Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (40 page)

“It's no great secret, Randi,” he lied. He felt guilty for lying
to her but did his best to hide it. “You know I've done some work for Army
Intelligence in the past. Well, the Pentagon brass pulled me in again for this
mission. Someone is developing a nanotech weapon, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
don't like the sound of that at all.”

“But why you, exactly?” she demanded.

Smith looked her straight in the eye. “Because I was working at the
Teller Institute,” he said quietly. “So I know what this weapon can
do to people. I saw it myself.”

Randi's face softened. “That must have been terrible, Jon.”

He nodded, mentally pushing away the sickening memories that still haunted
his sleep. “It was.” He looked across the table. “But I guess it
was even worse here—at La Courneuve.”

“There were many more deaths, and no apparent survivors,” Randi
agreed. “From the press accounts, what happened to those poor people was
absolutely horrible.”

“Then you should understand why I want a closer look at the men you
spotted installing some kind of quote-unquote sensor equipment there the night
before the attack,” Smith told her.

“You think the two events are related?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don't you?”

Randi nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I do.” She sighed. “And we've
managed to trace most of the vehicles those guys were using.” She saw the
next question in his eyes and answered it before he could speak. “Right,
you guessed it: They're all tied to a single address right here in Paris.”

“An address you've carefully avoided naming in any of your cables
home,” Smith pointed out.

“For some damned good reasons,” Randi snapped back. She grimaced.
“I'm sorry to sound so pissed off, Jon. But I can't fit much of what we've
learned into any kind of rational, coherent pattern, and frankly, it's getting
on my nerves.”

“Well, maybe I can help sort out some of the anomalies,” he
offered.

For the first time, Randi responded with a faint smile. “Possibly.
For an amateur spook you do have an uncanny knack for stumbling into
answers,” she agreed slowly. “Usually by accident,
of course.”

Smith chuckled. “Of course.”

The CIA officer leaned back against the chair, absently studying the people
strolling past them on the pavement. Suddenly she stiffened, plainly
incredulous. “Jesus,” she muttered in dismay. “What is this . .
. old home week?”

Smith followed her gaze and saw what appeared to be an old, untidy Frenchman
in a beret and an often-patched sweater ambling toward them, whistling, with
both hands stuck into the pockets of his faded work-ingman's trousers. He
looked more closely and hid a grin. It was Peter Howell.

The sun-browned Englishman sauntered across the street separating the
restaurant from the square, came right up to their table, and politely doffed
his beret to Randi. “A pleasure to see you looking so well, madame,”
he murmured. His pale blue eyes gleamed with amusement. “And this is
your young son, no doubt. A fine, stout-looking lad.”

“Hello, Peter,” Randi said resignedly. “So you've joined the
Army, too?”

“The American army?” Peter said in mock
horror. "Heavens, no, dear girl! Merely a spot of
informal collaborating between old friends and al-

lies, you see. Washing the hand
that feeds me and all that. No, Jon and I simply popped by to see if you
were interested in joining our little pact."

“Grand. I'm so glad.” She shook her head. “Okay, I surrender.
I'll share my information, but that has to work both ways. I want all of your
cards on the table, too. Get it?”

The Englishman smiled gently. “Clear as crystal. Fear not. All will be
revealed in due course. You can trust your Uncle Peter.”

“Sure I can.” Randi snorted. “Anyway, it's not as if I have
much real choice, not under the circumstances.” She pushed herself up
slowly, carefully maintaining the illusion that she was an elderly woman
somewhere in her mid-seventies. She tugged at the small poodle, dragging him
firmly out from under the table where he had been futilely gumming one of
Smith's shoes for the past few minutes. She switched back to her raspy, nasal
French. “Come, Pascal. We must not intrude further on these gentlemen's
company.”

Then she lowered her voice, making sure that only they could hear her
instructions. “Now here's how we're going to play this. When I'm gone,
wait five minutes and then head over to Number Six—the Victor Hugo house.
Pretend you're tourists or literary critics or something. A white Audi with a
dent on the right rear door will pull up there. Climb in without making a big
fuss about it. Understand?”

Jon and Peter nodded obediently.

Still frowning, Randi moved away without looking back at them. She strolled
briskly toward the nearest corner of the Place des Vosges — looking for all the world as though she truly were the epitome of a Paris grande dame out
for her morning constitutional with her much-pampered poodle.

■

Ten minutes later, the two men stood outside the Maison de Victor Hugo,
staring curiously up at the second floor, where the great writer, the author of
Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, had spent

sixteen years of his long life. “A curious
fellow,” Peter Howell remarked meditatively. “Prone to fits of
madness in later life, you know. Someone once found him trying to carve
furniture with his teeth.”

“Much like Pascal,” Smith suggested.

Peter looked surprised. “The famous philospher and
mathematician?”

“No,” Smith said, grinning. “Randi's
dog.”

“Dear me,” Peter replied wryly. “The things one learns in Paris.” He glanced
casually over his shoulder. “Ah, our chariot awaits.”

Smith turned around and saw the white Audi, complete with its dented rear
door, stopping alongside the curb. He and Peter slid into the backseat. The car
pulled away immediately, drove around the Place des Vosges,
and swung left back onto the rue de Turenne. From there, the sedan began making
a series of seemingly random turns, moving ever deeper into the heart of the
maze of one-way streets that made up the Marais District.

Jon watched the sallow-faced driver, a heavyset man wearing a cloth cap, for
a few moments. “Hello, Max,” he said at last.

“Morning, Colonel,” the other man said, grinning in the rearview
mirror. “Nice to see you again.”

Smith nodded. He and Max had once spent a great many hours in each other's
company—trailing a group of Arab terrorists all the way from Paris to the Spanish coast. The CIA operative
might not be the brightest star in the Agency's firmament, but he was a very
competent field agent.

“Are we being followed?” Smith asked, seeing the way the other
man's eyes were always in motion, checking every aspect of the environment
around the Audi as he drove through the traffic-choked Paris streets.

Max shook his head confidently. “Nope. This is
just a precaution. We're being extra careful, is all. Randi's sort of on-edge
right now.”

“Care to tell me why?”

The CIA agent snorted. “You'll find out soon enough, Colonel.” He
turned the Audi off into a narrow passageway. Tall stone buildings soared

on either side, blotting out any real sight of the
sun or sky. He parked right behind a gray Renault van blocking most of the
alley. “Last stop,” he said.

Smith and Peter got out.

The back doors of the van popped open, revealing a crowded interior crammed
full of TV, audio, and computer equipment. Randi Russell, still wearing her
disguise as an old woman, was there—along with another man, one Jon did not
recognize. Pascal the poodle was nowhere to be seen.

Jon scrambled up into the Renault, followed closely bv
the Englishman. They pulled the doors shut behind them and then stood awkwardly
hunched over in the cramped space.

“Glad you could make it,” Randi said. She flashed a quick smile at
them and waved a hand at the equipment mounted in racks on both sides of the
van interior. “Welcome to our humble abode, the nerve center of our
surveillance operation. Besides human watchers, we've been able to rig a number
of hidden cameras at key points around the target.”

She nodded to the other man, who was sitting on a stool in front of a
computer screen and keyboard. “Let's show them what we've got, Hank. Bring
up Camera Two first. I know our guests are dying to find out what we're doing
here.”

Her subordinate obediently entered a series of commands on his keyboard. The
monitor in front of him flashed on immediately, showing a clear TV picture of a
steep gray-blue slate roof. Antennae of every size, shape, and description
sprouted from the roof.

Smith whistled softly.

'Yeah.“ Randi nodded flatly. ”These guys
are set to send and receive just about every kind of signal you can think of.
Radio, microwave, laser pulse, satellite . . . you name it."

“So what's the problem?” Jon asked her, still puzzled. “Why
run so scared about feeding Langley
the whole scoop?”

Randi smiled sardonically. She leaned forward and tapped her equip-

ment operator on the shoulder. “Bring up
Camera One, Hank.” She glanced back at Smith and Peter. “Here's the
street entrance of the same building. Take a good close look.”

The picture on the screen showed a building five stories high. Centuries of
pollution and weather had pitted and darkened its plain stone facade. High,
narrow windows looked down on the street from every level, rising all the way
up to a series of dormer windows that must open into attic chambers just below
the roof.

“Now zoom in,” Randi told her assistant.

The image expanded rapidly, centering at last on a small brass plaque beside
the front door. In deeply incised lettering it read:

l8 RUE DE VlGNY

Parti Lazare

“Oh, bloody hell,” Peter murmured.

Randi nodded grimly. “Exactly. That building
just happens to be the Paris
headquarters for the Lazarus Movement.”

An hour later, Jon Smith stood outside the door to his room at the Hotel des
Chevaliers. He knelt down, checking the telltale—a thick black hair stretched
between the door and the jamb, about a foot off the hall carpet. It was still
there, completely undisturbed.

Satisfied that the room was secure, he ushered Randi and Peter inside. The
CIA team's Renault van was too cramped for a prolonged meeting, and the nearby
cafes and restaurants were far too crowded and public. They needed somewhere
more private to try to find a solution to the predicament they suddenly faced.
And at the moment, the Hotel des Chevaliers was the closest thing they had to a
safe house.

Now back in her own likeness with short neat blond hair and wearing a black
jumpsuit, Randi moved restlessly around the room. With her long legs and
slender five-foot-nine-inch frame, she had often been mistaken for a dancer. No
one seeing her now would make that mistake. She drifted back and forth like a
caged and dangerous animal seeking a way out. She was deeply frustrated by the
self-inflicted paralysis she sensed engulfing

the CIA—paralysis that was robbing her of any
serious backup or advice just when she needed it most. Her uncertainty over
what to do with the stunning discovery her team had made left her feeling
uneasy, even with her old friends and allies.

Randi cast a skeptical eye over the room's elegant furnishings and decor and
glanced over her shoulder at Smith. “Not bad for someone on a U.S. Army
expense account, Jon.”

“Just your tax dollars at work,” he replied with a quick grin.

“Typical Yank soldier,” Peter said, with a quiet chuckle.
“Overpaid, overindulged, and overequipped.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Smith told him drily. He dropped
into the closest chair and looked across the room at his two friends.
“Look, we should stop fencing with each other and start talking seriously
about what we're going to do next.”

The other two turned to face him.

“Well, I do admit that the position is a bit difficult,” Peter
said slowly, settling himself into an overstuffed armchair.

Randi stared at the Englishman's leathery face in disbelief. “A bit difficult?”
she repeated. “For crying out loud, why don't you ditch
the stiff upper lip routine, Peter? The position is pretty well
impossible, and you know it.”

“'Impossible' is an awfully big word, Randi,” Smith said, forcing
a slight smile.

“Not from where I'm standing,” she snapped back. She shook her
head in dismay, still pacing back and forth between the two men. "Okay,
first you two heroes go and prove that some of our own people have been
fighting a very nasty and very illegal secret war against the Lazarus Movement.
Which puts everybody, including the president and prime minister, into panic
mode, right? So they start piling onto the intelligence agencies— hitting us
with immediate cease and desist orders for any covert
actions involving Lazarus. Not to mention gearing up for congressional and par-

liamentary investigations that could easily run for
months, maybe even years."

The two men nodded.

Randi frowned deeply. “Mind you, I've got no real problem with that.
Anybody dumb enough to fall in with Hal Burke, Kit Pierson, and the others
deserves to be crucified. Using blunt nails.” She
took a deep breath. “But now, now, with all of this flak raining
down around our ears, you both want to turn right around . . . and do what?
Why, break into a Lazarus Movement building, of course! And
not just any old building, naturally, but the headquarters for its whole
Paris-based operation!”

“Certainly,” Peter told her calmly. “How else do you propose
that we learn what they're up to in there?”

“Jesus,” Randi muttered. She swung toward Smith. “And you see
it the same way?”

He nodded somberly. “I'm pretty sure that somebody outside the
intelligence services was manipulating Burke and the others. Using their
undeclared war as a cover for something even worse, something like what
happened at the Teller Institute or here in Paris. . . only magnified a hundred
times over,” he said quietly. “I'd like to find out who—and why. Before we learn the hard way.”