The Paris Option - Страница 12

With relief, Captain Bonnard struggled to his feet from the low chair. His legs felt nearly paralyzed. He had never understood why these desert people were not all cripples. "Perhaps," he said, massaging behind his knee, "Smith is nothing more than what he appears. The United States thrives on a culture of guns, after all."

"But he'd hardly be allowed to carry one to Europe on a commercial flight without some predetermined reason, and a very important one at that," Mauritania pointed out. "Still, perhaps you're right. There are ways to acquire guns here, too, including for foreigners, yes? Since his friend was the victim of violence, Smith may have come for revenge. In any case, Americans always seem to feel less vulnerable when they have a weapon. Rather silly of them."

Which left Captain Bonnard with the distinct impression that the enigmatic and occasionally treacherous terrorist chief did not think Bonnard was right at all.

* * *

On high alert, Jon Smith strolled toward the boulevard Pasteur, all the while pretending to look for a taxi to hail. He kept turning his head left and right, apparently studying the traffic for a potential ride, but really probing for whoever was out there watching him.

Automotive exhaust filled the air. He looked back toward the institute's entrance, where the guards were checking identifications. Finally he decided on three potentials: A youngish woman, mid-thirties or so, dark-haired, no figure to speak of, lumpy face. Altogether unremarkable in a dull black skirt and cardigan. She had stopped to admire the gloomy brick-and-stone church of Saint-Jean Baptiste de la Salle.

The second potential was a middle-aged, equally colorless man, wearing a dark blue sports coat and corduroy jeans, despite the warm May weather. He stood before a street vendor's cart, poring over the items as if he were looking for a lost masterpiece. The third person was a tall old man, leaning on a black ebony cane. He was standing in the shadow of a tree near the curb, watching the smoke at the Pasteur drift upward.

Smith had close to two hours before the meeting President Castilla had arranged with General Henze, the NATO commander. It would probably not take that long to lose whoever was interested in him, which meant maybe he could get some information first.

All this time, he had continued to pretend to be looking for a taxi. With a dramatic shrug of disgust, he walked onward toward the boulevard Pasteur. At the intersection, he turned right, sauntering toward the bustling Hotel Arcade with its glass, steel, and stucco facade. He glanced into store windows, checked his watch, and finally stopped at a caf, where he chose an outside table. He ordered a demi, and when the beer arrived, he sipped and watched the passing parade with the relaxed smile of a recently arrived tourist.

The first of the trio to appear was the tall old man who had been leaning on his cane in the shadow of a tree, watching the smoke from the bombed building, which could be suspicious in itself. Criminals were known to be drawn back to the scene of an attack, although this man looked too old and disabled to have taken on the duties of a sneak bombing. He limped along, using the cane expertly, and found a seat at a caf directly across the street from Smith. There he took a copy of Le Monde from his pocket and, after the waiter brought coffee and pastry, unfurled it. He read as he sipped and ate, apparently with no interest in Smith. In fact, he never looked up from his newspaper again.

The second to arrive was the lumpy-faced young woman with the dark hair and nondescript appearance, who suddenly was walking past the caf not five feet from where Smith sat. She glanced directly at him and continued on without showing the faintest interest, as if he were simply empty space. Once past, she paused as if considering stopping for a drink, too. She seemed to dismiss the thought and moved on, disappearing into the crowded Hotel Arcade.

The third person, the man who had been shopping with such concentration at the street vendor's cart, did not appear.

As he finished his beer, Smith replayed his observations of the tall old man and the nondescript woman their facial features, the rhythm of their movements, the way they held their heads and used their hands and feet. He did not leave until he was certain he had memorized them.

Then he paid and moved briskly back along the boulevard toward the Pasteur metro station at the intersection with the rue de Vaugirard. The old man with the cane soon appeared behind, moving well for his age and apparent infirmity. Smith had seen him instantly. He monitored the fellow with his peripheral vision and continued to watch for anyone else who appeared suspicious.

It was time to use an old tradecraft trick: He ducked into the metro, watching. The man with the cane did not follow. Smith waited until a train pulled into the station, and then he joined the stream of passengers that was exiting back to the street. A block away, under the leaden sky, the old fellow was still walking along. Smith hurried after, keeping just close enough to observe, until the man turned into a bookstore with a gone to lunch sign in French posted in the glass door. Key in hand, he unlocked the door. Once inside, he turned the sign around to open, dropped his cane into a stand by the door, and shrugged out of his suit coat.

There was no point in pressing the situation, Smith decided. After all, the fellow did have a key. On the other hand, he wanted to make certain. So he stopped outside the big plate-glass window and watched as the man shoved his arms into a beige sweater-vest and methodically buttoned it from the top down. When the man finished, he took a seat on a high stool behind the counter, looked up, saw Smith, and smiled and gestured for him to come in. He obviously either owned or worked at the bookstore. Smith felt a stab of deep disappointment.

Still, someone had been surveilling him, and he had narrowed the potentials to the dark-haired woman or the man who had been checking out the street vendor's wares. In turn, whichever of the two it was, he or she had also recognized Smith's suspicions and exited the chase.

He gave the bookseller a friendly wave and hurried back to the metro station. But then, with a sinking feeling, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise again. Someone was still nearby, studying him. Frustrated, worried, he stood outside the station and gazed all around. He saw nothing. He had to lose his tail. He could not lead them to his meeting with the general. He turned and rushed down into the station.

In a doorway partially shielded by a bush, the dull-looking woman in the shopkeeper's black outfit scrutinized Smith as he carefully surveyed the area. Her hiding place was recessed and dark, which was perfect, since it allowed her dusky clothing to disappear into the gloom. She took care to keep her face far back in the shadow, because although she was tan, the paler color of her skin might reflect just enough light for the very-observant Smith to notice.

He looked uneasy and suspicious. He was handsome, with almost American Indian features high cheekbones, a planed face, and very dark blue eyes. Right now the eyes were hidden behind black sunglasses, but she remembered the color. She shivered.

At last he seemed to make a decision. He hurried into the metro. There was no further doubt in her mind: He had realized he was being followed, but he did not know it was specifically she, or he would have followed after she passed his table outside the caf and stared straight at him.

She sighed, irritated by the situation. It was time to report in. She pulled her cell phone from a pocket beneath her heavy black skirt. "He figured out he was being tailed, but he didn't make me," she told her contact. "Otherwise, he appears to be here really because he's worried about his injured friend. Everything he's done since he arrived is consistent with that." She listened and said angrily, "That's your call. If you think it's worthwhile, send someone else to tail him. I've got my own assignment.No, nothing definite so far, but I can smell something big. Mauritania wouldn't have come here unless it was imperative. Yes, he's got it."

She clicked off the cell phone, looked carefully around, and slipped out of the shadows. Jon Smith had not reappeared from the metro, so she hurried back to the caf where he had sat. She searched the pavement beneath the chair he had used. She nodded to herself, satisfied. There was nothing.

Smith made four changes of trains, returned rapidly to the street, and plunged back down again at two of the stations. He watched everywhere until, finally, after an hour of this, he was confident he had lost his tail. Relieved but still wary, he caught a taxi to the address Fred Klein had given him.

It turned out to be a private pension in an ivy-covered, three-story brick building on a small courtyard off the rue des Renaudes, secluded from the street and the bustle of the city. At her post inside the elegant front door, the concierge was as discreet as the building itself. A matronly woman with steel-trap eyes and a face that revealed nothing, she showed no reaction when he asked for M. Werner, but she came from behind her counter to lead him up the stairs with decidedly unmatronly movements. He suspected that more metal than just her house keys was hidden under her cardigan and apron.

He did not have to guess about the bantamweight sitting on a chair in the second-floor corridor, reading a Michael Collins detective novel. The concierge vanished back down the stairs like a magician's rabbit, and the small ramrod on the chair studied Smith's ID without getting up. He wore a dark business suit, but there was a bulge under his armpit that, all things considered, looked to Smith to be an old regulation-issue 1911 Colt semiautomatic. The man's stiff and precise mannerisms hinted at an invisible uniform that was all but tattooed to his skin. Obviously, he was a career enlisted man; an officer would have stood. In fact, he was a privileged enlisted man, to still be carrying the old Colt.45— probably a master sergeant for the general.