And always there was weeding.
The Irishman whom he had used to kill the chemist’s friend was useful in that regard. But he had other qualities that made him difficult to work with. Mussa did not mind the brutality — surely this was a trait of the profession, not to be lamented but rather praised. It was Donohue’s unmasked contempt that made him hard to stomach. Mussa had worked with Irishmen before; the peace in Northern Ireland had flooded the market with highly trained talent. As a rule, they were good at their particular specialty and close-mouthed. As long as they were paid promptly and as promised, there were rarely problems with their work. Their religion and their propensity toward drink — genetic, Mussa believed — were regrettable but not fatal. Donohue himself seemed not to drink, but he compensated by being more obvious in his contempt than most of his countrymen.
If he had not been so much better than them at what he did, Mussa would have cut off their relationship long ago.
“There you are,” said Donohue, appearing around the corner in the restaurant and sitting down.
“Bonjour,” said Mussa. “Hello.”
“Yeah. What is it you wanted?”
“Relax. Sit. Have some lunch.”
“I’ve told you, I don’t like meetings. They make no sense. They invite the police and busybodies.”
Mussa had just the opposite view — phones, e-mail, letters, all could be intercepted and recorded without one’s knowledge. Meeting someone in person was much safer. And it had the value of being more effective.
With most people.
“The police are never a problem for me,” said Mussa. “There are ways to persuade them.”
“You’ve never been in jail.”
Best to change the subject, he decided. “Your other job went well?”
“Your stooge gave me next to no information.”
“Now, now, it must have been sufficient. I’ve heard you did an excellent job. And you were paid.”
“Yes.”
The mention of money usually mollified him, but it seemed to have no effect today.
“I have another small task, similar to the last,” said Mussa. “This time in Paris.”
“I don’t do Paris. I stay out of France.”
Mussa was aware of Donohue’s rule. It was not so peculiar as it seemed — a professional assassin needed to have a place where he might feel less on-guard, and men such as Donohue often declared one country, or a part of it, “off-limits.” It was useless to argue with them about it: even though geographic safety was illusionary, the idea was nonetheless an important emotional factor, and emotion could not be broken by logic.
Money was another story.
“Would the payment of a million euros persuade you?” asked Mussa.
The look on Donohue’s face showed that it would. But the Irishman was no fool; his brow immediately knit and his face pitched forward in a frown. “For that, you’ll want the President or Prime Minister.”
“Hardly.” Mussa pushed the newspaper forward casually, his finger pointed to a name at the top of a column. The name was that of Monsieur Jacques Ponclare — the head of the Paris section of the Directorate of Territorial Security.
“You’re joking,” replied Donohue.
Mussa ignored the objection. “I have access to his schedule. It will be an easy affair to arrange, but the timing is critical.”
“This is considerably more difficult than anything I’ve done for you. Or your friends.”
“That is why the price is so much higher.”
“Twice your figure, or no deal.”
“Too much. I could use someone else.”
“Go ahead.”
The waiter approached. Mussa ordered an octopus salad for two. Donohue made a face at the word pieuvre— octopus — and Mussa relented and ordered a veal chop for him instead.
Neither man spoke as the waiter left, then returned with a bottle of mineral water.
“Twice what you said,” insisted Donohue when they were alone again. Mussa did not speak.
Lunch arrived; the Irishman remained. That, Mussa decided, was a good sign.
“So, have you considered my proposal?” he asked when he was finished.
“Twice what you said.”
Mussa sighed. The assassination was very important to him, as it would avenge his father’s death and there would be no opportunity for a second try if things went wrong. Perhaps the funds could be found — but agreeing to the outrageous price would make him feel as if he were going against his nature, as if he were surrendering to the assassin, a mere employee.
“What if we split the difference?” asked Mussa.
“Twice.”
“Let me contemplate it,” said Mussa, giving in, though he was not willing to admit it. “I will contact you in the usual way. In the meantime, a retainer for your time will be provided, as long as you stay on call for the next week.”
The idea of a retainer had obviously not occurred to Donohue, and he surrendered a rare smile. “Good food,” said the Irishman, pushing away from the table. “I’ll see you around.”
“Au revoir,” said Mussa, savoring the last morsel of octopus. If revenge tasted this sweet, surely it would be worth the price.
28
Dean had never thought much about showers until Vietnam. He’d gone weeks without taking any on his first tour as a sniper; when he finally came back the water seemed to spark across his body, a light electrical jolt enlivening nerves he didn’t know he’d had.
The shower he had at the Hilton Barcelona didn’t quite approach that one, but it was close. The bed wasn’t bad, either.
The Art Room had managed to insert a suitcase in the luggage at the airport for him with fresh clothes. Whoever had packed it had included three large candy bars, and while Dean ordinarily didn’t eat chocolate, he opened one in the taxi on the way to the airport in the morning to pick up Lia. He found himself reaching into the bag for a second one as the driver slid around the traffic near the terminal entrance.
Lia’s flight had stopped in Frankfurt and was running a few minutes late as Dean arrived at Terminal B. A few minutes ordinarily wouldn’t make much of a difference, but their flight for Casablanca was due to take off in less than forty-five minutes; she had to get over to Terminal A for the next plane. Casablanca was just the first leg of the journey; once they landed they had to grab a puddle jumper for Oujda in eastern Morocco, where their target was.
Lia would be doing most of the work when they got to Oujda. She had to go into a building and replace a miniature bugging device planted in a women’s room. The building was used as a communications center by a loosely knit terrorist network; the site was disguised as an office for an Islamic charity. This cover, however, provided a vulnerability, because the building was shared by other charity organizations, which would give Lia a pretext for visiting. She would arrive just after the office person she was supposed to see had left for home — she always left around four — excuse herself to go to the restroom where the bug was located, replace the unit, then leave.
Dean would back her up. Depending on the situation, he might take a look around the office of the fake charity group. The NSA was interested in collecting possible bank account numbers to track money the organization spread throughout the world. But that task was secondary to Lia’s. He wasn’t to do anything that would make them suspicious, let alone tip them off to the bug.
Missing the plane now would set everything back by at least a day and possibly a week, depending on the schedule of the charity organization they were using as a pretext for entering the building. Morocco might be nice, but Dean didn’t particularly want to spend a week there, especially that close to the Algerian border. He pulled out his satellite phone and leaned against the wall in a hallway, pretending to use the phone while he spoke to the Art Room.
“So where is she?” he asked Rockman.
“They’re just taxiing up now,” Rockman told him. “You should be able to just make it. Wa
it out in the main terminal. Don’t sweat the schedule. It’ll work out.”
* * *
Lia clutched her cany-on tightly as she headed down the hallway, cleared through Customs quickly with the help of the timely arrival of an airport manager — undoubtedly at the Art Room’s prompting. She noticed Dean approaching on her left and quickened her pace toward the other terminal.
“What’s up?” he asked, falling in beside her.
“Nothing.”
“How was the flight?”
“Lousy.”
“We’re running late.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“They update you on the situation?”
“Pretty much.”
“How was Korea?”
“Garden spot of the world.”
“That what happened to your eye?”
An urge came over her suddenly: turn and run out of the terminal, take a taxi into the city, go to a hotel — any hotel — and quit, just totally quit.
But she didn’t. She quickened her pace, following Rockman’s directions in her ear as they made her way to the other terminal building.
“We’re supposed to be on that plane,” said Dean to the clerk at the boarding gate.
The man looked up from his terminal. “Oh. Hold on. There’s some sort of computer glitch.”
“You sure?”
The clerk glanced down. His terminal was working again.
“Lucky thing for you,” he said. He found them in the computer and called over to the plane, which had experienced problems of its own and hadn’t pulled away yet.
“Nice to have friends in high places,” said Dean as they walked down the tunnel.
“Right,” said Lia.
* * *
Dean had known Lia long enough to realize she wasn’t the effusive type, but he expected a bit more of a hello. He stowed his bag in the overhead rack and sat next to her. Lia kept her head turned as if there was something interesting to see through the window.
“Hey,” he said softly. He reached to touch her shoulder gently; she jerked away.
He felt as if he’d walked in on the middle of a movie that was hard to follow. They’d spent a week together on the Maine shore after their last assignment — long, languid days steering a friend’s sailboat offshore and cool nights in the seashore village near the borrowed house. He’d loved the unhurried rhythm and casual intimacy.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“I’m fine, Charlie Dean,” she said. “Just fine.”
“That’s a good makeup job on your eye.”
“I suppose you’re an expert on makeup.”
“I’ve had a few black eyes in my day. What happened?”
“I walked into a door. What do you think?”
“You’re all right?”
“Peachy.”
All right, he told himself. Give her some space. He turned and leaned his seat back, closing his eyes as if there were actually a possibility he could relax enough to nap.
29
The chemist’s house was a small brick building close to the road and bordering on a large farm. The field of sunflowers had been harvested very recently, perhaps that morning, and Karr found that the smell tickled his nose in an unpleasant way. He started to sneeze as LaFoote unlocked the door to let them in, and then stood in the foyer sneezing.
The sneeze probably saved their lives.
As Karr reached for a handkerchief, he saw a thin thread strung across the bottom of the doorway to the left. He grabbed the Frenchman, pulling him down just as the back of the house exploded, showering them with debris. Karr pulled the old man with him as he crawled out. Just as he reached the path there was a second explosion, this one much louder and so violent that it rolled them into the nearby roadway. A fireball shot into the air. Large pieces of wood and stone began falling around them; a piece of brick about the size of a fist bounced off Karr’s shoulder, and an even larger one flew by as he got up.
LaFoote was breathing all right, but he was dazed, and it took Karr a good two or three minutes to get him back to full consciousness. By then, Telach had started screaming in Karr’s ear, asking what was going on, and there was a siren in the distance.
“I think there was an explosive rigged to ignite the gas main,” said Karr, speaking to LaFoote as well as the Art Room. “Or something. There was a thread on that inner doorway.”
“It wasn’t booby-trapped last week,” said LaFoote, coughing.
“All right, time for us to retreat if we can,” Karr said.
“Why?”
“Because my French isn’t up to an eight-hour workout with the police,” said Karr. “Come on.”
30
Mussa’s phone rang just as he was about to board the airplane. He hesitated before answering — if he used the phone, his self-imposed rules called for him to dispose of it, and that would mean that he would have no way of communicating before evening.
However, if he did not answer it, he would have lost whatever opportunity this information provided. So he pulled the phone from his pocket and stepped aside.
“Yes?” he answered cheerfully.
“The farmhouse has exploded.”
Mussa knew which farmhouse was being referred to — the chemist Vefoures’—but was nonetheless surprised. Of course, being surprised and showing it were two different things.
“A shame,” said Mussa. “We should do something for the family of the man who was sent to disarm it, though I suppose his carelessness was to blame.”
“It wasn’t him. He hadn’t gotten to it yet.”
Hadn’t gotten to it?
Mussa took a moment to stifle his anger. He had asked — directed — that the bomb be disabled within a few hours of learning that Donohue had done his job in England. The delay was inexcusable, though of course there would be some nonsensical excuse.
Another sign of corruption and seduction, the weakness of the West corroding Islamic values. When Mussa was young, orders were carried out promptly. Now, underlings worked on their own schedule.
“It was to be dismantled in only a few hours,” said his caller, sensing his anger.
“These complications are unfortunate and unwelcome,” said Mussa.
“No one was killed,” said the caller. “The police are there. One of our friends made sure to get close enough for information.”
“The bomb did not go off by itself,” said Mussa, barely keeping his calm.
“No. We have additional information. Someone saw a friend of the chemist, a Monsieur LaFoote, at mass the other day. You had asked about him the other day.”
LaFoote?
But the Irishman Donohue had already killed him. Even if one of Mussa’s network had not verified the shooting, he would have been confident that it had been carried out. Another man might have missed or botched the job, but not the obnoxious Donohue.
“LaFoote set off the bomb?”
“It seems possible.”
“You are sure it was LaFoote?”
“Yes.”
“Have you watched his house?”
“Not since you said it was unnecessary.”
LaFoote had been poking around into the chemist’s disappearance, raising trouble with the DST. He had even gone so far as to try to get American intelligence interested. Mussa had enough sources within the French intelligence agency so that he did not have to worry about problems from that quarter, at least not for the time being, but the Americans were a different matter entirely. Fortunately, the fool had made a call from Vefoures’ phone two or three weeks ago. When Vefoures was first approached to work for them the phone was tapped with an automated device that worked only when the call was placed; it had been a surprise to find a call had been made, and Mussa’s people had had some difficulty figuring out what was going on. Mussa, of course, had concluded it must be this LaFoote, who until now had only been an annoying ant, if that. And Mussa might not have been concerned, except that a number of CD-ROMs containing
data on the explosives had been taken, apparently by Vefoures before he was killed. The data on them was supposedly technical — but who knew?
Interestingly, the disks had not shown up in England.
LaFoote back at the house — perhaps the disks had been there all along? The house had been searched but must be searched again.
And this LaFoote — even an ant could be annoying.
“Prepare information on Mr. LaFoote for a friend. Precise information,” Mussa told his caller. “And this time, be sure that it includes photographs.”
“It will,” said the caller.
“Have Vefoures’ house searched again.”
“We have been over it twice. There are no CD-ROMs or anything that might—”
“Have the house searched again,” said Mussa. “And this time they may take whatever they find, including the money — but the search shall be thorough. And there will be an additional reward if you find the disks.”
“I will do it myself.”
I’ll bet you will, thought Mussa, pushing the button to end the call. As much as he disliked greed, it remained a most useful motivator.
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