The Paris Option - Страница 32

They stopped at the base of a long, low hill and gazed up. It was such a gentle incline that Smith had not even noticed it while he was following Elizondo. But now, for the return trip, the upward slope seemed long and hard. They looked at it as if they could make it go away.

"Nuts," she told him. "Last time I heard, Marty was in a coma. If he needs you anywhere, it's in the hospital, bugging the doctors. So give me a break. Once it was personal, like with the Hades virus, because of Sophia. But now? So who do you really work for? What don't I know that I should?"

They had stood there long enough, he decided. "Come on. Let's go back. We've got to check the farmhouse. If it's empty, maybe they've left something to tell us where they've gone. If there's still someone there, we'd better question them and find out what they know." He turned around, retracing their steps, and she sighed and caught up. "It's all about Marty," he told her. "Really. You're too suspicious. All that CIA training, I suppose. My grandmother used to warn me to not look for filth in a clean handkerchief. Didn't your grandmother ever tell you something useful like that?"

She opened her mouth to retort. Instead, she said, "Shhh. Listen." She cocked her head.

He heard it, too the low purr of a powerful car engine. But no headlights. They darted off the road and into a grove of olive trees. The sound was coming toward them, down the hill, heading toward the farmhouse. Abruptly, the engine stopped, and all he could hear was something strange, something he could not quite identify.

"What the devil is that?" Randi whispered.

Then he knew. "Rolling car wheels,", he whispered back. "See it? It's that black, moving lump on the road. You can almost make it out."

She understood. "A black car, no headlights, no engine. Coasting down the hill. Crescent Shield?"

"Could be."

They made quick plans, and Jon darted across the road to an olive tree that stood alone, probably cut off from the little grove when the road was put in.

The vehicle emerged from the dark like a mechanical apparition. It was a large, old-fashioned touring car of the type favored by Nazi officers during World War II. The top was open, and it looked as if it could have glided straight out of an old newsreel. There was only one person inside. Jon held up his Sig Sauer to signal Randi. She nodded back: The Crescent Shield would not have sent one man to attack them.

As the elegant touring car continued coasting, it had gained speed and now was just a hundred feet away. Randi pointed to herself and then at Jon and nodded toward the car. Jon got the message: She was tired of walking. He grinned and nodded back: So was he.

As the car passed, still dark and silent, they jumped onto the old running boards on either side. With his free hand, Jon grabbed the top of the door, and with the other he pointed his Sig Sauer at the driver's hat. Amazingly, the driver did not look up. In fact, he did not react at all. And then Jon saw that the man wore a black suit and clerical collar. He was an Episcopal ministerAnglican over here.

Randi grimaced across the car at him. She had noticed, too. She rolled her eyes, her message clear: It was not good international relations to steal a car from a parson.

"Feeling a shade guilty, are we?" the British voice boomed, still not looking up. "I expect you would've managed eventually to get back to Toledo by yourselves, but it would've taken too bloody long, and, as you Americans say, time it is a wasting."

There was no mistaking that voice. "Peter!" Jon grumbled. "Are there any agencies not chasing the DNA computer?" He and Randi climbed into the backseat of the open car.

"Not bloody likely, my lad. Our world has the wind up. Don't blame them, actually. Nasty scenario."

Randi demanded, "Where the hell did you come from?"

"Same place you did, Randi girl. Watched your little dust up from a hill above the farmhouse."

"You mean you were there? You saw it all," Randi exploded, "and you didn't help?"

Peter Howell smiled. "You handled the situation nicely without me. Gave me a chance to observe our nameless friends and saved you the trouble of going back, which, of course, you were already on your way to do."

Jon and Randi looked at each other. "Okay," Jon said, "what did happen after we got away?"

"They bunked lock, stock, and barrel in their helicopters."

"You went down to search?" Randi asked.

"Naturally," Peter said. "Food still warm in the kitchen, waiting to be served. But the house was empty of people, dead or alive, and no clues to who'd been there or where they'd gone. No maps in the house, no papers, absolutely nothing, except great heaps of burned paper in the fireplace. And, of course, there was no sign of the beastly machine itself."

"They have it all right," Jon assured him, "but it was never there, or at least that's what Chambord believed." As Peter turned the car around in a wide place on the road, Jon and Randi filled him in on what they had learned about the Crescent Shield, Mauritania, the Chambords, and the DNA computer.

Chapter Sixteen

Elizondo Ibarguengoitia licked his lips and dropped his gaze. His wiry body was hunched, the red beret askew, his demeanor harried. "We thought you were leaving Toledo, M. Mauritania. You say you have another job for us? The money is good?"

"The others left, Elizondo, I'll join them soon. There was too much I still had to do here. Yes, the rewards for this new job are impressive, I assure you. Are you and your people interested?"

"Of course!"

They were inside the vast, echoing Cathedral, in the famed chapel of the White Madonna with its white statues, columns, and rococo stone and plaster decorations. Abu Auda was leaning against the wall next to the Christian icon Mary and the infant Jesus, where his white burnoose seemed to mimic the statue itself.

As Mauritania talked to the three Basques Elizondo, Zumaia, and Iturbi he smiled, leaned on a cane, and studied Elizondo's face.

Elizondo nodded eagerly. "What's the job?"

"All in good time, Elizondo," Mauritania said. "All in good time. First, please describe for me how you killed the American Colonel Smith. You're certain his body's in the river? You're positive he's dead?"

Elizondo looked regretful. "When I shot him, he fell into the river. Iturbi tried to pull his body out, but the current captured him, and he was gone. We would've preferred to bury him, of course, where he wouldn't be found. With luck, his corpse will float all the way to Lisbon. No one there will know who he is."

Mauritania nodded solemnly, as if considering whether there would be problems when the corpse was eventually recovered. "All of this is strange, Elizondo. You see, Abu Auda there" he nodded at the silent terrorist" assures me that one of the two people who attacked us at the farmhouse after you left was the same Colonel Smith. That makes it unlikely you killed him."

Elizondo's complexion turned as bloodless as the statue. "He's wrong. He was shot. We shot"

"He's quite certain," Mauritania interrupted, sounding genuinely puzzled. "Abu Auda came to know Colonel Smith in Paris. In fact, one of Abu's men was there when you kidnapped the woman. So, you see"

Now Elizondo understood. He pulled his knife from his belt and lunged at Mauritania. At the same time, Zumaia yanked out his pistol, and Iturbi spun away to escape.

But Mauritania whipped his cane up with the speed of a striking snake, and a narrow blade shot out from the tip. It glinted in the dim light of the chapel and then disappeared as Elizondo impaled himself on its point with his frantic charge. Mauritania, his face red with anger, twisted the blade and ripped it up in an arc through the vital organs. Elizondo collapsed, holding his own entrails, staring in surprise at Mauritania. He pitched forward, dead.

At the same time, Zumaia had managed to half-turn, his pistol firing a single unaimed shot before Abu Auda's scimitar slashed through his throat. Blood spurted, and he sprawled forward.

Iturbi tried to run, but Abu Auda smoothly reversed his powerful wrist and thrust the blade backhanded so deep into the fleeing Basque's back that the point exited through his chest. With both hands, the giant Fulani lifted the sword a few inches and, with it, the dying Basque. Abu Auda's green-brown eyes flashed with anger as he watched Iturbi wriggle like a rabbit on a spit. When the man slumped dead on the blade, Abu Auda pulled the scimitar out.

Mauritania wiped his narrow sword on a white altar cloth and touched the button on the cane that retracted the blade. Abu Auda washed his sword in the font of holy water and dried it on his burnoose. His desert robes were now not only dirty but bloody.

Abu Auda sighed. "It's been a long time since I've washed in the blood of my enemies, Khalid. It feels good."

Mauritania nodded, understanding. "We mustn't linger. There's still much to do before we strike."

The two men stepped over the dead Basques and slipped through the Cathedral and out into the night.

* * *

An hour later, Jon, Randi, and Peter were on the highway, driving away from Toledo. First they had stopped in the city, where Jon had retrieved his laptop and bag from the trunk of his rented Renault. The car was untouched, containing only the cut ropes. With luck, Bixente had escaped back to his life as a shepherd. As Jon loaded his belongings into the touring car, Peter and Randi put the top on it, and they sped away, Peter driving. Now as the spires and towers of the fabled city of El Greco faded in the distance, Peter slowed to just beneath the national speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour. They did not need to attract police attention.