The Traitor tc-2

by Stephen Coonts

  This barn reminded me of the one my uncle owned back when I was growing up. It was a cool barn; I liked it because my uncle had a stash of girlie mags in an old trunk in the loft, which he liked to study for inspiration. I know because I liked to follow and spy on him. He never found out that I was watching.

  Finally I had searched everything in the loft. I stood looking up at the joists, which were also filthy with bird droppings. There was a platform way up there on one end of the barn, right under the roof, but there was no way up.

  I looked around on the floor — and saw two scrapped places where the feet of a ladder might have stood.

  The ladder! It was lying against one wall, wedged in behind the hay bales.

  I moved four bales and worked the ladder free.

  It was an extension ladder. I managed to extend it and put it up against the platform. The feet fit the scraped places perfectly.

  I wasn’t feeling myself, so I went up very carefully.

  There was a suitcase up there. Nothing else. It had something in it — I could tell by the weight.

  I almost dropped it getting it down to the floor of the loft — had to hold it in one hand and get myself down with the other without falling.

  I put it on the floor and opened it.

  There was a pistol, a silencer, a box of ammo, a police uniform complete with badge, and the piece de resistance, a small computer and a onetime pad with about a dozen sheets left on it.

  I was inspecting this treasure when I heard someone call, “Hey, Tommy.

  “Up here.”

  In a moment Grafton’s head appeared at the top of the ladder. “Got something?”

  “Yeah. Come on up.”

  He looked at everything. “Where was it?”

  I pointed.

  He glanced up, then sat down beside me and examined the computer carefully.

  “Is this what you were looking for?”

  “Looks like the jackpot. Did you touch that pistol?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “Remember Al and Rich? Talking about the cop outside the van, just before they were shot?”

  “I remember. Who wore this outfit, Arnaud or Rodet? Who was trying to frame who?”

  “You can make a case either way, but it was Rodet. Qasim and his local soldiers were going to trash Rodet’s apartment, pretending to look for a computer. He didn’t want us listening.”

  “So the old man was Qasim?”

  “Yes. Wearing makeup.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The old man was Qasim? “Rodet must have recognized him!”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But… Qasim shot Rodet! Cut up Marisa!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That means Marisa’s in this up to her eyes. She let them cut her up.”

  “Yep.”

  “So Rodet and Qasim are both terrorists?”

  “I don’t know what they are. Let’s forget labels for a moment. Marisa was the link between Qasim and Rodet. The proof is right here, in my hand.” He meant the computer. “Rodet told me that fancy telephone was the way he wrote and encrypted his messages to Qasim, and he gave us four sheets of a onetime pad that had been lying on his desk in his Paris apartment. He said NSA will eventually sort out the zeros and ones, make these two devices give up their secrets. I suspect this is the computer that was used to program the telephone computer Rodet gave us. Qasim never had one.”

  “How’d you figure it out?”

  “Rodet telling Callie about the pad on the desk. And in the desk the women found a curling iron to apply heat to the pages of the pad. There it was, right in the drawer. You saw that place after it had been trashed. They broke the lamps, ripped pillows apart, tore up the carpets, even broke the lightbulbs. Don’t you remember? I thought at the time that it looked as if everything in the place had been put through a blender. Rodet’s mistake was to go back and put the pad beside the desk for Callie and Sarah to find. To clue them that it was there, he left a curling iron in the desk drawer, a place where the iron wouldn’t normally ever be used for its designed purpose. He was worried that I wasn’t buying the story he wanted to tell — or the French police wouldn’t — so he tried to tidy up with one too many touches.”

  “But what about that scene yesterday?”

  “The whole thing was an act. Let’s go through it: Arnaud sees my short story on the Intelink and rushes right over to tell his boss, the man in charge of the security for the G-8 summit. Rodet goes to the bathroom, or a bedroom, and makes a call to Qasim, who jumps in the van, picks up his soldiers and motors right over. Marisa said the bad guys arrived immediately, but she was lying. They arrived later, much later, maybe two hours or so later. Remember, Cliff Icahn saw the van arrive, but he didn’t notice Arnaud in his car, which had passed hours earlier.

  “They rolled in, shot the gardener and maid, and took Arnaud and Rodet and Marisa out to the apartment over the garage. They tied them to chairs and set the scene for us. They knew we would be along in a little while. They hoped to be gone by then. We would have found Arnaud dead, Rodet wounded, and Marisa sliced up. Rodet would have probably worked his way out of his bonds and called the police. That timetable went out the window when you showed up. They knew we would be right behind you. A quick shift in plan. The holy warriors would fight, perhaps escape, but even if they didn’t, they were going to kill some of us and go down fighting. Didn’t matter either way, because they would earn a spot in paradise.”

  Grafton took a deep breath, then continued. “Arnaud had to die. He was always the fall guy, the man they were going to blame for everything to keep Rodet in the clear. Arnaud was supposed to have framed Rodet on the Bank of Palestine stock purchase. He was supposed to have shot Claude Bruguiere to permanently close his mouth. He was supposed to have shot the two Americans in the surveillance van in the Place des Vosges.”

  “But why did they need a scapegoat?” I asked. “Rodet was the man in charge of renovations to Versailles in advance of the G-8 summit. Rodet was the man in charge of security. So after the assassination of the leaders, Rodet will need a villain, someone to blame for betraying the security arrangements. Arnaud is that man. It would look as if he sold out to the terrorists and attempted to implicate his boss.”

  Grafton paused. “That scene yesterday wasn’t as impromptu as one might think. Rodet and Qasim probably planned to kidnap Arnaud sometime before the summit, act out this scene and kill him. His rushing over merely speeded things up.”

  He laid the computer back in the valise on top of the folded police uniform.

  “Shit!” I muttered.

  “Marisa is in it as deep as Rodet. Maybe they injected her with a local anesthetic. Qasim could have taken the needle and drug with him when he left.”

  Grafton stood. He reverently closed the suitcase and smiled at me. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Jesus Christ, Admiral! I am so confused. I thought Rodet had a spy in Al Qaeda. He gave us the Veghel conspiracy!”

  “Oh, no, Tommy. You’re looking at cause and effect the wrong way round. You’re looking at a mirror image of the truth. The truth is precisely the opposite. Abu Qasim is not spying on Al Qaeda. Henri Rodet is Al Qaeda’s spy in the West. The Veghel conspiracy was sacrificed to ensure that no one suspected that Rodet was passing information to Al Qaeda. He’s a double agent.” He patted the suitcase. “This computer will tell the tale.”

  All this was a bit too much for my criminal mind to process quickly. “But no one suspected that,” I objected.

  “Oh, they will,” Grafton said heavily. “They will! When Al Qaeda assassinates the G-8 leaders — the president of the United States, the prime ministers of Great Britain and Japan, the president of France, the chancellor of Germany, and the others — the investigators are going to turn over every single stone. The fallout from that event will make the Warren Commission look bush league. Then Henri Rodet will have the alibi he needs. He selected Arnaud to take the fall months ago. When I arrived in Paris and began nosing
around, Rodet began to worry that they didn’t have Arnaud wrapped tightly enough. So he improvised.”

  “And nearly killed his girlfriend.”

  “If she had died after she told her story, he wouldn’t have cared.”

  “What about those thugs who tried to kill me? You think Rodet ordered them to do that?”

  “No. Personal vendettas and vengeance isn’t his style. After you threw that guy through the museum clock, the jihadists declared war.”

  “They tried to kill you, too.”

  “I think Rodet and Qasim were afraid of me by then. They wanted you dead, too. That car bomb should have done it.”

  “Elizabeth Conner?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need your word that you are not going to get personally involved.”

  Uh-oh. He knew I wasn’t going to like this. So it wasn’t Rodet or Arnaud or the soldiers of Islam. “Okay.”

  “Your word?”

  “My word.”

  “Gator Zantz.”

  “That son of a bitch!”

  Grafton hefted the suitcase, lifting it experimentally as if he were weighing it. “We found two more electromagnetic sweep sets after you came out here. So Rodet actually had three sets in the house. He found the bugs and put them in two bedrooms upstairs, then turned on a radio. That’s what Icahn was listening to.”

  “I figured it was something like that.”

  Grafton nodded. “In this business we must have good people. Icahn listened to the bugs all night and heard nothing but music. He didn’t think a thing about it. You listened for, what — ten or fifteen minutes? — and knew we were being had.”

  “Lucky, I guess.”

  “Lucky? Maybe lucky for Marisa Petrou. Those people weren’t doctors. That fool with the knife might have killed her. She might have bled to death.”

  “Maybe she wishes she had.”

  Grafton didn’t say anything to that.

  I went down the ladder to the ground floor first and he handed the suitcase down to me. He climbed down carefully.

  “Marisa is in love with Rodet,” I said when he was beside me. “I thought the bastard loved her.”

  “Maybe he does, in his own twisted way,” Jake Grafton mused. “Yet there’s someone he loves more.” A moment later he muttered, “Qasim may have started out as Rodet’s spy. Somehow that relationship got seriously twisted.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Rue Paradis didn’t look the same. Oh, it still had its hookers and Johns, but it felt as if the air had gone out of it. The narrow stairwell of my building echoed with my footsteps. I paused at Conner’s door. The police had sealed it. I kept climbing.

  My little room looked… well, little. Grubby. Old. Paris had lost its charm.

  The bandage on my leg would get soaked if I sat in the tub, so I did the best I could with a washrag at the sink. Got water all over the floor.

  I opened the window a couple of inches and fell into bed. Must have laid awake for two whole minutes thinking about things.-The next thing I knew my cell phone was ringing. I opened an eye. It was morning and light was streaming through the window. The room was chilly; I was really snuggled in.

  “Yeah.”

  “Grafton. Rise and shine. Come see me when you get here.”

  “Okay.”

  Another day at the war. I rolled out.

  I wore my best suit — well, my only suit — and best dark red power tie. Over that I put on a windbreaker. I set forth on the Vespa.

  The town was full of paramilitary police with submachine guns hanging on straps across their chests. Pairs of them were on every corner, standing around watching people and traffic and looking bored. How they stand it I’ll never know.

  The motorcycle rack was nearly full, but I lucked out and found a spot and locked up my ride. I stuffed the windbreaker in the little plastic saddlebag and locked it up, too, and locked the helmet to the thing. Then I strolled over to the embassy and went right in the front door like a real person.

  The place was hopping. Jake Grafton had had a stormy session with the ambassador early that morning, someone said, and was now in conference in the embassy theater, where all the big briefings were held. He wanted me there, according to one of the security guys.

  Who should I find outside the door but Willie Varner, also sporting a suit, with a blue tie over a blue shirt with a white collar. I whistled. “Didn’t know you owned a suit.”

  “Own one and this is it,” he said. “Bought it to be buried in.”

  “You’re looking kinda poorly, too.”

  “Grafton said to send you in when you got here.”

  “This been going on long?”

  “Just got started. Ever’ high muckety in the French gover’ment is in there listenin’ to Grafton tell them about Rodet. There was a lot of tight jaws when they went in. I hear the prez and PMs all show up tomorrow, so he’s upsettin’ their applecarts.”

  The guard let me in and I found an empty seat in the back of the little auditorium. Grafton was on the stage — also decked out in a suit. I’ll bet that he had never had a more attentive audience in his life. The place was quiet as a morgue, and Grafton was Mr. Cool, as if he were making a presentation at his neighborhood homeowners’ association. Sitting in a folding chair on his left was Inspector Papin of the French police. On the right was a white-haired man of distinction. I asked the guy beside me who he was.

  “Ambassador Lancaster.”

  When Grafton finished his indictment of Henri Rodet, he opened the suitcase that we took from the barn at Rodet’s place and displayed the items one by one. His audience stared in silence at the pistol, at the silencer, at the policeman’s uniform, at the cop’s hat and shoes, at the remaining sheets on the onetime pad, but they were mesmerized by the computer. Every eye in the place was on it as Grafton explained what it was and how Rodet had used it.

  Someone stood up. “I helped develop the security plan. There are no holes in it.”

  Grafton responded, “I have no doubt that it’s as good as can be devised. The point is that Rodet probably passed it to Al Qaeda. We can assume that the bad guys have the summit agenda, the flow plan, the photo op plan, and the security plan.”

  There were a few more questions; then the high mucketys huddled in front of the podium. I made my escape. Willie wasn’t in the lobby.

  I went down to the SCIF to find Sarah Houston.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. You’re looking better this morning than you did yesterday.”

  “What a difference a day makes, huh?” I dropped into a chair. “Did you talk to Grafton?”

  She played dumb. “What about?”

  “About your future?”

  “Not yet. No use leaving the agency until I get a better offer.”

  “I see.” Believe me, I did see. Life is for the living, and here she was — but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Maybe I should have zigged, but I zagged. “Seen Gator around?”

  “Nope.”

  “He owes me money. Know where he is?”

  “You may have trouble collecting. I heard he quit.”

  “Quit what?” The company.

  I scratched my chin as I considered. I figured that Grafton turned him over to the French police, who probably had him locked up someplace, and the admiral wasn’t broadcasting the fact. I wouldn’t, either, if I were him. Too much going down, Le Monde would have a field day with Gator Zantz. Ah, me.

  Good-bye, Lizzie.

  The phone on the desk rang and Sarah picked it up. She grunted a few times, hung up and said, “The Secret Service honcho, Pink Maillard, wants to see you and Willie.” She concentrated on her computer screen and went back to tapping keys.

  “Keep it warm, babe,” I said, and levered myself up. I was still stiff and sore — felt like I had gone a few rounds with a gorilla.

  “Don’t ‘babe’ me,” she said without enthusiasm, not bothering to look up. I clo
sed the door behind me.

  Pink had already corralled Willie when I found him in Grafton’s closet office. “I don’t have much time. The security team is reconvening in a French government building in half an hour. The admiral says I can use you guys as additional spotters at the summit tomorrow and Thursday.”

  “I ain’t with the gover’ment,” Willie said. “I’m just here in Paris on a consultin’ basis, checkin’ things out, lendin’ my professional expertise to the spooks. For money, of course.”

  Maillard didn’t quite know what to make of Willie. “You won’t be carrying weapons. I want two more sets of eyes out there. You see anything suspicious, and I mean anything, tell one of my agents or a French officer. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Willie said. “But I ain’t doin’ nothin’ dangerous, you understand? Ain’t bein’ paid enough.”

  “Put us on the duty list,” I said cheerfully.

  “I want you to go out to Versailles and look around. Stay out of the way — just look.”

  “We get to wear those cool little radios with the lapel mikes and earpieces?” Willie asked.

  “No.” Maillard started to say something cutting, then thought better of it. What he did say was, “I need eyes. The guys downstairs will give you a pass with your photo on it. Go take care of it.”

  “You bet.” I took Willie by the elbow and got him out of there before he managed to convince Maillard we were a couple of ding-dongs.

  We rode out to Versailles on the subway and strolled the street of the tourist trap that the area around the chateau had become. Neither of us had eaten, so we had brunch in a cafe on a corner. We were given a seat against the window where we could watch the passersby. Willie looked at the menu and launched into a monologue about the prices. I tuned him out; been doing that for years.

  Two tourists — obviously Americans, wearing casual clothes and armed with digital cameras with big lenses — were seated at the next table. In answer to their questions, the waitress told them that the chateau was closed to the public. They were disappointed.

  After we ordered, I watched the people on the street. The day was blustery, with small puffy clouds racing overhead and casting shadows that came and went quickly.