Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (39 page)

Smith signed the register, automatically checking the names above his for
anything suspicious. He saw nothing there to worry him. There were only a few
other guests, almost all of them from other European countries or from France itself.
Most, like him, seemed to be traveling alone. They were either here on urgent
business or else scholars delving into the various nearby historical archives
and museums, he judged. Couples bent on romance would have been among the first
to abandon Paris
in the wake of the nanophage attack and the ensuing riots.

The clerk brought out a small square cardboard box and laid it on top of the
desk. “Also, this package came by courier for you an hour ago.” He
glanced down at the note on top. “It is from the MacLean Medical Group in Toronto, Canada.
You were expecting it, I think?”

Smith nodded, smiling inwardly. Trust Fred Klein to be on the ball, he
thought gratefully. MacLean was one of the many shell companies Covert-One used
for clandestine shipments to its agents around the world.

Upstairs in the privacy of his small but elegantly furnished room, he broke
open the seals on the box and ripped through the packing tape. Inside he found
a hard plastic case containing a brand-new 9mm SIG-Sauer pistol, a box of
ammunition, and three spare magazines. A leather shoulder holster came wrapped
separately.

Smith sat down on the comfortable double bed, stripped the pistol down to
its constituent parts, carefully cleaned each component, and then put them back
together. Satisfied, he snapped in a loaded magazine and slid the SIG-Sauer
into the shoulder holster. He went to the window, which looked out onto the
tiny courtyard behind the hotel. Above the dark slate rooftops of the ancient
buildings on the other side, the eastern sky was touched by the first faint
hint of gray. Lights were beginning to flick on behind some of the other
windows facing the little cobblestone enclosure. The city was waking up.

He punched in Klein's number on his cell phone and reported his safe arrival
in Paris.
“Any new developments?” he asked.

“Nothing here,” the head of Covert-One told him. “But it
appears that the CIA team in Paris
has traced one of the vehicles it spotted in La Courneuve to an address not far
from where you are now.”

Smith heard the uncertainty in Klein's voice. “It appears?” he
said, surprised.

“They're being very coy,” the other man explained. “The
team's most recent signal to Langley
claimed preliminary success but omitted any specific location.”

Smith frowned. “That's odd.”

“Yes,” Klein said flatly. “It is very odd. And I don't have a
satisfactory explanation for the omission.”

“Isn't Langley
pressing the Paris Station for specifics?”

Klein snorted. “The head of the CIA and his top people are far too busy
running emergency audits of the whole Operations Directorate to pay much
attention to their officers in the field.”

“So what makes you think this surveillance team is zeroing in on a
building in or around the Marais?” Jon asked.

“Because they've set their primary RV in the Place des Vosges,” Klein said.

Smith nodded to himself, understanding the other man's reasoning. The RV—or
rendezvous point—for a covert surveillance team operating inside a city was
almost always set up within easy walking distance of its intended target. It
was usually a fairly public place, one busy enough to camouflage discreet
meetings between agents as they exchanged information or relayed new orders.
The Place des Vosges, built in 1605, was the oldest square in Paris and was perfect for this purpose. The
bustling restaurants, cafes, and shops lining its four sides would provide
ideal cover.

“Makes sense,” he agreed. “But knowing that doesn't do me
much, good, does it? They could be snooping around any
one of several hundred buildings in this neighborhood.”

“It's a problem,” Klein agreed. “Which is
why you're going to have to make direct contact with the CIA team.”

Smith raised an eyebrow in amazement. “Oh? And just how do you suggest
I go about doing that?” he asked. “Parade up and down the Place des Vosges waving a big sign asking for a meeting?”

“Something rather like that, actually,” Klein said drily.

With growing surprise and amusement, Smith listened to the other man explain
what he meant. When they were through, Smith disconnected and entered another
number.

“Delights of Paris, LLC,” a rich, resonant English voice answered.
“No service too small. No bed left unmade. No reasonable request
refused.”

“You thinking of a career move, Peter?”
Smith asked, grinning.

Peter Howell chuckled. “Not at all. Merely a possible sideline to supplement my meager retirement pay.”
He turned serious. “I assume you have news?”

“I do,” Smith confirmed. “Where are you?”

“A charming little pension on the Left Bank,”
Peter replied. “Not far from the boulevard Saint-Germain. I arrived here
all of five minutes ago, so your timing is impeccable.”

“How are you fixed for equipment?”

“No problems,” the Englishman assured him. “I paid a little
call on an old chum on my way in from the airport.”

Smith nodded to himself. Peter Howell seemed to have reliable contacts
across most of Europe —old friends and
comrades-in-arms who would provide him with weapons, other gear, and assistance
without asking awkward questions.

“So, where and when do we meet?” Peter asked quietly. “And
with what purpose precisely?”

Smith filled him in—passing along the information relayed by Klein, though
he described it as coming to him only from a “friend” with good
contacts inside the CIA. By the time he was finished, he could hear the
undisguised astonishment in the other man's voice.

“It's a funny old world, Jon, isn't it?” Peter said at last. “And a damned small one, too.”

“It sure is,” Smith agreed, smiling. Then his smile faded as he
thought of the terrors that might lie in store for this small, interconnected
world if he and the Englishman were only chasing yet another dead end.
Somewhere out there, those who had designed the nanophages were surely busy
brewing up an even deadlier batch of their new weapons. Unless they could be
found and stopped—and soon—a great many more innocent people were going to die,
eaten alive by new waves of murderous machines too small to be seen.

Paris

An autumn breeze ruffled through the leaves of the chestnut trees planted
around the neatly landscaped edges of the Place des Vosges.
As the wind freshened, small gusts whipped through the spray of one of the
burbling fountains. A fine mist of water droplets swirled sideways—staining the
broad pavements and glistening like early morning dew on the lush green grass.

Impishly the breeze danced and curled around the weathered gray and pale
rose stone facades of the covered galleries, the arcades, lining the square. In
the northwest corner of the Place, cloth napkins pinned down by water goblets
fluttered on the highly polished wicker tables of the Brasserie Ma Bourgogne.

Jon Smith sat alone at a table on the edge of the arcade, lounging
comfortably in one of the restaurant's red leather-backed chairs. He looked out
over the fenced-in square, paying careful attention to the
many peo-

pie strolling casually along its sidewalks or
occupying park benches, idly tossing bread crumbs to the murmuring pigeons.

“Lin cafe noir, m'sieur,” a glum voice said nearby.

Smith looked up.

One of the waiters, a serious, unsmiling, older man wearing the bow tie and
black apron that was a hallmark of Ma Bourgogne,
slid a single cup of black coffee onto the table.

Smith nodded politely. “Merci.”
He slid a few euros across the table.

Grumbling under his breath, the waiter pocketed the money, turned away, and
stalked toward another table, this one occupied by two local businessmen making
a deal over what looked like an early lunch. Smith could smell the fragrant
odor of the plates piled high with saucisson de Beaujolais
and pommes frites. His mouth watered. It had been a long time since
breakfast at the Hotel des Chevaliers, and the two cups of strong coffee he had
already consumed while waiting here were eating away at his stomach lining.

For a moment he debated calling the waiter back, but then he decided against
it. According to Klein, this was the CIA surveillance team's primary rendezvous
point. With a bit of luck, he might not have to sit here idle much longer.

Smith went back to watching the people moving through the square and among
the surrounding buildings. Even at mid-morning, the Place des Vosges
was reasonably crowded, full of students and teachers on break from the nearby
schools, young mothers pushing infants in strollers, and squealing tots happily
digging in the sandbox set in the shadow of an equestrian statue of Louis XIII.
Old men arguing about everything from politics, to sports, to the odds of
winning the next national lottery stood around in small groups, slicing the air
with wide, vigorous gestures as they made their points.

Before the French Revolution, when it was still called the Place Royal, this
beautiful little patch of open ground had been the site of innumer-

able duels. On every square inch where ordinary
Parisians now enjoyed the autumn sun and let their pampered dogs run free,
cavaliers and young aristocrats had fought and died —hacking at each other with
swords or exchanging pistol shots at close range, all to prove their courage or
to defend their honor. Though it was fashionable now to deride these duels as
the hallmarks of a savage and bloodthirsty age, Smith wondered whether or not
that was especially fair. After all, how might future historians characterize
this so-called modern era—a time when some men were determined to slaughter
innocents whenever and wherever the}' could?

A plain, plump, dark-haired young woman in a knee-length black coat and blue
jeans passed close by his table. She noticed him watching her and flushed red.
She walked hurriedly on with her head down. Jon followed her with his eyes,
debating with himself. Was she the contact he had been waiting for?

“This seat? It is taken, m'sieur?” rasped
a gravelly voice made hoarse by decades of smoking three or four packs of
cigarettes a day.

Smith turned his head and saw the slender, ramrod-straight figure of an aged
Parisian dowager glaring down at him. He had the overriding impression of a
mass of immaculately coiffed gray hair, a deeply lined face, a prominent
hawk-like nose, and a fierce, predator}' gaze. She raised one finely sculpted
eyebrow in apparent disgust at his slowness and stupidity. “You do not
speak English, m'sieur? Pardon. Sprechen Sie
Deutsch?”

Before he could recover, she turned away to address her dog, a small,
equally elderly poodle who seemed intent on gnawing one of the empty chairs to
death. She yanked on his leash. “Heel, Pascal! Let the damned furniture
fall to pieces on its own!” she snapped in idiomatic French.

Apparently satisfied that Smith was either deaf, dumb, or an imbecile, the
old woman seated herself across the table from him—groaning slightly as she
slowly lowered her creaking bones into the chair. He looked away, embarrassed.

“Just what the hell are you doing trespassing on my patch, Jon?”
he

heard a very familiar and very irritated voice ask
quietly. “And please don't try to sell me some cock-and-bull story that
you're here to see the glories of Paris!”

Smith turned back toward the old woman in amazement. Somewhere behind that
mass of gray hair, wrinkles, and lines were the smooth, blond good looks of CIA
officer Randi Russell. He felt himself flush. Randi, the sister of his dead
fiancee, was a very good friend, someone with whom he shared dinner or drinks
whenever they found themselves in Washington
at the same time. Despite that, and though he had known that his presence right
at her team's rendezvous point would eventually draw her attention, she had
still managed to slip past his guard.

To buy himself some time to recover from his surprise, he took a cautious
sip of his coffee. Then he grinned back at her. “Nice disguise, Randi. Now
I know what you'll look like in forty or fifty years. The little dog's a nifty
touch, too. Is he yours? Or standard CIA-issue?”

“Pascal belongs to a friend, a colleague at the embassy,” Randi
replied briefly. Her mouth tightened. “And the poodle is almost as much of
a pain in the ass as you are, Jon. Almost, but not quite.
Now quit stalling and answer my question.”

He shrugged. “Okay. It's pretty simple, really. I'm here following up
on the reports you and your team have been sending to the States for the past
twenty-four hours.”

“That's what you call simple?” Randi said in disbelief.
“Our reports are strictly internal CIA product.”

“Not anymore they're not,” Smith told her. “Langley's in a hell of a mess right now over
this clandestine war against the Lazarus Movement. So is the FBI. Maybe you've
heard.”

The CIA officer nodded bitterly. “Yeah, I've heard. Bad news spreads
fast.” She frowned down at the table. “That stupid son of a bitch
Burke is going to wind up giving the Agency the biggest black eye we've ever
had.” Her gaze sharpened. "But that still doesn't explain who you're
working for

this time.“ She paused significantly. ”Or
at least who you're going to claim you're working for."

Inwardly Smith cursed the continuing need to keep Covert-One's existence a
tightly held secret. Like Peter Howell's, her affiliation with another
intelligence outfit meant Smith had to tread carefully around her, concealing
whole aspects of his work—even from those who were his closest friends, people
to whom he would entrust his life. He and Randi had managed to work together
before, in Iraq and Russia, here in Paris,
and most recently in China,
but it was always awkward dodging her pointed questions.