“Fortunately,” the admiral said, “I have had a lot of time to think this over before arriving here. Let’s examine a number of options—and then you can judge for yourselves. The simplest thing to do is to let him carry on as he pleases—we know he won’t solve the case. Then I thought of notifying his superiors of the fact that he is still working on a case contrary to their ruling. They could then, possibly, stop him.”
“But we couldn’t be sure it worked,” Anne said.
“Nothing in life is guaranteed, Anne,” Sir Cedric chuckled. “I can guarantee that!”
“Please let me finish,” the admiral said. “There’s the possibility of sending him an anonymous letter, which we tailor to send him on a wild goose chase. This could be rather tricky, as the letter needs to be written by someone with a motive to ‘assist’ the commissaire … I haven’t thought this one out completely yet.”
“We could send him a threatening note, couldn’t we?” Sir Cedric said, half-jokingly.
There was a short silence.
“I had considered that option as well,” the admiral said. “A man like Duval has many enemies. He has put many law offenders behind bars and there would surely be a few who would be ready to … umm … dispose of him.”
“Very true,” Sir Cedric said. “Revenge is quite common in criminal circles.”
“I refrained from suggesting this method because I believe it will serve as an excuse to reopen the case. Investigations may become even more intensive. We do not want that!”
“You could be right,” Sir Cedric said.
“Well then, gentlemen,” Anne said determinedly. “What do you propose we do?”
“I don’t think that threatening him will work.” Martin spoke for the first time. “Instead of keeping him away from us it might do the opposite—encourage him to get to the bottom of the case. In my opinion, the best way lies in informing his superiors, or the Investigating Magistrate who closed the case, that Duval is disobeying their ruling. The question now is how to do it? An anonymous letter to the authorities may backfire on us—suspicion may fall on Anne, as she was the one harassed by Duval.”
“I suppose that goes for an anonymous phone call as well,” Anne remarked.
“Do you have a suggestion?” Sir Cedric asked.
“How about an article in the press that hints at something like ‘Professor Allier’s murder to be solved soon. Commissaire Duval, who is still investigating the case, will soon reveal all.’ I suppose we could get it worded better.”
“Not such a bad idea,” Sir Cedric said. “But how do you propose to leak this disinformation to the press?”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” the admiral said. “Newspapers love anonymous letters, and they’ll never reveal their sources—especially if they don’t know who they are. However, any journalist worth his beans will want to know why the anonymous letter was sent. In other words, the letter should contain the motive for its dispatching. That’s a bit tougher.”
Another short silence.
“Very well, gentlemen,” Anne said. “Would anyone like to summarize our discussion? No? Well, in the absence of a definite method, let’s decide that for now we shall permit Commissaire Duval to follow whatever he’s following. We’re pretty sure he’ll discover nothing. However, at the same time please think of a method we can use to halt his investigation. If an anonymous letter to the press is your solution, please draft up something that will also contain the reason for it being sent. Are we agreed?”
No one objected.
“Then let’s continue with the issues at hand. The first operative task is Martin’s trip to Iran. Martin, please report.”
“I have recruited the girl—Patricia Welles, George Graham’s sister—the same girl who posed as an actress for our ‘movie’ in Tunisia. She is financially secure, unemployed, and pleased at the opportunity to be of use to an important cause. I gave her the task of preparing everything for the Iran trip, and she performed outstandingly. In fact, all we are waiting for now is the green light from this board, and we’ll be on our way. It could even be tomorrow.”
“Any dissent?” Anne asked. “None. Good. You’ve got your green light, Martin. Let’s get on to other matters now. I think we should have a stock on hand of the materials we have already tested—a few sacks of fertilizer and gravel, two or three kilograms of pellets, a couple of dozen acoustic disruptors, etc. Also, I think we should ask Mr. Rosetti if his device could be made smaller—much smaller. In fact, I dare say that the size of a cellular phone would be the largest option for us. So please, all of you, ask your inventors for a healthy amount of their stuff.”
“Don’t forget that they could be quite bulky to ship,” Sir Cedric said.
“I know, Cedric, but it really doesn’t matter. They all resemble normal, commercial materials. And they could be shipped quite innocently to our ‘cowshed.’”
“Yes, that’ll work,” the admiral said. “Just don’t forget to instruct your suppliers to utilize private shipping or delivery companies, and to leave the sender’s particulars as vague as possible.”
“I’ll have a word along those lines with Boulanger regarding ‘wasp,’” Anne said. “Now, there’s another thing I wanted to bring up. We need to stay in contact with our generous financers. I’ll talk to Dodson, and Patrick—please say hello to Mr. Neil Bennett.”
“Right-ho!” the admiral said.
“Finally,” Anne said. “I’d like to remind you all that we need to find a computer whiz, a hacker, who can penetrate into remote computers. Probe among your friends, neighbors, and relations—he’s hiding out there somewhere.
“That’s it, gentlemen. Due to Duval’s interference, you may not contact me directly. At least, not until things clear up. I doubt very much that there’s a tap on my telephone, but if Duval got assistance from Scotland Yard, he could just as easily have accomplices in Paris. We’re taking no risks. The admiral here will take my place in administrative matters, and I will contact him only. From public phones, of course.”
The meeting had taken about four hours. During this entire period, Martin had not managed to make eye contact with Anne. She appeared wholly immersed in the discussion. Her gaze would go around all those present—himself included—but it never lingered on him.
She must be far more stressed than I imagined, he convinced himself. Duval’s investigation must have strained her self-control to the limit. She is playing her role marvelously, despite the immense tension she must be experiencing. She wants to appear natural and businesslike.
The meeting ended. Anne suggested they leave one by one at five-minute intervals, and that she would leave first. When it was Martin’s turn, he half expected to find her waiting for him outside the hotel, but he realized she was following the rules all the way.
Disappointed and downhearted, he boarded the train to Paris and to the meeting with Patricia. They had to book a flight to Tehran.
On the train to Paris, Martin couldn’t help remembering that he and Anne had spent about four hours in the same room and had not exchanged a single word. Not even a glance. He would have liked to say goodbye to her before his trip, even just by phone, but she had forbidden anyone to call her. He was at a loss. For a moment, he thought he could override her ban with the excuse that he was a relative and therefore outside her ruling—he was calling as a cousin interested in how she was doing. But he quickly abandoned that idea—it would probably make her furious with him. I’ll try again when we get back from Iran, her thought. I hope that by then things will have returned to normal.
But he was still bothered by Duval’s private investigation. Martin tried to reconstruct every stage the device went through from the moment it was purchased. He shut his eyes and replayed the delivery scenario in his mind. It had gone off perfectly! No one saw the boys arrive or leave. It was a nuisance that that disagreeable French police officer decided to bother everyone who knew Allier, as he was probably pestering many Parisians, too. But that did
not alter the fact that there was an investigation, and that Anne was on the list of people questioned.
He met with Patricia that same evening, and they booked a flight to Tehran on the next day.
Meanwhile, Admiral Stone called Neil Bennett from his Brussels hotel suite.
“Hello, Admiral. I am pleased to hear your voice.”
“I called you for three reasons,” the admiral said. “First, to see how you were doing.”
Bennett chuckled.
“All things considered, quite well, thank you.”
“And second, to thank you once again for your generous donation, and to assure you that great advances have been made as a result.”
“That’s good to hear,” the old man said. “I intended to transfer another sum this week. Do you remember what I specifically requested from you?”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Bennett. That was my third point. You wanted to see results as soon as possible. It is my belief that you will not have to wait very long, though I cannot give you a definite date.”
“Keep up the good work, admiral.”
“My deepest thanks to you, and I speak on behalf of the team as well.”
The admiral hung up. He considered calling Gustav Lemke as well, but thought the hour was too late—tomorrow would do fine.
Sir Cedric preferred to return to London. He took a taxi to the airport and boarded the first plane home. He’d call Rosetti and Hoffman in the morning. Damn that interfering French commissaire!
Anne wondered what she would say to Alfred Boulanger. She would have preferred to meet him face to face, and find out how Sir Cedric’s laser could be tested from Boulanger’s satellite. She understood absolutely nothing about this, and she needed a slow and detailed explanation from the inventor. She needed to call Dodson, too.
Anne suddenly felt very tired. It was all too much. She decided to spend the night in another hotel in Brussels, and call from there in the morning. Perhaps she would even think of where to meet Boulanger.
As for you, Martin Cooper—you can go to hell!
FIFTY
The Air France flight landed at Mehrabad airport in Tehran. Martin and Patricia took a taxi to the Esteghlal Hotel, in the northern part of the city, where they had booked two adjacent rooms. In a country run by ayatollahs, where women walked around with veiled faces, they felt it would be better to stay in separate rooms, as they were not traveling as a married couple.
Sir Cedric decided to meet with Rosetti in Milan—the miniaturization of ‘Paganini’ was too sensitive a subject to be discussed over the phone. Their meeting began with a warm embrace.
“It’s so good to see you again, Emilio,” Sir Cedric said. “I wished to tell you personally what I said over the phone—that our tests with your invention went off beautifully!”
“Bene, bene!” Rosetti was beaming. “Tell me more.”
“At first we were afraid that silencing all the communications in a large city would raise a public uproar. Perhaps even an official inquiry. So we chose somewhere less prominent. And—everything went exactly the way you said it would!”
“Did the television sets continue to operate?” Rosetti inquired eagerly.
Sir Cedric described the outcome of the tests. All audio devices had ceased to function, including the television speakers. And there was no public outcry when two minutes later everything returned to normal.
“The populace attributed the effect to freak weather conditions,” Sir Cedric laughed.
“I am very pleased,” Rosetti said. “Let’s drink a toast to our success.”
“Certainly, Emilio. But first, there is something I would like to ask you.”
“Si?”
“I was wondering if the device could be made in smaller dimensions. You see, we will need many of them, and they will need to be transported to all kinds of locations—and some of these locations could be very … er … sensitive, if you know what I mean.”
“When I first designed this device, amico mio, that was not one of my concerns. On the contrary—I thought that an ordinary-looking household appliance would raise the least suspicion. But now that you mention your preference, I can tell you that it would be no problem to make the device smaller—even to the size of a pack of cigarettes. It could be hidden in a shaving machine, a small camera …”
“A cellular phone?” Sir Cedric asked.
“Certainly! Anything you wish.”
Sir Cedric was excited.
“That’s wonderful!” he gushed. “It will be an enormous contribution to our cause! We won’t need to search for rooms or shops to place the devices. Almost anywhere will do.”
“I’ll get to work on it. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Umm, it would be better if I called you, Emilio. We’re adopting stricter security measures. How about in a week? Two?”
“You are wise to be so cautious,” the Italian said with a smile. “Let’s say in ten days?”
The two friends parted with a handshake and another embrace.
Commissaire Duval was frustrated. He had sent Inspecteur Marnier to the flea market with photocopies of the ‘murder weapon’ with no results whatsoever. There seemed to be only one way to continue. On one hand, he knew how to manipulate his underlings without any concern about their own problems. On the other, he abhorred requesting the aid of friends and acquaintances. He had made an exception with MacLeod, at Scotland Yard, and felt very uncomfortable about it. Now he was forced to do so again. An old associate of his from high school days, Jules Racine, was an electronics engineer who owned a repair shop in the nineteenth arrondissement. There was no point in taking the photographs to him—he would need to examine the actual object. That wasn’t going to be easy. There was a rigorous bureaucratic procedure for taking articles out of the police storerooms. But he would think of something.
FIFTY-ONE
After a good night’s rest, Martin and Patricia enjoyed a rich breakfast and immediately booked a tour of the city of Tehran.
On the bus, which departed half an hour later, they were joined by a few couples and an English-speaking guide. They visited the Royal Palace Museum in the buildings of the Central Bank of Iran, where the Iranian monarchy’s treasures were on public display. These were so breathtakingly beautiful that Patricia doubted if there was anything like it in the whole world. They drove through the main streets of Tehran, noting especially the wide boulevard renamed from Pahlavi Street to Valiasr—a reference to the 12th Shi’ite Imam—Avenue. There was a wide difference between the modern and opulent north of the city and the ancient southern part, with its very different ambience. Black, the color of the “chador,” the traditional garb worn by Iranian women that covered them from head to toe, was seen almost everywhere. Here and there, Martin and Patricia observed “decency” patrols who would occasionally detain a woman who may have accidentally allowed a stray hair to be visible. Sometimes these women were arrested.
The famous Tehran Bazaar was fascinating. Narrow alleys everywhere, stalls of all sizes overflowing with produce—jewelry, carpets, ceramics—and throngs of people pushing and shoving, seemingly living in a detached world, oblivious of anything happening outside the bazaar. Many of them spoke English. Martin and Patricia learned that Iran had two official armies, two navies and two air forces! Apparently, one set was the “traditional” national military force, while the other belonged to the “Revolutionary Guard”—originally created by the Ayatollah Khomeini to safeguard the revolution, but which, in time, took over the economy of the country. In fact, they learned in open disbelief, that there was even a third army—the people’s army—which wore no uniforms and was meant to quash riots and demonstrations. Their guide overheard the tourists, and advised them to refrain from discussing these issues, especially in the bazaar….
The bus headed back north. On the way, they passed by the American Consulate compound. The bus did not stop, but it slowed down long enough for the guide to describe how the
compound was conquered by the young revolutionary troops who converted it into the Iranian Revolution Museum. The guide stressed that this used to be the “nest of American espionage.”
The tour ended in the Niavaran Palace, once home to the royal family. The new regime turned the palace into a tourist attraction, to send a message to the world of how corrupt the leadership was before the Islamic Revolution.
During the entire tour, Martin and Patricia had done their utmost to behave properly and correctly. Their attire was modest to the extreme, with covered arms and legs. And they took pains not to publicly display any affection between them.
Martin decided that in two or three days, after touring Shiraz and Isfahan, they would rent a car and, under their cover as tourists, look a bit more closely at one of the main squares in the city—the gigantic piazza at the end of Azadi Street.
Retired Admiral Patrick Stone took his new position in the association very seriously indeed, as befitting a veteran who dedicated his entire life to the service of his country. Since taking over the reins from Anne, he had changed his priorities, putting items that did not need his immediate attention on a back burner. Now, the association occupied most of his time.
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