Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (52 page)

Randi shook her blond head. “My line was dead.”

“Mine, too,” Peter said. “Silent as a graveyard at four a.m. Don't like this one bit.”

“Let's get daring.” Randi took out her cell phone, turned it on, and entered a phone number. As she lifted it to listen, her face seemed to crumble. She shook her head angrily. “Nothing. What's going on!”

“Best if we could report in,” Peter said. “A bit of help from our various agencies would be pleasant.”

“Personally,” Randi said, “I wouldn't object if someone high up sent an army battalion or three to meet us at La Porte's castle.”

“Know what you mean.” Jon trotted toward the station's shop. Through the plate-glass window he could see a clerk inside. Jon entered. Hanging from a wall was a television set. It was not turned on, but a radio was playing. As he approached the clerk, who was working behind the counter, the music stopped, and an announcer identified the local station.

Jon told the youth in French that he had tried to use the telephone outside. “It's not working.”

The young man shrugged, unsurprised. “I know it. Lots of people have been complaining. They stop here from all over, and they don't have phone reception either. TV's off, too. I can get local stations on it and the radio, but nothing else. Cable's not working. Awful boring, you know.”

“How long have you had the problem?”

“Oh, since about nine o'clock. Almost an hour now.”

Jon's face showed no change in expression. Nine o'clock was when Marty's phone line in Paris had died. “Hope you get it fixed soon.”

“Don't know how. Without the phones working, there's no way to report it.”

Jon hurried back through to the car, where Randi had just finished pumping gas. Peter was opening the trunk, and Marty was standing beside him, looking a little giddy as he stared all around. He was staying off his meds, with the hope that they would find the molecular prototype and he would be in creative shape to stop whatever Chambord was setting in motion.

Jon told them what he had discovered.

“Emile!” Marty said instantly. “That despicable rat! Oh, dear. I didn't want to mention it, but I was very worried. This means it's finally happened. He's shut down all communications, wireless and regular.”

“But won't that backfire on him?” Randi asked. “If we can't get online, how can he?”

“He has the DNA computer,” Marty said simply. “He can talk to the satellites. Open a quick window to use them if he needs to.”

“Must get a move on,” Peter said. “Come here. Choose your poison.”

Marty looked down into the trunk and jumped back with surprise. “Peter! It's an arsenal.”

They gathered around. Inside was a polyglot cache of rifles, pistols, ammunition, and other supplies.

“Hell, Peter,” Jon said. “You've got a whole armaments depot in here.”

“Be prepared is my motto.” Peter removed a pistol. “Old warhorse, you see. We learn a few things.”

Jon already had the Uzi, so he chose a pistol, too.

Marty shook his head vehemently. “No.”

Randi ignored him for now. “Do you have anything like a CIA climbing rig and air gun, Peter? That castle wall looked high.”

“The very thing.” Peter showed her a twin of the rig she had gotten from Barcelona CIA. “Borrowed it some time back, forgot to return it, tsk-tsk.”

They climbed quickly back into the car, and Peter peeled it away, heading toward the highway again that would take them west toward the castle, where they fervently hoped they would find General La Porte and the DNA computer.

In the backseat, Marty was wringing his hands. “I assume this means we're on our own.”

“We can't count on any help,” Jon agreed.

“I'm very nervous about this, Jon,” Marty said.

“Good that you are,” Peter told him. “Keeps one alert. Buck up though. It could be worse. You could be sitting right smack in the middle of whatever unfortunate piece of terra firma those maniacs have targeted.”

Outside Bousmelet-sur-Seine

Emile Chambord hesitated at the heavy, iron-studded door to the room where his daughter was confined. No matter how much he had tried to explain his views to Theacute;regrave;se, she had refused to listen. This pained Chambord. He not only loved Theacute;regrave;se, he respected her, admired her work and her struggle to excel at her art, without thought of financial reward. She had steadfastly resisted all invitations to go to Hollywood. She was a stage actress with a vision of truth that had nothing to do with popular success. He recalled an American editor saying, “A good writer is a rich writer, and a rich writer is a good writer.” Substitute “actor” or “scientist” and one saw the shallow ethos of America, under which, until now, the world was doomed to live.

He sighed, took a deep breath, and unlocked the door. He stepped inside quietly, not bothering to lock it again.

Wrapped in a blanket, Theacute;regrave;se was sitting at the narrow window across the small room in one of the high-backed baronial chairs that La Porte favored. Because the general prized historical authenticity, the castle offered few amenities beyond thick rugs on the stone floors and tapestries hanging from the stone walls. A fire was alight in the big fireplace, but its warmth did little to offset the cold that seemed to radiate from every surface in the cavelike chamber. The air smelled dank and musty.

Theacute;regrave;se did not even glance at him. She gazed steadily out the window at the stars. He joined her there, but he looked down. The ground was awash in the moon's snowy glow, showing the dark grass on the filled-in moat and, beyond that, the rolling Norman farms and woodlands that spread out and around. A shadowy orchard of old, gnarled apple trees hugged the castle.

He said, “It's nearly time, Theacute;regrave;se. Almost midnight.”

At last she looked up at him. “So midnight is when you do it. I'd hoped you'd come to your senses. That you were here to tell me you've refused to help those unconscionable men.”

Chambord lost his temper. “Why can't you see that what we're doing will save us? We're offering a new dawn for Europe. The Americans are crushing us with their crass, cultural desert. They pollute our language, our ideas, our society. With them in charge, the world has no vision and little justice. They have only two values: How much can a man consume for the highest possible price, and how much can he produce for the least possible pay?” His upper lip curled in loathing.

Theacute;regrave;se continued to stare at him as if he were an insect under one of his own microscopes. “Whatever their faults, they're not mass murderers.”

“But they are! What about the effect of their policies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America?”

She paused, considering. Then she shook her head and laughed bitterly. “You don't care about any of that. You're not operating on altruism. You just want their power. You're just like General La Porte and Captain Bonnard.”

“I want France to rise. Europe has the right to rule its own destiny!” He turned away so she would not see his pain. She was his daughterhellip;how could she not understand?

Theacute;regrave;se was silent. At last she took his hand, and her voice softened. “I want one world, too, but where people are simply people, and no one has power over anyone else. 'France?' 'Europe?' 'The United States?' ” She shook her head sorrowfully. “The concepts are anachronisms. A united world, that's what I want. A place where no one hates or murders anyone in the name of God, country, culture, race, sexual orientation, or anything else. Our differences are to be celebrated. They're strengths, not weaknesses.”

“You think the Americans want one world, Theacute;regrave;se?”

“Do you and your general?”

“You will have a better chance of it with France and Europe than with them.”

“Do you remember after World War Two how the Americans helped us rebuild? They helped us all, the Germans and the Japanese, too. They've helped people all around the globe.”

That far Chambord could not go. She refused to see the truth. “For a price,” he snapped. “In exchange for our individuality, our humanity, our minds, our souls.”

“And from what you tell me, your price tonight could be millions of lives.”

“You exaggerate, child. What we do will warn the world that America cannot defend even itself, but the casualties will be relatively low. I insisted upon that. And we are at war with the Americans. Every minute, every day, we have to fight, or they will overwhelm us. We are not like them. We will be great again.”

Theacute;regrave;se released his hand and again stared out the window at the stars. When she spoke, her voice was clear and sad. “I'll do everything I can to save you, Papa. But I must also stop you.”

Chambord remained motionless for another moment, but she did not look at him again. He walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

They stopped again, this time at a small petrol station outside the village of Bousmelet-sur-Seine. The attendant nodded in answer to Jon's question: “Oui, bien, the count is at Chteau la Rouge. I filled the tank of his limousine earlier today. Everyone's glad. We don't see all that much of the great man since he took over NATO. Who could be better, I ask you?”

Jon smiled, noting that local pride had raised La Porte one more notch in the command structure at NATO.

“Is he alone?” Jon asked.

“Alas.” The attendant removed his cap and crossed himself. “The countess passed away these many years.” He glanced around at the night, even though there was no one else here. “There was a young lady at the castle for a while, but no one has seen her for more than a year. Some say that's good. That the count must set an example. But I say counts have been taking women not their wives up there for centuries, yes? And what of the peasant girls? It was a tanner's daughter who produced the great Duke William. Besides, I think the count's lonely, and he's still young. A great tragedy, yes?” And he roared with laughter.

Randi smiled and looked sympathetic. “Soldiers are often married to the army. I doubt Captain Bonnard brought his wife with him either.”

“Ah, that one. He has no time for anyone but the count. Devoted to his lordship, he is. I'm surprised to know he's married at all.”

As Jon took out euros to pay, the attendant studied them. “You needed little gas. What do you folks want with the count?”

“He invited us to drop in and tour the castle if we were ever in the area.”

“Guess you got lucky. He's sure not here much. Funny, too. Had another guy asking about an hour ago. A big, black guy. Said he was in the Legion with the count and Captain Bonnard. Probably was. Wore the green beret, except he wore it sort of wrong, you know, more like the English wear berets. Kind of arrogant. Had funny greenish eyes. Never saw eyes like that on a black.”

“What else was he wearing?” Jon asked.

“Like you, pants, jacket.” The attendant eyed Randi. “Except his looked new.”

“Thanks,” Jon said, and he and Randi climbed back into the car. As Peter drove away, Jon asked him and Marty, “You heard?”

“We did,” Peter said.

“Is the black man the one you called Abu Auda?” Marty asked.

“With those eyes, sounds like him,” Randi said. “Which could mean the Crescent Shield also thinks Bonnard and Chambord are here. Maybe they're looking for Mauritania.”

“Not to mention possibly getting their hands on the DNA computer if they can,” Peter guessed, “and getting revenge on Chambord and Captain Bonnard.”

“Having the Crescent Shield here is going to complicate matters,” Jon said, “but they could turn out to be useful, too.”

“How?” Randi said.

“Distraction. We don't know how many of his renegade Legionnaires La Porte has with him, but I bet it's a substantial number. It'll be good if they're worried by someone else.”

They drove on in silence for another ten minutes through the moonlight, the road a pale pathway in the silent, rural night. There were no other cars on the road now. The lights of farmhouses and manor houses sparkled intermittently through the apple orchards and the outbuildings and barns that probably housed equipment to make the cider and Calvados for which the region was famous.

At last, Randi pointed ahead and upward. “There it is.”

Marty, who had been mostly silent since they left the highway, suddenly said, “Medieval! A baronial bastion! You do not, I trust, expect me to scramble up those ridiculous walls?” he worried. “I'm no mountain goat.”

The Chteau la Rouge was not the fine country estate the name would have implied around Bordeaux or even in most of the Loire Valley. It was a brooding medieval castle boasting battlements and two towers. Moonlight had turned the granite an inky blood-red. Set high on a craggy-hill beside what looked like the jagged, gap-toothed ruins of a far older castle, this was the Chteau la Rouge that Jon had seen in the painting and photograph.

Peter studied the massive structure with a critical eye. “Send for the siege train. It's a bloody old one, it is. Late twelfth or early thirteenth century, I should say. Norman-English, from the look of it. The French tended to like their fortresses a bit more elegant and stylish. Possibly as old as Henry the Second, but I doubt it”

“Forget the history, Peter,” Randi interrupted. “What makes you think we can climb up those walls without being spotted?”

“I don't climb,” Marty announced.

“Shouldn't be difficult,” Peter enthused. “Looks as if she's been updated sometime in the last century or so. The moat's filled in, the portcullis is gone, and the entryway is wide open. Of course, tonight they'll have that entrance guarded. They've manicured the hill up to the walls, which is an advantage for us. And my guess is we won't have to worry about boiling oil, crossbows, and all that rigamarole from the battlements.”

“Boiling oil.” Marty shuddered. “Thanks, Peter. You've cheered me enormously.”

“My pleasure.”

Peter turned off the headlights, and they cruised to the base of the rocky hill where he paused the car. There in the moonlight they had a clear view of a curved drive that led up to the front and in through the tunnel-like entryway. As Peter had guessed, there was no gate or barrier, and spring flowers grew in well-kept beds on either side. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century La Portes had obviously been unworried about attack. But a pair of armed men in civilian clothes at the open front portal showed that the twenty-first-century La Porte was.