Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (42 page)

The president forced himself to take a deep breath. “Reconvene the Joint Chiefs. They're probably not out of the building yet. If they are, get Admiral Brose and tell him to instruct the others to assume the worstan immediate attack on the United States. Anything from biological warfare to a nuclear missile. Scramble every defense, and everything we don't have, officially.”

“The experimental antimissile system, sir? But our allies”

“I'll talk to them. They've got to know, so they can alert their own people. We feed a lot of them information off our satellites anyway. Hell, many buy time, too. Their systems have to be reflecting a loss of data, some of it dramatic. If I don't call them, they're going to call me. I'll put it up to some wild-haired hacker, the best we've ever seen. They'll believe it for a while. Meanwhile, we scramble everything. At least the secret experimental system should be totally secure because no one knows we have it, and it should be able to handle everything short of a massive missile attack, which terrorists won't be able to mount. No one but the Brits and Moscow can do that, and they're on our side this time, thank God. For any other kinds of strikes, we'll have to rely on our conventional military, the FBI, and the police every damn where. And Chuck, this doesn't get leaked to the press. Our allies won't want their media people to get wind of it either. This makes none of us look good. Get going, Chuck.”

Ouray ran out, and the president opened the other door. Klein's face was gray with worry as he returned to the room.

“You heard?” the president asked.

“Damn right.”

“Find out where the hellish thing is, Fred, and this time finish it!”

Paris, France

When Marty fell asleep again in his hospital room, Peter slipped away to contact local MI6. Randi waited ten minutes and left, too. But her journey was much shorterdown to the phone booth she had spotted off the main lobby. She hovered at the top of the fire stairs, waiting as a few employees came and went, serving the rich patients who would soon emerge with new faces or new bodies or both. As soon as the lobby was clear, she padded down to it. Lilacs, peonies, and jonquils were arranged in showy springtime displays in tall cut-glass vases. The place was as fragrant as a florist's, but it was making a lot more money.

Enclosed in the glass booth, she dialed her Langley chief, Doug Kennedy, on a secure undersea fiber-optic cable line.

Doug's voice was grim. “I've got bad news. In fact, rotten news. The surveillance and communications satellites are still offline. Worse, we've lost everything in orbit, both military and civilian. NASA and the Pentagon are working like demons with every tool they have, and they're making up the rest as they go along. So far, we're zilch, kaput, aloha, and good luck. Without those satellites, we're blind, deaf, and dumb.”

“I get your point. What do you think I'm working on? I told you the prototype had been destroyed, period. The only thing that makes sense is that Chambord survived, although I still can't figure out how. I also can't figure out how he could've built a new prototype so fast.”

“Because he's a genius, that's how.”

“Even geniuses have only two arms and ten fingers and need time and materialsand a place to work. A stable place. Which brings me to my reason for calling your august self.”

“Hold the sarcasm, Russell. It gets you into trouble. What do you want?”

“Check with every asset we have on the ground within a two-hundred-mile radius of the villa and find out if they noticed, heard of, or even suspect any unusual traffic on the roads and in the ports, no matter how small, all along the coast near the villa for twelve hours after the explosion. Then do the same with everything we have, sea and air, over the Mediterranean, in the same time frame.”

“That's all?”

She ignored the acid tone. “For now, yes. It could tell us for sure if Chambord survived.” She paused. “Or whether we're dealing with some unknown factor, which scares the hell out of me. If he did survive, we need to know that, and where he went.”

“I'm convinced.”

“Yesterday, okay?”

“If not sooner. What about you?”

“I've got some other leads, unofficial, you understand?” It was total bravado. The only possible leads she had were from Peter's highly developed, far-flung, idiosyncratic private assets, and Marty's brain at its most manic.

“Don't we all. Good luck, Russell.” He ended the connection.

Aloft Somewhere over Europe

Gagged and blindfolded, Jon Smith sat upright in a passenger seat at the back of a helicopter, his hands bound behind him. He was anxious and worried, his wounds aching, but still he was recording in his mind as much information as possible, while twisting his wrists against the ropes. Every once in a while, he felt the bonds loosen a bit more. It gave him hope, but Abu Auda or his men could easily discover what he had been up to when they reached wherever they were going, if he had not broken free by then.

He was in a helicopter, a large one. He could feel the throb of twin, high-powered engines. From their size, the placement of the door through which he had been shoved aboard, and the interior arrangement that he had deduced by stumbling against each row of seats as he was pushed to the rear, he figured the chopper was a Sikorsky S-70 model, known by several namesthe Seahawk in the navy, Black Hawk in the army, Pave Hawk in the air force, and Jayhawk in the coast guard.

S-70s were troop carriers and logistical aircraft, but they often carried out other duties like medical evacuation and command-and-control. He had flown in enough while in the field and during his command days courtesy of both the army and air force, with a navy chopper or two thrown into remember the details well.

After he had decided all this, he overheard Abu Auda talking nearby with one of his men. Their conversation had confirmed that it was a Sikorsky all right, but it was the S-70A model, the export version of the multimission Black Hawk. Maybe a leftover from Desert Storm, or acquired through some fellow terrorist whose day job was in the procurement division of some Islamic country's army. In any case, it meant the chopper could easily be armed for combat, which made Jon even more uneasy. Shortly after that, Abu Auda had moved out of listening range.

Jon had been straining to hear any other talk for what he figured was nearly three hours, trying to pick up more information over the roar of the motors, but he had learned nothing useful. The chopper must be near the end of its fuel range. Then it would have to land. At the villa in Algeria, Mauritania had decided he could be useful in the future, and he must still think so, or they would have killed him. Eventually, they would get rid of him, or Abu Auda would get tired of dragging him along and kill him. Hostile witnesses made poor long-term companions.

As he was helplessly carried along in the big Sikorsky, he quit working on the ropes for a while, resting. The wound on his arm ached and burned. Still, it was superficial, more an annoyance than a danger, but it should be taken care of before infection set in. On the other hand, a much more pressing goal was simply surviving. Which brought his thoughts back again to Randi. He knew her only too well, and he was worried. Had she made it out of range before the missile hit? She would have waited for him and the Chambords as long as possible. When they had not appeared, her first instinct would have been to try to rescue them.

God in heaven, he hoped she had not. Even if she had finally realized she had to run for it, she might not have escaped in time. His mouth went dry as he recalled how close he and Theacute;regrave;se had come to dyinghellip;

hellip; Near the window of the dark villahellip;armed guards all aroundhellip;Jon and Theacute;regrave;se disarmedhellip;

Emile Chambord tells Mauritania, “The American has called in some kind of missile strike. We must leave. Tell your men to fire their weapons, make it sound like a fight. Then shout. Celebrate loudly as if you've killed Smith and my daughter. Hurry!”

They fire bursts. Scream their slogans. Race from the villa, herding Jon and Theacute;regrave;se toward the helipad. They reach the barracks, and the world detonates behind them. They are flung into the air. Thrown to the ground. Deafened by an explosive roar that hammers with the rush of a shock wave and tears at their clothes, their hair, their limbs. Tree branches and palm fronds fly. A massive wood door cartwheels overhead and slams down onto one of Abu Auda's men, crushing him to death.

When the ground stops heaving, Jon staggers up, bleeding from a head wound. His left forearm burns with pain. He searches frantically for a weapon.

But Abu Auda trains his British-made assault rifle on Jon. “Don't try, Colonel.”

The survivors crawl to their feet. Amazingly, most are still alive. Theacute;regrave;se is bleeding from her right leg. Chambord hurries to her. “Theacute;regrave;se! You're hurt.”

She pushes him away. “I don't know who you are anymore. You must be mad!” She turns her back and helps Jon.

Chambord watches as she rips off the sleeve of her white suit. “What I do is for the future of France, child,” he explains earnestly. “You'll understand soon.”

“There's nothing to understand.” She binds the wound on Jon's arm and then the one on her leg. The blood on Jon's forehead is a minor scratch.

Mauritania interrupts, “She'll have to understand later, Doctor.” He gazes around with the canny expression of a feral animal. He seems to sniff the air as if he can read intelligence on it. “They may strike again. We must leave immediately.”

One of the terrorists gives a loud bellow of dismay. Everyone converges, staring at the Huey helicopter. Its rotors have been broken by debris hurled in the blast. The chopper is grounded.

Chambord decides, “There's room for five of us in the scout helicopter. You, of course, M. Mauritania, and your pilot. Plus Captain Bonnard, Theacute;regrave;se, and I” Mauritania begins to protest. He wants more of his own people. But Chambord shakes his head firmly. “No. I need Bonnard, and I won't leave my daughter behind. If I'm to build another prototype, I need to go where I can work. A new DNA computer is our most pressing priority. I regret there's room for no one else, but there it is.”

Mauritania has to agree. He turns to his towering lieutenant, who has heard everything and is glowering with disapproval. “You'll remain behind to lead the others, Abu Auda. Make arrangements to be picked up. I'll have to take our Saudi pilot, Mohammed. He's our best. You'll rejoin us soon.”

“What of the American, Smith? May I kill him now? It was he who ”

“ No . If he's arranged for this missile strike, he must be even more important than I realized. You'll keep him safe, Abu Auda.”

Theacute;regrave;se Chambord protests vehemently, but they force her aboard. The compact helicopter rises, skirts the disaster site, and heads north toward Europe. Abu Auda orders Jon's hands bound, and the group moves at a brisk clip to the distant highway, where they are met by two covered pickup trucks. A long, jolting ride through the wind-swept inland desert finally ends at the noisy docks of Tunis. There they board a motorboat like the converted PT boat on which Jon stowed the day before. The ragtag group is exhausted, but their sense of urgency remains clear.

On the boat, they blindfold him. He sees none of the long trip across the Mediterranean. He falls asleep again despite the slamming of the boat against the waves, but as soon as the boat lands, he is instantly awake, craning his head to listen. They hustle him out ondeck, still blindfolded, where he hears many voices speaking Italian and guesses they must be in Italy. They board the Sikorsky helicopter to fly to an unnamed location that could be anywhere from Serbia to Francehellip;

Now as Jon sat blindfolded in the helicopter, waiting for them to either run out of gas or land, he wrestled with his tormenting thoughts: Was Randi alive? Where were Peter and Marty? From what Theacute;regrave;se knew, she and her father had been the only prisoners in the villa until Jon arrived. Jon hoped they had not been captured, that Peter had somehow saved Marty, and that they were safe. His only comfort was that the molecular computer had been pulverized in the missile blast.

Now he must stop Emile Chambord before he built another. It had been a shock to learn Chambord had been working with the terrorists all along, apparently the instigator of an elaborateand very successful charade to fool not just national governments but also his daughter. In a perversion of a great scientific achievement, he was scheming to build another molecular computer so he could use it to destroy Israel. Why? Because his mother had been Algerian? Part of Islam? Jon remembered Fred Klein's report: His mother raised him as a Muslim, but he showed little interest in religion as an adult. There had seemed no reason to consider that bit of information salient, since Chambord had never shown religious tendencies.

As Jon thought about it all, he remembered Chambord's stint teaching in Cairo just before he returned to the Pasteur, and that Chambord's wife had died not long ago. A reacquaintance with Islam, plus the life-changing loss of a beloved spouse. Belief shifts in later years had happened to others, and they would happen again. Forgotten faith could reach out and reclaim, especially as one aged and faced personal tragedy.

Then there was Captain Darius Bonnard, who had a similar background: Married to an Algerian woman when he had been in the Foreign Legion. When commissioned, his leaves spent in Algiers with, maybe, a first wife he had never divorced. A double life? It certainly seemed more than possible now. And, too, there was his jobwithin whispering distance of the top echelons of NATO and the French military. He was one of the invisiblesthe quiet, efficient aide to a general. Although he had far more access than most, he was seldom in the limelight, unlike his general.

Chambord's and Bonnard's lives made a new kind of sense when looked at with the hindsight of Chambord's shattering revelation: “I'm not with themhellip; they're with me!”

The scientist's prototype was destroyed, but not his knowledge. Unless someone stopped him, he would build another. But that would take time. Smith held on to that morsel of hope. Time to find Chambord and to stop him. But first he had to escape. Behind him, he resumed trying to loosen the ropes that bound him.