I shrugged at Sarah and was escorted over to the police van. When I glanced back I saw that she was walking on toward the embassy.
Everything was sweetness and politeness at police headquarters until I demanded to speak to an American diplomatic official. “You are not under arrest, Monsieur Shannon. We wish only to ask you a few questions about your car, a Hertz.”
“I want to see an American diplomat.”
They shouted; they said regrettable things about me and Americans and people who refused to answer questions. One of them even reminded me that I was a guest in their country. When I remained obstinate I was shown to a cell, my second of the day. This one was much nicer than the lockup in the dungeon of the Conciergerie. One might think Martha Stewart had been a guest here. I flopped on the bed and tried to sleep. It was going to be difficult with the drunks singing two cells away. They sounded like Americans—yep. They were from the States, all right. And they liked country.
What the hey—it wasn’t rap.
George Goldberg was going over each item from Sarah Houston’s purse with a magnifying glass when Jake Grafton touched her on the arm and led her away. In the SCIF in the basement, he motioned to a chair.
“Tell me all about your day. Everything you can remember.”
When she told him about the polygraph examination, he asked her to tell him each question they asked. She could remember most of them, much to her amazement, because she had tried to ignore them when they were asked and answer yes or no according to the progression.
“What did the polygraph operator think of your tactic?”
“I don’t know. I was ignoring him, too. Really, stripping a woman naked and strapping on those leads and firing questions at her is not a method I would adopt to get at the truth.”
“You were angry?”
“Infuriated and humiliated.”
“Perhaps Arnaud expected to get more from the bugs than the polygraph. The polygraph was merely to set the mood, so to speak.”
“When we were out of there I would have said the wrong thing instantly,” she admitted, “but Tommy stopped me. As soon as they took our clothes away, he knew they would insert bugs.”
“Tommy has a devious mind,” Jake Grafton said blandly, and Sarah Houston laughed. The thought of Tommy Carmellini brought a glow to her cheeks. A smile lingered on her lips.
Jake Grafton saw that glow and smile and decided to move on. He produced the handheld computer that Henri Rodet had given him. “Ever seen one of these before?”
She inspected the device. “No, but I’ve read about them. Telephone, camera and computer all in one.”
“Hidden in plain sight. This is the computer that Rodet used to communicate with his agent in Al Queda. The messages were transmitted over a satellite television system.”
“Clever. How did you get this?” She held it up.
“He gave it to me.”
“Where did he keep it?”
“His girlfriend carried it in her purse.”
“Well, well, well,” Sarah murmured.
“Indeed!” Grafton sighed. “These computer phones have been available for a couple of years, and I suspect that’s about how long Rodet and his man used the system. In any event, I want you to get the messages off the memory of this thing.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s tried to erase them.”
“No doubt he has. I want the messages.”
“I may have to take it apart,” Sarah said.
“Whatever. And I have another little errand for you. Remember Gator Zantz, from London? He’s going to be along in a few minutes. He’ll have to leave his cell phone outside like everyone else. When you see him, go out, get the phone and get all the numbers off it. Find out who the numbers belong to. I want to know who he’s been calling.”
“Okay.”
He left her there with the cell phone in hand. She was working on it when she saw Gator Zantz go by the door. She waited until Zantz had disappeared, then got up and left the SCIF.
Upstairs George Goldberg held up a tiny transmitter for Jake’s inspection. “This was in the heel of her shoe. It’s a homer.”
“So they know that she’s at the embassy and Carmellini’s visiting the police?”
“So it would seem.”
“The folks at the desk received a call from the police. Carmellini is demanding to speak to an American diplomat.”
“Send somebody over,” Jake Grafton said. “I hope they don’t keep him all night. That boy needs some sleep.”
Kirby Jones was the name of the man from the embassy. He was a slightly built fellow in his late twenties, I suppose, who wore horn-rim glasses and a bow tie. You don’t see many bow ties these days, so I stared.
He stayed a safe distance away from the cell bars and pronounced his name. “I understand you wanted to see a diplomat?”
“Yeah,” I said, tearing my eyes away from that bow tie. “Got any credentials?”
“My heavens, man,” he said in the purest Boston accent, “you think the American embassy would send over a Russian?”
“I’m sure if they wanted to these Frenchies could dig up a frog who sounds like the Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas. Got any credentials?”
As he produced them from his jacket pocket I asked, “Where’d you get that tie, anyway?”
“There’s a store on Harvard Square that sells them.”
I looked through his stuff. Well, it looked official as hell to me. Jones was even wearing a bow tie in the photo on his diplomatic passport. I handed the packet back through the bars. “Get me outta here.”
“An automobile that you rented at the airport last week blew up in a parking garage yesterday. A bomb, apparently. The police want to ask you some very reasonable questions about it.”
“I didn’t blow it up, if that’s what you’re getting around to.”
“I don’t think they suspect that you did, but they have some questions. It would be in the best interests of Franco-American relations if you answered them politely and truthfully so they can do their duty.”
“I see.”
“With the G-8 meeting in Versailles next week, the police have some very real concerns. You see that, don’t you?”
“I’m not answering any questions.”
Kirby Jones frowned. “If you persist in that stance, I’m afraid they may eject you from the country.”
“You mean, like, send me home?”
“Yes.”
“It’s tempting.” The drunks were caterwauling again. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t have a diplomatic passport. If I had one I wouldn’t be wasting an evening in this damn cell listening to that chorus.
“They also have some questions about a motorcycle chase that took place on the streets of Paris yesterday.”
“You been in France long?”
“Three months.”
“Know George Goldberg?”
He gave me a hard look. “I know who he is, yes.”
“Why don’t you call him? Then get back to me.”
Being in jail is a humbling experience. It’s too bad it is an experience reserved for the dregs of society and occasional drunks, like my fellow Americans a few doors away. More people should do it. More people should lie on a cot in a cell with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and think about…
I thought about Al and Rich for a while, how they looked dead. They looked so surprised, as if they were shocked that life could end so suddenly, and for so little reason. I thought about the guy I threw through the clock; I got a glimpse of his face as I threw him, and he was surprised, too. Maybe the motorcyclists were surprised when they realized they were going to crash. And I thought about Marisa Petrou and Elizabeth Conner, the Israeli agents. It was a hell of a game, and it was being played for blood. Did they know? Would they be surprised?
Would I?
Finally I got to thinking about Sarah Houston. I liked the way she looked, the way her skin felt, the way she smiled…She was a smart cookie, and I
liked that, too. Smart women are hard to come by these days. It seems that some of the smart ones don’t really want to be smart.
I was asleep when I heard a key in the door. A uniformed policeman opened the cell door and motioned to me. The bow-tie man, Kirby Jones, was standing behind him. The drunks, who had sobered up somewhat, were shouting, “Hey, we want out, too,” and Kirby, to his credit, was ignoring them.
When I got out in the corridor he said, “The director of the DGSE called the police. He said to let you out. You’re free to go.”
“It’s Kirby with a K, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll name my first daughter after you.”
I had to sign my name twice to reclaim my belt, my shoelaces and the contents of my pockets. I almost scribbled my real name before I remembered that I was Terry Shannon. When we were out on the street, Jones said, “Who are you, anyway?”
“Nobody you want to know,” I told him as I shook his hand. I walked away in the direction of the nearest subway stop.
He called after me, “I’ve read about you. You’re the clock guy, aren’t you?”
My flat above the Rue Paradis looked terrific. The water in my little bathtub was hot and wet. I sat in it awhile staring at my knees. After I toweled off, I said good night to anyone listening, then crawled between the sheets. Aaaah!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When I awoke the next morning a fine cold rain spattered on my little window and gurgled in the gutter and downspout, which were right outside. I had the window open a couple of inches, so I went over and sat on the floor where I could feel the cool breeze coming through the gap.
This little room was a very pleasant place, and Paris was a great city. I wished I were really Terry G. Shannon, travel hack, with nothing on my agenda but visiting tourist sites and updating guidebook descriptions of hotels and restaurants. “Sorry, but the cassoulet isn’t up to your rating. Au revoir and better luck next time.”
I took the belt out of the trousers I wore yesterday and casually inspected it as I listened to the rain running off the roof and let the cool autumn wind play across my arms and face.
Grafton had said I could leave the agency after this assignment, and maybe I should. I was thoroughly sick of spooks and spies and vans with bodies.
I guess I was really sick of myself.
Sarah Houston was a nice woman; she had made her mistakes and paid for them, and so had I. Maybe—
There was a listening device in my belt. The French technicians had cut a small hole in the leather for it and woven the transmitter antenna wire into the stitching. The wire was tiny, about the diameter of a human hair, difficult to see unless one looked closely.
Should I wear this belt, or my other one?
This one, I decided. The game was up in the air, still to be decided.
Part of the problem was that the admiral wasn’t in the habit of sharing his ratiocinations with me, which was to be expected, I guess, since I had a part to play in his drama. I was sure he thought there was nothing to be gained by burdening me with superfluous information.
Such as, why did he change the plan? When we came to France, we were going to dangle the Intelink in front of Henri Rodet. After all, he was the dude with the Al Queda source. But now we were conning Jean-Paul Arnaud, the Number Two spook. Did Arnaud and Rodet talk? Was Arnaud the villain? Did Rodet really have a spy buried in Al Queda, or was that a fiction for foreign consumption? Why was the Mossad stooging around? Was Marisa Petrou a double agent? Who shot Claude Bruguiere? More to the point, who the heck shot Alberto Salazar and Rich Thurlow?
It could have been me in that van instead of Al and Rich. Me! Mrs. Carmellini’s son, Tommy.
I could have been sitting there thinking a twisted little thought when the door opened and pop, pop, life ended for me, just like that.
I was examining that reality when my cell phone rang, making me jump. I snatched it up and looked at the number. Willie Varner.
I reminded myself that the DGSE techs were listening to my side of the conversation, and perhaps Willie’s too.
“Hello.”
“I’m in a Seven Four Seven flyin’ over England, Carmellini. Adios, asshole.” The reception was perfect, his voice right in my ear. I figured he was lying. He continued. “I told you I was gettin’ outta frog-land when the shit hit the fan, and by God, I meant it.” Yeah, he was lying. “I’m still alive, no thanks to you.”
“You could have borrowed my Superman suit, you know, so those bullets would bounce right off.”
He sighed. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“No.”
“The sailor has me doing important secret shit. I can’t tell you anythin’ about it. Don’t call me wantin’ somethin’. And stay outta trouble, dude.”
“Okay.”
He hung up.
I knew Willie Varner wouldn’t boogie, no matter what he said. Willie would stick like glue. If he wasn’t that kind of guy, he wouldn’t be worth knowing.
The sailor was, of course, Grafton. If they were monitoring the cell phone conversation, the French spooks would never figure that out. Right. But what did Grafton have Willie the Wire doing? I spent a couple of minutes speculating, then gave up.
I hoped Jake Grafton knew who the players were and who had the ball. I certainly didn’t.
I levered myself up and headed for the bathroom.
“There are the contents of Rodet’s hard drive,” Sarah Houston said to Jake Grafton. She pointed toward the computer screen. Grafton stood looking over her shoulder at a sea of computer symbols. They were in the SCIF in the basement of the embassy, in a tiny little room. On the walls were a calendar and a photo of the World Trade Center collapsing.
“The contents are encrypted,” Sarah explained. “The code breakers at NSA are going to have to sort this out.”
“Okay. Send it to them. Encrypted, of course.”
Sarah attacked the keyboard. A minute later she said, “It’s gone. Sorry I couldn’t crack it.”
“Well, it was a long shot.” Jake dropped into the only other chair.
She handed him a single sheet of paper. “You asked for the telephone numbers from Gator Zantz’s cell phone. Here they are.”
Grafton looked them over. “You’re sure about all of these.”
“Yep.”
Grafton folded the paper once, very neatly, then doubled it up, making all the edges touch. He inspected it to make sure it was perfectly square. Then he put it in his pocket. “Let’s talk about your visit with Arnaud,” he said. “Are you comfortable with the technology?”
She nodded. “It’ll let him into your fake files.”
“This won’t work unless you sell him. He has to believe that you’re madly in love with Tommy and want to run away with him.”
“Why Arnaud?”
“If Rodet is telling the truth, it can’t be anybody else.”
“You couldn’t convict a man of a parking violation with that kind of logic.”
Grafton frowned. “That’s true, but this isn’t a trial.”
“Is Rodet telling the truth?”
Grafton leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath while he considered. “That’s a fair question and it deserves an honest answer. Let me put it this way—he’s telling me part of the truth.” He paused, considering. “Perhaps a better way to say that would be, he’s telling me what he thinks is part of the truth.”
“What kind of truth are you looking for?”
“The kind that leads to a living man, one who knows things that can help us catch the masterminds of Al Queda.”
“They’re leaders in the terrorist movement,” Sarah admitted, “but if they are arrested or eliminated, others will take their place.”
“What is the alternative?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’re in a war against religious fanatics, madmen, who are trying to crack the foundations of Western civilization by murdering the innocent,”
Jake Grafton said. “The conflict between the demands of secular government and religion has shaped civilization, but Islam has been fossilized, frozen in time. The good news is that history is on our side—in the long run, religious zealots always lose. The Europeans fought true believers of every stripe for centuries and finally won. Look around you at this city, this nation. France is secular civilization in full flower, and it’s worth fighting for.”
“Win or lose, the fanatics will murder a lot of people,” Sarah Houston said thoughtfully.
“Our job is to see that they don’t,” Jake Grafton said grimly. “Let’s get on with it.”
Elizabeth Conner’s door slammed in the room under mine, so I was at the window watching when she went jogging away along the sidewalk, past two bored old hookers smoking cigarettes. At least the rain had stopped, although the sky was low and slate gray.
Conner was another puzzle I hadn’t figured out. Was she really an American? Or an Israeli pretending to be an American? Did it matter?
I wondered if another search of her flat would turn up anything useful. Was there another way to learn her story?
Of course, anything she told me would be just that, a story. Still, it would be a place to start. We could check every fact she let loose of, to learn…what?
DGSE officer Claude Bruguiere could have been hit by the Mossad. In fact, Lizzie Conner might have done the shooting. For that matter, dear, sweet, innocent Marisa might have pulled the trigger.
Around noon I met Sarah Houston in the dining room of her hotel. I stood as she approached the table, and she kissed me. Her tongue grazed my lower lip in a contact lasting several heartbeats. It was a darn nice kiss, the kind that speeds up your heart ten or fifteen whacks a minute. She broke it off as my blood pressure soared, then backed away a few inches and gave me a tiny smile.
I helped her with her chair and almost tripped getting back into mine. That’s when I handed her a note that said my belt had a bug in it. She read the note, nodded and handed it back. I wadded it up and stuck it in my pocket, to be discarded into a toilet.
The Traitor: A Tommy Carmellini Novel Page 25
