Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (39 page)

If it really were the computer, there was the chance Chambord could repair or rebuild it quickly. Which meant the logical choice was to kill Chambord. On the other hand, Mauritania might have someone else with enough scientific training to operate the DNA computer, even if he could not build one. Then the choices would be between killing Mauritania and damaging the prototype.

Which was the best course? Would give the best outcome?

Chambord alive might eventually mean the world would have the DNA computer, or perhaps the United States alone would. Much would depend on who rescued Chambord. Langley really wanted the computer.

On the other hand, any attack by her could sign Theacute;regrave;se Chambord's and Jon's death warrants. And if the apparatus really was not the molecular machine, her gunfire would call everyone down on her and end whatever chance she had to save the situation or them.

She lowered her MP5K. She had, after all, a backup plan that was dangerous but would take care of all contingencies. It would eliminate the computer, wherever it was in the villa. The problem was, it might mean the deaths of everyone.

She had to take the chance. Watching for sentries, she ran low, toward the front of the villa. In the distance, she could hear the surf pounding the sand. It seemed to echo the pounding of her heart. At the corner, she peered around at the front terrace and entry. Abu Auda and two of his men were marching Jon and Theacute;regrave;se across the terrace and down to the bare ground in the direction of the distant barracks. When they were far enough ahead, she followed.

Jon surveyed the dark trees, looking for a way to break Theacute;regrave;se and himself free. Abu Auda and his men had taken them through a tangerine grove to a square wooden building in a clearing some fifty yards behind the barracks. The scent of citrus seemed cloying, overpowering.

As one of his bedouins opened the heavy door, Abu Auda kicked Jon into a dark room. “You've caused us too much trouble, American. Usually I would've killed you by now. Be grateful to Khalid, for he thinks greater than I. You'll cause us no more trouble in here, and the female can think upon her sins.”

The guards pushed Theacute;regrave;se in after Jon and slammed the door. The key turned in the lock, and there was a clang as an additional iron bar was slid home and then a click as it was padlocked.

“Mon Dieu.”

Theacute;regrave;se sighed.

Jon said in English, “This wasn't how I pictured our next time alone together.” He gazed around the single cell. Moonlight slanted in from a barred window high in the wall, sending a rectangular pattern across the concrete floor. Its color was pale, indicating recently poured cement. There were no other windows, and the wood door was massive.

“No,” she agreed. Despite her torn white suit and dirty face, there was a beauty and dignity to her that remained untouched. “I'd hoped you would come to the theater to sec me work, and then we'd have a late dinner.”

“I would've liked that.”

“Seeing me work, or the late dinner?”

“Bothhellip;the dinner and drinksand later, the most.” He smiled.

“Yes.” She smiled back, and then her expression grew solemn. “It's odd how life can change so quickly, so unexpectedly.”

“Isn't it?”

She cocked her head and gazed at him curiously. “You say that as if you're a man who's lost much.”

“Do I?” He did not want to talk about Sophia. Not here, not now. The shadowy cell smelled dry, almost sandy, as if the Algerian heat had baked the moisture forever from the wood structure. “We have to get out of here. We can't leave the computer or your father in their hands.”

“But how?”

There was nothing in the room to stand on. The single cot was fastened to the wrong wall, and there was no other furniture. He looked up at the window again, and calculated its height as no more than nine feet. “I'll boost you up so you can test the bars. Maybe one or two are loose. That'd be a happy piece of luck.”

He made a stirrup of his hands and hoisted her up to his shoulders.

She strained at the bars, examined them, and announced in a discouraged voice, “They've been sunk through three horizontal boards bolted together, and then bolted to iron plates. They're not new.”

Old bars in a prison built long ago, perhaps to punish Arab slaves or the prisoners of the pirates who once ruled here along with what was once a local bey of the Ottoman Empire.

“You don't feel even a creak?” he asked hopefully.

“No. They're solid.”

Jon helped her down, and they turned their attention to the wood door. Its advanced age might help. But it, too, showed no weakness, and it was double locked from the outside. Even its hinges were outside. The slave owners and the pirates had apparently been worried more about a prisoner breaking out than anyone breaking in to free someone. And now, without outside help, he and Theacute;regrave;se would not get out either.

Then he heard a faint, odd soundlike tiny chewing. A small animal tentatively biting into wood. He listened, but could not pinpoint the source.

“Jon!”

The whisper was so low at first he thought he was hallucinating, hearing voices conjured up by his own desperate thoughts of escape.

“Jon, dammit!”

He whirled and looked up at the window. All he saw was the dark sky.

The whisper came again. “Idiot! The back wall.”

Then he knew the voice. He hurried across the cell and crouched low against the back wall. “Randi?”

“Who did you expect, the marines?”

“I could hope. Why are we whispering?”

“Because Abu Auda and his men are all around. It's a trap, you're the bait, and I'm the quarry. Me or anyone else who comes to rescue you at this dinkus little jail.”

“Mow did you manage to get through?” Once again he found himself admiring her abilities, her tradecraft skills.

The whisper came after a hesitation. “I had to kill two of Abu Auda's men. The night's dark, and that helped. But Abu Auda will miss them soon, and then we're cooked.”

“In here, I don't have a lot of options. I'm open to suggestions.”

“The padlock on the door's good, but the lock's a piece of junk. The hinges are old, but not rusted enough to do us much good. The hinges are oiled, and I can take them off. The screws holding the bar are outside. If I remove them, I think you can push the door out from the backside.”

“Sounds like a possibility. Traditional, but good.”

“Yeah. That's what I thought, until I had to kill the two guys. They're in the grove near the front. So I've had to come up with an alternate plan. There's a lot of wood rot back here.”

Jon heard the noise in the wall again, muffled. “Are you digging into it?”

“Right. I tested with my knife, and the rot goes deep enough that I think I can cut a nice exit hole. It'll be a lot quieter and maybe quicker.”

Inside the room, Jon and Theacute;regrave;se listened to the noises that sounded like some small animal chewing. The noises went on, faster and faster.

Randi whispered at last, “Okay, big man, shove from your side. Shove hard.”

Theacute;regrave;se knelt beside him, and together they strained against the wall where they had heard Randi work. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the wood gave under their hands in a cloudburst of sawdust. Dry wood, riddled with termite and other insect tunnels, turned into dust, and the rotten boards shot out. Randi caught them and lowered them silently to the ground.

Jon and Theacute;regrave;se slipped through and into the languid night air. Jon looked quickly around. The grove of tangerine trees rustled with wind, and the moon was just rising low in the sky.

Randi was crouching just inside the citrus grove, her expression tense, her MP5K held at the ready. She was gazing past the jail and across the grassy open ground to the grove on the other side. The open area was dusky and vague in the night, and the distant trees impenetrable. She motioned them to follow.

She rolled over onto her belly and elbows, her MP5K cradled in the crooks of her arms, and crawled off into the grass. Imitating Randi, Theacute;regrave;se followed. Jon brought up the rear. Their progress was silent, maddeningly slow. The moon was rising higher, already beginning to shine low through the grove that surrounded the jail.

At last they reached the shadows of the forward trees. They did not pause to rest but crawled on past the dead body of one of the terrorists Randi had killed, and then the second one, until finally they reached a growth of date palms well past where Abu Auda had set his trap.

Randi sat up against a palm trunk. “We should be safe here a couple of minutes. No longer. They've got people out everywhere.”

Somewhere nearby, insects made a clicking sound. Above them, stars glittered occasionally through the palm fronds.

“Nice save.” Jon rose to his haunches.

“Merci beaucoup.”

Theacute;regrave;se sat cross-legged.

As the three faced one another, Randi smiled at Theacute;regrave;se. “At last we meet. I'm glad you're alive.”

“I, too, as you can imagine,” Theacute;regrave;se said with gratitude. “Thank you for coming. But we must get my father. Who knows what terrible things they're planning for him to do!”

Jon gave Randi an innocent smile. “I don't suppose you have an extra gun for me?”

Randi looked disapproving. Jon noted her black eyes, the sculpted face, a fringe of blond hair peeking out from beneath her black watch cap.

She said, “I still don't know who you're really working for, but in the Company we come prepared.” She produced a 9mm Sig Sauer of the exact model Jon had been forced to leave in the trash basket at Madrid airport, complete with silencer.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. As he checked the cartridges and saw that it was fully loaded, he told the two women what he had overheard in the dome room.

“Mauritania's planning a nuclear strike against Jerusalem?” Randi was shocked.

Jon nodded. “It sounds like a Russian medium-range tactical warhead, probably to minimize damage to the Arab countries around, but they're going to be hurt, too. Bad. The fallout will probably be worse than at Chernobyl.”

“Mon Dieu,”

Theacute;regrave;se whispered, horrified. “All those poor people!”

Randi's eyes glinted. “I was inserted here from a missile cruiser out there about seventy miles. The USS Saratoga. I've got a dedicated radio, and they're standing by for my call. That's because we've got a real plan here. It's not pretty, but it'll stop these guys from any nuclear strikes, whether it's against Jerusalem, New York City, or Brussels. We can go a couple of ways with it. If we can rescue Chambord and the computer, then they'll come in and extract all of us. We like that option most.” She asked for confirmation that the apparatus she had seen in the room with Jon, Mauritania, Abu Auda, and the Chambords was the molecular prototype. When Jon said it was, she nodded. “If worse comes to worsthellip;” She hesitated and looked at Theacute;regrave;se.

“It can't be any more unpleasant than what we've already been through, or what Mauritania plans, Mile. Russell.”

“We can't let the DNA computer remain in their hands,” Randi said gravely. “There's no wiggle room about that. No options.”

Theacute;regrave;se's gaze narrowed, and she frowned. “So?”

“If it comes to it, the Saratoga has a Standard Missile SM-2 aimed square on the dome of the villa. Its purpose is to eliminate the DNA computer.”

“And the terrorists,” Theacute;regrave;se breathed. “They will die, too?”

“If they're here, yes. Whoever's there will die.” There was no emotion in Randi's voice.

Jon had been watching the two women. He told Randi, “She understands.”

Theacute;regrave;se swallowed and nodded. “But my father. He was ready to stop them. He even stole a gun.” She turned toward the trail that led back to the villa. “You can't kill him!”

“We don't want to kill him or anyone” Randi began.

Jon said, “Let's go with a combination of the options. I don't want to take the time to try to get the computer out of there. But we can rescue Chambord, and then your people can extract us.”

“I like that,” Theacute;regrave;se said. “That's what I want, too. But if worse comes to worst”her face seemed to pale in the moonlight“you must do what you have to, to prevent a catastrophe.”

Randi checked her watch. “I can give you ten minutes.” She pulled a short-range walkie-talkie from her backpack. “Take this. When you've got Chambord and you're exiting the villa, call me. Then I'll notify the Saratoga that it's their turn.”

“Right.” He attached the walkie-talkie to his belt.

“I'm going with you,” Theacute;regrave;se told Jon.

“Don't be stupid. You're not trained. You'd just be”

“You may need my help with my father. Besides, you can't stop me. What will you do, shoot me to keep me here?” She looked at Randi. “Give me a gun. I know how to use one, and I'll hold up my end.”

Randi cocked her head, considering. She nodded. “Take my Beretta. It's silenced. Here, take it, and go!”

Jon timed the passage of the guards, and when they turned the corner, he led Theacute;regrave;se in a fast run. They landed on either side of the front door and flattened themselves back. The interior guard emerged through the doorway. A single blow from Jon's new Sig Sauer dropped him. Jon dragged the unconscious terrorist into the house as Theacute;regrave;se closed the door carefully, making only a small noise. He could hear a loud discussion from the direction of the dome room. It sounded as if a war council were in progress.

He signaled Theacute;regrave;se, and they sprinted across the broad tiled entry into the west wing of the old villa, not stopping until they reached the sharp turn toward the rear. They paused there, and Jon peered around the corner. He whispered in Theacute;regrave;se's ear: “No guards. Come on.”

They dashed down the side hallway that was completely lined in magnificent mosaics, their pistols ready to fire if discovered. They stopped again, this time at the door to the former women's quarters.

Jon was puzzled. “Still there's no sign of a guard. Why's that?” he whispered.

“Perhaps he's in the room with Papa.”