Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor (48 page)

A little later he said, "Wasn't much left of ol' Henri, Grafton said, and what there was was fried. We was real lucky, Tommy. Real lucky that Henri didn't get his ass up that ladder and pop that thing in the attic where those cylinders were. Might have set them off. Then you and me would be singin' in the angel choir, and we'd have a lot of company."

I nodded and turned the steaks. Luck is a fickle lady; she's here one minute and gone the next.

After Willie left and Sarah and I were alone, I asked her, "I know it's classified and all that, but what did the code breakers get out of those telephone computers we got from Rodet?"

"Nothing."

"That's what Grafton said they'd find."

"I worked with the wizards. They used random number decryption theory and everything else they had on the stuff and got zilch. There was no code to crack, because there was no message. It was just random letters and numbers."

I was beginning to see a glimmer. "So they didn't communicate with the computers," I said slowly as I thought it through. "They were red herrings. Marisa was the mailman, the go-between."

"The computers and the codes were there to deflect attention from her," Sarah explained. "Rodet was trying to protect her."

"You think he loved her?"

"I think she is Qasim's daughter, and he loved Qasim."

Sarah said that like she believed it, but I wasn't buying it. "Are the French sweating her?"

"She's disappeared."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Grafton told me Abdullah al-Falih, who might be Qasim, had a daughter and a son. The Mossad assassinated the son a couple of years ago."

"And the daughter?"

Sarah shrugged. "Marisa is about the right age."

I still didn't believe it. Seeing the look on my face, she added, "It's a possibility, nothing more. Someday you'll have to ask Abu Qasim."

"Naw. I'm out of it," I said, "and I intend to stay out. Someone else can hunt 'em."

Having definitely and absolutely eliminated one of the ten thousand possible ways to spend the rest of my life, I felt better. I was making progress. Only 9,999 more to consider.

Sometimes I thought about Al Salazar and Rich Thurlow and Elizabeth Conner. Sometimes I wondered how Marisa Petrou was doing, how she was getting on with her life. Was she Abu Qasim's daughter?

The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Yeah, I know, true believers sign up for paradise and they do whatever it takes to get there. Still, letting those clowns cut on her face . . . The women I knew would need more than faith to undergo that ordeal, even with an anesthetic.

Abu Qasim—willing to sacrifice his daughter and his friend for his vision of God's war. Whew!

That reality was so alien to my world that I didn't want to think about it. I wanted to watch football and walk on the beach and enjoy my moments with Sarah. Aren't we all like that? Don't we all wish to retreat occasionally from foul reality?

Finally I broke down and started reading the newspapers again. Mainly for the sports, you understand. More earthquakes, bankruptcies, volcanic eruptions, political shenanigans, terrorism; the French put a tax on international airline tickets sold in France to fund the war on African poverty. The Denver Broncos looked like the team to beat in the postseason.

However, one morning I found an interesting three-paragraph item on an inside page of
The Washington Post:
Richard Lewellan

Zantz, an American expatriate, age twenty-eight, was shot to death the previous day at a sidewalk cafe in Rome. Someone walked up, pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, and blasted him four times with buckshot. Then the shooter walked away into the crowd. Eyewitness identifications were nebulous—no one got a good look at the killer. Too busy taking cover, I guess. Italian authorities promised to bring the villain to justice.

Ol' Gator. Five ounces of lead administered in four doses. Adios, asshole.

Two months after Sarah and I arrived in Delaware we still hadn't rented an apartment in Maryland, and I hadn't figured out what I was going to do for a living. Sarah was getting very testy.

One Friday morning the telephone rang: Jake Grafton was calling from France.

"Hey, Tommy," he said.

"Although my wishes are a little late, happy new year, Admiral. Your house weathered the holidays and is none the worse for it."

"Had enough loafing yet?"

"Well..."

"Ready to go back to work?"

"What do you have?"

"UPS will bring you some airline tickets tomorrow. It's snowing here. Pack accordingly."

I took a deep breath. "Okay," I said. We talked for a bit about Sarah and Callie, but it was a transatlantic call.

After we hung up, I called Sarah. "Hey, babe, you'll never guess who called."

"Let's see . .. Your mother is in Hawaii, the president is in China, you said no to that movie producer and the ballet company . . . Was it Jake Grafton?"

"How'd you know?"

"He called me first. Wanted to know if I thought it would be okay to call you."

"And you said yes."

"I love you, Tommy, more than you will ever know. But you have to keep being you—I know that. I'll be here when you come home."

"Thanks, Sarah. See you tonight."

After I hung up, I remembered her comment a few weeks earlier about Marisa. So when did she and Grafton have that little conversation ?

The more I thought about it, the more amusing it was. She knew all along that Grafton would eventually call me. Women!

A novel such as this would be impossible to write without help. The author is blessed with the world's finest editor, Charles Spicer, whose wise counsel and patience have proven essential to the creative process for the past ten years. The author's wife, Deborah Coonts, delights in plot twists and contributed several to this tale. Gilbert "Gil" Pascal brought the Ionatron Inc. wireless Taser, a real product being developed for the CIA, to the attention of the author, who altered and "improved" the device for his own nefarious ends.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS