Tommy Carmellini 02 - The Traitor (41 page)

"If we had an identical pad, the entire pad, with copies of the missing sheets," Sarah told her, "then we could read them."

Callie found Jake in his cubbyhole office in the embassy, with the lights off, his feet on the desk and a cold washcloth on his forehead. He had finished a session with Ambassador Owen Lancaster a half hour ago and it had not been pleasant.

Callie snapped on the lights and tossed the pad onto the desk. Jake put his feet on the floor and set the washcloth aside. He picked up the pad and looked at it, then put on his glasses and looked again carefully.

"Where'd you get this?"

She told him, and pulled up one of the two chairs.

"Rodet told you where it was?"

"Yes."

"And it was on his desk in his apartment?"

"It was on the floor beside the desk. Along with two other pads, both of which appear to be simple memo pads."

"Huh."

"That wasn't the best part. In a drawer of the desk we found this." She passed him the curling iron.

"In a drawer?"

"Yes. It was there. Sarah and I found it."

He snorted, raised his glasses to his forehead and sat looking

around. Then he got up and went to the only window, which looked into the courtyard at the back of the building. He stood there for a moment, lost in thought. Finally he turned to Callie and smiled. "You sure know how to cure a headache, woman. Come on, let's go get some dinner."

"What are you thinking?"

"That I've been a fool! And you've showed me the path out of the wilderness. I need to think some more on this, but in the meantime, let's
celebrate!
I want some good food and music and your smile."

Callie was baffled. "Why don't you tell me what you're thinking?"

He grinned at her, took her lightly by the elbow and raised her from the chair. He kissed her cheek. "All in good time, beautiful lady. All in good time. Come! Let's find Pink Maillard and George Goldberg and take them to dinner."

chapter TWENTY-SIX

O
n Sunday morning Callie took Jake to the hospital where the casualties from the shootout at Rodet's estates had been taken. After much talking, they were admitted to post-op. The policeman outside the ward refused to let them in, so Jake demanded that he call Inspector Papin, which he finally did. After a few sentences in French, he handed his cell phone to Jake.

"Bonjour,
Inspector. This is Admiral Grafton."

"Good morning, Admiral. I spent a few minutes with Mademoiselle Petrou earlier this morning, immediately after she awoke. Her statement was exactly as you and I discussed yesterday. Such a tragedy!"

"Yes, isn't it? I understand she is very ill, but I need to ask her a few questions myself. I, too, have superiors I must please."

"Of course. Let me talk to the policeman again."

Jake passed the telephone back. He and Callie were admitted to the ward and shown to the bed where Marisa Petrou lay. She was covered in bandages, but she was conscious.

Callie did the talking, in French. "I'm Callie Grafton, and this is my husband, Admiral Jake Grafton. Do you know who he is?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell us what happened yesterday? Everything you can remember."

"We were having breakfast, and Jean-Paul Arnaud came. He went into the study and talked to Henri. I heard them arguing, but I could not hear what they were saying. They were in there a few minutes—"

"Did Henri make any telephone calls?"

"He might have. I don't know."

"Did Arnaud leave the study?"

"No. I heard a vehicle drive up and glanced out the window. I saw these men getting out, an old man and some others. Four or five, I think. They had weapons. I ran into the study and told Henri and Jean-Paul, but before they could do anything the men rushed into the house—the outside door must have been unlocked. Henri had a pistol, and they took it from him. They gagged me and Jean-Paul and took us to the apartment over the garage. They tied us up, began beating Henri and Jean-Paul, demanding to know what Henri had told . .. your husband. 'Tell us what you told Grafton. Where is Abu Qasim? Who is he now? We want that traitor!'"

"What did Henri say?"

"He told them the truth, that he knew nothing. He knew Qasim years ago, but not now. He couldn't tell them what he doesn't know, and they refused to believe. One of them began cutting on me, trying to force Henri to talk."

She paused here, swallowing, perspiring as it all came flooding back.

"I could feel the knife. Amazingly, it didn't hurt so much, but I knew what he was doing, butchering me. I tried to scream— couldn't breathe, fought the gag—" She paused again, swallowed, collected herself. "The old one, the one that did the talking, said Jean-Paul had been paid. He had betrayed them. Failed. Then the old man shot him. I heard the shot, a pop. I knew then that they intended to kill us, Henri and me, so it didn't matter ... didn't matter .. . what they did—did to me."

She lay there immobile, rigid, staring at the ceiling, as her IVs dripped and the squiggly lines danced across the screen of the heart monitor beside the bed.

"I passed out. I don't remember any more."

Callie translated all this for Jake, whispering so her voice wouldn't carry. He listened, looking at Marisa or watching the heart monitor. Once he reached out and touched an IV bottle.

Callie asked Jake, "Why didn't the bugs pick up Rodet and Ar-naud in the study?"

"Rodet found the bugs and moved them, I suspect." He made a gesture of dismissal. "That's enough. She's told us all she can." He reached down and found Marisa's hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm sorry," he said. "Truly sorry." Then he led the way from the room.

Callie lingered a moment, then bent over the bed, whispered that she would be back in a day or two, and followed her husband.

When the doctors came around that Sunday morning, I talked to them about leaving the hospital, and of course they hemmed and hawed. French is a good language to do that in, I discovered. I whispered a few old Anglo-Saxon words I happened to know and resigned myself to my fate.

About midmorning, Willie Varner came sailing in.

"Carmellini, you idiot, I told you to be careful."

"It's Shannon. Terry Shannon."

"You know I can't remember stuff like that. How smart do you think I am, anyway?"

We discussed that at some length, then he said, "Lucky for you that bullet hit that damn night vision thing. If it had hit your hard little head, it would have cracked it like an egg. Maybe even punched a hole in it. I tell you, Tommy, you're wearin' out your luck."

"Don't I know it."

"You gonna eat that crossaint-thing there on your tray? Well, I guess not or you'da already done it, huh? You ain't got nothin' conta-

gious, I don't reckon, 'cept stupidity, and that's been goin' around forever. Fought it off a few times my own self. Mind if I scarf that thing down?"

"Be my guest."

"I hope Grafton's got this mess all figured out," Willie said with his mouth full. "Man, I don't know what the game is! Truth is, I don't even know who's playin'. Of course, nobody tells me nothin'."

"You don't have a need to know, Willie," I said. "Got that problem myself."

He was running his mouth, talking trash, when Jake Grafton came by. The admiral shook hands with both of us and asked me how I was doing.

"Okay. Ready to go, but the doctors said I have to stay another day."

"Are you dizzy?"

"No."

"Double vision?"

"No. Honestly, I'm fine. Just had a whack on the noodle. Got some bruises and I'm mighty sore. They took eight stitches in my leg, bandaged it up and gave me some shots." I tried to flip back the sheet to show him my bandage.

"I don't want to see it," Willie declared. "You keep that thing under the covers." He said to the admiral, "He'll be okay. His head's pretty hard."

I asked Grafton about ol' Henri. He had a few dozen stitches and a broken rib, Grafton said. He and Callie had checked on Rodet and Marisa before he stopped by to see me. Marisa was conscious and talking, and the doctors said her prognosis was good.

"None of this has hit the papers yet," Grafton said. "The French government is keeping the lid on. They want the G-8 summit to go as planned."

"I figured," I admitted. "The first priority is to look good. But I want to know which of these bastards iced Elizabeth Conner."

"What would you do if you knew?" Grafton asked.

There must have been an edge in my voice, because as I was

mulling an answer, Willie put his two cents in. "Don't tell 'im! Don't tell 'im. He don't need no more shit to tote through life."

"I just want to know, that's all," I insisted.

What Grafton might have said I don't know, because just then Callie came in. Turns out she had been talking to the doctors in French. She shook her head from side to side at Jake, who obviously had something on his mind.

"Well, you've laid around here long enough," he said to me. "Get dressed. Doctors or no doctors, we have work to do. You can check yourself out."

Uh-oh. Saddle and ride. "Where are we going?"

"I need some help. You can come, too, Willie."

"Sure. I got nothing to do until tonight," Willie replied, a comment Grafton ignored. With Willie the Wire, you have to ignore things.

I wasn't as enthused as Willie. Sarah was going to stop by later. I was sorta looking forward to holding her hand and soaking up some sympathy. There isn't much sympathy in the world these days— you've got to get it where you can, when you can.

Willie and Grafton wandered off to the lobby. I got out of bed and put on my ripped pants and dirty shirt and stinky socks while Callie stood in the hallway having an earnest discussion with the staff. I was so damned stiff and sore that getting dressed took several minutes.

There was some difficulty about the bill; Grafton whipped out a credit card. After a while, I scribbled my name a few times and they gave me some pills to take four times a day. Then we were escorted to the street.

"If you've got anything important in mind, I'd like to take a bath and change clothes," I told the admiral. He was downwind of me, so he knew how it was.

He didn't care.

"Later," he said, and led the way to his car.

"So what's the gig?" Willie asked when we were rolling along with Grafton at the wheel.

"We're going back out to Rodet's estate on the Marne," Grafton told us. "Yesterday afternoon Callie and Sarah Houston searched the apartment on the Place des Vosges and found a onetime pad written with invisible ink that had been sitting in plain sight on Rodet's desk."

"It was lying in the trash beside the desk," Callie said. "And we found a curling iron in one of the desk drawers."

"What's a onetime pad?" Willie asked.

Callie told him, even passed him the one she had found. He looked it over and passed it back.

"So why are we searching today?" Willie asked.

Grafton tilted the rearview mirror so he could see my face, then asked, looking at me, "Doesn't it strike you as strange that someone searched Rodet's apartment from top to bottom—ransacked it—and didn't find that pad? With the curling iron right there in the desk drawer?"

"Well. .."

"If you had found that iron in an office drawer, what would you have thought, Tommy?"

"Heat. Ink. But maybe they just missed it."

"Maybe," Grafton agreed.

"Why not go back there and see what else we can find?"

"I'd thought we'd do the country place first. You may have to get us in."

"Oh, man!" Willie said dramatically. "Breakin and enterin'. The last time I got out of the joint I promised my ol' mama that I'd never do that again."

He was lying, of course. His mother died when he was a teenager. I laid my head back against the headrest and tried to sleep as Willie entertained the Graftons.

Rancho Rodet looked properly somnolent that warm, sunny Monday morning. It should, since the old man and his thugs had killed a maid and the gardener, who doubled as the outside security guy and fed the dogs. They didn't have any dogs left, either, which almost brought a tear to my eye, but not quite. And no cops in sight.