Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (24 page)

“It's ridiculous to have to hop on planes and fly home to report in person,” Randi decided. “But it's true we used to do business this way, with messengers hand-carrying information back and forth. Good Lord, we could be going back to the Dark Ages in intelligence.”

“Goes to show how dependent we've become on our oh-so-convenient electronic communications,” Peter said. “Still, we must somehow figure out how to contact our superiors about the Crescent Shield, Mauritania, the DNA machine, and the Chambords. They must be told.”

“True.” Jon pushed his cell phone back into his pocket with a gesture of finality. “But until we can, we're going to have to operate on our own. Looks to me as if Mauritania himself is our best hope to track. Where he likes to operate, hide out. What his mental quirks are.” In intelligence, quirks, patterns, and habits were often a fugitive's weak spots, revealing to experienced analyses far more than anyone might guess. “And then there's the elusive Captain Darius Bonnard. As General La Porte's aide, he's got damned high access and cover. And he of course could've made the phone call from NATO.”

Peter's leathery face showed deep worry lines. “All true. And Randi's probably right about the wisdom of getting back to old-fashioned intelligence communications.” He suggested, “London's a lot closer than Washington. If need be, I can flog myself over there to cheek in.”

“Our embassies in Madrid will have fully coded communications,” Randi said. “But considering the last assault when every code was cracked, the embassies' communications are probably compromised, too.”

“Right. Anything electronic is out,” Peter said.

Jon paced in front of a stone fireplace that looked as if it'd had no fire in years. “Maybe they didn't disrupt everything everywhere,” he said cautiously.

Peter looked at him sharply. “You have an idea, Jon?”

“Is there a real phone in this house? Nothing electronic.”

“On the third floor, in the office. That just might work.”

Randi glared from one to the other. “You two mind telling me what you're talking about?”

Jon was halfway up the stairs as Peter said, “Regular phone wires. A direct call. Fiber-optics, don't you know.”

“Of course.” She followed Jon, Peter close behind. “Even if the Crescent Shield had the technology or the time to tap a cable, they'd still have all the problems of sorting through the dreck. A technician told me once that so much data went through fiber-optics lines that to tap into it was like getting sprayed in the face by a high-pressure hose.” She had been told a cable as narrow as her wrist could carry an astronomical fortythousand phone conversations all at once, comparable to the entire trans-Atlantic voice traffic handled by satellites back in Cold War days. The way fiber-optics worked was to translate phone calls, faxes, e-mail messages, and data files into beams of light that traveled through a single strand of glass as thin as a human hair. Most undersea cables contained eight such strands, or fibers. But extracting the data required gaining access to the minute light beams in the ocean's black, high-pressure depthsa dangerous, almost impossible task.

Peter grumbled agreement: “Even if they had the time and technology to tap a cable, would they waste their time listening in to a million long-distance phone calls, give or take, discussing in detail Aunt Sarah's bunions and the Queen Mum's shocking gin intake? I doubt it.”

“Exactly,” Randi agreed.

As soon as the threesome reached the bare-bones office, Jon tapped his calling card number into the telephone on the desk. Then he entered the number he wanted in Washington. As he waited for it to ring, he pulled out the desk chair and sat. Peter leaned on a nearby desk, and Randi fell into an old, padded rocker.

A brisk female voice answered. “Colonel Hakkim's office.”

“It's Jon Smith, Debbie. I need to talk to Newton. It's urgent.”

“Hold on.”

The strange vacuum of hold, and a man's concerned voice: “Jon? What's up?”

“I'm in Madrid, and I need a favor. Could you send someone over to E block to the Leased Facilities Division and office 2E377, and have him tell the woman there to tell her boss to call Zapata at this number?” He read the number of the safe house phone. “Make sure whoever you send uses that nameZapata. Can you do it?”

“Should I ask what this is all about or who's really in that office?”

“No.”

“Then I'll go myself.”

“Thanks, Newton.”

Newton's voice was cool and calm, but Jon heard anxiety, too. “You'll have to tell me the whole story when you get back.”

“Count on it.” Jon hung up and checked his watch. “It should take him about ten minutes. E block's a long way from his office. Figure another two minutes for contingencies. Twelve minutes, tops.”

Randi said, “Leased Facilities Division? A cover for army intelligence, no doubt?”

“No doubt,” Jon said noncommittally.

Peter pressed a finger to his lips and padded to the shuttered front window, which was next to the shuttered door that opened onto the balcony. He angled the slats open a fraction wider and looked down at the dark street. He stood there motionless as the pulsing night sounds of the city drifted up from belowthe rumble of heavy traffic on the Gran Via, voices calling from windows down to the street, the slam of a car door, a drunk's serenade, a guitar's liquid chords.

Peter left the window and sank onto the sofa, relieved. “False alarmI think.”

“What's wrong?” Randi asked.

“I thought I heard an odd sound from the street. It's something I've run across a few times before and learned rather quickly to heed.”

“I didn't hear anything unusual,” Jon said.

“You're not meant to, my boy. It's a blowing sound, with a tiny whistle at the center. It seems to be far away, the call of a weak whippoorwill, that simply fades away. In reality, it's a muted whistle no one actually hears. Resembles a random night soundthe wind, an animal turning in sleep, the earth itself creaking as if it really were set in a three-pronged nest. I heard it more than once in northern Iran on the border of the old Soviet Union's central Asian republics, and in the 1980s I heard it in Afghanistan during that barbarous blowup. It's a signal used by the central Asian Muslim tribes. Rather close to night signals your Iroquois and Apache used.”

“The Crescent Shield?” Jon asked.

“Could be. But there was no answer to the call. Since I didn't hear it a second time, I was probably mistaken.”

“How often have you been wrong on a matter like that, Peter?” Jon said.

The ring of the telephone made them jump. Jon grabbed the receiver.

Fred Klein's voice said, “We got everything back online, but the computer warfare specialists tell us that all the electronic encryption codes may have been cracked, so no one's to use any electronic communication until further notice. Nothing that goes through the air either, because that would be easy for them to tap into. Meanwhile, they're changing all the codes and developing emergency measures to protect them better. We've told them we think there's a DNA computer out there, and they've got to do more than try. Why Madrid? What did you find in Toledo?”

Without preamble, Jon reported, “The Black Flame was a hired front. The Crescent Shield seems to be the real power behind everything. And Emile Chambord is alive. Unfortunately, the Crescent Shield has both him and his daughter and the DNA computer.”

There was a stunned silence. Klein said, “You saw Chambord? How do you know about the computer?”

“I saw and talked to both Chambord and his daughter. The computer wasn't at that site.”

“Chambord alive explains how quickly they got the machine working, and makes the worldwide danger a hell of a lot worse. Especially if they have the daughter, too. They'll use her to control him.”

“Yeah,” Jon said.

Another silence. Klein said, “You should've killed Chambord, Colonel.”

“The DNA computer wasn't there, Fred. I tried for the save, to get him out of there alive so he could build one for us to fight back. How do we know what they've forced Chambord to tell them? Maybe enough for another scientist to duplicate his work.”

“What if you don't get a second chance, Jon? What if we don't find him or the machine in time?”

“We will.”

“That's what I tell the president. But we both know there are no miracles, and the next time will be harder.”

It was Jon's turn to be silent. Then, “I made a judgment call. That's what you pay me for. If in my judgment I can't pull Chambord out, or destroy the computer, I'll kill him. That make you happy?”

Klein's voice was as flat and hard as poured concrete. “Can I count on you, Colonel? Or do I have to send someone else?”

“There's no one else who knows what I know. Not in the beginning, and especially not now.”

If the phone had been a television phone, they would have been staring each other down. Finally there was a slow outlet of breath in the far-off Pentagon. “Tell me about this Crescent Shield. Never heard of them.”

“That's because they're newer and have stayed out of sight,” Jon told him, repeating what Randi had said. “They're pan-Islamic, apparently pulled together for this specific attack by a man named Mauritania. He's”

“I know who he is, Jon. Only too well. Part Arab, part Berber, and with rage over the fate of his poor country and its starving people to add to his endemic Muslim and Third World rage about corporate globalization.”

“Which, in truth, motivates these terrorists more than their religion.”

“Yeah,” Klein said. “What's your next step?”

“I'm with Randi Russell and Peter Howell now.” He filled Klein in on how Randi and Peter had shown up at the farmhouse of the Crescent Shield.

There was another surprised hesitation. “Howell and Russell? CIA and MI6? What have you told them?”

“They're right here,” Jon said, letting him know he could say no more.

“You haven't told them about Covert-One?” Klein demanded.

“Of course not.” Jon kept the irritation from his voice.

“All right. Cooperate, but keep the confidence. Understood?”

Jon decided to let the admonition pass. “We need anything and everything you can dig up about Mauritania's personal history. Any patterns he's shown. Where he's most likely to hole up, where we should look for him.”

Klein regrouped and said, “I can tell you one thing. He'll have chosen a secure hole to hide in and a carefully planned target we won't like one bit.”

“How long will the electronic communications be compromised?”

“No way to tell. Could be until we find that computer. Meanwhile, we'll switch to couriers and drops, verbal and manual codes, and a dedicated surface phone line over secure diplomatic fiber-optic phone cables where we can monitor for any break-ins and fix them in seconds. We used to get a lot of intelligence accomplished that way in the old days, and we can do it again. The DNA computer won't help them there. That was smart to get to me through Colonel Hakkim. Here's the new secure private phone number they'll have up as fast as they can, so you can call direct next time.”

Klein relayed the number, and Jon memorized it.

Klein continued, “What about General Henze and that hospital orderly who tried to kill Zellerbach?”

“False alarm. Turns out the 'orderly' was Peter guarding Marty for MI6. He ran because he couldn't taint his operation. He went to Henze's pension to interview Henze's sergeant, not the general.” Jon explained what Peter had wanted with Sergeant Matthias.

“A phone call out of NATO headquarters? Damn, that doesn't sound good to me. How do we know Howell isn't lying?”

“He isn't,” Jon snapped flatly, “and there are a lot of people at NATO. I'm already wondering about one of them, a Captain Bonnard. The Black Flame expected me in Toledo, so either I was tailed or they were tipped. Bonnard is the personal aide to a French general, Roland la Porte. He's the”

“I know who he is. Deputy supreme commander.”

“Right. Bonnard is the one who gave La Porte the data about the fingerprints and DNA analysis in Chambord's file, proving he was dead. He also brought La Porte the file on the Black Flame and Toledo. His position with the general is ideal. Just where anyone would put a spy if they could. He'd have access to just about whatever he wanted in NATO, France, and most of Europe, in the name of the general.”

“I'll see what I can dig up on Bonnard and on Sergeant Matthias. Meanwhile, you'd better go back to Henze. NATO's got Europe's most complete data on current terrorist groups and alliances. Whatever I can dig up here, I'll shoot over to Henze.”

“That's it?” Jon asked.

“That's allhellip;no, wait! Damn. Because of Chambord and the Crescent Shield, I almost forgot. I just got a call from Pans that Marty Zellerbach started talking an hour ago. Out of the blue. Full sentences. Then he fell back asleep. Not much, and he's not completely coherent yet. That could be the Asperger's Syndrome, I suppose. But stop in Paris on your way to Brussels.”

Excitement rushed through Jon. “I'll be there in two hours or less.” He hung up and turned, almost laughing with relief. “Marty's out of the coma!”

“Jon, that's wonderful!” Randi flung her arms around his neck in a joyous hug.

He hugged back and swung her up off her feet.

From the sofa, Peter cocked his head, listening closelyhellip;. And jumped up. “Quiet!” He ran back to the window and leaned toward it, listening intently. His thin, muscular body was like a coiled spring, taut, nervous.

“Did you hear it again?” Randi's whisper was tense.

He gave one sharp nod. He whispered back, “That same breathing whistle on the wind in the night. It was there. This time I'm certain. A signal. We'd better”

Above them, there was a faint clink of metal striking stone. Jon padded to the staircase and pressed his ear against the wall, feeling for vibrations.

“Someone's on the roof,” he warned.

And then all three heard it: A strange sound, like a breathy whistle through the teeth of someone in restless sleep. Or perhaps from a lonely nightbird far away. Not just from below, but from above. They were surrounded.