The building was in poor repair, the steps worn smooth from decades of hard-soled shoes, the banister broken in a couple of places. It was not the kind of building that either Deschesnes or his lover would have chosen as a residence, Ambler was sure, but it was easily afforded, a pied-à-terre whose expense would not noticeably affect the household budget of either.
When Deschesnes came to the door, he saw a man in a respectable winter coat holding out a bunch of flowers with his left hand. Ambler hardly looked like a deliveryman, but his open, pleasant smile reassured the Frenchman, and he opened the door wider to take the bouquet.
Ambler dropped the bouquet and extended his right foot into the door. His right hand was holding the Glock, aimed at the Frenchman’s abdomen.
The Frenchman cried out and, rearing back, tried to slam the heavy wooden door. At the same time, Ambler lunged forward, shoulder first, and the door slammed futilely against the doorstop.
The Frenchman had been hurled back several feet, his face drained of color. Ambler could see him desperately scanning the room behind him for some potential weapon or shield. Moving swiftly, Ambler closed the door behind him, securing the door chain and deadbolt with his free hand; they would not be disturbed.
Now he stepped toward Deschesnes, forcing him back into the sitting room. “Be quiet or I will use this,” Ambler said in English. He had to project an aura of overwhelming force.
As he had thought, Deschesnes was alone. The winter sunlight was beaming through the large window opposite the door and casting a silvery glow onto a sparsely furnished living room. There was a bookshelf with a few books, a coffee table covered with newspapers, typescripts, and magazines. It had been an advantage before that the whole room was visible from the street; now it was a disadvantage.
“Bedroom?” Ambler asked.
Deschesnes jerked his head to the left toward a doorway and Ambler marched him across to it.
“You’re alone?” Ambler asked as he scanned the bedroom.
Deschesnes nodded. He was telling the truth.
The man before Ambler was large framed but soft, with the expanding girth of too many expensive meals, too little exercise. Fenton’s workup had described a man who was truly a force for evil in the world. Take care of Benoit and you’ll be the equivalent of a made man. Then we’ll talk. If Fenton was correct, the UN dignitary deserved death, and by arranging that death Ambler could infiltrate into the very heart of Fenton’s enterprise. He would obtain the knowledge he sought. He would learn who he really was—and was not.
The bedroom had opaque roller shades, and Ambler, keeping the physicist within his sights, pulled the blinds down. He sat on the arm of a sofa by the window, piled up untidily with clothes. “Sit,” he said, pointing the gun at the bed. Then he sat still for a moment, staring intently at Deschesnes.
With slow movements, the Frenchman withdrew his billfold from his pocket.
“Put that away,” Ambler said.
Deschesnes froze, his fear compounded with confusion.
“I’m told your English is pretty good,” Ambler went on, “but if you don’t understand anything I say, just tell me.”
“Why are you here?” These were Deschesnes’ first words.
“Didn’t you know this day would come?” Ambler said quietly.
“I see,” Deschesnes said. A sorrowful look came over him. He sat down as if winded. “Then you are Gilbert. It’s funny, but I always assumed you were French. She never told me you were not. Not that we ever talked about you. I do know that she loves you, that she has always loved you. Joelle, she was always up-front about this. What we have—what we have is a different thing. It is not sérieuse. I don’t expect you to excuse or forgive, but I must tell you—”
“Monsieur Deschesnes,” Ambler broke in, “I have no connection to Joelle. This has nothing to do with your personal life.”
“But then—”
“It has everything to do with your professional life. Your covert professional life. Those are the true liaisons dangereuses. I refer to your connections with those whose hearts are set on nuclear weaponry. Those you are too eager to please.”
A look of pure bewilderment appeared on Deschesnes’ face—the kind of bewilderment it was extremely difficult to fake. Was it that his English was limited? It seemed utterly fluent, but perhaps his comprehension was imperfect.
“Je voudrais connaître votre rôle dans la prolifération nucléaire,” Ambler said, enunciating clearly.
Deschesnes replied in English. “My role in nuclear proliferation is a matter of public record. I have spent a career working against it.” He broke off, suddenly wary. “A ruffian invades a residence of mine and holds me at gunpoint, and I am supposed to talk about my vocation? Who sent you? What in God’s name is this about?”
“Call it a performance review. Speak to the point or you’ll never speak again. No games. No second-guessing.”
Deschesnes’ eyes narrowed. “Did Actions des Français send you?” he asked, referring to the organization of antinuclear activists. “Do you people realize how incredibly counterproductive this is—acting as if I am the enemy?”
“Speak to the point,” Ambler barked. “Tell me about your meeting with Dr. Abdullah Alamoudi in Geneva last spring.”
The UN eminence looked bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m asking the questions here, goddammit. Are you pretending you don’t know who Dr. Alamoudi is?”
“Certainly I know who he is,” the Frenchman returned, with wounded dignity. “You refer to a Libyan physicist who is on our watchlist. We believe him to be involved in a secret weapons program involving various Arab League nations.”
“Then why would the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency be meeting with such a person?”
“Why indeed?” Deschesnes spluttered. “Alamoudi would no more be caught in the same room as me than a mouse would curl up with a cat.” Ambler detected no trace of deception.
“And how do you explain your trip to Harare last year?”
“I cannot,” the UN eminence said simply.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Because I have never been to Harare.”
Ambler stared at him intently. “Never?”
“Never,” the man said stoutly. “Where are you getting this information? Who has supplied you with such lies? I should like to know.” He paused. “It was Actions des Français, wasn’t it?” A crafty look crept over his face. “They served a useful role once. Now they consider me a turncoat. They doubt everything they see, everything they hear. The truth is, if they wanted to know where I stood, what I did, they could read the newspapers or turn on the radio.”
“Words and deeds do not always match.”
“Exactement,” Deschesnes said. “You tell your friends at Actions des Français that they would do more good if they put honest pressure on our elected officials.”
“I’m not with Actions des Français,” Ambler returned steadily.
Deschesnes’ gaze returned to Ambler’s handgun. “No,” he said after a while. “Of course not. Those xenophobes would never entrust anything important to an American. Then you are . . . CIA? I suppose their intelligence is just bad enough to explain such a blunder.” Ambler could tell Deschesnes was struggling between his indignation and his desire to calm an intruder who was holding him at gunpoint in his pied-à-terre. Volubility, and indignation, seemed to gain the upper hand. “Perhaps you should give your employers a message directly from me. Fill their intelligence dossiers with the truth, for a change. Because the truth is that the great nations of the West have been criminally negligent on the greatest threat the world now faces. And America isn’t the exception: it’s the prime culprit.”
“I don’t recall your speaking with such candor before the members of the UN Security Council,” Ambler taunted.
“My UN reports spell out the facts. I leave the rhetoric for others. But the bare facts are shaming enough
. North Korea has enough plutonium for several nuclear warheads. Iran does as well. More than twenty other states have so-called research reactors with ample highly enriched uranium to build their own nuclear bombs. And of those bombs that already exist, hundreds are stored in conditions of risible security. A silk blouse at a Samaritaine department store is better secured than many Russian nuclear warheads. It’s a moral obscenity. The world should be terrified, and yet you people could care less!” The UN eminence was breathing hard, voicing the fury that had driven his career, his early fear and confusion almost forgotten as he spoke.
Ambler was shaken; he could no longer doubt the man’s sincerity—not without doubting his own perceptions.
Someone had set Deschesnes up.
Yet at what remove? Fenton betrayed not the slightest doubt about the “source integrity” behind the assignment. How far up—or down—did the intrigue go? And what motivated it?
Ambler needed to know who, and he needed to know why. But the Frenchman was little help here.
Now, from the window, Ambler saw a small black-haired woman approach the entrance from the street. Joelle, no doubt.
“Is there anyone home in the apartment upstairs?” Ambler demanded.
“The neighbors all work,” Deschesnes said. “There is never anyone home before six. But what does that matter? I do not have the key. And Joelle—”
“I’m afraid we haven’t finished our conversation,” Ambler said. “I would prefer not to involve Joelle. If you agree . . .”
Deschesnes nodded, ashen.
Pistol still in hand, Ambler followed the Frenchman as he made his way to the floor above. The door was indeed locked, but that was hardly more than a formality. Ambler had observed how flimsy the knob latches were in the building, shallow brass tongues mounted in decaying wood. With a sudden movement, he slammed his hip into the door. It gave in, with a small explosion of splintered wood, and the two walked inside. Below, Joelle would have been approaching the bottom landing. She would be puzzled that Deschesnes had failed to show, but there were many possible explanations. Ambler would leave it to Deschesnes to settle on one.
The fifth-floor apartment looked scarcely inhabited—there was an oval rug of jute, a few battered items of furniture that would not have made the grade at a flea market—but it would suffice. At Ambler’s insistence, the two spoke in hushed voices.
“Let’s stipulate,” Ambler said, “that I have indeed been supplied with false information. That you have enemies who mean to set you up. Then the question for us is why.”
“The question for me is why you don’t get the hell out of my life,” Deschesnes replied, in a gust of cold fury. He had decided that he was no longer in immediate danger of being shot. “The question for me is why you insist on waving that gun in my face. You want to know who my enemies are? Then look in the mirror, you American cowboy! You are my enemy.”
“I’ll put the gun away,” Ambler said. As he did so, he added, “But it won’t make you any safer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Because there are many more where I come from.”
Deschesnes blenched. “And you are from . . . where?”
“It’s not important. What’s important is that powerful officials have been assured that you pose a major risk to international security. Again, why would that be?”
Deschesnes shook his head. “I can’t think of any reason why,” he finally said. “As the director-general of the IAEA, I am something of a symbol of international resolve on this issue—leaving aside the fact that this resolve is, too often, merely symbolic. My views about the nuclear menace are common sense, shared by millions of people and thousands of physicists.”
“But surely some of your work isn’t public. Surely some of it involves confidential dealings.”
“We do not release provisional findings, as a rule. But almost all of it is destined to become public, when the time is right.” He paused. “The main unreleased work I am doing now is on a report on the Chinese role in proliferation.”
“What have you found?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Ambler walked over to the window, watched as the petite brunette walked hesitantly from the building and back to the sidewalk. She would have questions; they would be answered later.
“Despite what the American government says and the French government says and NATO says, there is no evidence at all that China is currently involved in proliferation. Liu Ang has, from everything we have been able to determine, strongly abjured the spread of atomic technology. The only question is whether he will be able to keep the Chinese military under control.”
“How many people are working on this report?”
“Just a handful of staffers, in Paris and Vienna, though we are processing information from a large team of arms inspectors and analysts. But I am the principal author. I alone am in a position to confer on it the complete credibility of my office.”
Ambler felt his frustration rising. Deschesnes may have been an innocent man, but he was also, and by the same token, an irrelevant man. He was just another aging Frenchman, one of dubious private morality, perhaps, but undoubted public probity.
Yet there had to be a reason for someone—or some group—to have ordered his death. And if Ambler did not fulfill the assignment, others would not hesitate to do so.
Ambler squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then saw what he had to do.
“Vous êtes fou! Absolument fou” was Deschesnes’ first response when Ambler explained the situation.
“Perhaps,” Ambler replied placidly. He knew he had to get the Frenchman’s confidence. “But consider. The people who sent me are serious. They have the resources. If I don’t kill you, they’ll send someone else. But if we can persuade them you’re dead, and you can disappear for a while, I have a chance of finding out who’s set you up. It’s the only way you’ll be safe.”
Deschesnes stared at him. “Insanity!” He stopped. “And exactly how could such a thing be done?”
“I’ll contact you in a few hours when I’ve worked out the details,” Ambler replied. “Is there a place you can retreat to for a week or so, a place you won’t be found?”
“My wife and I have a place in the country.”
“Near Cahors,” Ambler broke in impatiently. “They know that. You can’t go there.”
“Joelle’s family has a place near Dreux. They never go there in the winter. . . .” He stopped. “No. No, I can’t involve her. I won’t involve her.”
“Listen to me,” Ambler said, after a long pause. “It shouldn’t take me more than a week or two to deal with this. I suggest you rent a car—don’t use your own. Drive south and stay somewhere in Provence for a couple of weeks. If the plan works, they won’t be looking for you. Send me a phone number at this e-mail address.” Ambler wrote it on a piece of paper for him. “I’ll call you when it’s safe.”
“And what if you don’t call?”
Then I’ll be dead, Ambler thought. “I’ll call,” he said. He smiled coolly. “You have my word.”
SIXTEEN
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Clayton Caston could not stop himself; he found his gaze drifting toward the coffee stain on Caleb Norris’s oatmeal carpeting. Perhaps it would never come out. Perhaps the solution was to wait until the rest of the carpet was stained with coffee, rendering the whole thing a uniform hue. That was one way to hide something: change the nature of its surroundings. There was an idea lurking in that.
Norris’s voice interrupted his musings. “So what happened?”
Caston blinked. Dust motes were visible in the morning light that filtered through Norris’s window. “Well, as you know, we’ve got a bunch of people who were teamed with him in one place or another. So I tried to figure out what our man’s last assignment was in the field. Turned out to be in Taiwan. The question is, who was the OIC—the officer in charge? Because the final report should have had the authorizing signa
ture of the OIC. I figure the OIC is going to know who Tarquin was before he was Tarquin. Maybe he was the person who recruited Tarquin in the first place.”
“And who signed at the X?”
“No signature. Authorization was coded. OIC alias was Transience.”
“So who’s Transience?”
“Couldn’t get that.”
“Our jobs would be a lot easier if the CIA was entrusted with the identity of Cons Ops agents,” Norris said grumpily. “Their precious ‘partition principle’—all too often it means you end up pinning the donkey tail to your own goddamn ass.”
The auditor turned to face him squarely. “Like I say, I couldn’t get it. So you’re going to get it. I want you to call the person who runs the Political Stabilization Unit, Ellen Whitfield, and ask the undersecretary directly. You’re an ADDI; she has to pay attention.”
“Transience,” Caleb Norris repeated. “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this. . . .” He stopped at Caston’s pointed scowl. “I just mean that there are a lot of unknowns. Like you’re always saying, there’s a difference between risk and uncertainty, right?”
“Well, sure. Risk is quantifiable. Uncertainty isn’t. It’s one thing to know there’s a fifty-fifty chance of something going wrong. It’s another not to know what the chances are at all.”
“So it’s a matter of knowing what you don’t know. And not knowing.” Norris took a deep breath and turned to Caston. “My worry is that we’re in a situation where we don’t even know how much we don’t know.”
As Caston returned to his office, he felt a growing sense of—well, uncertainty, he supposed. Adrian was looking inappropriately buoyant, as he usually did, but there was something restful about Caston’s own tidy desk: the pen and pencil close together but not touching, the thin manila folder two inches to their left, the screen of his computer exactly aligned with the edge of his desk.
Caston sat down heavily, his fingers pausing over that computer keyboard. Risk, uncertainty, ignorance: the concepts sprouted in his mind like weeds in a seedbed.
The Ambler Warning Page 24