The Paris Option

by Robert Ludlum

  “Remember?” Thérèse continued. “He’s Dr. Zellerbach’s friend. He visited me in Paris. He was trying to find out who bombed the Pasteur.”

  The pistol relaxed a hair. “He’s more than a doctor. We saw that at the farm house in Toledo.”

  Jon smiled and said in French, “I really am a medical doctor, Dr. Chambord. But I’m also here to rescue you and your daughter.”

  “Ah?” A puzzled wrinkle appeared between Chambord’s eyes, but his great, bony face still peered suspiciously. “You could be speaking lies. First, you tell my daughter you’re just a friend of Martin’s, and now you say you’re here to save us.” The pistol jerked up again. “How could you find us? Twice! You’re one of them. It’s a trick!”

  “No, Papa!”

  As Thérèse ran between Jon and her father, Jon dove behind a large couch covered with an Oriental rug and came up with his Walther in both hands. Thérèse stared unbelieving at Jon.

  “I’m not one of them, Dr. Chambord, but I wasn’t totally honest with Thérèse in Paris, and for that I apologize. I’m also a U.S. Army officer. It’s Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M.D., and I’m here to help you. Just as I was trying to help you in Toledo. It’s the truth, I swear. But we must move quickly. Almost everyone’s in the dome room, but I don’t know for how long.”

  “An American lieutenant colonel?” Thérèse said. “Then…”

  Jon nodded. “Yes, my real mission—my assignment—was to find your father and his computer. To stop his kidnappers from using his work.”

  Thérèse turned on her father. Her slender, dirt-smudged face was insistent. “He came to help us!”

  “Alone?” Chambord shook his head. “Impossible. How can you help us alone?”

  Jon stood up slowly. “We’ll figure out how to get out of here together. I’m asking you to trust me.” He lowered his pistol. “You’re safe with me.”

  Chambord considered him. He glanced at his daughter’s determined expression. At last he let his pistol fall to his side. “You have some proof, I suppose?”

  “Afraid not. Too chancy.”

  “That’s all very well, young man, but all she can tell me is that you’re a friend of Martin’s, which is what you told her. That doesn’t give me much confidence you can help us escape. These people are dangerous. I have Thérèse to consider.”

  Jon said, “I’m here, Dr. Chambord. That’s got to be worth something. Plus, as you pointed out, I’ve found you twice. If I got in here, I can get you out. Where did you find that pistol? That may come in handy.”

  Chambord gave a humorless smile. “Everyone thinks I’m a helpless old man. They think that. So they’re not as alert as they should be. In one of the many cars they used to transport me, someone left a gun. Naturally, I took it. They’ve had no reason to search me since.”

  Thérèse put a hand over her mouth. “What were you going to do with it, Papa?”

  Chambord avoided her gaze. “Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about that. I have the gun, and we may need it.”

  Jon said, “Help me dismantle your computer and answer some questions. Quickly.”

  As Chambord turned the machine off, Jon asked, “How many are in the villa? What’s the access like? Is there a road out? Cars? What kind of security in addition to the guards outside?”

  Analyzing information was familiar territory for Chambord. As they disengaged wires and tubes, he said, “The only access I saw was a gravel road that connected with the coast highway. The highway runs between Algiers and Tunisia, but it’s more than a mile inland. The road ends at what appears to be a small training camp for new recruits. The car that brought us here is parked there with some former British military vehicles. I saw a helipad near the training center, and I believe there were two old helicopters parked on it. I can’t say exactly how many men are in the house. At least a half dozen are guarding it, probably more. They’re always arriving and departing. Then, of course, there are the new recruits as well as a cadre at the training facility.”

  As Jon listened, he controlled his frustration with Chambord, who was working slowly, methodically as they took apart the prototype. Too slowly.

  Jon weighed options. Those cars parked near the helipad would work, if they could sneak out to them without being detected. Jon told them both, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do…”

  Under the high dome of the villa’s great hall, spotlights bathed the mosaics in a warm glow as Mauritania interrogated an exhausted Dr. Akbar Suleiman. They spoke in French, since the Filipino did not know Arabic. While Suleiman stood in front of him, Mauritania remained seated on the large table, his short legs dangling and swinging like those of a boy sitting on the limb of a tree. He enjoyed his small size, his deceptive softness, the stupidity of those who believed in the superficiality of physical strength.

  “Then what you’re saying is that Smith broke into your apartment without warning?”

  Suleiman shook his head. “No, no! A friend at the Pasteur alerted me, but only a half hour earlier. I had to make my emergency calls, tell my girlfriend what to do, and there was no time to escape sooner.”

  “You should’ve been more prepared. Or at least called us, not handled it yourself. You knew the risks.”

  “Who would’ve thought they’d locate me at all?”

  “How did they?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  Mauritania said thoughtfully, “The address in your hospital file was incorrect, as instructed?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then someone knew where you lived and sent them to you. You’re sure there was no one else? He was wholly alone?”

  “I neither saw nor heard anyone else,” Suleiman repeated wearily. The trip had been long, and he did not sail well.

  “You’re certain no one followed you once you escaped your apartment?”

  Suleiman grumbled, “Your black man asked me that, and I told him the same as I tell you. My arrangements were foolproof. No one could follow.”

  There was a sudden commotion, and Captain Darius Bonnard entered angrily, with two armed bedouins and the towering Abu Auda himself immediately after. Mauritania saw Bonnard’s rage and Abu Auda’s fierce gaze, which bored across the great room and into Dr. Akbar Suleiman.

  Abu Auda snarled, “His ‘black man’ asks you no more, Moro. A car followed me all the way to Barcelona, where I was able to lose it at last, but only with difficulty. No one had followed me until then. So where did the car come from, eh? From you, Suleiman. You must’ve been surveilled when you ran away from Paris, which meant you led them to me at the lodge. And you, fool, didn’t even know it!”

  Bonnard’s anger had built even higher. His face was violent red as he told Mauritania, “We have evidence Suleiman brought them from Barcelona to Formentera to here. At the very least, he’s compromised us!”

  As Suleiman blanched, Mauritania asked quickly, “Here? How do you know this?”

  “We don’t speak idly, Khalid.” Abu Auda scowled at Suleiman.

  Captain Bonnard switched to French. “One of your men is dead on the motor launch, and he didn’t die by stabbing himself. Suleiman brought an extra passenger, who’s no longer on the boat.”

  “Jon Smith?”

  Bonnard shrugged, but his face remained furious. “We’ll know soon. Your soldiers are searching.”

  “I’ll send more.” Mauritania snapped his fingers, and all of the men poured out of the hall.

  In the dark night, the lightless SH-60B Seahawk helicopter hovered low over an open area near plastic greenhouses and citrus groves a mile from the villa. The air whipped Randi’s face as she stood in the open doorway and hooked the rescue cable onto her harness. She was wearing night combat camos with a black watch cap covering her blond hair. She carried equipment attached to her mesh belt and wore a backpack with more equipment. She gazed down, thinking about Jon, wondering where he was and whether he was all right. Then her mind moved to the mission itself, because in the end that was mos
t important. More important than either her or Jon’s life. The DNA computer must be destroyed so that whatever madness the terrorists planned was stopped.

  She gripped her harness and nodded her readiness. The crewman at the hoist watched the pilot, who finally nodded that he had the chopper in position, hovering. The signal given, Randi jumped into the dark void. The crewman let out the hoist as she descended. She fought the terror of falling, of the failure of equipment, blocked all her fears from her mind until, at last, she bent her knees and rolled onto the ground. Quickly she unhooked the harness. There was no need to bury it. They would know she was here soon anyway.

  She bent to the small transmitter. “Saratoga, do you read me? Come in Saratoga.”

  With a clean, clear sound, a voice from the cruiser’s combat information center responded, “We read you, Seahawk 2.”

  “This could take an hour, maybe more.”

  “Understood. Standing by.”

  Randi shut off the radio and stowed it in a pocket of her camos, unslung her MP5K mini-submachine gun from her shoulder, and loped off. She avoided the main road and the beach. Instead, she worked her way through the citrus groves and past the green houses, their plastic coverings stirring with the wind. The moon hung low on the horizon, its milky light reflecting eerily on the plastic. In the distance, surf pounded the beach, rhythmic as a heartbeat. Above her, the stars had come out, but the sky seemed more black than usual. Nothing moved on the highway or out at sea, and there were no houses in sight. Only the ghostly orange and lemon trees, and the shifting glitter of the green houses.

  At last she heard two cars speeding along the highway, their motors loud assaults in the quiet night. They roared past, and abruptly their tires screeched and burned rubber as they made the sharp turn inland that Max had identified from the air. In a few minutes, the engines stopped, cut off as if a curtain of silence had fallen over them. Randi knew the only residence ahead was the villa. The speed indicated someone had felt an urgent need to get to the villa.

  She accelerated into a serious run and soon reached the high white wall, where she discovered it was topped by coils of razor wire. An open space of almost ten yards had been cut between the vegetation and the wall as far as she could see, which meant she would not be helped out by overhanging branches. She unslung the backpack she had loaded on the Saratoga with equipment flown to her by the CIA and pulled out a small air pistol, a miniature titanium barbed dart, and a roll of thin nylon-covered wire. She attached the wire to a miniature ring on the dart, inserted the dart into the pistol barrel, and searched until she found a thick old olive tree some ten feet inside the wall.

  She stood back and fired. The dart landed where she wanted—into the tree. She returned the pistol to her backpack, put on padded leather gloves, and, grasping the wire, she swarmed hand over hand up to the top of the wall. Once there, she hooked the wire to her belt, returned the gloves to the backpack, and brought out a miniature pair of wire cutters. She clipped a three-foot opening in the razor wire, returned the cutters, and slid over the wall and dropped to the ground.

  High-tech security was extremely expensive, and terrorists could rarely afford it. Fundamentalists who became terrorists maintained such an extreme secrecy that their paranoia prevented them from seeking out the necessary hardware, the sales of which were often too closely monitored for their tastes. At least, that was the theory, and she could only hope it was correct—and be cautious as hell.

  With that in mind, she released the wire from the dart, pulled the coil over the wall after it, and returned everything to her backpack. She melted through the vegetation toward the unseen villa.

  Dr. Émile Chambord paused, his hands on the lid of the glass tray. “It’s possible. Yes, I believe you’re right, Colonel. We should be able to escape that way. It appears you’re indeed more than a physician.”

  “We’ve got to go immediately. No telling when they’ll discover I’m here.” He nodded at the computer, which was only partially disassembled. “There’s no more time. We’ll take the gel packs and leave the rest—”

  There was a noise out in the corridor, the door flung open, and Abu Auda and three armed terrorists rushed in, weapons raised. Thérèse cried out, and Dr. Chambord attempted to jump in front of her to protect her with his pistol. Instead, the scientist stumbled heavily into Jon, destroying his balance.

  Jon recovered, grabbed for his Walther, and spun. It was too late to destroy the DNA prototype, but he could damage it so that Chambord would need days to make it operational again. That would buy Randi and Peter time to find it, if he were not around to help.

  But before Jon’s gun could home in on the gel packs, Abu Auda and his men jumped him, knocked the pistol away, and wrestled him to the floor.

  “Really, Doctor.” Mauritania had followed his men into the room. He pulled Chambord’s pistol away from him. “This is hardly your style. I don’t know whether to be impressed or shocked.”

  Abu Auda jumped to his feet and pointed his assault rifle down at Jon’s head where he lay on the floor tiles. “You’ve given us enough trouble.”

  “Stop,” Mauritania ordered. “Don’t kill him. Think, Abu Auda. An army doctor is one thing, but the American colonel we saw in action in Toledo who’s managed to find us again is quite another. We may have need of him before this is finished. Who knows how valuable he may be to the Americans?”

  Abu Auda did not move, the rifle still at Jon’s head. His erect, angry posture radiated intent to kill. Mauritania said his name again. He looked at Mauritania. His eyes blinked thoughtfully, and the fire in them slowly banked.

  At last, he decided, “Wasting a resource is a sin.”

  “Yes.”

  Abu Auda gestured with disgust, and his men hauled Smith to his feet. “Let me see the doctor’s gun.” Mauritania handed him Chambord’s pistol, and he examined it. “It’s one of ours. Someone will pay for this carelessness.”

  Mauritania’s attention returned to Smith. “Destroying the computer would’ve been a futile gesture in any event, Colonel Smith. Dr. Chambord would simply have had to build us another.”

  “Never,” Thérèse Chambord insisted and pulled away from Mauritania.

  “She hasn’t been friendly, Colonel Smith. Pity.” He glanced back at her. “You underestimate your power, my dear. Your father would build us another. After all, we have you, and we have him. Your life, his own life, and all the work he will do in the future. Much too high a price to save a few people from a bad day, wouldn’t you say? After all, the Americans would not be as concerned about you or me. We’d be a small ancillary cost—‘collateral damage,’ they call it—while they took what they wanted.”

  “He’ll never build you another!” Thérèse raged. “Why do you think he stole your pistol!”

  “Ah?” Mauritania raised an eyebrow at the scientist. “A Roman act, Dr. Chambord? You’d fall onto your sword before you’d help us in our dastardly attack? How foolish, but how brave to consider such a gesture. My congratulations.” He looked at Jon. “And you are equally foolish, Colonel, to think you could stop us for any length of time by putting a few bullets into the doctor’s creation.” The terrorist leader sighed almost sadly. “Please give us credit for some intelligence. Accidents are always possible, so naturally we have the materials at hand for the doctor to rebuild, should you decide to martyr yourself even now.” He shook his head. “That’s perhaps you Americans’ worst sin—hubris. Your so-smug assumption of your own superiority in all things, from your borrowed technology to your unexamined beliefs and assumed invulnerability. A smug assumption you often extend to include your friends, the Jews.”

  “This isn’t religious or even cultural with you, Mauritania,” Jon told him. “You’re just like every other aspiring dictator. Look at you. This is profoundly personal. And disgusting.”

  Mauritania’s pale eyes were alight, and his small body bristled with energy. There was an air about him of almost godlike invincibility, as if he alone
had seen heaven and had been charged with the mission of not simply spreading God’s word, but enforcing it.

  “This from a heathen,” Mauritania mocked. “Your greedy nation has turned the Middle East into a series of puppet monarchies. You gorge on our resources while the world struggles to find food for the next meal. That’s your pattern everywhere. You’re the richest nation the planet’s ever known, but you manipulate and hoard and then wonder why no one thanks you, much less likes you. Because of you, one of every three people doesn’t have enough to eat, and one billion are actually starving. Are we to be grateful?”

  “Let’s talk about all the innocents that’ll be killed in your attack on Israel,” Jon retorted. “The Koran says, ‘You shall not kill any man whom God has forbidden you to kill, except for a just cause.’ That’s from your sacred writings, Mauritania. There’s no justness in your cause, just cold-eyed, selfish ambition. You’re fooling no one but the poor souls you’ve lied to so they’d follow you.”

  Thérèse accused, “You’re hiding behind a god you’ve invented.”

  Mauritania ignored her. He told Jon, “For us, the man protects his women. They are not to be on public display for all to touch with their eyes.”

  But Jon was no longer listening, nor was he watching Thérèse and Mauritania. He was focused on Émile Chambord, who had said nothing since Mauritania, Abu Auda, and their men had rushed in. The scientist stood exactly where he had been when he tried to protect Thérèse. He was silent, looking at no one in particular, not even at his daughter. He seemed almost unconcerned. Perhaps he was in shock, paralyzed. Or maybe his thoughts were no longer here in this room, but somewhere else where there were no worries and the future was safe. Watching Chambord made Jon uneasy.

  “We talk too much,” Abu Auda announced and beckoned his men forward. “Take them out and lock them in the punishment cell. If even one should escape,” he warned his followers, “I’ll have all your eyes.”

  Mauritania stopped Abu Auda. “Leave Chambord. We have work to do, do we not, Doctor? Tomorrow will see a changed world, a new beginning for mankind.” The little terrorist leader chortled with genuine pleasure.