We shot down the boulevard between the cars, which were rolling right along. The quarters were too tight for him to use his speed and handling advantage, which was the only thing keeping me alive. I figured if I went down, I’d be dead before he rode away.
But maybe not. Maybe I should stop and break the bastard’s neck with my bare hands. That would probably darken Jake Grafton’s day and earn me a trip to a French penitentiary, but if it was that or the graveyard, I was willing.
Not yet. That was my hole card.
With my luck the dude would have a gun in his pocket and drill my silly self while I was trying to kung fu him.
These thoughts zipped through my mind while we shot down the traffic canyon between the rows of speeding cars and trucks. Once some Frenchie in a little van decided to change lanes and almost made a grease spot out of me. I saved it by the thickness of the skin on the knuckles of my right hand.
The guy behind me bumped my fender with his tire on three occasions, but he was trying to stay up and didn’t put enough oomph on it.
As we came to an intersection where the traffic was stopped and cars were crossing, I knew I’d never make it. I darted to my right between two cars, slammed on the brake, then squeezed the scooter between two parked cars and got up on the sidewalk, hooked a U-ie and started back the way I’d come.
My maneuver had been unexpected enough that I put a serious amount of distance between us. The only problems were the human obstacles on the sidewalk… and the fact that my riding partner had a faster machine. I swerved violently a time or two to avoid pedestrians, yet they parted like the Red Sea for the guy roaring up behind me.
He looked like a runaway Freightliner in my rearview mirrors.
I was running out of sidewalk. I slammed on the brakes and swerved to avoid a light pole. Skidded out into the street and almost got flattened by a big Mercedes. Looked back just in time to see my pal hit the light pole dead center. He went over the handlebars and tried to drive his head through the thing.
At a glance, it appeared that the impact broke his fool neck. My engine stalled. As I stood there pushing on the button and goosing the throttle, I could distinctly hear the ooh-aah, ooh-aah of a police siren.
Thankfully the tiny engine of my faithful steed fired before I flooded it. I putted off with traffic and took the first corner in order to quicken my disappearance. As my heartbeat began to slow, I noticed that I had broken the front brake hand lever — ripped it from the bracket that held it. It was dangling by its cable.
Willie was waiting for me where I left him. I pulled up to the curb, and he walked over to the Vespa.
“It took you long enough.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“They get tired of chasing you?”
“I think so. Hop on.”
He climbed aboard. “What’s going on, anyway, Tommy?”
“As if I knew,” I told him. Man, I didn’t have a clue. I just hoped Jake Grafton did.
As we rode through Paris I looked for holy warriors on Hondas but didn’t see any. Now, however, I saw cops. Several of them glanced at the Vespa, but they didn’t wave me over. I thought they might have heard about the Vespa that had run from the motorcyclists, yet if so, they were probably watching for a scooter with one man aboard.
We rode into the Place des Vosges and I parked the scooter in a motorcycle farm. I left it unlocked on the off chance that some idiot would steal it. Lost my enthusiasm for motor scooters, I guess. I wasn’t having much luck with cars, either.
The van was parked in the usual place. “Wait here,” I told Willie. I approached it from an angle that would shield me from any watchers sitting on benches in the park.
As I reached to rap on the side of the van, I saw that the door was slightly ajar. The fire alarm went off in my head.
Frozen, I stood with hand outstretched, listening. I leaned forward and put my ear up to the side of the thing.
Quiet as a tomb in there. Plenty of street noise, but nothing from inside.
Call it a premonition; I grabbed the door handle and jerked it open. The first thing I saw was a shod foot. Then another. I peered into the crowded interior. Al and Rich were there, and they were dead.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Alberto Salazar had a small wet red hole in his forehead, a little off center, and a hole above his left ear. His face wore a surprised look. His arm was twisted up over his head. Apparently he had fallen off the stool, already dead, and his arm had caught on something and been pulled into the position where it was now.
Rich Thurlow sat facing the door with two holes in his forehead, about an inch apart. I could just make out the traces of powder around one of them. The gun had been nearly against his head for that one. Amazingly, he still had his glasses on.
I turned and found Jake Grafton standing there. He knew something was horribly wrong from the expression on my face. He took a step around me and looked inside the van.
Now he reached in and grasped Rich’s hand. He kneaded it, then released it and pulled the door shut. “They haven’t been dead long,” he muttered. He turned to me. “How long have you been here?”
“Seconds. The door wasn’t locked.”
Jake Grafton walked away from the van about twenty feet to a place where he could see most of the park benches. I followed him. There were the usual tourists with cameras, and lots of couples—
Parisians, apparently — out enjoying the evening. The nannies which one saw here in the afternoon were gone. Our DGSE man was also missing. The old man from the Levant was not here, either.
Grafton took his time looking at the cars, the people, the facades of the buildings. He scanned the whole area, missing nothing.
“Do you have your cell phone?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be your lookout. Go search Rodet’s apartment.”
“Okay.”
I checked to see where Willie was and saw Callie Grafton standing near him. Both were watching us. I motioned to Willie; he came over and gave me my backpack.
I crossed the street, heading for the park and the building on the other side of the square.
Callie Grafton saw Tommy Carmellini walk away, and she saw her husband motion to her. She joined him and the black man by the van.
“Willie Varner, my wife, Callie,” Jake said. He continued without a pause. “The men inside this thing have been murdered. I don’t want the French seeing the equipment in there. Willie will drive the back to the embassy. Callie, would you go with him and show the way? Use your pass to get the van into the basement of the building.”
She was staring at Jake, still trying to process what he had told her, when she felt herself nodding yes.
He gave a curt nod, glanced at Willie, and said, “The keys are in it. Go now.” He touched his wife on the arm and turned away. She stood rooted watching his back as he looked right and left, then walked down the street, walking toward the park. She saw him remove his cell phone from his pocket and dial it as he walked.
Trying to keep her composure, she walked around the van and pulled at the handle on the passenger door. It was locked. She saw the black man get behind the wheel and glance once over his shoulder; then she heard the door click. She opened it and climbed in.
It took two tries to get the door firmly closed. Callie looked behind her. She found herself staring at the open, dead eyes that were focused on infinity.
She turned around and sat looking forward.
At this point in my Paris vacation I was beginning to get nervous. I figured the holy warriors who followed me into the museum were out for my scalp. The artist who installed a bomb under my rental car certainly had something on his mind. Perhaps the bellboy at Willie’s hotel called his pals from the mosque when he saw me sitting in his lobby, obviously still alive, and they came zipping over on motorcycles to get their pound of flesh. On the other hand, vengeance didn’t seem to be the motive of the shooter who iced Rich Thurlow and Alberto Salazar. He knew that
U.S. agents were sitting in that van, and he didn’t want them listening to the doings across the street at Henri Rodet’s apartment.
Rich and Al had each been shot in the head, and their heads didn’t explode: That meant the weapon was small caliber or a low-powered 9 mm, something that could be silenced. No one on the sidewalk had called the police; it was probable that no one heard the shots.
What didn’t the bad guys want Rich and Al to hear?
These questions ran through my mind as I walked through the park toward Rodet’s apartment building. I didn’t have a gun. CIA illegals running around France aren’t armed. It’s France, for Christ’s sake!
And where was the DGSE watcher? Was this his day off? Or was he sleeping somewhere with a hole in his head?
I was waist deep in the Okefenokee Swamp. There were alligators in here, and they were obviously hungry.
The streetlights were on now; the sidewalks contained the usual number of tourists and locals — no one in sight that I knew. I crossed the street and walked into the entrance to Rodet’s building. The security door that was normally locked was ajar.
Uh-oh! It looked as if Rodet had been burgled.
The flesh on my arms formed goose bumps.
I paused and took three or four deep breaths to get myself under control while I considered. Even if the burglars were gone, it was going to be rough if the cops caught me in there. Rougher if the burglars were still there — with that silenced pistol. The shooter had just iced two guys with it; a third would be no big deal.
I used a knuckle to open the door and stepped inside. The door swung shut and didn’t latch. Aha — the old burglar’s trick, one I had used a dozen times myself: A small stone carefully placed prevented the door from swinging completely shut. Once in, a burglar didn’t need to worry about getting out; all locked doors in dwellings open without a key from the inside so occupants can escape from fire. No, this trick was used so the guys who were coming along behind the burglar could get in without the burglar opening the door for them, or so the thieves could carry out stuff by the armfuls and zip back in for additional loads. When they left, burglars left the rock jamming the door in the hope that some curious kid would come in for a look around. He would mess up the evidence, leave fingerprints all over and, with a little bit of luck, manage to be caught inside, increasing the burglar’s chances of escaping scot-free.
Leaving the rock in place, I looked at the elevator, rejected it, and began climbing the stairs.
What if Marisa Petrou was up here, stretched out on the floor with a hole in her head?
I climbed on the side of the narrow staircase, where it was least likely a board would creak. I went up as silently and quickly as I could.
The doors on the apartments on the first two floors were closed. I climbed the last flight, pausing at the landings to listen. Street sounds, muffled traffic, a faint low rumble that might be a jet running high, but nothing else.
Okay, I’ll admit, this was foolhardy. If Jake Grafton hadn’t told me to come, I would be down on the street watching to see if anyone came out. So, what is it with you, Tommy? You do anything Grafton tells you? You keep this up, boy, you’ll collect about as much of your pissy pension as Al and Rich are going to get of theirs.
I eased the top of my head up and looked at Rodet’s door. It was standing open about a foot.
I climbed the rest of the stairs and stood in the doorway listening. Not a sound.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed the door open with a knuckle and looked into the room. Things were strewn everywhere. They had even used knives on the stuffed chairs and couches. The place had been ransacked.
I slipped in. Trying to avoid stepping on things, I moved to the interior doors and looked. No people, living or dead.
When I had checked every room, even the bathrooms, I paused to engage the brain. Every single room had been searched, thoroughly. The contents of the refrigerator and cabinets were strewn over the kitchen floor. There were footprints in the flour, floury white footprints throughout the apartment. The beds had been ripped apart, the mattresses slit open, the closets emptied onto the floors, the drawers pulled out of highboys and dumped on the floor, Rodet’s filing cabinets emptied and overturned. They had even peeled back the edges of the carpet.
They hadn’t found what they were looking for.
That conclusion popped into my criminal mind. I had done enough burglaries to know, when you found the thing you came to find, you left. They hadn’t found it.
Maybe it wasn’t here.
As I surveyed the damage, another thought occurred to me. Maybe they didn’t know what they were looking for.
Or … maybe they found it and didn’t know they were looking at it.
I was disassembling the satellite television control box, which was behind the TV in the sitting room, when I heard a noise behind me. I almost lost it right there. I spun around with the screwdriver in my fist, ready to stab.
Jake Grafton was standing there. “Sorry,” he said.
I got back after it. “These screws have been taken out of here a bunch of times,” I told him. “Look at the wear in the slots.” I passed him one to examine.
He looked it over and passed it back to me.
When I got the innards out of the casing, he leaned over my shoulder to look. The stuff was mounted on a board, jammed in there tight so as to keep the unit as small as possible. I turned it over in my hand, to the extent I could with the electrical cord still attached. Then I saw two jacks into which leads would be plugged.
I glanced at the aluminum casing. There were no holes for the plugs.
I pointed out the jacks to Grafton. Together we examined the thing as well as we could without disassembling it. He saw it first, of course. He pointed.
The device was about the size of a large cell phone. Two wires ran to it from the jacks, and one from it to a unit I thought was probably the main lead to the outside dish.
“That’s it. Put it all back together and let’s get out of here.”
I was finished in three minutes.
We didn’t say anything until we were outside, walking across the park. The sky was dark and the air crisp; lovers were strolling; all in all, it was a great night to be alive. Yet it was all over for Rich and Al. It would be all over for me, too, one of these days.
“That thing was just a transmitter, right?” I asked Grafton.
“Transmitter and receiver. There’s a computer someplace. If the people who went through that apartment had found it, they’d have quit and left. He writes the messages on a computer, encrypts them, plugs in the leads and transmits. It’s an ultrawide band signal, a UWB, superimposed on the regular television signal. He receives the same way.”
“Why haven’t the wizards at NSA picked it up?”
“Oh, now that we know what to look for, they’ll intercept the signal. The question is, Can they decrypt it? If he and his agent use some multiple of really large prime numbers as the basis for the code, it could take years to factor the number, even with huge computers.”
“So you really want Rodet’s computer?”
“Yes.”
Grafton picked a park bench with a view of Rodet’s building and plopped down on it. “Let’s wait a while,” he said, “and see what happens.”
I didn’t know what he had up his sleeve, and I didn’t really care. It had been a long, long day for me. So we sat there in the middle of that old square with its symmetrical buildings and ghosts, as Grafton made telephone calls. His cell phone was a peach, a bit larger than the usual. “It’s encrypted,” he said, when I remarked on it.
His first call was to someone at NSA, I surmised, as I listened to his side of the conversation. He told the person on the other end about the transmitter/receiver on the satellite television system, listened a while, then grunted good-bye.
“The French might have broken that code,” I suggested, indicating his telephone.
“It’s possible,” he admitted, “but imp
robable. Still, everything in life is a risk.” I suppose.
The night wore on. My butt got tired and I shifted around to maintain circulation. I decided I wasn’t going to do this for a pastime if and when I got out of the agency. At least I had my scooter jacket, which kept me reasonably warm. Grafton had only a sports coat, yet he didn’t complain. He received two telephone calls on his encrypted cell and made another. I didn’t try to figure out what the conversations were about. His side of the discussions consisted mostly of grunts and yeses and noes.
After the last call, he told me, “The guys were set up to record the sounds from the apartment when they were shot. Sarah and Willie listened to the burglars search and trash the place. There were muttered comments in a language they can’t understand. They even got Callie in to listen, and she doesn’t understand it.”
His wife was, I knew, a linguist who spoke seven or eight languages.
“Sarah will send the stuff to Fort Meade and see if they make sense of the comments. I suspect it was just something like, ‘Look over there.’”
“Be nice to know which language it was,” I suggested.
He didn’t reply to that.
While we sat on our bench, three people went into the building. One was a single man in his sixties, well dressed with what appeared to be a nice warm coat. The other two were a couple, in their forties, I would say. From where we sat, about a hundred feet away, it was hard to tell.
It was a little past 10:30 in the evening and downright chilly when a limo rolled up in front of Rodet’s building. The chauffeur hopped out, zipped around the car and opened the right rear door. In a few seconds I saw Marisa Petrou’s dark brown hair. Seconds after that Rodet appeared, standing a head taller. As he spoke to the doorman, Jake Grafton rose and strolled in that direction.
Being a loyal trooper, I cranked myself erect and fell in behind him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After Rodet and Marisa went into the building, Jake Grafton waited about two minutes, then followed. He didn’t tell me not to come, so I clumped up the stairs right behind him, more out of curiosity than anything else. It was going to be interesting to see Marisa’s face when she saw mine.
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