Global Conspiracy

by David Shomron

  NINETEEN

  The next morning Anne phoned the prefecture and was invited by Inspecteur Marnier to visit. As before, she dropped by on her way to the university. She was cordially received and offered a hot drink.

  “Alors, Professeur Dupré, what can we do for you?” The inspector’s manner was proper and polite—the total opposite of his earlier gruffness at her apartment.

  “Well, I really don’t know, inspector,” Anne said. She felt she should have prepared something a bit more substantial to say. “I’m so upset about the murder of my dear friend. I suppose I just need to know if there were any developments in the investigation.”

  “We went over her apartment with a fine-tooth comb. There is no doubt that drugs were being used there, but Mme. Gerard’s autopsy showed no sign of drug usage. Our killer is probably a heavy user of hard drugs. We have a partial description of someone who could be him from witnesses who saw Mme. Gerard in the company of a tall and blond young man. We’re still checking this out. The interesting thing is that on the razor that killed her we found the fingerprints of two people.”

  Anne was hardly breathing.

  The inspector leaned forward. “I really shouldn’t be telling you all this, Professeur Dupré, as it is still under wraps. But I feel I need to compensate you somewhat for my behavior at your apartment a couple of days ago. For us it is just routine questioning, using routine techniques, so please don’t judge me too harshly. You, personally, are not a suspect—neither have you ever been one. Your name will not be mentioned to the press or anywhere else. You are, of course, free to leave Paris at any time you desire. If we need you, we know how to request your presence.”

  “Thank you, Inspecteur, that is very kind of you.”

  “And I trust you will not repeat anything of what I have told you to anyone, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Of course,” Anne replied. “Can you tell me anything about the funeral arrangements?”

  “Mademoiselle Gerard’s family resides far from Paris. We are trying to coordinate something with them. When we have a date—I assume it will not take more than a week—I will make sure you are informed.”

  “Merci bien, monsieur l’Inspecteur,” Anne said. “You have been very gracious.”

  The police officer smiled, got up, and held the door open for her. For a fleeting moment, Anne considered the possibility of suggesting that the police inquire around the theatre. But she dismissed the thought at once. Who am I to give advice to the police? They’ll poke fun at me, which will probably be worse than the treatment I got at my flat….

  In the taxi taking her to the university, Anne tried to put her thoughts in order.

  On the positive side we have exactly what Martin foresaw—I am not a suspect, and I am free to go where I please. On the other hand, I would expect the police to regard this case ‘oh dear—Tanya is a case now!’ with some more emphasis. I know they probably have other serious crimes to deal with—serial killers, rapists and God knows what else—but this, too, is a murder. I don’t suppose there would be any harm in snooping a bit around the theatre, would there? It would be perfectly natural for me to associate with Tanya’s friends and talk about her last days there—after all, I know some of them pretty well from the times Tanya and I used to meet at the theatre. Perhaps they would even reveal something about the blond man without my asking—if there were anything to talk about, these gossipy ladies would certainly say it.

  Anne made a mental note to schedule a visit to the theatre.

  TWENTY

  Three days later, after Martin had returned from the US, Anne called a board meeting at her place. After the usual preliminaries, they began their reports.

  “I have received Allier’s irradiation device,” Sir Cedric opened. “It resembles a mini-dishwasher. I have conducted all the tests I could in the lab, and they look fine. We now need to test it outdoors.”

  “That’s good,” Anne said. “We’ll schedule a test as soon as possible. Martin?”

  “Andrew Dodson is one of the smartest, talented and pragmatic people I have ever met. Not only did he coach me regarding where to go and what to do, he also went into minute detail describing the various persons I was about to meet. When he was through, I knew their character, their qualities, their emotions, and how to ‘charm the pants off them.’ Following that, everything went as smooth as silk. We should be getting the first deposit in a few days.”

  “Hear, hear,” muttered Sir Cedric, but he was smiling broadly.

  “Now let’s talk about the field tests,” Martin continued. “Before I left, I gave instructions to George Graham and John Carmichael. John was to find and lease the building we intended to use as our main lab-cum-workshop. He has experience in business transactions and easily gains the confidence of his partners in conversation. He came up with three possible options—in many aspects they resemble my gym.”

  “Where are these buildings,” Sir Cedric inquired.

  “One is not far from London. The two others are on the Paris periphery. I deliberated whether to search for purchase or lease options, and leasing won over. We may need to change our premises in a hurry if something unexpected occurs. The buildings are still being investigated.”

  “That will take care of the indoor testing,” the admiral said. “What about areas for the open air tests? Was that George’s task?”

  “I’ll get to George in a minute, admiral. No—that was the other task I’d assigned to John: finding a suitable location for our ‘commando exercises.’ It had to be deserted and remote but accessible to our vehicles. He has reported to me on two possible locations: one in Camargue in the south of France and the other in Scotland. We need to investigate both.”

  “And what do George and John know about us?” the admiral asked.

  “Nothing. They know that I have tasks to fulfill and that they are helping me out. They know better than to ask prying questions. They were just happy to be doing something ‘different.’ It goes without saying that if I say ‘task’ or ‘assignment,’ without going into details, the implication is that something clandestine is in the works.”

  Anne sounded very pleased.

  “Your man John has done a terrific job and in a very short time. I suppose one of us will need to accompany Martin to these locations—both buildings and open areas—and make decisions.”

  Admiral Stone raised his hand.

  “It would seem that I have the most time available,” he said. “I’ll go.”

  Martin gave a curt nod.

  “The more complex issue is the detonation of charges by irradiation from a plane. There were a number of ways to approach this task, and I must say George handled them thoroughly. He addressed the following issues: location for burying the charges, obtaining the various explosives, concocting a cover story for the team doing the work, method of smuggling the explosives into the country where the tests would take place, purchasing a plane and planning its official course.”

  Martin looked around, inviting questions. There were none.

  “Here is what we have,” he continued. “First, location for placing charges. Considering that we may have—in fact, we hope we’ll have—multiple explosions, we cannot conduct our tests anywhere in Europe. Our safest area would be the Sahara desert, far away from anybody! And we need to select one out of the ten countries surrounding the Sahara.”

  “Which one have you selected, Martin?” Anne asked.

  “Well, after checking and rechecking all aspects of security, tourism offerings, and vehicle accessibility in these countries, I recommend Tunisia as being most suitable. It caters to tourists. It has good land transport systems—I mean, roads leading everywhere and a reliable railway service—and there’s no problem in renting a vehicle of any type there.”

  “Makes sense,” Sir Cedric said. “How about obtaining the explosives?”

  “That was the easiest part of the plan.” Martin smiled. “Europe is rife with black market explosives. I know someone who ca
n provide all we need, no questions asked.”

  “I’m still wondering,” Sir Cedric mused, “what kind of excuse do we have for a group of people traipsing across the Tunisian desert with a load of highly irregular cargo? We’ll certainly draw unwanted attention to ourselves, and perhaps even raise the suspicion of the authorities.”

  “Right you are, Sir Cedric. And I’ve given this matter much thought. Some of the options we’ve tossed around are: a cross-country jeep race, an archeological search, naturalists on a desert trek, and so forth.”

  “They all sound pretty good to me,” Anne said.

  “However,” continued Martin, “the best option, in our opinion, is that we’re a movie crew working on a film, and that we need a few scenes shot in the desert. The cinema and the people associated with it seem to have a magical effect on everyone you confront. They are accepted like royalty everywhere they go, including the bowing and scraping and the red carpet. Almost all of their requests are fulfilled by the local authorities, no matter how eccentric they may appear to be.”

  Anne smiled.

  “Yes—I like that even better,” she said. “How would we need to prepare for that?”

  “Well,” Martin said, “we’ll need to register a movie company with an address here or in London—actually, anywhere would do—acquire the necessary movie gear and equipment, have a script of the movie we mean to shoot, and an actor or actress.”

  “I can envisage buying equipment,” the admiral said. “But where do you hope to find a script and actors?”

  Martin laughed.

  “In fact movie scripts can be bought at a ‘dime a dozen,’ as our American friends would say. Any aspiring cinematographic student would be overjoyed to sell us his script for peanuts. Once we have all the rights to the script, we just modify it to suit our needs. As to the stars—well, any one of my lads could fill that role. The female star just has to look young and gorgeous. She wouldn’t need to know exactly what we’re doing, just be familiar with the script. If we actually do any real shooting and we have an audience watching us, she’ll have to say a couple of lines. She’ll need to come out with us to the desert only once, for the sake of the show. The rest of the time she’ll be in one of the southern cities, or we could just send her home ahead of us.”

  “What did you mean—go to the desert only once?” the admiral asked. “How many times do you need for the experiment?”

  “Here’s the scenario the way I see it. Arrive at our base city, still to be established but probably near the desert, settle down at the hotel, and rent vehicles. First trek to desert—look for shooting location—which will in fact be a search for an area to place our charges. If we’re lucky, we’ll find such a place and bury our explosives. We’ll shoot a scene or two with our star, and return to base. We can send her home now, if everything went smoothly. However, this step may need to be repeated as many times as necessary until we find a suitable spot for the test. Then we need to schedule the flyover with the irradiation gear—I’ll get to that in a minute—while we’re far away, probably at our hotel, and then we’ll need at least one more desert trip to examine the results.”

  “Looks like a very sound plan to me,” Anne said. “I suppose you already have the ‘young and gorgeous star’ on standby, don’t you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” Martin smiled again. “Only she doesn’t know it yet. George Graham’s sister is a ‘drop-dead knockout,’ if I may use another Americanism. I’m sure she’ll be tickled pink by the idea. Anyway, if she turns out to be unsuitable we can easily find another.”

  Anne felt a twinge of annoyance that Martin could call another woman a ‘drop-dead knockout.’ She knew that she herself would never fit that description. Was that Martin’s type?

  “Now about the charges,” Martin continued. “We need a way to bring them into our selected country. We think the best way would be to disguise them as tinned food—part of our provisions for the desert trip.”

  “And what kind of aircraft were you considering?” Anne asked.

  “As you know, George is our aviation man. He poked around and recommended that the best plane for us would be a Dassault Falcon 900 EX, an executive jet. He was probably also intuitively preparing for future operations as well. Anyway, this aircraft can carry twelve passengers and fly eight thousand miles without refueling. It has a cargo area in the rear with in-flight access from the passenger cabin. It has an automatic pilot and a GPS navigation system, allowing the pilot to leave his seat during the flight—for instance, to access the cargo area. I won’t bother you with additional technical details.”

  “How much will it cost?” Sir Cedric asked. “And how do you go about making such an acquisition? I mean, I don’t suppose you just walk into a shop, browse around several models, and tell the salesman ‘Could I take that one for spin, please?’”

  “We’ll leave that to George,” Martin answered. “I’ve already said he comes from a very wealthy family, and a purchase such as this would not seem out of place. However, he will need to learn how to fly the jet, and I suggest he begins training immediately.”

  “You can tell him to go ahead,” Anne said. “Agreed?” The others nodded.

  “Now—Professor Allier’s irradiating machine. We’ll need—”

  “It weighs about eighty-five kilograms,” Sir Cedric said. “Shouldn’t be a weight problem for a plane that can carry twelve passengers. The dishwasher comparison I gave earlier applies both to its size and shape. I have nicknamed it ‘Excalibur.’”

  “Thank you, Sir Cedric. Excalibur it is. At any rate, all this camouflaging—don’t forget the charges in the food cans—will necessitate a well-equipped workshop. I’m talking about a computerized lathe, heavy and light welding apparatus, drills of all type, and so forth.”

  “I seem to recall,” Admiral Stone said, “that civil aviation regulations call for all pilots to submit their flight course, including the destination airport, ahead of time. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, admiral. The maps we’ve studied indicate that if we select a certain desert region in southwest Tunisia,” Martin produced a map of North Africa and pointed to an X he had marked on it, “it would be directly on the flight route from Tunis, Tunisia’s capital, to Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria and its main airport. It looks quite distant on the map, and the route crosses a few other countries, but the entire route is slightly less than two thousand miles—about a quarter of the maximum range of the aircraft. And from Lagos we could fly anywhere we pleased—Paris or London included.”

  “You haven’t answered Sir Cedric’s question, Martin,” the admiral said. “How much will the plane cost?”

  “About twenty million dollars. And I can assure you it will be used several times for future operations.”

  Sir Cedric laughed.

  “I know I should be shocked and outraged at this exorbitant price,” he said. “But for some reason I’m not. And not only because the money is coming out of somebody else’s pocket. We have the money, or will pretty soon, and I regard the sum as a legitimate expense item.”

  “If we’re agreed to the plan I have just described in detail,” Martin continued, “I’ll arrange a preliminary reconnaissance trip to Tunisia. One of you will need to come along. Then George will begin taking flying lessons on executive jets, and John will rent a building for our workshop.”

  “I’m still the one with the uncluttered agenda,” the admiral said. “I’ll join you in the trip to Tunisia.”

  “Just a minute, gentlemen,” Anne said. “There’s still something we need to clear up. I have met Martin’s boys, or team, or whatever. Each one of them is an extraordinary and exceptional person. But, as Martin has already insinuated, it seems that they will be heavily involved in all the stages of what we’re doing. Therefore, I believe we should not simply rely on their loyalty to Martin for keeping what they know secret. It is my opinion that they should all be recruited immediately according to our formal methods, like every o
ther of our associates, and sworn to secrecy and loyalty regarding our cause. Even so, each one will know only what’s relevant to his specific task.”

  “You have a point, Anne,” the admiral said, while Sir Cedric nodded his assent. “What do you think, Martin?”

  “Fine with me,” Martin answered. “We’ve always been a team on missions. I could finalize the issue in one meeting with all five of them.”

  “And what if one of them declines or refuses?” Anne insisted.

  “That,” Martin said firmly, “is not an option. We have a sacred motto that, although not original, is very appropriate: One for all and all for one! Anne, are we adjourning this meeting?”

  Anne waited for a second and, when no comments were heard, said simply, “Yes.”

  “Good,” Martin said. “Admiral Stone, I shall call you in London to coordinate our visit to Scotland to investigate the fertilizer test location.”