The Paris Option - Страница 78

Thérèse continued to stare at him as if he were an insect under one of his own microscopes. "Whatever their faults, they're not mass murderers."

"But they are! What about the effect of their policies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America?"

She paused, considering. Then she shook her head and laughed bitterly. "You don't care about any of that. You're not operating on altruism. You just want their power. You're just like General La Porte and Captain Bonnard."

"I want France to rise. Europe has the right to rule its own destiny!" He turned away so she would not see his pain. She was his daughter how could she not understand?

Thérèse was silent. At last she took his hand, and her voice softened. "I want one world, too, but where people are simply people, and no one has power over anyone else. 'France?' 'Europe?' 'The United States?' " She shook her head sorrowfully. "The concepts are anachronisms. A united world, that's what I want. A place where no one hates or murders anyone in the name of God, country, culture, race, sexual orientation, or anything else. Our differences are to be celebrated. They're strengths, not weaknesses."

"You think the Americans want one world, Thérèse?"

"Do you and your general?"

"You will have a better chance of it with France and Europe than with them."

"Do you remember after World War Two how the Americans helped us rebuild? They helped us all, the Germans and the Japanese, too. They've helped people all around the globe."

That far Chambord could not go. She refused to see the truth. "For a price," he snapped. "In exchange for our individuality, our humanity, our minds, our souls."

"And from what you tell me, your price tonight could be millions of lives."

"You exaggerate, child. What we do will warn the world that America cannot defend even itself, but the casualties will be relatively low. I insisted upon that. And we are at war with the Americans. Every minute, every day, we have to fight, or they will overwhelm us. We are not like them. We will be great again."

Thérèse released his hand and again stared out the window at the stars. When she spoke, her voice was clear and sad. "I'll do everything I can to save you, Papa. But I must also stop you."

Chambord remained motionless for another moment, but she did not look at him again. He walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

Chapter Thirty-seven

They stopped again, this time at a small petrol station outside the village of Bousmelet-sur-Seine. The attendant nodded in answer to Jon's question: "Oui, bien, the count is at Chateau la Rouge. I filled the tank of his limousine earlier today. Everyone's glad. We don't see all that much of the great man since he took over NATO. Who could be better, I ask you?"

Jon smiled, noting that local pride had raised La Porte one more notch in the command structure at NATO.

"Is he alone?" Jon asked.

"Alas." The attendant removed his cap and crossed himself. "The countess passed away these many years." He glanced around at the night, even though there was no one else here. "There was a young lady at the castle for a while, but no one has seen her for more than a year. Some say that's good. That the count must set an example. But I say counts have been taking women not their wives up there for centuries, yes? And what of the peasant girls? It was a tanner's daughter who produced the great Duke William. Besides, I think the count's lonely, and he's still young. A great tragedy, yes?" And he roared with laughter.

Randi smiled and looked sympathetic. "Soldiers are often married to the army. I doubt Captain Bonnard brought his wife with him either."

"Ah, that one. He has no time for anyone but the count. Devoted to his lordship, he is. I'm surprised to know he's married at all."

As Jon took out euros to pay, the attendant studied them. "You needed little gas. What do you folks want with the count?"

"He invited us to drop in and tour the castle if we were ever in the area."

"Guess you got lucky. He's sure not here much. Funny, too. Had another guy asking about an hour ago. A big, black guy. Said he was in the Legion with the count and Captain Bonnard. Probably was. Wore the green beret, except he wore it sort of wrong, you know, more like the English wear berets. Kind of arrogant. Had funny greenish eyes. Never saw eyes like that on a black."

"What else was he wearing?" Jon asked.

"Like you, pants, jacket." The attendant eyed Randi. "Except his looked new."

"Thanks," Jon said, and he and Randi climbed back into the car. As Peter drove away, Jon asked him and Marty, "You heard?"

"We did," Peter said.

"Is the black man the one you called Abu Auda?" Marty asked.

"With those eyes, sounds like him," Randi said. "Which could mean the Crescent Shield also thinks Bonnard and Chambord are here. Maybe they're looking for Mauritania."

"Not to mention possibly getting their hands on the DNA computer if they can," Peter guessed, "and getting revenge on Chambord and Captain Bonnard."

"Having the Crescent Shield here is going to complicate matters," Jon said, "but they could turn out to be useful, too."

"How?" Randi said.

"Distraction. We don't know how many of his renegade Legionnaires La Porte has with him, but I bet it's a substantial number. It'll be good if they're worried by someone else."

They drove on in silence for another ten minutes through the moonlight, the road a pale pathway in the silent, rural night. There were no other cars on the road now. The lights of farmhouses and manor houses sparkled intermittently through the apple orchards and the outbuildings and barns that probably housed equipment to make the cider and Calvados for which the region was famous.

At last, Randi pointed ahead and upward. "There it is."

Marty, who had been mostly silent since they left the highway, suddenly said, "Medieval! A baronial bastion! You do not, I trust, expect me to scramble up those ridiculous walls?" he worried. "I'm no mountain goat."

The Chateau la Rouge was not the fine country estate the name would have implied around Bordeaux or even in most of the Loire Valley. It was a brooding medieval castle boasting battlements and two towers. Moonlight had turned the granite an inky blood-red. Set high on a craggy-hill beside what looked like the jagged, gap-toothed ruins of a far older castle, this was the Chateau la Rouge that Jon had seen in the painting and photograph.

Peter studied the massive structure with a critical eye. "Send for the siege train. It's a bloody old one, it is. Late twelfth or early thirteenth century, I should say. Norman-English, from the look of it. The French tended to like their fortresses a bit more elegant and stylish. Possibly as old as Henry the Second, but I doubt it"

"Forget the history, Peter," Randi interrupted. "What makes you think we can climb up those walls without being spotted?"

"I don't climb," Marty announced.

"Shouldn't be difficult," Peter enthused. "Looks as if she's been updated sometime in the last century or so. The moat's filled in, the portcullis is gone, and the entryway is wide open. Of course, tonight they'll have that entrance guarded. They've manicured the hill up to the walls, which is an advantage for us. And my guess is we won't have to worry about boiling oil, crossbows, and all that rigmarole from the battlements."

"Boiling oil." Marty shuddered. "Thanks, Peter. You've cheered me enormously."

"My pleasure."

Peter turned off the headlights, and they cruised to the base of the rocky hill where he paused the car. There in the moonlight they had a clear view of a curved drive that led up to the front and in through the tunnel-like entryway. As Peter had guessed, there was no gate or barrier, and spring flowers grew in well-kept beds on either side. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century La Portes had obviously been unworried about attack. But a pair of armed men in civilian clothes at the open front portal showed that the twenty-first-century La Porte was.

Peter eyed the two guards. "Soldiers. French. Probably the Legion."

"You can't possibly know that, Peter," Marty rebuked. "More of your superior man-of-action hyperbole again."

"Au contraire, mon petit ami. Every nation's military has its traditions, methods, and drill, which produce a different appearance and manner. A U.S. soldier shoulders arms on the right shoulder, the British on the left. Soldiers move, stand at attention, march, stop, salute, and generally hold themselves differently, according to the country. Any soldier can tell instantly who has trained the army of a Second- or Third-World nation by simply observing. Those guards are French soldiers, lad, and I'd bet the wine cellar on the Legion."

Exasperated, Marty said, "Poppycock! Even your French stinks!"

Peter laughed and rolled the car onward along the country road that curved out and around.

Jon spotted a helicopter. "Look! Up there!"

The chopper was perched on a squat barbican fifty feet up, its rotors protruding over the stone balustrade. "I'll bet that's how Chambord and Bonnard got in and out of Grenoble and flew here. Add in the military guards, La Porte's being here, and the Crescent Shield, and I'd say the DNA computer is here."

As Peter continued the car's circle of the castle, Randi said, "Swell. Now all we have to do is get into it."