Covert One 3 - The Paris Option (4 page)

Not long afterward, the same staff car stopped a second time, now at the side entrance to a detached building at Charles de Gaulle International Airport just north of Paris. The vehicle's back door opened, and a tall man, also wearing the uniform of a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, emerged. It was Jon Smith. Trim, athletic, somewhere in his early forties, he looked military through and through. He had a high-planed face, and his dark hair, a little longer than usual, was worn neatly smooth under his army cap. As he stood up, his navy blue eyes surveyed all around.

There was nothing particularly unusual about him as he finally walked to the building in the quiet hours before dawn, just another army officer, carrying an overnight bag and an IBM Thinkpad in a heavy-duty aluminum case. A half hour later, Smith emerged again, out of uniform. This time he was wearing the casual clothes he favoreda tweed jacket, blue cotton shirt, tan cotton trousers, and a trench coat. He also wore a hidden canvas holster under his sports jacket, and in it was his 9mm Sig Sauer.

He walked briskly across the tarmac and moved with other passengers through de Gaulle customs, where, because of his U.S. Army identification, he was waved through without a search. A private limousine was waiting, back door open. Smith climbed in, refusing to let his limo driver handle either his suitcase or his laptop.

The city of Paris was known for its joie de vivre in all things, including driving. For instance, a horn was for communication: A long blast meant disgustget out of my way. A tap was a friendly warning. Several taps were a jaunty greeting, especially if they were rhythmic. And speed, deftness, and a devil-may-care attitude were necessary, particularly among the world atlas of drivers who manned the city's numerous taxi and limo fleets. Smith's driver was an American with a heavy foot, which was just fine with Smith. He wanted to get to the hospital to see Marty.

As the limo hurtled south on the boulevard Peacute;ripheacute;rique around the crowded city, Smith was tense. In Colorado he had successfully handed off his research into molecular circuits. He regretted having had to do it, but it was necessary. On the long flight to France, he had called ahead to check again on Marty's condition. There had been no improvement, but at least there had been no decline either. He had also made other phone calls, this time to colleagues in Tokyo, Berlin, Sydney, Brussels, and London, tactfully sounding them out about their progress in developing molecular computers. But all were cagey, hoping to be first.

After filtering for that, he had gotten the sense that none was close to success. All commented on the sad death of Emile Chambord but without mentioning his project. It seemed to Smith that they were as uninformed as he had been.

The driver turned the limo off onto the avenue de la Porte de Segrave;vres and soon arrived at the eight-hundred-bed European Hospital Georges Pompidou. A glistening monument to modern architecture with curved walls and a glassy facade, it rose like a giant layered Luden's cough drop, directly across the street from the Parc Andreacute; Citron. Carrying his luggage. Smith paid the driver and entered the hospital's glass-topped, marble-lined galleria. He took off his sunglasses, slid them into his pocket, and gazed around.

The galleria was so cavernousmore than two football fields in lengththat palm trees swayed in the internal breeze. The hospital was nearly brand-new, having opened just a couple of years ago amid official fanfare that it was the hospital of the future. As Smith headed toward an information desk, he noted department-store-style escalators that led up to patients' rooms on the floors above, bright arrows pointing to the operating theaters, and, infusing the air, a light scent reminiscent of Johnson's Lemon Wax.

Speaking perfect French, he asked for directions to the intensive care unit where Marty was being treated, and he took the escalator up. There was a subdued bustle as shifts changed and nurses, technicians, clerical help, and orderlies came and left. It was all done smoothly, quietly, and only the most experienced eye would have noticed the exchanges that signaled the handing off of responsibilities.

One of the theories that made this model hospital different was that services were clustered in groups, so that the specialist went to the patient, rather than the reverse. Entering patients arrived at any one of twenty-two different reception points, where they were met by personal hostesses, who guided them to their private rooms. There a computer was positioned at the foot of each bed, case notes existed in cyberspace, and, if surgery were necessary, robots often conducted parts of it. The enormous hospital even boasted swimming pools, health clubs, and cafeacute;s.

Beyond the desk that fronted the ICU, two gendarmes stood outside the door into the unit itself. Smith identified himself formally in French to the nurse as the American medical representative of Dr. Martin Zellerbach's family. “I'll need to talk to Dr. Zellerbach's lead physician.”

“You wish to see Dr. Dubost, then. He's arrived for rounds and has already seen your friend this morning. I'll page him.”

"Merci.

Will you take me to Dr. Zellerbach? I'll wait there."

“Bien sr. S'il vous plat?”

She offered him a distracted smile and, after one gendarme had examined his army medical identification, took him inside the heavy swinging doors.

Instantly, the hospital noises and the vigorous ambience vanished, and he was moving in a hushed world of soft footsteps, whispering doctors and nurses, and the muted lights, bells, and winking LEDs of machines that seemed to breathe loudly in the silence. In an ICU, machines owned the universe, and patients belonged to them.

Smith anxiously approached Marty, who was in the third cubicle on the left, lying motionless inside the raised side rails of a narrow, machine-operated bed, as helpless among the tubes and wires and monitors as a toddler held by each hand between towering adults. Smith looked down, his chest tight. Frozen in a coma, Marty's round face was waxen, but his breathing was even.

Smith touched the computer screen at the end of the bed and read Marty's chart. Marty was still in a coma. His other injuries were minor, mostly scrapes and bruises. It was the coma that was worrisome, with its potential for brain damage, sudden death, and even worsea permanent suspended state neither dead nor alive. But there were a few good signs, too, according to the cyberchart. All his autonomic responses were workinghe was breathing unaided, occasionally coughed, yawned, blinked, and showed roving eye movementswhich indicated that the lower brain stem, the vital part that controlled these activities, was still functioning.

“Dr. Smith?” A small man with gray hair and an olive complexion walked toward him. “I understand you've come from the United States.” He introduced himself, and Smith saw the embroidery on the front of his long white physician's coatEdouard Dubost. He was Marty's doctor.

“Thank you for seeing me so quickly,” Smith told him. “Tell me about Dr. Zellerbach's condition.”

Dr. Dubost nodded. “I have good news. Our friend here seems to be doing better.”

Immediately Smith felt a smile grow across his face. “What's happened? I didn't see anything on his chart from this morning.”

“Yes, yes. But you see, I wasn't finished. I had to go around the corner for a moment. Now we'll talk, and I'll type at the same time.” The doctor leaned over the computer. “We're fortunate with Dr. Zellerbach. He's still in a coma, as you can see, but this morning he spoke a few words and moved his arm. He was responding to stimulation.”

Smith inhaled with relief. “So it's less severe than you originally thought. It's possible he'll awake and be fine.”

He nodded as he typed. “Yes, yes.”

Smith said, “It's been more than twenty-four hours since the explosion. Of course, anything past that makes it more worrisome that he'll regain complete consciousness.”

“Very true. It's natural to be concerned. I am, too.”

“You'll put in an order to have the nurses work with him? Ask him questions? Try to get him to move more?”

“I'm doing that right now.” He typed a dozen more words and straightened up. He studied Smith. “Don't worry, Doctor. We know what we're doing here. Your friend is in excellent hands. A week from now, with luck he'll be complaining loudly about his aches and pains, the coma completely forgotten.” He cocked his head. “He's your dear friend, I can see that. Stay as long as you like, but I must continue rounds.”

Warmed by the hope that Marty would not only emerge from the coma but with all his brain functions intact, Smith sat beside the bed, among the flashing dials and gauges of the monitors, and watched him, thinking all the way back to Council Bluffs and high school, where he and Marty had met and Jon's uncle had first diagnosed Marty's Asperger's Syndromehellip;to Sophia's murder and the Hades virus pandemic, when he had needed Marty's genius with all things electronic.

He took Marty's hand and squeezed it. “Did you hear your doctor? He thinks you're going to be all right. Mart, can you hear me?” He waited, watching the still face. “What in God's name happened at the Pasteur, Mart? Were you helping Chambord develop his molecular computer?”

Marty stirred, and his lips trembled as if he was trying to speak.

Excited, Jon continued, “What is it? Tell me, Mart. Please! We both know you're never at a loss for words.” He paused, hoping, but when Marty made no other sign, he put an encouraging warmth in his voice and continued, “This is a hell of a way for us to meet again, Mart. But you know how it is, I need you. So here I am, asking you to lend me that extraordinary mind of yours once morehellip;.”

Talking and reminiscing, he stayed with Marty an hour. He squeezed Marty's hand, rubbed his arms, massaged his feet. But it was only when he mentioned the Pasteur that Marty tried to rouse himself. Smith had just leaned back in the chair and stretched, deciding he had better get on with the investigation into Dr. Chambord's molecular computer, when a tall man in a hospital orderly's uniform appeared in the opening to Marty's cubicle.

The man was dark, swarthy, with a huge black mustache. He was staring at Smith, his brown eyes hard and cold. Intelligent and deadly. And, in the split second when Smith's gaze and his connected, he seemed startled. The shock was in the bold eyes only briefly, and then, just before the man turned and hurried away, there seemed a hint of mischief or amusement or perhaps malicehellip;somehow familiar.

That flitting sense of familiarity stopped Smith for a heartbeat, and then he was up and rushing after the orderly, snatching his Sig Sauer from its holster inside his jacket. It was not only the man's eyes and expression that had been wrong, but the way he had carried the folded linens, draped over his right arm. He could be hiding a weapon beneath. Was he there to kill Marty?

Outside the ICU, all eyes were on Smith as he furiously burst through the large swinging doors, his trench coat flapping. Ahead, the orderly knocked people out of the way as he put on a burst of speed and tore off down the corridor, escaping.

Pounding in pursuit, Smith shouted in French, “Stop that man! He's got a gun!”

With that, all pretense was gone, and the orderly flourished a mini-submachine gun not much bigger than Smith's Sig Sauer. He turned, expertly trotting backward, and raised the terrorist weapon without panic or haste. He swung it back and forth as if to sweep the corridor clean. The fellow was a professional of some kind, letting the threat of his gun do the work without having to fire a shot.

Screams erupted as nurses, doctors, and visitors dove to the floor, into doorways, and around corners.

Smith hurled breakfast carts out of the way and thundered on. Ahead, the man rushed through a doorway and slammed the door. Smith kicked it in and raced past a terrified technician, through another door, and past a hot-therapy tank in which a naked man sat, the nurse hurriedly covering him with a towel.

“Where is he?” Smith demanded. “Where did the orderly go!”

The nurse pointed at one of three rooms, her face pasty with fear, and he heard a door bang shut in that direction. He tore onward, punched open the only door in that room, and skidded into another corridor. He looked left and right along the hallway, chrome bright in its newness. Terrified people had pressed themselves against the walls as they gazed right, as if a deadly tornado had just swept past, barely leaving them alive.

Smith ran in the direction they stared, accelerating, while far down the corridor the orderly hurled an empty gurney lengthwise to block his path. Smith swore. He took a deep breath, demanding his lungs respond. If he had to stop to move the gurney, the man would surely get away. Without breaking stride, Smith summoned his energy. Telling himself he could do it, he leaped over the gurney. His knees felt weak as he landed, but he caught his balance and sprinted onward, leaving behind another trail of frightened people. Sweat poured off him, but at last he was gaining on the orderly, who had been slowed by throwing the gurney into position. Smith accelerated again, hopeful.

Without a backward glance, the man slammed through yet another door. It had an exit sign above it. The fire stairs. Smith hurtled in after him. But from the corners of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of someone hiding to the left of the door, behind it as he swung it in.

He had time only to lower a protective shoulder. In the shadowy stairwell, the orderly sprang out and crashed into him. The impact shook him, but he managed to remain on his feet. He smashed his shoulder into the orderly, sending him reeling back toward the stairs.

The orderly staggered. He hit the back of his head against the steel balustrade. But he had given way with Smith's thrust and quickly regained his balance, while Smith, meeting less resistance than he had expected, dropped his Sig Sauer and lost his footing. He stumbled and crashed to the cement floor, taking a hard blow to his back where it struck the wall. Ignoring the pain, he stumbled back up to his feet and grabbed for his pistol, just in time to see the man's shadow loom. Smith lashed out, too late. A searing pain exploded in his skull, and blackness and silence descended.