Trader of Secrets: A Paul Madriani Novel (23 page)

A car could be handy. It provides a place to hide out if we want to watch the front of Liquida’s hotel, especially at night, and a fast way to escape in a pinch if we need it.

I hand the kid behind the counter a fifty-euro note and watch his face as it lights up. “Oh! Merci beaucoup!” he says. “That means thank you.”

“The show was worth it,” I tell him.

“Thank you for everything,” Joselyn says to Mike as she takes my arm. “Now I am afraid to go up to the room with them.”

“If they give you any trouble, just call the front desk,” says the kid. “I’ll send up our chef, Marcel, with a butcher knife.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she tells him.

We turn and follow the bellman toward the elevator.

“Maybe you could call down later and get Marcel’s phone number,” I tell Joselyn.

“Or we could just lead Liquida to the kitchen,” she says.

“I’d rather do takeout,” says Harry. “Call Thorpe and tell him his man’s in the frappé.”

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

T
he shadow moving across her Nook reader caused Sarah to glance upward. She found herself looking into angel eyes staring down at her.

“Hello,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Seems that we are now neighbors.” Adin Hirst was standing there with a cup of coffee in one hand, a bagel in the other, and a smile on his face. “Mind if I sit?”

“No. Help yourself.” Sarah closed the cover on her reader. She had taken to spending a few minutes each afternoon in the small coffee shop on the ground level of the FBI’s condo complex.

“What are you reading?” Adin set the plate with the bagel and his coffee cup on the table, and then sat down across from her.

“Oh, just rereading some of the things I had to read in college. Doing it for enjoyment this time.” Sarah was going nuts up in the apartment, she and the dog climbing the walls. She had an hour every other day in the company of one of the FBI agents to walk the dog. That was it, her only foray out of the building.

“Can I look?” Adin gestured toward the reader.

She handed it to him.

“I’ve seen these, but I’ve never held one.” He hefted it in his hand. “It’s very light, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He opened the cover. She hadn’t turned it off. “Gatsby. You’re a Fitzgerald fan,” said Hirst.

“You’ve read it?”

He nodded. “Wonderfully written, not a word wasted. Cuts to the soul of his characters like a knife. How many books will this thing hold?”

“They say fifteen hundred, but I’m not sure. It probably depends on the length of the books.”

“That’s amazing. So what do you do, download the books through your computer?”

“No, it’s 3G. Has its own chip. You just go online into their library and order what you want, pay with a credit card, and it downloads in about sixty seconds. I have a Kindle upstairs, same thing, but a different library. That way I get a broader selection of books.”

“Incredible,” said Hirst. “What will the Americans think of next? I’m going to have to look into it.” He smiles and hands it back to her.

“What’s this about being neighbors?” said Sarah.

“I’m now living in the building.” Adin took a sip of coffee. “Whew, that’s hot!”

“Since when?”

“Since yesterday.” He wiped his lips with a napkin. “The lease on my apartment was up. I tried to renew for a short time and couldn’t, so the bureau offered to put me up here until the program is over.”

“I see. What floor?”

“Eight. Same as yours.”

“You are close.”

“Just around the corner.” He smiled at her and nibbled around the edges of the bagel. “How is your dog?”

“He’s fine. But he needs more exercise. He’s starting to give off gas in the evenings. Lies on the carpet and issues forth with silent clouds of death, if you know what I mean.”

He laughed. “If you like, I can take him out and give him a run.”

“That would be good. The only problem is, I need exercise too.”

“I’m not sure they’d let me do that,” said Adin. “I mean, take you for a run.”

“I knew what you meant.” Sarah smiled. “They let us out every other day. Just for an hour, under the gaze of a friendly agent. It’s like being in prison.”

“Actually most prisoners get more yard time than that,” said Adin.

“I don’t mean to complain, but I can’t wait to get home, back to a normal life.”

“And when’s that going to be?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully when my father gets back, I’ll know more.”

“Where are they?”

Sarah almost told him, then hesitated. “Right now I’m not sure. They should be back in a few days.” Sarah knew they were in Paris, for how long she wasn’t sure. She had received a printout of an e-mail message from her father. It was delivered to her by the FBI, but there were few details. “I should have some company in a day or so. Herman, my dad’s PI, is going to be staying with me in the condo . . .”

“PI?”

“Private investigator. My dad’s a lawyer. He and his partner have a firm in Coronado near San Diego. Herman investigates cases for them. He was injured here in Washington.”

“I see.”

“He’s recovering. They decided to put him up in the condo rather than a skilled nursing facility where they’d have to provide security. His sister who had been visiting him in the hospital had to return to her job in Detroit. They’ll have a nurse on call as needed in the condo. I told them I’d be happy to prepare his meals. It will give me something to do.”

“You probably shouldn’t be telling me all this,” said Hirst.

“Why? Are you going to print it in the newspaper?”

“No. It’s just that it’s best sometimes to keep everything on a need-to-know basis.”

“Need-to-know basis—what’s that, spy talk?”

“No. Well, maybe. Sometimes. But not between you and me.”

“Good. It seems I never get a chance to talk to anybody. The only one I can talk to is Bugsy, and except for the noxious fumes, that’s a one-way conversation.”

“I see,” he said as he smiled.

“Lately I’ve started talking to myself.”

“I’m told that’s not a serious problem until you start answering yourself.”

“And I’ve done that a few times,” she told him.

“The crazy lady in 805,” said Adin. “That’s OK; it’ll be our secret. I won’t tell a soul. Just speak into my lapel.”

“You know, I have wondered if they have cameras and microphones in the rooms,” said Sarah.

“Oh God, I hope not!” Adin said it with a stark look in his eyes. They both laughed.

Sarah liked his face. She liked everything about him. It was hard not to. There was a strange kind of calm about him, something understated that made him seem older than his years. “So tell me about yourself.”

“What, for example?”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“You don’t look that old.”

“I can cut off a leg and show you the rings if you like.”

She laughed. “That won’t be necessary. Where are you from?”

“Another land.”

“Yes, I know. You already told me that. Which one?”

“I’m an extraterrestrial from Delphi X,” he says. “I left my pointed ears out in the car.”

“Give me a break,” she says.

“I’m not supposed to say.”

“I see; so you’re a national security secret, is that it?”

“Not exactly.”

“You could at least be a gentleman and give me a clue.”

Adin held up the bagel, turned it over in his hand, and examined it. Then he looked at her through the hole in the center. “Are you any good at pantomimes?”

“Spyglass?”

He gave her a look of failure and shook his head. Then he licked the bagel, looked at it covetously, and took a bite.

“Bread?”

He gave an angry expression and pointed at the bagel.

“Bagels.”

He didn’t nod, but he smiled.

“Jewish. Israel?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re Israeli! I had a friend in college who was from Israel.”

“Did you like him?”

“He was a she.”

“Ah. Did you like her?”

“I’m not sure how you mean that.”

“I mean, were you attracted to her personally, or was it her personality?”

“Personality.” Sarah gave him a scolding sideways glance.

“Now that that’s settled, I wonder . . . do you think it would be worthwhile if I had my room scanned for hidden mics and minicams?”

“I don’t know. Do you play with yourself at night?” said Sarah.

“No, but it sounds like I’m going to be.” He snapped his fingers.

She laughed.

“You know, I think it’s going to be very difficult to bring women into this place. I mean, with agents at the front desk and all.”

“You should have thought about that before you moved in.”

“I did, but it’s not working out.” He winked at her, and they both laughed.

Chapter
Thirty

N
ASA had hung Raji out to dry. When he had talked with Leffort in the car back in California and told him that he had the final targeting software and that it was tucked away in a safe place, Fareed had lied.

For some reason there had been a delay. The software that was supposed to have been completed by the work group a week earlier was in fact not completed until the very morning of their departure for Paris.

Fareed barely had time to download it from his office computer to the flash drive and tuck it away before Leffort was on him, pushing him toward the car and the airport so they could get away. Since then he had not been out of Leffort’s sight long enough to transmit it.

Now Raji was a prisoner, trapped in his room in the Hotel Saint-Jacques. A guard sat in the hallway outside his door. The window was bolted shut, as were the French doors that led onto the small balcony outside his room. All of his meals were delivered by the guard. The telephone had been disconnected, and the Wi-Fi, the wireless signal to the Internet that Raji had glimpsed just briefly on his laptop upon arrival, disappeared within seconds after they locked the door.

They ransacked his computer and found nothing. They gave it back to him and told him that if the software was stored somewhere online that they would be happy to connect him so that he could download it. Raji knew they would stand over him the entire time, watching his every move the second they turned on the wireless connection. He told them he needed to think about it.

The bald one, the man they called Bruno, visited him several times each day bargaining with him, cajoling him, doing everything possible to extract the final software that they needed, and that only Fareed possessed.

On one occasion they sent Leffort in alone to talk with Fareed in hopes that maybe he could convince Raji to give up the data. Again Raji put him on hold.

Fareed realized quickly that the story that he merely wanted to go home wasn’t working. Bruno was not the sort who could get his head around notions of homesickness. He dealt in a world of money and greed. So Raji gave him something he could comprehend. In their next meeting, he told Bruno that Leffort had cheated him on the deal for the sale of the data, and that if Bruno would transfer the agreed-upon sum into a numbered account of Fareed’s choosing and make acceptable arrangements for his safety and freedom, Raji would transmit the software back to him.

While it was a naive proposal, the motivations behind it were at least something Bruno could understand, money and survival.

Bruno smiled, slapped Raji on the shoulder, and told him they would have to talk some more.

Fareed knew they had no intention of letting him go. He was playing for time.

This evening Bruno arrived and tried to tempt him with bits of information. At one point he repeated his original promise that they would all be moving on, including Raji, the minute he delivered the missing software. He went so far as to take Fareed into his confidence, tantalizing him with vague bits of information as to where they were going once they left Paris.

Bruno showed him pictures of the facility, a large metal building with a massive antenna array, large satellite dishes already up and waiting. If it was true, if they were already this far along, then the money wasn’t the only thing that Leffort was lying about.

From what Raji could see in the photographs, the facility was in a tropical area of jungle. Bruno told him there was a swimming pool and comfortable bungalows. He guaranteed Raji that he would have the run of the place, no more locked rooms, and freedom to move around and go into the city if he liked.

When Raji asked what city, Bruno just looked at him and smiled. He told him he would have to stay only until the mission was completed, at which time they would pay him everything they promised and Raji would be free to go. He promised that Leffort would not be permitted to cheat him again. All of this through Bruno’s smiling crooked teeth.