetation toward the unseen villa.

Dr. Emile Chambord paused, his hands on the lid of the glass tray. “It's possible. Yes, I believe you're right, Colonel. We should be able to escape that way. It appears you're indeed more than a physician.”

“We've got to go immediately. No telling when they'll discover I'm here.” He nodded at the computer, which was only partially disassembled. “There's no more time. We'll take the gel packs and leave the rest”

There was a noise out in the corridor, the door flung open, and Abu Auda and three armed terrorists rushed in, weapons raised. Theacute;regrave;se cried out, and Dr. Chambord attempted to jump in front of her to protect her with his pistol. Instead, the scientist stumbled heavily into Jon, destroying his balance.

Jon recovered, grabbed for his Walther, and spun. It was too late to destroy the DNA prototype, but he could damage it so that Chambord would need days to make it operational again. That would buy Randi and Peter time to find it, if he were not around to help.

But before Jon's gun could home in on the gel packs, Abu Auda and his men jumped him, knocked the pistol away, and wrestled him to the floor.

“Really, Doctor.” Mauritania had followed his men into the room. He pulled Chambord's pistol away from him. “This is hardly your style. I don't know whether to be impressed or shocked.”

Abu Auda jumped to his feet and pointed his assault rifle down at Jon's head where he lay on the floor tiles. “You've given us enough trouble.”

“Stop,”

Mauritania ordered. “Don't kill him. Think, Abu Auda. An army doctor is one thing, but the American colonel we saw in action in Toledo who's managed to find us again is quite another. We may have need of him before this is finished. Who knows how valuable he may be to the Americans?”

Abu Auda did not move, the rifle still at Jon's head. His erect, angry posture radiated intent to kill. Mauritania said his name again. He looked at Mauritania. His eyes blinked thoughtfully, and the fire in them slowly banked.

At last, he decided, “Wasting a resource is a sin.”

“Yes.”

Abu Auda gestured with disgust, and his men hauled Smith to his feet. “Let me see the doctor's gun.” Mauritania handed him Chambord's pistol, and he examined it. “It's one of ours. Someone will pay for this carelessness.”

Mauritania's attention returned to Smith. “Destroying the computer would've been a futile gesture in any event, Colonel Smith. Dr. Chambord would simply have had to build us another.”

“Never,” Theacute;regrave;se Chambord insisted and pulled away from Mauritania.

“She hasn't been friendly, Colonel Smith. Pity.” He glanced back at her. “You underestimate your power, my dear. Your father would build us another. After all, we have you, and we have him. Your life, his own life, and all the work he will do in the future. Much too high a price to save a few people from a bad day, wouldn't you say? After all, the Americans would not be as concerned about you or me. We'd be a small ancillary cost'collateral damage,' they call itwhile they took what they wanted.”

“He'll never build you another!” Theacute;regrave;se raged. “Why do you think he stole your pistol!”

“Ah?” Mauritania raised an eyebrow at the scientist. “A Roman act, Dr. Chambord? You'd fall onto your sword before you'd help us in our dastardly attack? How foolish, but how brave to consider such a gesture. My congratulations.” He looked at Jon. “And you are equally foolish, Colonel, to think you could stop us for any length of time by putting a few bullets into the doctor's creation.” The terrorist leader sighed almost sadly. “Please give us credit for some intelligence. Accidents are always possible, so naturally we have the materials at hand for the doctor to rebuild, should you decide to martyr yourself even now.” He shook his head. “That's perhaps you Americans' worst sinhubris. Your so-smug assumption of your own superiority in all things, from your borrowed technology to your unexamined beliefs and assumed invulnerability. A smug assumption you often extend to include your friends, the Jews.”

“This isn't religious or even cultural with you, Mauritania,” Jon told him. “You're just like every other aspiring dictator. Look at you. This is profoundly personal. And disgusting.”

Mauritania's pale eyes were alight, and his small body bristled with energy. There was an air about him of almost godlike invincibility, as if he alone had seen heaven and had been charged with the mission of not simply spreading God's word, but enforcing it.

“This from a heathen,” Mauritania mocked. “Your greedy nation has turned the Middle East into a series of puppet monarchies. You gorge on our resources while the world struggles to find food for the next meal. That's your pattern everywhere. You're the richest nation the planet's ever known, but you manipulate and hoard and then wonder why no one thanks you, much less likes you. Because of you, one of every three people doesn't have enough to eat, and one billion are actually starving. Are we to be grateful?”

“Let's talk about all the innocents that'll be killed in your attack on Israel,” Jon retorted. “The Koran says, 'You shall not kill any man whom God has forbidden you to kill, except for a just cause.' That's from your sacred writings, Mauritania. There's no justness in your cause, just cold-eyed, selfish ambition. You're fooling no one but the poor souls you've lied to so they'd follow you.”

Theacute;regrave;se accused, “You're hiding behind a god you've invented.”

Mauritania ignored her. He told Jon, “For us, the man protects his women. They are not to be on public display for all to touch with their eyes.”

But Jon was no longer listening, nor was he watching Theacute;regrave;se and Mauritania. He was focused on Emile Chambord, who had said nothing since Mauritania, Abu Auda, and their men had rushed in. The scientist stood exactly where he had been when he tried to protect Theacute;regrave;se. He was silent, looking at no one in particular, not even at his daughter. He seemed almost unconcerned. Perhaps he was in shock, paralyzed. Or maybe his thoughts were no longer here in this room, but somewhere else where there were no worries and the future was safe. Watching Chambord made Jon uneasy.

“We talk too much,” Abu Auda announced and beckoned his men forward. “Take them out and lock them in the punishment cell. If even one should escape,” he warned his followers, “I'll have all your eyes.”

Mauritania stopped Abu Auda. “Leave Chambord. We have work to do, do we not, Doctor? Tomorrow will see a changed world, a new beginning for mankind.” The little terrorist leader chortled with genuine pleasure.

Randi watched the two armed sentries cross at the front of the villa, followed by another who came out of the entrance. The two who crossed were walking easily, relaxed, laughing to each other. The solitary sentry stopped on the terrace outside the front door and stared appreciatively up at the moonlit night, savoring the citrus-scented breeze and the cool weather and the few clouds that were floating gently across the starry sky.

There was a laxness about them, as if they had been doing this too long with nothing happening. They were expecting nothing to happen. This told her the Crescent Shield had spotted neither her insertion nor her climb over the wall. As she had hoped, there were no motion detectors, closed-circuit cameras, or optical scanners mounted at the perimeter. The villa itself could be another matter.

She had reconnoitered the area, finding barracks and a training camp, a road out to the east-west coastal highway, and a helipad with one dark old U.S. Army Huey, and one equally old Hughes OH-6 Loach scout, guarded by a single sleepy terrorist wearing a white turban. Now she circled past the villa's front and through the vegetation, hidden by it from both the arid area of olive trees and the sea. She stopped to study the villa again, which lay like a reclining white phantom, most of its windows dark, only its mosaic dome glowing like some alien spaceship.

She was looking for a weak point. What she saw was a fourth guard standing outside the rear entrance as relaxed as his three comrades.

Until a small man wearing American denim jeans, Levi's from the look of them, and a loud checked shirt ran out the rear door. Southeast Asian, probably Malaysian, and in a great hurry. He spoke briefly and sharply to the sentry, who immediately looked around alertly, nervously, and the small man reentered the house at a run. The sentry peered out into the night, his assault rifle up and traversing as he scanned the vegetation at the rear of the villa.

Something had happened. Were they looking for Jon? Found him?

Moving faster, she continued through the vegetation to the western side of the grounds, where she discovered that the villa had a wing. It jutted out of the otherwise symmetrical building and was blocked from viewing on the east by the villa itself. The wing had no exterior doors, and the windows were barredelaborate, wrought-iron bars that appeared centuries old. The only entrance to the wing must be from inside the house, and Randi felt a sudden physical sensation, a small, involuntary shudder that combined both anticipation and disgust. She recognized what the wing had beenthe female quarters of the old villa, the harem. The bars and lack of doors were not only to keep intruders out, but to keep the women locked in, prisoners.

As she slipped closer, she heard voices from somewhere inside. She circled on and saw light in three windows. The voices came from behind the lighted windows, and they were angry, speaking both French and Arabic. The words were indecipherable, but one of the voices belonged to a woman. Theacute;regrave;se Chambord? If it were her, she would know her from the briefing photograph she had been shown. As soon as she reached the first window, she eagerly raised up and peered in past the bars.

Mauritania, Abu Auda, and two armed terrorists were standing in the room, all pointing weapons. Even from outside, she could feel the tension. Mauritania was speaking to someone, but she could not see who it was. Ducking low, she crawled to the next window and again arose. Excited, she saw that it was Theacute;regrave;se Chambord and her father. She angled a bit and, with relief, spotted Jon, too. But the joy of finding them disappeared in the terrible danger in which all three were, under the guns of Mauritania and his men.

As she watched, Abu Auda gestured violently and announced in French, “We talk too much. Take them out and lock them in the punishment cell. If even one should escape, I'll have all your eyes.”

Abu Auda's men herded the three toward the door.

Mauritania said, “Leave Chambord. We have work to do, do we not, Doctor? Tomorrow will see a changed world, and a new beginning for mankind.”

The terrorist's laughter sent chills along Randi's spine. But not as great a chill as a decision she knew she had to make. With Jon and Theacute;regrave;se Chambord taken away, only Mauritania and Dr. Chambord, who stood near an apparatus that might or might not be the DNA computer, remained in the room. She examined the bars on the window. They were as substantial as they had appeared from the distance.

She knew her job. In seconds, she considered her options: She had a clear shot at both men but a difficult one at the apparatus. The moment she killed one man, the other would drop to the floor out of sight. Even Chambord would know to do that. A burst from her weapon might damage the apparatus, but she had heard nothing to confirm to her that it was the actual prototype, and she did not know enough science to be confident this was it.