The Paris Option - Страница 41

"His sudden death will do precisely that."

"Relax, my revolutionary friend. Had Sir Arnold reached Britain, he would've revealed the meeting on the Charles de Gaulle and what my general suggested. That would've been a serious problem. But now the prime minister knows only that one of his generals was flying to London to speak to him on a delicate matter and has now disappeared. He and his staff will speculate about it. Was it a private matter? A public matter? All of this will give us time, since their vaunted MI6 will have to dig around until it finds out what and why. They'll probably never succeed. But if they do, enough days will have passed that by then" Bonnard shrugged" we won't care, will we?"

Mauritania thought for a time and smiled. "Perhaps you do know what you're doing, Captain. When you first approached me to join you, I wasn't convinced of that."

"Then why did you agree to the plan?"

"Because you had the money. Because the plan was good, and our purpose the same. So we will smite the enemy together. But I still fear your action against the English general will draw attention."

"If we didn't have the full attention of Europe and the Americans before, your tests have assured we do now."

Mauritania admitted grudgingly, "Perhaps. When will you come to us? We may want you soon, particularly if Chambord's back needs more stiffening."

"When it's safe. When I won't be missed."

Mauritania stood. "Very well. Two days, no more."

"I'll be there long before. Count on it."

Mauritania walked from the caf to his bicycle, parked near the water. Out on the Mediterranean, white sails were unfurled against the blue sea. Above him, seagulls rode the salty air. A scattering of cafs, bars, and gift shops dotted the open area, with the Spanish flag whipping smartly overhead. As he pedaled away from the annoyingly Western scene, his cell phone rang. It was Abu Auda.

Mauritania asked, "You were successful in Madrid?"

"We weren't," Abu Auda told him, his voice angry and frustrated. He did not tolerate failure in anyone, including himself. "We lost many men. They are clever, those three, and the police arrived so quickly that we were unable to finish our mission. I was forced to eliminate four of our own." He described the confrontation in the Madrid basement.

Mauritania muttered an Arabic oath he knew would shock the puritanical desert warrior, but he did not care.

"It was not entirely a loss," Abu Auda said, his mind more on his chagrin at having failed than on Mauritania's flouting of their religion. "We slowed and separated them."

"Where did they go, Abu Auda?"

"There was no way to find out."

Mauritania's voice rose. "Do you feel safe with them free to plot against us?"

"We were unable to hunt them because of the police," Abu Auda said, controlling his temper. "I was fortunate to escape at all."

Mauritania swore again and heard Abu Auda give a disapproving grunt. He hung up and muttered in English that he did not give a tinker's damn about Abu Auda's religious sensibilities, which were mostly humbug anyway and never prevented Abu Auda from being as devious as a snake striking its own tail when it suited him. What mattered was that the mysterious Smith, the old Englishman from the western Iraqi desert, and the shameless CIA woman were still out there.

Paris, France

The frumpy brunette who emerged from the entrance to the Concorde metro stop onto the rue de Rivoli bore a striking resemblance to the woman who had followed Jon Smith from the Pasteur Institute except that this woman wore a pastel pantsuit common to many tourists and walked with the hurrying steps of most Americans. She crossed the rue Royale into the avenue Gabriel, passed the Hotel Grillon, and turned onto the grounds of the American embassy. Once inside, she acted distraught as she described an emergency at home in North Platte, Nebraska. She had to get home, but her passport had been stolen.

She was sympathetically referred to a room on the second floor, and she almost ran up the stairs. Inside the room, a short, heavy man in an impeccable dark blue pin-stripe suit was waiting at a conference table.

"Hello, Aaron," Randi said as she sat down at the table, facing him.

Aaron Isaacs, CIA station chief in Paris, said, "You've been out of touch almost forty-eight hours. Where's Mauritania?"

"Gone." Randi told him all that had happened in Toledo and Madrid.

"You uncovered all that? Chambord alive, the DNA computer in the hands of some group calling itself the Crescent Shield? So why did the DCI have to get it from the White House and army intelligence?"

"Because I didn't uncover all that. At least not without help. Jon Smith and Peter Howell were there, too."

"MI6? The DCI's going to go apoplectic."

"Sorry about that. Most of it came from Smith. He got the name of the group, he saw Chambord and his daughter alive. Even talked to them. Chambord told him the Crescent Shield had the computer. All I did was find out Mauritania was bossing the terrorists."

"Who the hell's this Smith?"

"Remember the one I worked with on the Hades virus?"

"That guy? I thought he was an army doctor."

"He is. He's also a cell and microbiology researcher at USAMRIID, a combat doctor in the field, and a lieutenant colonel. The army grabbed him to work on this because of his field experience and his knowledge of DNA computer research."

"You believe all that?"

"Sometimes. It's not important. What can you give me on Mauritania and the DNA computer hunt I don't have?"

"You say the last you saw Mauritania was heading south from Toledo?"

"Yes."

"You know he's from Africa. Most of his strikes with Al Qaeda and other groups have been launched from Africa or Spain. Most of the men he's lost over the years in one group or another have been arrested in Spain. With him and his group heading south, North Africa seems a logical destination, especially after a rumor Langley picked up that says Mauritania may be married to at least one Algerian woman and could have a home in Algiers."

"Now we're getting someplace. Names? Places?"

"Not yet. Our assets are trawling for specifics. With luck, we'll know something soon."

Randi nodded. "How about a terrorist named Abu Auda? A giant Fulani, older, maybe late fifties? Odd green-brown eyes?"

Isaacs frowned. "Never heard the name. I'll have Langley run it." He picked up a phone that stood on the table near him. "Cassie? Send this through to Langley top priority." He gave her the data on Abu Auda and hung up. "Want to know what we've come up with in the Pasteur bombing?"

"Something new? Damn, Aaron, spit it out."

Isaacs gave a grim smile. "We got a clandestine call from a Mossad agent here in Paris, and maybe it's pure gold. It seems there's a Filipino postdoctoral researcher at the Pasteur, whose cousin tried to plant a bomb in the Mossad's Tel Aviv HQ. The guy was from Mindanao, where the Abu Sayaaf group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was an ally of the Bin Laden faction and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The researcher has no known terrorist connections and has been away from Mindanao a long time."

"Then what made Mossad alert you to the family relationship?"

"The researcher called in sick to the Pasteur that night. He was supposed to be there, according to his boss, who was badly injured in the blast. That was because he was needed for some important experiment they were conducting."

"Where's their lab, if the boss was so badly hurt?"

"On the floor below Chambord's laboratory. Everyone in that lab was killed or maimed."

"Mossad thinks he was the inside man?"

"There's no evidence, but I passed it on to Langley, and they think it's a hot lead. The Pasteur's security isn't state-of-the-art, but it's good enough to keep out bombers, unless the bomber has some kind of internal contact. Particularly since my people believe the terrorists took not only a resisting Chambord, but the entire experimental setup for his DNA computer. And they did it all just minutes before the bomb went off."

"What about the researcher's supposed illness?"

"On the surface, legitimate. He consulted a doctor for chest pains and was advised to stay home a few days. Of course, chest pains and even heart irregularities can be chemically produced."

"They can, and relatively easily. Okay, where is this guy? Does he have a name?"

"Dr. Akbar Suleiman. As I said, he's postdoc and lives in Paris. We asked the Paris police to check, and they say he's on leave from the Pasteur until his lab can be rebuilt. Mossad says he's still in the city. I have his address."

Randi took the sheet of paper and stood up. "Tell Langley I'm going to be working on Mauritania and the DNA computer with Jon Smith and Peter Howell. Tell them I want authorization to commandeer any asset we have, anywhere."

Aaron nodded. "Done." The phone rang. Aaron listened. Then, "Thanks, Cassie." He hung up and shrugged. "Nothing on an Abu Auda at all. Must keep a really low profile."

Randi left, heading for De Gaulle again, then Brussels and Jon. If this Dr. Akbar Suleiman was part of the Crescent Shield, and they could find him, maybe he would lead them to Mauritania. She doubted there would be a third chance. Not in time.

Chapter Twenty

Brussels, Belgium

At the airport thirteen kilometers outside Brussels in Zaventem, Jon rented another Renault and picked up the supplies Fred Klein had arranged to be waiting for him. Among them was a uniform, which he put on in preparation for his next destination. Carrying a small overnight bag in which were packed civilian clothes and a 9mm Walther, he drove onto the RO heading west. It was raining steadily, a gray, dismal downpour. Once past Brussels, he left the trunk road and took smaller highways and back roads, watching behind to be certain he was not being tailed.