Jericho 3 (33 page)

Jones took the trash out into the dumpster that Finn had pushed over and poured it into his can.

“Her name is Odette…she’s got the phone…leaving in 30,” Jones said as he left Finn and went to the main office.

Thierry’s executive secretary was ready and waiting as Jones rushed in with Camp. Thierry stood nearby.

“The girl’s name is Odette,” Jones said.

“In shipping?” the secretary asked.

“What’s her parking badge number, and what does she drive?”

The secretary found Odette’s last name and her employee file.

“She’s in the Blue lot, farthest away from the building. It’s open parking, no assigned spots.”

“The car.”

“Looking…looking…here it is. Citroen…blue…2004 model.”

Camp and Jones bolted out the front door into Jones’ BMW parked in the visitor’s section. Finn stayed in the shipping and receiving area and waited for Odette to make her move. Raines identified the male in the lab coat and asked the Interpol officer to detain him.

Odette checked her watch, finished taping one more box, and then walked over to her supervisor.

“Margrit, je vais prendre un dejeuner rapide. Est-ce que ca va?”

“
Oui.
”

Odette walked out the side door and down the sidewalk toward the Blue lot.

“She’s out and heading to the parking lot,” Finn said quietly in his cell phone.

“Got her,” Camp said as he and Jones waited in the back of the Blue lot with the BMW running.

Raines walked back into the main hallway and saw Finn take off his janitor smock and throw it in the trash dumpster. They both ran out the front door and over to Raines’ rental car.

Odette pulled out and drove through several streets and into Lyon center as the BMW trailed her from a safe distance. Camp was on the phone with Finn who navigated as Raines drove several miles behind.

Odette stopped her Citroen and parked in a space at the Parc de la Tete d’Or. Golden Head Park was the largest urban park in Lyon and a favorite for locals who loved to stroll around the large lake in the center.

Jones watched from the car as Camp walked in a diagonal direction away from Odette.

Odette pulled out her cell phone and paced back and forth in front of a park bench next to the lake. She closed her phone and sat down.

Jones looked through his binoculars as a young man wearing red glasses, dressed in a black leather jacket walked up and sat down next to Odette. The man consoled her, even put an arm around her, then she reached into her bag and handed him another phone. The man held the iPhone and watched the latest video. Even from 50 yards away, Camp could see the outrage in his body language.

The man with the red glasses and black leather jacket got up abruptly and stormed off as Odette sat on the bench and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

Camp followed him on foot as he left the Golden Head Park and crossed the street to the Lyon Metro, part of the Transports en Commun Lyonnais. The Red Line A train arrived and the man got on. Camp got onto the same car of the train using the Metro tickets he had purchased his first night in Lyon.

Passing the first stop, then the Foch stop, the man exited the Metro at Hotel de Ville and waited for the Orange Line.  He was on the northbound side of the platform.

“Jones…we’re waiting for the northbound on the Orange Line.” Camp closed his phone as Jones pulled out his Metro map. The tires of the BMW lit the pavement as he pressed the speed dial for Finn.

“Start with Cuire, on the Orange, standby from there,” Jones said as Raines pulled a u-turn in the middle of the street.

The northbound Orange came, and the man got on. Camp walked on to the next car with a clear view through the glass windows at the man wearing red eyeglasses. The guy was already talking on his phone. Camp hoped that they wouldn’t start something stupid with Bernard before he got there.

Three stops up, the man got off the C train at the Henon Metro stop and headed up the stairs to the street.

Camp followed the man as he passed by the De La Croix Rousse Hotel then slid back down a narrow walkway and up the steps to Number 92, Quai Joseph Gillet.

“Ninety-two Quai Joseph Gillet. He just went in.”

Jones punched the address into his GPS.

“Seven minutes…wait for me.”

Jones called Finn with the information as Camp loitered across the street. His mind raced.
What could they possibly do to Bernard in seven minutes,
Camp asked himself. The first three minutes felt like an hour. Camp couldn’t wait any longer.

He walked around behind the three-story building. There were three separate sets of stairs leading up to the back door of each apartment. Based on where the red glasses entered, Camp was fairly certain that he needed to be on the second-floor apartment.

Another young man was sitting on the steps at the top of the outside stairs leading to the second-floor apartment and smoking a cigarette. He heard something inside.

“Claude, est-ce vous?”

The man got up, threw his burning cigarette down and went back inside. Camp listened, but never heard the door lock.

Jones pulled up and parked on the street a block down from Number 92 on Quai Joseph Gillen. Finn called Jones and said they were less than two minutes away.

Jones walked up to the front of the building. Camp was nowhere to be seen. Jones knew better than to call Camp on the phone.

“Damn Yank,” Jones cursed as he walked up the steps leading to the front door of Number 92.

Camp slid the backdoor open and walked into the kitchen. Dishes were piled high in the sink. The table was covered with cereal boxes and an electric guitar was propped up in one of the chairs.

Camp heard the voices of two men talking in the other room.

He also heard a whimper.

Peering carefully around the edge of the door, he caught a quick glimpse into the main living room. The table had been pushed against the back wall. A black flag with the red letters spelling out SPEAK was pinned to the wall. An Allentown two cage metabolic non-human primate cage, 32-inches wide, 29-inches deep and 32-inches high, was set on the middle of the dining room table.

The cage was empty.

Camp realized that he didn’t have a weapon. No weapons on the military transport from Kabul to Tel Aviv with General Ferguson. No weapons on the commercial flight to Lyon when he was exiled to France.

Camp stepped back and looked in the sink. He carefully reached in so as not to disturb the dirty dishes and slowly removed a steak knife and slid it into his back pocket.

The whimpering grew louder.

Looking back into the living room, Camp watched as one of the ski-masked men led Bernard, naked with hands bound behind his back and tape covering his mouth, to the table.

The red glasses man, “Claude” as his cigarette-smoking buddy called him, pressed the record button on the digital camera sitting on the tripod in front of the table and slipped on his ski mask. Claude moved forward and yanked the Allentown cage off the table and threw it onto the floor. Bernard struggled frantically, but the two men placed him onto the table and beneath the flag. A long climbing rope was wound around the table and over Bernard three times, binding his chest and his thighs to the surface.

“You think this is some kind of a joke. We warned you. We told you what the new rules were. Yet, today, today in the video that I’m playing right now, you went ahead and killed four more of our monkey brothers. So…we have no choice…Bernard, your son, will soon be able to tell you how animal research feels.”

Claude nodded, and the second man pulled the tape from Bernard’s mouth. The boy screamed as a scalpel was raised above his chest.

Jones exploded through the front door with a kick that sent pieces of shattered wood flying into the living room. Camp lunged forward out of the kitchen and was airborne toward the scalpel-wielding terrorist as Jones tackled the man closest to Bernard. Finn ran up and into the apartment as Camp pushed the scalpel out of Claude’s hand. Both assailants were easily subdued by a former SEAL, a retired FBI agent and the global head of security for a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland who happened to be former MI6.

“Guys,” Raines said with a weak voice as she stood in the doorway to the living room.

The third man had been asleep in his bedroom until Jones opened the door so rudely with the heel of his boot. By the time the other assailant got his 9mm Glock out of his nightstand, Raines was the only one left he could get to.

The Glock was pressed to the left side of her head, and his other arm was wrapped around the neck of Leslie Raines.

“Se tenir debout,”
the captor said, motioning for Camp and Jones to stand up and Finn to back away.

Camp let Claude go and stood up slowly. Finn stepped back as Bernard started to cry. Jones slowly rolled off his assailant. He kept his eyes focused on the man holding a gun to the head of Raines. Jones nodded to the man and whispered.

“La police…derriere vous.”

The man smiled then an inquisitive look dashed across his unshaved face. Jones pointed and raised an eyebrow again. The silence in the room was deafening.

The man started to turn his head to look for the police behind him.

Jones reached into his jacket and fired his pistol in one sweeping motion hitting the would-be abductor dead center above the eyes. Blood-splatter sprayed over Raines’ face as his grip loosened and his crumpled body hit the floor.

Finn tied the assailants up as Raines went to the bedroom to find clothes for Bernard. Camp untied the boy.

“Americans?” Bernard said as he fought back the tears.

“You’re okay now, Bernard.” Camp said as Claude and his buddy sat on the floor with ski masks still on and the camera still recording.

“Call your friends from Interpol. The evidence is on the camera,” Jones said as he walked toward the front door.

“You’re leaving?” Finn asked.

“All that’s left is the paperwork. I hate paperwork,” Jones said as he bounced down the steps and down one block where his BMW waited for the drive back to Geneva.

ISAF Headquarters

Kabul, Afghanistan

G
eneral Ferguson was plowing through AARs, After-Action Reports, as the two coffee-pouring majors on his staff read through the morning’s intelligence briefing.

“Sir, the IAEA got stonewalled this morning in their request to visit Parchin,” Major Spann said as Ferguson kept reading reports.

“What else is new?” Ferguson grumbled without looking up. “What’s Parchin?”

“Sir, military industrial complex about 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran, part of a test-range for liquid-propellant missile engines.”

“That’s nice, but doesn’t sound nuclear to me. Major, the IAEA operates cameras and conducts regular, and surprise visits, to declared nuclear sites including the Fordo and Natanz enrichment centers, reactors in Bushehr and Tehran and a uranium metallurgical laboratory in Isfahan. Parshin isn’t one of the sites we’re interested in.”

The two majors were uncomfortable. Spann tried one more time.

“Sir, intelligence suspects they are working on parallel paths, a civilian energy program which they let us monitor, and a parallel military program which is off limits.”

“I understand all that, major. I don’t require an education.”

“Sir, satellite imagery analysis indicates that high-explosive tests were conducted in a specially built chamber at Parchin, a chamber designed to contain components for a nuclear weapon.”

Ferguson put his papers down.

“There’s more,” Major Spann said. “The Iranians are raising the rhetoric bar another notch. They’re threatening a first strike against Israel if they feel an Israeli attack is imminent.”

“What are the Israelis saying?”

“Nothing today, sir. Oh, and this came in today as well.”

Spann handed Ferguson a classified memo from the CIA.

“I’ll be damned,” Ferguson said as he read the memo. “US Navy Captain Campbell has been officially barred from traveling to Israel on either personal or government business for a period of 180 days…signed by the Director of Central Intelligence.”

“Who’d he piss off?” Spann asked.

“Apparently, Special Agent Daniels…Camp got a bit too cozy with the boys from Mossad to suit Mr. Daniels and his lovely sidekick, Fallon Jessup.”

Tel Aviv, Israel

Y
itzhak handed the phone to Reuven and brought up the field report from Bangkok, Thailand.

“Yes,” Reuven said into the phone.

“Looks like the same method as last week in Georgia and India,” the female voice on the other side said.

“Iranian hit squad?”

“Yes, sir, not exactly the same, but similar.”

“Go on.”

“Five bombs in all. We’ve recovered one that was unexploded. Seems to be a $27 dollar portable radio, easy to buy on the streets. Inside, the radio is packed with tiny ball bearings and six magnets. It sticks easily to the metal on the side of a car.”

“Explosive?”

“Looks to be white military-grade explosives with M26 hand-grenade fuse. The assailant pulls the pin from the radio and four and a half seconds later…”

“Smuggled in, or assembled in Bangkok?”

“Probably neither, sir. Our best guess is the diplomatic pouch. Off limits for screening or security.”

Reuven hung up the phone, and Yitzhak rolled his chair closer.

“Get on the chain…we want our Ambassador to the UN to complain that Iran is targeting our foreign diplomats.”

“Retribution?”

“No, not yet…we need to stall, buy some more time…ask for an international investigation…suggest that Israel will remain committed for months for the international court of public opinion to hold Iran responsible for these acts of unilateral terrorism.”

“I’ll make the calls,” Yitzhak said as he started to roll away.

“Yitzhak…get the sailor routed through to my cell phone.”

Qom, Iran

K
ey members of the Iranian Shura Council had gathered and were sitting on the floor near the marja-i talqid, the one who was chosen for emulation. Senior military officials and members of the intelligence community were seated, as was Ayatollah Yazdi, the spiritual leader in the city of Qom. Yazdi was the one who opposed democratic reforms, the one who was opposed to the people’s uprising and the reform movement, and the one who believed that Iran had become too liberal, and too open, since the Revolution in 1979. The Shoeib was seated. He was quiet and introspective. The Supreme Leader was absent, all according to plan. Some from the Assembly of Experts had gathered as well.