Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor (5 page)

"Who tipped them?"

"Henri Rodet, the director of the DGSE."

"How did the DGSE learn about Veghel?" Sarah asked. She wasn't the shrinking-violet type.

Now Grafton grinned. Sarah had asked the right question. "I don't know, and Monsieur Rodet refused to tell our people. So we are going to find out."

Uh-oh. There was going to be more to this than sitting around French waiting rooms and chatting with bureaucrats.

Grafton continued. "Rodet's an office politician who rose through the ranks of the new DGSE to replace the hard-line, right-wing leaders who were systematically retired or fired during the 1980s under Francois Mitterand. Twenty-five years ago he went to the Middle East. He's been working hard ever since to ensure that France got its share of the Arab pie. Ten years ago he was picked to run the agency. When Jacques Chirac sent a letter to Saddam Hussein pledging that France would veto any Security Council resolution authorizing a U.S.-led invasion, Henri Rodet hand-carried the letter to Baghdad and personally placed it in the dictator's hands."

"I thought France was an old American ally," I said as Grafton paused for air.

"France has never helped anyone unless it was in France's best interest," Grafton said flatly. "These days they are busy taking care of number one. Baldly, the French intend to eventually rule a united Europe on the principle that what's good for France is good for Europe, and vice versa."

"I seem to recall someone saying that about GM and America," I remarked.

Sarah Houston studiously ignored me, pretending she didn't even

hear my voice.

Grafton's eyes flicked from me to her and back to me. He took a deep breath and went on with the story. "Rodet's number two is Jean-Paul Arnaud, me head of counterespionage. Arnaud's specialty is commercial espionage, which is a nice way of saying that he runs a

string of agents who have bought stolen trade secrets from foreign companies and passed those secrets on to French companies. There was a scandal a few years back—Arnaud's boss at the time got canned and the DGSE was reformed under political pressure. That was window dressing, of course. They stayed in the commercial espionage business and Arnaud got promoted."

"So counterespionage is basically the French government spying on foreign companies with offices in France?"

"Well, they don't limit their activities to France. The primary targets are American companies, and they go after trade secrets anywhere they can find them. They are also very interested in muscling in on international deals, winning contracts with bribery or whatever."

"They still doing it?"

"The world is still turning," Grafton said. He made a sweeping motion with his right hand. "That is a problem for another day. We're going to have a chat with Rodet. Tell him, Sarah."

She didn't look at me but at the admiral. "Rodet apparently came into a couple of million euros by way of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program, which essentially went away with the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. The money came from a series of transactions between five small companies that were providing goods and services to Saddam Hussein. Rodet invested the money in the Bank of Palestine, which is a honey pot or piggy bank for Islamic radicals out to overthrow Israel—and America and Western civilization and so on."

I had heard of the Bank of Palestine. Somehow bank money wound up being used to pay survivor's benefits to the families of terrorist suicide commandos who had gone on to their reward, whatever that might be. "He owns stock in
that
bank?" I asked.

"He does, and he tipped us on the Veghel conspiracy. It doesn't compute. We're going to try to figure him out and find a way to exploit his relationships with the Bank of Palestine and the various extremist groups in the Middle East." I knew what "exploit" meant. I

figured Sarah did, too. "Sarah, you are going to be our computer wizard. Tommy, you're going to be my tech guy and point man."

"Tell me some more about Rodet," I said.

"He's married to an heiress almost ten years older than he is. They're estranged. No children. He has a live-in girlfriend, a chateau upriver from Paris and a luxurious flat in town. I hear it's

quite a place."

"I think I met Rodet's girlfriend this past spring. Gal name of Marisa Petrou. She still his main squeeze?"

"That's her," Grafton agreed, nodding.

Suddenly I realized that Sarah Houston was giving me the onceover. One of her eyebrows was higher than the other. Now she turned back to Grafton.

"I seem to recall seeing a television interview with Chirac just the other day," I said, "where he was bragging about cooperating to fight

terrorism."

"The French are cooperating, but we think they know more than they're passing on, a lot more, and we aren't getting it. Henri Rodet is the key. He's in the crosshairs, partly for the Veghel conspiracy, and partly because the French government has him running the security team for the G-8 summit.

"The question is, How did Rodet learn of the Veghel conspiracy? After careful analysis, we don't think he got it from a DGSE operation, or from one of their agents. It's possible, but. . . We think it's more likely that Rodet has an agent in Al Queda, and that agent was the source of the information on the conspiracy."

"Whoa," I said. "That's a big leap."

"No, it isn't.
Someone
told him."

I threw up my hands. "What does Rodet say?"

"He isn't saying anything. He refused to discuss the matter with the Paris station chief."

"Oh, boy."

Grafton motored right along. "So that's our assumption—Rodet has a spy in Al Queda. We know a few things about this guy." He

began ticking them off on his fingers. "One, the agent hasn't yet been caught, which means that he has never been suspected. Two, he's high up in the organization, or he would not have known about the conspiracy. Three, he's been inside a long time. Al Queda is a criminal conspiracy, which means it is composed of extremely paranoid people who don't trust any outsider. Ergo, he's not an outsider. Four, there hasn't been a leak from inside the DGSE, which means that the agent isn't being handled routinely, by the usual professional staff. He's being handled from the very top, perhaps even by Rodet himself."

"If all that's true," Sarah mused, "how do the agent and handler communicate?"

"That is precisely what I want to know," Jake Grafton shot back. "I want you to help me find out."

Grafton talked for another minute or two about logistics. Finally he said good-bye to Sarah, and she got up and left. Didn't even glance at me. When the door closed, I was alone with Grafton.

"I take it you and Sarah aren't getting along very well these days," he said.

"You noticed, eh?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, you know the course of true love. There are bumps and potholes in the road."

"She going to shoot you or start amputating parts?"

I tried to smile. "I hope not."

"I'm going to need some serious help on this job," he said, looking me straight in the eyes.

"I'm on the shit list after that adventure last year," I replied. "I've been told to stay out of trouble or else."

Grafton's eyebrows knitted. "How come you're still working for this outfit, anyway? A year ago you were talking about taking a banana boat south."

"You know my tale of woe. They have me by the balls. The statute of limitations still has a couple of years to run." Grafton

knew I was referring to the felony theft charge that was shelved when I joined the agency. The fuzz didn't catch me, you understand; my partner ratted on me. Same difference, I suppose, but a guy has to keep the record straight.

"In the Navy we didn't have people quite so firmly in our grasp," he said with a straight face.

I snorted. "Don't give me that bullshit. Sounds as if you intend to jam Rodet's nuts into a vise and crank until he screams. That's his problem, not mine. Just what, precisely, do you want from me?"

Grafton picked up a pencil and twirled it between his fingers. "For starters, I want you to bug his flat in town and his house in the country. We'll set up listening posts."

I admitted those chores were in my area of expertise. "Then I want you to turn traitor. I want you to walk into DGSE headquarters and offer to sell them the Intelink."

Okay, I am an idiot—I admit it. I accepted another assignment working for Jake Grafton! I could be on my way to fun in the sun in Iraq this very minute. God damn!

Grafton kept talking. "You and your girlfriend, Sarah Houston, are looking to make a fresh start, which would go a lot better if you had a couple million tax-free euros in your jeans. You'll give them Intelink-S first, as proof of your bona fides. When the money is in your bank account, you'll give them Intelink-C." Intelink-S was a network, a government Internet, if you will, which contained information classified secret. Intelink-C was the top secret network whereby the United States and its closest allies, Britain, Australia, and Canada, shared intelligence. "You have got to be kidding!" 1 m not.

"In the first place, I don't have an access code to any level of Intelink. I have never had an access code."

"I do."

"They change it every week. Rodet isn't going to buy a week's

subscription."
           
^

"He is going to buy the fact that Sarah helped design these networks, that she's foolishly fallen for a swine like you, that at your insistence she installed a trapdoor, and that you will sell him the key."

I thought about it. "NSA would never let Rodet peek. Ever."

"That's true, of course. We don't even want Monsieur Rodet to know the type of information that is really on Intelink-S, so we've created a parallel, fake Intelink-S. It will look good enough to fool the French, we think. That's what we're going to give Rodet access to. He'll never see the real Intelink-S, and we'll have hooked and boated him long before it's time to reveal Intelink-C."

"He'll never buy it."

Grafton waved that away. "Corrupt people think everyone's cor-rupt.

I felt nauseous. My forehead was covered in perspiration. I swabbed at the sweat and wiped my hand on my trousers. "They're going to smell a rat. This could be the biggest intelligence debacle ever. What I'm trying to say, Admiral, is that if we live through this, we could go to prison. Like, forever."

Now he smiled at me.

I tried to reason with him. "The frogs will be all over me like stink on a skunk. And through some tiny bureaucratic oversight, I don't have diplomatic immunity." I waved a hand at the door. "They gave all the embassy spots to those security people combing the crowds for terrorists going to the G-8 meeting." I couldn't believe I had the bad luck to fall into a mess like this. The head of the DGSE! God almighty! "If Rodet doesn't buy what we have to sell, what then?"

The admiral turned his hand over. "The Veghel conspirators were going to blow up the New York Stock Exchange. A half dozen Middle Eastern fanatics living on welfare in the Netherlands don't go charging off to America with passports and credit cards and traveler's checks to rent trucks and make bombs without some serious help. Henri Rodet has some questions to answer. Our job is to convince him to do the right thing." "You, me and Sarah."

Grafton grinned. "Have faith, Tommy."

"It's going to take more than faith, dude. No one in France is going

to want us digging up smelly little secrets. Not a single solitary soul."

"I have faith in you," Jake Grafton said firmly.

"It'll take a couple of weeks to scope out those two places and bug

them. I'll need a couple of vans, all the good people we can get—and

I mean real damn good—and a whole lot of luck."

"We got the vans in Italy. They are in Paris now. I've raided the warehouse in Langley, and they used the diplomatic pouch to send us everything I thought you might need. And we don't have a couple of weeks."

It took a moment for the implications of that remark to sink in. Grafton didn't come up with this caper last night. When the guys at the very top start scheming, it's time to run for cover. "Oh, man!"

"I want you to go to France tomorrow, rent this apartment"—he passed me a slip of paper with an address on it—"and wait for a telephone call. The caller will give you a place and time. Subtract four hours from the time. Two guys you know will pick you up in a Citroen precisely at that time. If you're followed, don't go there. They won't make the meet if they are under surveillance." He removed a cell phone from a desk drawer and slid it across the desk.

I didn't touch it. "It's sort of funny," I said, "how people talk. For instance, you don't say,
'we
want,' you keep saying, 7 want.' "

"I'm the man they gave the job to," Grafton said curtly. "I'm responsible for results. You could assume that I've discussed with my superiors how I intend to get the results they want. On the other hand, if your view of my character is a little darker, you might assume that I'm some sort of idiot rogue, that if my actions wreck the Franco-American alliance, it won't bother me. Make any assumption you like—doesn't matter an iota. Your job is to do what I tell you to do. You can bet your ass on that. Got it?" "I am betting my ass. That's the problem." His features softened. "That's the job, Tommy." "You made any arrangements to get us some luck ?"