The Traitor: A Tommy Carmellini Novel

by Stephen Coonts

  “We can take them to Germany and put them aboard an Air Force transport,” Jake said. “No one checks vehicles crossing the French-German border.”

  “That’s illegal, a violation of God only knows how many international treaties and laws,” Maillard protested. Sneaking bodies around…Jesus! Stunts like that weren’t the way to get ahead in the Secret Service.

  “Someone around here could gin up some fake death certificates,” Jake suggested, “if that will make you feel better.”

  “That isn’t very damn funny.”

  “Maybe the best course is to pass the buck to Washington, let someone there figure it out.”

  “Yeah,” Maillard agreed. That was the only safe approach. Then he added, “Of course, Lancaster is gonna blow a gasket.” An outraged U.S. ambassador shouting his name wouldn’t do him any good at the Treasury Department, either.

  Grafton paused for one more look at the coffins, then headed for the elevator. Maillard followed along.

  The Graftons’ apartment overlooked a tree-lined boulevard. Callie referred to it in her letter to her daughter, Amy, as “the perfect apartment,” and that was how she thought of it. It was a third-floor walk-up in an older building, the plumbing was antique, the pipes groaned, the kitchen was tiny and the refrigerator was barely large enough to hold a six-pack. There was a small balcony, just large enough for two chairs and two flowerpots, where she and her husband, when he was home, could sit and watch the endless traffic and, in the evening, Parisians stroll by on the sidewalks. It was Paris the way she had always dreamed it would be.

  Of course, the place had a few drawbacks. The major one was that Jake said it was probably infested with electronic bugs, so no discussion could take place about anything remotely connected with what Jake was doing. When they had moved in Callie thought the possible presence of bugs no big deal, and she had forgotten about them. After the murders of the CIA technicians, she felt strangled. She wanted to discuss the situation with her husband, but she couldn’t do it here.

  Tonight she stood on the balcony watching the sidewalk, waiting for Jake. The tops of the trees on the sidewalk were just below the balcony. Birds liked to light on the now bare branches, there to ride the swaying limbs as the fall winds blew through the canyon of the boulevard, quite unconcerned about her presence or the precariousness of their resting place.

  Then she saw him, still almost a block away, walking this way, looking at the people, glancing into store windows occasionally. Jake Grafton. He was still the warrior she married, but he was no longer the young stud with the aroma of jet exhaust embedded in his clothing and hair. Yet at times she fancied that she could still smell it on him.

  She went into the apartment and closed the doors to the balcony. She turned off the lights and locked the apartment behind her. The stairwell was dark, lit only by twenty-five-watt bulbs that dangled from sockets on each landing.

  Callie stepped out onto the sidewalk just as Jake arrived. He reached for her hand but she hugged him instead. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. With her head on his chest she could hear his heart beating.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” she whispered.

  “Sure.” They set off down the sidewalk hip to hip, with his arm draped over her shoulder.

  “Could we be under audio surveillance even here, walking along the sidewalk?” Callie asked.

  “It’s possible,” he said. “Not too probable unless someone wants to spend a lot of time and money.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “I’m sorry about sending you off with Willie Varner and two dead men. I wanted you out of there and knew Willie didn’t have a clue where the embassy was.”

  “I understood. And I’ve seen dead men before. Still, it’s hard to take. They didn’t deserve that.”

  “No,” he agreed. “They didn’t.”

  They went into a patisserie and got ice cream cones. When they came out, Callie asked, “What happened after I left?”

  Jake was not in the habit of sharing classified information with his wife, even though she was the personification of tact and discretion. Still, in this instance, a woman’s perspective might be helpful. So he told it, about going into Rodet’s apartment with Tommy Carmellini only to find it had been searched and trashed. “You might speculate that the people who searched the apartment knew Al and Rich were listening and killed them before they went in. Of course, even with our guys dead, the audio from the bugs was recorded. After you and Willie returned the van, the folks at the embassy listened to the recording. All they heard was sounds of people searching and garbled voices.”

  “So the searchers were pros?”

  “Perhaps. Or very careful.”

  “Did they find what they were looking for?”

  “No.” He continued with the narrative between licks on the ice cream cone, telling her about waiting for Henri Rodet and Marisa Petrou to come home, then following them into the apartment. “Of course, Rodet suspected me of searching the place, then waiting until he came back to let him show me what I had failed to find.” He shrugged. “I’m sneaky enough for a trick like that, but in this case I happened to be innocent.”

  A trace of a smile crossed Callie’s lips. She finished her ice cream and tossed the paper the cone came in into the first trash can she passed. Then she licked her sticky fingers. She walked along holding on to his arm as she listened to the rest of the story.

  “He gave me the high-end telephone computer, a Palm, that he used to compose and encrypt the messages he sent to Qasim, and to decrypt the messages he got from him. I put the thing in a safe at the embassy.”

  “The searchers didn’t find it? Where did he keep it?”

  “His girlfriend, Marisa, had it in her purse.”

  “And she’s Mossad?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Why didn’t she jet off to Israel with the computer?”

  Jake merely glanced at his wife, who answered her own question. “Oh. She’s in love with him.”

  “That’s my take on it.”

  “Or she thinks there is nothing on the computer’s memory to get,” Callie said.

  “I liked the love angle better.”

  “Men always do,” his wife said. “They’re hopelessly romantic.”

  He went on, telling her about his conversation with Rodet. “He gave me some names of people that Qasim says have been hired by Al Queda, and he gave me that computer, which may or may not have anything on it. And…he didn’t tell me anything about Qasim.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Said he loved him like a son. But he didn’t tell me where he is or what he’s doing—none of that.”

  “So if he gave you the computer he uses to communicate with Qasim, how is he going to do it now?”

  Jake Grafton stopped, turned and stared at Callie. “I didn’t think to ask him that,” he admitted, and started walking again.

  They walked along in silence for a few minutes. Finally Callie said, “It sounds as if Rodet is trying to protect him.”

  “The best thing he can do for that man is get him out of wherever he is.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to protect Qasim from himself.” When her husband eyed her, Callie added, “Perhaps Qasim doesn’t want to leave. Perhaps there is nothing more Rodet can say to him. Or…Qasim has nothing more to say to Henri Rodet.”

  Jake Grafton stared at Callie for several seconds. Then a big grin split his face and he kissed her. “You’re a genius,” he said, laughing. “Man, am I glad you married me!”

  “What did I say?”

  “I’ve been racking my brains, and you just explained everything—everything!” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that!”

  He walked along in silence, holding her hand. Finally he said, “Man, I would really like to know what’s on that little computer.”

  “Can’t Sarah Houston or the NSA cryptographers give you a plain English text?”

  “Oh, given enough time, I’m sure they
can, but we’re running out. The G-8 meeting is next week.”

  “So you don’t have many options. Your only choice is to assume you know the contents and go on from there,” she said. “You’ll have to fake it.”

  He grinned. “Why not?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The next morning Jake Grafton found Sarah Houston in the SCIF. She had the photo that Tommy Carmellini took of Elizabeth Conner on the screen of her computer.

  “Her real name is Ruth Cohen,” Sarah said. “Her parents immigrated to Israel when she was five years old.” She hit a key, and a photo of Cohen in a school uniform appeared. “This was taken five years ago in Tel Aviv when she graduated from high school.” Another picture. “This one was taken last year in Iraq. She was with a group of Israeli scientists looking for evidence of weapons of mass destruction.”

  Another keystroke, and Carmellini’s photo of the man who followed him appeared. Sarah pronounced his name. “The computer matches this photo with one the French took for his internal ID card. He is an emigrant from Morocco.”

  Now the picture of Marisa Petrou appeared on the screen. Keystrokes followed, and photos appeared one after another. In each one she got younger. “School pictures, passport photos,” Sarah murmured. In the last one, Marisa looked to be about twelve years old. “This is the oldest one I can find. She was a student at a private school in Switzerland. Name was Marisa Lamoreux.”

  “How about a birth certificate?” Grafton asked.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Keep looking when you have the time. Today is the day you and Tommy turn traitor.”

  Sarah and I walked from the embassy to the Metro, rode it for a few stops, then walked toward the river and the Conciergerie. It was a raw, windy day, with clouds of autumn leaves swirling around. Just keeping your hat on in the gusts took some doing. I kept my eyes peeled for Arabs on motorcycles or in junker cars and didn’t see any. Sarah was quiet, walking with her hands in her pockets.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she told Jake Grafton before we left the embassy.

  “Objection noted,” Grafton said. He looked tired, as if he weren’t getting much sleep. I had no sympathy—I spent a miserable night on a basement bunk and was wearing the same clothes I wore all day yesterday. Someone produced a spare toothbrush and disposable razor, so I felt as if I were still a member of the human race. On the other hand, perhaps I should have had my visit with the Paris police, then retired to my cozy garret on the Rue Paradis, complete with hot water and bathtub, clean clothes and comfy bed. Say what you will, but the truth is, war is hell.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Sarah said to Jake Grafton when he sat us down to brief us.

  “It’s only for a few days,” Grafton replied. “Pretend that you’re in love. Hold hands, look soulfully into Tommy’s eyes, hang on his every word, even when they aren’t watching, because they might be.”

  “That’s the part I don’t like,” she said acidly. “I volunteered to serve my country and all that, but this is very close to prostitution.”

  “Perilously close,” I chirped. “What would your mother say?”

  “Objection duly noted,” Grafton said with finality. He went on to discuss codes and protocol and other technical stuff that Sarah understood and I didn’t. Finally he got around to it. “I want you to tell your tale to Jean-Paul Arnaud, the deputy director. Ask for him and refuse to talk to anyone else.”

  I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. This whole thing was going south, and quickly. “Why not Rodet?” I asked. “The way we planned it?”

  “There’s been a change of plans.”

  “Why do I have this feeling that you’re not telling us all of it?”

  “I don’t want to burden you with all of it. Unless I am seriously mistaken, you’re going to be strapped to a polygraph before the day is out.”

  “Oh, joy,” Sarah said bitterly.

  “The less you know the better.”

  “Oh, for the love of—,” I began, but Grafton cut me off with one of his looks. The admiral’s stare, with those cold gray eyes, could stopper Niagara. Needless to say, it always did a job on me. Those were the moments when I was glad I had never been in the Navy.

  Sarah cleared her throat and said, “And just how do you propose that we pass polygraph exams?”

  Grafton grinned. “I thought you’d never ask. Here’s how you’re going to do it.” And he told her. Me, I didn’t ask. When you’ve told as many lies as I have, you get pretty good at it.

  As we walked along, the cold wind gave Sarah’s cheeks a nice rosy hue. Except for the fact that she had a seriously warped psyche, she was a nice person. I reminded myself that no one is perfect.

  “How can you be so calm?” she asked.

  I was tempted to tell her that I was a pro, but decided maybe the truth was best. “It’s an act.”

  We hiked over the bridge to the island and presented ourselves to the guard at the gate. He waved us into the reception room. “We’d like to see Jean-Paul Arnaud,” I said to the uniformed gendarme. “We don’t have an appointment. My name is Terry Shannon.”

  “Passport, please.” The man was portly, with a mustache that needed trimming. He had sad eyes. His younger colleague, who hadn’t been eating as well, looked bored.

  I surrendered the document, and the portly man held out his hand for Sarah’s. I was watching his eyes, and they showed no surprise when she produced a diplomatic passport from her small purse. Traitors must call here on a daily basis.

  “Have a seat,” he said, and glanced at a row of molded plastic chairs. We perched there.

  “Maybe we oughta hold hands,” I suggested, and reached for one of hers. She slipped it into mine. It was cool and firm, very pleasant. Ah, yes. I remembered.

  There is a theory about the power of the human touch, something about it being the most subtle form of sex. Certainly it is the most sensual. Not that I was getting some sort of perverted thrill out of holding Sarah Houston’s hand there in the public reception area of the Conciergerie as the man with the sad eyes ignored us, the bored fellow read a newspaper and a cleaning lady worked around us, but I was enjoying it. I even gave her hand a tiny squeeze and got one in return. When I met her eyes she glanced away; her hand stayed where it was.

  The woman was one hell of an actress. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she still liked me. Believe me, if the guards were paying attention, they would have been fooled. It is a pleasure working with a pro. And her hand felt really good.

  Life is short—enjoy it.

  Ten pleasant minutes after we arrived, a man in a suit and tie appeared and escorted us along a hallway. I had been here before with Jake Grafton, but this was different. If we screwed this up, we weren’t going to be strolling out of here—we were going to the basement to see the toys. For some reason I felt warm and my palms were sweating.

  Arnaud’s office was on the floor below Rodet’s in the same corner of the building. His workspace was not as nicely furnished—I saw no original art—and the carpet didn’t cover as much of the floor, all in keeping with his status as Number Two. Apparently French bureaucrats worry about these things as much as American ones do.

  Arnaud could have moonlighted at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum—his face was that expressive. The man who brought us here pointed toward two chairs. We sat as Arnaud examined our passports. He spent two or three minutes with each of them, apparently satisfying himself that they were genuine.

  Believe me, I wasn’t calm now. Arnaud’s office seemed warm. I swabbed at my forehead and found it was wet. Sarah looked a little nervous, too, I thought, and her hand was warm and slippery. She kept a firm grip on mine.

  I had been thinking about how I was going to handle this moment. Sarah and I practiced once this morning with Jake Grafton playing Arnaud. I was up for doing the scene several more times, but Grafton nixed that. He wanted us to wing it.

  That’s precisely what I did: looked
into Arnaud’s cold, waxy face and told him what was in my heart. “We want to make some serious money.” That was the bald truth that defined my life. Maybe it will be my epitaph. Everything that followed that remark was almost true but not quite. I told him that Sarah and I were in love and wanted to run away together. We were tired of the workaday world and ready for a little piece of paradise, somewhere. He listened to my whole spiel, glancing from Sarah’s face to mine. I waited for him to brighten when I discussed the CIA’s intelligence Internet links, but he didn’t.

  “He’s not going to be interested in a peek at our stuff if a traitor has already given or sold him access,” I pointed out to Grafton earlier that morning.

  “Oh, but he will,” Grafton shot back. “There is always the possibility that you were sent to determine if indeed he already has such access. If he does and appears disinterested, he knows we would suspect the truth, endangering his source. Even if he has access, he has to buy what you have to sell.” Heaven help us, that kind of circular logic is the way spies think. Life is a giant forget-me-not. He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me…etc.

  Arnaud fingered my passport. “Is Terry Shannon your real name?”

  “No.”

  “Ms. Houston? Is that your real name?”

  “Yes,” Sarah lied.

  “Why did you come to France, Monsieur Shannon?”

  “My agency sent me.”

  “What is your assignment?”

  “I’m Admiral Jake Grafton’s assistant. I do what he tells me to do.”

  “And your specialty is?”

  “Breaking and entering, planting listening devices, burglary, safe-cracking, that kind of thing.”

  “The Paris police are looking for you.”

  “I thought they might be.”

  “They wish to question you about several unfortunate incidents that occurred yesterday.”

  “I spent some of the day sightseeing.”