The Paris Option

by Robert Ludlum

  Peter added, “Someone with money. This is obviously an expensive operation. Who’s paying for it?”

  “Not Mauritania,” Randi told them. “Langley says that ever since he left Bin Laden, Mauritania’s resources have been sharply limited. Besides, if Chambord and Bonnard were using the Crescent Shield, they were certainly the initiators of the collaboration, so it’s likely they were picking up the bills, too. I doubt that either an army captain or a pure scientist like Chambord would have that kind of money.”

  Marty came to life. “Certainly not Émile.” He shook his round head. “Oh, dear, no. Émile’s far from wealthy. You should see how modestly he lives. Besides, he has trouble keeping a desk drawer organized. I seriously doubt he could systematize that many people and activities.”

  “For a while, I thought it might be Captain Bonnard,” Jon said. “After all, he came up through the ranks. That’s both difficult and admirable. Still, he doesn’t appear to be a true organizing leader, a mastermind. Certainly, he’s no Napoleon, who also worked his way up the ranks. According to his file, Bonnard’s current wife is from a prominent French family. There’s wealth there, but not the kind we’re looking for. So unless I’ve missed something, he strikes out on both counts, too.”

  As Jon, Randi, and Peter continued to talk, Marty crossed his arms and burrowed back into his pillows. Eyes closed, he allowed his mind to wing back over the past few weeks, flying high through a three-dimensional patchwork of sights, sounds, and odors. From the springboard of memory, he reexperienced the past, recalling with joyful clarity working with Émile, the excitement of one small success after another, the brainstorming sessions, the meals ordered in, the long days and longer nights, the odors of chemicals and equipment, the way the lab and office had grown on him, had felt more and more like home—

  And he had it. Abruptly he uncrossed his arms, sat upright, and opened his eyes. He had remembered exactly what the lab and office looked like.

  “That’s it!” he announced loudly.

  All three stared at him. “What’s it?” Jon asked.

  “Napoleon.” Marty spread his arms grandly. “You mentioned Napoleon, Jon. That’s what reminded me. What we’re really looking for is an anomaly, something that doesn’t fit. An oddity that points to what’s missing in the equation. Surely you know that if you keep looking at the same information in the same way you’ll keep coming up with the same answers. Utter waste of time.”

  “So what’s missing, Mart?” Jon asked.

  “Why,” Marty said. “That’s what’s missing. Why is Émile doing this? Maybe the answer is Napoleon.”

  “He’s doing it for Napoleon?” Peter said. “That’s your priceless gem, lad?”

  Marty threw a frown at Peter. “You could’ve remembered, too, Peter. I told you about it.” As Peter tried to recall the mystery to which Marty referred, Marty shook his hands excitedly over his head. “The print. It didn’t seem important at first, but now it looms large. It is, in fact, an anomaly.”

  “What print?” Jon asked.

  “Émile had an excellent print of a painting hanging on his wall at the lab,” Marty explained. “I think the original oil was by Jacques-Louis David, a famous French artist around the turn of the nineteenth century. The title was something like Le Grande Armée’s Return from Moscow. I can’t remember all the French. Well”—he moved the laptop onto the table and bounced to his feet, unable to sit still—“this one showed Napoleon in a big blue funk. I mean, who wouldn’t be, after capturing Moscow, but then having to retreat because someone’s burned down most of the city, there’s nothing to eat, and winter’s arrived? Napoleon started out with more than four hundred thousand troops, but by the time he got home to Paris, he had less than ten thousand left. So the painting shows Napoleon with his chin sunk down on his chest.” Marty demonstrated. “He’s riding his big white horse, and the gallant soldiers of his Old Guard are stumbling miserably through the snow behind like total ragamuffins. It’s so sad.”

  “And that print was missing from Chambord’s lab?” Jon said. “When?”

  “It was gone the night of the bombing. When I arrived to pick up my paper, my first shock was the corpse. Then I noticed that the DNA prototype was gone. And finally I saw that the print was missing, too. At the time, the print’s whereabouts seemed unimportant. Incidental, as you can imagine. Now, however, it seems glaringly strange. We must pay attention.”

  Randi puzzled, “Why would the Black Flame—Basques—steal a print about a French tragedy some two centuries ago?”

  Marty rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Maybe they didn’t.” He paused for effect. “Maybe Émile took it with him!”

  “But why?” Randi wondered. “It wasn’t even the original painting.”

  Jon said quickly, “I think that Mart’s saying the reason he took the print could tell us what was on Chambord’s mind when he left with the terrorists, and maybe about why he’s doing what he’s doing.”

  Peter strode to the window. He peeled back the drape and studied the dark street below. “Never told you about another little problem MI6 dumped on me. We lost a bigwig general a few days ago—Sir Arnold Moore. Bomb in his Tornado, I’m afraid. The general was flying home to report information to the PM so hush-hush that he would only hint at it.”

  “What was the hint?” Jon said quickly.

  “He said that what he knew might bear on you Americans’ communications problems. The first attack, that is, that you Yanks told only us about.” Peter let the drape fall back into place. He turned, his face grave. “I backtracked Moore through various contacts, you see. Their intel all toted up to a clandestine meeting of highly placed generals on the new Frenchie carrier, Charles de Gaulle. There was Moore, of course, representing Britain, plus generals from France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. I know the identity of the German—Otto Bittrich. So here’s the knobby part: Seems the meeting was terribly sub rosa. Not unusual on the face of it. But then, come to find out, it was organized by the top French muckity-muck at NATO himself, Jon’s ‘friend’—General Roland la Porte, and the order to sail that big, expensive warship apparently originated at NATO, but no one has been able to find the original signed order.”

  Jon said, “Roland la Porte is the deputy supreme commander of NATO.”

  “That he is,” Peter said, his face both strained and solemn.

  “And Captain Bonnard is his aide-de-camp.”

  “That, too.”

  Jon was silent, turning the new information over in his mind. “I wonder. I thought Captain Bonnard might be using La Porte, but what if it’s the reverse? La Porte himself admitted the French high command, and presumably himself among them, had been keeping close tabs on Chambord’s work. What if La Porte kept much closer tabs than anyone else, and then kept what he knew to himself? He did say he and Chambord were personal friends as well.”

  Marty stopped pacing. Slowly Peter nodded.

  “Makes a terrible kind of sense,” Randi said.

  “Roland la Porte has money,” Marty added. “I remember Émile talking about General La Porte. He admired him as a true patriot who loved France and saw its future. According to Émile, La Porte was mind-bogglingly rich.”

  “So rich he could’ve financed this operation?” Jon asked.

  Everyone looked at Marty. “Sounded like it to me.”

  “I’ll be a duck’s uncle,” Peter said. “The deputy supreme commander himself.”

  “Unbelievable,” Randi said. “At NATO, he’d have access to all kinds of other resources, including a big warship like the De Gaulle.”

  Jon recalled the regal Frenchman, his pride and suspicion. “Dr. Chambord said La Porte was a ‘true patriot who loved France and saw its future,’ and Napoleon was, and still is, the peak of French greatness. And now it seems that the only thing other than the DNA prototype that Chambord took with him from his lab that night was a print of the beginning of the end for Napoleon. The beginning of the end for French ‘greatness.’ Are
you all thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I expect we are,” Peter said, his lean face solemn. “The glory of France.”

  “In which case, I may have an anomaly, too,” Jon went on. “I noticed it in passing, but it never seemed significant. But now, I wonder.”

  “What is it?” Marty said.

  “A castle,” Jon told him. “It’s a burnt-red color—probably constructed with some kind of red stone. I saw an oil painting of it when I was in General La Porte’s Paris mansion. Then I saw a photograph of it, this time in his office at NATO. It’s obviously important to him. So important he likes to keep a likeness nearby.”

  Marty hurried to his bed and grabbed his laptop. “Let’s see if I can find it, and find if Émile was right about le general’s financial health.”

  Randi looked at Peter. “What was the meeting aboard the De Gaulle about? That could also tell us a lot.”

  “Should find out, don’t you think?” Peter said, heading to the door. “Would you be so kind, Randi, as to brace Langley for anything new? And, Jon, why don’t you do likewise with your people?”

  As Marty logged onto the Internet using the room’s only line, the three rushed out to find telephones.

  In Dr. Cameron’s office, Jon dialed Fred Klein’s secure scrambled line.

  “You’ve found Émile Chambord and his damnable machine?” Klein asked without preamble.

  “I wish. Tell me more about Captain Darius Bonnard and General La Porte. What exactly is the nature of their relationship?”

  “It’s long. Ongoing. Just as I described.”

  “Is there any indication that Captain Bonnard may have co-opted General La Porte? That Bonnard may be the power behind the general?”

  Klein paused, thinking about the question. “The general saved Bonnard’s life in Desert Storm when Bonnard was still whatever they call a top sergeant. Bonnard owes the general everything. I told you that before.”

  “What haven’t you told me about them?”

  There was a thoughtful pause, and Klein added details.

  As Jon listened, the situation began to make more sense. Finally Klein finished.

  “What’s going on, Jon? Dammit, time’s closing in on us. I can feel it like a noose. What’s this sudden interest in Bonnard’s connection to General La Porte? Have you found out something I don’t know? Are you planning something? I hope to hell you are.”

  Smith told him about the second prototype.

  “What! A second molecular computer?” Klein raged. “Why didn’t you kill Chambord when you had the chance?”

  The tension was getting to Jon, too. He snapped back, “Dammit, no one guessed about a second prototype. I figured I could save Chambord so he could go on working for the good of everyone. I made a judgment call, and with what we knew, I thought it was the right one. I had no idea it was all a charade to keep us from knowing Chambord was running the show, and neither did you.”

  Klein calmed down. “All right, what’s done is done. Now we’ve got to get that second DNA machine. If you have an idea where it is and have a plan, I want to know.”

  “I don’t have a plan, and I don’t know where exactly the damn thing is except that it’s in France somewhere. If there’s a strike, it’s going to be soon. Warn the president. Believe me, I’ll be in touch the instant I have something concrete.”

  Jon broke the connection and sprinted back to Marty’s room.

  In the office of the hospital’s accountant, Peter was exasperated as he tried to maintain his grip on his stilted German. “General Bittrich, you do not understand! This is—”

  “I understand that MI6 wants information I don’t have, Herr Howell.”

  “General, I know you were at the meeting on the De Gaulle. I also know that one of our generals who died a few days ago, Sir Arnold Moore, was with you. What you may not know is his death was no accident. Someone meant to kill him. And now I believe that the same person means to use a DNA computer to render the U.S. defenseless and then attack. It’s urgent you tell me what General La Porte’s secret meeting was about.”

  There was silence. “So Moore was murdered?”

  “A bomb. He was on his way to fill in our PM about something vital he learned at the meeting. That’s what we need to hear from you. What did General Moore learn? What was so devastating that his jet was bombed to stop him from relaying it?”

  “You’re certain of the bomb?”

  “Yes. We have the jet’s fuselage. It has been tested. There is no doubt.”

  There was a long, anxious pause.

  At last, Otto Bittrich said, “Very well.” He spoke carefully, making certain each word carried the proper weight. “The French general, La Porte, wants a totally integrated European army independent of, and at least equal to, America’s. NATO’s inadequate for his purposes. So is the EU’s small rapid deployment force. He envisions a truly United Europe—Europa. A continental world power to eventually surpass the United States. He’s adamant that the United States’s hegemony must be stopped. He argues that Europe is already positioned to become a contending superpower. If we don’t take this place of prominence that’s rightfully ours, he claims we’ll end up as just another U.S. dependent—a large and favored colony at best, but ultimately still slaves to America’s interests.”

  “Are you saying he wants to go to war against America?”

  “He claims we’re already at war with the United States in many, many ways.”

  “What do you say, General?”

  Again Bittrich paused. “There’s much I agree with in his ideas, Herr Howell.”

  Peter heard a faint hesitation. “I hear a but, sir. What did General Moore want to tell my prime minister?”

  Bittrich was silent again. “I believe he suspected that General La Porte was planning to prove his point that we must not depend on America by showing the Americans unable to defend themselves.”

  “How?” Peter asked. He listened to the answer with growing alarm.

  Downstairs in the same public phone booth she had used earlier, Randi slammed down the receiver. She was angry and worried. Langley had nothing new about General La Porte or Captain Bonnard. As she hurried through the lobby and back upstairs, she hoped the others had done better. When she reached Marty’s room, Jon was standing sentry at the only window, watching the street, while Marty was still sitting on his bed, working at his laptop.

  “Nada,” she told them and closed the door behind her. “Langley was no damn help.”

  “I got something useful,” Jon said from the window. “General La Porte saved Captain Bonnard’s life in Desert Storm. As a result, Bonnard’s utterly loyal and exhibits an exaggerated sense of the general’s greatness.” Again he gazed at the street. For a moment, he thought he saw a figure moving furtively a block away. “Bonnard will do anything—anything—the general asks, and then be panting for the next opportunity to please him.” He looked into the distance for the figure. He—or she—had disappeared. He studied the traffic and few pedestrians closer to the private hospital.

  “My, my. Such largesse.” Marty looked up from his computer screen. “Okay, the answer is that General La Porte and his family are worth hundreds of millions, if you figure it in U.S. dollars. Altogether, approaching a half-billion dollars.”

  Jon exhaled. “A fellow could put together a nice little terrorist assault with that.”

  “Oh yes,” Marty agreed. “General La Porte fits our profile perfectly, and the more I think about it, the more I remember how Émile had begun talking on and on about France. That it didn’t get the respect it deserved. What a magnificent history it had, and its future could be even greater than the past if the proper people were put in charge. Every once in a while, he’d forget I’m American and say something particularly irritating about us. I remember once when he was talking about what a fine leader General La Porte was, really too big for his current position. He said it was disgusting that the great General La Porte had to work under an American.”
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  “Yes,” Jon told him. “That would be General Carlos Henze. He’s NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander.”

  “That sounds right. But it didn’t matter that it was General Henze. The point was, he’s American. See? My anomaly explains a lot. It’s obvious now that Émile took the print of Napoleon with him because it’s his inspiration—France will rise again.”

  “You found those financial details online?” Randi wondered.

  “Easy as cracking an egg,” Marty assured her. “It was a simple matter to determine his bank—French, of course. Then I tweaked some software programs I’m familiar with. With them souped up, I broke through the firewall and did a fast hit-and-run and escaped with quite a few records.”

  “What about the red castle?” Jon asked.

  Marty was stricken. “Forgot. La Porte was so fascinating. I’ll do it now.”

  Peter strode into the hospital room, almost running. His angular face was tight. “Just talked to General Bittrich. The meeting on the De Gaulle was called by La Porte himself to press his case for a completely integrated European military. Eventually, Bittrich thinks, a united Europe. One nation—Europa. Bittrich was damned cautious, but when I told him our General Moore had been murdered, he finally spilled it. What had alarmed Moore—and, it turns out, Bittrich, too—was that La Porte hammered at the electronic and communications failures the American military was having and strongly suggested there’d be more, proving that the American military could not defend even its own country.”