by Fritz Galt
But when the guard returned, instead of holding their passports, he held a rifle.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Alec asked.
The guard raised the gun to the open window.
“Step out of the car,” he said. “You’re both under arrest.”
Everett Hoyle threw his cell phone into the seat beside him and wheeled the car around.
Paul Schroeder had just gotten off the phone with Eli Shaw at Langley and informed Everett that the French border patrol had detained two members of SATO. Paul wanted Everett to take them into custody.
It took ten minutes for Everett to reach the border crossing, which was in the middle of an empty field.
He pulled up to the guard shack and couldn’t believe who the French had captured. These were members of SATO? In the shadows stood a familiar pair, their attire dirty, their hair disheveled and their spirits low.
Everett stepped out of the convertible and slipped his sunglasses off.
It was Natalie Pierce and her brother-in-law Alec.
He had been looking for them for over a week.
“Natalie. Alec. Where have you been?”
“Oh good,” Natalie said. “You’re here. This fine gentleman has been detaining us.”
Everett could see the drawn rifle in the beefy Frenchman’s hands. How could Paul and the French mistake them for SATO agents?
He couldn’t believe that Natalie and Alec were suspected of working for the organization that was trying to undermine America’s membership to CERN. If anything, they had helped engineer America’s membership and he could use their assistance as the president’s speech neared.
“This is ridiculous,” Everett said, and started to lead them away from the guard hut.
The muscular guard eyed the diplomatic plates on Everett’s car, but followed them nonetheless.
“No, it’s okay,” Everett assured the man. “I just want to talk to them.”
When they were out of earshot, he grabbed Natalie by the arm. “Are you aware of what you’re accused of?”
“Nobody told us anything.”
“They say you’re members of SATO.”
“Well, we are,” she said plainly. “What’s wrong with that? It’s an entirely legal organization formed by executive order to implement American membership and experiments at CERN. That’s all there is to it.”
“Do you have any idea of what SATO has been trying to do? They’ve contracted an assassin to kill President Damon. That doesn’t sound like an executive order.”
Alec stepped in. “Come on, Everett. SATO is government workers like Natalie and me. We wouldn’t order an assassination. It would be completely counterproductive to SATO’s mission, not to mention treason. I don’t deny that there’s an assassination plot. But that was Brahim Abbad’s idea, pure and simple.”
The name was more than familiar to Everett. He had learned that Proteus went under the names of Brahim Abbad and Khalid Slimane and that Natalie had been shacked up with Brahim in Morocco. Everett had sent Gus Carlucci looking all over Morocco for Brahim. And by the way, what ever happened to Gus?
Everett stared at Alec, who had more than a passing knowledge of Brahim Abbad. “Who brought Brahim into the organization?”
“O’Smythe.”
“And who got him into CERN?”
“Me.”
“So you’re saying you take orders from O’Smythe?”
Natalie seemed reluctant to answer, but Alec nodded.
Everett felt his blood pressure peaking. “O’Smythe has suckered you into a plot that extends far beyond any executive order for membership in CERN. I need to know if O’Smythe is in charge of SATO.”
“He can’t be,” Natalie said. “He isn’t even in the government. I’m sure someone within SATO had to hire him.”
“Well, that someone is up to no good. There’s a CIA employee at Langley who tried to escape and got killed, rather than divulge SATO’s mission. SATO has tried to stymie my office through budgetary restraints. They’re pulling all sorts of stunts, and you need to tell me who’s behind it.”
Natalie shrugged. She legitimately didn’t seem to know.
“Can’t we put our heads together on this?” Alec said.
Everett’s phone jingled in the car. “You wait here,” he said.
He return to his car and picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Everett, it’s Eli.”
“You sound shaky.”
“I am shaky. Someone just murdered my assistant, Dwight Goode.”
“Oh no.” Memories of Suzy Kraft’s death came to mind.
“Dwight never showed up for work today,” Eli continued. “So I had his apartment checked out. They found him shot through the head.”
“Why in the world?”
“I think I know why. My guess is our office phones are being tapped by SATO.”
“Right there in the Agency?”
“Creepy, huh? In fact, right now I’m calling from a public phone on a street corner, and I’m not even gonna tell you what street or what city or what goddamned country I’m in right now.”
“But why Dwight?”
“I think I know why. I sat at his desk once and used his phone to make a call where I discussed SATO. The SATO people must have figured it was Dwight who was onto them.”
So SATO was still active. And here Everett was with to admitted members of SATO just outside of the facility where the president was going to visit.
“Speaking of SATO,” he said. “I’ve just rounded up a pair of SATO operatives. They’re standing right here.”
“I know. Natalie and Alec Pierce, right?”
“What makes you think we need to take them into custody?”
“Ask Mick. He figured it out and turned them in. I ordered their arrest on that basis.”
“Mick turned them in?” Everett was incredulous.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Eli, you still there?”
“Oh, my God,” Eli said. “Mick.”
“What about Mick?”
“He has my other phone, and he just called me.”
“So?”
“Don’t you see? That’s how they’re tracking him down.”
“I didn’t know anyone was tracking him down.”
“Mick told me that someone has been able to find him over and over again, in a safe house in DC and at a motel in Tennessee, and they’re trying to kill him. SATO must be tracing all calls from that phone in order to locate Mick.”
Everett looked across at Natalie and Alec standing on the grassy shoulder of the road.
“I think that solves one mystery,” Everett said. “We’ve made a terrible mistake. Those killers couldn’t be in collusion with the members of SATO that I have in custody. I don’t think Natalie and Alec would be part of an operation that tried to kill Mick.”
“Mick might have turned his wife in,” Eli said, “but it wasn’t for trying to kill him.”
“If we can’t trust Natalie and Alec, who can we trust?”
“You’re right,” Eli reluctantly agreed. “Get them released and put them to work. In the meantime, I’ve got to reach Mick and warn him before the killers find him again.”
“How are you going to reach him? By phone?”
Mick was running at full tilt down the center lane of the lakefront quai du Mont-Blanc. Against oncoming traffic.
Another gunshot zinged overhead.
A car sped toward him, its horn blaring, its lights flashing. It was the ultimate game of chicken.
Mick directed the car to his left and continued heading straight down the street. Just as he heard the tires screech on the road and the song on the car radio, it swerved to his left.
He looked back. The assailant, a powerful-looking man with a shaven head and loose jogging pants, was still after him in the center lane.
Mick waited for a break in oncoming traffic and dipped down a side street. The only sound was that of
his footsteps resounding off a block of townhouses.
Then he heard the gunman behind him.
Mick increased his stride and veered from side to side.
Another gunshot shattered the rear window of a parked car.
As the glass sprayed onto the pavement, his damned phone started to ring.
The assailant could hear it and follow the sound. Mick had to get rid of it. Fast.
Turning another corner into an alleyway, he reached into his pocket, grabbed the phone and threw it into the open service entrance of a butcher shop.
Ahead, the alley opened onto a major cross street. Directly in front of him was the Noga Hilton Hotel.
Police had cordoned off the hotel and a crowd of onlookers stood on the opposite sidewalk behind a yellow ribbon.
Mick ducked into the crowd. With luck, the gunman would follow the ringing phone into the shop.
As he sprinted through the throng, Mick began to wonder what all the people were looking at.
Then he noticed that many were holding up signs and chanting. He lifted his head to read one sign.
“Go home, President Damon.”
It sounded like a good idea to him.
He looked back for the assailant. The man with his head glistening with sweat had just emerged from the butcher’s shop and was scanning the crowd.
Mick was free for the moment.
Until they found him again.
President Charles Damon looked around his suite at Geneva’s Noga Hilton Hotel.
There were flowers. A fruit basket. A bottle of Swiss bubbly. Various Swiss cheeses. The choices were tasteful.
The Swiss really knew how to run their hotels.
He noticed a videotape lying next to some tourist magazines. A man’s handwriting was scrawled across the video’s cover. It read, “For Charles.”
It seemed rather informal, considering all the attention to detail that had gone into the suite’s preparation.
He slipped the tape into the VCR.
“What’s that?” Vic Padesco asked, just entering the room.
“I really don’t know.” Charles handed the cover to his national security advisor.
The television screen flickered on, and the tape began to play.
Charles backed into an over-stuffed chair, kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on a stool.
Children sang in a chorus, overlaying a montage of pastoral mountain scenes.
Then the picture jumped. A promotional piece for CERN began. It showed scientists in hardhats, colorful charts of smashed atoms, and a long row of national flags snapping in the wind.
Then the picture jumped again. Grainy, familiar footage appeared on the screen. It was John F. Kennedy’s limousine driving in front of the Texas School Book Repository. The young president’s head slumped forward and then flew back. Jackie knelt on the seat to tend to him.
“Stop that,” Vic shouted.
Charles was unable to move. The juxtaposition of scenes was too violent, too horrifying, too obvious.
Vic rushed to turn off the VCR.
“Wait,” Charles said. “There may be more.”
“I’ll have the team analyze this.”
“I’ll watch it first,” Charles said.
Let the assassin play with him all he wanted. He could take it.
But there was no more. The screen turned to static. The statement had been made.
“No ransom. No demands. Just a death threat,” he said.
“It’s only a threat,” Vic said. “I’m sorry this got into your possession.”
Charles closed his eyes. Normally he didn’t want to know what death threats the Secret Service was dealing with. He didn’t want to know how many madmen were lurking out there, or just how sick they were.
“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Is protection adequate this time around?”
“They assure me that security is tighter than ever.”
Charles stared at the videocassette that had made it into his room unnoticed. It made Vic’s words ring hollow.
He shut his eyes and tried to erase the videotape from his mind. The only image that remained was of Jackie. He had met her once, and never forgot the experience.
When he reopened his eyes, he silently dedicated his upcoming speech to his own late wife. In her fight against cancer, she had shown him what real bravery was and what it could accomplish.
It was appropriate that her memory should usher in the new, unimaginable leap in technology that would forever transform the world.
America’s tenure as the world’s only superpower had been brief. A mere blip in the history of mankind. But the United States had been gracious, and historians would have nothing to complain about. America had handled the responsibility well, as demonstrated by how peacefully she would relinquish control.
Now if the crazies would only let him get to that damned podium and make that speech.
“Everything is worked out,” Everett said, and waved toward Natalie and Alec. “You’re off the hook. Sorry about the mix-up.”
The two stared at each other, still disconcerted.
So Everett phoned Paul.
“Look Paul, it seems that there’s been a perfectly innocent mistake. Natalie and Alec were in no way involved with that part of the SATO organization that’s after the president. I need your authority to set them free and restore their security clearances.”
“Are you speaking under duress?”
“Not at all. I’ve got a French border patrol pointing a gun at them.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“You’ll restore their names to the security rosters at CERN?”
“Just give me the guard.”
Everett handed the phone to the guard.
As they waited, Alec was curious about their detention. “Is this because they were looking for us?”
“Indirectly, yes. Not because of what you might be trying to do,” Everett said. “More because of what you already did.”
“Can you explain?”
“Do you want the long explanation?”
“This seems to be taking some time,” Alec said, indicating the guard, who was placing a few calls to his own superiors.
Where should Everett begin? “I have a good contact, an inspector named Tobias Bürgi, at the Swiss Federal Police. He gave me information in the aftermath of your boating incident. When Khalid Slimane died from the injuries he sustained during the storm, the Swiss identified him as a Polisario Front terrorist and assumed a French agent had killed him. The Swiss government threw a fit and expelled a random French diplomat in Geneva. The way it was handled made the French mad as hornets at the Swiss.”
Alec looked confused. “Why did the Swiss assume that it was a French agent?”
“It seems that O’Smythe and Proteus picked up Mick and Natalie’s trail and followed them all the way to the morgue.”
“Uh, that was probably me,” Natalie said, gingerly raising a hand. “I called SATO after we ‘identified’ the body.”
Everett cleared his throat. “Natalie, after you and Mick left the hospital, the guy entered the morgue, questioned, tortured and killed the coroner for a transcript of your final words. The poor coroner had already given the transcript to you and Mick.”
He looked at her, and she nodded.
“So, while at the morgue, Proteus dummied up a fake transcript to identify the body as Khalid Slimane.”
“What simpler ploy can you imagine than telling the truth?” Natalie said.
“Right,” Everett said.
“Also,” Alec added, “Proteus could get back at the real Khalid and his family.”
Everett hadn’t thought of that, but went on. “In the fake transcript, he accused a French agent of identifying Khalid as a Polisario Front terrorist and killing him.”
“So,” Natalie concluded, “your little death scene not only embroiled Mick and me in the middle of all this mess, it also managed to get a diplomat expelled from Switzerland and
make the French government retaliate.”
She pointed to the border guard, who remained in the hut with the gate down.
“Ergo, the long wait at the border,” Everett agreed.
“Okay, blame it all on me,” Alec said with a hapless smile. He turned to Everett. “But how did you and Mick get caught up in this?”
“Since you appear to have blown Proteus’ operation open, your British friend kidnapped Mick–”
“Kidnapped is a funny word to use,” Natalie interrupted. “He was seduced.”
Everett shot her a quizzical look, but continued. “And O’Smythe also tracked you down, Natalie, in order to find you, Alec.”
“He tracked me down like a bloodhound,” she added. “Then, of course, there was your other friend, Anaïs. She was tailing me in order to find you.”
“Anaïs? She has no particular skills.”
“It turns out she’s full of hidden talents,” Natalie said. “She saved my life after I threw myself off the balcony of the Château de Chillon. Note how she disappeared just now at the airport, and with no explanation? I think we’ve been dealing with real pros.”
The noonday sun was warm, but her tone of voice had brought a chill.
Alec was looking more than a little bewildered and concerned.
“You threw yourself off the Château de Chillon?”
Finally, the guard stashed his rifle away. He handed the phone back to Everett and raised the gate.
Everett was free to leave, and check for real leaks in security.
Natalie noticed a sober look on Alec’s face as he drove behind Everett’s roadster.
While Brahim had set the two of them free as soon as they had arrived at the airport that morning, Anaïs had willingly left with O’Smythe’s men.
Something about Anaïs was preoccupying his thoughts. Alec had either gotten careless with her, misread her, underestimated her, or had his heart ripped out by her. Natalie couldn’t tell which.
But wasn’t about to ask.
The two cars ascended a windswept hillside along the slope of the Jura Mountains, finally reaching a small settlement called Echenevex.