Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (22 page)

Peter Howell smiled. “You handled the situation nicely without me. Gave me a chance to observe our nameless friends and saved you the trouble of going back, which, of course, you were already on your way to do.”

Jon and Randi looked at each other. “Okay,” Jon said, “what did happen after we got away?”

“They bunked lock, stock, and barrel in their helicopters.”

“You went down to search?” Randi asked.

“Naturally,” Peter said. “Food still warm in the kitchen, waiting to be served. But the house was empty of people, dead or alive, and no clues to who'd been there or where they'd gone. No maps in the house, no papers, absolutely nothing, except great heaps of burned paper in the fireplace. And, of course, there was no sign of the beastly machine itself.”

“They have it all right,” Jon assured him, “but it was never there, or at least that's what Chambord believed.” As Peter turned the car around in a wide place on the road, Jon and Randi filled him in on what they had learned about the Crescent Shield, Mauritania, the Chambords, and the DNA computer.

Elizondo Ibarguengoitia licked his lips and dropped his gaze. His wiry body was hunched, the red beret askew, his demeanor harried. “We thought you were leaving Toledo, M. Mauritania. You say you have another job for us? The money is good?”

“The others left, Elizondo, I'll join them soon. There was too much I still had to do here. Yes, the rewards for this new job are impressive, I assure you. Are you and your people interested?”

“Of course!”

They were inside the vast, echoing Cathedral, in the famed chapel of the White Madonna with its white statues, columns, and rococo stone and plaster decorations. Abu Auda was leaning against the wall next to the Christian icon Mary and the infant Jesus, where his white burnoose seemed to mimic the statue itself.

As Mauritania talked to the three BasquesElizondo, Zumaia, and Iturbihe smiled, leaned on a cane, and studied Elizondo's face.

Elizondo nodded eagerly. “What's the job?”

“All in good time, Elizondo,” Mauritania said. “All in good time. First, please describe for me how you killed the American Colonel Smith. You're certain his body's in the river? You're positive he's dead?”

Elizondo looked regretful. “When I shot him, he fell into the river. Iturbi tried to pull his body out, but the current captured him, and he was gone. We would've preferred to bury him, of course, where he wouldn't be found. With luck, his corpse will float all the way to Lisbon. No one there will know who he is.”

Mauritania nodded solemnly, as if considering whether there would be problems when the corpse was eventually recovered. “All of this is strange, Elizondo. You see, Abu Auda there”he nodded at the silent terrorist“assures me that one of the two people who attacked us at the farmhouse after you left was the same Colonel Smith. That makes it unlikely you killed him.”

Elizondo's complexion turned as bloodless as the statue. “He's wrong. He was shot. We shot”

“He's quite certain,” Mauritania interrupted, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Abu Auda came to know Colonel Smith in Paris. In fact, one of Abu's men was there when you kidnapped the woman. So, you seehellip;”

Now Elizondo understood. He pulled his knife from his belt and lunged at Mauritania. At the same time, Zumaia yanked out his pistol, and Iturbi spun away to escape.

But Mauritania whipped his cane up with the speed of a striking snake, and a narrow blade shot out from the tip. It glinted in the dim light of the chapel and then disappeared as Elizondo impaled himself on its point with his frantic charge. Mauritania, his face red with anger, twisted the blade and ripped it up in an arc through the vital organs. Elizondo collapsed, holding his own entrails, staring in surprise at Mauritania. He pitched forward, dead.

At the same time, Zumaia had managed to half-turn, his pistol firing a single unaimed shot before Abu Auda's scimitar slashed through his throat. Blood spurted, and he sprawled forward.

Iturbi tried to run, but Abu Auda smoothly reversed his powerful wrist and thrust the blade backhanded so deep into the fleeing Basque's back that the point exited through his chest. With both hands, the giant Fulani lifted the sword a few inches and, with it, the dying Basque. Abu Auda's green-brown eyes flashed with anger as he watched Iturbi wriggle like a rabbit on a spit. When the man slumped dead on the blade, Abu Auda pulled the scimitar out.

Mauritania wiped his narrow sword on a white altar cloth and touched the button on the cane that retracted the blade. Abu Auda washed his sword in the font of holy water and dried it on his burnoose. His desert robes were now not only dirty but bloody.

Abu Auda sighed. “It's been a long time since I've washed in the blood of my enemies, Khalid. It feels good.”

Mauritania nodded, understanding. “We mustn't linger. There's still much to do before we strike.”

The two men stepped over the dead Basques and slipped through the Cathedral and out into the night.

An hour later, Jon, Randi, and Peter were on the highway, driving away from Toledo. First they had stopped in the city, where Jon had retrieved his laptop and bag from the trunk of his rented Renault. The car was untouched, containing only the cut ropes. With luck, Bixente had escaped back to his life as a shepherd. As Jon loaded his belongings into the touring car, Peter and Randi put the top on it, and they sped away, Peter driving. Now as the spires and towers of the fabled city of El Greco faded in the distance, Peter slowed to just beneath the national speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour. They did not need to attract police attention.

Randi settled into the rear of the classic touring car, where the old seat still gave off a scent of expensive leather. She listened as Jon and Peter discussed in the front seat which route to take to Madrid, where they would report in and regroup.

“Just don't go back the same way Jon drove, in case the Basques were tailing him.” She repressed her irritation as Peter took her advice. Why was she so testy around Jon? At first she had blamed him for her fianceacute; Mike's death in Somalia, and later for Sophia's tragic murder, but she had since grown to respect him. She wanted to put the past behind her, but it nagged like an unfulfilled promise. The odd part was she felt he would like to forget about it, too. They were frozen by too much history between them.

“God knows what we'll find next,” Peter said. “Let's hope it's the molecular computer.” The “retired” SAS trooper and MI6 spy was muscular and lean, perhaps just a shade too lean under his priest's costume. His hands were curved brown claws on the steering wheel, and his face was narrow, the color and texture of leather dried out by years of wind and sun. It was so deeply lined that his eyes seemed embedded in canyons. But even in the night, those eyes remained sharp and guarded. Then they suddenly twinkled, amused. “Oh, and Jon, my friend, you seriously owe me for this little scratch. But I suppose I owe you for a bump on your noggin, too.”

Peter reached up and lifted off his churchly black hat to reveal a bandage wrapped around the top of his head.

Jon stared at the bandage and shook his head as Peter adjusted the hat back onto his head. “I'll be damned. So you were the Algerian orderly at the Pompidou who caused all the trouble.” He remembered a flitting sense of familiarity as the orderly had run backward down the hospital corridor, waving a mini-submachine gun in warning to keep everyone at bay. It was Peter's head that had left the trace of blood on the banister. “So you were there to protect Marty, not to kill him. That's why when you finally shot, it was high.”

“All true.” Peter nodded. “Happened to be in the hospital keeping an eye on our friend when I heard he had a 'family' visitor. Since Marty has no close family left, if you don't count the dog we picked up on the Hades thing, I got the wind up and flew up there didi mau with my little Sterling. Saw you spot me and had to bunk or blow my whole pantomime.”

From the back, Randi said, “Which means SAS or MI6 is watching Marty.”

“Ah, a trifle old for the Special Air boys, but MI6 does still find me useful from time to time. Whitehall is salivating over this DNA gadget.”

“They called on you?”

“I know a bit about the DNA potential, and I've worked fairly often with the French, which is not MI6's best feature. One of the perks of being retired, out of the game, so to speak, is that I get to go my own way a bit. If they think they need me, they have to come to me. Then whenever I don't want to play, I gather my toys and toddle back to my lair in the Sierras with Stan. Drives them silly, of course.”

Randi repressed a smile. Peter often referred to his age disparagingly, maybe to distract people from his actual abilities, which would shame many a thirty-something.

Jon frowned. “But why not identify yourself to me? Why let me chase you? Hell, you made me jump over a gurney!”

Peter grinned. “That was a pretty sight. Worth anything just to witness that.” He paused. His voice grew serious as he admitted, “Never sure, are we? Couldn't know why you were there, eh? Downing Street and the Oval Office don't always back the same pony. Better to find out first who's doing what.”

Jon continued to frown. “But after that, I saw you go into General Henze's pension. The one where he wasn't supposed to be. Sounds as if you were interested in the same pony there.”

“You spotted me? Don't like that very much. Others could have as well.”

“I didn't have a clue it was you. Either time, if that helps.”

Considerable satisfaction was in Peter's voice as he decided, “That was the idea, wasn't it?”

“Especially when you're visiting an American general,” Jon said, studying his friend.

“He's NATO, too, you see. Have to make nice with the EU.”

“And tell the NATO general what?”

“Classified, my boy. Strict orders.”

With that Peter was clearly going to say no more, friends or no friends.

To those accustomed to the heavy traffic of Madrid, the highway was almost an empty parking lot. A few cars roared past, speeding, but Peter was behaving himself and kept the town car under control. Near the lush, green city of Aranjuez, a former summer retreat for Spain's kings and queens, he left the N400 and turned the car north toward the A4 and Madrid, which was now fifty kilometers distant. The moon peeked out, spreading a silver glow across fields of newly planted strawberries, tomatoes, sugar beets, and wheat, as Randi leaned forward, resting her forearms on the back of the seat.

“Okay, Jon, who the hell do you work for?” The moment she said it, she regretted it. Irritable and confrontational. But dammit, she wanted to know. “Tell me it's not my dear, devious bosses at Langley lying through their teeth again.”

“I'm here on my own, Randi. Peter believes me, right, Peter?”

Peter smiled behind the wheel. “It do stink a bit, you know. Not that I especially care, but I see Randi's point about her people. Behind her back and all that. Shouldn't like it myself.”

Among Randi's finer traits was a laserlike focus, and she would worry a bone of contention with the tenacity of a pit bull. He had resisted long enough, it was time to trot out his believable lie.

“Okay, you're right,” Jon told her. “There's something else going on, but it's not Langley. It's the army. Army intelligence sent me to find out whether Dr. Chambord actually did create a prototype operational DNA computer. And if he did, whether it and his research notes were stolen and the bombing a coverup.”

She shook her head. “Langley never found you on the army intelligence roster.”

“It's a one-shot. If they go high enough, they'll find me.” He was confident of Fred Klein's deviousness.

She seemed to believe him this time, and for a moment he felt guilty. “See?” she said. “That wasn't so hard. Be careful, thoughtruth can become addictive.”

“Never heard it put that way,” Peter said dryly.

Jon had a clear impression that Peter did not believe a word of his fiction, but at the same time, Peter did not care, either.

To the Brit, his own assignment came first, and he returned to it. “Let's get back to the mission. Since Chambord is alive and kidnapped, then something's not shipshape at the Paris police.”

“You mean the fingerprint identification,” Jon understood. “I've thought about that. The only way I can figure the Black Flame and Crescent Shield made that happen was a simple reverse. They planted a corpse in the Pasteur before they blew it up. Put the corpse right on top of the bomb, except for the lower arms and hands the police found. They must've cut those off and planted them far enough away that at least one had a good chance of being recoverable, but close enough to be battered by the explosion. Then they had someone substitute the corpse's prints for Chambord's in his file. They also could've substituted DNA information, in case less identifiable body parts survived. Once the Paris police had a reason to make an identification one way or the other, they'd be satisfied. They'd have bigger problems to deal with, such as the DNA computer.”

Randi thought about it. “The terrorists must've sweated blood when it took so long for the remains to be found. Not that it mattered much, since the police would assume they hadn't found his body yet.”

“Wonder how they managed to sneak a corpse in at all? Could have scuttled their entire plan had they been spotted,” Peter said. “Curious.”

“I think,” Jon suggested slowly, “the corpse simply walked in with them, unknowing, or maybe he was a dedicated martyr for Islam, counting on a guaranteed place in heaven.”

“Good God,” Randi breathed.

“Another type of suicide bomber,” Peter said. “What's the world becoming?”

They were silent with the implications. Finally, Jon asked, “We've both told you how we got here, Peter. How about you?”

“Fair enough question. After the bombing, M16 spotted a known Basque separatist in Paris, Elizondo Ibarguengoitia. The Second Bureau had missed him. MI6 factored that information into what the French told Whitehall about the other Basque that they did pick up, and it seemed like a chance to steal a march on the Second Bureau that was too good to miss. As it happened, I'd crossed berets with Elizondo more than once, so my assignment was to tail the bugger and see what mischief I might uncover.” He stared ahead at the highway. “My nose for chicanery also tells me Whitehall would not be averse to snatching the thingamajig for Queen and country, eh, and my unofficial status could give deniability should the grab go wrong.”