by Allan Topol
What if Hakim’s wrong?
Craig realized he’d look like a fool, creating so much disruption and cost for nothing. And Jacques would make sure information of Craig’s failure was widely known throughout the EU.
On the first screen, Craig watched President Dalton leave the American Embassy and walk toward the black Cadillac limousine. Supposedly bullet proof. That was a joke, with powerful new weapons like grenade launchers.
“Close up,” Craig said to the technician working the screen. That made Dalton big as life. Thin lips and a wart on his right cheek. Christ, doesn’t that guy ever smile?
Craig watched Dalton climb into the car. It began moving slowly out of the driveway from the American Embassy compound.
Jacques was standing next to Craig, intently studying the screens.
Craig was moving his eyes from one screen to the next, looking for any tiny movement. Not a thing.
On the fifth screen, the Presidential motorcade turned on to the Rue Saint-Honoré. That began the area of greatest risk. If I were positioning a sniper, Craig thought, I’d put him in the window of one of the buildings lining the street. Craig didn’t see anything in a window or on screens five through eight. He looked at the street. Traffic had been halted on the cross streets. The motorcade had the Rue Saint-Honoré to itself. Pedestrians stopped walking, waiting for the motorcade to pass, hoping to catch a glimpse of the American President. Craig studied the pedestrians. Their faces. What they were holding.
A man, Middle Eastern-looking, an Iranian or Arab, in a suit and tie, was standing alone, a cell phone on his hand. “Close up on the guy with the cell phone,” Craig cried out. The man was looking at the approaching motorcade at a distance of fifty yards. His eyes moved from the motorcade to an old, battered motorcycle parked on his side of the street, about twenty yards away. Seated on the motorcycle was a man in a brown leather jacket, collar raised in the back. Face barely visible behind the guard of a heavy helmet. The Middle Eastern man raised his hand almost imperceptibly at the motorcycle rider, who climbed off and walked away.
Craig said to Jacques, “Have your men follow the guy in the brown leather jacket and motorcycle helmet.”
“Will do.”
“Don’t arrest him. See where he leads us.”
Hooked to the back of the motorcycle, Craig saw a large Hermès box with its distinctive orange color. Messengers delivered those on motorcycles all the time, but not on motorcycles this battered. And a real messenger wouldn’t walk away from his package with several thousand dollars of merchandise.
Craig looked back at the man with the cell phone. Now fingering it nervously. Starting to raise it. The motorcade was only twenty yards from the motorcycle with the Hermes box.
“What do you think?” Craig asked Jacques anxiously.
“Your call.”
Craig picked up his cell phone and called Bardolino. “Halt the motorcade right now. Hold it in place.”
He turned to Jacques. “Tell your nearest man to order the guy with the cell phone to drop it on the ground. If he refuses, shoot to kill.”
“Are you certain?”
Of course I’m not certain.
“Yes.”
Craig watched a French soldier in a helmet and bulky body armor approach the man. He raised his gun and shouted in French to the Middle Eastern man. “Drop the cell phone now and put up your hands.”
The man looked mystified.
What if he doesn’t understand French?
The man lifted the cell phone and began punching in numbers. The soldier cut loose with a barrage that blasted into the man’s chest. The cell phone fell to the ground. His body next to it. His whole body gave a sudden jolt. Then he was motionless.
Gun in hand, the soldier rushed over and checked the man. “Dead,” he said and began searching for ID.
Craig turned to Jacques. “Get the bomb squad to examine the Hermes box.”
Bardolino was on Craig’s cell. “What the hell’s going on?”
“I’m worried about a bomb further down the road. Turn the motorcade around, go back to the embassy compound, and hold until I give you an all clear. Also tell Dalton he doesn’t have a choice. This isn’t his country.”
“Roger that.”
Watching the screen, Craig held his breath while the bomb squad opened the Hermes box. What if a dress was inside and nothing else?
They worked slowly with meticulous care to avoid setting off the bomb—if there was one. Craig felt moisture forming under his arms.
After several minutes, they lifted off the orange top. The video camera peered inside. Craig saw a metal object. Unquestionably a bomb. Using precision tools, they disassembled the bomb. Jacques’s cell phone rang. “Yes,” Craig heard him say. “Yes.”
Jacques turned to Craig. “A powerful bomb laced with nails and broken glass.”
“What’d they find on the dead man?” Craig asked.
A few seconds later, Jacques had the answer. “No ID on his body. Fingerprints removed.”
Craig watched them load the pieces of the bomb into a van and drive away.
He called Bardolino: “The bomb’s disabled. The terrorist’s dead. You’re clear to go.”
Then Craig and Jacques turned back to the video screens to follow the motorcade’s progress.
Once they passed through the gates into the Elysee Palace, Jacques was on the phone. “What happened with the guy in the brown leather jacket?” Craig heard him say.
Jacques put it on speaker.
“He walked two blocks then got into a car. He’s alone and driving. We’re following in an unmarked car. You want us to stop him?”
Jacques looked at Craig. “Negative. We’re hoping he’ll lead us to the planners of the attack.”
“Got it. We’ll keep you posted.”
Fifteen minutes later, they received an update. “Suspect is on the A-1. proceeding north. Very fast. We have a chopper in the air. I’ll give you real-time feed.”
Craig watched the suspect cut in and out of lanes, driving recklessly. He had to know he was being followed, particularly with the chopper overhead. The pursing car kept pace.
The suspect was in the center of three lanes. They were approaching an exit. Suddenly, without a signal, he cut to the right trying for the exit ramp. At a hundred and forty kilometers an hour, he missed it and smashed into a concrete retaining wall. His car exploded in flames. Craig knew they wouldn’t find any hints of his identity by the time they pulled his charred body from the wreckage.
“What now,” Jacques asked.
“While Dalton and your President are feasting in the Elysee Palace, I’ll have a secretary order take-out for us. At the end of the evening, we’ll watch Dalton’s motorcade go back to the American Embassy.”
“You think they’ll make another try?”
“Hakim didn’t say that,” Craig shrugged. “But who knows, after they struck out?”
They were finished eating ham and cheese stuffed into baguettes, washed down with Perrier, when Craig’s cell phone rang. Caller ID flashed: “Elizabeth Crowder.” He moved into an adjacent empty office.
“I just got off the plane at JFK and saw the news on TV about the attack on President Dalton’s life. I assume you were the one who thwarted it.”
“Working with Jacques and the French military.”
“Was that skinhead actually helpful?”
He smiled. “You have a great way of expressing yourself.”
“Come on. I don’t like him because he’s done everything to sabotage you.”
“I’m prepared to cut him some slack. Lately, he and I are doing better.”
“So what happened?”
He responded in a low voice, “I got a tip from an informant that an Iranian group planned to assassinate Dalton on his way to the Elysee Palace. We killed the assassin before he could activate the bomb.”
“Well done. Do I get the details, so I can write it up for tomorrow’s International Herald?”
“It’s still a work in progress. We have to get Dalton home and tucked into bed safely after dinner. Besides, you have something else to worry about in New York.”
“For sure. I’m having dinner with Harold this evening. We have a meeting at Wellington Books, tomorrow morning at eleven. With Virginia Tolbert, the Publisher.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“I hope so. I’d like to lock this up tomorrow and get back to Paris.”
“If you have to stay longer, don’t worry.”
“Are you kidding? Once word gets out about your newest success, French women will be fighting with each other to get my place in your bed.”
He laughed. “Hey, that sounds like fun.”
“Yeah, well. It better not happen.”
“You’re safe. Nobody like you. Break a leg tomorrow.”
“Thanks. I really want this.”
Craig put down the phone. Before returning to Jacques, he closed his eyes and thought how ironic that Elizabeth had come into his life at his moment of greatest pain and loneliness, a year and a half ago. He had never fully accepted his wife, Caroline’s, death, twelve years earlier. Then he received that call in Milan, where he had been living and working after ending his CIA career because of Director Kirby’s jealousy and resentment.
He hated even thinking about the call. A bolt from the blue telling him that Francesca, his only child, his only family, had been killed driving in Calgary, Canada on a snowy night on the way to the airport. The result of a hit and run with a large truck, according to the police. He knew she was on the verge of uncovering a big story as a reporter with the New York Tribune. He was convinced her death was a homicide.
When he met Elizabeth, Francesca’s editor, after the funeral, they decided to join forces to discover what happened.
They not only succeeded, but, as he spent time with feisty Elizabeth in Washington, Tehran, and Beijing, he rediscovered feelings he thought had died with Caroline.
When Craig returned to Europe to assume the position of Director of the EU Counterterrorism Agency, eighteen months ago, it seemed natural for Elizabeth to relocate to Paris and to take a job as a foreign reporter with the International Herald. They rented an apartment on the top floor of a building on Montmarte, with a fantastic view of the city.
He wasn’t sure where they were going next. They hadn’t ever spoken about marriage or children. She was thirty-seven. He was eleven years older.
They were a couple of expat Americans loving Paris and enjoying each other, while fully committed to important jobs.
He noticed Jacques standing in the doorway. “Recess is over. They’re finishing up dinner. Dalton’s getting ready to leave.”
Craig and Jacques were back in front of the video screens, watching carefully as the motorcade pulled out of the Elysee Palace and headed toward the American Embassy. This time the ride was uneventful. Craig breathed a huge sigh of relief when President Dalton’s car entered the embassy compound. Mission accomplished. Thank God they’re safe.
“Great irony here,” Jacques said. “The American President who hates Europe owes his life to a French bomb squad.”
Craig raised his hand and Jacques clasped it. The show of camaraderie pleased Craig. “Life would be wonderful without the politicians,” Craig said.
“So what’s our next act?”
Craig shrugged. “You can be sure some whacko or self righteous ideologue somewhere is hatching a plot.”
2
NEW YORK
Walking along Park Avenue and hustling to keep pace with Harold Gorman’s long strides, Elizabeth felt nervous, yet confident. Nervous because this was her first book deal negotiation and Harold was asking for more than she ever imagined. Confident because Harold had been an agent for forty years and knew every nuance of the business.
At sixty five, he still had a thick head of wavy black hair sprinkled with gray, spilling over the collar of his weather-beaten, tan raincoat. He had once played basketball at Cornell and maintained the athlete’s shape. Last evening at dinner at Jean Georges, he’d given her the detailed background on whom they were meeting with at Wellington Books. Virginia, in Harold’s words, “Is very smart, but tough, no nonsense, strictly bottom line, so cold blooded she’d freeze the mercury in a thermometer. Now Ned, your editor, if we cut a deal, is just the opposite. A big teddy bear. Warm, friendly, wouldn’t kill a fly if it settled on his arm.”
Harold also told her, “When he’s in a meeting with Virginia, Ned rarely opens his mouth. But he happens to be one of the best editors in the business.”
A secretary led them into the publisher’s glass-walled corner office, looking down Park with a view of Grand Central. Virginia, wearing a dark gray suit, had her dark brown hair tied up and wound tight in the back. She was smiling warmly as she shook Elizabeth’s hand. “Don’t be deceived by that,” Harold had warned her.
Ned, standing across the room, did remind Elizabeth of a teddy bear. Mid forties, curly brown hair, five six, protruding stomach.
They settled in to a living area in one corner, pot of coffee with china cups on a marbled top table. Virginia clutching their book proposal was in a straight-back chair. Ned was on her left, Harold and Elizabeth on a sofa facing Virginia.
Ned pointed to the coffee. When Elizabeth nodded, he poured a cup.
“I read the proposal,” Virginia said. No pleasantries. Right to the point.
The word, “And?” almost popped out of Elizabeth’s mouth, but Harold had said it was better for him to take the lead. “I’ll tell you when to talk.” So she kept still. Harold was waiting for Virginia to continue.
“I like the concept. Europe does face a serious problem from its growing Muslim population. I even like your title, Heads in the Sand—Europe Ignores the Islamic Threat. But an advance of eight hundred thousand dollars in this market is ridiculous.”
“We’re offering world rights,” Harold said calmly. “Not just US”
Virginia waved around the proposal. “I can read.”
“It’s the hottest topic in the world. Muslims versus Christians.”
“That doesn’t mean it’ll sell books.”
“Thilo Sarrazin’s book claiming that the Muslims are bringing about Germany’s downfall sold over a million copies in the first month, in Germany alone.”
“He was a celebrity in Germany.”
“He was a banker for God’s sakes. Bankers aren’t celebrities. Elizabeth was a widely read and respected foreign affairs writer for many years with the New York Tribune. For the last year and a half with the International Herald. She won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the war in Iraq as an embedded journalist with our troops. I’m sure your sales projections back me up.”
Virginia was looking at Elizabeth. “Why’d you leave New York for Paris?”
“I was ready for a change and I’m in a relationship with someone there.”
“I know all about Craig Page. And I have powerful friends in Washington. People who were close to President Brewster. I’ve heard what you and Craig did to stop General Zhou in China. All very hush-hush. Why don’t you do a book about that?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Virginia laughed. “I can give you a hundred thousand for Heads in the Sand.”
Elizabeth’s chin dropped.
Harold fired back. “That’s insulting.”
He stood up. Elizabeth guessed she should do the same.
“OK, we’re out of here. It’s been swell.” He sounded angry.
As they started toward the door, Virginia said, “Tell you what, Harold, to go above two I need Board approval. Let’s break for lunch. Come back at three. I’ll make some calls. See what I can do.”
Elizabeth exhaled with relief. Harold took her to lunch at the Four Seasons restaurant. His usual poolside table. “I refuse to eat in the Grill Room, with all those publishing power players. It’s enough I see them the rest of the day.”
When t
he waiter came over, Harold told her, “Have a drink. It’ll relax you.” Though she almost never drank at lunch, she ordered a cosmo.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“We’ll end up around six hundred K. That gives her something to save face.”
“Are you serious?”
“I never joke about something like this. You’ll notice she didn’t argue when I said her marketing projections support my position. Your topic, Muslims versus Christians, is so timely. They know they can sell books. The large advance will make sure they do.”
She ordered a lobster salad, but her stomach was churning. She moved it around with her fork. As she sipped the drink, Harold asked, “What was this China business with you and Craig and General Zhou, Virginia was talking about?”
Elizabeth put down the glass. “I promised President Brewster I would never divulge it.”
“Brewster’s dead.”
“I know. But…”
“OK. Is that how you met Craig?”
“Yeah. His daughter Francesca was working for me as a reporter at the New York Tribune. She was killed in Calgary. Craig was formerly with the CIA. He and I hooked up trying to get to the bottom of Francesca’s death.”
When they returned to Virginia’s office, the publisher was smiling. “Good news. I have approval to give Elizabeth four hundred thousand.”
Elizabeth wanted to scream, “Take it,” but Harold was shaking his head. She thought about asking Harold for a recess to discuss Virginia’s offer.
Before she had a chance, Virginia said, “Dammit, Harold. You’re being unreasonable.”
“I don’t think so. This is the hottest subject in the world. My client is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. You’re getting world wide rights.”
Virginia’s face hardened. Oh, oh, oh, Elizabeth thought.
“Tell you what, Harold. I’ll split the difference between your eight and my four. That’s my best and final. Take it or leave it.”
He looked at Elizabeth.
“Yes,” she said.
Virginia was smiling again. “Good. We have a deal at six. Thirty days for a detailed outline. Twelve months for a complete draft.”