Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (18 page)

He turned the collar of his leather jacket up against the growing night chill and contemplated the riches of this city, now decadent. Everyone came to photograph it and buy cheap relics of its past because they had more money than soul. Few came to learn from it, to contemplate what Toledo had been, to understand what the light of Islam had brought here when Christian Europe was going through its intolerant Dark Ages. He thought bitterly of his own poor, starving country today, where the sands of the Sahara were slowly smothering the life out of the land and the people.

And the infidels wondered why he hated them, planned to destroy them, wanted to bring back the enlightenment of Islam. Bring back a culture where money and greed were nothing. Bring back the power that had ruled here for centuries. He was no fundamentalist. He was a pragmatist. First he would teach the Jews a lesson. Then the Americans. While the Americans waited, they would sweat.

Mauritania was aware he was an enigma to Westerners. He counted on it, with his delicate hands and face, his round body, apparently so weak and ineffectual. But inside, to himself, he knew the truth: He was heroic.

For some time he stood silent in the night on the terrace of the palatial hotel, studying the spire of the great Christian Cathedral and the hulking mass and stubby towers of the al-Qasr, built nearly fifteen hundred years ago by his own desert people. While his face remained impassive, he raged inwardly. His fury burned and grew, banked by centuries of outrage. His people would rise again. But slowly, carefully, in small steps that would begin with the blow, he would strike soon against the Jews.

On the slope above the moonlit Rio Tajo, Smith lay hidden beneath the willow tree, listening. The terrorists had quit talking, and behind him, the city was growing quiet. Below, a waterbird shrieked, and something splashed in the river.

Smith swung the Sig Sauer toward the river as a swimmer emerged and scrambled up, a gray wraith in the moonlight. Another was patrolling past on the hill below Smith. The one from the river muttered something in Basque, joined his comrade, and the pair continued out of earshot.

Smith slowly let out his breath, rose to his haunches, and followed, staying low to the ground as the men continued to search the slope. There were a half dozen of them now, heading in the general direction of the Puente de San Martin bridge. When the man at the top of the slope neared the bridge road, the group exchanged a series of hand signals, and all turned abruptly and swept down toward the moving water. Smith rolled behind boulders, scraping his elbows, before they could spot him.

At the riverbank, they crouched, consulting. Smith heard the names Zumaia, Iturbi, and Elizondo. He could see none of their faces. They were speaking quietly in rapid Basque and Spanish, and Smith caught the gist: Elizondo decided that if Smith had been here, he had somehow evaded them and was now heading back into the city, where he might contact the local police. That would be bad for them. Although Smith was a foreigner, the police would be less friendly to a Basque group.

Zumaia was not convinced. All argued the point and eventually compromised. Because of the time factor, Zumaia, a man called Carlos, and the others would stake out various places around the city in hopes of spotting Smith. Elizondo would give up the chase, since he was supposed to be at some farmhouse across the river for a meeting that was vital.

It was two words about the appointment that riveted SmithCrescent Shield. If he understood correctly, Elizondo was going to that farmhouse to meet the group's representatives. He would walk, since their cars were too distant now to fetch.

Smith's luck had improved. Lying motionless, he tried to control his impatience as the men made their final plans and moved up toward the city. If he tried to follow Elizondo across the bridge, which was well lighted by street lamps, he would likely be seen. He had to find another way. He could tail at a distance, but that risked losing the terrorist leader, and he was in no position to ask too many questions of the locals. The solution was to be on the other side of the river before Elizondo crossed.

As the terrorists moved off, Smith stripped off the shirt and trousers he had taken from the American tourist. He jumped up and ran down to the shore as he rolled the clothes into a tight bundle. Using his belt, he tied the roll to the back of his head and waded in, careful to avoid splashing. The water was cold, and it smelled of mud and rotting vegetation.

He slipped into the black river. Head held high, he struck out in a powerful breaststroke. His hands dug in, pushed back water, and he thought about Marty lying unconscious in the Pompidou Hospital. About the men and women who had died at the Pasteur. About Theacute;regrave;se Chambord. Was she even still alive?

Angry and worried, he pulled the water in mighty strokes. When he looked up at the bridge, he could see Elizondo, illuminated by the street lamps, his red beret easy to spot. He and Elizondo were making about the same speed. Not good.

Smith was weary, but there was no getting around it. He needed to go faster. The molecular computer was out there somewhere. Adrenaline jolted him. He pulled and kicked harder, slicing through the murky river, battling a slow current. He glanced up. The terrorist was still there, walking steadily but not so rapidly as to call attention to himself.

Smith was ahead. He continued his sprint, working his muscles, until at last he stumbled up onto the shore, panting, his legs rubbery. But there was no time to rest. He shook off the worst of the water, yanked on his clothes, and combed his fingers through his hair as he ran up onto the street and across. He ducked between two parked cars.

He had made it just in time. Elizondo was striding off the bridge. Beneath his beret, his sun-darkened face held a somber, angry expression. He looked like a man with a problem. When he turned left, Smith slipped from between the cars and trailed behind, keeping him in sight. Elizondo led him past an area of gracious country houses, cigarrales, where rich professionals lived, on up a hill and beyond the Parador hotel and past tractlike modern housing. Eventually they were in the countryside, with only the stars, the moon, and the fields for company. Somewhere cattle lowed.

At last Elizondo turned left again, this time onto a dirt road. During the long hike, he had looked back several times, but Smith had been able to use trees, bushes, and vehicles to hide from the probing gaze. But this dirt road was too lonely and isolated, too little cover. Smith slipped into a woodland windbreak and wove through it parallel to the road.

Because his Hawaiian shirt had short sleeves, bushes scratched his exposed arms. He could smell the cloying odor of some night-blooming flower. At last he plowed to the end of the windbreak, where he stayed back in the woods, studying the large clearing that spread before him. There were barns, chicken coops, and a corral that formed an L with a farmhouse, all bathed eerily in moonlight. This was his lucky nightjust one house to choose from.

He studied the vehicles. Three cars were parked at the edge of the open area near the L. One was an old Jeep Cherokee, but the two others were what held his attentiona sleek, late-model black Mercedes sedan and an equally large new black Volvo station wagon. The farm appeared modest, not wealthy enough to support two new, expensive cars. All of which made Smith think that Elizondo was meeting more than one member of the Crescent Shield.

When Elizondo reached the front door, it opened before he could knock. As Smith watched, the terrorist hesitated, took a quick breath, and disappeared inside. Low to the ground, Smith left the cover of the windbreak and moved toward a lighted window on the right side of the house. When he heard the brittle crunch of shoes on gravel, he slid into the cover of an old oak, his nerves taut. The sound came from his left.

A craggy black man emerged from around that corner of the house, silent and phantomlike, dressed in the white robes of a desert Arab. He stopped there, barely twenty feet from Smith, cradling a British-made L24A1 5.56mm assault rifle as he scanned the night. He looked like a man accustomed to weapons and distances. A desert warrior, but not an Arab, or even a Tuareg or Berber. Perhaps a Fulani from the tribe of fierce nomads who once ruled the southern edge of the Sahara.

Meanwhile, a second man materialized around the house's other corner, the right side, farther from Smith. He was carrying an old Kalashnikov assault weapon. He moved into the farmyard.

Huddled beneath the tree, Smith tightened his grip on his Sig Sauer as the guard with the Kalashnikov turned and advanced toward the corral. He would pass within ten feet of Smith. At the same time, the tall bedouin said something in Arabic. The one with the Kalashnikov responded and stopped, so close to Smith that he could smell the onions and cardamom on him. Smith lay motionless as the two men talked more.

Suddenly it was over. The Kalashnikov-armed guard turned and retraced his steps, passed the lighted window that had been Smith's goal, and disappeared, perhaps to a post at the back of the house. But the bedouin in the white robes remained a statue, his head rotating like a radar antenna, searching the night. Without realizing it, he was preventing Smith from approaching the house. Smith imagined this was how the deep-desert warriors of the Sahara had always stood night watch, but on a high sand dune waiting for the foreign troops that had made the mistake of marching into their desert.

At last the white-robed bedouin patrolled out into the yard and around the corral, chicken coops, and cars, still watching everywhere. Then he returned to the farmhouse, his head oscillating, until he reached the front door. He opened it and backed inside. It was a remarkable displayand warningof two highly trained sentries at work. They would miss little.

On his belly, Smith crawled quickly back from the tree until he was in the cover of the windbreak again. He circled wide through the vegetation and once more left its shelter, this time to hurry across the open space toward the rear of the farmhouse, where the light was less, the windows feweronly threeand all were barred. Thirty feet away, he dropped onto his back, cradled his Sig Sauer against his chest, and slithered toward the left window. Above him, gray clouds scudded across the night sky, while beneath him, an occasional rock bit into his flesh. He gritted his teeth.

Near the house now, he raised up and peered around, checking for the guard with the old Kalashnikov. The man was nowhere to be seen. Smith searched wider in the night, heard voices, and saw the glow of a pair of cigarettes. They were in the field behind the house, two men, and beyond them the bulky shadows of three helicopters. The Crescent Shield was both well organized and well supplied.

Smith saw no other guards. He crawled closer and raised up to peer in through the first window. What he saw was an ordinary sight: a lighted room, and through an open door across from him, a second lighted room. In the more distant one, Elizondo was seated in a stiff armchair, his nervous gaze following a figure who paced, appearing and disappearing across the open doorway.

Short and thickset, the pacer wore an impeccable dark gray business suit of English cut. His face was soft, round, and somehow enigmatic. Not an English face despite the suit, but of no particular ethnicity Smith could identify. Too dark for a northern European, lighter than many Italians or Spanish, with neither Oriental nor Polynesian features. Nor did he appear to be Afghan, Central Asian, or Pakistani. Possibly Berber, Smith decided, recalling the bedouin robes on the statuelike sentry he had first seen.

Straining to hear, Smith realized he was listening to a polyglot from many countriesFrench, Spanish, English, others. He heard “Mauritania,” “dead,” “no more trouble,” “excellent,” “in the river,” “count it,” and, finally, “I trust you.” The last phrase was spoken by Elizondo in Spanish as he rose to his feet.

The small, round-faced man stopped pacing and extended his hand. Elizondo shook it. It appeared that some kind of transaction had been completed amicably. As Elizondo disappeared, and Smith heard the front door open and close, he wondered about the word Mauritania. Had they been talking about someone from Mauritania? Smith thought that might be it. He also thought Elizondo had been the one who had spoken the name, and his tone indicated that whatever it meant, it was good news for him.

On the other hand, Smith decided, Mauritania might be where the Crescent Shield, if that was who they were, or even the Black Flame, was headed next.

Still thinking about Elizondo and the other man, Smith dropped low and crept through the night's shadows to the second window, which was also barred. He raised up and looked inside.

This time the room was small and empty, a bedroom with a simple iron cot made up for sleeping. There was a side table and chair, and on the cot lay a wooden tray that held an untouched meal. Smith heard a noise in the room, but from off to the side, out of sight. It sounded as if a chair had scraped across the floor. He moved to the side of the window and listened as footsteps sounded.

Someone was walking slowly, heavily, toward the cot. Excitement surged through him. It was Theacute;regrave;se Chambord. He had been afraid she was as dead as her father. Air seemed to catch in his throat as he studied her.

She was dressed as he had last seen her, in her white satin evening suit, but it was smudged with dirt, and one sleeve was torn. Her lovely face was bruised and dirty, too, and her long black hair was snarled. It had been at least twenty-four hours since she was kidnapped, and judging by her appearance, she had fought her kidnappers more than once. Her face looked older, as if the last day had stolen her youth and enthusiasm.

As he watched, she sat heavily on the edge of the iron cot. She shoved away her dinner tray with a gesture of disgust and leaned forward, her head falling into her hands, her elbows resting on her knees, the picture of despair.

Smith checked the night, concerned one of the sentries might surprise him. The only sound was the low sighing of the wind through the distant woods. Above him, clouds drifted over the moon, and darkness deepened over the farmyard. A welcome help against discovery.