The Paris Option c-3

by Ludlum, Robert

  Nearby, another machine with an open, glass face was linked to the gel packs by more of the thin tubing. Through the glass he could see a series of small pumps and glass canisters. That had to be the DNA synthesizer the feeder station for the gel packs. Small lights blinked on its control panel.

  Excited, Jon drank in the rest of Chambord's miraculous creation. A "lid" sat on top of the tray, and at the interface between it and the packs of DNA was what appeared to be a thin plate of soft metal coated with a biofilm probably another type of molecular polymer. He deduced it must be a sensor device, absorbing the DNA chemical energy, changing its conformation, and emitting light as a result.

  What an ingenious idea — a molecular switch that was based on light. Chambord was using the DNA molecules not only to compute; another class of molecules in the sensor detected the computation. A brilliant solution to what had been an impossible problem.

  In awe, Jon forced himself to take a deep breath. He reminded himself of the reason he was here, the danger this machine presented to the world. Considering that it was still in enemy territory, Fred Klein would want him to destroy it instantly. But Chambord's prototype was not only scientifically beautiful, it was ground-breaking. It would revolutionize the future and could make life better and easier for masses of people. It would be years before anyone else came close to approximating what was here right now in this room.

  As Jon argued with himself, he eased the door farther open and slid into the room. Using the handle, he held the latch bolt open and closed the door. As the bolt slid gently home, he decided he would give himself one serious chance to get the prototype out safely. If he failed, if he had no other option he would wreck it.

  Still having made no sound, he looked for a lock on this side of the door, but there was none. He turned and studied the airy room, lighted by electricity even though the villa dated back long before its invention. The windows were open onto the night, and filmy curtains floated in on a light breeze. But the windows were barred.

  He focused on the archway, which showed what appeared to be another hallway and the edge of another archway that opened onto yet another room. The layout suggested a complex of rooms reachable from the rest of the house only by the door behind him, locked from the outside. He nodded to himself. This would once have been the quarters of the favorite wife of a Berber noble or perhaps of the queen of a seraglio harem of a Turkish official from the old Ottoman Empire.

  He started across the room to Chambord, when the scientist suddenly turned. A pistol was in his bony hand, pointed at Jon.

  A cry in French came from the archway: "No, Papa! You know who this is. It's our friend, Dr. Smith. He tried to help us escape in Toledo. Put down the gun, Papa!"

  The pistol held steady, still aimed across the room at Jon. Chambord frowned, his cadaverous face suspicious.

  "Remember?" Thérèse continued. "He's Dr. Zellerbach's friend. He visited me in Paris. He was trying to find out who bombed the Pasteur."

  The pistol relaxed a hair. "He's more than a doctor. We saw that at the farmhouse in Toledo."

  Jon smiled and said in French, "I really am a medical doctor, Dr. Chambord. But I'm also here to rescue you and your daughter."

  "Ah?" A puzzled wrinkle appeared between Chambord's eyes, but his great, bony face still peered suspiciously. "You could be speaking lies. First, you tell my daughter you're just a friend of Martin's, and now you say you're here to save us." The pistol jerked up again. "How could you find us? Twice! You're one of them. It's a trick!"

  "No, Papa!"

  As Thérèse ran between Jon and her father, Jon dove behind a large-couch covered with an Oriental rug and came up with his Walther in both hands. Thérèse stared unbelieving at Jon.

  "I'm not one of them, Dr. Chambord, but I wasn't totally honest with Thérèse in Paris, and for that I apologize. I'm also a U.S. Army officer. It's Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M.D., and I'm here to help you. Just as I was trying to help you in Toledo. It's the truth, I swear. But we must move quickly. Almost everyone's in the dome room, but I don't know for how long."

  "An American lieutenant colonel?" Thérèse said. "Then. "

  Jon nodded. "Yes, my real mission my assignment was to find your father and his computer. To stop his kidnappers from using his work."

  Thérèse turned on her father. Her slender, dirt-smudged face was insistent. "He came to help us!"

  "Alone?" Chambord shook his head. "Impossible. How can you help us alone?"

  Jon stood up slowly. "We'll figure out how to get out of here together. I'm asking you to trust me." He lowered his pistol. "You're safe with me."

  Chambord considered him. He glanced at his daughter's determined expression. At last he let his pistol fall to his side. "You have some proof, I suppose?"

  "Afraid not. Too chancy."

  "That's all very well, young man, but all she can tell me is that you're a friend of Martin's, which is what you told her. That doesn't give me much confidence you can help us escape. These people are dangerous. I have Thérèse to consider."

  Jon said, "I'm here, Dr. Chambord. That's got to be worth something. Plus, as you pointed out, I've found you twice. If I got in here, I can get you out. Where did you find that pistol? That may come in handy."

  Chambord gave a humorless smile. "Everyone thinks I'm a helpless old man. They think that. So they're not as alert as they should be. In one of the many cars they used to transport me, someone left a gun. Naturally, I took it. They've had no reason to search me since."

  Thérèse put a hand over her mouth. "What were you going to do with it, Papa?"

  Chambord avoided her gaze. "Perhaps we shouldn't talk about that. I have the gun, and we may need it."

  Jon said, "Help me dismantle your computer and answer some questions. Quickly."

  As Chambord turned the machine off, Jon asked, "How many are in the villa? What's the access like? Is there a road out? Cars? What kind of security in addition to the guards outside?"

  Analyzing information was familiar territory for Chambord. As they disengaged wires and tubes, he said, "The only access I saw was a gravel road that connected with the coast highway. The highway runs between Algiers and Tunisia, but it's more than a mile inland. The road ends at what appears to be a small training camp for new recruits. The car that brought us here is parked there with some former British military vehicles. I saw a helipad near the training center, and I believe there were two old helicopters parked on it. I can't say exactly how many men are in the house. At least a half dozen are guarding it, probably more. They're always arriving and departing. Then, of course, there are the new recruits as well as a cadre at the training facility."

  As Jon listened, he controlled his frustration with Chambord, who was working slowly, methodically as they took apart the prototype. Too slowly.

  Jon weighed options. Those cars parked near the helipad would work, if they could sneak out to them without being detected. Jon told them both, "Okay, here's what we're going to do"

  Under the high dome of the villa's great hall, spotlights bathed the mosaics in a warm glow as Mauritania interrogated an exhausted Dr. Akbar Suleiman. They spoke in French, since the Filipino did not know Arabic. While Suleiman stood in front of him, Mauritania remained seated on the large table, his short legs dangling and swinging like those of a boy sitting on the limb of a tree. He enjoyed his small size, his deceptive softness, the stupidity of those who believed in the superficiality of physical strength.

  "Then what you're saying is that Smith broke into your apartment without warning?"

  Suleiman shook his head. "No, no! A friend at the Pasteur alerted me, but only a half hour earlier. I had to make my emergency calls, tell my girlfriend what to do, and there was no time to escape sooner."

  "You should've been more prepared. Or at least called us, not handled it yourself. You knew the risks."

  "Who would've thought they'd locate me at all?"

  "How did they?"

  "I don't kn
ow for sure."

  Mauritania said thoughtfully, "The address in your hospital file was incorrect, as instructed?"

  "Of course."

  "Then someone knew where you lived and sent them to you. You're sure there was no one else? He was wholly alone?"

  "I neither saw nor heard anyone else," Suleiman repeated wearily. The trip had been long, and he did not sail well.

  "You're certain no one followed you once you escaped your apartment?"

  Suleiman grumbled, "Your black man asked me that, and I told him the same as I tell you. My arrangements were foolproof. No one could follow."

  There was a sudden commotion, and Captain Darius Bonnard entered angrily, with two armed bedouins and the towering Abu Auda himself immediately after. Mauritania saw Bonnard's rage and Abu Auda's fierce gaze, which bored across the great room and into Dr. Akbar Suleiman.

  Abu Auda snarled, "His 'black man' asks you no more, Moro. A car followed me all the way to Barcelona, where I was able to lose it at last, but only with difficulty. No one had followed me until then. So where did the car come from, eh? From you, Suleiman. You must've been surveilled when you ran away from Paris, which meant you led them to me at the lodge. And you, fool, didn't even know it!"

  Bonnard's anger had built even higher. His face was violent red as he told Mauritania, "We have evidence Suleiman brought them from Barcelona to Formentera to here. At the very least, he's compromised us!"

  As Suleiman blanched, Mauritania asked quickly, "Here? How do you know this?"

  "We don't speak idly, Khalid." Abu Auda scowled at Suleiman.

  Captain Bonnard switched to French. "One of your men is dead on the motor launch, and he didn't die by stabbing himself. Suleiman brought an extra passenger, who's no longer on the boat."

  "Jon Smith?"

  Bonnard shrugged, but his face remained furious. "We'll know soon. Your soldiers are searching."

  "I'll send more." Mauritania snapped his fingers, and all of the men poured out of the hall.

  In the dark night, the lightless SH-60B Seahawk helicopter hovered low over an open area near plastic greenhouses and citrus groves a mile from the villa. The air whipped Randi's face as she stood in the open doorway and hooked the rescue cable onto her harness. She was wearing night combat camos with a black watch cap covering her blond hair. She carried equipment attached to her mesh belt and wore a backpack with more equipment. She gazed down, thinking about Jon, wondering where he was and whether he was all right. Then her mind moved to the mission itself, because in the end that was most important. More important than either hers or Jon's life. The DNA computer must be destroyed so that whatever madness the terrorists planned was stopped.

  She gripped her harness and nodded her readiness. The crewman at the hoist watched the pilot, who finally nodded that he had the chopper in position, hovering. The signal given, Randi jumped into the dark void. The crewman let out the hoist as she descended. She fought the terror of falling, of the failure of equipment, blocked all her fears from her mind until, at last, she bent her knees and rolled onto the ground. Quickly she unhooked the harness. There was no need to bury it. They would know she was here soon anyway.

  She bent to the small transmitter. "Saratoga, do you read me? Come in Saratoga."

  With a clean, clear sound, a voice from the cruiser's combat information center responded, "We read you, Seahawk 2."

  "This could take an hour, maybe more."

  "Understood. Standing by!"

  Randi shut off the radio and stowed it in a pocket of her camos, unslung her MP5K mini-submachine gun from her shoulder, and loped off. She avoided the main road and the beach. Instead, she worked her way through the citrus groves and past the greenhouses, their plastic coverings stirring with the wind. The moon hung low on the horizon, its milky light reflecting eerily on the plastic. In the distance, surf pounded the beach, rhythmic as a heartbeat. Above her, the stars had come out, but the sky seemed more black than usual. Nothing moved on the highway or out at sea, and there were no houses in sight. Only the ghostly-orange and lemon trees, and the shifting glitter of the greenhouses.

  At last she heard two cars speeding along the highway, their motors loud assaults in the quiet night. They roared past, and abruptly their tires screeched and burned rubber as they made the sharp turn inland that Max had identified from the air. In a few minutes, the engines stopped, cut off as if a curtain of silence had fallen over them. Randi knew the only residence ahead was the villa. The speed indicated someone had felt an urgent need to get to the villa.

  She accelerated into a serious run and soon reached the high white wall, where she discovered it was topped by coils of razor wire. An open space of almost ten yards had been cut between the vegetation and the wall as far as she could see, which meant she would not be helped out by overhanging branches. She unslung the backpack she had loaded on the Saratoga with equipment flown to her by the CIA and pulled out a small air pistol, a miniature titanium barbed dart, and a roll of thin nylon-covered wire. She attached the wire to a miniature ring on the dart, inserted the dart into the pistol barrel, and searched until she found a thick old olive tree some ten feet inside the wall.

  She stood back and fired. The dart landed where she wanted into the tree. She returned the pistol to her backpack, put on padded leather gloves, and, grasping the wire, she swarmed hand over hand up to the top of the wall. Once there, she hooked the wire to her belt, returned the gloves to the backpack, and brought out a miniature pair of wire cutters. She clipped a three-foot opening in the razor wire, returned the cutters, and slid over the wall and dropped to the ground.

  High-tech security was extremely expensive, and terrorists could rarely afford it. Fundamentalists who became terrorists maintained such an extreme secrecy that their paranoia prevented them from seeking out the necessary hardware, the sales of which were often too closely monitored for their tastes. At least, that was the theory, and she could only hope it was correct and be cautious as hell.

  With that in mind, she released the wire from the dart, pulled the coil over the wall after it, and returned everything to her backpack. She melted through the vegetation toward the unseen villa.

  * * *

  Dr. Emile Chambord paused, his hands on the lid of the glass tray. "It's possible. Yes, I believe you're right, Colonel. We should be able to escape that way. It appears you're indeed more than a physician."

  "We've got to go immediately. No telling when they'll discover I'm here." He nodded at the computer, which was only partially disassembled. "There's no more time. We'll take the gel packs and leave the rest"

  There was a noise out in the corridor, the door flung open, and Abu Auda and three armed terrorists rushed in, weapons raised. Thérèse cried out, and Dr. Chambord attempted to jump in front of her to protect her with his pistol. Instead, the scientist stumbled heavily into Jon, destroying his balance.

  Jon recovered, grabbed for his Walther, and spun. It was too late to destroy the DNA prototype, but he could damage it so that Chambord would need days to make it operational again. That would buy Randi and Peter time to find it, if he were not around to help.

  But before Jon's gun could home in on the gel packs, Abu Auda and his men jumped him, knocked the pistol away, and wrestled him to the floor.

  "Really, Doctor." Mauritania had followed his men into the room. He pulled Chambord's pistol away from him. "This is hardly your style. I don't know whether to be impressed or shocked."

  Abu Auda jumped to his feet and pointed his assault rifle down at Jon's head where he lay on the floor tiles. "You've given us enough trouble."

  "Stop," Mauritania ordered. "Don't kill him. Think, Abu Auda. An army doctor is one thing, but the American colonel we saw in action in Toledo who's managed to find us again is quite another. We may have need of him before this is finished. Who knows how valuable he may be to the Americans?"

  Abu Auda did not move, the rifle still at Jon's head. His erect, angry posture radiated intent to kill. M
auritania said his name again. He looked at Mauritania. His eyes blinked thoughtfully, and the fire in them slowly banked.

  At last, he decided, "Wasting a resource is a sin."

  "Yes."

  Abu Auda gestured with disgust, and his men hauled Smith to his feet. "Let me see the doctor's gun." Mauritania handed him Chambord's pistol, and he examined it. "It's one of ours. Someone will pay for this carelessness."

  Mauritania's attention returned to Smith. "Destroying the computer would've been a futile gesture in any event, Colonel Smith. Dr. Chambord would simply have had to build us another."

  "Never," Thérèse Chambord insisted and pulled away from Mauritania.

  "She hasn't been friendly, Colonel Smith. Pity." He glanced back at her. "You underestimate your power, my dear. Your father would build us another. After all, we have you, and we have him. Your life, his own life, and all the work he will do in the future. Much too high a price to save a few people from a bad day, wouldn't you say? After all, the Americans would not be as concerned about you or me. We'd be a small ancillary cost 'collateral damage,' they call it while they took what they wanted."

  "He'll never build you another!" Thérèse raged. "Why do you think he stole your pistol!"

  "Ah?" Mauritania raised an eyebrow at the scientist. "A Roman act, Dr. Chambord? You'd fall onto your sword before you'd help us in our dastardly attack? How foolish, but how brave to consider such a gesture. My congratulations." He looked at Jon. "And you are equally foolish, Colonel, to think you could stop us for any length of time by putting a few bullets into the doctor's creation." The terrorist leader sighed almost sadly. "Please give us credit for some intelligence. Accidents are always possible, so naturally we have the materials at hand for the doctor to rebuild, should you decide to martyr yourself even now." He shook his head. "That's perhaps you Americans' worst sin hubris. Your so-smug assumption of your own superiority in all things, from your borrowed technology to your unexamined beliefs and assumed invulnerability. A smug assumption you often extend to include your friends, the Jews."